Masters of the Camera
Karl Blossfeldt
NATURE AS ART by Robert Beresford
Folio Press New York
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Karl Blossfeldt Nature as Art
CUCURBITA PUMPKIN Flower enlarged 4 times.
BEGINNINGS
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RESOLUTIONS
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TEACHINGS
PLATES
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4
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CONTENTS
Table of
Chapter 1 Beginnings
INTRODUCTION
GLOSSARY OF TERMS
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BEGINNINGS
Chapter
1
KARL
Blossfeldt (1865–1932) is considered a pioneer of the New Objectivity in the history of photography. His oeuvre consists of some 6,000 photographs of plants and
plant segments that have survived as negatives and in contemporary publications. In addition, another 500 authorized contemporary prints were found in the archive of the Hochschule der Kunste in Berlin in 1984. These so-called “vintage prints” were believed to have been lost and belonged — along with
WHITE BRYONY Vintage gravure.
three-dimensional models —to Blossfeldt’s instructional materials.
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Karl Blossfeldt Nature as Art
Chapter 1 Beginnings
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Karl Blossfeldt Nature as Art
CHRYSANTHEMUM PARTHENIUM Vintage gravure.
Chapter 1 Beginnings
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PHYSOSEGIA VIGINIANA Virginian False Dragon-head. Stem, with calix and caulinary leaves, enlarged 15 times.
A 8
Karl Blossfeldt Nature as Art
B
C
Begun in 1896, his collection was the result of three decades of diligent botanical documentation and dabbling in aesthetics; suddenly the foremost critics and art philosophers of his day were celebrating the discovery of a theretofore unknown universe. Praised as pioneering feats of the tec mera; and because they were always made for the same purpose—to serve as pedagogical records on film—they were stylistically consistent. Among the first to lavish praise upon
Chapter 1 Beginnings
B
SEA HOLLY Flower enlarged 5 times.
A
MILKWEED Flower enlarged 10 times.
SILPHIUM LACINIATUM Compass-plant. Leaf dried on the stem enlarged 5 times.
Blossfeldt was Walter Benjamin.
C
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A 10
Karl Blossfeldt Nature as Art
A
D
Chapter 1 Beginnings
DIPSACUS LACINIATUS Cut-leaved teasel.
B
PASSIFLORA, PASSIONFLOWER Flower enlarged 4 times.
C
SAXIFRAGA WILLKOMMNIANA Willkomm’s Saxifrage. Leaf-rosette enlarged 8 times.
D
TROLLIUS EUROPAEUS Common Globe-flower, Golden-ball, Troll-flower. Leaf dried on the stem enlarged 5 times.
B
C
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UNIVERSE
Unknown
THE
projection of vegetal life into technical forms follows the ritual of a magical spell. Objects, alienated and increasingly threatening in their rigid power since Goethe’s day, are fixated—and held by the eye
of the camera—until their rigidity seems to dissolve into familiar forms. That is one version; the other interpretation is that the viewer, haunted by technology, capitulates and changes sides. In the mimicry of a humble glance backwards, he believes to recognize that the new forces were already at work in the old vegetal forms archaic ornamental elements. The feelings that accompany these glimpses vary, depending upon what predominates—the hubris of the spellbinding gaze or the humility
CANADIAN VERVEINE Leaf enlarged 8 times.
of transformation.
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Karl Blossfeldt Nature as Art
Chapter 1 Beginnings
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Karl Blossfeldt Nature as Art
ERYNGIUM GIGANTEUM Flower, with involucres, enlarged 4 times.
Chapter 1 Beginnings
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ABUTILO LIME-MALLOW Seminal-capsule enlarged 12 times.
TERMS
Glossary of
A C G
Aconitum anthora, 12
Chrysanthemum parthenium, 8
Germinative impulse, 7 Geyser, 6 Glance backwards, 11 Gropius building, 11 Goethe, 5
H
Historical fame, 5 History of photography, 12 Humble glance, 7 Humility of tranformation, 7 Hochschule der kunste, 12
K 16
Kunstgewerbemuseum , 7
Karl Blossfeldt Nature as Art
M
Manifestation of art, 11
Receptive, 12
Margined pyramidal saxifrage, 12
Rigitity, 11
Marie von thurn, 13
Rilke, 17
Meurer, 11
Ritual, 6
Mimicry, 7
Rooted in structure,11
Modeling, 8 Moholy-nagy, 12
N
R
V
Vintage prints, 13 Verlag, Wasmuth, 10
Nature’s eternal flowing fountain, 13 Negatives, 5 New energy, 6 New objectivity, 5 New way of seeing, 12
T
Thurn, Princess Marie von, 10
Chapter 1 Beginnings
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