Popular science and the arts: Challenges to cultural authority in France under the Second Empire

British Journal for the History of Science

Volumn 34, Issue 3, 2001, Pages 301-322

  Crosland, Maurice ^a  

^a UNIVERSITY OF KENT   (United Kingdom)

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EID: 18844373369     PISSN: 00070874     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1017/s0007087401004435     Document Type: Article

References (108)

1. See e.g. Adrien Dansette, Renaissance de la France moderne: Le Second empire, Paris, 1976; also David S. Landes, The Unbound Prometheus, Cambridge, 1969, Chapter 3.
2. See e.g. Adrien Dansette, Renaissance de la France moderne: Le Second empire, Paris, 1976; also David S. Landes, The Unbound Prometheus, Cambridge, 1969, Chapter 3.
3. Thus Cézanne said that he could not paint a landscape until he had studied its geological structure. Theodore Zeldin, France 1848-1945. Taste and Corruption, Oxford, 1980, 133.
4. André Cresson, Hippolyte Taine, sa vie et son oeuvre, Paris, 1951, 27-31.
5. Hippolyte Taine, Notes on England (ed. and tr. Edward Hyams), London, 1957, p. xv.
6. Charles Babbage, The Exposition of 1851, London, 1851, 189.
7. Although major contributions to British science in the nineteenth century were often made by gentlemen amateurs, this did not mean that a high standard was not attainable.
8. Maurice Crosland, Science under Control: The French Academy of Sciences, 1795-1914, Cambridge, 1992.
9. For a comparison of popular science in Britain and France see Susan Sheets-Pyenson, 'Popular science periodicals in Paris and London: the emergence of a low scientific culture, 1820-1875', Annals of Science (1985), 42, 549-72 . Another useful source on the popularization of science in France is Bruno Béguet (ed.), La Science pour tous. Sur la vulgarisation scientifique en France de 1850 à 1914, Paris, 1990.
10. For a comparison of popular science in Britain and France see Susan Sheets-Pyenson, 'Popular science periodicals in Paris and London: the emergence of a low scientific culture, 1820-1875', Annals of Science (1985), 42, 549-72 . Another useful source on the popularization of science in France is Bruno Béguet (ed.), La Science pour tous. Sur la vulgarisation scientifique en France de 1850 à 1914, Paris, 1990.
11. Journal des Savants, 1842, reprinted in Mélanges scientifiques et littéraires, 3 vols., Paris, 1858, ii, 280.
12. Journal des Savants, 1842, reprinted in Mélanges scientifiques et littéraires, 3 vols., Paris, 1858, ii, 280.
13. Irene Collins, The Government and the Newspaper in France, 1814-1881, Oxford, 1959, 88-9 . For Girardin see Zeldin, op. cit. (2), 146-9.
14. Irene Collins, The Government and the Newspaper in France, 1814-1881, Oxford, 1959, 88-9 . For Girardin see Zeldin, op. cit. (2), 146-9.
15. The press was even forbidden to report on the proceedings of the Legislative Body.
16. La Presse, like most newspapers of the time, consisted of four pages.
17. Gerald David Colson: 'The popularisation of science in the periodical press in France during the Second Empire (c. 1850-c. 1870)', unpublished Ph.D. thesis, University of Kent, 1999, 117. The popularization of science is mentioned by Zeldin, op. cit. (2), 243-5. Zeldin comments that this area has been neglected by historians of science.
18. Gerald David Colson: 'The popularisation of science in the periodical press in France during the Second Empire (c. 1850-c. 1870)', unpublished Ph.D. thesis, University of Kent, 1999, 117. The popularization of science is mentioned by Zeldin, op. cit. (2), 243-5. Zeldin comments that this area has been neglected by historians of science.
19. It is the study of these three men which forms the basis of Colson's thesis. For further biographical information see the still incomplete Dictionnaire de biographie française, Paris, 1933.
20. Of course there was also some popularization of science in other countries, for example in Britain in the 1850s by T. H. Huxley. This was a part of his desperate effort to earn a living by his pen. He equally accepted medical reviews, German translations, long articles for encyclopaedias and so on. Adrian Desmond, The Devil's Disciple, London, 1994, 190.
21. Colson, op. cit. (13), 201.
22. V. Meunier, 'Nouvelles et causeries', L'Ami des sciences, 27 May 1855.
23. F. Moigno, Cosmos (1858), 12, 258.
24. J. A. Barral, La Presse scientifique des deux inondes (1860), 2, 7.
25. L. Figuier, L'Année scientifique et industrielle (1859), 4, 247-56. On the other hand, Figuier found it useful to claim that he was well acquainted with certain famous Academicians.
26. Richard Whitley, 'Knowledge producers and knowledge acquirers: popularization as a relation between scientific fields and their publics', Sociology of the Sciences (1985), 9, 3-28.
27. Henri de Parville, preface, Causeries scientifiques (1862), 1, p. v (my italics).
28. Roger Hahn, The Anatomy of a Scientific Institution: The Paris Academy of Sciences, 1666-1803, Berkeley, CA, 1971, Chapter 8.
29. Daguerre had developed his process by 1837. It was only when it was published that Fox Talbot in England announced an alternative method. H. J. P. Arnold, William Henry Fox Talbot, Pioneer of Photography and Man of Science, London, 1977.
30. F. Moigno, Cosmos (1856), 8, 96; (1852), 1, preface, p.ii.
31. F. Moigno, Cosmos (1856), 8, 96; (1852), 1, preface, p.ii.
32. H. de Parville, Causeries scientifiques, 7, 100-1.
33. Before achieving political power Bonaparte had himself been elected as a full member of the Académie des sciences and he took its work seriously. He had no sympathy, however, with the Second Class of the Institute, concerned with the social sciences, which he considered subversive, and he abolished it.
34. An example of an extended critique of the Academy is a book by Jules Marcou, De la science en France. Deuxième Fascicule, l'Académie des sciences de l'Institut de France, Paris, 1869. Unfortunately its constructive suggestions for reform were forgotten in the ensuing Franco-Prussian war (1870-1).
35. Howard C. Payne, The Police State of Louis Napoleon Bonaparte, 1851-1860, Seattle, 1966; James F. McMillan, Napoleon III, London, 1991.
36. Howard C. Payne, The Police State of Louis Napoleon Bonaparte, 1851-1860, Seattle, 1966; James F. McMillan, Napoleon III, London, 1991.
37. Because of the strictly limited number of places in each section and the particularly large number of successful research chemists, some scientists trained in this subject, like Pasteur, managed to win acceptance into other sections when there was a vacancy.
38. An expression used, for example, by de Parville, op. cit. (22), 98.
39. For an extensive discussion of Marat's science, see C. C. Gillispie, Science and Polity in France at the End of the Ancien Régime, Princeton, NJ, 1980, 290-330.
40. Dora B. Weiner, Raspail, Scientist and Reformer, New York, 1968. M. Klein, 'Raspail', in C. C. Gillispie (ed.), Dictionary of Scientific Biography, 15 vols., New York, 1970-80, xi, 300-2.
41. Dora B. Weiner, Raspail, Scientist and Reformer, New York, 1968. M. Klein, 'Raspail', in C. C. Gillispie (ed.), Dictionary of Scientific Biography, 15 vols., New York, 1970-80, xi, 300-2.
42. Raspail, Nouveau système de chimie organique, 2nd edn., Paris, 1838, p. xxvii.
43. A much-cited article by John Farley and Gerald Geison argues that the Academy's support for Pasteur was fundamentally political rather than scientific (Bulletin of the History of Medicine (1974), 48, 161-98). Some aspects of the thesis are suspect but it certainly supports the analysis of French science into 'insiders' and 'outsiders'.
44. Crosland, op. cit. (7), 277.
45. M. Crosland, 'The organisation of chemistry in 19th-century France' in D. Knight and Helge Kragh (cds), The Making of the Chemist, Cambridge, 1998, 3-14 , 12. For a list of societies see R. Fox, 'The savant confronts his peers; scientific societies in France, 1815-1914' in Robert Fox and George Weisz (eds), The Organisation of Science and Technology in France, 1808-1914, Cambridge, 1980, 241-82, 281.
46. M. Crosland, 'The organisation of chemistry in 19th-century France' in D. Knight and Helge Kragh (cds), The Making of the Chemist, Cambridge, 1998, 3-14 , 12. For a list of societies see R. Fox, 'The savant confronts his peers; scientific societies in France, 1815-1914' in Robert Fox and George Weisz (eds), The Organisation of Science and Technology in France, 1808-1914, Cambridge, 1980, 241-82, 281.
47. V. Meunier, La Presse, 17 August 1851.
48. Revue des Cours scientifiques (1863-4), 1.
49. Thus the botanist Moquin-Tandon published the popular book Le monde de la mer in 1865 under a pseudonym.
50. The Goncourt Journals, 1851-1870, (ed. and tr. L. Galantière), New York, 1958, 41.
51. From 1816 the Académie des beaux arts consisted of fifty members, of whom fourteen were painters, making this the largest section.
52. Albert Boime (The Academy and French Painting in the Nineteenth Century, London, 1971) devotes a whole chapter to the subject of the copy and writes, 'The imitative process was fundamental to the Academic curriculum' (122).
53. In the reform of 1976 the Académie des sciences introduced the regulation that half the places in elections are to be reserved for candidates of less than 55 years of age.
54. In 1857 the government formally reinstated the Academy as the Jury for the Salon. Even when this direct authority was removed after the 1863 scandal, the majority of the Jury consisted of artists previously rewarded by the establishment. Jane Mayo Roos, Early Impressionism and the French State, Cambridge, 1996, 10 . Another authority writes, 'The influence of the Académie on the Salon until 1881 ... was never less than substantial and often absolute.' Paul Duro in Jane Turner (ed.), Dictionary of Art, 34 vols., London, 1996, xxiv, 171. The Academy's influence was even more extensive: 'The ... [members] of the Académie des Beaux Arts controlled the Ecole des Beaux Arts, the French Academy in Rome, the official Salons, and the Hôtel Drouot - the centre for sales.' Roger L. Williams, The World of Napoleon III, 1851-1870, New York, 1965, 223.
55. In 1857 the government formally reinstated the Academy as the Jury for the Salon. Even when this direct authority was removed after the 1863 scandal, the majority of the Jury consisted of artists previously rewarded by the establishment. Jane Mayo Roos, Early Impressionism and the French State, Cambridge, 1996, 10 . Another authority writes, 'The influence of the Académie on the Salon until 1881 ... was never less than substantial and often absolute.' Paul Duro in Jane Turner (ed.), Dictionary of Art, 34 vols., London, 1996, xxiv, 171. The Academy's influence was even more extensive: 'The ... [members] of the Académie des Beaux Arts controlled the Ecole des Beaux Arts, the French Academy in Rome, the official Salons, and the Hôtel Drouot - the centre for sales.' Roger L. Williams, The World of Napoleon III, 1851-1870, New York, 1965, 223.
56. In 1857 the government formally reinstated the Academy as the Jury for the Salon. Even when this direct authority was removed after the 1863 scandal, the majority of the Jury consisted of artists previously rewarded by the establishment. Jane Mayo Roos, Early Impressionism and the French State, Cambridge, 1996, 10 . Another authority writes, 'The influence of the Académie on the Salon until 1881 ... was never less than substantial and often absolute.' Paul Duro in Jane Turner (ed.), Dictionary of Art, 34 vols., London, 1996, xxiv, 171. The Academy's influence was even more extensive: 'The ... [members] of the Académie des Beaux Arts controlled the Ecole des Beaux Arts, the French Academy in Rome, the official Salons, and the Hôtel Drouot - the centre for sales.' Roger L. Williams, The World of Napoleon III, 1851-1870, New York, 1965, 223.
57. From 1855 to 1863 the Salon was biennial but, under pressure from painters, the Salon was then held annually. Roos, op. cit. (45), 9-10.
58. Patricia Mainardi, The End of the Salon: Art and the State in the Early Third Republic, Cambridge, 1993, 32.
59. One writer explains the continuing authority of the Academy after the French Revolution as representing the desire of the bourgeoisie 'to perpetuate the illusion of aristocratic and superior French taste that was a necessary weapon in the growing mercantile competition with England and Germany'. F. Frascina et al., Modernity and Modernism: French Painting in the 19th Century, London, 1993, 61.
60. 'As long as painting the human form was all-important, landscape could never rise above its inferior status'. Joseph C. Sloane, French Painting between the Past and the Present: Artists, Critics, and Traditions from 1818 to 1870, 2nd edn., Princeton, NJ, 1973, 105.
61. Albert Boime, op. cit. (43), 143. The Prix de Rome du paysage historique was discontinued from 1863.
62. G. Mack, Paul Cézanne, London, n.d., 187.
63. P. Callon, Lost Earth: A Life of Cézanne, London, 1995, 81.
64. R. McMullin, Degas: His Life, Times and Work, London, 1985, 243.
65. The term 'impressionism' dates from 1874 when it was employed in derision to describe Monet's Impression. Soleil levant (1872).
66. Elizabeth Holt, From the Classicists to the Impressionists: Art and Literature in the 19th Century. A Documentary History of Art, 3 vols., New York, 1966, iii, 416.
67. McMullin, op. cit. (53), 60-1.
68. By the 1860s Delacroix and his rival Ingres were dead and it was generally agreed that they had no successors. A. Ehrard (ed.), Mon salon: Manet, Ecrits sur l'art, Paris, 1970, 256, 285.
69. Callon, op. cit. (52), 84-5.
70. Nevertheless, a distinction has to be made between the art most favoured by the government, which was that which served to glorify itself, and academic art, which perpetuated its own traditions. Patricia Mainardi, Art and Politics of the Second Empire: The Universal Expositions of 1855 and 1867, New Haven and London, 1987, 117.
71. Flaubert, Le Messager de l'Europe, 1875, quoted in Ehrard, op. cit. (57), 221. See also ibid., 248.
72. Flaubert, Le Messager de l'Europe, 1875, quoted in Ehrard, op. cit. (57), 221. See also ibid., 248.
73. Flaubert, Le Messager de l'Europe, 1875, quoted in Ehrard, op. cit. (57), 221. See also ibid., 248.
74. Flaubert, Oeuvres complètes, 13 vols., Paris, 1926-33, ii (Correspondance, 1852), 366.
75. Flaubert, op. cit. (61), iii (Correspondance, 1853), 169.
76. Graham Robb, Balzac: A Biography, London, 1994, 300.
77. Une campagne, cited in Colette Becker, Gina Gourdin-Servenière and Véronique Lavielle (eds.), Dictionnaire d'Emile Zola, Paris, 1995, 7.
78. It is a permanent embarassment to the Académie française that many outstanding literary figures, including Molière, Balzac and Zola, were never elected to join the 'immortals', whereas many lesser figures, forgotten today, were successful.
79. Among useful sources for the career of Jules Verne are Jean Jules-Verne, Jules Verne: A Biography, London, 1973, Jean Chesneaux, The Political and Social Ideas of Jules Verne, London, 1972; Peter Costello, Jules Verne, Inventor of Science Fiction, London, 1978.
80. Among useful sources for the career of Jules Verne are Jean Jules-Verne, Jules Verne: A Biography, London, 1973, Jean Chesneaux, The Political and Social Ideas of Jules Verne, London, 1972; Peter Costello, Jules Verne, Inventor of Science Fiction, London, 1978.
81. Among useful sources for the career of Jules Verne are Jean Jules-Verne, Jules Verne: A Biography, London, 1973, Jean Chesneaux, The Political and Social Ideas of Jules Verne, London, 1972; Peter Costello, Jules Verne, Inventor of Science Fiction, London, 1978.
82. J. Verne, Vingt mille Liens sous les mers, Paris, 1870. Twenty Thousand Leagues under the Sea (tr. M. T. Brunetti), London, 1994, Chaper 11, 79.
83. J. Verne, Vingt mille Liens sous les mers, Paris, 1870. Twenty Thousand Leagues under the Sea (tr. M. T. Brunetti), London, 1994, Chaper 11, 79.
84. Verne, op. cit. (67), 82-3, 191, 337.
85. Ghislain de Diesbach, Le Tour de Jules Verne en 80 livres, Paris, 1969, 173. A similar point is made in François Raymond (ed.), Jules Verne 6: La science en question, 8.
86. Ghislain de Diesbach, Le Tour de Jules Verne en 80 livres, Paris, 1969, 173. A similar point is made in François Raymond (ed.), Jules Verne 6: La science en question, 8.
87. Among other theories about the source of Verne's story is an article in Magazin pittoresque in 1870, which was probably inspired by Figuier.
88. L. Figuier, 'Voyage rapide autour du monde', L'Année scientifique et industrielle (1869), 14, 337-8.
89. A. Faris, Jacques Offenbach, London, 1980, 186.
90. Edmond et Jules de Goncourt, Journal. Mémoires de la littérature, 4 vols., Paris, 1956, ii, 58.
91. Edmond et Jules de Goncourt, op. cit. (73), ii, 512-13.
92. Edmond et Jules de Goncourt, op. cit. (73), ii, 475.
93. Jean Mistler, La Librairie Hachette de 1826 à nos jours, Paris, 1964. Patrick Brady, 'L'Oeuvre' de Emile Zola, Genève, 1917, 78.
94. Jean Mistler, La Librairie Hachette de 1826 à nos jours, Paris, 1964. Patrick Brady, 'L'Oeuvre' de Emile Zola, Genève, 1917, 78.
95. It has recently been emphasized that we should look at the whole context of book publication rather than simply accepting a book for its contents. See the special section on book history by Jonathan Topham, Adrian Johns, Leslie Howsam and Nicolaas Rupke in BJHS (2000), 33, 155 ff.
96. Brady, op. cit. (76), 202.
97. Becker, op. cit. (64), 389.
98. Jean Jules-Verne, op. cit. (66), 203.
99. See the entry for Juliette Figuier (1829-79) in Dictionnaire de Biographie Française, Paris, 1933-, xiii, cols. 1324-5.
100. Fabienne Cardot, 'Le théâtre scientifique de Louis Figuier', Romantisme (1989), No. 65, 59-67.
101. Le Journal populaire de Lille, 16 April 1864, cited in Becker, op. cit. (64), 389.
102. Le Journal populaire de Lille, 16 April 1864, cited in Becker, op. cit. (64), 389.
103. Frederick Brown, Zola: A Life, New York, 1995, 611.
104. However, if we may draw a parallel with literature, see the counter claim of Charles Maurras, that literary criticism, dealing with literature rather than the world, was an even purer creation than literature itself. Revue encyclopédique (1896), 6, 969-74, cited by Dario Gamboni in Michael R. Orwicz (ed.), Art Criticism and its Institutions in Nineteenth-Century France, Manchester, 1994, 189. However doubtful this argument might appear, many might agree that the analyses provided by film critics can often be of a higher order than the films they discuss.
105. However, if we may draw a parallel with literature, see the counter claim of Charles Maurras, that literary criticism, dealing with literature rather than the world, was an even purer creation than literature itself. Revue encyclopédique (1896), 6, 969-74, cited by Dario Gamboni in Michael R. Orwicz (ed.), Art Criticism and its Institutions in Nineteenth-Century France, Manchester, 1994, 189. However doubtful this argument might appear, many might agree that the analyses provided by film critics can often be of a higher order than the films they discuss.
106. For Auguste Comte the problem was that he was a generalist rather than a specialist. He argued that there should be a special section of the Académie des sciences for philosophers of science like himself. His suggestion was ignored. Mary Pickering, Auguste Comte: An Intellectual Biography, 2 vols., Cambridge, 1993, i, 451.
107. Brown, op. cit. (84), 61-2.
108. T. H. Huxley, 'Criticisms on The Origin of Species (1864)' in idem, Darwiniana, London, 1894, 98.