PICTORIALISM

Time period:

1880-1920s

Key characteristics/conventions:

To make photography an accepted art form, as it was considered to be less serious, easy to do (accessible) and quick (snapshot, as well as education-wise). The ease of use is seen in the affordable Kodak, meaning everyone can afford/use it. It was also considered to be not done by humans, by the camera itself.

Photography started out as a scientific form rather than an artform.

Influences:

Allegorical paintings – Paintings which depict hidden meanings (allegories) with often biblical/mythological imagery. As well as other perhaps religious or cultural paintings/art.

Artists associated:

Alfred Stieglitz, Julia Margaret Cameron, Hugo Henneberg, Frank Eugene, Clarence H. White, F Holland Day

Key works:

Methods/techniques/processes:

Scratching the negatives/plates, putting Vaseline on the lens and painted chemicals over the photograph were done to give the photographs colour/manipulate the tonality of the images, which gives it a closer link to traditional art. The idea that art is ‘handmade’ is also tended to by using these methods.

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REALISM / STRAIGHT PHOTOGRAPHY

Time period:

1915 – Present

Key characteristics/conventions:

Not manipulating the images in the darkroom to create sharp, realistic, abstract images – linking to cubism. Abstraction was created at this time, Strand was inspired by cubism, Picasso/Brandt.

Influences:

People wanted to go back to the documentary side of which photography was made for. This led to cubism being implemented into photographs to create what is now known as abstract photography.

Artists associated:

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

Key works:

Methods/techniques/processes:

To produce sharp images with a lot of detail without manipulation – Returning to the documentary style that photography was originally intended for. They used the camera’s detail to record art in a way that traditional forms such as painting cannot.

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MODERNISM

Time period:

Late 1800s to late 1900s

Key characteristics/conventions :

Modernism refers to the focus on the industrialisation and the new issues as opposed to traditional Victorian values in an effort to create something new and different from what was expected from art at the time. This often led to the images becoming abstract or surreal in an attempt to create something original.

Modernism focuses on the art itself and the artist’s technical ability to not only construct an image but to also evolve their own art forms to create something new and original. Object rather than subject and form rather than context.

Influences:

Cubism can be said to be an influence (as well as a product) of modernistic aesthetics. Artists like Picasso and Braque wanted to remove themselves from traditional art into something completely different – hence cubist paintings/art were produced by them and various other artist.

Montaging seemed to become very popular during the times of modernism as it allowed artists to further experiment with the mediums they chose, which led to their images being more modern aesthetically.

Artists associated:

Picasso, Paul Strand, Alfred Stieglitz, Man Ray, Claude Cahun, etc…

Key works:

Methods/techniques/processes:

Photomontaging was used where parts of images (and other forms of media such as newspapers) were spliced and placed onto one big image. This seemed to give some images (such as the montage above) to have an urban, surreal and artificial feel. These montages also seemed to be a parody on media such as newspapers to give the photographs a political or social context.

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POST-MODERNISM

Time period:

1970s – Present

Key characteristics/conventions :

Post-modernism focuses on themes outside of the art form and the art, bringing political, cultural, social, historical and physiological themes into the context of the artwork. Context of audience and subject reception is also key in post-modernistic art. Post-modern work makes references to previously hidden agendas within the art community, especially from art critics and museums.

Subject rather than object and context rather than form.

Influences:

Post-modernism is a response to modernism, while modernism focused on finding the ‘timeless masterpiece’, post-modernistic art aims to separate itself from the idea, creating something temporary, accessible and imperfect. This pedestalizes the idea of art being a form of expression as opposed to something cold and meaningless.

Artists associated:

Roy Lichtenstein, Andy Warhol, Cindy Sherman, Frank Gehry, etc…

Key works:

Methods/techniques/processes:

Post-modernism, due to its links to social contexts, incorporates many different techniques to achieve different imagery depending on the context, such as eclecticism, parody, collaboration, reconfiguration, recycling work, bricolage, among others.

PICTORIALISM

time period: 1880s – 1920s

Key characteristics/ conventions: attempting to make images which resemble paintings

Influences:

Artists associated: Henry Peach Robinson, Peter Henry Emerson, Alfred Stieglitz

Key works:

Methods/ techniques/ processes: painting over photos, smearing Vaseline on lenses, scratch the negative out on prints,

REALISM / STRAIGHT PHOTOGRAPHY

Time period: 1880s – 1920s

Key characteristics/ conventions:  Picture meant to look the way it looked through viewfinder, no image manipulation, framing more specific

Artists associated: Walker Evans, Paul Strand, Dorothea Lange, Ansel Adams

Key works:

Methods/ techniques/ processes: Framing, Collections

MODERNISM

Time period: 1900s – 1940s

Key characteristics/ conventions: Straight photography, Expressionism, Futurism, Formalism, Dadaism

Artists associated: Ansel Adams, Eadweard J. Muybridge, Margareth Bourke-White, Paul Strand, Alfred Stieglitz

Key works:

Methods/ techniques/ processes: blended imagery and themes, absurdism, nonlinear narratives, stream of consciousness

POST-MODERNISM

Time period: 1950

Key characteristics/ conventions : celebrating difference rather than unity,

Artists associated:

Key works:

Methods/ techniques/ processes: abstract

Motoyuki Daifu (pg2)

Pete Pin (pg3)

PICTORIALISM

Time period: Early 1880s-1920s

Influences: Allegorical paintings had a big influence into pictorialism, with subjects in the photos representing things such as greed, charity, or envy. It is a figurative mode of representation conveying meaning other than the literal. The underlying meaning has moral, social, religious or political significance. Allegorical painting was dominant in Italian Renaissance art in the 16th century and continued to be popular until the Pre – Rephalialite Brotherhood in the mid 19th century.

Key characteristics/ conventions: meant to have darkness, looked like art. To make photography art. Photography was thought as very scientific up till this time, and photographers wanted to change this. Images of this time period had romantic and nostalgic settings, and mostly were staged. Pictures had to be “made”. Often nudes, photographs were often of women as there were more male artists than female. Photographs also often had biblical references, with moral stories.

Artists associated: Alfred Steiglitz, founding “Photo Secession, New York. Clarence H White, Julia Margeret Cameron, Peter Henry Emerson – published a book titled “Naturalistic Photography”, used to promote photography as an art rather than a science. The handcrafted prints were in visual opposition to the sharp b/w contrast of the commercial print. The Vienna Camera Club, Brotherhood of the Linked Ring.

Key works: “Morning” – Clarence H White, “Equivalent” Alfred Steiglitz, Emerson’s “Naturalistic Photography”

Methods/ techniques/ processes: smearing vaseline on lenses, scratching negatives. Using chemicals. They wanted to make the photographs seem like paintings and drawings. Pictures had to be constructed.

REALISM / STRAIGHT PHOTOGRAPHY

Time period: 1920s

Key characteristics/ conventions: facing reality, providing accurate and descriptive depictions of the visual world. Objectively recording the real world. Went on to include documentary photography, lead by Walker Evans. Linked to the birth of documentary photography and photojournalism, as photographs were used to tell the truth in the media early on. Sometimes included abstract geometric forms and structure.

Artists associated: Paul Strand, Walker Evans, Edward Weston, Ansel Adams, Dorothea Lange, Lewis W Hine, Jacob Rils, Alfred Steiglitz.

Key works: “Hale County” Walker Evans, pictures during the Great Depression in the 1930s, Jacob rils “How the other half lives.”

Methods/ techniques/ processes: Careful selection and framing, no changes after the picture is taken.

MODERNISM

Time period: First half of 20th century

Influences: Reaction to the enlightenment, different ideas of society. Influenced by scientific progress. By the beginning of the 20th century, with the diffusion of illustrated magazines and newspapers, photography was a mass communication medium. Photojournalism acquired authority and glamour, and document – like photographs were used in advertising as symbols of modernity. Photography is a modern form of image – making, contributing to the development of modernism.

Key characteristics/ conventions: Rejection of realism, emphasising the true immateriality of art. The meaning of the work was in the art. Photography itself was a modernist thing. A backlash against modernity. Modernism rejected the dominance of older movements in favour of a new experimental way of producing art. The common trend was to seek answers about the nature of art and the human experience. Modernism was concerned with object rather than subject, form rather than content, and creator rather than spectator. It made references to things inside the work itself for example form, composition, medium, material, techniques and processes.

Artists associated: Ansel Adams is considered one of the most important modernist artists. His landscapes stemmed both from his fascination with the natural environment, and from his conception of it as a space of spiritual redemption. He took his first photographs on visiting Yosemite National Park in 1916, aged 14 and later set up a studio there, He photographed at different times of day and different seasons, exploring the effects of changing patterns and intensities of light.

Walker Evans is often considered to be the leading Amercian documentary photographer of the 20th century. He rejected pictorialism and wanted to establish a new photographic art particularly based on a detached and disinterested look. He was particularly interested in the vernacular of American architecture, but his most celebrated work is his pictures of three Sharecropper families in the American South during the 1930s Depression.

Key works: Many Are Called – Walker Evans, Ford Plant, River Rouge – Charles Sheeler, The Americans – Robert Frank

Methods/ techniques/ processes: Modernist photography celebrated the camera as an essentially mechanical tool. 

POST-MODERNISM

Time period: Late 20th century

Influences: Responses to society after the second world war. A reaction to modernism. Response to colonialism also. Architects took the lead in the development of postmodernism. They criticised the international style of modernist architecture for being too formal, austere and functional. Postmodern architects felt that international style had become a repressive orthodoxy.

Key characteristics/ conventions: Modernist ideals cannot be attained. Relativism, attacked the modernism ideals of universality, and objectivity. Belief in identity. Postmodernists see all kinds of things as text, including photographs, and insist that all texts need to be read critically. Post modernism also explores power and the way economic and social forces exert that power by shaping the identities of individuals and entire cultures. Unlike modernists, postmodernists place little or no faith in the unconscious as a source of creative and personal authenticity. They value art not for universality and timelessness but for being imperfect, low brow, accessible, disposable, local and temporary. While it questions the nature and extent of our freedom and challenges our acquiescence ti authority, Postmodernism has been criticised for its pessimism: it often critiques but equally often fails to provide a positive vision or redefinition of what it attacks.

Artists associated: Sam Taylor Wood – her rich baroque style is often used to create bohemian and dandyish characterisations entwining aspects of her own life, including her close friends, in her staged photographs, Taylor – Wood plays the role of a contemparty court painter, portraying an artistic and social elite of which she is part.

Jeff Wall, a Canadian artist, has since the 1970s problematised the relationship between photography, documentary. and art in his dramatisations of appsrnretly ordinary street scenes and social encounters. His carefully composed tableau depicts everyday social relations, for example “Passerby” 1996, a b and w photograph of a spontaneous street scene which looks like a candid moment caught on camera but is a pre conceived and staged act.

Key works: Passerby – Jeff Wall, Five Revolutionary Seconds – Sam Taylor-Wood, Living in Hell and Other Stories – Tom Hunter, Insonmia – Jeff Wall, Diary – Corrine Day, Untitled (your body is a battleground) – Barbara Kruger.

Methods/ techniques/ processes: Recycling, Bricolage, Pastiche, Eclectism (mixing art forms, mixing cultures, mixing styles.), parody, collaboration, mixing high art with pop culture.

PROCESS TECHNIQUE:

• Re-stage images
• position image in frame

LOCATIONS:

St. Helier – Town, Marine harbour

Gorey – Castle

St. Aubins – harbor

PHOTOGRAPHERS:

EXPERIMENTS:

• Photo montage / blending
• Animation / GIF

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.

PICTORIALISM

time period :

1880s – 1920s

Key characteristics/ conventions :

Looks like a painting

Considered to be art

Artists associated:

Clarence H. White

John Everett Millais

JMW Turner

Paolo Veronese

Julia Margaret Cameron
Key works:

Clarence H. White – Morning (1908)

In 1889 Peter Henry Emerson (1856-1936) expounded his theory of Naturalistic Photography which the Pictorialist used to promote photography as an art rather than science. Their handcrafted prints were in visual opposition to the sharp b/w contrast of the commercial print

Methods/ techniques/ processes:

scratching

REALISM / STRAIGHT PHOTOGRAPHY

Time period:

1920s

Key characteristics/ conventions :

abstract

landscape
Artists associated:

paul strand

Dorothea Large
Key works:

Ladder of ladders 1931
Methods/ techniques/ processes:

MODERNISM

Time period:

1830
Key characteristics/ conventions :

Artists associated:

Key works:

Key works:

Methods/ techniques/ processes:

POST-MODERNISM

Time period:

second half of 20th century

Key characteristics/ conventions :

celebrating difference rather than unity,

Artists associated:

Key works:

Methods/ techniques/ processes:

1. 17th-18th Century “Enlightenment”

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PICTORIALISM

Time period :1880s – 1920s

Key characteristics/ conventions : attempting to make images which resemble paintings

Artists associated: Clarence H. White, John Everett Millais, Paolo Veronese, JMW Turner, Peter Harvey Emerson

Key works:

Methods/ techniques/ processes: painting over photos, smearing Vaseline on lenses, scratch the negative out on prints,

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REALISM / STRAIGHT PHOTOGRAPHY

Time period: 1880-1920s

Key characteristics/ conventions : Picture meant to look the way it looked through viewfinder, no image manipulation, framing more specific,

Artists associated: Walker Evans, Paul Strand, Dorothea Lange, Ansel Adams

Key works:

Methods/ techniques/ processes: Framing, collections,

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MODERNISM

Time period: 1830

Key characteristics/ conventions: celebrates unity,

Artists associated: Olive Cotton, Alfred Stieglitz

Key works:

Methods/ techniques/ processes:

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POST-MODERNISM

Nialistic reaction to modernism, result of ww2, Postmodern photography is characterized by atypical compositions of subjects that are unconventional or sometimes completely absent, making sympathy with the subject difficult or impossible

Time period: “arose in the second half of the 20th century”

Key characteristics/ conventions : celebrating difference rather than unity,

Artists associated:

Key works:

Methods/ techniques/ processes:

by sonny b



PICTORIALISM

time period: 1880s-1920s

Key characteristics/influences/techniques: Made photography an artistic process by making photos look like paintings- by smearing Vaseline on the camera lens, altering the image in the dark room and scratching and putting chemicals onto the negative to make it look like a sketch. Heavily influenced by the allegorical paintings of the 18th century, images were dreamlike and usually staged.

Artists associated: Peter Henry Emerson, The Vienna Camera Club, Julia Margaret Cameron, Adolph De Meyer

Interesting works:

REALISM / STRAIGHT PHOTOGRAPHY

Time period: 1920s-1950s

Key characteristics/influences/techniques: Images were not manipulated, shapes and abstract compositions were often concentrated on- including landscape images. Used photography as a direct viewpoint of how the world was at that exact moment in time- without manipulation.

Artists associated: Paul Strand, Walker Evans, Ansel Adams

Interesting works:

MODERNISM

Time period: 1920s- 1950s

Key characteristics/influences/techniques: Heavily influenced by the Bauhaus art movement, photographers began to embrace social, political and aesthetic potential, experimenting with light, perspective and developing, as well as new subjects and abstraction. Coupled with movements in painting, sculpture and architecture, these works became known as ‘modernist photography’.

Artists associated: Edward Steichen, Dora Maar, Alfred Stieglitz, Group  f.64, Otto Umbehr

Key works:

POST-MODERNISM

Time period: 1950s- 1970s

Key characteristics/influences/techniques: First and foremost, postmodernism builds on the themes and conceptual ideas that began during the modernist period. This type of photography also often features surrealism, expressionism or other similar themes. Postmodern paintings were often characterized by an abstract, or non-representational, approach; works often appeared to be random colours or scribbles without an overriding design or meaning. Postmodern photography takes the same approach

Artists associated: Cindy Sherman, Robyn Stacey, Yasumasa Morimura, Tracey Moffatt, Jacky Redgate

Key works:

SAM HARRIS

In a shared house in south London with his musician mates, Sam Harris turned his bedroom into a makeshift darkroom, gaffer taping the curtains to the wall. Throughout the Nineties he shot sleeve art and promo for major & indie record labels alike, and was a contributor for Dazed & Confused, The Sunday Times Magazine and Esquire, making images of Jarvis Cocker, Victoria Beckham, Portishead and many others as said in his website.

In 2002, with one-way tickets to India Harris set off on what became four nomadic years between India & Australia shooting and living “The Routineless Routine”. “The Middle of Somewhere” was published in 2015 (Ceiba Editions) to international acclaim and was nominated for seven photobook awards, winning 3 including a coveted Lucie Award.

Known for an emotionally rich and playful eye Harris has exhibited internationally, notably at the Bibliotheque Nationale de Espana; Les Rencontres d’Arles, France; Benaki Museum, Athens; Delhi Photo Festival; Festival de la Luz, Buenos Aires; Encontros da Imagem, Portugal and Ragusa Foto, Italy. Living in WA with bases in Los Angeles and London he is an intimate insider, reflecting and capturing everyday authentic lives of community, friends, family and the talent he shoots.

OLIVIA BEE

Olivia Bee is a photographer and director living and homesteading in Eastern Oregon, whilst also traveling the globe for her work. She is intrigued by the beauty of everyday life and how the beauty of memories (real or imagined) touches us.

When she was 15, her work was “discovered” by Converse after they saw her photos on Flickr. She has since done editorial work for the New York Times, Harper’s, Der Speigel, Seventeen, and others. She’s done commissioned work for Katy Perry, MTV, YouTube Music, and others, and has been featured in both solo and group exhibitions.

In 2016, Aperture published her first book of photography, Kids in Love. It features an interview with Tavi Gevinson. In Bee’s own words, she is “intrigued by the beauty of everyday life and how the beauty of memories (real or imagined) touches us.” Here she discusses the difference between personal and commercial work, how to create the ideal studio, and the nature of healthy creative validation. Kids in Love will be my main influential work by Olivia Bee

ANALYSIS OF WORK

I find this image by Sam Harris particularly interesting- the image is taken with flash and features the blurriness of long grass in front of two young girls. One of the girls is looking straight at the camera, pulling the focus of the image to the middle as only one of her eyes are visible as the other is obscured by blurry grass- the other girl is looking to the right while a bright acrid yellow is above her, drawing further attention to the colours and tones of the image as the right side of the image is very dark while the right has more vibrant colours such as yellows, greens and pinks. This image seems to be staged but is just as likely to be candid- either way this image seems genuine and nostalgic.