In ways comparable to today's multitasking cell phones, a new technology began to change the way people envisioned and documented their environments, and one another, in 19th-century France.

In 1839, Louis Jacques Mande Daguerre invented the daguerreotype, the first practical photographic process, imbuing a machine with a capacity for image-making previously held exclusively by the human hand.

The first image in "France at the Dawn of Photography," a well-developed, thoughtful exhibition at Cleveland Museum of Art, is a circa-1843 self-portrait taken in his painting studio by Camille Dolard.

The clarity of lines in the mirrored surface, exquisite detail and large "full plate" size give the image a crafted quality, and, indeed, each daguerreotype is a unique work. Dolard was a portraitist, and he composed his self-portrait the way he would have one of his subjects, surrounded by objects that revealed his interests and profession.

As dazzling the result, daguerreotypes were tedious to make and the use of mercury vapor in their developing was dangerous. When more manageable processes that used glass or paper negatives became available a dozen years later, the numbers of photographers and demand for their work billowed.

Imagery had become democratized -- fast, cheap, personalized, accessible by the masses, and easily disseminated, if somewhat ephemeral.

The remaining 54 images selected by curator of photography Tom Hinson, mainly from the museum's extensive collection, illustrate the breadth of subject matter that caught the eye of French photographers between the 1850s and 1870s.

The exhibition is grouped generally into portraits, city views and rural landscapes, and many of the images document components of French culture familiar across the ocean.

Infatuation with celebrity was as prevalent in the 19th century as it is today, as illustrated by photographs of master artist Ingres (by Victor Laisne, 1852), of the great writer Victor Hugo while in exile on Guernsey (Edmond Bacot, 1862), or of the impassioned actress Sarah Bernhardt (Etienne Carjat, 1874).

The 1855 portrait of novelist and playwright Alexandre Dumas by Nadar (Gaspard-Felix Tournachon), also famed in his time, has itself become iconographic.

Everyday individuals, too, sat for portraits that they dispersed to friends and family. To service his many clients, commercial portraitist Andre Adolphe Eugene Disderi invented the carte-de-visite, which made him the world's richest photographer. The process, which accommodated several images on one negative that could be printed onto a sheet and later divided, is represented by the eight-paneled "Monsieur Merlen."

Charles Marville, one of the most accomplished photographers of Parisian sites, recorded on commission the street lamps installed by Baron Georges-Eugene Haussman as a part of a city renewal that also added sidewalk-lined boulevards. The exhibition of 100 of his photographs at the 1878 Paris World's Fair confirmed the designation of Paris as the City of Lights, Hinson writes.

Perhaps most interesting is the way artists and their visions are woven into the new medium. Many early photographers were trained as artists, and that is frequently reflected in compositions that are not simply utilitarian, whether of portrait, building or landscape.

Adolphe Braun's "Trophy of the Hunt," essentially a still life of game and hunter paraphernalia, is intentionally reminiscent of the trompe l'oeil paintings of artists like William Michael Harnett or John Peto.

Other photographers roamed the Forest of Fontainebleau, sharing trails with the Barbizon school painters, or recorded the rural peasants of Jean-Francois Millet.

The exhibition was planned to complement the traveling show "Paul Gauguin: Paris, 1889" (see review in Sunday's Magazine section), and Hinson has placed small reproductions of paintings by Gauguin and by Vincent van Gogh next to photographs of the same subject.

This enlightening exhibition is, thus, as much about our visual history as about Paris and its environs in the latter half of the 19th century.

"France" continues through Jan. 24. General museum admission is free but "Gauguin" (through Jan. 18) is ticketed. Hours are 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Tuesdays through Sundays, and until 9 p.m. Wednesdays and Fridays. For information call 1-888-CMA-0033 or visit www.ClevelandArt.org.

Elaine A. King, guest curator of "LIKENESS," will speak on "Human Portrayal: A Shifting Conglomerate of Media and Social Values" at 7 p.m. tomorrow (tour at 6 p.m.) at the Mattress Factory, 500 Sampsonia Way, North Side ($10; information at 412-231-3169 or www.mattress.org).

To complement the opening of the Ailsa Mellon Bruce Galleries, "A Conversation with the Curators: Past and Present" will be held at 3:30 p.m. Saturday in the Carnegie Lecture Hall. Participants are Jason Busch, curator of decorative arts who re-installed the galleries, and past curators David Owsley, Phillip Johnston and Sarah Nichols (free; 412-622-3131).

Artist Daniel Bolick's exhibition "Resurrected," paintings of exonerated prisoners, which debuted this year at Westmoreland Museum of American Art, is at Westmoreland County Community College, Youngwood, through Jan. 5. It moves to Penn State, New Kensington, during February, and after that to Point Park University for a fundraiser for The Innocent Institute at which author John Grisham will speak.

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