Nadar (photographer)
Nadar ( born April 6, 1820 Paris, † March 21, 1910 ibid; actually Gaspard -Félix Tournachon ) was a French photographer, writer, illustrator, and aeronaut.
Life
Nadar studied medicine in Lyon, but soon abandoned his studies again in order to press journalism. First, he did so at the site, and later in Paris, where he returned in 1839. As a result, he ran the way the drawing was at the theater and even the industry operates, founded 1849, the Revue comique.
In 1854, the Nadar studio for photographic portraits in Paris; in the years 1895 to 1909 it was located in Marseille and then again in Paris. Unlike other photographers job he left soon disappear accessories and painted background and renounced the retouching. His portraits stage the models by means of lighting, silhouette, concentration on look and hands. The aim was to him the psychological detection of the person. His clients - most of them were friends with him - included numerous writers such as Gérard de Nerval, Charles Baudelaire, Honoré de Balzac, Théophile Gautier, and George Sand and artists such as Honoré Daumier, Gioachino Rossini, Sarah Bernhardt. In 1859 he made at the battle of Solferino, the first aerial photographs from a balloon out.
With great confidence on the airship, he built himself a screw airship, and thus inspired Jules Verne 's novel, Five Weeks in a Balloon. Nadar rose 1863 repeated with the giant balloon named Le Géant on who wore it during the second ride with great difficulty from Paris to Hanover, where the balloon went on a field near Neustadt am Ruebenberge to the ground. Nadar and his wife wore serious injuries and had to be treated in hospital in Hanover. On this trip he made aerial photography, which he explained in Nouveau système de photographie aerostatique methodically. His journeys he described in Mémoires du Géant, à terre et en l'air (1864 ) and Le droit au vol (1865 ). The Géant project convinced him that the future belonged to the projects that were heavier than air. Therefore, the Company " Société d' encouragement de la navigation aérienne au moyen du agricole plus que l'air " was founded in 1863, with Nadar as president and Verne as secretary. The aim of this society was to promote the construction of flying machines that were heavier than balloons, but could be controlled.
Became famous are also Nadar long exposures in the Paris catacombs and sewers.
To support his painter friends, he organized in 1874 in his studio, the first exhibition of Impressionist paintings, including paintings by Claude Monet, Edgar Degas, Camille Pissarro, Paul Cézanne.
In 1900 he published his memoirs: Quand j'étais photographe. He died in 1910 a few days before his 90th birthday.
His studio after his death in 1911 by his son Paul Nadar (* 1856 in Paris, † 1939 in Paris) continued. Nadar's negatives are now kept at the Caisse nationale des monuments historiques in Paris. His deductions and its archives are located in the French National Library. Nadar is on the Paris cemetery Père Lachaise ( Avenue des Acacias, Division 36) buried.
Honors
The prestigious French book prize, the Prix Nadar was named after him.
Photo Gallery
Atelier Nadar in Paris, around 1860. Recording Nadar
Portrait of Sarah Bernhardt 1860
Catacombs of Paris, 1861/62
Family Portrait of the Future painter Charles Crodel from the studio Nadar, Marseille 1905
Writings (selection )
- Quand j'étais étudiant (1856 )
- Le Miroir aux alouettes (1858 )
- La Robe de Déjanire (1862 )
- Histoire buissonnière (1877 )
- Sous l' incendie (1882 )
- Le Monde ou l' on patauge (1883 )
- Quand j'étais photographe ( 1900). German abridged version: Quand j'étais photographe - When I was a photographer. Huber, Frauenfeld 1978, ISBN 3-7193-0595-3.