PICTORIALISM

Time Period:

1880’s-1920’s

Key characteristics/ conventions :

Aimed to make photography an art form, hands on process, aim was creating photos that resembled paintings/art using different techniques, floating existence, similar to music, ‘floating romance’?, dreamlike, staged images,

Artists associated:

Alfred Stieglitz, Julia Margaret Cameron, Peter Henry Emmerson & his theory on natural photography, the Vienna camera club, the brotherhood of the linked ring, Frank Eugene, Sally Mann [modern take on pictorialism]

Influences:

Allegorical Painting:

Key works:

Methods/ techniques/ processes:

Smearing Vaseline on lenses [making the images looks soft/fuzzy], manipulated images/negatives in the dark room [using chemicals], scratch the images/negatives using different tools,

REALISM / STRAIGHT PHOTOGRAPHY

Time Period:

1920’s

Key characteristics/ conventions :

Sharp focus images that are full of detail, shadows, abstract forms, architecture, geometric forms, structured images

Artists associated:

Edward Weston, Walker Evans, Paul Strand, Alfred Stieglitz, Ansel Adams

Influences:

Picasso, Cubism:

Key works:

Methods/ techniques/ processes:

No manipulation, clear focus, ‘face reality,

Social Reform Photography

Time Period:

Early 1900’s

Key Characteristics:

Photos on issues happening at the time, documenting the urbanisation, not meant to look nice/pretty

Artists associated:

Dorothy Lange, Lewis W Hine, Jacob Riis,

Influences:

Key Works:

Methods/ techniques/ processes

Documentary photography, raw/real images,

MODERNISM

Time period:

Late 19th century – Early 20th century [photography itself was a modernist invention]

Key characteristics/ conventions :

Photojournalism, emphasised the truth/materiality of a work of art, believed meaning was embedded in work/created by the artist themselves [not interested in context], tried to produce timeless pieces that did not link to history/tradition, rejected older concepts + movements,

Artists associated:

Margaret Bourke-White, Ansel Adams,

Influences:

Against the enlightenment [pro science and technology], dadaism [Hannah Hoch], expressionism, surrealism,

Key works:

Methods/ techniques/ processes:

Form, composition, focuses on object rather than content,

POST-MODERNISM

Time Period:

1900s – 1960s

Key characteristics/ conventions :

Believed in individuals creating their own meanings for art, came about as a reaction to modernism, a backlash against modernity, references things outside of the artwork [i.e: context such as politics, psychology etc], a mix of various styles,

Artists associated:

Heidegger, Derrider, Lyotard

Influences:

Mix of different concepts, disenchantment from WW2

Key works:

Methods/ techniques/ processes:

Nihilistic, rationality, objectivity, universalism, relativism, identity, colonialism, eclecticism,