Alois Auer (11 May 1813 – 10 July 1869) was an Austrian printer, inventor and botanical illustrator, most active during the 1840s and 1850s. He produced a number of works in German and other languages, including the first regarding the nature printing process. He was the director of the Austrian state's official printing house (''Hof- und Staatsdruckerei''), which created illustrated volumes of scientific interest and produced many advances in printing technology. His full name in later life, incorporating the Austrian
hereditary knighthood that he was given in 1860, was Alois
Ritter
Ritter (German for "knight") is a designation used as a title of nobility in German-speaking areas. Traditionally it denotes the second-lowest rank within the nobility, standing above "Edler" and below "Freiherr" (Baron). As with most titles an ...
Auer von Welsbach.
Life and career
Born in the Austrian city of
Wels
Wels (; Central Bavarian: ''Wös'') is a city in Upper Austria, on the Traun River near Linz. It is the county seat of Wels-Land, and with a population of approximately 60,000, the eighth largest city in Austria.
Geography
Wels is in the H ...
, Auer was trained as a compositor. In his leisure moments, he studied French, Italian, English and other languages, in which he underwent an examination in 1835 and 1836 at the
University of Vienna
The University of Vienna (german: Universität Wien) is a public research university located in Vienna, Austria. It was founded by Duke Rudolph IV in 1365 and is the oldest university in the German-speaking world. With its long and rich histor ...
. Auer's early career began in October 1837 with an appointment as professor of Italian at a
gymnasium in
Linz
Linz ( , ; cs, Linec) is the capital of Upper Austria and third-largest city in Austria. In the north of the country, it is on the Danube south of the Czech border. In 2018, the population was 204,846.
In 2009, it was a European Capital of ...
. He acquired fluency in other languages during his travels in Germany, Switzerland, France and England; that trip began in 1839.
Auer studied the typographical techniques that he would use when he became director of the printing office of the
Viennese Viennese may refer to:
* Vienna, the capital of Austria
* Viennese people, List of people from Vienna
* Viennese German, the German dialect spoken in Vienna
* Music of Vienna, musical styles in the city
* Viennese Waltz, genre of ballroom dance
* V ...
court in 1841. The ornamental typefaces that he implemented allowed greater flexibility in printing, and the enterprise was to become highly successful, meeting the requirements of 500 European dialects (exclusive of those Russian, Turkish and Hebrew) and almost 150 languages of the world. Under his management, the Imperial printing office became one of the largest establishments of its kind in Europe. He remained there until 1868.
The first published work on '
nature printing' (German:
''Naturselbstdruck'') was ''The Discovery of the Nature Printing-Process'' (1853). In this, he detailed the use of actual plant material, rocks and lace, impressed upon lead or into gum, to demonstrate what he saw as a major advance in the productions of botanical works. His intention was to produce 'artistical-scientific objects', while greatly reducing the problems of producing herbaries and other works of natural history. Another illustrator,
Henry Bradbury
Henry Riley Bradbury (20 September 1829 Wingrove Place, Clerkenwell – 1860) was an English writer on printing.
Works
Bradbury is known for his book ''The Ferns of Great Britain and Ireland'' with author Thomas Moore and editor John Lindley pub ...
, began producing work by a similar process after seeing Auer's invention.
The interest in the natural sciences, physics and languages was met by publications that included his own works. The various printing processes and an extensive history of the ''Staatsdruckerei'' state printing house itself.
Apart from the volumes and plates produced by the nature printing process, he also produced some of the earliest books to incorporate photographs. The publication of
photomicrography
A micrograph or photomicrograph is a photograph or digital image taken through a microscope or similar device to show a magnified image of an object. This is opposed to a macrograph or photomacrograph, an image which is also taken on a mi ...
is given to be the first.
![Alois Auer- polygraphische](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/86/Alois_Auer-_polygraphische.jpeg)
He invented a 'typometrical' system, facilitating the use of a large number of foreign alphabets with ornamental type to be used in printing. This was described in his work ''Der polygraphische Apparat der Wiener k.k. Hof- und Staatsdruckerei'' ("The Polygraphical Apparatus of the Viennese
Imperial–royal Court and State Printer").
Auer's directorship at the Royal and State Printing oversaw many advances in automatic high-speed press,
copperplate press, and new
typographical
Typography is the art and technique of arranging type to make written language legible, readable and appealing when displayed. The arrangement of type involves selecting typefaces, point sizes, line lengths, line-spacing (leading), and ...
processes. In Vienna in 1858, Auer patented a
web press
Offset printing is a common printing technique in which the inked image is transferred (or "offset") from a plate to a rubber blanket and then to the printing surface. When used in combination with the lithographic process, which is based on ...
that printed newspapers from a continuous roll of paper; the press was developed in the United States by
William Bullock five years later.
Auer lectured in languages, and later took up the directorship of the Austrian state's porcelain factory.
Family
![Auer von Welsbach family grave, Vienna, 2017](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/ae/Auer_von_Welsbach_family_grave%2C_Vienna%2C_2017.jpg)
He was the father of
Carl Auer von Welsbach
Carl Auer von Welsbach (1 September 1858 – 4 August 1929), who received the Austrian noble title of Freiherr Auer von Welsbach in 1901, was an Austrian scientist and inventor, who separated didymium into the elements neodymium and praseody ...
(1858–1929), the Austrian scientist.
Works
Besides the works mentioned above, he produced ''Die Sprachenhalle oder das Vaterunser in 608 Sprachen'' (English: The Hall of Languages or the
Our Father
The Lord's Prayer, also called the Our Father or Pater Noster, is a central Christian prayer which Jesus taught as the way to pray. Two versions of this prayer are recorded in the gospels: a longer form within the Sermon on the Mount in the Gosp ...
in 608 languages), with Roman types (1844); and ''Das Vaterunser in 206 Sprachen'' (English: The Lord's Prayer in 206 languages), with their national alphabets (1847).
See also
*
Auer (surname) Auer ("someone living by a water meadow .html" ;"title="/nowiki>">/nowiki>/nowiki>" in German, "haze" in Finnish) is a surname. Notable people with the surname include:
* Alois Auer (1813–1869), Austrian printer, inventor and botanical illustrat ...
References
*Transcription of article from the 'Universal German Biography' by
Karl Karmarsch
Karl Karmarsch (17 October 1803 – 24 March 1879) was an Austrian-born (since 1830) German educator, founding director of the Polytechnic School in Hanover, later to become the University of Hannover.
From 1817 to 1823, he was associated with t ...
(German language). Artikel "Auer, Alois“ aus: Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie, herausgegeben von der Historischen Kommission bei der Bayrischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, Band 1, ab Seite 637, Digitale Volltext-Ausgabe i
Wikisource URL: http://de.wikisource.org/w/index.php?title=ADB:Auer%2C_Alois&oldid=124946 (Version vom 2. September 2007, 02:01 Uhr UTC)
*
*
*
* German text article http://www.zeno.org/Schmidt-1902/K/schmid-1902-001-0014.png
*
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External links
alois-auer.com
{{DEFAULTSORT:Auer, Alois
19th-century Austrian people
Printers
Botanical illustrators
Pioneers of photography
Austrian knights
People from Wels
1813 births
1869 deaths
19th-century Austrian painters
19th-century male artists
Austrian male painters