The time period for pictorialism was the 1880’s – 1920’s. Pictorialism is an approach to photography that emphasizes the beauty of subject matter, tonality, and composition rather than the documentation of reality. I would describe pictorialist photographs to be very dreamy and reminds me of fairy-tales. They focus on the dream world and oppose documentative photographs. They tend to focus on nature, however they do also feature cityscapes. They also tend to have fog or low clouds which gives it a dream like effect.

Reacting to the widespread commercial and domestic uses of photography for recording people, events and places, pictorialist photographers sought to evoke emotional sensations and states of mind. They depicted commonplace scenes in ways that suggested psychological and spiritual meanings.