Pictorialism in Photography (1885- 1917)
Peter Henry Emerson ● ●
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Medical/scientifically trained Writes Naturalistic Photography in 1889 which promoted photography as a cutting edge application of science Then The Death of Naturalistic Photography in 1890 which rejected his earlier ideas in favour of the ‘individuality of the artist’
Life and Landscape on the Norfolk Broads, 1886
Millais’s L’Angelus (1857-1859)
John Everett Millais’s, Ophelia , 1851-2 (the tragic death of Ophelia, as she falls into the stream and drowns, is one of the best-known illustrations from Shakespeare's play Hamlet.)
Julia Margaret Cameron ●
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blur created through both long exposures, when the subject moved and by leaving the lens intentionally out of focus Photographer of celebrities between 1864–1875
Impressionism 1870’s/80’s ●
Hay Harvest, Pissarro (1901)
Camera Work Magazine ●
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Photographic journal published 1903-1917 by Alfred Steiglitz (with Steichen) Featured high quality photogravures printed from copper plate Ended by high price of printing costs and change of direction in Steiglitz’s work and approach to photography as Modernism reached it’s peak
Photo Secession ● Pictorialist Group formed by Steiglitz in 1902- 1910 ● Invitation only, mainly American photographers ● Showed in small galleries eg 291 in New York with painters eg:
Picasso ● In Munich, the art-centre of Germany, the 'Secessionists', a body of artists comprising the most advanced and gifted men of their times, who (as the name indicates have broken away from the narrow rules of custom and tradition) have admitted the claims of the pictorial photograph to be judged on its merits as a work of art independently, and without considering the fact that it has been produced through the medium of the camera (Fritz Matthies-Masuren from the catalogue for the Munich exhibition of American photographs)
Edward Steichen, self portrait 1903
Robert Demachy, Struggle 1904 â—?
noted for his revival of the gum bichromate process (invented in 1855 but little used until the 1890s), which allowed the introduction of colour and brushwork into the photographic image. The orange pigment in this print is meant to evoke sanguine, a reddish chalk often used in life drawings.
The Linked Ring (1892-1909) â—?
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British pictorialist photographers such as founder Henry Peach Robinson, Frank Meadow Sutcliffe and Alvin Langdon Coburn its logo was three interlinked rings, which were meant in part to represent the Masonic beliefs of Good, True, and Beautiful
HP Robinson, Fading Away, 1858
Frank Meadow Sutcliffe, Herdsmen tending cows
Taken in Whitby between 1875 and 1910 â—?
Taken in Whitby between 1875 and 1910
Paul Strand, White Fence (1916) â—?
Strand shunned the soft focus and symbolic content of the Pictorialists and instead strived to create a new vision that found beauty in the clear lines and forms of ordinary objects.
Key features of the Pictorialist movement ●
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Subjects /themes: often rural -relationship between land and people OR the nude/still life/portraiture Visual language: soft focus, sepia toning, ‘painterley’ effects like textured papers or drawing onto the surface, filters and lens coatings, dodging and burning
Photographers for research ● ● ● ● ● ● ●
Edward Steichen- fashion/portrait Robert Demachy- nude Julia Margaret Cameron- celebrity portrait Gertrude Kasebier- portrait Clarence H White – romantic landscape PH Emerson- rural landscape HP Robinson- rural/domestic narrative