Journal Article

Conté's Machines: Drawing, Atmosphere, Erasure

Taws, Richard

2016

Overview

This article examines the graphic practice of Nicolas-Jacques Conté, an artist, chemist, engineer, and balloonist probably best known for his invention, in 1795, of the modern pencil, synthesising English 'lead' rendered unavailable by the naval blockade. Conté, a former pupil of Jean-Baptiste Greuze, subsequently became a key member of the Napoleonic expedition to Egypt. He participated in the production of its most extensive visual document, the monumental Description de l'Égypte, devising an 'engraving machine' that facilitated the production of uniform backgrounds for the Description's plates. With this machine, the cloudless Egyptian skies that populated the large sheets of the Description could be reproduced at speed with minimal opportunity for artistic error, reducing complex atmospheric effects to a simple mechanical process. Tracing the reemergence of Conté's numerous inventions in subsequent accounts of media change, particularly those that focused on photography, this article examines the ways in which Conté's work often pivoted on the question of drawing and suggests that his practice asks broader questions of the relationship between technology, vision, and imperialism in the nineteenth century.

• Publisher: Oxford University Press