2. Overview
• Belgian Physicist
• His father was an artistic man and so his father wanted him to
follow this.
• Inspiration from Michael Faraday and Peter Mark
• He invented the Phenakistoscope
• Plateau proved the theory of persistence of vision in 1829
• He was a professor at the University of Ghent in 1844
3. Plateau Impact On Future Animators
• After 2 years William George Horner invented the zoetrope
which he based his idea on joseph plateau and added 2
improvements to it.
• Plateau started of the idea of animation film.
5. 1829 Joseph Plateau
1831 William Horner
1872 Edward Muybridge Edison
1889 Emily Reynard
1895 Lumiere Brothers
1925 Willis O’Brien
1928 George Pal
1949 Ray Harryhausen
1950 Jan Svankmajer
6. Faraday quote about Plateau…
“… Although bodily Plateau reminded plunged in the
darkness of a sad profound night, the perspicacity of his
mind, having become more intensive than ever, was to lead
to the most brilliant discoveries and to conquer for Belgium
science an immortal glory”
7. References
Wikipedia; 13th March 13; en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Plateau
Plateau Biography; Aug 06; www-history.mcs.st-
andrews.ac.uk/Biographies/Plateau.html
Early Visual Media; users.telent.be/thomasweynants/plateau-
intro.html
www.mhsgent.ugent.be/eng-plat1.html
Editor's Notes
he was the first person to demonstrate the illusion of moving images
Joseph Plateau was born on the 14th October 1801. “His father was an artistic man and so his father wanted him to follow this’. This meant that his schooling was arranged around this aim of having a career in being artistic so he went to the academy of fine art.He then studied at the Atheneum in 1817 and studied elementary mathematics.His inspiration was from Michael Faraday and Peter Mark. Faraday invented a device called the ‘Michael faraday wheel’ which was 2 disc that span in completely different directions to one another which then led onto plateau took another step adapting faradays wheel into a toy which is what he invented the Phenakistoscope. It was a very famous toy and popular with children He uses the principle of persistence of motion to create an illusion of motion which he proved in 1829. Even though this principle had been identified by the Greek mathematician Euclid and by Newton but was not proven till 1829 by plateau..
Plateau idea went around the world which had impacted on other artists or animators. 2 years later William George Horner invented the Zeotrope which was based on joseph plateau and added two new improvement to it. Also, he was the first person to demonstrate the illusion of moving images which meant it gave other people ideas.
From looking at the timetable, you can see that Joseph Plateau was the founder/starter of animation as he was the first one to find the illusion of movement.
