Before the phone made it outdated, the optical Telegraaf was somewhat a national fixation in 19th-century France. Reinforced by the unknown, Parisians in 1792 broke an early version. And the aesthetic or grotesque figurative possibilities of this “angular” device of this, either enchanted or disturbed artists of the era. Even Victor Hugo did not resign. Of De Telegraaf, which was then mounted on top of the Paris Cathedral Saint-Hundred, the romantic author writes in his 1819 anti-Napoleon satirical poem “Le Télégraphe”: “There, in front of my window! It is quite ridiculous / that someone would place a telegraphy outside my room!”
The short and illustrious life of the optical Telegraaf – and the artistic view it inspired – is the subject of the extensive academic book by Richard Taws Time machines: Telegraphic images in the nineteenth -century France. Often difficult to read But full of images in six chapters, the book unraveled intersections between political, scientific and visual history, while artists and inventors met De Telegraaf in European cities such as Paris and Vienna.
Taws Forevronts Three Lesser studied genre painters: Jacques François Joseph Swebach-Desfontaines, Étienne Bouhot and Georges Michel. Michel’s later 19th-century works such as “View of the Butte Montmartre with the Church of Saint Pierre and Vue de Montmartre” are particularly fascinating, where the artist merges the iconography of blurry Telegraaf with gloomy airs-a timely display of France-in all landscape activities. De Telegraaf is also visually displayed in various art styles, including Honoré Daumier’s lithographsJJ Grandville and The drawings of Charles Norry” Louis Pierre Baltard’s EtsenAnd different caricatures.
The main goal of Taws is to reveal the forgotten history of De Telegraaf in French art, but the meticulous research continues to get lost within its own lexical complexity. The chronicle-like style of the book is just as overwhelming to follow as the complicated network of images and cultural forces that it wants to demystify. But the dark writing is not allowed to scare or discourage readers who investigate those in conjunction with histories of art, science and society. Time machines Intrigurates interests in other technologies that have survived the detached Telegraaf – windmills, telescopes and hot air balloons, for example. How many of this art -historical representation is still lost in time, waiting to be discovered?
Time machines: Telegraphic images in nineteenth-century France (2025) Richard Taws is published by MIT Press and is available online and through independent booksellers.
