The Characteristics of Pictorialism Essay Example For Students

The Characteristics of Pictorialism Essay I the following essay I am going to be looking at what I believe to be the key characteristics of Pictorialism as well as this I will also be looking at the people I believe to of had the most impact on Pictorialism as a movement by analysing there works and ideology’s, by doing this I hope to answer the question ‘What are the characteristics of Pictorialism? ’ in a fulfilling and informative way whilst giving my biased and cynical British views on certain aspects, characters and events within the movement. The phrase Pictorialism was first coined within the context of photography in Henry Peach Robinson book entitled ‘Pictorial Effect in Photography: Being Hints On Composition And Chiaroscuro For Photographers. ’ Written in 1869 an age when ‘’9 out of ten photographers are ignorant to art’’ and the photographic proses was seen by most as something scientific opposed to something that can in the right hands be art. In many ways Pictorialism came about as a reaction to the small minded and bigoted nature of the art world of this time (its still pretty much the same today), it is because largely of Pictorialism that photography is accepted in the art world today. Naturalism and Peter Henry Emerson There are many characteristics in Pictorialism one of its most notably being it’s out of focus style. This is something that evolved as a characteristic of Pictorialism when it was still only a baby and was developing from its distant cousin naturalism, this now famous characteristic was originally pushed by someone who would have, in the early 1880’s made only stunning sharp pictures of nature, this was Peter Henry Emerson, a photographers whose roots lye within Naturalism and bird watching. Emerson later became one of the key figures in having photography accepted as an art form writing 8 books on photography and a manuscript entitled a history of artistic photography (1936), He originally pushed the idea of out of focus images to his students instructing them to make photographs ‘’just as sharp as the eye sees it and no sharper’’ . Believing much like many do now with digital photography that the images presented by the camera were not in fact a true representation of what the human eye could actually see. The Development of Pictorial Effect Where as Emerson strived often for the truth within the image, Pictorialism started to move away from this in 1890 where much like in art the substance within the image starting to become more important ‘stressing beauty over fact’ this became apparent within the development of the ‘pictorial effect’ inspired by the atmospherically soft brush strokes of painter from the Barbizon school. Photographers believed that by coating their own paper, before or during the development process with obvious brush strokes and marks, made their photographs works of art opposed to works of science replicating effects that were created when making a painting almost as if they were trying to re-create the authenticity of classic works of art that people at that time didnt feel photographs possessed. I feel these brush strokes also made the work feel as though it was not just an image trapped in a piece of paper but a work that now stood out and belonged in a three dimensional world opposed to a flat one. The brush strokes much like choosing to use a softer focus also aloud the photographer to portray his or her own objective view of the scene it was this that manly the photographer Robert Demachy felt separated the art of photography from the straight science of photography that you see in Eadweard Muybridge’s work ‘’A straight print may be beautiful, and it may prove upper abundantly that its author is an artist: but it cannot be a work of art.. work of art must be transcription, not a copy of nature it must be subjective not objective’’ I feel as though this quote from Demachy sums up quite nicely the points put across in the previous paragraph and sums up many of the thought and practical methods behind the movement of Pictorialism. Animal Locomotion, Plate 695, Eadweard Muybridge, 1880s Robert Demachy Most well known for this painterly effect is the photographer Robert Demachy. In his work he uses the brush strokes in such a way that the effect loses the somewhat gimmicky look that I feel it can sometimes be associated with. These brushstrokes on Demachis work do not look as though he is trying to copy a painting neither do they look like random marks with an image printed over the top, these marks become part of the image creating new tones, light and dark depending on where they have been placed on the paper. In his work ‘study of a head’ the marks blend into the clothing creating long flowing lines blurring what we preserve as a true image. Turkey Religion EssayIn the 20th century Pictorialism was described as becoming ‘’darker, more symbolic and personal, reflecting the rise of modernist art and the experience of displaced peoples across Europe and the united states’’ Were as the more complex and extravagant printing techniques previously used were replaced by cheaper and easier techniques such as gelatin silver printing and photogravure. This aloud for more prints to be made at a cheaper cost, ironically I feel this completely goes against earlier standard and ways of thinking in the Pictorialist movement, de-valuing the work and the artist credibility they believed came from something rare and authentic. Leaving its roots in Naturalism behind Pictorialism moved away from the more romanticised countryside shots common in Europe to a harder grittier urban settings, often trying to find beauty in unlikely location, Stieglitz who continued to work mostly on the streets of New York started to move further away from the more traditional Pictorialist styles taking inspiration from Japanese artist such as Katsushika Hokusai and Utagawa Hiroshige. Where as some photographers of the time such as Pierre Dubreuil (1872-1944) starting making more progressive pieces combining futurist and cubist ideas into the mix and unlike most other Pictorialist emphasizing designee over contented the old boys, Stieglitz, Steichen ext. ecame more self obsessed moving away from landscapes and portraits of young children to continuously photographing themselves and each other for example in the peace Frank Eugene, Alfred Stieglitz, Heinrich Kuhn and Edward Steichen Admiring the Work of Eugene (1907), I think certain thing like this are with other factors important to the downfall of Pictorialism as a major player in the art/ photography world, I dont think I would be alone in thinking towards the end of Camera Work’s influence Stieglitz hindered the movement more than he helped it continually turning friends into enemy for what he saw as ‘challenging his authority’ or disagreeing with his ideas, in many ways he was as much of a dictator of Pictorialism as he was a creator, like the moustached love child of a Kim Jon-Un and a more socially acceptable visionary. With this ‘obsessive’ self portrait talking came certain comments in the book .. o and so said, ‘’There was renewed interest in the inner depths that could be revealed in a portrait, seen most tellingly in the works of Steichen, Coburn and Frank Eugene. ’ As photography was slowly accepted into the ignorant and snobby art world Pictorialism and it’s influence and relevance started to fade and along with it was some of it’s key practitioners, Alfred Stezaker started to make more traditional images stating ‘’My photographs look like photographs- and (in the eyes of the ‘pictorial photographers’) they therefore can’t be art’’ 21 (1923) And the camera club he was part of was torn apart by his own ever enlarging ego, although Pictorialism was still practiced after WW1 it no longer had as much relevance in a more accepting art world. Conclusion The characteristics of Pictorialism can not just be defined by the work made and the techniques used by the artist, it is true that certain effects on images are in the brackets of Pictorialism, the painterly effects that showed human elements to the work which contradicted the ideas that photographs were machine made and there was no artist human element and therefor photography could not be an art. The soft focus which initially moved photography away from just recording events as they were seen even if that was not the original intention of Peter Henry Emerson but I feel the most important characteristic of Pictorialism was the relentless ways in which the artist pushed the movement, creating communities in the form of camera clubs, publishing journals and essays and touring exhibitions around the world as well as creating whole new spaces for Pictorialist work to be displayed, in doing this they not only got photography accepted into the art world but redefined modern art forever changing the ignorant face of the art world.