Antoine Bon, photographer and historian, was a researcher at the Ecole Francaise d’Athènes (the French School of Archaeology in Athens) in the interwar years. Among historians, he is best known for the two-volume study of the Frankish period in the Peloponnesus, Le Morée franque, illustrated with his own photographs, which has been described as “a towering edifice of scholarship”.
Through two influential books, En Grèce (1932) and Retour en Gréce (1938), he was one of the first foreign travel photographers to go beyond ancient ruins in his depiction of Greek landscape. Much less known are some 217 photographs of Brasil, published like his earlier books by Paul Hartmann (Paris) in 1950 under the title Brésil: deux cent dix-sept photographies de A. Bon, M. Gautherot et P. Verger. A partial list of Bon’s publications can be found in that useful but somewhat chaotic online resource, Open Library.
The two Greek albums went through several reprints, including facsimiles of the original editions published in 1948 by that pillar of Greek cultural life, the Librairie Kauffmann. Both include a stately if at times overheated text by Fernand Chapoutier, another stalwart of the Ecole Francaise: “The reader may perhaps expect to find only ruins in this book. The version of Greece offered up to him is both sparser and richer, unobscured by any fiction. She has not decked herself to receive strangers. To depict her, we have had no recourse to artifice: no astonishing points of view, no artful play of lens. We ambled along, like well-meaning and curious tourists; a beautiful image would present itself; to fix it, a pocket Kodak sufficed. We never went in search of rare spectacle, nor did the peasant woman pose before the lens in her finery. Greece would wake, go about her business and fall asleep again, thinking herself alone; the reader will discover her as though she had been caught by surprise”.
Through two influential books, En Grèce (1932) and Retour en Gréce (1938), he was one of the first foreign travel photographers to go beyond ancient ruins in his depiction of Greek landscape. Much less known are some 217 photographs of Brasil, published like his earlier books by Paul Hartmann (Paris) in 1950 under the title Brésil: deux cent dix-sept photographies de A. Bon, M. Gautherot et P. Verger. A partial list of Bon’s publications can be found in that useful but somewhat chaotic online resource, Open Library.
The two Greek albums went through several reprints, including facsimiles of the original editions published in 1948 by that pillar of Greek cultural life, the Librairie Kauffmann. Both include a stately if at times overheated text by Fernand Chapoutier, another stalwart of the Ecole Francaise: “The reader may perhaps expect to find only ruins in this book. The version of Greece offered up to him is both sparser and richer, unobscured by any fiction. She has not decked herself to receive strangers. To depict her, we have had no recourse to artifice: no astonishing points of view, no artful play of lens. We ambled along, like well-meaning and curious tourists; a beautiful image would present itself; to fix it, a pocket Kodak sufficed. We never went in search of rare spectacle, nor did the peasant woman pose before the lens in her finery. Greece would wake, go about her business and fall asleep again, thinking herself alone; the reader will discover her as though she had been caught by surprise”.
Ο φωτογράφος και ιστορικός Antoine Bon ήταν συνεργάτης της Γαλλικής Αρχαιολογικής Σχολής Αθηνών την περίοδο του μεσοπολέμου. Στον χώρο της ιστορίας είναι γνωστός κυρίως για την δίτομη μελέτη της Φραγκοκρατίας στην Πελοπόννησο, Le Morée franque, εικονογραφημένη με δικές του φωτογραφίες, που χαρακτηρίσθηκε στην εποχή του «μεγαλειώδες οικοδόμημα μάθησης».
Υπήρξε από τους πρώτους ξένους φωτογράφους που απεικόνισαν την Ελλάδα πέρα από τα αρχαία μνημεία, δημοσιεύοντας δύο εξαιρετικά δημοφιλή λευκώματα, En Grèce (1932) και Retour en Gréce (1938). Πολύ λιγότερο γνωστό είναι το λεύκωμα που δημοσίευσε το 1950 με φωτογραφίες από τη Βραζιλία.
Τα δύο ελληνικά λευκώματα αναδημοσιεύθηκαν συχνά, συμπεριλαμβανομένων των ανάτυπων της πρώτης έκδοσης που κυκλοφόρησε το βιβλιοπωλείο Κάουφμαν (Αθήνα, 1948). Συνοδεύονται από πληθωρικά κείμενα του επίσης συνεργάτη της Γαλλικής Σχολής Fernand Chapoutier: «Ο αναγνώστης ίσως περιμένει να βρει μόνον ερείπια στο βιβλίο αυτό. Η όψη της Ελλάδας που του προσφέρεται είναι συγχρόνως λιτότερη και πλουσιότερη, απελευθερωμένη από μύθους. Δεν είναι φτιασιδωμένη για να υποδεχθεί ξένους. Για να την απεικονίσουμε, δεν βασισθήκαμε στην τεχνική – ούτε εκπληκτικά σημεία θέασης, ούτε εξεζητημένη εναλλαγή φακών. Πήραμε τον δρόμο μας σαν καλοπροαίρετοι και περίεργοι τουρίστες· όποτε ξεπρόβαλε μπροστά μας κάποια ωραία εικόνα, αρκούσε μια Kodak τσέπης για να την απαθανατίσει. Ποτέ δεν αναζητήσαμε σπάνια θεάματα, ούτε φωτογραφίσαμε την αγρότισσα με τα γιορτινά της”.
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Although I've studied Antoine Bon's archaeological work for many years, I have never thought of him as a photographer of his own merit. Thanks for reminding us to take another look. On the relationship between Frankish antiquities and travel images, see some of my thoughts in, “Early Travelers in the Peloponnese and the Invention of Medieval Architectural History,” in The Architecture of Tourism: Perceptions, Performance and Space, ed. D. Medina Lasansky and Brian McLaren (Oxford and New York: Berg, 2004), pp. 37-52
ReplyDeleteDespite Bon’s special interest in the castle architecture of the Frankish period, there is disappointingly little evidence of it in En Grèce; all told, two views of Karytaina and one of Khlemoutsi (Clairmont). I assume there must be lots more in Le Morée franque, but unfortunately I don’t have a copy on Kythera.
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