Darwin's The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals written, in part, as a refutation of Sir Charles Bell's theologically doctrinaire physiognomy, was published in 1872.
This book elaborated on Darwin's theory of evolution by natural selection and concentrated on the genetic aspects of human behaviour.
Darwin's text carried illustrations drawn from Duchenne's photographs, and Darwin and Duchenne corresponded briefly.
It is noteworthy, also, that Darwin lent his copy of Duchenne's book to the British psychiatrist James Crichton-Browne in 1869, that Crichton-Browne seems to have mislaid the book for a year or so (in the West Riding lunatic asylum in Wakefield, Yorkshire - see the Darwin Correspondence Project, Letter 7220) and that - in 1872 - Crichton-Browne invited Sir David Ferrier to his asylum laboratory to undertake experiments involving the electrical stimulation of motor centres in the brain.

Duchenne's most famous student was Jean-Martin Charcot, who became director of the insane asylum at the Salpêtrière in 1862.
He adopted Duchenne's procedure of photographic experiments and also believed that it was possible to attain the "truth" through direct observation.
He even named an examination room at the asylum after his teacher.
Like Duchenne, Charcot sought to chart the gestures and expressions of his patients, believing them to be subject to absolute, mechanistic laws.
However, unlike Duchenne, who restricted his experiments to the realm of the sane, Charcot was interested almost exclusively in photographing the expressions of traumatized patients - the "hysterics".
He is also known for enabling the public to witness these emotional displays by establishing his renowned weekly "theatre of the passions" for the fashionable society of the day to witness the expressions of the insane.
This provided much inspiration for popular culture, including the Grand Guignol theatre which opened in 1897, and to which Alfred Binet made numerous contributions.
Sigmund Freud, who attended Charcot's clinical demonstrations in 1885, laid out the foundations of his life's work, psychoanalysis, with a sympathetic deconstruction of Charcot's neurological lectures on hypnosis and hysteria.

In 1981, a modern audience was exposed to Duchenne's The Mechanism of Human Physiognomy when the book and its photographs were revealed - alongside illustrations of phrenology and evolutionary theory - on screen in the film version of John Fowles's novel, The French Lieutenant's Woman.
There, the protagonist, Charles Smithson, a young scientist, who "like most men of his time, was still faintly under the influence of the Lavater's Physiognomy," is intent on interpreting an alienated woman's true character from her expressions.

Perhaps we can best understand Duchenne's contribution to art and science by Robert Sobieszek's concluding words to his comprehensive chapter on Duchenne, in his book Ghost in the Shell where he writes:
Duchenne's ultimate legacy may be that he set the stage, as it were, for Charcot's visual theater of the passions and defined the essential dramaturgy of all the visual theaters, both scientific and artistic, that have since been conceived in the attempt to picture our psyches. …
In the end, Duchenne's Mecanisme de la Physionomie Humaine and the photographic stills from its experimental theater of electroshock excitations established the modern field on which the struggle to depict and thus discern the ever-elusive meanings of our coded faces continues even now to be waged.
Darwin's The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals written, in part, as a refutation of Sir Charles Bell's theologically doctrinaire physiognomy, was published in 1872. This book elaborated on Darwin's theory of evolution by natural selection and concentrated on the genetic aspects of human behaviour. Darwin's text carried illustrations drawn from Duchenne's photographs, and Darwin and Duchenne corresponded briefly. It is noteworthy, also, that Darwin lent his copy of Duchenne's book to the British psychiatrist James Crichton-Browne in 1869, that Crichton-Browne seems to have mislaid the book for a year or so (in the West Riding lunatic asylum in Wakefield, Yorkshire - see the Darwin Correspondence Project, Letter 7220) and that - in 1872 - Crichton-Browne invited Sir David Ferrier to his asylum laboratory to undertake experiments involving the electrical stimulation of motor centres in the brain.
Duchenne's most famous student was Jean-Martin Charcot, who became director of the insane asylum at the Salpêtrière in 1862. He adopted Duchenne's procedure of photographic experiments and also believed that it was possible to attain the "truth" through direct observation. He even named an examination room at the asylum after his teacher. Like Duchenne, Charcot sought to chart the gestures and expressions of his patients, believing them to be subject to absolute, mechanistic laws. However, unlike Duchenne, who restricted his experiments to the realm of the sane, Charcot was interested almost exclusively in photographing the expressions of traumatized patients - the "hysterics". He is also known for enabling the public to witness these emotional displays by establishing his renowned weekly "theatre of the passions" for the fashionable society of the day to witness the expressions of the insane. This provided much inspiration for popular culture, including the Grand Guignol theatre which opened in 1897, and to which Alfred Binet made numerous contributions. Sigmund Freud, who attended Charcot's clinical demonstrations in 1885, laid out the foundations of his life's work, psychoanalysis, with a sympathetic deconstruction of Charcot's neurological lectures on hypnosis and hysteria.
In 1981, a modern audience was exposed to Duchenne's The Mechanism of Human Physiognomy when the book and its photographs were revealed - alongside illustrations of phrenology and evolutionary theory - on screen in the film version of John Fowles's novel, The French Lieutenant's Woman. There, the protagonist, Charles Smithson, a young scientist, who "like most men of his time, was still faintly under the influence of the Lavater's Physiognomy," is intent on interpreting an alienated woman's true character from her expressions.
Perhaps we can best understand Duchenne's contribution to art and science by Robert Sobieszek's concluding words to his comprehensive chapter on Duchenne, in his book Ghost in the Shell where he writes:
Duchenne's ultimate legacy may be that he set the stage, as it were, for Charcot's visual theater of the passions and defined the essential dramaturgy of all the visual theaters, both scientific and artistic, that have since been conceived in the attempt to picture our psyches. … In the end, Duchenne's Mecanisme de la Physionomie Humaine and the photographic stills from its experimental theater of electroshock excitations established the modern field on which the struggle to depict and thus discern the ever-elusive meanings of our coded faces continues even now to be waged.
Duchenne de Boulogne