Le Gray, an Ingenious Photography Pioneer

About 150 years before computer software made it easy to meld elements from more than one photograph into a single picture, Gustave Le Gray (1820-1884) used nothing but his wits and a handful of beautifully exposed negatives to do the same thing. In 1856-57, he made a series of stunning seascapes by splicing together pairs of negatives, one for the sky and one for the water.

Until then, the long exposures required to get enough light on the water (or land) left the sky overexposed--dull, leaden and gray. Many photographers painted this part of their negatives black, resulting in prints whose skies were blank white. Some used tiny brushes to paint clouds on their negatives, causing the skies in their photographs to look as fake as theatrical backdrops.

Le Gray’s solution, sometimes called the patched-in-sky procedure, allowed for every square inch of the photograph to be perfectly exposed. Four of these ingenious prints are among the many highlights of “Gustave Le Gray, Photographer,” a 100-work survey that was organized by the Bibliotheque National de France in Paris and is now on view at the J. Paul Getty Museum.

Hung side by side, “Seascape With a Ship Leaving Port” and “Large Wave, Mediterranean Sea” reveal that the inventive Frenchman was not opposed to using the same sky twice. Each shows the same oddly shaped cluster of clouds drifting over a different body of water.

On the left in the gallery, a single-mast ship and the mouth of a harbor are silhouetted by bright sunlight that ricochets off a choppy sea. The fractured reflections give the water’s surface the sheen and luster of roughly sculpted glass. Clouds hug the horizon, blocking a direct view of the sun and casting the sky in velvety shadows.

On the right, the same clouds float over calmer waters, whose smaller waves gently lap the shore of an inlet. Higher in the sky and less darkly printed, they lack the somber weight of their counterparts and evoke a more tranquil mood.

Even if these gorgeous photographs were not juxtaposed, you’d still notice that something out of the ordinary takes place within them. Anyone who has seen a sunset knows that the brightest reflections in the water form a shimmering line between your eyes and the sun. In both of Le Gray’s pictures, these reflections do not lead your gaze back to the sun. In “Seascape With Ship,” it’s far off to the right of where it should be. In “Large Wave,” the center of the solar system is less dramatically out of position. Both images put a delicious kink in everyday perceptions.

Although Le Gray’s photographs are factually inaccurate, they’re artistically brilliant. In each, he has created a subtly dynamic composition whose visual impact and emotional resonance are far more compelling than any straightforward recording of what he actually saw would be, especially if printed from a single negative.

These fascinating images also stand out because they mark one of the rare occasions when Le Gray was able to balance the practical requirements of making a living with his artistic ambitions. Combining technical finesse and brooding romanticism, they captured his restless imagination. Plus, they sold well, received critical acclaim and established his reputation as one of the most famous photographers of his time.

Unfortunately, Le Gray’s success didn’t last. From the height of his fame in the late 1850s, he suddenly fell into obscurity--and then disappeared into oblivion. The rest of the exhibition tells a tragic tale of a life torn in two by the competing demands of commerce and creativity.

An introductory gallery sets the stage by introducing viewers to Le Gray, his studio and the friends, benefactors and colleagues with whom he worked. A self-portrait shows him to be a handsome 32-year-old who exudes nonchalant self-confidence, seductive charm and devilish recklessness. If Central Casting were looking for a modern Mephistopheles, they’d be thrilled to see this self-possessed man seated on a simple stool before a bare backdrop.

In contrast, Le Gray’s “Portrait of O. Mestral” depicts a puffy, sullen man whose furrowed brow and pinched expression suggest a delicate sensibility traumatized by the tumult of modern life. A former student of Le Gray’s, this mysterious figure (about whom almost nothing is known) collaborated with him on a series of photographs featured in the next gallery. It’s hard to imagine them having anything in common, much less traveling together all over France to complete their government job.

Another photograph in the introductory gallery portrays Le Gray’s best friend, Henri Le Secq, who with Le Gray studied painting in the studio of Paul Delaroche. In 1843, Delaroche left Paris for Rome. Le Gray followed on foot, walking through the Alps in the summer and arriving in December. By May, he was married to his Roman landlady’s daughter, Palmira Maddalena Gertrude Leonardi, with whom he had at least six children over the next 13 years. The couple moved to Paris in 1847.

Several views of Le Gray’s studio on the outskirts of the city show the setting in which he painted, made photographs and wrote a four-volume treatise on photography. The breadth of his talents as a photographer are indicated by the range of his subjects: nudes, street musicians, panoramic views of Montmartre (when it was a windmill-dotted farmland) and commissioned portraits of such notable clients as Napoleon III and his wife, the Empress Eugenie. All of Le Gray’s images are printed with the care and devotion of someone who demands excellence but isn’t stymied by the obsessions of a perfectionist.

Each of the next two galleries includes two types of work: commissioned series and ones he made on his own. The first of these rooms is equally divided between images of cultural monuments Le Gray and Mestral made for the French government and views of the forest of Fontainebleau he created for himself.

The purpose of the state-sponsored photographs was to document the condition of churches, castles, historic bridges and ancient fortifications so that an ambitious restoration program could be undertaken. The photographers had different ambitions.

While they fulfilled their obligations by making crisp, clear pictures, their desire to make art out of their mundane assignment is palpable. Using the facades of Romanesque churches, the cloisters of cathedrals, the roofs of Renaissance pavilions and the ramparts and towers of the medieval city of Carcassonne as their raw materials, they created elaborately balanced compositions filled with poetic effects. Sometimes they treated the buildings like still-lifes, and at others like abstract arrangements of light and shadow.

On his own in the forest of Fontainebleau, Le Gray experimented with various techniques and materials, transforming the trees and the sun-dappled paths through them into exquisite images. The mysteriousness of the woods suffuses every texture, tone and shape in his highly refined pictures.

The next gallery pairs Le Gray’s photographs of the French army’s summer training camp (commissioned by Emperor Napoleon III) with his potent seascapes, which steal the show (and include his patched-in-sky prints). The portraits of officers, infantrymen at rest and vast panoramas of cavalry in action are interesting for historical, not artistic reasons. They pale in comparison to Le Gray’s seascapes, some of which focus on the natural drama of sunlight, water and clouds, and others that include ships, coasts and harbors to amplify their evocative power.

The works in the final gallery are divided by a pivotal trip Le Gray took in 1860. In 1859, deeply indebted to creditors who had invested in a studio and workshop he had neglected for nearly a decade, Le Gray made a series of postcard-like pictures of Parisian monuments and street scenes. But before he printed large editions of these classically composed pictures of such highlights as Notre Dame, Place de la Concorde, the Louvre and various views of the Seine, he joined Alexandre Dumas on a yacht trip around the Mediterranean. The idea was that Le Gray would make photographs to accompany the stories Dumas wrote about the ancient civilizations they visited. Plans changed in Sicily, when the author, who had just completed “The Count of Monte Cristo,” decided to run guns for Giuseppe Garibaldi, who was fighting to liberate the island from Bourbon rule. An argument ensued, and Dumas put Le Gray ashore on Malta.

Rather than returning to France, where he would have faced debtors’ prison and a deserted wife, the photographer began a life of exile. Aside from a few legal documents, his photographs are all that remain from the last 24 years of his life. Flashes of brilliance appear in his pictures of war-damaged buildings in Palermo, archeological excavations in Lebanon (where he worked as a photojournalist) and more ruins in Egypt (where he taught drawing to the sons of the ruling viceroy). But Le Gray’s late works have a hit-and-miss quality, which is partly due to his inability to work in sustained series.

In Cairo, he died in poverty with a 20-year-old Greek lover and newborn baby at his side. For the next century, Le Gray’s work was known only to specialists, and mostly as an academic footnote.

But over the last 20 years, interest by historians and collectors has grown exponentially and Le Gray is now considered France’s most important 19th century photographer. A movie must be in the works.

“Gustave Le Gray, Photographer,” J. Paul Getty Museum, 1200 Getty Center Drive, Brentwood, (310) 440-7722, through Sept. 29. Closed Mondays. Parking $5. Reservation required on weekdays.