1026
death, Gustaaf continued the fi rm under the name “P.
Oosterhuis” until 1936.
Anneke van Veen
Biography
Pieter Oosterhuis was born on 20 January 1816 in
Groningen, the son of an artist. Trained as a painter
by his own father, he took up photography in the early
1850’s. In 1852 he opened the sixth daguerreotype
studio in Amsterdam. Four years later he marketed his
fi rst stereoscopic views on glass and on paper. Until
his death Oosterhuis published his cityscapes “in their
thousands,” initially as stereographs, later as cabinet
cards, establishing himself as the homo topographicus
of the Netherlands par excellence. In addition to these
tourist photographs, Oosterhuis worked on engineer-
ing assignments from the central government. During
more than twenty years he photographed nationwide
the modern landscape and geometric forms of railways,
railway bridges, station buildings, canals, locks, and
docks under construction. He developed a vocabulary
for these landscapes which bears a striking resemblance
to French, British, or even Russian engineering pho-
tographs of the period. By his contemporaries he was
esteemed the fi rst among the Dutch landscape artists.
As a painter he was a member of the artist association
Maatschappij Arti & Amicitiae, but later he joined
the Amsterdam Photographic Society. In the 1870’s
Oosterhuis regularly published articles on technical
issues in the photographer’s magazine Tijdschrift voor
Photographie. At the 1877 Exhibition of Photography in
Amsterdam Oosterhuis was awarded the Gold Municipal
Medal. After his death on 8 June 1885, his youngest son
Gustaaf (1858-1938) continued the fi rm.
See also: History: 4. 1850s; History: 5. 1860s;
History: 6. 1870s; Industrial Photography;
Netherlands; Societies, groups, institutions, and
exhibitions in the Netherlands; Topographical
Photography; and Tourist Photography.
OPPENHEIM, AUGUST F.
(active 1850s)
German photographer
It is conjectured that the German photographer August
Oppenheim was born in Dresden. Around 1852 he was
instructed in the art of photography and, more specifi -
cally, in the calotype method, by Gustave Le Gray. A
year later, during the course of a photographic tour, he
visited Greece and recorded the antiquities, with the aim,
as he wrote, “to give to those who had not been fortunate
enough to see these monuments with their own eyes a
clear idea of them, and to others pleasant memories.”
Details of this journey, as well as of the diffi culties he
encountered, he published in the periodical Lumière (is-
sue 6, April 1853). His intention was to publish, on his
return to Dresden, a three-volume work. In the end, this
was limited to two volumes under the titles respectively
of Die erhaltenen griechischen Tempel auf der Akropolis
and Details der Akropolis. These photographs of his
were fi nally included in Atheniensiche Alterthümer,
published in 1854. An important honourable mention
was awarded to him for the photographs he exhibited
at the Industrial Fair in Munich.
Aliki TsigrilaouOPTICS: PRINCIPLES
The ability to manipulate light dates back to ancient
times. The understanding of the nature of light, which
involved debates over whether it is composed of waves
or particles, began in the 1500s and 1600s. The discov-
ery of and the elaboration of principles needed to design
optics with confi dence began in the early 1800s.
It seems quite likely that refl ections in calm lakes
and ponds were seen and wondered at since the dawn
of human existence, perhaps millions of years ago, but
no trace remains. The earliest optical devices we have
found are stone and obsidian mirrors from the Bronze
Age in Europe and the Middle East. It is likely that at
about the same time people noticed their refl ections in
the blades of metal swords, axes and armor if they were
highly polished. Flat mirrors refl ect light at the same
angle as it is incident at, and the formation of an image
takes place in the eye of the beholder. A mirror can con-
centrate light if its surface is made concave. There are
Greek accounts of Archimedes’ “burning mirrors” being
used to ignite the sails of Roman ships in battle, using
concentrated solar energy. These mirrors were made of
polished metal. A helmet or breastplate, being convex on
its outside, spreads light and, if of high enough quality,
forms a reduced-scale, wide angle image, rather than a
concentration of light or a magnifi ed image.
Transparent materials transmit light and can also
manipulate it. We fi nd glass jewelry which spreads
light into colors, a property called dispersion, from
the Bronze Age on, and this was undoubtedly long
predated by the discovery that natural crystals such
as quartz, calcite, amethyst, and emeralds, created
colorful dispersal and multiple refl ections of light. And
again going back to early human times our ancestors
saw and must have wondered at the colors of mother-
of-pearl, rainbows, sun-dogs, lunar halos and other
natural phenomena.
Small apertures in opaque surfaces when illuminated
from one side will form images on a surface placed on
the opposite side. This phenomenon was remarked in
classical Greek times, dating back to 250 BC. It allows