PICTORIALISM
Time period : 1880s-1920s
Key characteristics/ conventions : Making photography an accepted art form, would use artistic theory for composition, lighting, etc, influenced by Allegorical paintings., as well as Peter Henry Emerson’s Naturalistic Photography, and Julia Margaret Cameron.
Artists associated: Alfred Stieglitz, Heinrich Kuhn, Joseph Gale, Frank Eugene
Key works:
Methods/ techniques/ processes: Scratching the negatives/plates, Vaseline on the lenses, used chemicals to paint over images.
REALISM / STRAIGHT PHOTOGRAPHY
Time period: 1915-present
Key characteristics/ conventions : Photographing things as they were, avoiding manipulation in the dark room, going back to the roots of photography, abstraction inspired by Cubism, reaction to the Pictorialists.
Artists associated: Paul Strand, Walker Evans, Edward Weston, Alfred Stieglitz
Key works:
Methods/ techniques/ processes: Producing sharply focused images with high detail, without using dark room manipulation.
MODERNISM
Time period: 1870s-1960s
Key characteristics/ conventions : Experimentalism and expression, inspiration from technology and progress, rejection of history and conservative values, idealism, reason and utopianism.
Artists associated: Man Ray, Edward Steichen, Otto Umbehr, Iwao Yamawaki, Olive Cotton, László Moholy-Nagy, Geraldo de Barros
Key works:
Methods/ techniques/ processes: Abstraction, Experimentation, focus on skills and techniques used, artistic interpretation of form
POST-MODERNISM
Time period: 1960s-present
Key characteristics/ conventions : Reaction to modernism, pushes ideas of scepticism and suspicion of reason, focus on individual experience and interpretation, often ties to mass media and pop culture as well as art history
Artists associated: Cindy Sherman, Jeff Wall, Robyn Stacey, Jeff Koons
Key works:
Methods/ techniques/ processes: A large array of different styles and techniques, sometimes absurdist and controversial, use of both digital and film cameras, ability to use modern day editing software.
Hannah,
Make a post with images you have researched in the photo-archive and comment on how it relates to your project. Include a few behind-the-scenes images of you working at the archive too.