Felice Beato: A Photographer on the Eastern Road

by Anne Lacoste, Fred Ritchin (Contributor)

In recent years Felice Beato (1832–1909) has come to be recognized as one of the major photographers of the nineteenth century, yet until now there has been no general survey of his singular life and work. Born in Venice, Italy, Beato came of age in the Ottoman capital of Constantinople. As a young apprentice in 1856, he photographed the sites of the Crimean War, thereby launching a long and remarkably adventurous career. Over the next half century he would follow in the wake of the British Egypt, Palestine, and Syria; India, where he photographed the aftermath of the Indian Mutiny; and China, where he chronicled the Second Opium War. He spent some thirty years in Japan and Burma, where he was among the first commercial photographers at the time that these countries were starting to open to the West. The text includes an engaging narrative of his life and entrepreneurial career and a thought-provoking essay on Beato and the photography of war. There is a generous selection of his photographs, including panoramas and hand-colored Japanese studies, along with captivating period ephemera, lithographs based on his work, and humorous caricatures of the artist.

Genres: Photography, History

208 pages, Hardcover

First published December 21, 2010

Reviews

[Wilfredo R. Dotti · Rating 5 out of 5]

It's a compendium of photos taken by the British photographer of Italian origin Felice Beato. Beato was one of the first photographers to capture images in the Far East and one of the first war photographers. All the photos shown in this book date from the middle to the end of the 19th century, all in such a good quality that it feels like if you could travel in time while you look at them, without telling the interesting anecdotes that the photographer experienced when taking some of the photos.

Personally, I liked this book a lot and from now on it becomes one of my favorites, it's a great historical document.

[Owlseyes]

[Phillip · Rating 4 out of 5]

Two Sections Each proceeded by informative contextual historical introduction. Prints good reproductions and starkingly evocative. Great intro to an important early photo-journalist.

[Kk]

Nostalgic view of the past. Especially srirangam and Mysore. Saddening to see how we've squandered what we had.