Hércules Florence

Source: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
Hércules Florence
portrait circa 1870
Born
Antoine Hercule Romuald Florence

(1804-02-29)29 February 1804
Nice, France
Died27 March 1879(1879-03-27) (aged 75)
Campinas, Brazil
Occupations
  • Inventor
  • photographer
Known for
  • Pioneering photography
  • Earliest use of the word "photography"
Spouses
  • Maria Angélica Vasconcellos (1830–1850)
  • Carolina Krug (1854–1879)
Children
  • 13 (with Maria Angélica)
  • 7 (with Carolina)

Antoine Hercule Romuald Florence (February 29, 1804 – March 27, 1879) was a Monegasque-Brazilian painter and inventor, known as the isolate inventor of photography in Brazil, three years before

Daguerre (but six years after Nicéphore Niépce)[1], using the matrix negative/positive, still in use. According to Kossoy, who examined Florence's notes,[2] he referred to his process, in French, as photographie in 1834, at least four years before John Herschel
coined the English word photography.

Early life

Hercules Florence was born on February 29, 1804

calligrapher and draftsman in Monaco, where his parents had been living since 1807.[4]

After a period of wandering and working on board of

lithographer in a bookstore and printing shop, owned by his compatriot Pierre Plancher.[5]

The great expedition

Sugar cane mill in São Carlos, 1840

Florence's life changed dramatically when he decided to respond to a newspaper advertisement put by

Santos. Florence eventually published his memoirs of the expedition in Voyage fluvial du Tieté à l'Amazone.[6]

Businessman and inventor

Soon after the end of the expedition, in 1830, Florence married Maria Angélica de Vasconcellos, the daughter of his acquaintance and benefactor Francisco Álvares Machado, and went to live with her in the city of

Jundiai
after Hercule's death. He fathered a total of 20 children, being 13 with Maria Angélica and 7 with Carolina.

Photocopy of a diploma made using Florence's photographic technique, ca. 1833

Soon after settling in Campinas, Hércules Florence began a prolific career as inventor and businessman. During the Langsdorff expedition, he had developed a new system of using

bank notes.[7]

In 1832, with the help of a pharmacist friend, Joaquim Correa de Mello, Florence began to study ways of permanently fixing camera obscura images, which he named "photographia". In 1833, they settled on silver nitrate on paper, a combination which had been the subject of experiments by Thomas Wedgwood around the year 1800. Unlike Wedgwood, who was unable to make photographs of real-world scenes with his camera or render the photograms that he did produce light-fast, Florence's notebooks indicate that he eventually succeeded in doing both.[8] Unfortunately, partly because he never published his invention adequately, partly because he was an obscure inventor living in a remote and undeveloped province, Hércules Florence was never recognized internationally as one of the inventors of photography. He died in Campinas, Brazil.[9]

A photographic image of several pharmaceutical flask labels, produced by Hercules Florence in

silver salts to light".[10]

Cultural references

A film documentary, featuring Adriana Florence, a grand-grand-granddaughter of Hércules Florence living in Campinas, Brazil, has been made by the Discovery Channel and retraces part of the Baron von Langsdorff expedition's itinerary. It also visited the St. Petersburg's Langsdorff museum collections. The director was Mauricio Dias.

Bibliography

  • Florence, Hércules. Voyage fluvial du Tieté à l'Amazone, published in Portuguese as Viagem Fluvial do Tietê ao Amazonas. Hércules Florence, Brazilian edition with translation by Francisco Álvares Machado and Vasconcellos Florence, Museu de Arte de São Paulo Assis Chateaubriand, 1977.
  • Vieillard, J.: A Zoophonia de Hercule Florence. Editora da Universidade de Mato Grosso, Cuiabá, 1993.
  • William Luret: "Les trois vies d'Hercule Florence", éditions JC Lattès, Paris 2001
  • Kossoy, Boris: "Hercules Florence, o pioneiro da fotografia no Brasil",O Estado de S.Paulo, Suplemento Literário,São Paulo,1973.
  • Kossoy, Boris: Hercule Florence: "Pioneer of photography in Brazil", Image, 20 (1) Rochester, International Museum of Photography at George Eastman House, March 1977.
  • Kossoy, Boris: The pioneering photographic work of Hercule Florence, New York/London, Routledge, 2018.
  • Kossoy, Boris: Hercule Florence: A descoberta isolada da fotografia no Brasil, 3ed., Editora da Universidade de São Paulo - Edusp, São Paulo, 2006 (1st ed. 1977).
  • Kossoy, Boris: Hercule Florence: La découverte isolée de la photographie au Brésil, Paris, l'Harmattan, 2017.
  • Kossoy, Boris: Hercule Florence: el descubrimiento aislado de la fotografía, Madrid, Cátedra Ed., 2017.
  • Kossoy, Boris: Hercule Florence: die entdeckung der fotografie in Brasilien, Vienna, Lit Verlag, 2015.
  • "Sobre". Instituto Hercule Florence [pt]. Retrieved 8 September 2022.
  • Wanderley, Andrea (7 March 2018). "O francês Hercule Florence (1804 – 1879), inventor de um dos primeiros métodos de fotografia do mundo". Brasiliana Fotográfica [pt]. Retrieved 8 September 2022.

References

  1. ^ "Hercule Florence. Le Nouveau Robinson". Nouveau Museé National de Monaco (in French). Retrieved April 17, 2024.
  2. ISBN 968-03-0020-X
    .
  3. ^ John Hannavy (ed.), Encyclopedia of nineteenth-century photography: A-I, index, Volume 1, Routledge, 2008, p. 536.
  4. ^ "About Hercule Florence". Hercule Florence Institute. Retrieved April 17, 2024.
  5. ^ "One of Photography's Earliest Inventors Had an Ingenious Trick to Stop His Images From Over-Developing, Scholars Say". Artnet. Retrieved April 17, 2024.
  6. ^ "Hercules Florence, Inventor of Photographia". ArtForum. Retrieved April 17, 2024.
  7. ^ "Hercule Florence". Enciclopédia Itaú Cultural (in Brazilian Portuguese). Retrieved April 17, 2024.
  8. ^ "Hercule Florence". Google Arts and Culture (in Brazilian Portuguese). Retrieved April 17, 2024.
  9. ^ "Hercule Florence". Instituto Moreira Salles (in Brazilian Portuguese). Retrieved April 17, 2024.
  10. ^ "Hercule Florence – Apresentação". Instituto Moreira Salles. Retrieved Jan. 17, 2018. (in Portuguese)

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Hércules Florence.
Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Hércules_Florence&oldid=1219488697"