If you like the history of photography, surely one of the curious facts you have in your memory is that the first photograph was taken by Joseph Nicéphore Niépce from the window of his house. In the museum of the University of Texas where it is preserved they have changed the discourse and tell us another way of seeing reality.
In any photography history book, you will have seen the famous photograph from Niepce’s window. And surely you know all the anecdotes that are told about her. We are left with the consolation that they are all true, yes.
Until quite recently the famous ‘View from the window at Le Gras’ was considered the first photograph in history. It is dated and documented in 1826, thirteen years before the official presentation of the daguerreotype.
Always has been the origin of all this madness, the perfect example of the investigation of a man who fought to the death to fix reality, steal from time, as he himself pompously put it.
But if we search the networks we will find (in this case thanks to @ramonpeco) an interesting article from the Ramson Center, an internationally renowned humanities research center at the University of Texas at Austin. This is where this unique work is exhibited, in every way.
AND they themselves have changed the role of this blueprint in history. They recognize that it is not the first in history, but the first preserved. And they make us see that photography has a much longer journey and is open to interpretation than many thought.
‘View from the window at Le Gras’ and its role in history
Joseph Nicéphore Niépce was a bourgeois researcher who had all the time in the world to try to solve a problem that plagued many scientists since time immemorial. The camera obscura was known for a long time. And it was used for painting, observing stellar phenomena and so on.
But no one had managed to fix the image projected on the opposite wall of the lens. There has been a record of many failed experiments for a long time and there is doubt about who is the first to do it … But the official story, until very recently, is the one told by British collectors and historians Helmut and Alison Gernsheim.
Let’s wait a bit to find out the role of marriage, authors of the famous ‘The History of Photography from the Camera Obscura to the Beginning of the Modern Era’ …
The history of photography
I wanted to fix the images that I saw with the camera obscura that painters usedSo he began to experiment on his family’s farm until he came up with the magic formula that would allow him to contemplate the result after removing the material from the famous box.
We do not know if he did it for a commercial vision or for a personal challenge. Already in 1816 he managed to keep the image for a while but it was not until the following decade that he achieved what he called heliography (solar writing):
he dissolved light-sensitive bitumen in lavender oil and applied a thin layer to a polished pewter plate. He inserted the plate into a darkroom and placed it near a window in his second-floor workroom. After several days of exposure to sunlight, the plate produced an impression of the patio, the outbuildings and the trees outside. Writing about his process in December 1827, Niépce acknowledged that it required further improvement, but that it was nevertheless “the first uncertain step in an entirely new direction.”
As stated in their diaries, the exposure he made from a room window lasted exactly 8 hours and 10 minutes. For this reason we contemplate shadows on both sides of the image (due to the movement of the earth). The most curious thing is that it must be recognized that it is an underexposed image and that it would have needed more time …
Pewter is an alloy Composed of tin, copper, antimony and lead and by the action of the Judean bitumen (it is known that the original that had been known since the time of the Egyptians did not use) on this material a direct positive was achieved:
The plate that carried the bitumen image of Judea was immersed in an acid bath that attacked the metal in the places where it was discovered, that is, those that corresponded to the lines of the drawing. Indeed, bitumen varnish is impermeable to acid, which prevents it from reaching the support. Once the lines were etched into the metal, the inventor removed the bitumen varnish from the plate, to save the metal plate with the engraved drawing.
The passage from photography to history
Earlier we talked about the Gernsheim marriage. They were the ones who sold that this blueprint was the first image in history. It was part of the collection that they had been nurturing since 1937 with the works of the pioneers.
When they found this underexposed essay by Niepce, they felt they finally had the first photograph ever. And so they were in charge of promoting it in the exhibitions they organized and in their books.
They were the ones who sold that this blueprint was the first image in history. It was part of the collection that they had been nurturing since 1937 with the works of the pioneers.
And almost everyone took the story for granted. There was no room for theories. They found the blueprint in 1952, carefully copied it with the help of the arch-powerful Kodak and released it to the world as the pioneer.
In 1963 the University of Texas bought the marriage collection. And they incorporated Niepce’s photography as one of their most precious treasures.
Everything changed in 2019, when they reorganized the museum’s collections, the aforementioned Ramson Center’s. And they decided to investigate, advance and improve the explanation of the past. It is no longer presented as ‘The first photograph’.
Now it is presented as ‘The Niépce Heliograph’ and instead of taking things for granted, they raise a lot of questions. Is now
the oldest known surviving photograph produced in the camera obscura.
It is the oldest preserved, not the first to be made. And they recognize that older images can appear at any time. You just have to look in the most remote places and pray that it is well preserved. Although it is probably lost forever …
Now we can see it in a permanent exhibition inside the Harry Ransom Center. Someday I would love to go, but in the meantime, I will continue to see her in books as living proof of the human ingenuity of those years.