Text: Juan Alberto Migliore. In 4th (28.5 x 21.3 cm), 198 pages. Paperback publisher binding. Asunción, Fondec, 2023.
Those of us who work in the exciting discipline of the history of photography applaud with great enthusiasm the appearance of the founding book: "Drawing Factory - The Birth of Photography in Paraguay" by researcher and collector Juan Alberto Migliore.
This innovative work - recently published in the capital of our sister nation - takes us to a still little-known topic, which we call "history of history in world photography." As is well known, France and England were the nations that presented the simultaneous inventions of the Daguerreotype and Calotype respectively around the years 1839/40, to the astonishment of the entire world. In turn, the United States of America immediately embraced that brilliant invention and developed it at a high technical and artistic level.
With this background, it should not surprise us that, when the historical recovery of this science and art began through various books and publications, they initially addressed the saga of the European and American precursors, while, in the rest of the American continent and even In Asia, Africa and Oceania, that study process was significantly slower.
In Latin America in particular, the approach to such a rich visual legacy began around the centenary of the daguerreotype, forming the first national historiographies. Among other works born in that movement we cite as precursor books, "The centenary of photography in Chile" (1940), by the historian Eugenio Pereira Salas and in the same decade, in Argentina, the first essays on the daguerreotype stage starring the Dr. Julio Felipe Riobó. In this line of research, in Brazil the Rio native Gilberto Ferrez broke out with his pioneering work "A Photography in Brazil", published in 1946, and in Mexico the posthumous book by Enrique Fernández Ledesma, "The grace of ancient portraits" (The grace of ancient portraits) was presented ( 1950).
Regarding the history of Paraguayan photography, it is interesting to note that it begins -obviously in a very partial way- with the contribution of researchers from neighboring countries, such as the Argentine Vicente Gesualdo (History of Photography in America, 1990), and Miguel Ángel Cuarterolo (Soldiers of Memory, 2000), while Boris Kossoy contributed to this current through his well-known Brazilian Historical-Photographic Dictionary, published in 2002.
On a personal level and in the absence of a comprehensive work on the subject, in January 1991 I arrived in Asunción with the purpose of making a photographic history of Paraguay. After a brief and intense field search in the Guaraní capital, I continued the research for a decade from Buenos Aires, gathering more than a hundred biographies of camera professionals who acted in that sister nation, until I gave up. of the project. However, this work was taken up again in the last ten years through the studies on Paraguayan photography prepared for the Buenos Aires firm "Hilario. Arte, Letras & Oficios"
Now the dream has finally been fulfilled and in a comprehensive way, since the magnificent book "Drawing Factory - The Birth of Photography in Paraguay" (2023) has seen the light and rescues such an exciting saga forever. In principle, we cannot fail to mention that it is a very beautiful book-object, on whose covers, spine and flaps a photograph - panorama type - is reproduced of a demonstration in Asunción, where the front of a photographic studio can be seen due to the camera of the famous Spaniard Manuel San Martín.
In its 198 pages - measuring 28.5 x 21.5 cm - printed on heavy-duty illustration paper in white, no less than 197 photographs from the 19th and 20th centuries are displayed, in addition to important press notices, backs of works, various engravings, postcards and even vintage albums. The quality of the reproductions - some full page and even double page - and in all sepia ranges, are a notable attraction. In addition, the type and size of letters makes it easy to read. The binding is guaranteed as it is sewn with thread. We point out Celeste Prieto's editorial design, which reveals her mastery. Fundamental to the edition has been the support of the National Fund for Culture and the Arts (FONDEC) of the sister nation.
We want to highlight that the photographic books published by collectors on the subject have an imprint that makes them unique in their kind; The passion for those brownish images of yesterday is reflected in his texts and in the careful selection of the most emblematic photographs. With Juan Alberto Migliore these requirements are fully met and grateful colleagues note this in his pages, whose texts are born in the meticulous research of newspapers through the advertisements of those artists of the chamber, and are supported by the consultation of the archives public and private photographs.
The work begins with an old journalistic text titled "Photography", an accurate reflection that was published in the newspaper "El Pueblo" on November 10, 1870 - the year of the culmination of the terrible war - and that we cannot fail to quote for its shocking beauty: "Thus love, affection, veneration and respect can easily show in the most precious jewels, the tiny photographs of those whom they love, cherish, venerate and respect, as if the soul needed the presence of that dead image, to keep the memory alive in memory."
After an emotional introduction by the author, the pages advance with a first chapter titled: "A picture is worth a thousand words", which addresses the surprising beginnings of photography in Europe and its arrival in the same year of 1839 in the south of our country. America through the figure of the priest Louis Compte and his pioneering daguerreotype camera; a true story that Migliore combines with Latin American magical realism through the novel "One Hundred Years of Solitude" by the Colombian Gabriel García Márquez and the adventures of the unique daguerreotypist Melquíades.
The biographies of the protagonists in the Paraguayan photographic development are notable, such as the Spaniard Manuel San Martín - a giant figure that we compare with that of Alejandro Witcomb from Buenos Aires -, Louis de Boccard and Guido Boggiani and, of course, the photographic coverage of the War of the Triple Alliance, impeccable, with the prominence of the Bate firm in the first place. The revolutionary postcard has a privileged place in this volume - the engineer Migliore has an important collection of old postcards - due to his involvement in the popular dissemination of these minimal letters accompanied by national images. The extensive historical mentions - books, newspapers, magazines, documents, etc. - on each chapter are notable, gathered in the "References" section.
By way of closing, the title "A world without photographs" offers us a unique reflection: "These images as documents go far beyond our memories. They allow us to move to a world in which no person alive today has been there." present. A world that was left without witnesses. Only the photograph has survived. She never dies."
In short, a book to treasure and an essential reference for Latin American researchers.
* Special for Hilario. Arts Letters Trades
Abel Alexander
President. Ibero-American Society of History of Photography
