Day 3

Pictorialism  

Before 1888, photography was something that couldn't be done by everyone. Being a photographer meant more than being able to take a picture you had to know about chemistry, optics, light, the mechanics of cameras and how these factors combine to properly render a picture.  photography was seen as pristine and crisp, generally done in studios or with snapshot cameras. Early pictorialist artists such as Doris Ulmann (1882-1934) brought photography into the real world by using rural people in their homes as subjects.  Nature was also commonly photographed by artists such as John G. Bullock (1871-1933), who liked to capture reflections in water and tree limb shadows. The emphasis in pictorialist images wasn’t the subject though, but rather the mood or emotional impact shown by the photographs. As camera technology advanced the skills needed to create a picture disappeared and anyone was able to take a picture. Since anyone was able to create pictures the idea of them being art stopped being an idea and pictures were seen as a record of time. However some people still thought taken pictures could be art.

In the early  1900 a movement began to try to emulate a painting through photography. To do this photographer would smear vaseline on their lens, scratch they’re pictures to emulate scratchboard art, or colour their pictures to make certain things stand out. Many of the early works of pictorialism were based off of . Alfred Stieglitz a photographer and modern art promoter was quoted saying this about pictorialism:  "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."  

Photo Citation

Haviland, Paul Burty. Miss Doris Keane. 1912. Camera Work, Philadelphia. Web. 25 Jan. 2016.