XI
PLATEAU CREATES MOTION PICTURES
Plateau, blind half of his life, develops devices to show motion from hand-drawn images, opening the road to the modern motion picture—Stampfer independently invents similar apparatus—Persistence of vision studied.
Plateau, a Belgian scientist who became blind in work that resulted in making it possible for millions all over the world to see motion pictures, deserves more than anyone else the title, “Father of the Motion Picture.” Just as Athanasius Kircher originated projection as we know it with the magic lantern, Joseph Antoine Ferdinand Plateau has the best claim of all to credit for making the motion picture illusion a reality.
Never interested in profits for himself, Plateau did not trouble to patent his magic disk picture machines but took pains to issue correct instructions when commercial imitators made devices lacking in some essential.
Plateau was born on Oct. 14, 1801, at Brussels, Belgium, the son of a landscape and flower painter. His mother was the former Catherine Thirion. From earliest boyhood, Plateau was trained to be an artist and the nature of his studies and work in later life indicated that he must have shown great promise, for he had the temperamental qualities of a great artist. After his elementary studies, his father lost no time in directing his son’s attention towards the arts by sending him to the Academy of Design at Brussels.
At the age of 14 Plateau was left an orphan, and was made a ward of his maternal uncle. In delicate health young Plateau was sent into the country to recuperate from the shock of losing both his parents in two years. The location selected was near Waterloo and Plateau had to take shelter in the woods for ten days and nights while the battle raged. Soon the plans Plateau’s father had made for him to study art were altered. The uncle was a lawyer and wished his ward to succeed him in that profession. Plateau himself evidently was strong-willed and persevering even at an early age, for during the next few years he studied both arts and sciences. This would make it possible for him to follow his father’s, his uncle’s, or his own wish. He wanted to strike out into a new field, and this he did.
Higher studies were carried on at the Royal College and in 1822, at the age of 21, Plateau entered the University of Liége as a candidate for a degree both in philosophy and letters, and in science. As the years progressed Plateau turned more and more of his attention toward science, especially problems concerning color, vision and the perception of motion. But all through life he retained the fullness of viewpoint of a man with a background and interests in many fields so his imagination never was dulled, as sometimes happens in the cases of specialists in a restricted field of science. The art of his father never left him.
While studying for the doctorate Plateau carried on his first important work in vision and motion which resulted in the scientific approach to the first motion picture machine. He investigated the visual effects of whirling a disk which was colored half in yellow, half in blue.
In 1827 part of Plateau’s research was published in Quetelet’s Correspondance Mathématique et Physique. Quetelet (1796–1874) was a pioneer in statistics and Plateau’s professor at the Royal College, and also taught at the Museum of Science and Letters in Belgium. The next year, 1828, Plateau sent another communication to M. Quetelet on the appearances produced by two lines turning around a point with uniform motion. In that letter Plateau referred to the work of Roget on persistence of vision published in the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society, London, 1824.