When the Models Commanded the Artist: The case of Nineteenth-Century French Photography

The word “model” was used in art circles for a person hired by a portraitist to sit or stand in a chosen position in order to be painted or drawn as part of a larger composition. The rise of the bourgeoisie in the 19th century was accompanied by the borrowing of some of the peculiarities or characteristics of the aristocracy. Acquiring one’s own portrait was the most distinguished of such practices. Gradually, the bourgeoisie stabilized their rank in society and considered that they fully deserved to be the subject of portraits. Full of their own sense of legitimacy, they placed their orders with painters or sculptors, and became the models of such artists, but now with a twist: the dominating position had changed hands; they had gained the commanding position! But did not the painters and sculptors have to bow to the whims of their patrons during the reign of the aristocracy? No doubt, and so their resentment can be put down to the social levelling that conferred equal status upon the artist and their “model”, the artist and their bourgeois patron. Furthermore, as French historian Édouard Pommier points out in his Théories du portrait, “Portraiture is not only the representation of a person, it also testifies to their distinguished career, their glory […] an exemplary life, worthy of imitation” (Pommier, 1998: 25). Could a painter who shared this artistic approach bestow upon his bourgeois sitter a glory that he found lacking, or that had yet to be won? Under the new circumstances, where both artist and patron were considered “citizens”, the greater social status previously attributed to the sitter’s appearance, was now void, meaningless. Furthermore, the artist was no longer able to treat his model in the way he wished, as a hired hand; it was no longer the case that the artist acts as commander and his models obeys him. Therefore, prior to acquiring considerable fame, and according to his exact social status, the bourgeois customer held a position between that of the traditional docile model and that of the patron who commands. To comprehend the position of this “model who gives orders” in the 19th century, we must first delve into the etymology of the word “model”, and then investigate how portrait painters and portrait photographers used that term. It is interesting to note that although photography had been officially declared an invention in 1839, most of the dictionaries published in the 19th century referred to the word “model” only in relation to sketching, painting and sculpturing. One possible reason for this omission was the delayed acceptance of photography as a “legitimate art”. However, in spite of this omission, the word “model” was abundantly used in the literature of photography that appeared during the same period—but with a twist: the clientele of photographers were called “models”. After examining a few hypotheses to discover the acceptance of this term by the photographers’ guild, a new definition of the “model” is presented in this article.