889
MARCONI, GAUDENZIO (1842–1885)
Photographer
Gaudenzio Marconi (who appears in many writings
under the fi rst name, Guglielmo, is likely due to a con-
fusion with the better-known Italian inventor) was born
in 1842 in Switzerland, to a family of probable Italian
origin. Few traces remain of the life of this author and
his family.
Before becoming a photographer, Marconi is re-
ferred to in the documentation as an “artist-painter.”
Most of his photographs are images of nudes (albumen
prints from wet collodium plates). During the period
in which Marconi worked, nude photography was a
widely popular genre, with frequently interwoven and
overlapping variations in style and destination. Some
of these photographs were made for private collections
of a more or less openly erotic character (perhaps the
majority of the daguerreotype nudes), but nude images
were also frequently used in scientifi c journals in the
fi elds of medicine, ethnography, and anthropology.
There was also a substantial production of these
works made in photographic studios that became
increasingly specialized. The work circulated in the
form of actual catalogues and was destined for the use
of artists, including painters and illustrators as well as
for art schools. The major photographic studios, like
Marconi’s, that supplied this market also worked in-
tensively on the business front. They would sometimes
use external distributors for selling their works so that,
once the works left the studio, they would then follow
an independent course that might include many different
passages. Given this scenario, it is easier to understand
the reasons why certain situations occurred, such as the
fact that Marconi acquired and sold some images by an-
other well-known photographer, Auguste Belloc, under
his own trademark, or the fact that some photographs
taken by Marconi are either unsigned or attributed to
his Austrian colleague Hermann Heid (owner of the
major Viennese workshop specializing in the same kind
of images), in a work such as La Beauté de la Femme,
published by the Austrian Charles-Henri Stratz in a
series edited by Paul Richer.
From the mid-1850s, the use of photographs in art
schools became increasingly widespread and was a
substitute for live models. At the École des beaux-arts
in Paris specifi c classes were held in anatomy and
morphology that relied on the use of large numbers of
photographs. In general, nude drawing—the study of
anatomical details and particularly representations of
bodies in classical poses, the so-called académies—con-
stituted a highly advanced level of teaching drawing.
Starting from 1871, the Marconi studio mark bore the
title “Photographe de l’École des beaux-arts,” indicating
his collaboration with that prestigious institution as a
clear mark of distinction.
In relation to the work of other contemporary photog-
raphers engaged on the same theme, Marconi’s photo-
graphs bear a number of distinguishing features. Firstly,
his subjects: in a market that was heavily dominated by
female nudes, Marconi often used male subjects. The
compositions he created show particular attention to
the plastic quality of the bodies, with a clear intent of
highlighting the movements of the muscle masses. The
subjects are almost always photographed against neutral
backgrounds or simple landscape backdrops, making
very little use of decorations or props except for a few
essential drapes. The Michelangelo-style representation
of the vigor and volume of the bodies comes through
forcefully—contrary to the works of other artists—and
excludes any evocation of unreal atmospheres or the
adoption of sensual poses.
During this period, photography studios like Marco-
ni’s, increasingly open to models, artists, and decorators,
were alive with all the debates and the technical and
theoretical developments that characterized the artistic
scene of the times, inevitably leaving a deep mark on the
photographic works they produced. Evolving in close
touch with this artistic climate, photography was some-
times reduced to an imitation of painting, while at other
times it would develop absolutely original expressions
that contributed to radically changing painting itself. In
the images produced by Marconi, a strong innovation
was introduced through the possibility of using photog-
raphy to capture images of tensed bodies in positions
that would have been very diffi cult for models to keep
throughout lengthy painting sittings.
Like other artists of his generation, Gaudenzio
Marconi left France in the 1870s due to the disastrous
Franco-Prussian wars, which had a dramatic impact on
the artistic community. The war left its mark on his work
in a series of scenes that are quite exceptional in relation
to the rest of his images (at least among those that have
come down to us). This series depicts events relating to
the siege of Paris, the most famous of which is Pertes de
la garde mobile après le combat de Châtillon.
Records show that after 1870 Marconi was working
in Brussels. Up to 1885, Marconi appeared in the com-
mercial registry of Brussels, though as an artist resident
abroad, working as both a painter and photographer.
This was the period of his collaboration with the
sculptor Rodin, for whom he produced an image, the
portrait of the soldier August Neyt (it is interesting to
note that in this case he did not make use of a profes-
sional model), used for the creation of the sculpture
L’Âge d’airain (The Bronze Age). Rodin also asked
Marconi for a photographic reproduction of the work,
which was presented in preview in Brussels in January
1877 and destined subsequently for the Salon of Paris.
The Rodin Museum conserves two reproductions of
L’Âge d’airain (front and back views) that bear the