Nadar
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Gaspard-Félix Tournachon ({{#invoke:IPA|main}}; 5 April 1820 – 20 March 1910<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref>), known by the pseudonym Nadar ({{#invoke:IPA|main}}) or Félix Nadar, was a French photographer, caricaturist, journalist, novelist, balloonist, and proponent of heavier-than-air flight. In 1858, he became the first person to take aerial photographs.<ref>Template:Cite magazine</ref>
Photographic portraits by Nadar are held by many of the great national collections of photographs. His son, Paul Nadar, continued the studio after his death.
LifeEdit
Gaspard-Félix Tournachon (also known as Nadar)<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> was born in early April 1820 in Paris,<ref name="Lambiek">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> though some sources state he was born in Lyon. His father, Victor Tournachon, was a printer and bookseller. Nadar began to study medicine but quit for economic reasons after his father's death.<ref name="archivesdefrance"/><ref name="Lambiek"/>
Nadar started working as a caricaturist and novelist for various newspapers. He fell in with the Parisian bohemian group of Gérard de Nerval, Charles Baudelaire, and Théodore de Banville. His friends picked a nickname for him, perhaps by a playful habit of adding "dar" to the end of words, Tournadar, which later became Nadar.<ref name="archivesdefrance">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> His work was published in Le Charivari for the first time in 1848. In 1849, he founded La Revue Comique à l'Usage des Gens Sérieux. He also edited Le Petit Journal pour Rire.<ref name="Lambiek"/>
From work as a caricaturist, he moved on to photography. He took his first photographs in 1853, and in 1854 opened a photographic studio at 113 rue St. Lazare.<ref name="archivesdefrance" /> In 1860 he moved to 35 Boulevard des Capucines. Nadar photographed a wide range of personalities: politicians (Guizot, Proudhon), stage actors (Sarah Bernhardt, Paulus), writers (Hugo, Baudelaire, Sand, Nerval, Gautier, Dumas), painters (Corot, Delacroix, Millet), and musicians (Liszt, Rossini, Offenbach, Verdi, Berlioz).<ref name="archivesdefrance"/> Portrait photography was going through a period of native industrialization, and Nadar refused to use the traditional sumptuous decors; he preferred natural daylight and despised what he considered to be unnecessary accessories. In 1886, with his son Paul, he did what may be the first photo-report: an interview with the great scientist Michel Eugène Chevreul, who at the time was 100 years old.<ref name="Chevreul">Template:Cite news</ref> It was published in Le Journal Illustré.<ref name="archivesdefrance"/>
In 1858, he became the first person to take aerial photographs. This was done using the wet plate collodion process, and since the plates had to be prepared and developed (a process that required a chemically neutral setting) while the basket was aloft, Nadar experienced imaging problems as gas escaped from his balloons. After Nadar invented a gas-proof cotton cover and draped it over his balloon baskets, he was able to capture stable images.<ref name="Holmes">Template:Cite book</ref>Template:Rp He also pioneered the use of artificial lighting in photography, working in the catacombs of Paris. He was thus the first person to photograph from the air with his balloons, as well as the first to photograph underground, in the Catacombs of Paris.<ref name="Lambiek"/> In 1867, he published the first magazine to focus on air travel: L'Aéronaute.<ref name="Lambiek"/>
- Honoré Daumier, Nadar élevant la Photographie à la hauteur de l'Art, 1862, NGA 42966.jpg
Nadar élevant la Photographie à la hauteur de l'Art ("Nadar elevating Photography to Art"). Lithograph by Honoré Daumier.
- Henry de Montaut, Petit, Catastrophe du ballons Le Géant. - La nacelle rasant le sol à Nieubourg (Hanovre). - D`après les renseignements fournis par M. Nadar. Gravure 1863.jpg
1863: Disaster with Le Géant at Neustadt am Rübenberge at Hanover. Illustration in a newspaper
In 1863, Nadar commissioned the prominent balloonist Eugène Godard to construct an enormous balloon, Template:Convert high and with a capacity of Template:Convert, and named Le Géant (The Giant).<ref name="Holmes"/>Template:Rp On his visit to Brussels with Le Géant, on 26 September 1864, Nadar erected mobile barriers to keep the crowd at a safe distance. Crowd control barriers are still known in Belgium as Nadar barriers.<ref name="Lambiek"/> Le Géant was badly damaged at the end of its second flight, but Nadar rebuilt the gondola and the envelope, and continued his flights. In 1867, he was able to take as many as a dozen passengers aloft at once, serving cold chicken and wine.<ref name="Hallion">Template:Cite book</ref>
For publicity, he recreated balloon flights in his studio with his wife, Ernestine, using a rigged-up balloon gondola.<ref>"Nadar with His Wife, Ernestine, in a Balloon", The Metropolitan Museum of Art.</ref> He stayed a passionate aeronaut until he and Ernestine were injured in an accident in Le Géant.<ref>"Nadar", Encyclopedia Britannica.</ref>
Le Géant (The Giant) inspired Jules Verne's Five Weeks in a Balloon. Nadar was the inspiration for the character of Michael Ardan in Verne's From the Earth to the Moon.<ref name="Holmes"/>Template:Rp<ref name="Luftmensch">Template:Cite news</ref><ref name="archivesdefrance"/> In 1862, Verne and Nadar established a Société pour la recherche de la navigation aérienne, which later became La Société d'encouragement de la locomotion aérienne au moyen du plus lourd que l'air (The Society for the Encouragement of Aerial Locomotion by Means of Heavier than Air Machines).<ref name="Hallion"/>Template:Rp Nadar served as president and Verne as secretary.<ref name="Miller">Template:Cite book</ref>
During the Siege of Paris in 1870–71, Nadar was instrumental in organising balloon flights carrying mail to reconnect the besieged Parisians with the rest of the world, thus establishing the world's first airmail service.<ref name="Holmes"/>Template:Rp<ref name="archivesdefrance"/><ref name="Hallion"/>
In April 1874, he lent his photo studio to a group of painters to present the first exhibition of the Impressionists.<ref name="Gersh-Nesic">Template:Cite journal</ref> He photographed Victor Hugo on his death-bed in 1885.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> He is credited with having published (in 1886) the first photo-interview (of famous chemist Michel Eugène Chevreul, then a centenarian).<ref name="Chevreul"/> His photographs of women are notable for their natural poses and individual character.<ref name="Hambourg">Template:Cite book</ref> Nadar was recognized for breaking the conventions of photographic portrait, choosing to capture the subjects as active participants.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>
As of 1 April 1895, Nadar turned over the Paris Nadar Studio to his son Paul. He moved to Marseille, where he established another photography studio in 1897. On 3 January 1909 he returned to Paris.<ref name="Nadar">Template:Cite book</ref>
Nadar died on 20 March 1910, aged 89. He was buried in Père Lachaise Cemetery in Paris. The studio continued under the direction of his son and long-term collaborator, Paul Nadar (1856–1939).<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>
WorksEdit
Towards the end of his life, Nadar published Quand j'étais photographe, which was translated into English and published by MIT Press in 2015. The book is full of both anecdotes and samples of his photography, including many portraits of recognizable names.<ref name="Guardian">Adam Begley, "The absurd life of Félix Nadar, French portraitist and human flight advocate", The Guardian, 23 December 2015.</ref><ref name="Begley">Template:Cite book</ref>
The painter Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres sent some of his clients to Nadar to have their photographs taken as studies for his paintings.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>
GalleryEdit
- JapaneseMissionAndNadarSon.JPG
Nadar's son (center) with Yatsu Kanshiro (left) and an unnamed samurai (right), photographed by Nadar. They were members of the Second Japanese Embassy to Europe in 1863.
- Dessin de Nadar 1850.jpg
Caricature of Balzac, 1850
- Charles Baudelaire.jpg
Charles Baudelaire, 1855
- Sarah Bernhardt, par Nadar, 1864, sepia.jpg
- Georges Ernest Boulanger by Atelier Nadar.jpg
- BRÉSIL, Marguerite Neurdein. Photo Nadar.jpg
- Maréchal Canrobert by Nadar.jpg
- Georges Clemenceau Nadar.jpg
- Atelier Nadar - Pierre Kropotkine.jpg
- Photograph of Gustave Doré by Nadar, between 1856 and 1858.jpg
Gustave Doré, between 1856 and 1858
- Charles Gounod (1890) by Nadar.jpg
Charles Gounod in 1890
- Elisabeth de Gramont - Nadar - 1889.jpg
Élisabeth de Gramont, 1889
- Franz Liszt by Nadar, March 1886.png
- Jean-François Millet by Nadar, Metropolitan Museum copy.jpg
- Naser al-Din Shah Qajar, close up, with slight smile by Nadar.jpg
Nasser al-Din Shah Qajar, king of Persia 1848–1896
- Édouard de Reszke by Nadar (BPL Hale Coll).jpg
- Séverine, debout, un poing sur la hanche - Nadar.jpg
- Pedro II of Brazil by Nadar.jpg
- Maria l'Antillaise, tenant un éventail - Nadar.jpg
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See alsoEdit
- Prix Nadar, French photojournalism prize given in Nadar's name
- Mononymous person, a person known with only one word
- Michel Ardan, a character from the 1865 novel From the Earth to the Moon who was inspired by Nadar
ReferencesEdit
External linksEdit
- Template:Gutenberg author
- Template:Internet Archive author
- 1867 Caricature of Nadar by André Gill
- Article about Nadar by Bruce Sterling
- Article about Nadar by Roger Cicala
- Fostinum: Nadar numerous photographs by Nadar
- Gaspard-Félix Tournachon Nadar at the National Gallery of Victoria (NGV), Melbourne, Australia
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