Pictorialism VS Realism/ Straight Photography

Pictorialism

Definition – Pictorialism – International style and aesthetic movement occurring between the 1880s and 1920s. This style of photography focuses on key representations of meaning via non-literal techniques and also uses a set or narrative in order to convey these ideas – the images are mostly staged or planned. These images also use other techniques such as using Vaseline to distort the view through the lens and create a more artistic filter over the image.

Time period : 1880s-1920s. Pictorialism began between the late 1800s and early 1900s, a movement which strives for photography to be recognized as an art by creating images that resemble the same codes and conventions of paintings. Pictorialism was highly against techniques and processes relating to industrialization and mechanization or technology that removed a lot of human impact or manipulation in the final product, which is why photography was not considered an art for so long.

Key characteristics/ conventions :

• Staged images
• New set of aesthetics that would allow photography to be considered an art
• Another common convention of pictorialism photography would be the use of representations conveyed in non-literal, or metaphorical ways. Allowing an individual thought or narrative to be formed. (Influenced by Allegorical paintings)
  

Artists associated:

• Julia Margaret Cameron (1815-1879)
• Sally Mann (1951-)
• Henry Emerson (1856-1936)
• The Vienna Camera Club (Austria) – Heinrich Kuhn, Hans Watcek and Hugo Henneberg
• The Brotherhood of the Linked Ring (London) – H P Borbinson, Alfred Horlsey Hinton, Joseph Gale, George Davison and Charles Job
• Alfred Stieglitz
• Edward Steichen

Key works:

Methods/ techniques/ processes:

• scratching negatives
• Use different chemicals to create a cyanotype
• Vaseline on lens to make photography a hand made art
• As this is a form of photographic ART it should imitate common conventions prevalent in art pieces, showing an arrangement of aspects such as foreground, background, figures and peripheral framing.
  

REALISM / STRAIGHT PHOTOGRAPHY

Realism

Definition – Realism – Closely related to straight photography and a style of documentary photography, Realism is an aesthetic that focuses on capturing life-in-real-time, meaning the images aren’t staged or falsified and are used to represent life. However, as this ‘life’ or representation of A ‘life’ may not be accurate for everyone this style of photography is very subjective and relies upon individual thoughts and experience of views for the photographer to accurately convey their initial ideas, suggesting that only those with similar backgrounds such as a socio-economic position may be able to relate to the image.

Time Period: 1830s/40s, it allowed people to capture nature and life in real time.

Key characteristics/ conventions :

• More candid/ documentary images
• Used to represent daily struggles in life
• Used to represent poor socio-economic families/ areas – show awareness

Artists associated:

• Walker Evans
• Paul Strand
• Alfred Stieglitz
• Dorothea Lange
• Lewis W Hine
• Jacob Riis

Key works:

Methods/ techniques/ processes:

• accurate, detailed, unembellished depiction of nature or of contemporary life.
• rejects imaginative idealization in favour of a close observation of outward appearances.
• Documentary or more formal style

Modernism

Time period: Can be traced back to the enlightenment period, in the 17/1800th century, when there was an increase in different sciences, technology and religion, which was on the ‘decline’ or not as evidently prevalent in as many lives. Increased activity in all areas of life that influenced modernism. 1860s-1960s

Key characteristics/ conventions :

• A break with Religion, Church and God.
• ‘All modern-isms shared a common feeling that the modern world was fundamentally different from what had passed before and that art needed to renew itself by confronting and exploring its own modernity.’
• Object rather than Subject, form rather than content, metaphorical or non-explicit references. Creator rather than Spectator.
• Starts early on with the age of enlightenment which represents the age or reason and takes value of science and technology of religion and the church.
• Experimentation

Artists/ Isms associated:

• Francis Picabia (1879-1953)
• Hannah Höch (1889-1978)
• Johannes Baader (1875-1956)
• Alexander Rodchenko, Russian, 1891-1956
• El Lissitzky, Russian, 1890-1941
• Laszlo Moholy-Nagy, Hungarian, 1895-1946
• Rene Magritte (1898-1967)
• Salvatore Dali (1904-1989)
• Raoul Ubac (1910-1985)
• Man Ray, American 1890-1976
• Christian Schad (1894-1982)
• Franz Roh (1890-1965)
• Otto Steinart (1915-1978)
• Kilian Breier (b 1931)
• Gottfried Jäger (b 1937)
• Harry Callahan (1912-99), Chicago, 1948
• Frederick Sommer (1905-99), Three Grazes, 1985
• Paul Strand (1890-1976), Porch Shadows, 1916
• Aaron Siskind, American 1903-91
• Ernst Haas, Austrian 1921-86
• Ansel Adams (1902-84)
• Imogen Cunningham (1883-1976)
• Edward Weston, American, 1886-1958

Avant-garde art movements: Fauvism, Primitivism, Expressionism, Cubism, Futurism, Dadaism, Suprematism, Constructivism, Neo-Plasticism, Surrealism, Spatialism, Abstract Expressionism, Social Realism, Straight Photography, Formalism

Key works:

Methods/ techniques/ processes:

• Similar aesthetic or traits as surrealist photography
• Hidden/ abstract encoded meanings
• Clear images of reality and life
• Conceptual

Group F.64 –

Founded in the 1930s, Group f.64 was a group of eleven photographers, including Ansel Adams, Imogen Cunningham and Edward Weston, who were united by their desire to photograph life as it really is. Characterised by a clear, sharp-focus aesthetic, their style was at odds with the romantic methods of manipulating images during or after printing, fashionable at the time. Instead they focused on accurately exposed images of natural forms and found objects.

POST-MODERNISM

Time period: Arose during the second half of the 20th century, it builds of the aims and conceptual ideas that emerged during and from the modernism movement. Common styles or aesthetics of this genre of photography include – surrealism and expressionism.

Post-Modernism – A way of viewing the world. Relating to ideas such as Re-Imagining, Pastiche, Parody, Copy and Bricolage. Fragmentation of identity via the alienation of society or even themselves.

Key characteristics/ conventions:

• Post-modernism continues to break normal artistic conventions and compositions might break rules by placing subjects in odd arrangements, or there may even be an absence of a definitive subject.

Artists associated:

• Ken Josephson / 1967 / Sweeden
• Lee Friedlander, Stony Point, New York, 1966
• William Eggleston
• Jeff Wall
• Andreas Gursky, ’99 Cent’

Key works:

Methods/ techniques/ processes:

• fragmentation, paradox, unreliable narrators
• Open to individual interpretation
• Intertextuality – Including the work of others, the “quoting” of others work
• Pastiche – copying an original
• Parody – imitating in order to ridicule, ironically comment on, or poke some fun at
• Bricolage – deconstructing and then restructuring existing materials in a new, exciting and inventive way
• Eclecticism – mixing art forms, mixing cultures, mixing styles
• Audience view influences production and meanings