Pictorialism is an international style and aesthetic movement that dominated
photography
Photography is the art, application, and practice of creating durable images by recording light, either electronically by means of an image sensor, or chemically by means of a light-sensitive material such as photographic film. It is employed ...
during the later 19th and early 20th centuries. There is no standard definition of the term, but in general it refers to a style in which the photographer has somehow manipulated what would otherwise be a straightforward photograph as a means of creating an image rather than simply recording it. Typically, a pictorial photograph appears to lack a sharp focus (some more so than others), is printed in one or more colors other than black-and-white (ranging from warm brown to deep blue) and may have visible brush strokes or other manipulation of the surface. For the pictorialist, a photograph, like a painting, drawing or engraving, was a way of projecting an emotional intent into the viewer's realm of imagination.
Pictorialism as a movement thrived from about 1885 to 1915, although it was still being promoted by some as late as the 1940s. It began in response to claims that a photograph was nothing more than a simple record of reality, and transformed into a movement to advance the status of all photography as a true art form. For more than three decades painters, photographers and art critics debated opposing artistic philosophies, ultimately culminating in the acquisition of photographs by several major art museums.
Pictorialism gradually declined in popularity after 1920, although it did not fade out of popularity until the end of
World War II
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...
. During this period the new style of photographic
Modernism
Modernism is both a philosophy, philosophical and arts movement that arose from broad transformations in Western world, Western society during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The movement reflected a desire for the creation of new fo ...
came into vogue, and the public's interest shifted to more sharply focused images such as seen in the work of
Ansel Adams
Ansel Easton Adams (February 20, 1902 – April 22, 1984) was an American landscape photographer and environmentalist known for his black-and-white images of the American West. He helped found Group f/64, an association of photographers advoca ...
. Several important 20th-century photographers began their careers in a pictorialist style but transitioned into sharply focused photography by the 1930s.
Overview
Photography as a technical process involving the development of film and prints in a darkroom originated in the early 19th century, with the forerunners of traditional photographic prints coming into prominence around 1838 to 1840. Not long after the new medium was established, photographers, painters and others began to argue about the relationship between the scientific and artistic aspects of the medium. As early as 1853, English painter William John Newton proposed that the camera could produce artistic results if the photographer would keep an image slightly out of focus. Others vehemently believed that a photograph was equivalent to the visual record of a chemistry experiment. Photography historian Naomi Rosenblum points out that "the dual character of the medium—its capacity to produce both art and document—
asdemonstrated soon after its discovery ... Nevertheless, a good part of the nineteenth century was spent debating which of these directions was the medium's true function."
These debates reached their peak during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, culminating in the creation of a movement that is usually characterized as a particular style of photography: pictorialism. This style is defined first by a distinctly personal expression that emphasizes photography's ability to create visual beauty rather than simply record facts. However, recently historians have recognized that pictorialism is more than just a visual style. It evolved in direct context with the changing social and cultural attitudes of the time, and, as such, it should not be characterized simply as a visual trend. One writer has noted that pictorialism was "simultaneously a movement, a philosophy, an aesthetic and a style."
Contrary to what some histories of photography portray, pictorialism did not come about as the result of a linear evolution of artistic sensibilities; rather, it was formed through "an intricate, divergent, often passionately conflicting barrage of strategies." While photographers and others debated whether photography could be art, the advent of photography directly affected the roles and livelihoods of many traditional artists. Prior to the development of photography, a painted
miniature portrait
A portrait miniature is a miniature portrait painting, usually executed in gouache, watercolor, or enamel. Portrait miniatures developed out of the techniques of the miniatures in illuminated manuscripts, and were popular among 16th-century el ...
was the most common means of recording a person's likeness. Thousands of painters were engaged in this art form. But photography quickly negated the need for and interest in miniature portraits. One example of this effect was seen at the annual exhibition of the
Royal Academy
The Royal Academy of Arts (RA) is an art institution based in Burlington House on Piccadilly in London. Founded in 1768, it has a unique position as an independent, privately funded institution led by eminent artists and architects. Its pur ...
in London; in 1830 more than 300 miniature paintings were exhibited, but by 1870 only 33 were on display. Photography had taken over for one type of art form, but the question of whether photography itself could be artistic had not been resolved.
Some painters soon adopted photography as a tool to help them record a model's pose, a landscape scene or other elements to include in their art. It is known that many of the great 19th-century painters, including
Delacroix Delacroix is a French surname that derives from ''de la Croix'' ("of the Cross").
It may refer to:
People
* Caroline Delacroix (1883–1945), French-Romanian mistress of Leopold II of Belgium
* Charles-François Delacroix (1741–1805), ...
,
Courbet
Jean Désiré Gustave Courbet ( , , ; 10 June 1819 – 31 December 1877) was a French painter who led the Realism movement in 19th-century French painting. Committed to painting only what he could see, he rejected academic convention and t ...
,
Manet
A wireless ad hoc network (WANET) or mobile ad hoc network (MANET) is a decentralized type of wireless network. The network is ad hoc because it does not rely on a pre-existing infrastructure, such as routers in wired networks or access points ...
,
Degas
Edgar Degas (, ; born Hilaire-Germain-Edgar De Gas, ; 19 July 183427 September 1917) was a French Impressionist artist famous for his pastel drawings and oil paintings.
Degas also produced bronze sculptures, prints and drawings. Degas is espec ...
,
Cézanne, and
Gauguin
Eugène Henri Paul Gauguin (, ; ; 7 June 1848 – 8 May 1903) was a French Post-Impressionist artist. Unappreciated until after his death, Gauguin is now recognized for his experimental use of colour and Synthetism, Synthetist style that were d ...
, took photographs themselves, used photographs by others and incorporated images from photographs into their work. While heated debates about the relationship between photography and art continued in print and in lecture halls, the distinction between a photographic image and a painting became more and more difficult to discern. As photography continued to develop, the interactions between painting and photography became increasingly reciprocal.
[Harker, p. 19] More than a few pictorial photographers, including
Alvin Langdon Coburn
Alvin Langdon Coburn (June 11, 1882 – November 23, 1966) was an early 20th-century photographer who became a key figure in the development of American pictorialism. He became the first major photographer to emphasize the visual potential of ele ...
,
Edward Steichen
Edward Jean Steichen (March 27, 1879 – March 25, 1973) was a Luxembourgish American photographer, painter, and curator, renowned as one of the most prolific and influential figures in the history of photography.
Steichen was credited with tr ...
,
Gertrude Käsebier
Gertrude Käsebier (née Stanton; May 18, 1852 – October 12, 1934) was an American photographer. She was known for her images of motherhood, her portraits of Native Americans, and her promotion of photography as a career for women.
Biography
...
,
Oscar Gustave Rejlander
Oscar Gustave Rejlander (Stockholm, 19 October 1813 – Clapham, London, 18 January 1875) was a pioneering Victorian art photographer and an expert in photomontage. His collaboration with Charles Darwin on ''The Expression of the Emotions in M ...
, and
Sarah Choate Sears, were originally trained as painters or took up painting in addition to their photographic skills.
It was during this same period that cultures and societies around the world were being affected by a rapid increase in intercontinental travel and commerce. Books and magazines published on one continent could be exported and sold on another with increasing ease, and the development of reliable mail services facilitated individual exchanges of ideas, techniques and, most importantly for photography, actual prints. These developments led to pictorialism being "a more international movement in photography than almost any other photographic genre." Camera clubs in the U.S., England, France, Germany, Austria, Japan and other countries regularly lent works to each other's exhibitions, exchanged technical information and published essays and critical commentaries in one another's journals. Led by
The Linked Ring
The Linked Ring (also known as "The Brotherhood of the Linked Ring") was a British photographic society created to propose and defend that photography was just as much an art as it was a science, motivated to propelling photography further into t ...
in England, the
Photo-Secession
The Photo-Secession was an early 20th century movement that promoted photography as a fine art in general and photographic pictorialism in particular.
A group of photographers, led by Alfred Stieglitz and F. Holland Day in the early 20th centur ...
in the U.S., and the
Photo-Club de Paris in France, first hundreds and then thousands of photographers passionately pursued common interests in this multi-dimensional movement. Within the span of little more than a decade, notable pictorial photographers were found in Western and Eastern Europe, North America, Asia and Australia.
The impact of Kodak cameras
For the first forty years after a practical process of capturing and reproducing images was invented, photography remained the domain of a highly dedicated group of individuals who had expert knowledge of and skills in science, mechanics and art. To make a photograph, a person had to learn a great deal about chemistry, optics, light, the mechanics of cameras and how these factors combine to properly render a scene. It was not something that one learned easily or engaged in lightly, and, as such, it was limited to a relatively small group of academics, scientists and professional photographers.
All of that changed in a few years' time span. In 1888
George Eastman
George Eastman (July 12, 1854March 14, 1932) was an American entrepreneur who founded the Kodak, Eastman Kodak Company and helped to bring the photographic use of roll film into the mainstream. He was a major philanthropist, establishing the ...
introduced the first handheld amateur camera, the
Kodak
The Eastman Kodak Company (referred to simply as Kodak ) is an American public company that produces various products related to its historic basis in analogue photography. The company is headquartered in Rochester, New York, and is incorpor ...
camera. It was marketed with the slogan "You press the button, we do the rest."
[Wilson, p. 1] The camera was pre-loaded with a roll of film that produced about 100 2.5" round picture exposures, and it could easily be carried and handheld during its operation. After all of the shots on the film were exposed, the whole camera was returned to the Kodak company in Rochester, New York, where the film was developed, prints were made, and new photographic film was placed inside. Then the camera and prints were returned to the customer, who was ready to take more pictures.
The impact of this change was enormous. Suddenly almost anyone could take a photograph, and within the span of a few years photography became one of the biggest
fad
A fad or trend is any form of collective behavior that develops within a culture, a generation or social group in which a group of people enthusiastically follow an impulse for a short period.
Fads are objects or behaviors that achieve short- ...
s in the world. Photography collector Michael Wilson observed "Thousands of commercial photographers and a hundred times as many amateurs were producing millions of photographs annually ... The decline in the quality of professional work and the deluge of snapshots (a term borrowed from hunting, meaning to get off a quick shot without taking the time to aim) resulted in a world awash with technically good but aesthetically indifferent photographs."
[
Concurrent with this change was the development of national and international commercial enterprises to meet the new demand for cameras, films and prints. At the 1893 ]World Columbian Exposition
The World's Columbian Exposition (also known as the Chicago World's Fair) was a world's fair held in Chicago in 1893 to celebrate the 400th anniversary of Christopher Columbus's arrival in the New World in 1492. The centerpiece of the Fair, hel ...
in Chicago, which attracted more than 27 million people, photography for amateurs was marketed at an unprecedented scale. There were multiple large exhibits displaying photographs from around the world, many camera and darkroom equipment manufacturers showing and selling their latest goods, dozens of portrait studios and even on-the-spot documentation of the Exposition itself. Suddenly photography and photographers were household commodities.
Many serious photographers were appalled. Their craft, and to some their art, was being co-opted by a newly engaged, uncontrolled and mostly untalented citizenry. The debate about art and photography intensified around the argument that if anyone could take a photograph then photography could not possibly be called art. Some of the most passionate defenders of photography as art pointed out that photography should not and cannot be seen as an "either/or" medium—some photographs are indeed simple records of reality, but with the right elements some are indeed works of art. William Howe Downs, art critic for the ''Boston Evening Transcript'', summed up this position in 1900 by saying "Art is not so much a matter of methods and processes as it is an affair of temperament, of taste and of sentiment ... In the hands of the artist, the photograph becomes a work of art ... In a word, photography is what the photographer makes it ‒ an art or a trade."
All of these elements—the debates over photography and art, the impacts of Kodak cameras, and the changing social and cultural values of the times—combined to set the stage for an evolution in how art and photography, independently and together, would appear at the turn of the century. The course that drove pictorialism was set almost as soon as photographic processes were established, but it was not until the last decade of the 19th century that an international pictorialist movement came together.
Defining pictorialism
In 1869 English photographer Henry Peach Robinson
Henry Peach Robinson (9 July 1830, Ludlow, Shropshire – 21 February 1901, Royal Tunbridge Wells, Kent) was an English pictorialist photographer best known for his pioneering combination printing - joining multiple negatives or prints to form ...
published a book entitled ''Pictorial Effect in Photography: Being Hints on Composition and Chiaroscuro for Photographers.'' This is the first common use of the term "pictorial" referring to photography in the context of a certain stylistic element, chiaroscuro
Chiaroscuro ( , ; ), in art, is the use of strong contrasts between light and dark, usually bold contrasts affecting a whole composition. It is also a technical term used by artists and art historians for the use of contrasts of light to achi ...
‒ an Italian term used by painters and art historians that refers to the use of dramatic lighting and shading to convey an expressive mood. In his book Robinson promoted what he called "combination printing", a method he had devised nearly 20 years earlier by combining individual elements from separate images into a new single image by manipulating multiple negatives or prints. Robinson thus considered that he had created "art" through photography, since it was only through his direct intervention that the final image came about. Robinson continued to expand on the meaning of the term throughout his life.
Other photographers and art critics, including Oscar Rejlander
Oscar Gustave Rejlander (Stockholm, 19 October 1813 – Clapham, London, 18 January 1875) was a pioneering Victorian art photographer and an expert in photomontage. His collaboration with Charles Darwin on ''The Expression of the Emotions in M ...
, Marcus Aurelius Root
Marcus Aurelius Root (1808–1888) was a writing teacher and photographer. He was born in Granville, Ohio and died in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
On 20 June 1846, he bought John Jabez Edwin Mayall's Chestnut Street photography studio that was in ...
, John Ruskin
John Ruskin (8 February 1819 20 January 1900) was an English writer, philosopher, art critic and polymath of the Victorian era. He wrote on subjects as varied as geology, architecture, myth, ornithology, literature, education, botany and politi ...
, echoed these ideas. One of the primary forces behind the rise of pictorialism was the belief that straight photography was purely representational ‒ that it showed reality without the filter of artistic interpretation. It was for, all intents and purposes, a simple record of the visual facts, lacking artistic intent or merit. Robinson and others felt strongly that the "usually accepted limitations of photography had to be overcome if an equality of status was to be achieved.
Robert Demachy later summarized this concept in an article entitled "What Difference Is There Between a Good Photograph and an Artistic Photograph?". He wrote "We must realize that, on undertaking pictorial photography, we have, unwittingly perhaps, bound ourselves to the strict observance of rules hundreds of years more ancient than the oldest formulae of our chemical craft. We have slipped into the Temple of Art by a back door, and found ourselves amongst the crowd of adepts."
One of the challenges in promoting photography as art was that there were many different opinions about how art should look. After the Third Philadelphia Salon 1900, which showcased dozens of pictorial photographers, one critic wondered "whether the idea of art in anything like the true sense had ever been heard or thought by the great majority of exhibitors."
While some photographers saw themselves becoming true artists by emulating painting, at least one school of painting directly inspired photographers. During the 1880s, when debates over art and photography were becoming commonplace, a style of painting known as Tonalism
Tonalism was an artistic style that emerged in the 1880s when American artists began to paint landscape forms with an overall tone of colored atmosphere or mist. Between 1880 and 1915, dark, neutral hues such as gray, brown or blue, often domina ...
first appeared. Within a few years it became a significant artistic influence on the development of pictorialism. Painters such as James McNeill Whistler
James Abbott McNeill Whistler (; July 10, 1834July 17, 1903) was an American painter active during the American Gilded Age and based primarily in the United Kingdom. He eschewed sentimentality and moral allusion in painting and was a leading pr ...
, George Inness
George Inness (May 1, 1825 – August 3, 1894) was a prominent United States, American landscape painting, landscape painter.
Now recognized as one of the most influential American artists of the nineteenth century, Inness was influenced b ...
, Ralph Albert Blakelock
Ralph Albert Blakelock (October 15, 1847 – August 9, 1919) was a romanticist American painter known primarily for his landscape paintings related to the Tonalism movement.
Biography
Ralph Blakelock was born in New York City on October 15, 18 ...
and Arnold Böcklin
Arnold Böcklin (16 October 182716 January 1901) was a Swiss symbolist painter.
Biography
He was born in Basel. His father, Christian Frederick Böcklin (b. 1802), was descended from an old family of Schaffhausen, and engaged in the silk tra ...
saw the interpretation of the experience of nature, as contrasted with simply recording an image of nature, as the artist's highest duty. To these artists it was essential that their paintings convey an emotional response to the viewer, which was elicited through an emphasis on the atmospheric elements in the picture and by the use of "vague shapes and subdued tonalities ... o convey
O, or o, is the fifteenth letter and the fourth vowel letter in the Latin alphabet, used in the modern English alphabet, the alphabets of other western European languages and others worldwide. Its name in English is ''o'' (pronounced ), plu ...
a sense of elegiac melancholy."[Rosenblum, pp 297–299]
Applying this same sensibility to photography, Alfred Stieglitz
Alfred Stieglitz (January 1, 1864 – July 13, 1946) was an American photographer and modern art promoter who was instrumental over his 50-year career in making photography an accepted art form. In addition to his photography, Stieglitz was kno ...
later stated it this way: "Atmosphere is the medium through which we see all things. In order, therefore, to see them in their true value on a photograph, as we do in Nature, atmosphere must be there. Atmosphere softens all lines; it graduates the transition from light to shade; it is essential to the reproduction of the sense of distance. That dimness of outline which is characteristic for distant objects is due to atmosphere. Now, what atmosphere is to Nature, tone is to a picture."
Paul L. Anderson, a prolific contemporary promoter of pictorialism, advised his readers that true art photography conveyed "suggestion and mystery", in which "mystery consists in affording an opportunity for the exercise of the imagination, whereas suggestion involves stimulating the imagination by direct or indirect means." Science, pictorialists contended, might answer a demand for truthful information, but art must respond to the human need for stimulation of the senses.[ This could only be done by creating a mark of individuality for each image and, ideally, each print.
For pictorialists, true individuality was expressed through the creation of a unique print, considered by many to be the epitome of artistic photography.][ By manipulating the appearance of images through what some called "ennobling processes", such as gum or bromoil printing, pictorialists were able to create unique photographs that were sometimes mistaken for drawings or lithographs.
Many of the strongest voices that championed pictorialism at its beginning were a new generation of amateur photographers. In contrast to its meaning today, the word "amateur" held a different connotation in the discussions of that time. Rather than suggesting an inexperienced novice, the word characterized someone who strived for artistic excellence and a freedom from rigid academic influence.][Wilson, p 4] An amateur was seen as someone who could break the rules because he or she was not bound by the then rigid rules set forth by long-established photography organizations like the Royal Photographic Society
The Royal Photographic Society of Great Britain, commonly known as the Royal Photographic Society (RPS), is one of the world's oldest photographic societies. It was founded in London, England, in 1853 as the Photographic Society of London with ...
. An article in the British journal ''Amateur Photographer'' stated "photography is an art ‒ perhaps the only one in which the amateur soon equals, and frequently excels, the professional in proficiency."[ This attitude prevailed in many countries around the world. At the 1893 Hamburg International Photographic Exhibition in Germany, only the work of amateurs was allowed. ]Alfred Lichtwark
Alfred Lichtwark (14 November 1852 – 13 January 1914) was a German art historian, museum curator, and art educator in Hamburg. He is one of the founders of museum education and the art education movement.
Background and career
Alfred Lich ...
, then director of the Kunsthalle Hamburg
The Hamburger Kunsthalle is the art museum of the Free and Hanseatic City of Hamburg, Germany. It is one of the largest art museums in the country. The museum consists of three connected buildings, dating from 1869 (main building), 1921 (Kuppelsaa ...
believed "the only good portraiture in any medium was being done by amateurs photographers, who had the economic freedom and time to experiment."[
In 1948, S.D.Jouhar defined a Pictorial photograph as "mainly an aesthetic symbolic record of a scene ''plus'' the artist's personal comment and interpretation, capable of transmitting an emotional response to the mind of a receptive spectator. It should show originality, imagination, unity of purpose, a quality of repose, and have an infinite quality about it"
Over the years other names were given to pictorialism, including "art photography" and ''Camerawork'' (both by Alfred Stieglitz), "Impressionist photography" (by George Davison), "new vision (''Neue Vision''), and finally "subjective photography" (''Subjektive Fotographie'') in Germany after the 1940s. In Spain pictorial photographers were sometimes called "interventionists" (''intervencionistas''), although the style itself was not known as "interventionism".
]
Gallery
Image:Alice Boughton-Dawn.jpg, Alice Boughton
Alice Boughton (14 May 1866 – 21 June 1943) was an early 20th-century American photographer known for her photographs of many literary and theatrical figures of her time. She was a Fellow of Alfred Stieglitz's Photo-Secession, a circle of phot ...
, ''Dawn'', 1909
Image:Soul of the Blasted Pine (Brigman).jpg, Annie Brigman, ''Soul of the Blasted Pine'', 1908
Image:Clarence Hudson White - Morning - Google Art Project.jpg, Clarence H. White
Clarence Hudson White (April 8, 1871 – July 8, 1925) was an American photographer, teacher and a founding member of the Photo-Secession movement. He grew up in small towns in Ohio, where his primary influences were his family and the social l ...
, ''Morning'', 1908
Image:PaulHaviland-DorisKEane.jpg, Paul Haviland
Paul Burty Haviland (17 June 1880 – 21 December 1950) was a French-American photographer, writer and arts critic who was closely associated with Alfred Stieglitz and the Photo-Secession.
Biography
Haviland was born to Charles Edward and Madele ...
, ''Doris Keane'', 1912
Image:CW05-06 - Robert Demachy, Struggle, 1904.jpg, Robert Demachy
Robert Demachy (1859–1936) was a prominent French Pictorial photographer of the late 19th and early 20th century. He is best known for his intensely manipulated prints that display a distinct painterly quality.
Life
Early years (1859–1875)
...
, ''Struggle'', 1904
Image:The Hand of Man MET DP232988.jpg, Alfred Stieglitz
Alfred Stieglitz (January 1, 1864 – July 13, 1946) was an American photographer and modern art promoter who was instrumental over his 50-year career in making photography an accepted art form. In addition to his photography, Stieglitz was kno ...
, ''The Hand of Man'', 1902
Image:Steichen flatiron.jpg, Edward Steichen
Edward Jean Steichen (March 27, 1879 – March 25, 1973) was a Luxembourgish American photographer, painter, and curator, renowned as one of the most prolific and influential figures in the history of photography.
Steichen was credited with tr ...
, ''Flatiron Building'', 1904
Image: Constant Puyo- Eingeschlafen, 1897.jpg, Constant Puyo
Émile Joachim Constant Puyo (November 12, 1857 – October 6, 1933) was a French photographer, active in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. As the leading advocate of the Pictorialist movement in France, he championed the practice of photog ...
, ''Sommeil'', 1897
Image:Alvin Langdon Coburn-Spiderwebs.jpg, Alvin Langdon Coburn
Alvin Langdon Coburn (June 11, 1882 – November 23, 1966) was an early 20th-century photographer who became a key figure in the development of American pictorialism. He became the first major photographer to emphasize the visual potential of ele ...
, ''Spiderwebs'', 1908
Image:Day, Fred Holland (1864-1933) - 1897 ca. - Ebony and ivory 1.jpg, F. Holland Day, ''Ebony and Ivory'', ca.1897
Image:DeMeyer-Casati.jpg, Adolph de Meyer
Baron Adolph de Meyer (1 September 1868 – 6 January 1946) was a photographer famed for his photographic portraits in the early 20th century, many of which depicted celebrities such as Mary Pickford, Rita Lydig, Luisa Casati, Billie Burke, Iren ...
, "Marchesa Casati", 1912
Image:JosephKeiley-Lenore.jpg, Joseph Keiley
Joseph Turner Keiley (26 July 1869 – 21 January 1914) was an early 20th-century photographer, writer and art critic. He was a close associate of photographer Alfred Stieglitz and was one of the founding members of the Photo-Secession. Over the ...
, ''Lenore'', 1907
Image:Clarence H White-Nude 1908.jpg, Clarence H. White
Clarence Hudson White (April 8, 1871 – July 8, 1925) was an American photographer, teacher and a founding member of the Photo-Secession movement. He grew up in small towns in Ohio, where his primary influences were his family and the social l ...
, ''Nude'', 1908
Image:Constant Puyo- Montmartre 1906.jpg, Constant Puyo
Émile Joachim Constant Puyo (November 12, 1857 – October 6, 1933) was a French photographer, active in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. As the leading advocate of the Pictorialist movement in France, he championed the practice of photog ...
, ''Montmartre'', 1906
Image:Torso MET DP258378.jpg, Clarence H. White
Clarence Hudson White (April 8, 1871 – July 8, 1925) was an American photographer, teacher and a founding member of the Photo-Secession movement. He grew up in small towns in Ohio, where his primary influences were his family and the social l ...
and Alfred Stieglitz
Alfred Stieglitz (January 1, 1864 – July 13, 1946) was an American photographer and modern art promoter who was instrumental over his 50-year career in making photography an accepted art form. In addition to his photography, Stieglitz was kno ...
, ''Torso'', 1907
Image:Gertrude Kasebier Blessed Art Thou Among Women 1899.jpg, ''Blessed Art Thou Among Women'' by Gertrude Käsebier
Gertrude Käsebier (née Stanton; May 18, 1852 – October 12, 1934) was an American photographer. She was known for her images of motherhood, her portraits of Native Americans, and her promotion of photography as a career for women.
Biography
...
, 1899. Brooklyn Museum
The Brooklyn Museum is an art museum located in the New York City borough of Brooklyn. At , the museum is New York City's second largest and contains an art collection with around 1.5 million objects. Located near the Prospect Heights, Crown H ...
Transition into Modernism
The evolution of pictorialism from the 19th century well into the 1940s was both slow and determined. From its roots in Europe it spread to the U.S. and the rest of the world in several semi-distinct stages. Prior to 1890 pictorialism emerged through advocates who were mainly in England, Germany, Austria and France. During the 1890s the center shifted to New York and Stieglitz's multi-faceted efforts. By 1900 pictorialism had reached countries around the world, and major exhibitions of pictorial photography were held in dozens of cities.
A culminating moment for pictorialism and for photography in general occurred in 1910, when the Albright Gallery in Buffalo bought 15 photographs from Stieglitz' 291 Gallery
291 is the commonly known name for an internationally famous art gallery that was located in Midtown Manhattan at 291 Fifth Avenue in New York City from 1905 to 1917. Originally called the "Little Galleries of the Photo-Secession", the gallery ...
. This was the first time photography was officially recognized as an art form worthy of a museum collection, and it signaled a definite shift in many photographers' thinking. Stieglitz, who had worked so long for this moment, responded by indicating he was already thinking of a new vision beyond pictorialism. He wrote, It is high time that the stupidity and sham in pictorial photography be struck a solarplexus blow ... Claims of art won't do. Let the photographer make a perfect photograph. And if he happens to be a lover of perfection and a seer, the resulting photograph will be straight and beautiful – a true photograph.
Soon after Stieglitz began to direct his attention more to modern painting and sculpture, and Clarence H. White and others took over the leadership of a new generation of photographers. As the harsh realities of World War I
World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...
affected people around the world, the public's taste for the art of the past began to change. Developed countries of the world focused more and more on industry and growth, and art reflected this change by featuring hard-edged images of new buildings, airplanes and industrial landscapes.
Adolf Fassbender, a 20th-century photographer who continued to make pictorial photographs well into the 1960s, believed that pictorialism is eternal because it is based upon beauty first. He wrote "There is no solution in trying to eradicate pictorialism for one would then have to destroy idealism, sentiment and all sense of art and beauty. There will always be pictorialism."
Pictorialism by country
Australia
One of the primary catalysts of pictorialism in Australia was John Kauffmann
John is a common English name and surname:
* John (given name)
* John (surname)
John may also refer to:
New Testament
Works
* Gospel of John, a title often shortened to John
* First Epistle of John, often shortened to 1 John
* Second E ...
(1864–1942), who studied photographic chemistry and printing in London, Zurich and Vienna between 1889 and 1897. When he returned to his home country in 1897, he greatly influenced his colleagues by exhibiting what one newspaper called photographs that could be "mistaken for works of art." Over the next decade a core of photographer artists, including Harold Cazneaux
Harold Pierce Cazneaux (30 March 1878 – 19 June 1953) was an Australian pictorialist photographer; a pioneer whose style had an indelible impact on the development of Australian photographic history. In 1916, he was a founding member of the ...
, Frank Hurley
James Francis "Frank" Hurley (15 October 1885 – 16 January 1962) was an Australian photographer and adventurer. He participated in a number of expeditions to Antarctica and served as an official photographer with Australian forces durin ...
, Cecil Bostock, Henri Mallard
Henri Marie Joseph Mallard (9 February 1884 – 21 January 1967), was an Australian photographer.
Born in Balmain (Sydney, Australia) of French parents, he came to photography via the industry. Using his French connections, and accent (which w ...
, Rose Simmonds[Rose Simmonds Queensland Pictorial Photographer]
Art Museum Queensland, Retrieved 16 May 2016 and Olive Cotton
Olive Cotton (11 July 191127 September 2003) was a pioneering Australian modernist photographer of the 1930s and 1940s working in Sydney. Cotton became a national "name" with a retrospective and touring exhibition 50 years later in 1985. A book ...
, exhibited pictorial works at salons and exhibitions across the country and published their photos in the ''Australian Photographic Journal'' and the ''Australasian Photo-Review''.
Austria
In 1891 the Club der Amateur Photographen in Wien (Vienna Amateur Photographers' Club) held the first International Exhibition of Photography in Vienna. The Club, founded by Carl Sma, Federico Mallmann and , was founded to foster relationships with photographic groups in other countries. After Alfred Buschbeck became head of the club in 1893, it simplified its name to Wiener Camera-Klub (Vienna Camera Club) and began publishing a lavish magazine called ''Wiener Photographische Blätter'' that continued until 1898. It regularly featured articles from influential foreign photographers such as Alfred Stieglitz
Alfred Stieglitz (January 1, 1864 – July 13, 1946) was an American photographer and modern art promoter who was instrumental over his 50-year career in making photography an accepted art form. In addition to his photography, Stieglitz was kno ...
and Robert Demachy
Robert Demachy (1859–1936) was a prominent French Pictorial photographer of the late 19th and early 20th century. He is best known for his intensely manipulated prints that display a distinct painterly quality.
Life
Early years (1859–1875)
...
.[Manon Hübscher, "The Vienna Camera Club, Catalyst and Crucible", in Daum, pp 125–129]
As in other countries, opposing viewpoints engaged a wider range of photographers in defining what pictorialism meant. , and Heinrich Kühn
Carl Christian ''Heinrich'' Kühn (25 February 1866 in Dresden – 14 September 1944 in Birgitz) was an Austrian–Germany, German photographer and photography pioneer.
Overview
Heinrich Kühn is regarded one of the forefathers of fine art photo ...
formed an organization called Das Kleeblatt (The Trilfolium) expressly to increase the exchange of information with other organizations in other countries, especially, France, Germany and the United States. Initially a small, informal group, Das Kleeblatt increased it influence in the Wiener Camera-Klub through its international connections, and several other organizations promoting pictorialism were created in other cities throughout the region. As in other countries, interest in pictorialism faded after World War I, and eventually most of the Austrian organization slipped into obscurity during the 1920s.[
]
Canada
Pictorialism in Canada initially centered on Sidney Carter (1880–1956), the first of his countrymen to be elected to the Photo-Secession. This inspired him to bring together a group of pictorial photographers in Toronto, the Studio Club in Toronto, with Harold Mortimer-Lamb (1872–1970) and fellow Secessionist Percy Hodgins. In 1907 Carter organized Canada's first major exhibition of pictorial photography at Montreal's Art Association. Carter and fellow photographer Arthur Goss attempted to introduce pictorialist principles to the members of the Toronto Camera Club, although their efforts were met with some resistance.
England
As early as 1853 amateur photographer William J. Newton proposed the idea that "a 'natural object', such as a tree, should be photographed in accordance 'the acknowledged principles of fine art'".[Brian Liddy, "The Origins and Development of Pictorial Photography in Britain." In Daum, pp 65‒71] From there other early photographers, including Henry Peach Robinson
Henry Peach Robinson (9 July 1830, Ludlow, Shropshire – 21 February 1901, Royal Tunbridge Wells, Kent) was an English pictorialist photographer best known for his pioneering combination printing - joining multiple negatives or prints to form ...
and Peter Henry Emerson
Peter Henry Emerson (13 May 1856 – 12 May 1936) was a British writer and photographer. His photographs are early examples of promoting straight photography as an art form. He is known for taking photographs that displayed rural settings and f ...
, continued to promote the concept of photography as art. In 1892 Robinson, along with George Davison and Alfred Maskell, established the first organization devoted specifically to the ideal of photography as art ‒ The Linked Ring. They invited like-minded photographers, including Frank Sutcliffe
Francis Meadow (Frank) Sutcliffe (6 October 1853 – 31 May 1941) was an English pioneering photographic artist whose work presented an enduring record of life in the seaside town of Whitby, England, and surrounding areas, in the late Victoria ...
, Frederick H. Evans
Frederick H. Evans (26 June 1853 – 24 June 1943) was an English photographer, best known for his images of architectural subjects, such as English and French cathedrals.
Evans was born and died in London. He began his career as a bookseller, ...
, Alvin Langdon Coburn
Alvin Langdon Coburn (June 11, 1882 – November 23, 1966) was an early 20th-century photographer who became a key figure in the development of American pictorialism. He became the first major photographer to emphasize the visual potential of ele ...
, Frederick Hollyer
Frederick Hollyer (17 June 1838 – 21 November 1933) was an English photographer and engraver known for his photographic reproductions of paintings and drawings, particularly those of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, and for portraits of liter ...
, James Craig Annan
James Craig Annan (8 March 1864 – 5 June 1946) was a pioneering Scottish-born photographer and Honorary Fellow of the Royal Photographic Society.
Early life and education
The second son of photographer Thomas Annan, James Craig Annan was bo ...
, Alfred Horsley Hinton
Alfred Horsley Hinton (1863 – 25 February 1908) was an English landscape photographer, best known for his work in the pictorialist movement in the 1890s and early 1900s. As an original member of the Linked Ring and editor of ''The Amateur Ph ...
and others, to join them. Soon The Linked Ring was at the forefront of the movement to have photography regarded as an art form.
After The Linked Ring invited a select group of Americans as members, debates broke out about the goals and purpose of the club. When more American than British members were shown at their annual exhibit in 1908, a motion was introduced to disband the organization. By 1910 The Linked Ring has dissolved, and its members went their own way.
France
Pictorialism in France is dominated by two names, Constant Puyo
Émile Joachim Constant Puyo (November 12, 1857 – October 6, 1933) was a French photographer, active in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. As the leading advocate of the Pictorialist movement in France, he championed the practice of photog ...
and Robert Demachy
Robert Demachy (1859–1936) was a prominent French Pictorial photographer of the late 19th and early 20th century. He is best known for his intensely manipulated prints that display a distinct painterly quality.
Life
Early years (1859–1875)
...
. They are the most famous members of the Photo-Club de Paris, a separate organization from the Société française de photographie
The Société française de photographie (SFP) is an association, founded on 15 November 1854, devoted to the history of photography. It has a large collection of photographs and old cameras.
Among the founding members were Olympe Aguado, Hippoly ...
. They are particularly well known for their use of pigment processes, especially gum bichromate
Gum bichromate is a 19th-century photographic printing process based on the light sensitivity of dichromates. It is capable of rendering painterly images from photographic negatives. Gum printing is traditionally a multi-layered printing process, ...
. In 1906, they published a book on the subject, ''Les Procédés d'art en Photographie''. Both of them also wrote many articles for the ''Bulletin du Photo-Club de Paris'' (1891–1902) and ''La Revue de Photographie'' (1903–1908), a magazine which quickly became the most influential French publication dealing with artistic photography during the early 20th century.
Germany
The brothers Theodor and Oskar Hofmeister of Hamburg were among the first to advocate for photography as art in their country. At meetings of the Society for the Promotion of Amateur Photography (Gesellschaft zur Förderung der Amateur-Photographie), other photographers, including Heinrich Beck, George Einbeck, and Otto Scharf, advanced the cause of pictorialism. The Homeisters, along with Heinrich Kühn
Carl Christian ''Heinrich'' Kühn (25 February 1866 in Dresden – 14 September 1944 in Birgitz) was an Austrian–Germany, German photographer and photography pioneer.
Overview
Heinrich Kühn is regarded one of the forefathers of fine art photo ...
, later formed The Presidium (Das Praesidium), whose members were instrumental in major exhibitions at the Kunsthalle in Hamburg. Nowadays Karl Maria Udo Remmes represents the style of pictorialism in the field of theatrical backstage photography.
Japan
In 1889 photographers Ogawa Kazumasa
, also known as Ogawa Kazuma or Ogawa Isshin, was a Japanese photographer, printer and publisher who was a pioneer in photomechanical printing and photography in the Meiji era.
Life
Ogawa was born in Saitama to the Matsudaira samurai clan. H ...
, W. K. Burton
William Kinnimond Burton (11 May 1856 – 5 August 1899) was a Scottish people, Scottish engineer, photographer and photography writer, born in Edinburgh, Scotland, who lived most of his career in Meiji period Japan.
Biography
Early life
Bur ...
, Kajima Seibei
was a Japanese photographer. In 2019, Fujifilm
, trading as Fujifilm, or simply Fuji, is a Japanese multinational conglomerate headquartered in Tokyo, Japan, operating in the realms of photography, optics, office and medical electronics, b ...
and several others formed the Nihon Shashin-kai ( Japan Photographic Society) in order to promote ''geijutsu shashin'' (art photography) in that country. Acceptance of this new style was slow at first, but in 1893 Burton coordinated a major invitational exhibition known as ''Gaikoku Shashin-ga Tenrain-kai'' or the ''Foreign Photographic Art Exhibition''.[Ryūichi Kaneko, "Pictorial Photography in Japan." In Padon, pp 81–84] The 296 works that were shown came from members of the London Camera Club, including important photographs by Peter Henry Emerson
Peter Henry Emerson (13 May 1856 – 12 May 1936) was a British writer and photographer. His photographs are early examples of promoting straight photography as an art form. He is known for taking photographs that displayed rural settings and f ...
and George Davison. The breadth and depth of this exhibition had a tremendous impact on Japanese photographers, and it "galvanized the discourse of art photography throughout the country."[ After the exhibition ended Burton and Kajima founded a new organization, the Dai Nihon Shashin Hinpyō-kai (Greater Japan Photography Critique Society) to advance their particular viewpoints on art photography.
In 1904 a new magazine called ''Shashin Geppo'' (''Monthly Photo Journal'') was started, and for many years it was the centerpiece for the advancement of and debates about pictorialism. The meaning and direction of art photography as championed by Ogawa and others was challenged in the new journal by photographers Tarō Saitō and Haruki Egashira, who, along with Tetsusuke Akiyama and Seiichi Katō, formed a new group known as Yūtsuzu-sha. This new group promoted their own concepts of what they called "the inner truth" of art photography.][ For the next decade many photographers aligned themselves with one of these two organizations.
In the 1920s new organizations were formed that bridged the transition between pictorialism and modernism. Most prominently among these was the Shashin Geijustu-sha (Photographic Art Society) formed by ]Shinzō Fukuhara
was a Japanese photographer.
He was born in Kyōbashi-ku, Tokyo, on 25 July 1883, as the fourth son of Arinobu Fukuhara, the head of Apothecary Shiseidō (which in 1927 would be incorporated as Shiseidō) and Toku Fukuhara (). The third brother p ...
and his brother Rosō Fukuhara
was a Japanese photographer noted for a strikingly modern approach to pictorialism.
He was born in Ginza on 16 January 1892, as , son of , the head of Apothecary Shiseidō (which in 1927 would be incorporated as Shiseidō) and . His three eldest ...
. They promoted the concept of ''hikari to sono kaichō'' (light with its harmony) that rejected an overt manipulation of an image in favor of soft-focused images using silver gelatin printing.[
]
Netherlands
The first generation of Dutch pictorialists, including Bram Loman, Chris Schuver and Carl Emile Mögle, began working around 1890. They initially focused on naturalistic themes and favored platinum printing. Although initially there was no Dutch equivalent of The Linked Ring or Photo-Secession, several smaller organizations collaborated to produce the First International Salon for Art Photography in 1904. Three years later Adriann Boer, Ernest Loeb, Johan Huijsen and others founded the Dutch Club for Art Photography (Nederlandsche Club voor Foto-Kunst), which amassed an important collection of pictorial photography now housed at Leiden University
Leiden University (abbreviated as ''LEI''; nl, Universiteit Leiden) is a Public university, public research university in Leiden, Netherlands. The university was founded as a Protestant university in 1575 by William the Silent, William, Prince o ...
. A second generation of Dutch pictorialists included Henri Berssenbrugge, Bernard Eilers and Berend Zweers.
Russia
Pictorialism spread to Russia first through European magazines and was championed by photography pioneers Evgeny Vishnyakov in Russia and Jan Bulhak
Jan, JaN or JAN may refer to:
Acronyms
* Jackson, Mississippi (Amtrak station), US, Amtrak station code JAN
* Jackson-Evers International Airport, Mississippi, US, IATA code
* Jabhat al-Nusra (JaN), a Syrian militant group
* Japanese Article Numb ...
from Poland. Soon after a new generation of pictorialists became active. These included Aleksei Mazuin, Sergei Lobovikov, Piotr Klepikov, Vassily Ulitin, Nikolay Andreyev
Nikolay Andreyevich Andreyev (russian: Николай Андреевич Андреев; – 24 December 1932) was a Russian sculptor, graphic artist and stage designer. As a young man Andreyev studied with Sergey Volnukhin and in 1902 became ...
, Nikolai Svishchov-Paola, Leonid Shokin and Alexander Grinberg. In 1894 the Russian Photographic Society was established in Moscow, but differences of opinion among the members led to the establishment of a second organization, the Moscow Society of Art Photography. Both were the primary promoters of pictorialism in Russia for many years.
Spain
The main centers of pictorial photography in Spain were Madrid and Barcelona. Leading the movement in Madrid was Antonio Cánovas, who founded the Real Sociedad Fotográfica de Madrid and edited the magazine ''La Fotografía''. Cánovas claimed to be the first to introduce artistic photography to Spain, but throughout his career he remained rooted in the allegorical style of the early English pictorialists like Robinson. He refused to use any surface manipulation in his prints, saying that style "is not, cannot be and will never be photography.". Other influential photographers in the country were Carlos Iñigo, Manual Renon, Joan Vilatobà and a person known only as the Conde de la Ventosa. Unlike the rest of Europe, pictorialism remained popular in Spain throughout the 1920s and 1930s, and Ventosa was the most prolific pictorialist of that period. Unfortunately very few original prints remain from any of these photographers; most of their images are now known only from magazine reproductions.
United States
One of the key figures in establishing both the definition and direction of pictorialism was American Alfred Stieglitz
Alfred Stieglitz (January 1, 1864 – July 13, 1946) was an American photographer and modern art promoter who was instrumental over his 50-year career in making photography an accepted art form. In addition to his photography, Stieglitz was kno ...
, who began as an amateur but quickly made the promotion of pictorialism his profession and obsession. Through his writings, his organizing and his personal efforts to advance and promote pictorial photographers, Stieglitz was a dominant figure in pictorialism from its beginnings to its end. Following in the footsteps of German photographers, in 1892 Stieglitz established a group he called the Photo-Secession
The Photo-Secession was an early 20th century movement that promoted photography as a fine art in general and photographic pictorialism in particular.
A group of photographers, led by Alfred Stieglitz and F. Holland Day in the early 20th centur ...
in New York. Stieglitz hand-picked the members of the group, and he tightly controlled what it did and when it did it. By selecting photographers whose vision was aligned with his, including Gertrude Käsebier
Gertrude Käsebier (née Stanton; May 18, 1852 – October 12, 1934) was an American photographer. She was known for her images of motherhood, her portraits of Native Americans, and her promotion of photography as a career for women.
Biography
...
, Eva Watson-Schütze
Eva Watson-Schütze (1867–1935) was an American photographer who was one of the founding members of the Photo-Secession.
Life
She was born as Eva Lawrence Watson in Jersey City, New Jersey on September 16, 1867. Her parents were Dr. John and ...
, Alvin Langdon Coburn
Alvin Langdon Coburn (June 11, 1882 – November 23, 1966) was an early 20th-century photographer who became a key figure in the development of American pictorialism. He became the first major photographer to emphasize the visual potential of ele ...
, Edward Steichen
Edward Jean Steichen (March 27, 1879 – March 25, 1973) was a Luxembourgish American photographer, painter, and curator, renowned as one of the most prolific and influential figures in the history of photography.
Steichen was credited with tr ...
, and Joseph Keiley
Joseph Turner Keiley (26 July 1869 – 21 January 1914) was an early 20th-century photographer, writer and art critic. He was a close associate of photographer Alfred Stieglitz and was one of the founding members of the Photo-Secession. Over the ...
, Stieglitz built a circle of friends who had enormous individual and collective influence over the movement to have photography accepted as art. Stieglitz also continually promoted pictorialism through two publications he edited, ''Camera Notes
''Camera Notes'' was a photographic journal published by the Camera Club of New York from 1897 to 1903. It was edited for most of that time by photographer Alfred Stieglitz and was considered the most significant American photography journal of i ...
'' and ''Camera Work
''Camera Work'' was a quarterly photographic journal published by Alfred Stieglitz from 1903 to 1917. It presented high-quality photogravures by some of the most important photographers in the world, with the goal to establish photography as a ...
'' and by establishing and running a gallery in New York that for many years exhibited only pictorial photographers (the Little Galleries of the Photo-Secession
Little is a synonym for small size and may refer to:
Arts and entertainment
* ''Little'' (album), 1990 debut album of Vic Chesnutt
* ''Little'' (film), 2019 American comedy film
*The Littles, a series of children's novels by American author John P ...
).
While much initially centered on Stieglitz, pictorialism in the U.S. was not limited to New York. In Boston F. Holland Day was one of the most prolific and noted pictorialists of his time. Clarence H. White
Clarence Hudson White (April 8, 1871 – July 8, 1925) was an American photographer, teacher and a founding member of the Photo-Secession movement. He grew up in small towns in Ohio, where his primary influences were his family and the social l ...
, who produced extraordinary pictorial photographs while in Ohio, went on to teach a whole new generation of photographers. On the West Coast the California Camera Club and Southern California Camera Club included prominent pictorialists Annie Brigman, Arnold Genthe
Arnold Genthe (8 January 1869 – 9 August 1942) was a German-American photographer, best known for his photographs of San Francisco's Chinatown, the 1906 San Francisco earthquake, and his portraits of noted people, from politicians and socialite ...
, Adelaide Hanscom Leeson, Emily Pitchford and William Edward Dassonville
William is a male given name of Germanic origin.Hanks, Hardcastle and Hodges, ''Oxford Dictionary of First Names'', Oxford University Press, 2nd edition, , p. 276. It became very popular in the English language after the Norman conquest of Eng ...
. Later on, the Seattle Camera Club was started by a group of Japanese-American pictorialists, including Dr. Kyo Koike
Dr. was a Japanese-American poet, physician and photographer.
Photography
Koike arrived in Seattle in 1916 at the age of 38, and established a medical clinic in the downtown area near Main Street and 5th Avenue.
Although he was a respect ...
, Frank Asakichi Kunishige and Iwao Matsushita (prominent members later included Ella E. McBride and Soichi Sunami
Soichi Sunami (角南 壮一, given name translating as "magnificent first son," and family name translating as "south corner"; 1885–1971) was a modernist photographer, influenced by the pictorialist movement, and best known for his portraits ...
).[Martin, pp 10–30]
Techniques
Pictorial photographers began by taking an ordinary glass-plate or film negative. Some adjusted the focus of the scene or used a special lens to produce a softer image, but for the most part the printing process controlled the final appearance of the photograph. Pictorialists used a variety of papers and chemical processes to produce particular effects, and some then manipulated the tones and surface of prints with brushes, ink or pigments. The following is a list of the most commonly used pictorial processes. More details about these processes may be found in Crawford (pp. 85–95) and in Daum (pp. 332–334). Unless otherwise noted, the descriptions below are summarized from these two books.
* Bromoil process: This is a variant on the oil print process that allows a print to be enlarged. In this process a regular silver gelatin print is made, then bleached in a solution of potassium bichromate. This hardens the surface of the print and allows ink to stick to it. Both the lighter and darker areas of a bromoil print may be manipulated, providing a broader tonal range than an oil print.
* Carbon print: This is an extremely delicate print made by coating tissue paper with potassium bichromate, carbon black
Carbon black (subtypes are acetylene black, channel black, furnace black, lamp black and thermal black) is a material produced by the incomplete combustion of coal and coal tar, vegetable matter, or petroleum products, including fuel oil, fluid ...
or another pigment and gelatin. Carbon prints can provide extraordinary detail and are among the most permanent of all photographic prints. Due to the stability of the paper both before and after processing, carbon printing tissue was one of the earliest commercially made photographic products.
*Cyanotype
The cyanotype (from Ancient Greek κυάνεος - ''kuáneos'', “dark blue” + τύπος - ''túpos'', “mark, impression, type”) is a slow-reacting, economical photographic printing formulation sensitive to a limited near ultraviolet ...
: One of the earliest photographic processes, cyanotypes experienced a brief renewal when pictorialists experimented with their deep blue color tones. The color came from coating paper with light-sensitive iron salts.
*Gum bichromate
Gum bichromate is a 19th-century photographic printing process based on the light sensitivity of dichromates. It is capable of rendering painterly images from photographic negatives. Gum printing is traditionally a multi-layered printing process, ...
: One of the pictorialists' favorites, these prints were made by applying gum arabic
Gum arabic, also known as gum sudani, acacia gum, Arabic gum, gum acacia, acacia, Senegal gum, Indian gum, and by other names, is a natural gum originally consisting of the hardened sap of two species of the '' Acacia'' tree, ''Senegalia sen ...
, potassium bichromate
Potassium dichromate, , is a common inorganic chemical reagent, most commonly used as an oxidizing agent in various laboratory and industrial applications. As with all hexavalent chromium compounds, it is acutely and chronically harmful to health ...
and one or more artist's colored pigments to paper. This sensitized solution slowly hardens where light strikes it, and these areas remain pliable for several hours. The photographer had a great deal of control by varying the mixture of the solution, allowing a shorter or longer exposure and by brushing or rubbing the pigmented areas after exposure.
*Oil print process
The oil print process is a photographic printmaking process that dates to the mid-19th century. Oil prints are made on paper on which a thick gelatin layer has been sensitized to light using dichromate salts. After the paper is exposed to ligh ...
: Made by applying greasy inks to paper coated with a solution of gum bichromate and gelatin. When exposed through a negative, the gum-gelatin hardens where light strikes it while unexposed areas remain soft. Artist's inks are then applied by brush, and the inks adhere only to the hardened areas. Through this process a photographer can manipulate the lighter areas of a gum print while the darker areas remain stable. An oil print cannot be enlarged since it has to be in direct contact with the negative.
*Platinum print
Platinum prints, also called ''platinotypes'', are photographic prints made by a monochrome photographic printing, printing process involving platinum.
Platinum tones range from warm black, to reddish brown, to expanded mid-tone grays that are ...
: Platinum prints require a two-steps process. First, paper is sensitized with iron salts and exposed in contact with a negative until a faint image is formed. Then the paper is chemically developed in a process that replaces the iron salts with platinum. This produces an image with a very wide range of tones, each intensely realized.
Pictorial photographers
Following are two lists of prominent photographers who engaged in pictorialism during their careers. The first list includes photographers who were predominantly pictorialists for all or almost all of their careers (generally those active from 1880 to 1920). The second list includes 20th-century photographers who used a pictorial style early in the careers but who are more well known for pure or straight photography.
Photographers who were predominantly pictorialists
*Wayne Albee
Wayne Clinton Albee (1882–1937) was an American pictorialist photographer, best known for his portraits of dancers such as ballerina Anna Pavlova, Adoplh Bolm of the Ballets Russes, and early modern dance pioneers Doris Humphrey, Ted Shawn, ...
, 1882–1937, American
*James Craig Annan
James Craig Annan (8 March 1864 – 5 June 1946) was a pioneering Scottish-born photographer and Honorary Fellow of the Royal Photographic Society.
Early life and education
The second son of photographer Thomas Annan, James Craig Annan was bo ...
, 1846–1946, Scottish
*Zaida Ben-Yusuf
Zaida Ben-Yusuf (21 November 1869 – 27 September 1933) was an English-born, New York–based portrait photographer noted for her artistic portraits of wealthy, fashionable, and famous Americans during the turn of the 19th–20th century.
In 1 ...
, 1869–1933, American
* 1888–1969, French
*Alice Boughton
Alice Boughton (14 May 1866 – 21 June 1943) was an early 20th-century American photographer known for her photographs of many literary and theatrical figures of her time. She was a Fellow of Alfred Stieglitz's Photo-Secession, a circle of phot ...
, 1866?–1943, American
* Annie Brigman, 1869–1950, American
*Alice Burr Alice Burr (1883–1968) was an American photographer associated with the pictorialist movement. She was San Francisco-based.
Early life and education
Alice Burr was born in 1883. Her grandfather was Ephraim Willard Burr, former mayor of San Fran ...
, 1883–1968, American
*Vladimír Jindřich Bufka
Vladimír Jindřich Bufka (16 July 1887, Olomouc-Pavlovičky – 23 May 1916, Prague) was a Czech photographer and popularizer of photography as well as an important exponent of pictorialism in Czech photography during the early 20th century. Bufk ...
, 1887–1916, Czech
* Jan Bułhak, 1876–1950, Polish
*Julia Margaret Cameron
Julia Margaret Cameron (''née'' Pattle; 11 June 1815 – 26 January 1879) was a British photographer who is considered one of the most important portraitists of the 19th century. She is known for her soft-focus close-ups of famous Victorian m ...
1815–1879, English
*Harold Cazneaux
Harold Pierce Cazneaux (30 March 1878 – 19 June 1953) was an Australian pictorialist photographer; a pioneer whose style had an indelible impact on the development of Australian photographic history. In 1916, he was a founding member of the ...
, 1878–1953, Australian
*Rose Clark
Harriet Candace "Rose" Clark (1852–1942) was an early 20th-century American painter and pictorial photographer. She is best known for the photographs she exhibited with Elizabeth Flint Wade under their joint names, either as "Rose Clark and E ...
, 1852–1942, American
*Alvin Langdon Coburn
Alvin Langdon Coburn (June 11, 1882 – November 23, 1966) was an early 20th-century photographer who became a key figure in the development of American pictorialism. He became the first major photographer to emphasize the visual potential of ele ...
, 1882–1966, American/English
* F. Holland Day, 1864–1933, American
* George Davison, 1854–1930, English
*Robert Demachy
Robert Demachy (1859–1936) was a prominent French Pictorial photographer of the late 19th and early 20th century. He is best known for his intensely manipulated prints that display a distinct painterly quality.
Life
Early years (1859–1875)
...
1859–1936, French
*Mary Devens
Mary Devens (17 May 1857 – 13 March 1920) was an American photographer who was considered one of the ten most prominent pictorial photographers of the early 20th century. She was listed as a founding member of Alfred Stieglitz’s famed Photo-Se ...
, 1857–1920, American
*Pierre Dubreuil
Pierre Dubreuil (March 5, 1872 – January 9, 1944) was a French photographer, born in Lille, who spent his career in France and Belgium. As a pioneer of modernist photography, Dubreuil embraced innovative techniques and ideas that were celebrate ...
1872–1944, French
*Rudolf Eickemeyer Jr.
Rudolf Eickemeyer Jr. (August 7, 1862 – April 25, 1932)Turner Browne and Elaine Partnow, ''MacMillan Biographical Encyclopedia of Photographic Artists and Innovators'' (New York: MacMillan Publishing Company, 1983), pp. 172-173. was an Ameri ...
1862–1932, American
*Peter Henry Emerson
Peter Henry Emerson (13 May 1856 – 12 May 1936) was a British writer and photographer. His photographs are early examples of promoting straight photography as an art form. He is known for taking photographs that displayed rural settings and f ...
1856–1936, English
*Frederick H. Evans
Frederick H. Evans (26 June 1853 – 24 June 1943) was an English photographer, best known for his images of architectural subjects, such as English and French cathedrals.
Evans was born and died in London. He began his career as a bookseller, ...
1853–1943, English
*Frank Eugene
Frank Eugene (19 September 1865 – 16 December 1936) was an American-born photographer who was a founding member of the Photo-Secession and one of the first university-level professors of photography in the world.
Early life
Eugene was born in N ...
, 1865–1936, American
*Ogawa Isshin
, also known as Ogawa Kazuma or Ogawa Isshin, was a Japanese photographer, printer and publisher who was a pioneer in photomechanical printing and photography in the Meiji era.
Life
Ogawa was born in Saitama to the Matsudaira samurai clan. He ...
, 1860–1929, Japanese
*S. D. Jouhar
S. D. Jouhar (1901–1963) was an influential amateur Fine art photography, Fine Art photographer, active in the period 1935 to 1963.
Biography
He was born in Amritsar in 1901 and came to England around 1923 to study medicine. He qualified in 1 ...
, 1901–1963, British
*Gertrude Käsebier
Gertrude Käsebier (née Stanton; May 18, 1852 – October 12, 1934) was an American photographer. She was known for her images of motherhood, her portraits of Native Americans, and her promotion of photography as a career for women.
Biography
...
1852–1934, American
*Kajima Seibei
was a Japanese photographer. In 2019, Fujifilm
, trading as Fujifilm, or simply Fuji, is a Japanese multinational conglomerate headquartered in Tokyo, Japan, operating in the realms of photography, optics, office and medical electronics, b ...
, 1866–1924, Japanese
*Joseph Keiley
Joseph Turner Keiley (26 July 1869 – 21 January 1914) was an early 20th-century photographer, writer and art critic. He was a close associate of photographer Alfred Stieglitz and was one of the founding members of the Photo-Secession. Over the ...
, 1869–1914
*Kyo Koike
Dr. was a Japanese-American poet, physician and photographer.
Photography
Koike arrived in Seattle in 1916 at the age of 38, and established a medical clinic in the downtown area near Main Street and 5th Avenue.
Although he was a respect ...
, 1878–1947, Japanese-American
*Heinrich Kühn
Carl Christian ''Heinrich'' Kühn (25 February 1866 in Dresden – 14 September 1944 in Birgitz) was an Austrian–Germany, German photographer and photography pioneer.
Overview
Heinrich Kühn is regarded one of the forefathers of fine art photo ...
, 1866–1944, Austrian
*Sarah Ladd
Sarah Hall Ladd (April 13, 1860 – March 30, 1927) was an early 20th-century American pictorial and landscape photographer.
Early life
Ladd was born Sarah L. Hall in Somerville, Massachusetts, the daughter of John Gill Hall and Sarah Cushing. ...
, 1860–1927, American
* Adelaide Hanscom Leeson, American
* Eugene Lemaire 1874–1948, Belgian
* 1872–1929, Belgian
* Adoph de Meyer, 1868–1949, French/German
* Léonard Misonne 1870–1943, Belgian
*Ogawa Kazumasa
, also known as Ogawa Kazuma or Ogawa Isshin, was a Japanese photographer, printer and publisher who was a pioneer in photomechanical printing and photography in the Meiji era.
Life
Ogawa was born in Saitama to the Matsudaira samurai clan. H ...
, 1860–1929, Japanese
*Constant Puyo
Émile Joachim Constant Puyo (November 12, 1857 – October 6, 1933) was a French photographer, active in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. As the leading advocate of the Pictorialist movement in France, he championed the practice of photog ...
1857–1933, French
*Jane Reece
Jane B. Reece (born 15 April 1944) is an American scientist and textbook author. Along with American biologist Neil Campbell, she wrote the widely used Campbell/Reece ''Biology'' textbooks.
Reece received an A.B. in Biology from Harvard Univers ...
, 1868?–1961, American
*Guido Rey
Guido is a given name Latinised from the Old High German name Wido. It originated in Medieval Italy. Guido later became a male first name in Austria, Germany, the Low Countries, Scandinavia, Spain, Portugal, Latin America and Switzerland. The me ...
, 1861–1935, Italian
*Henry Peach Robinson
Henry Peach Robinson (9 July 1830, Ludlow, Shropshire – 21 February 1901, Royal Tunbridge Wells, Kent) was an English pictorialist photographer best known for his pioneering combination printing - joining multiple negatives or prints to form ...
, 1830–1901, English
* Sarah Choate Sears, 1858–1935, American
* George Seeley, 1880–1955, American
*Clara Sipprell
Clara Sipprell (October 31, 1885 – December 27, 1975) was a Canadian-born, early 20th-century photographer who lived most of her life in the United States. She was well known for her pictorial landscapes and for portraits of many famous actors, ...
, 1885–1975, American/Canadian
*Alfred Stieglitz
Alfred Stieglitz (January 1, 1864 – July 13, 1946) was an American photographer and modern art promoter who was instrumental over his 50-year career in making photography an accepted art form. In addition to his photography, Stieglitz was kno ...
1864–1946, American
*Karl Struss
Karl Struss, A.S.C. (November 30, 1886 – December 15, 1981) was an American photographer and a cinematographer of the 1900s through the 1950s. He was also one of the earliest pioneers of 3-D films. While he mostly worked on films, such as F. ...
1886–1981, American
* Miron A. Sherling 1880–1951, Russian
*Frank Sutcliffe
Francis Meadow (Frank) Sutcliffe (6 October 1853 – 31 May 1941) was an English pioneering photographic artist whose work presented an enduring record of life in the seaside town of Whitby, England, and surrounding areas, in the late Victoria ...
, 1853–1941, English
* John William Twycross 1871–1936, Australian
* Elizabeth Flint Wade, 1849–1915, American
* Agnes Warburg, 1872–1953, English
*Eva Watson-Schütze
Eva Watson-Schütze (1867–1935) was an American photographer who was one of the founding members of the Photo-Secession.
Life
She was born as Eva Lawrence Watson in Jersey City, New Jersey on September 16, 1867. Her parents were Dr. John and ...
, 1867–1935, American
*, 1843–1903, Austrian
*Clarence H. White
Clarence Hudson White (April 8, 1871 – July 8, 1925) was an American photographer, teacher and a founding member of the Photo-Secession movement. He grew up in small towns in Ohio, where his primary influences were his family and the social l ...
, 1871–1925, American
* Myra Albert Wiggins, 1869–1956, American
20th-century photographers who began as pictorialists
*Ansel Adams
Ansel Easton Adams (February 20, 1902 – April 22, 1984) was an American landscape photographer and environmentalist known for his black-and-white images of the American West. He helped found Group f/64, an association of photographers advoca ...
, 1902–1984, American
* Cecil Bostock 1884–1939 Australian
*Olive Cotton
Olive Cotton (11 July 191127 September 2003) was a pioneering Australian modernist photographer of the 1930s and 1940s working in Sydney. Cotton became a national "name" with a retrospective and touring exhibition 50 years later in 1985. A book ...
, 1911–2003, Australian
*Imogen Cunningham
Imogen Cunningham (; April 12, 1883 – June 23, 1976) was an American photographer known for her botanical photography, nudes, and industrial landscapes. Cunningham was a member of the California-based Group f/64, known for its dedication to t ...
, 1883–1976, American
*Laura Gilpin
Laura Gilpin (April 22, 1891 – November 30, 1979) was an American photographer.
Gilpin is known for her photographs of Native Americans, particularly the Navajo and Pueblo, and Southwestern landscapes. Gilpin began taking photographs as a ch ...
, 1891–1979, American
*Margrethe Mather
Margrethe Mather (born Emma Caroline Youngreen; 4 March 1886 – 25 December 1952) was an American photographer. She was one of the best known female photographers of the early 20th century. Initially she influenced and was influenced by Edwa ...
, 1886‒1952, American
* Karl Maria Udo Remmes, 1954–2014, German
*Edward Steichen
Edward Jean Steichen (March 27, 1879 – March 25, 1973) was a Luxembourgish American photographer, painter, and curator, renowned as one of the most prolific and influential figures in the history of photography.
Steichen was credited with tr ...
, 1879–1973, American
*Soichi Sunami
Soichi Sunami (角南 壮一, given name translating as "magnificent first son," and family name translating as "south corner"; 1885–1971) was a modernist photographer, influenced by the pictorialist movement, and best known for his portraits ...
, 1885–1971, Japanese-American
*Edward Weston
Edward Henry Weston (March 24, 1886 – January 1, 1958) was a 20th-century American photographer. He has been called "one of the most innovative and influential American photographers..." and "one of the masters of 20th century photography." ...
, 1886–1958, American
*Stefanie Schneider
Stefanie Schneider (born 1968) is a German photographer living in Berlin and Los Angeles. Schneider's photographs exhibit the appearance of expired Polaroid instant film, with its chemical mutations. It has been released in books and exhibition c ...
, born 1968, German American
Sources
*Anderson, Paul L. ''The Fine Art of Photography.'' Philadelphia: Lippincott, 1919.
*Anderson, Paul L. ''Pictorial Photography: Its Principles and Practice.'' General Books, 2009. (Reprint of 1917 edition).
*Brown, Julie K. ''Contesting Images: Photography and the World's Columbian Exposition.'' Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 1994.
*Bunnell, Peter. ''A Photographic Vision: Pictorial Photography, 1889–1923.'' Salt Lake City, Utah: Peregrine Smith, 1980.
*Castillo, Alejandro. ''Modern pictorialism. Amanda Bouchenoire and her poetic visions''. México. Ediciones Novarte. 2020. OLID: OL28982611M
*Crawford, William. ''The Keepers of Light, A History & Working Guide to Early Photographic Processes.'' Dobbs Ferry, NT: Morgan & Morgan, 1979.
*Daum, Patrick (Ed.) ''Impressionist Camera: Pictorial Photography in Europe, 1888–1918'' (2006).
*Doty, Robert. ''Photo-Secession, Photography as Fine Art''. Rochester, NY: George Eastman House, 1960.
*Emerson, Peter Henry. "Photography, A Pictorial Art." ''The Amateur Photographer''. Vol 3 (March 19, 1886), pp 138–139.
*Fulton, Marianne with Bonnie Yochelson and Kathleen A. Erwin. ''Pictorialism into Modernism: The Clarence H. White School of Photography.'' NY: Rizzoli, 1996.
*Harker, Margaret. ''The Linked Ring: The Secession Movement in Photography in Britain, 1892‒1910.'' London" Heinemann, 1979
*Johnson, Drew Heath. ''Capturing Light: Masterpieces of California Photographys, 1850 to the Present.'' Oakland: Oakland Museum of Art, 2001.
*King, S. Carl. ''Photographic Impressionists of Spain: A History of the Aesthetics and Technique of Pictorial Photography.'' Lewiston, NY: Edwin Meller Press, 1989.
*Kolton, L. A. (ed.). ''Private Realms of Light: Amateur Photography in Canada, 1839–1940.'' Toronto: Fitzhenry and Whiteside, 1984.
*Leijerzapf, Ingeborg Th. ''Juwelen voor een fotomuseum / Masterpieces of Dutch Pictorial Photography 1890–1915.'' Leiden : Stichting Vrienden van het Prentenkabinet van de Universiteit, 1998.
*Martin, David and Nicolette Bromberg. ''Shadows of a Fleeting World: Pictorial Photography and the Seattle Camera Club.'' Seattle: Henry Art Gallery, 2011.
*McCarroll. Stacey. ''California Dreamin': Camera Clubs and the Pictorial Photography Tradition.'' Boston: Boston University Art Gallery, 2004.
*Naef, Weston J. ''The Collection of Alfred Stieglitz, Fifty Pioneers of Modern Photography.'' NY: Viking Press, 1978.
*Nori, Claude. ''French Photography from Its Origins to the Present.'' New York; Pantheon, 1979.
*Roberts, Pam (ed.) ''Alfred Stieglitz: Camera Work, The Complete Photographs 1903–1917'' Cologne: Taschen, 1998.
*Green, Jonathan. ''Camera Work: A Critical Anthology.'' NY: Aperture, 1973.
*Padon, Thomas (ed.). ''Truth Beauty, Pictorialism and the Photograph as Art, 1845 ‒ 1945.'' Vancouver, BC: Vancouver Art Gallery, 2008.
*Peterson, Christian A. ''After the Photo-Session: American Pictorial Photography 1910–1955.'' New York: Norton, 1997.
*Peterson, Christian A. ''Pictorial Photography at the Minneapolis Institute of Arts.''
*Rosenblum, Naomi. ''A World History of Photography.'' New York: Abbeville Press, 1989.
*Scharf, Aaron. ''Art and Photography.'' New York: Penguin, 1991.
*Sternberger, Paul Spencer. ''Between Amateur & Aesthete: The Legitimization of Photography as Art in America, 1880–1900''. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 2001.
*Taylor, John. ''Pictorial Photography in Britain, 1900–1920.'' London: Arts Council of Great Britain, 1978.
*Tucker, Anne Wilkes (ed). ''The History of Japanese Photography.'' New Haven: Yale University Press, 2003.
*Watriss, Wendy (ed.) ''Image and Memory: Photography from Latin America, 1866–1994.'' Austin: University of Texas Press, 1998.
*Wilson, Michael and Reed, Dennis. ''Pictorialism in California: Photographs 1900–1940.'' Malibu: Getty Museum, 1994.
References
External links
In Praise of Pictorialism: Early Pictorial Photography
A discussion on pictorial photography and examples of this style.
Catalogs of Pictorialist photography exhibitions held between 1888 and 1914
Pictorialism Portal
Online Catalogue of the Kunstbibliothek – Staatliche Museen zu Berlin (the art library of the National Museums of Berlin) with 2,300 objects, including over 600 pictorialist works of the own collection, and references to 300 publications and exhibitions in which the photographs were originally presented
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Photography by genre
Art movements
History of photography
19th-century photography