THE$CRIMINAL$SUBJECT Alphonse$Ber8llon$and$Francis$Galton,$their$Aesthe8cs$and$their$Legacies Melanie$S$J$Francis Department$of$Art$History$ Thesis$submiHed$to$the$University$of$NoJngham$for$the$degree$of$Doctor$of$Philosophy Word$Count:$83,305 Previous$page:$Francis$Galton,$2"of"the"Many"Criminal"Types,$1879 Composite$photographs$as$reproduced$in$Galton,$‘Composite$Portraits,$Made$by$Combining$ Those$of$Many$Different$Persons$Into$a$Single$Resultant$Figure’,$The"Journal"of"the" Anthropological"Ins:tute"of"Great"Britain"and"Ireland,$8,$1879 Abstract This thesis applies aesthetic language to a variety of practices associated with the production and analysis of criminal identification portraits. Much of what might seem to be standardised in this model of portraiture was influenced by abstract visual techniques that were developed in the late nineteenth century, specifically in the work of Alphonse Bertillon and Francis Galton, which frequently moves away from the judicial, into the experimental. Structured theoretically as opposed to chronologically, this thesis provides a thorough examination of the components - material, technological, temporal, and symbolic - that constitute the identification portrait. The theoretical resonance of Galton’s composite portrait photography and other abstract techniques is seen to inform twentieth century and recent debates on photographic portraiture, and the transformation of the portrait for which Bertillon was responsible, which placed great emphasis on the need to summarise, even memorise, a subject’s ‘data’ for police purposes, is found to have a legacy that extends far beyond the standardised ‘mug shot’ into much more imaginary territories. Jacques Derrida’s terminology for the supplement, Roland Barthes’ commentaries on the photographic portrait, Julia Kristeva’s model of colour perception, and Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari’s notion of the ‘body without organs’, are some of the many theoretical models with which this material is seen to resonate. Preface$and$Acknowledgements This project marks the consolidation of an idea that I have been developing since undergraduate study, in relation to Francis Galton’s composite photography, and its location within a discourse on portraiture that incorporates visual theory, debates on photographic processes, and current thinking about surfaces and structures in an art historical context. The more you look at a composite image, the less you seem to be able to see, and I hope that this fascinating feature of a photographic technique resonates throughout this study. The research was made possible with a three year Studentship from the School of Humanities at Nottingham, and with the support of the Department of Art History, for both of which I am extremely thankful. I am highly indebted to my two supervisors - Dr Simon Baker, who, with unabating enthusiasm, has endured my work on this and related topics for the past eight years, and Dr Anna Lovatt, without whose lucid critical feedback, I am not sure that the project would have reached this stage. Writing about images that appear in as many quotidian contexts as they do specialist, I have yet to speak with someone who does not have an opinion about them. Over the course of four years, the variety of responses to just the word ‘mug shot’ was often overwhelming. This project is the culmination of such exchanges, and is therefore owing to all of them, from close friends to total strangers. I especially owe thanks and much more besides to Bill Francis, Cathryn Shepherd, Annie Gray, Gemma Cutting, Vicki Thornton, Bella Vernon, Clare Morris, Suzy Freake, Esra Plumer, Chris Ofili, Natalie Galustian, Nick Santos-Pedro, Robin Kirsten, Valentina Trimani, Charlie Bushnell, Will Oatley, Jon Lowe, and Ben Marley, for their support throughout the PhD process. The unrelenting force behind this project has always been Liz Francis, in whose memory I conducted this research, for whom I will write any future texts, and who has been told of the details throughout, irrespective of whether she has heard them. !!! ‘Is"that"who"you"are,"that"vaguely"criminal"face"on"your"ID"card," its"soul"snatched"by"the"government"camera"as"the"guillo:ne"shuDer"fell…?’ Thomas$Pynchon,$Gravity’s"Rainbow$[1973],$London:$Picador,$1975 Table$of$Contents Introduc8on$ $ $ $ $ $ $ $$$$$$$$$ $$$1 1$Early$Images,$Early$Imaginings$of$the$‘Criminal$Subject‘$ $ $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$21$ $ $ Ber8llonage:$Portrait$or$Autopsy?$ $ $$$ $$ $ $21 $ The$Ravachol$Case$ $ $ $ $ $$$ $38 $ Francis$Galton$and$the$Composite$Criminal$ $ $ $$ $40 $ ‘Analy8cal$Portraiture‘$ $ $ $ $ $$ $47 $ Criminal$Tracings,$Criminal$Traces$ $ $ $ $$$ $53$$ $ Towards$the$Imaginary$ $ $ $ $ $$$ $57 $ The$Photographic$‘Medium‘$$ $ $ $ $ $58$$$$ 2$‘Giving"a"Colour"to"Fic:on’:$Configura8ons$of$Criminal$Iden8ty$ in$Colour$Photography$$ $ $ $ $ $ $$ $67 $ Daguerréotypomanie"and$the$1839$Police$Acts$ $ $$$ $67$ $ Ber8llon’s$Tableau"des"Nuances"de"l’Iris"Humain" " """" "74$$$ $ Galton$and$‘Exercises$in$Visualisa8on‘$ $ $ $$$ $83$$ $ Travel$Photography$and$the$Archives"of"the"Planet$ $ $$$ $85 $ The$Autochrome:$Poin8llism$to$Pixel$ $ $ $ $90$ $ The$Elusive$‘Neutral‘$ $ $ $ $ $ $96$ $ Dye$Transfer:$Aura8c$vs.$Cosme8c$ $ $ $ $ $99 3$Assembling$the$Mug$Shot:$Laboratories,$Grids$and$Gadgetry$$$$ $ 103$$ $ $$$ $ The$‘Criminal$Laboratory‘$ $ $ $ $ $ 105$ $$$ $ $ Iden8ty$Apparatus$ $ $ $ $ $ 118$ $ $ The$Photographic$Backdrop$ $ $ $ $ 124$ $ Rulers$and$the$quan8fiable$portrait$photograph$ $ $ 130$ $$ $ ‘Mapping$a$lie’:$Lamprey$and$the$grid$ $ $ $ 133$ $ 4$Maps,$Contours$and$TaHoos:$Towards$a$Surface$Logic$of the$Criminal$Subject$ $ $ $ $ $ $ 139$ $ $ Contour$Knowledge$ $ $ $ $ $ 139 $ ‘The$Old$Woman$of$the$Vinegar‘$$ $ $ $ $ 151 $ TaHoos,$Palimpsests$of$the$Flesh$$ $ $ $ $ 157 $ Baldaev,$Vasiliev,$and$the$Russian$Criminal$TaHoo$Encyclopaedia$ 162 5$Ber8llon$and$Galton’s$Ghosts$ $ $ $ $ $ 171 $ Cultural$Confinement$$ $ $ $ $ $ 171 $ Before$and$Aher:$The$Papin$Sisters$$ $ $ $ 174 $ Ber8llon$and$Dalí:$The$Phenomenon$of$Ecstasy$$ $ $ 179 $ Fantômas$and$ShapekShihing$ $ $ $ $ 180 $ Mug$Shots$Without$Suspects:$Thomas$Ruff$ $ $ $ 183$ $ $ Prison$Landscapes:$Alyse$Emdur$and$Taryn$Simon$ $ $ 193$ Postscript$ $ $ $ $ $ $ $ 203 Bibliography$ $ $ $ $ $ $ $ 209 Introduc8on ‘Natural"groups"have"nuclei"but"no"outlines’.1 The starting point of this thesis, and indeed, the foundation of my scholarly interest in depictions of criminal suspects, is Francis Galton’s composite photography, which he developed in 1879. With this visual experiment, Galton, at once the controversial founder of the Eugenics Movement and also a figurehead for the development of forensics with his work on finger printing, also produced something that is of particular value to scholars working with visual cultures. Consequently, the technique now resonates with as many discussions in the visual arts as it does with sociological studies. This thesis is intended to traverse these fields by means of proposing ways in which the processes of construction and the visual effects of such experiments as the composite photograph have an aesthetic legacy, a legacy that continues to inform portraiture as a genre that is significantly rooted in both artistic and institutional practices - from contemporary ‘mug shots’ and prison documentation, to large scale studio portraits. This traversal of different production contexts is highly significant for photography in general. The composite process was developed at a time when photographic portraiture was under serious debate, a debate that, in Anette Hoffmann’s terms, ‘hinged on the perceived incompatibility of artistry - in both technique and expression - with the camera’s blunt factuality’.2 From its initial applications in the 1840s onwards, the proliferation of photography continued to raise concerns for artists and scientists alike, or as Dawn Ades has put it, ‘whether photography belonged in the domain of art or science was a question that arose at the start’.3 On the one hand, the camera ‘so effortlessly replicated nature that photographers were seen as nothing more than machine operators’.4 In doing so, it was considered a threat to artists and illustrators who sought to create accurate representations in other media. On the other hand, it also offered new tools and vantage points for scientists, for whom, as Ann Thomas describes, ‘the goal of perfect verisimilitude has been a constant in 1 Francis Galton, English Men of Science: Their Nature and Nurture, London: Macmillan, 1874, also quoted in Havelock Ellis, The Criminal, London: Walter Scott, 1901, p.21 2 Erin C Garcia, Photography as Fiction, Los Angeles: J Paul Getty Museum, 2010, p.7 3 Dawn Ades, ‘Little Things: Close-up in Photo and Film, 1839 - 1963’, in Dawn Ades and Simon Baker, Close- Up: Proximity and Defamiliarisation in Art, Film and Photography, exh. cat. Fruitmarket Gallery, Edinburgh, 24 October 2008 - 11 January 2009. Edinburgh: Fruitmarket Gallery, 2008 4 Garcia, Photography as Fiction, p.7 1 scientific illustration’, although ‘its definition is always in flux’.5 Before photography, ‘the chief distinguishing feature of scientific illustration ... was the intrusion of the artist’s choice, itself dependent on the current conventions of artistic representation’.6 Choice of specimen, and the choices implied by the practice of hand-crafted illustration; Thomas alerts us to what was not just Galton’s problem, but seemingly an issue as old as empiricism itself when she asks, ‘can scientific accuracy be better served by illustrating a single