Pierre Trémaux (20 July 1818 – 12 March 1895) was a French architect, Orientalist photographer and author of numerous scientific and

ethnographic Ethnography (from Greek ''ethnos'' "folk, people, nation" and ''grapho'' "I write") is a branch of anthropology and the systematic study of individual cultures. Ethnography explores cultural phenomena from the point of view of the subject ...

publications.

Life and career

Very little is known about Pierre Trémaux's life. He was born in Charrecey, France, into a family of modest means. He was the son of Jean-Marie Trémaux, a farmer and Claudine Renaudin, and had at least two sisters. Details of his final years are very sketchy and no details of his death and final resting place are known. Trémaux distinguished himself in many fields. He entered the

École des Beaux-Arts École des Beaux-Arts (; ) refers to a number of influential art schools in France. The term is associated with the Beaux-Arts style in architecture and city planning that thrived in France and other countries during the late nineteenth centur ...

in 1840 and received the second

Prix de Rome The Prix de Rome () or Grand Prix de Rome was a French scholarship for arts students, initially for painters and sculptors, that was established in 1663 during the reign of Louis XIV of France. Winners were awarded a bursary that allowed them t ...

in Architecture in 1845. As a trained architect, he worked at the Schneider establishments in

Le Creusot Le Creusot () is a commune and industrial town in the Saône-et-Loire department, region of Bourgogne-Franche-Comté, eastern France. The inhabitants are known as Creusotins. Formerly a mining town, its economy is now dominated by metallurgic ...

. He was interested in

urbanism Urbanism is the study of how inhabitants of urban areas, such as towns and cities, interact with the built environment. It is a direct component of disciplines such as urban planning, which is the profession focusing on the physical design and ...

and the construction of the Suez Canal in

Egypt Egypt ( ar, مصر , ), officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, is a transcontinental country spanning the northeast corner of Africa and southwest corner of Asia via a land bridge formed by the Sinai Peninsula. It is bordered by the Medit ...

. Interested in natural history, he traveled to

Algeria ) , image_map = Algeria (centered orthographic projection).svg , map_caption = , image_map2 = , capital = Algiers , coordinates = , largest_city = capital , relig ...

Tunisia ) , image_map = Tunisia location (orthographic projection).svg , map_caption = Location of Tunisia in northern Africa , image_map2 = , capital = Tunis , largest_city = capital , ...

Upper Egypt Upper Egypt ( ar, صعيد مصر ', shortened to , , locally: ; ) is the southern portion of Egypt and is composed of the lands on both sides of the Nile that extend upriver from Lower Egypt in the north to Nubia in the south. In ancient E ...

, Sudan and

Ethiopia Ethiopia, , om, Itiyoophiyaa, so, Itoobiya, ti, ኢትዮጵያ, Ítiyop'iya, aa, Itiyoppiya officially the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia, is a landlocked country in the Horn of Africa. It shares borders with Eritrea to the ...

in 1847–1848, where he made many drawings and was one of the first persons to produce

photographic image A photograph (also known as a photo, image, or picture) is an image created by light falling on a photosensitive surface, usually photographic film or an electronic image sensor, such as a CCD or a CMOS chip. Most photographs are now create ...

s of these regions. From

Alexandria Alexandria ( or ; ar, ٱلْإِسْكَنْدَرِيَّةُ ; grc-gre, Αλεξάνδρεια, Alexándria) is the second largest city in Egypt, and the largest city on the Mediterranean coast. Founded in by Alexander the Great, Alexandri ...

, he traveled up the

Nile The Nile, , Bohairic , lg, Kiira , Nobiin: Áman Dawū is a major north-flowing river in northeastern Africa. It flows into the Mediterranean Sea. The Nile is the longest river in Africa and has historically been considered the longest ...

Nubia Nubia () (Nobiin: Nobīn, ) is a region along the Nile river encompassing the area between the first cataract of the Nile (just south of Aswan in southern Egypt) and the confluence of the Blue and White Niles (in Khartoum in central Sudan), or ...

. In 1853–1854, he undertook a second photographic trip to Libya, Egypt, Asia Minor, Tunisia, Syria and Greece. Having spent seven years in the region, he returned from these trips with many illustrations and photographic images, some of the first photographs ever made of the region and its people.

Work

Photography

With 21 photographs and 56 lithographs made after his photos, relatively few have survived, and their condition is poor. According to Chief Curator of Photography at the Israel Museum,

Nissan N. Perez Dr. Nissan Nisso Perez (born December 18, 1946) is a photography historian, researcher and curator. From 1977 until 2013, Perez was Chief Curator of the Noel and Harriette Levine Department of Photography at the Israel Museum, Israel Museum, Jerusa ...

, his photographs "reveal that Trémaux had an interest in

anthropological Anthropology is the scientific study of humanity, concerned with human behavior, human biology, cultures, societies, and linguistics, in both the present and past, including past human species. Social anthropology studies patterns of behav ...

photography, and, had he succeeded, it might have been a most important survey of Oriental types and customs, and not, as it is today, a mere gallery of curiosities." Nevertheless, his published works, such as the ''Voyages'' series of 1852 to 1862, were the first books on Egypt, Sudan, Palestine and other Middle Eastern regions with illustrations based on photographs by the author.

Theory of evolution

Trémaux is also the author of a work that caused a sensation at the 1867 Universal Exhibition in Paris: ''Origine et transformations de l'homme et des autres êtres '' (translated as ''Origin and transformations of Man and other beings''), 1865. In this book he proposed, for the first time in history, the evolutionary theory that today is referred to as the theory of punctuated equilibria.

Publications

Between 1852 and 1868, Trémaux produced a number of distinct groups of photographic plates to accompany texts on the geography, architecture, and people of regions in Africa and Asia Minor. Produced with the support of the French government, these high quality publications combined an array of graphic techniques in ways that had not previously been attempted. His surviving images are salted paper prints,

engraving Engraving is the practice of incising a design onto a hard, usually flat surface by cutting grooves into it with a burin. The result may be a decorated object in itself, as when silver, gold, steel, or glass are engraved, or may provide an in ...

s, tinted and colour lithographs and

photolithograph In integrated circuit manufacturing, photolithography or optical lithography is a general term used for techniques that use light to produce minutely patterned thin films of suitable materials over a substrate, such as a silicon wafer, to protec ...

s.Addleman-Frankel, K., "The Experience of Elsewhere: Photography in the Travelogues of Pierre Trémaux," '' Photographies,'' Vol. 11, No. 1, 2018, pp 31–56, DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/17540763.2017.1399287 Articles * "Notice d’un voyage sur le cours du Nil et dans des parties inconnues du Soudan, chez les nègres Bertha, du Darfok et du Dar-Gourum," ''Bulletin de la Société de Géographie,'' 1849, sèr., 12 pp 67–72 * "Notes sur la localité ou sont situées les principales mines d’or du Soudan oriental, et observations critiques sur le récit du Colonel Kovalevski relatif à cette même contrée." ''Bulletin de la Société de Géographie,'' 1850, sér. 13 (73–78) * "Quelques détails sur les prétendus hommes à queue," ''Bulletin de la Société de Géographie,'' 1855, 4e sér., 9 (49–54), p. 139-148 * "Épisode d’un voyage au Soudan oriental et remarques sur l’esclavage," ''Bulletin de la Société de Géographie,'' 1856, 4e sér., 11 (61–66), p. 153-164 * "Remarques sur l’Afrique centrale et orientale," ''Bulletin de la Société de Géographie,'' 1862, 5e sér., 3 (13–18), p. 69-86 et 147–165 Books * ''Parallèle des édifices anciens et modernes du continent africain, illustré de 82 planches et une carte de l'Afrique Centrale,'' 1858 * ''Dessinés et relevés de 1847 à 1854 dans l'Algerie, les régences de Tunis et de Tripoli, l'Égypte, la Nubie, les déserts, l'île de Méroé, le Sennar, le Fa-Zogle, etc.'' * ''Exploration archéologique en Asie mineure, illustré de 92 planches,'' 1864 * ''Voyage en Éthiopie, au Soudan Oriental et dans la Nigritie, atlas illustré de 61 planches,'' Hachette, 1852 * ''Voyage en Éthiopie, au Soudan Oriental et dans la Nigritie, Vol 1: Égypte et Éthiopie, textes de l'Atlas,'' Hachette, 1862 * ''Voyage en Éthiopie, au Soudan Oriental et dans la Nigritie, Vol. 2: Le Soudan, textes de l'Atlas,'' Hachette, 1862. * ''Origine et transformations de l'homme et des autres êtres,'' Hachette, 1865 * ''Principe universel de la vie, de tout mouvement et de l'état de la matière,'' Chez l'auteur, 1868, 1874, 1876 * ''Origine des espèces et de l'homme avec les causes de fixité et de transformation et principe universel du mouvement et de la vie ou loi des transmissions de force,'' 1898

References

This article includes material translated from the French Wikipedia, :fr:Pierre Trémaux

Bibliography

* Pierre Trémaux, in François Pouillon (ed.), ''Dictionnaire des orientalistes de langue française'', Paris, IISMM & Karthala, 2008, pp. 940 – 941, * "Comptes-rendus de la Société de Géographie à Paris de 1850 à 1897" (online on Gallica). * Nicolas Le Guern, "L'Égypte et ses premiers photographes : étude des différentes techniques et du matériel utilisés de 1839 à 1869", 2001

External links

Origine et transformations de l'homme et des autres êtres (Hachette, 1865)
available on Google books {{DEFAULTSORT:Tremaux, Pierre 1818 births 1895 deaths 19th-century French architects 19th-century French photographers Architectural photographers Chevaliers of the Légion d'honneur French ethnographers French orientalists Landscape photographers People from Saône-et-Loire Pioneers of photography Prix de Rome for architecture Proto-evolutionary biologists Punctuated equilibrium Expatriate photographers in Sudan Expatriate photographers in Egypt