Maxime Du Camp

(b Paris, 8 Feb 1822; d Baden-Baden, 9 Feb 1894). French photographer and writer. He was from a wealthy background, and he learnt calotype photography from Gustave Le Gray and Alexis de Lagrange. In 1849 he was sent by the Minist?re de l'Instruction Publique on a mission to the Middle East to record the monuments and inscriptions. He undertook the trip (1849-51) with his friend the writer Gustave Flaubert, and during his travels he used a modified calotype process imparted to him by Alexis de Lagrange. He brought back c. 200 pictures from Egypt and some from Jerusalem and Baalbek. The album Egypte, Nubie, Palestine et Syrie: Dessins photographiques recueillis pendant les ann?es 1849, 1850, 1851, accompagn?s d'un texte explicatif et pr?c?d?s d'une introduction was published by Gide and Baudry in 1852-4 (copy in Paris, Bib. Inst.; prints in Paris, Mus. d'Orsay; Paris, Bib. N.; Paris, Inst. G?og. N.). It contains 125 calotypes printed by Louis-D?sir? Blanquart-Evrard, and it was the first printed work in France to be illustrated with photographs. It thus ushered in a new type of book and was a great success.

See the Abbreviations for further details.

Du Camp, Maxime (1822-94), French writer who, with his close friend Gustave Flaubert, made a classic journey to the Middle East lasting from the autumn of 1849 to the spring of 1851. The odyssey that took them from Egypt to Turkey via Palestine and Syria is well documented in their letters and subsequent writings. Apart from its literary significance, it represents the earliest attempt to create a survey of antiquities using the paper-negative process. Before leaving, Du Camp had learned the calotype technique from Gustave Le Gray. This was fashionable among the French intellectual and artistic elite at the end of the 1840s, and the ambitious young man hoped to raise the expedition's profile by proposing to make a photographic survey of major monuments for the Académie des Inscriptions et Belles Lettres. This official mission explains the markedly documentary character of his architectural vision. He made 220 paper negatives, mostly in Egypt, which constituted his entire photographic oeuvre. One hundred and twenty-five prints were made, and in 1852 issued in albums by the Lille publisher Blanquart-Évrard. They were preceded by an introduction by Du Camp, assisted by the Egyptologist Émile Prisse d'Avesnes. All 200 copies sold immediately, notwithstanding their high price. Du Camp, noticed by Napoleon III, received the Légion d'honneur. The albums were acquired by major public and private libraries, and by artists such as Eugène Fromentin, Gustave Moreau, and Auguste Bartholdi.

— Sylvie Aubenas

Bibliography

• Aubenas, S., and Lacarrière, J., Voyage en Orient (1999)

Du Camp, Maxime (1822-94). French journalist, writer, and early photographer, for around 10 years close friend of Flaubert. In 1847 the two men produced alternate chapters of Par les champs et par les grèves: they travelled together in the Middle East from 1849 to 1851. Du Camp's photographic record, Égypte, Nubie, Palestine et Syrie, was published in 1852. He was an editor of La Revue de Paris (in which Madame Bovary first appeared in serial form) and of La Revue des deux mondes. He produced a novel (Forces perdues, 1867), political memoirs (Souvenirs de l'année 1848, 1876; Les Convulsions de Paris, 1878-9), and the better-known Souvenirs littéraires (1881-2).

[Diana Knight]

Bust of Maxime Du Camp.

Stele of Karnak, Egypt, about 1850 taken by Du Camp

French literature
By category
French literary history
Medieval 16th century · 17th century 18th century · 19th century 20th century · Contemporary
French writers
Chronological list Writers by category Novelists · Playwrights Poets · Essayists Short story writers
France portal
Literature portal This box: view • talk • edit

Maxime Du Camp (8 February 1822 – 9 February 1894) was a French writer and photographer.

Life

Born in Paris, Du Camp was the son of a successful surgeon. After finishing college, he indulged in his strong desire for travel, thanks to his father's assets. Du Camp traveled in Europe and the East between 1844 and 1845, and again between 1849 and 1851 in company with Gustave Flaubert. After his return, Du Camp wrote about his traveling experiences.

In 1851, Du Camp became a founder of the Revue de Paris (suppressed in 1858), and a frequent contributor to the Revue des deux mondes. In 1853, he became an officer of the Legion of Honour. Serving as a volunteer with Garibaldi in his 1860 conquest of the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies, Du Camp recounted his experiences in Expédition des deux Siciles (1861). In 1870 he was nominated for the senate, but his election was frustrated by the downfall of the Empire. He was elected a member of the French Academy in 1880, mainly, it is said, on account of his history of the Commune, published under the title of Les Convulsions de Paris (1878-1880).

Du Camp was an early amateur photographer whose travel books were among the first to be illustrated with photographs.

Maxime Du Camp died in 1894 and was buried in the Cimetière de Montmartre in the Montmartre Quarter of Paris.

Writings

• Chants modernes (1855)
• Convictions (1858)

Works on travel:

• Souvenirs et paysages d'orient (1848)
• Egypte, Nubie, Palestine, Syrie (1852)

Works of art criticism:

• Les Salons de 1857, 1859, 1861

Novels:

• L'Homme au bracelet d'or (1862)
• Une histoire d'amour (1889)

Literary studies:

• Théophile Gautier (1890)

Du Camp authored a valuable book on the daily life of Paris, Paris, ses organes, ses fonctions, sa vie dans la seconde moitié du XIX siècle (1869-1875). He published several works on social questions, one of which, the Auteurs de mon temps, was to be kept sealed in the Bibliothèque Nationale until 1910. His Souvenirs littéraires (2 vols., 188 21883) contain much information about contemporary writers, especially Gustave Flaubert, of whom Du Camp was an early and intimate friend.

References

• This article incorporates text from the Encyclopædia Britannica, Eleventh Edition, a publication now in the public domain.

Cultural offices
Preceded by René Taillandier	Seat 33 Académie française 1880-1894	Succeeded by Paul Bourget

This article about a French artist is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it. v • d • e

This article about a photographer is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it. v • d • e

This entry is from Wikipedia, the leading user-contributed encyclopedia. It may not have been reviewed by professional editors (see full disclaimer)