The Art Institute of Chicago

Cavalry ManeuversAuthor(s): David TravisSource: Art Institute of Chicago Museum Studies, Vol. 29, No. 2, Notable Quotations at TheArt Institute of Chicago (2003), pp. 36-37Published by: The Art Institute of ChicagoStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/4121046 .

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Cavalry Maneuvers

October 3, 1857

Gustave Le Gray (French; 1820-1884)

Albumen silver print from a wet collodion glass negative;

27.1 x 36 cm (o 5/s x 14 3/16 in.)

From a leather-bound album, Souvenirs du Camp

de Chalons, of twenty-seven photographs presented by

Emperor Napoleon III to Colonel Reille

MAJOR ACQUISITIONS CENTENNIAL ENDOWMENT,

1995. 130.10

A fter Napoleon was defeated at Waterloo in I815, certain ranks of the British army began to recognize

the crucial victory by wearing bearskin caps, the signature headgear of Napoleon's Imperial Guards. In 1853, when the Second Empire emerged in France under the great general's nephew, Napoleon III, much of its glory was borrowed from the past. For instance, on the military drill fields the new emperor inaugurated in i857 at Camp de

Chilons, the Imperial Guard was prominently outfitted with the cap that had once made these grenadiers look all the more fearsome to the rest of Europe.

FIGURE I Roger Fenton (English; 1819-i869). The Valley of the Shadow of Death, I855. Salted-paper print; 27.0 x 36.4 cm (io 5/8 x 14 3/8 in.). The Art Institute of Chicago, Photography Gallery Fund (1959.6I11.7).

Napoleon III commissioned some thirty commemo- rative albums for the officers of the new facility, turning to the most innovative photographer in France, Gustave Le Gray. One of these, now in the Art Institute, was pre- sented to a Colonel Reille, who had served the emperor in the Crimean War (I854-56). It was in this conflict that

photography first served a significant documentary role in the work of James Robertson, and especially Robert Fenton. It was Fenton's work, commissioned by the

British government, that showed in the aftermath of bat- tles and in camps and supply centers the disorganization and disasters of the costly war (see fig i). Understanding the persuasiveness of the photographic image, Napoleon III

hoped this up-to-date method of documentation would

signal the modernity of his communications, artillery, and

large-scale maneuvers. As it turned out, the photography was a bit more advanced than the army, as France would be defeated in the Franco-Prussian War of 1870-71. Nevertheless, hope was high in the mid-I85os about the future of the empire.

Le Gray was an excellent choice for the job, because he knew how to tackle a difficult assignment technically and artistically. Using a wet collodion process of his own

devising, he captured movements that otherwise would have been indistinguishable blurs on his large i I-by-14- inch glass negatives. Fortunately, what blurring occurred

only added to the sense of activity and did not distract from the clarity of a masterful composition. Aesthetically the photographer exploited the haze, creating an aerial

perspective while retaining the distinctive silhouettes of the bearskins above the earthen berm. The emperor's elite unit looks organized and prepared, which was what

Napoleon III wanted to project to his own country and other world powers.

DAVID TRAVIS

36

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