Pictorialism, Aesthetics, Straight Photography

History of Photography Part 3:Suggesting the Subject & New Culture

of Light

AWQ4MIMrs. E. Kalinowski

Pictorialism“..of or expressed in pictures.”In the late 19th century (c. 1880) photo

technologies and photos of peoples/places/objects were lost its luster

Kodak snapshot camera was invented and the ‘magic’ of photographic technology seemed ‘easy’

Photography required intelligence, scientific savvy, and artistic inclination – the snapshot camera made this accessible to everyone, thus it lost its impressiveness.

Pictorialism & Naturalism1886 –

Camera Club, London EnglandEmerson

lectures on photography as art

Subsequent works seeks to elevate photography as a legitimate artistic practice at par with visual arts (painting, drawing, sculpting, etc.)

Naturalism – records life dispassionately/objectively/as it is

Peter Henry Emerson, Furze-Cutting on the Suffolk Common, 1886

Social Realist Painting vs. Photography

Peter Henry Emerson, , Furze-Cutting on the Suffolk Common, 1886

Gustave Courbet, The Stone Breakers, 1849-50

Pictorialism & Naturalism Countering

the anonymous qualities of photographyDavison relied

on light, line, and symbolic references to convey his message

Highly controversial; betrayed the ‘nature’ of photography

Photographic Impressionism – non-objective, emphasizes mood, an ‘impression’ rather than record

George Davison, The Onoin Field, 1889

Impressionist Painting vs. Photography

George Davison, The Onoin Field, 1889

Claude Monet, Tulip Fields With The Rijnsberg Windmill, 1871

Aesthetics“Concerning beauty and the appreciation of

beauty.”

Straight Photography“Form as essence.”Photography and its subject matter became

a “been there, done that” situation that called for something new, different.

In the early 20th century (1900s), artists began searching for what philosopher Henri Bergson called, “life force.”This is the pure essence of existenceThe seeing of parts, fragments, as

universal symbols

Straight PhotographyForm as

EssenceWeston reduced

subject matter to its fundamental structure

Realism is the most definite, most difficult approach to photography

Previsualization – seeing/imagining one’s final print/photo before its developed

Edward Weston, Nude, 1926Excusado, 1925, Pepper #30, 1930

Straight PhotographyGroup f/64:

7 photographers: Edward Weston, Ansel Adams, Imogen Cunningham, Willard Van Dyke, Sonya Noskowiak, John Paul Edwards, Henry Swift

Named after the smallest camera lens, f/64

Precisionism & The Zone System– 11 ‘zones’ of grayscale in a photo from Zone 0 (black)-Zone X (white) according to Roman Numerals

Imogen Cunningham, Calla, 1925