Biography
By Christelle Odoux on Saturday, November 6 2010, 08:50 - Editos - Permalink
Photographer, teacher and artist, Emile Reynaud is known as the inventor of the Praxinoscope, of the Optical Theater and as the creator of the firsts animated cartoons. He was one of the pioneers of cinema.
October 28 was proclaimed International Animation Day by the International Association of Animated Films (ASIFA), to commemorate the first public performance by Emile Reynaud of « Pantomimes lumineuses » with the Optical Theater at the Musée Grevin, in Paris in 1892.
Charles-Émile Reynaud was born on December 8, 1844 in Montreuil-sous-Bois (France). His father, Benoît-Claude-Brutus Reynaud was a medal engraver, and his mother, Marie-Caroline Bellanger was a schoolteacher. His parents took care of his education. From his father he learned precision mechanics, and his mother taught him to draw and paint.
In 1858 he held an apprenticeship into Gaiffe's in Paris, where he worked to repair, assemble and develop optical and physics instruments, before going to Artige & Co., where he learned industrial drawing. Then he worked as an operator at the portraitist Adam-Salomon, where he did photographic retouching, and then moved to Paris as a photographer.
In 1864, he attended public scientific lectures by light projections from Abbot Moigno. He became his assistant and learned the profession of lecturer. At the same time, he participated in the illustrations of the general dictionary of the theoretical and applied sciences, published in 1870, by the French professor and naturalist Adolphe Focillon. Also under his leadership he took stereoscopic pictures of the families of plant life.
After the death of his father in 1865, Emile Reynaud moved with his mother to Le Puy-en-Velay, where the family found its origines. He completed his training and his scientific study with the encouragement of Dr. Claude-Auguste Reynaud, a cousin of his father. He acquired solid knowledge of botany, zoology, astronomy and physics.
In 1873, Abbot Moigno called on him to do a series of lectures about photography in the "Progrès" Hall in Paris. These conferences couldn't be go on and Emile Reynaud had to come back to Le Puy-en-Velay where the city decided to light projected lessons about science to the students of the Industrial Schools of Puy and the general public. These lessons were orchestrated by Emile Reynaud whose numerous experiments projected on the big screen secured him success with the audience.
It was in Le Puy-en-Velay in 1876 that he developed his optical toy, the Praxinoscope. In December 1877, he returned to Paris to assemble and market his praxinoscopes.
He married Margueritte Rémiatte October 21, 1879 in Paris. They had two sons, Paul (1880) and Andre (1882).
He continued to develop his Praxinoscope, into the Praxinoscope-Theatre (with a decor) and then to the Projection-Praxinoscope (projection on a screen). But these machines only reproduced a cyclical movement, limited to 12 frames. Finally, in 1888, Emile Reynaud developed the Optical Theatre used to project to the public of the Musée Grevin, short cartoons he called « Pantomimes lumineuses » from October 28, 1892 until March 1900. More than 500,000 people attended these screenings. Animated cartoons were born.
After the arrival of the Lumiere brothers' Cinematograph in 1895, the end of projections at the Musée Grevin and the decline of his praxinoscopes manufacturing business, Émile Reynaud began to work on his newest invention, the Stereo-Cinema (1907) but without reaching his goal : the projection of stereoscopic movies. He was then forced to abandon his work. He sold the material and destroyed the Optical Theatre, before throwing a large part of his pantomimes into the Seine. Except for Poor Pierrot and Around a Cabin.
After bout with lung congestion, he entered the hospital for incurable diseases of Ivry-sur-Seine in March 29, 1917. He remained there until his death on January 9, 1918.
