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photography to establish grounds on which to appreciate
Realist and Naturalist painting.
It is tempting to speculate about Courbet’s infl uence
on Wey’s writing for La Lumière. In two novels, Biez de
Serine (1850) and Le Bouquet de cerises [The Bouquet
of Cherries] Wey had written descriptions of stonebreak-
ers which are probably based on Courbet’s painting. If
his novels of that moment are an effort to work through
the fresh example set by the painter, his defense of new
painting often seems coached by Courbet. In Du natural-
ism dans l’art Wey writes about the exhaustion of the
academic tradition, and he asserts that subject matter
and canvas size no longer hold the importance they once
did. Here and elsewhere he claims that the excesses
of the Romantics and the coloristes were launched in
reaction to the impoverishment of the classical school,
with the dogmatism of Realism and Naturalism forming
another reaction in turn. And photography? The new
medium would introduce a necessary control on Realist
and Naturalist tendencies, allowing the proper return of
imagination to painting.
Wey also directed his criticism toward practical de-
velopments. In addition to the subjects listed above, he
advocated photography as the best means to reproduce
works of art, especially sculptures and bas-reliefs. In
some cases he also thought it was superior to lithog-
raphy for the reproduction of paintings. In “Un voy-
age héliographique à faire” [A Heliographic Voyage
to Make], he extolled the painting of the little-known
Flemish primitives, especially Memling and van Eyck.
He wanted this art to receive more critical attention, and
he also felt that the paintings’ crisp linearity lent them
to photographic reproduction. Louis-Desiré Blanquart-
Evrard paid attention, and works by the early Flemish
painters soon appeared in his albums. Wey often ad-
dressed Blanquart-Evrard in his writing, egging the
publisher to fi nish his fi rst album, which was late in ap-
pearing and which the writer needed for a critical touch-
stone, and subsequently offering tough assessments of
individual photographs and categories of subject matter.
Finally, Wey passionately promoted photographic jour-
neys to record the sites and monuments of France and
the world. He also advocated offi cial patronage of such
trips: he wrote a long review of Maxime Du Camp’s Nile
photographs made under the auspices of the Ministry
of Public Instruction, and in several articles he praised
the Mission Héliographique, still underway when his
relationship with La Lumière ended.
Peter Barberie
Biography
Francis Alphonse Wey was born in Besançon in 1812,
into a commercial family of German origin. The Wey
family had suffered signifi cant losses during the Revo-
lution and Terror, but maintained its business in Indian
trade. In 1830, the eighteen-year-old Wey was sent to
Paris to enter the Ecole des Arts et Manufactures. In
1832 he abandoned his studies against his family’s wish-
es and turned to writing. In 1834 he entered the Ecole
Royale des Chartes, graduating to become an archivist
and paleographer at the National Archives in 1837. In
1853 he was named Inspector General of Departmental
Archives, a post that he held until 1879.
Wey was a prodigious writer. Beginning in the 1830s
he authored more than twenty novels and short stories,
as well as two theatrical comedies. He also wrote over
a dozen pieces of travel literature, which divide into
distinct categories of light reportage and rather serious
historical and archaeological accounts. Much of his
writing appeared in popular journals such as Musée des
Familles and Revue de Paris. In 1858, his biographer
Eugène de Mirecourt characterized Wey as “the Chris-
topher Columbus” of the roman-feuilleton: his skill
with cliffhangers for his serialized novel Les Enfants
du Marquis de Ganges [The Children of the Marquis of
Ganges], published in 1838 in La Presse, had inspired
dozens of imitators.
Wey also wrote reviews and philological and historio-
graphical articles for learned societies. In his lifetime he
was most honored for his studies of the French language,
especially Remarques sur la langue française, sur le
style et la composition [Remarks on the French Lan-
guage, on Style and Composition; 1845] and Histoire
des révolutions du langage en France (History of Revo-
lutions of Language in France; 1848). In 1846 he was
made a Chevalier of the Legion of Honor in recognition
for the former work. Other books that were especially
esteemed include Le Bouquet de cerises (1852) and his
long travel book Rome, descriptions et souvenirs [Rome,
Descriptions and Memories; 1871–1875].
Although Wey supported the politicized new paint-
ing of the 1850s, and even took up Courbet’s subject of
stonebreakers, he was himself a moderate Republican.
He published two books related to the political upheavals
of his period, Manuel des droits et des devoirs, diction-
naire démocratique [Manual of Rights and Responsibili-
ties, Democratic Dictionary; 1848], and Chronique du
siége de Paris [Chronical of the Siege of Paris; 1871].
In 1839 Wey joined the Société des Gens de Lettres,
founded the previous year. He was the society’s presi-
dent from 1852–1854, 1857–1858, and again from
1861–1863. In 1864 he was made honorary president.
In 1858 Wey became a member of the Comité des
travaux historiques, a national commission parallel to
the Commission des monuments historiques, but depen-
dant from the Ministry of Public Instruction. Like the
Commission, the Committee had concerned itself with
photography of monuments since 1849.
Francis Wey died in Paris in 1882.