1. Pictorialism, Aesthetics, Straight Photography
AWQ4MI
Mrs. E. Kalinowski
History of Photography Part 3: Suggesting the Subject & New Culture of Light
Pictorialism, Aesthetics, Straight Photography

2. 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.

3. Pictorialism & Naturalism
1886 – Camera Club, London England
Emerson 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/ob jectively/as it is
Peter Henry Emerson, Furze-Cutting on the Suffolk Common, 1886

4. Social Realist Painting vs. Photography
Gustave Courbet, The Stone Breakers,
Peter Henry Emerson, , Furze-Cutting on the Suffolk Common, 1886

5. Pictorialism & Naturalism
Countering the anonymous qualities of photography
Davison 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

6. Impressionist Painting vs. Photography
Claude Monet, Tulip Fields With The Rijnsberg Windmill, 1871
George Davison, The Onoin Field, 1889

7. Aesthetics
“Concerning beauty and the appreciation of beauty.”

8. 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 existence
The seeing of parts, fragments, as universal symbols

9. Straight Photography Form as Essence
Weston 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, 1926
Excusado, 1925,
Pepper #30, 1930

10. Straight Photography Group 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