So symbolic, La Revue de l'Art is dedicating its 175th issue to photography, with a picture taken on May 6, 1968 by Gilles Caron on the cover. Symbolic, the editorial by Michel Poivert, Professeur at the Université Paris I Panthéon-Sorbonne, Inha, “Photography in France: A National Affair”, retraces how difficult it has been for photography to be recognized. Looking a bit closer, it becomes clear that the earliest recognition began in 1968. 
That was when André Chastel chose to create La Revue de l’Art, one of the rare French scientific magazines dedicated to western Art History from the Middle Ages until now.

Published by Ophrys Editions, it releases four issues a year, including a special thematic issue on topics as wide ranging as “Architecture through History” or “Medieval Europe”… 
Number 175 of La Revue de l’Art, dated 2012-1, is titled “Photographies” and is, according to Paul-Louis, historic. “For the first time, this prestigious art history magazine is honoring the progress in this field long kept in circumspection among intellectuals but that brought new viewpoints to creation and culture in the contemporary period. Technical but sensitive images taken by great artists but also by anonymous photographers, unique in the way of printing, presented in museums and collections but discretely taped into family travel albums, photography has strongly changed our art values…” 


With the advice of Michel Poivert, Laurence de Pémille, senior editor at Revue de l’Art, built an historic viewpoint, still being deciphered with existing gray zones and historical errors that need to be reestablished. 
A series of historical studies will be offered. One text featured, "Baudelaire et la photographie: paradoxes et allégories", by Paul-Louis Roubert, President of the Société française de photographies and lecturer at Université Paris 8, he goes back in time, wondering why this man who was a symbol of “critical hostility towards photography” posed in front of the camera 13 times between 1854 et 1866? Christian Joschke, lecturer at Université Louis-Lumière Lyon 2, in "Portrait de groupe et communauté d'amateurs" studies the portrait of Présidents of the brothers Hofmeister, 1899. 
In "Musées sans murs" and document, Olivier Lugon, professor at the Université de Lausanne, explores the creation of photographic exhibitions after 1950. Thomas Duquesnoy, historian, Université Paris I Panthéon-Sorbonne, Inha, describes the "Picture Essay" created by Life Magazine on April 26, 1937 in a veritable manifesto entitled "The Camera as Essayist, Life". 
In a section titled "Notes et Documents", Éléonore Challine treats "Utopias of the French photography museum (1890-1945)". Sophie Orlando reveals British social photography: Amber Collective. While Gaëlle Morel explores the work of Gilles Caron, focusing on the 1960’s and early 1970’s. 
The final conversation between Michel Poivert and Anne Cartier-Bresson, Historical Curator for the City of Paris, explores the problems inherent to photographic conservation and the status of pictures in general.

Bernard Perrine
Bernard.Perrine1@orange.fr

Revue de l'Art
Photographies
n°175 / 2012-1
84 pages
abstracts in english

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