“His art was that of transposition. He took color or mass and made a song in a different key, keeping only the relative values of the shadows and lights and the contours of the objects.
Lepère. Vue du Port de la Meule
Size of the original etching, 8⅝ × 12½ inches
Lepère. Peupliers Tétards
Size of the original etching, 7⅞ × 9¾ inches
“Photography has come to change all that. It has facilitated the task of the engraver, who, for the most part, has not even seen the works he reproduces. The science of design is almost reduced to knowing how to trace; as for simplifying a photograph, it can only make matters worse. Such as it is, a photograph forms a perfect gamut in which nothing can be changed without losing everything; to extract a line from it is impossible, so indiscernible is the passage from one object to another, a figure in the background, etc., etc.
“Photography is a reproduction; it becomes a betrayal. What is the copy interpreted by this betrayal? How can one extract the character of anything if the true model is not there?
“Here, then, is our engraver obliged to copy with his precise art from something quite vague. Photography sees the globs of color, the accidents of a picture, with as much interest as the most beautiful design. What will he put in the place of these accidents? He traces, he copies; and as the photograph is stupid, he copies a stupidity.