lio ess
masters of the camera
Karl Blossfeldt nature as art
Robert Beresford
masters of the camera
Karl Blossfeldt nature as art
by Robert Beresford folio press new york
contents
f
introduction ................................................ 6 chapter 1 Beginnings...................................... 8 chapter 2 Teachings...................................... 12 chapter 3 Resolutions..................................... 18 chapter 4 Florals........................................... 20 chapter 5 Lighting........................................24 chapter 6 Abstraction..................................... 26 chapter 7 Photography................................... 30 chapter 8 Growth.......................................... 34 plates ........................................................... 40 index of plates ........................................... 42
chapter 1 f Beginnings
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 As a sculptor and university
been lost and belonged—along
teacher, he first taught “model-
with
ing based on living plants” at
three
els—to
dimensional
blossfeldt’s
mod-
instruc-
tional materials. the old Kunstgewerbe museum in the gropius building, then at the berliner Vereinigten Staatsschulen, the present Hochschule der Kunste. He achieved photo historical fame somewhat innocently and almost unknowingly; for it was not until 1928, shortly before the end of his life, that his Urformen der Kunst appeared. Published with primarily didactic rather than artistic intentions by the Wasmuth Verlag in Berlin, the book made him famous overnight. Blossfeldt surely could not have believed his eyes as he read the reviews.
7
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 technical medium, almost all the photographs were made with the same camera; 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 Blossfeldt was Walter Benjamin: “He has done his part in that great examination of the perceptive inventory, which will have an unforeseeable effect on our conception of the world. He has proven how right Moholy-Nagy, the pioneer of the new photography, was when he said: “The limits of photography are unforeseeable. Everything is still so new here that even the search leads to creative results. Technology is the natural precursor for this. The illiterate of the future will not be he who cannot write but he who cannot take a photograph.” Whether we speed up a plant’s growth or show its form in a forty-fold enlargement—in both cases a geyser of new images erupts at points of our existence where we would least expect it.”
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. The decisive factor is to be found elsewhere however. Everything is dependent upon the viewer, not the object viewed. Just how threatening things appear depends upon the capacity and suitability of his optics. With this idealistic premise, the “new way of seeing” braces itself against the experience of subjective impotence in the face of the technical and as is increasingly the case in our century, ideological powers that are so overwhelming. It is feared that the things themselves cannot be changed; relief, and above all consolation, must therefore be sought in a change of perception:
Beginnings
9
Beginnings
left
Monkshood herb known as Wolfsbane right
Hypochaeris Rosette leaf
11
index
f
Aesthetics 12, 19, 26 Alienated 7, 16, 19, 20 Archaic 17, 32 Art 4, 6, 7 Art Philosophers 5, 6 Artistic 8, 9, 27, 28, 43 Aspect 7, 11 Authorized 14 Auto 7, 11 f Beautiful 8, 17 Berlin 22, Berliner 2, 9 Bestial 9, 10, Botanical 2, 4, 17 f Camera 12, Chaotic 17, 26, 36, 38 Classical 4, 15 Collection 6 Consistent 8, 9, 27, 39, 44 Contemporary 13, 14, 22, 34 Creative 7, 9, 14, 24 f Dabbling 18, 20, 23 Didactic 3, 22, 30, 31 Diligent 15, 25, 29, Discovery 17, 19, 24, 29 Dissolve 5, 8, 23 f Elements 31, 35 Energy 5,12, 40, 41, Elegant 3, 7, 8, 9, 40, 41 f Fame 10, 11, 26 Famous 12 Film 4, 5 Flowers 8, 9, 14, 15, 28 Floral 20, 21, 26, 37, 40 Flora 21, 23, 24, 30, 31, 32 Form 3, 5, 17 Fountain 36, 39 f Germinative 4, 14 Goethe 9, 10 Gropius Building 15, 16 Growth 36 f Herb 21, 25, 26, 30, 34, 35, 36 Hochshule de Kunte 17, 21, 28, 38 f Inspiration 5, 12, 18, 23 Instructional 6, 16, 26, 36 Intriguing 6, 36 Intricate 3, 27 Inspiring 10, 11, 17, 18 f Karl Blossfeldt 1, 2, 3, 4, 27, 36, 38, 40, 45, 50 Kubicki 12, 13, Kunstgewerbe-museum 9, 17, 29, 30 f Lavish 26, 28 31, 32 f Magical 18, 23 Materials 11 Medium 16, 40 Mimicry 28, 29, 30 Moholy-Nagy 14 f Natural 12, 13, 36, 50 New Objectivity 11 f Oeuvre 21, 25 Ornamental 15, 35, 45, 50 f Pedagogical 10, 28, 29 Perceptive 24 Photography 47, 49 Pioneer 14, 37, 39, 44 Plant 5, 17 Plant 3, 4, 5, 21 Princess Marie von Thurn 38 Principle 40, 41, 46 Prints 14 Pruning 11, 15 f Rigid 12, 13 Rilke 17, 27, 28, 35 Root 4, 23 f Scultor 24, 27, 30, 31 Soil 29, 36 Staatsschulen 17 f Taxis Hohenlohe 14, 27 f Unformen der Kunst 8, 20,26 f Vegetal 2, 14, 18 Vereinigten 2, 34, 36, 39, 40, 41 Vegetation 14, 15, 16, 26 Vintage 5, 25 Vintage prints 6, 7, 21, 26 f Walter Benjamin 11, 12, 36 Wasmuth Verlag 15, 27, 38
karl blossfeldt 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. f
Karl Blossfeldt nature as art
Karl Blossfeldt nature as art
folio press new york
fol pre