447
to an objective tool of physiological inquiry, Duchenne
created a kind of living anatomy.
Duchenne’s interest in photography stemmed from
his desire to have permanent records of his facial
faradizations. In 1856, after availing himself of the
assistance of Nadar’s younger brother Adrien Tourna-
chon—there is disagreement about his contribution,
but the photographs showing four electrodes and those
in which Duchenne and his assistant fi gure together
are generally identifi ed as the ones Tournachon had a
hand in—Duchenne set out on his own, learning the
wet collodion process so that he could be in control of
his results and the viewer’s attention. He chose seven
models for the variety of their ages, shapes and sex: two
young girls, a youthful and an older woman, a handsome
anatomist who could mimic the expressions without the
electrodes, an old alcoholic workman and—Duchenne’s
principal model—an elderly cobbler who suffered from
a mild anaesthesia of the face. In a orderly and exhaus-
tive series of experiments he applied a series of electri-
cal stimulations to these faces and photographed the
resulting muscular contractions one by one to produce
a wide variety of expressions, some suggesting extremes
of emotion. Duchenne took the pictures in a studio (of
undetermined location, perhaps his own house), in me-
dium close up against a neutral background with careful
attention to all surrounding details of the mise en scène
and the lighting which he felt could aid in accentuating
the relief of the expressive lines.
In 1862 he exhibited the photographs at the Interna-
tional Exposition in London and published them in Le
Mécanisme de la physionomie humaine ou analyse élec-
tro-physiologique de l’expression des passions appli-
cable à la pratique des arts plastiques [The Mechanism
of Human Physiognomy, or an Electro-physiological
Analysis of the Expression of the Passions Applicable
to the Practice of the Fine Arts]. He produced the book
at his own expense in both quarto and octavo formats,
with a different number—from 72 to 88, depending on
the edition—of tipped-in albumen prints. He edited the
photographs for publication, reducing some, enlarging
others and generally eliminating almost all extraneous
information, such as dress, in the aim of objectivity. He
also masked parts of the images and rephotographed
them to foreground individual muscles. Le Mécanisme
was divided into scientifi c and aesthetic sections with
text and an atlas of photographs for each. The photo-
graphs in the scientifi c section included nine synoptic
tables constructed of up to sixteen expressions each,
and photographs of antique sculpture whose facial
lines Duchenne had emphasized to exemplify how
photography could improve upon or correct artistic
representations of the emotions. The aesthetic section
seems to have been constructed last; it included full-
fi gure photographs of a new model, a half-blind woman
posed in ten tableaux illustrating classical literature and
scenarios of Duchenne’s own invention. These were
his only experiments in showing how the whole body--
rather than just the face—participated in the expression
of feeling, and he did not pursue them.
Duchenne also produced fi fty life-sized oval-format
enlargements of his pictures mounted on canvas, varnished
and framed in gold. These were intended for the education
of artists: introduced in 1872 by anatomy professor Mat-
thias Duval (a colleague of Marey), Duchenne’s startling
photographs were incorporated into the anatomy teaching
at the École des Beaux Arts. Six of them were also adapted
by Charles Darwin to illustrate his 1872 The Expression
of Emotions in Men and Animals.
Otherwise Duchenne’s photographs were generally
neither well received nor widely disseminated. Critics
found his model, the aged cobbler, indecent and undig-
nifi ed, his hideous grimaces unworthy to represent the
soul’s expressions. The photographs posed a problem.
Rather than signs of inner emotions, of consciousness,
of what, in fact, separated man from animal, Duchenne’s
photographs recorded fear, joy, disdain, or terror as mere
physiological facts that could be provoked by electricity
and captured by the camera. Stimulated by Duchenne’s
electrodes, the movements of the facial muscles were
understood not as signs indicating the presence of a
soul, but rather as free-fl oating signifi ers in a cultural
semiotics of muscle movements.
In 1862 Duchenne also published L’Album de photog-
raphies pathologiques complémentaire du livre intitulé
De l’électrisation localisée [Album of Pathological
Photographs Complementing a Book Called Localized
Electrical Stimulation], generally considered the fi rst
photographically illustrated medical book. The sixteen
pictures, taken ca. 1860 of muscular dystrophy cases,
epitomise Duchenne’s belief in photography’s role as
a diagnostic tool, permanently fi xing the object of the
clinical gaze. Duchenne was also an expert practitioner of
microphotography and among the fi rst to make images of
the nervous system seen through the microscopic lens.
Marta BraunBiography
Guillaume-Benjamin-Amant Duchenne was born in
Boulogne-sur-Mer, 17 September 1806, the son of Jean-
Pierrre-Antoine Duchenne, and his wife Marie-Denise
Lassalle. He was known as Duchenne de Boulogne to
distinguish him from the society doctor Édouard Duch-
esne. He abandoned a successful medical practice in
Boulogne after the death of his fi rst wife in childbirth.
The surviving infant, Maxime-Emile, was removed
by his maternal grandparents but reunited as an adult
with his father in Paris. Maxime’s death and that of
Duchenne’s second wife occurred in 1870. Maxime’s