Gestualities1 in coexistence: a prelude to the moving image through the reciprocal connections between bodies and cameras

Abstract

The representation of emotions, feelings and affects is one of the attributions of which painters, sculptors, photographers or filmmakers are invested. A great deal of the creation’s experience is promoted by the meeting between the body of the artists and his or her models or actors/actresses. Through the possibilities produced by this association, some mysteries of the reciprocal connections between bodies and their technical instruments are found. In this article we are going to concentrate our efforts in some renowned studies on human expressions [Le Brun, Darwin] in order to map the vestiges of the ways of seeing and performing during the artistic act. Our focus is oriented towards some photographic examples [Rejlander, Duchene, Nadar] which, in our view, retain the seeds of the moving image and put in perspective some frontiers between fields of knowledge normally regarded as independent like art and science.

Keywords: Photography. Cinema. Rejlander. Duchenne. Darwin. Le Brun.