One of the most notable developments in science and optics in Cézanne's lifetime was the invention of photography. We know that Cézanne possessed and even copied photographs. But early cameras like the daguerreotype (invented by Louis Daguerre and introduced to the public in 1839) and the calotype (invented by Henry Fox Talbot and introduced in 1841) replicated the old-fashioned perspective of a static "eye" as conceived by Descartes. They were a disappointment to many 19th-Century painters, including Cézanne, because they conveyed a drab and dispassionate alternative to the world seen through human eyes.
