Define your understanding of "Pictorial Photography"

[Jim Galli]

From a discussion in another thread, I thought it would be worthwhile to have many of the folks here weigh in on how you would define the parameters of a Pictorial Photograph. Images are useful.


I think the distinction has to be made between "portrait" lenses with a sharp to moderately sharp center and fading edges (and possibly on to "swirly" corners) and the classic "pictorial" lens with overall sharp softness such as the early series Smith's (of P&S), such as the series I of F. Holland Day and the series II and III of Alvin Langdon Coburn. It seems to me that the later P&S series (Visual Quality etc.) fall more into the "portrait" category. Anyone else share that thought? Through the years, I went through a lot of old brass lenses looking for that pictorial effect. Most were just sharp, some had the swirly corners, but only one had the near pinhole pictorial effect. Unfortunately, it is unmarked and, for all I know, one of a kind. It is definitely on my schedule to give it a good workout whenever an opportunity presents itself.


"Pictorial" is not quite so easily defined and can bring something completely different from your interpretation to mind for someone else. This is near blasphemy but Coburns images leave me pretty cold. I do like Karl Struss' work from the same era. Pictorial work is an acquired taste. I lean towards the semi-sharp core with pronounced diffusion that the Visual Quality exemplifies. This might be a fun horse to beat for a while, perhaps I'll move this over to a new thread.

I'll start us off with a classic lens at (I feel) it's best;


http://tonopahpictures.0catch.com/Great_Race/LaSalle711_4s.jpg
La Salle

Wollensak Verito 18" at f4 on 7X11 film

[Ken Lee]

As a point of reference, here (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pictorialism) is a definition of Pictorialism from Wikipedia.

"...Pictorialism largely subscribed to the idea that art photography needed to emulate the painting and etching of the time. Most of these pictures made were black & white or sepia-toned. Among the methods used were soft focus, special filters and lens coatings, heavy manipulation in the darkroom, and exotic printing processes...."

[Benno Jones]

In my mind, pictorialism is to photography as impressionism is to painting. Does this make sense?

[Jim Galli]

I've been enjoying After the Photo-Secession: American Pictorial Photography, 1910-1955 by Christian A. Peterson. The much broader definition of pictorialism was simply a photograph set apart from the snap-shot that is intentionally made to be beautiful or pleasing to the eye. Edward Westons early work with Margrethe Mather easily falls into this broader category. In fact he was one of the founders of a Southern California Pictorial Salon group. I don't have the exact name in front of me. The Salon photographers didn't limit themselves to soft lenses, in fact many of the photos in the above treatise are quite modern and sharp. It has broadened my perspective some but I still lean toward the more classic definitions.

[Darryl Baird]

Pictorialism grew from 1) a need to compete with painting, 2) a need to distinguish art photography from that of the Johnny-come-lately amateurs (thanks to Eastman's Kodak and Brownie cameras), and 3) as results from a competition of ideas about photography. The Linked Ring (UK), Photo-Session (German and USA), and others saw photography as able to express moods and ideas, but the times were changing rapidly and modern life introduced a rapid and structural quality to the cities not seen before, especially the introduction of skyscrapers in the USA. Many of the photographers shunned this view and went into the "natural" world for their inspiration and images. Stieglitz, Coburn and especially Struss embraced the city (I love Struss' work) and what it offered, but back in England the views of prominent photographers, especially Peter Henry Emerson (http://www.rleggat.com/photohistory/history/emerson.htm), were still the mainstream influences. Emerson believed in a "natural" view, which meant a sharp center with a progressively softer edge, which is the way the human eye actually works. His views were dominant well into the turn of the 20th century. Clarence White's school for photography was an important influence in American photography through the 1930s. He split with Steiglitz over a disagreement about A.S.'s changes towards a sharp focused aesthetic (Struss went with White).

I think Pictorialism is hard to define with any great precision, but to me it has to have a softness to the image, even if the subject matter is hard.

[Mark Sawyer]

Let's also define the "portrait lens" category...

There have been three distinct definitions of "portrait lenses" through the years. The first designated "portrait lenses" were the portrait Petzvals, and were designated for portraiture simply for their speed. Earlier lenses were so slow that on the slow plates of the time, portraiture was impractical. And while those Petzvals had soft and swirly outer edges, those were outside the plate area, and portraits from those lenses were quite sharp. (Ever seen a vintage daguerreotype, tintype, CDV, or ambrotype showing the "Petzval personality" so many of us look for today?)

The next generation of "portrait lenses" was the soft focus lenses. The earliest ones I know of are the Dallmayer Portrait lenses. These were Petzvals, but the two rear elements had variable spacing between them to introduce a "soft focus" effect. Still, it was nearly thirty years before the soft focus aesthetic really started to catch on. Personally, I regard about 1900 to 1940 as the "Golden Age" of soft focus photography and lenses. And while these are now the "portrait lenses" we sometimes equate with pictorialism, pictorialism was not particularly about portraits.

In modern times, (about 1960-onward), "portrait lens" seems only to refer to a focal length that's long enough to flatten the 3-dimensional perspective of facial features slightly.

[ageorge]

Pictorialism
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Pictorialism was a photographic movement in vogue from around 1885 following the widespread introduction of the dry-plate process. It reached its height in the early years of the 20th century, and declined rapidly after 1914 after the widespread emergence of Modernism.

Pictorialism largely subscribed to the idea that art photography needed to emulate the painting and etching of the time. Most of these pictures made were black & white or sepia-toned. Among the methods used were soft focus, special filters and lens coatings, heavy manipulation in the darkroom, and exotic printing processes. From 1898 rough-surface printing papers were added to the repertoire, to further break up a picture's sharpness. Some artists "etched" the surface of their prints using fine needles. The aim of such techniques was to achieve what the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica termed, in discussing Pictorialism, "personal artistic expression".

Despite the aim of artistic expression, the best of such photographs paralleled the impressionist style then current in painting. Looking back from the present day, we can also see close parallel between the composition and picturesque subject of genre paintings and the bulk of pictorialist photography.

The 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica noted that: "as a distinct movement pictorial photography is essentially of British origin", although in its later phases there was a strong influence on American photography. The Linked Ring and The New American School were notable organised U.S. tendencies in Pictorialism around 1900. An American circle of photographers later renounced pictorialism altogether and went on to found Group f/64, which espoused the ideal of unmanipulated, or straight photography.

The contemporary American portraitist Sally Mann revisited the pictorialist style in her 2003 book What Remains.

One of the most important publications that promoted Pictorialism was Alfred Stieglitz's "Camera Work" 1903 - 1917. Each publication had up to 12 plates that were reproduced in Photogravure,Halftone or Collotype. These plates are now collected and very sought after in the art world. Most of the photographers that made up the issues were members of the Photo-Secession, a group that promoted photography as art and soon moved away from the ideals of pictorialism.

By the year of 1910, when Albright Gallery bought 15 photographs from Stieglitz' 291 gallery, a major victory was won in the battle for establishing photography as art. Pictorialism, which had served to open the museum doors for photography, was now already regarded as a vision of the past by the spearheading photographers of that time. Stieglitz, always craving for the new, was quoted alround 1910 saying "It is high time that the stupidity and sham in pictorial photography be struck a solarplexus blow." and "Claims of art won't do. Let the photographer make a perfect photograph. And if he happens to be a lover of perfection and a seer, the resulting photograph will be straight and beautiful - a true photograph."[1]

The new and proceedingly modern America needed a new representation in art. This necessarily meant the end for pictorialism as major form of art.

[Mark Sawyer]

Regarding "Pictorial" photography, Julia Margaret Cameron could probably be credited as the earliest pioneer of the aesthetic, although she probably acheived it more out of sloppiness and ignorance in using the wrong lens on the wrong plate size, deciding to print slightly-out-of-focus or slightly-moving subjects anyways, and getting a lot of flare from backlighting some of her subjects.

the term was coined by Henry Peach Robinson in his 1869 treatise, "The Pictorial Effect in Photography, Being hints on Composition and Chiaroscuro for Photographers." He also included information about combination printing, which is what he is best known for today. His take on the matter was that to be an artist, a photographer must assume full control of and responsibility for his work, including lighting, composition, and the acting and poses of the models, even if it meant making multiple negatives and combining them into one print, if that's what it took to get the control and effect desired. But that "Pictorial Effect" had nothing to do with soft focus...

The first "Impressionistic" photography could probably best se credited to Peter Henry Emerson ("Life and Landscape on the Norfolk Broads") who in 1889 wrote "Naturalistic Photography". His thjought was that a photographer should be open to nature's impressions and "surprises", but the term "Impressionism" was a bit too controversial in the artworld at the time.

Pictorialism as most of us think of it started evolving into being in the mid-1890's with an onslaught of "aesthetically aware" photographers trying to find acceptance in the art world, where photography was thought of as factual documentation and snapshots. Quite a few, but not all, of these photographers took to soft-focus lenses. But by the time the soft focus aesthetic became popular in the early 1920's, most of its early advocates had already moved on to "modern photography".

Sorry, I write too much... :confused:

[Jim Galli]

Sorry, I write too much... :confused:

No way. Thanks. I think after the 1903 - 1908 "revolution" of anastigmat lenses and cheap Kodak's (you push the button --- we do the rest) pictorialism was a knee jerk reaction not so different from it's revival 100 years later. Perhaps we're drawn away from the clinicalism of billions of perfect over-sharp over-saturated digital snaps very much like the 1908 crowd was.

[Mark Sawyer]

Hard to tell what set off the soft-focus revolution, Jim. I tend to think that at some point, a few aesthetically-inclined photographers noticed that the images made by those lenses were just so darned beautiful...

The soft-focus lenses were out for a long, long time before "artists" began taking advantage of them. I suspect they were used almost exclusively by commercial portrait photographers for decades before someone decided to "compete with impressionist painting" or "create an artistic vision" with them...

Which leads to something I've long wondered about... If Dallmeyer patented the first deliberately-soft-focus lens in 1866, why do we see no soft-focus photography until the 1890's? (Or have I missed them? Can anyone think of a photographer making soft-focus images in the 1860's? 1870's? 1880's?)

[Darryl Baird]

I think it would be helpful to further define Pictorial(ism) by comparing the optics manufactured during the span of years were discussing and the processes the Pictorialist used -- gum, platinum, carbon, etc. would be helpful to track through time as well. Above all the processes, I think gum lent itself to an expressive surface and image. Who was the first to popularize the use of such a painterly emulsion?

I've learned a huge amount about older optics here and I haven't really gotten academic about the research of the lenses, but I know some of those here have Kingslake and other sources of information about lenses. I suspect there are histories of the processes, perhaps not contained in a single source.

Inquiring minds want to know:D

[Darryl Baird]

... If Dallmeyer patented the first deliberately-soft-focus lens in 1866, why do we see no soft-focus photography until the 1890's? (Or have I missed them? Can anyone think of a photographer making soft-focus images in the 1860's? 1870's? 1880's?)
Mark, I think this reflects the dominance of certain popular authors, historians, and other leaders in their fields -- Emerson and Stieglitz come to mind, as well as Ansel Adams (versus William Mortenson who is just now getting more attention, post AA's influnce). History is still being written, possibly even here as well discuss this topic. It would make a great Ph.D. dissertation though.

[paulr]

Pictorialism is often linked to impressionism, but I think the comparison falls flat. Impressionism was concerned with issues of perception and depiction, and used its techniques to explore those ideas.

Pictorialism concerned itself primarily with two different ideas: the construction of a picture (which is where the word comes from, and which specifically distinguishes it from photography that's about recording something that's already there); and secondly, expression through symbolism. Pictorialist pictures weren't just blurry ... they used soft focus as a clue that what you're looking at isn't to be taken literally, but rather as a set of symbols for something else.

In these regards pictorialism is much closer kin to Romantic painting, although its subject matter was usually quieter and less grandiose. The Pictorialists liked the kinds of pastoral subjects that also attracted the Barbizon painters. So I think you could make a case that the pictorialists fell between these two contemporary painting traditions.

Mark, do I sense that you're blaspheming Julia Margaret Cameron? I'll pretend I didn't read any of that ...

[Daniel Grenier]

Pictorialism: A style of photography Adams, Weston, Strand just had to get the hell away from.

[Per Madsen]

Pictorialism is photography trying to imitate art, instead of using the
metods exclusive to photography to create art not imitating anything else.

Examples of art exclusive to photography :

August Sander
Atget
Ansel Adams
Henri Cartier Bresson

[paulr]

It's interesting that so many definitions being offered here are paraphrases of the ones used by pictorialism's mortal enemies nearly a century ago. Back then there was a war going on for the identity of photography, and the pictorialists and the f64 guys really thought one side one win.

Luckily, no side did, at least in the long term. Photography grew to be a many-headed beast, with very few people liking or even grasping all of it. Personally, I think it's more interesting this way ... as much as I love Weston's and Strand's work, I'm glad that we can go look at other kinds also.

It's worth noticing that many of the elements of pictorialism have been more in style in the last couple of decades than modernism (or than pictures following the f64 group's dogma). There's been a return to romanticism and fuzziness among both the toy camera crowd and many of the people who have gone back to alt processes. And there's been a major resurgence of constructed images. Not just the simple staged pictures that grew out of Cindy Sherman's work in the '70s, but the elaborate tableaux of people like Witkin and Crewdson and Wall.

None of these people are "pictorialists" in the pure sense, but they've returned to many of the fundamentals that the straight photography guys ridiculed back during those culture wars. Luckily the wars are over, and you're free to use the soft lens or not; to make up stories in the studio or go hunt for rocks and trees. This idea that one way or the other is more "true" to photography has outlived its usefulness, if anyone even believes at all anymore.

[Mark Sampson]

paulr, that's an excellent way of putting it- thanks. I was just thinking that fashions come, go, and eventually return slightly different. Every generation has to rebel aginst whatever came before, no?

[jnantz]

Pictorialism is photography trying to imitate art, instead of using the
metods exclusive to photography to create art not imitating anything else.

Examples of art exclusive to photography :

August Sander
Atget
Ansel Adams
Henri Cartier Bresson

what do you mean art exclusive to photography?
there are ways to use a camera and film that is exclusive to
photography that yields an image that is pictorial in nature ..
painterly, dreamlike, with subltle references to other mediums.

are you suggesting that if a photograph is not "documentary in nature"
( aren't all photographs a document of something )
they are "pictorialist" ?

[Struan Gray]

The 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica entry ageorge referred to is worth reading in full:

http://www.1911encyclopedia.org/Photography

(it's a sub-article tacked on the end of the very long main piece on photography. Search for 'pictorial photography' once the page has loaded).

It is interesting to see the defensive tone adopted by the pictorialists (the entry was written by Alfred Horsely Hinton (http://www.luminous-lint.com/app/photographer/Alfred_Horsley__Hinton/C/)) against the all-in-focus 'scientific' crowd. The defense is not against the modernists, who had not yet got going, but against previous generations of photographers who had understandably been working hard to get everything in focus.

Darryl: I'd be interested to hear your views on the links (formal, conceptual, accidental) between the pictorialists and the picturesque movement a century or so earlier. For me, the pictorialists are - as Paul said - more explictly about a the sense of construction and a love of symbolism, but the boundaries are necessarily vague. The picturesque appeals to me as a way of accepting what we're given, and not trying to make the world fit pre-defined models of perfection.

Aside No. 1: You can read large chunks of Kingslake's "The History of the Photographic Lens (http://books.google.com/books?id=OJrJrEJ-r9QC)" at google books.

Aside No. 2: it's pre-picturesque, but I just discovered the word 'sharawadgi': an appreciation of the beauty of studied irregularity. I assume this is what Gilpin would call texture.

Anyway, for me, and contrary to Emerson, a pictorial lens doesn't priviledge the centre. All those swirl-merchants are not really following in the footsteps of the pictorialists. If anything, they are a hybrid of the modernist-pictorialist divide: making allusive images that nevertheless explicitly recognise and use the characteristics of their medium.

I have a whopping great Belgian triplet which is effectively a Cooke in a beret. As you dial in the diffusion the effect on the ground glass is much more interesting than what turns up in the final print. It must be something to do with how my eyes can sense the optical depth of the projected image. I've seen something similar in smaller formats: I took a whole bunch of out-of-focus versions of this image (http://www.struangray.com/utkant/blackthornclippings.htm) which had the most fantastic texture in the viewfinder, but which did not make it into the print. The closest I've seen is Jim's Aviar pic on this page (http://tonopahpictures.0catch.com/LillyBlackISusan/BIS.html). My own sharawadgistic, pictorialist quest is to find a way of capturing that texture for myself.


Struan

PS: I *love* Coburn above all the other pictorialists combined.

PPS: Beyond Words has the J. Craig Annan (http://www.beyondwords.co.uk/Book.aspx?id=6447) book on sale.

[Mark Sawyer]

Pictorialism: A style of photography Adams, Weston, Strand just had to get the hell away from.

...or maybe we should think of it as the style that drew Weston and Adams to aesthetic photography in the first place? I wonder, if there were no pictorialist style to rebel against, would the f/64 style have evolved in the way it did?

[Mark Sawyer]

Mark, do I sense that you're blaspheming Julia Margaret Cameron? I'll pretend I didn't read any of that ...

Oh, I love Julia! But I don't see her as conciously pioneering a pictorialist style so much as working without much regard for some of the stricter rules of photography, and coming up with an aesthetic that presaged and perhaps influenced the later self-declared, self-concious pictorialists who were as much concerned with "style" and status in the art-world as with the work itself.

[Pat Hilander]

Here are some on-line books containing many fine examples. For me to define what is pictorial would require considerable study on my part. I am currently of the opinion that the word "picturesque" may define traits I would expect to find in a photograph that is pictorial.

Pictorial Photography in America 1921 (http://books.google.com/books?id=ZQoFAAAAYAAJ&printsec=frontcover&dq=editions:0Nw2XWmmnhvNVQtfSyAfdV)
Pictorial Photography in America 1922 (http://books.google.com/books?id=TwoFAAAAYAAJ&printsec=frontcover&dq=editions:0Nw2XWmmnhvNVQtfSyAfdV)

Opinions etc;
In Nature's Image: Chapters on Pictorial Photography By Washington Irving Lincoln Adams (http://books.google.com/books?id=bmsMAAAAYAAJ&printsec=frontcover&dq=pictorial+photography&ei=ivQ0SMPSG5OcjgGQxJGIBg#PPA3,M1)

Practical Pictorial Photography By Alfred Horsley Hinton (http://books.google.com/books?id=CUwEAAAAYAAJ&printsec=frontcover&dq=pictorial+photography&as_brr=1&ei=XfU0SJ_FFI_aigHptaHnCA)

The Complete Photographer By Roger Child Bayley - Chapter XXIV (http://books.google.com/books?id=R38hAAAAMAAJ&pg=RA1-PA343-IA2&dq=pictorial+photography&lr=&as_brr=1&ei=CvY0SLD0HY7iiwHx6uyFBg)

Enjoy. :rolleyes:


Great links! Thanks for posting those.

[Jim Galli]

[QUOTE=DannL;351637] Some of these articles from that period tend to leave me bewildered as to what was actually considered pictorial photography.
QUOTE]

Really fun to read through some of these. I think the word pictorial is really akin to the word baptist in that it is like herding cats to ever get a definition while meanwhile the proponents in the group are fighting amongst themselves about what it is :D:D

White slugging it out with Steiglitz while meanwhile Struss goes off to Leavenworth prison......

[paulr]

[QUOTE=DannL;351637] I think the word pictorial is really akin to the word baptist in that it is like herding cats to ever get a definition while meanwhile the proponents in the group are fighting amongst themselves about what it is :D:D

I think those cats are easier to herd than the Modernist ones. Let's not even get started on Postmodern cats.

[Mark Sawyer]

Pictorialism
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Pictorialism was a photographic movement in vogue from around 1885 following the widespread introduction of the dry-plate process. It reached its height in the early years of the 20th century, and declined rapidly after 1914 after the widespread emergence of Modernism.


Sounds like this was written by a bonafide photo-historian! In modern photo-history books, Pictorialism "declined rapidly after 1914 after the widespread emergence of Modernism." In the real world, it was much more popular in the 1920's and 1930's, even though many of its early advocates had moved on to the next big style.

Similarly, even though historians have Impressionism pretty much over with by the 1880's, it was actually much more popular decades later.

Art history recognizes only the advent of a movement. If and when a style becomes popular, it's already over, regardless of how many people might be doing it.

[Darryl Baird]

Struss was truly abandoned by his NYC friends for his pro-German heritage and statements, his stint in the army (Leavenworth) was another dark chapter... but he surfaced and succeeded despite these trials... his lens designs were very popular in Hollywood (and beyond). My favorite is the multi-lens optics he developed for "The Fly."


[QUOTE=DannL;351637]
White slugging it out with Steiglitz while meanwhile Struss goes off to Leavenworth prison......

[paulr]

Art history recognizes only the advent of a movement. If and when a style becomes popular, it's already over, regardless of how many people might be doing it.

It might be more fair to say that historians are interested in a style or movement for as long as it remains influential.

There are people today painting like renaissance painters, romantics, and impressionists, but they're doing little besides derrivative work within a tradition. They're not discovering, inventing, or evolving anything; they're not influencing any future generations. This kind of hanging on isn't historically relevent.

[Bruce Watson]

... but they're doing little besides derivative work within a tradition. They're not discovering, inventing, or evolving anything; they're not influencing any future generations. This kind of hanging on isn't historically relevant.

That's one way of looking at it. Another way is that they are using a set of proven tools to make their art.

I don't understand why the critics so often equate new art with new tools. There's nothing wrong with writing music in Sonata Form, or painting in an impressionistic style for example. The fact that the author uses an old known method doesn't invalidate the work. And it doesn't necessarily make it derivative. It's just not cutting edge, and it might not be "historically relevant" in that they aren't creating new tools. But that doesn't mean the resulting work is not good art.

[Jim Galli]

Good discussion and also why I am right in the middle of this type of art. It seems that to be leading edge now is to be dark or aberrrant or sinister. Never beautiful. I'll settle for derivative if that's the case.

[Mark Sawyer]

It might be more fair to say that historians are interested in a style or movement for as long as it remains influential.

There are people today painting like renaissance painters, romantics, and impressionists, but they're doing little besides derrivative work within a tradition. They're not discovering, inventing, or evolving anything; they're not influencing any future generations. This kind of hanging on isn't historically relevent.

Hard to say, hard to say...

Should we decide John Sexton or Paul Caponigro did little besides derrivative work because they followed Ansel Adams and Minor White?

To pin it within the confines of this forum, did the people who started working with old Petzvals, soft focus, and other "imperfect" lenses have no influence? Admittedly, any such work would be laughed out of Aperture or Pace-MacGill, but those venues are not the sole proprietors of thoughtful aesthetics.

My own take is that re-discovery, even exploration of the familiar, can be as valid as novelty. And I think the current trends in using soft/imperfect lenses might use some of the same tools as the original pictorialists, but the concerns and aesthetics are very different.

Sorry, Paul; I'm in an arguing mood today!

[sanking]

I am going to quote myself from the text of a book I published in Spain on a Spanish pictorialist.

What is Pictorialism? Mike Weaver offers an extremely interesting definition, stating that the aim of pictorial photography is to "make a picture in which the sensuous beauty of the fine print is consonant with the moral beauty of the fine image, without particular reference to documentary or design values, and without specific regard to topographical identity." This is in fact a definition of the pictureque, understood as an informal style that presents an embellished imitation of nature, generally free of man's influence. The presence of the picturesque is the first and foremost characteristic of Pictorialism. Other important qualities are: 1) an aesthetic concern with making art, as opposed to a record; 2) the concept that only images which show the personality of the maker, generally through hand manipulation, can be considered works of art; 3) an interest in the effect and patterns of natural lighting in the outdoor landscape; 4) an impressionist rendering of the scene, in which the overall effect is more important than detail; and 5) the use of alternative printing processes: carbon and carbro, gum bichromate, oil and bromoil, direct carbon, and platinum.

Weaver's thoughts on this, and my own, were influence more by big "P" Pictorialism that flourished from about 1885 - 1920 than by modern neo-pictorialism.

Sandy King

[Darryl Baird]

a few artists who might beg to agree: Adam Fuss, Susan Derges, Abelardo Morello, Sally Mann (no flames please), Tom Baril, Dan Estabrook, etc.

old techniques, combined with new ideas... it's still art (in my book)


...snip...
To pin it within the confines of this forum, did the people who started working with old Petzvals, soft focus, and other "imperfect" lenses have no influence? Admittedly, any such work would be laughed out of Aperture or Pace-MacGill, but those venues are not the sole proprietors of thoughtful aesthetics.

My own take is that re-discovery, even exploration of the familiar, can be as valid as novelty. And I think the current trends in using soft/imperfect lenses might use some of the same tools as the original pictorialists, but the concerns and aesthetics are very different.

Sorry, Paul; I'm in an arguing mood today!

[Jim Ewins]

"The Term pictorialism came to be used generally by photographers in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries to describe an artistic approach..." excerpt from the Focal Encyclopedia of Photography 3rd Ed, Zakia et al.:)

[Darryl Baird]

(I thought I posted this previously, then went out for a bite, but it isn't here so I'll respond again to Sandy)

Sandy,

I think it might take two bottles of wine and at least two days to softly disagree about the Picturesque as a foremost characteristic of Pictorialism. I understand the term Picturesque to means "suitable for a painting" and was a fairly standardized aesthetic concept and construct by the late 1700s. The fact that people were making "pictures" before photography's invention came as something of a shock to me, but then I assumed the word was synonymous with photography.

Characteristics of the picturesque (at first always a landscape, often with architectural ruins) are a combination of roughness with smoothness in the topography... just the right balance. The Picturesque finds its place in between the sublime (rough and awesome) and beauty (smooth and soft). It greatly influenced every generation of artist, architect, landscape designer, and poet up to and even beyond the Modern era.

I believe the understanding of the "rules" of the Picturesque enabled early photographers like Frith and Fenton to make the wonderful landscape photographs that they did and explains a lot of why photography was so quickly popular. Talbot's honeymoon in Italy was spent drawing with a camera lucida (he hated the device) -- a common practice of the day was to sketch a picturesque scene... demonstrating your taste and understanding of the aesthetic.

for those with great fortitude might visit my research site (http://www.re-picture.info) on the subject or the recreation (repicturing) of a Picturesque tour of 1770 during a two week, daily blog (http://www.re-picture.info/blog/repictureblog_rev.html).

I found in rereading the posts Struan asked about the Picturesque as well. Conceptually the Picturesque is alive and well in most landscape photography, it isn't something only elite and well-educated individuals practice (as it once was), it's pretty much the norm today and understood (intuitively) by almost everyone.

I just don't think Pictorialism owes any more debt to the cult of the Picturesque than we do today.... but then, I'm still sober. :p



I am going to quote myself from the text of a book I published in Spain on a Spanish pictorialist.

What is Pictorialism? Mike Weaver offers an extremely interesting definition, stating that the aim of pictorial photography is to "make a picture in which the sensuous beauty of the fine print is consonant with the moral beauty of the fine image, without particular reference to documentary or design values, and without specific regard to topographical identity." This is in fact a definition of the pictureque, understood as an informal style that presents an embellished imitation of nature, generally free of man's influence. The presence of the picturesque is the first and foremost characteristic of Pictorialism. Other important qualities are: 1) an aesthetic concern with making art, as opposed to a record; 2) the concept that only images which show the personality of the maker, generally through hand manipulation, can be considered works of art; 3) an interest in the effect and patterns of natural lighting in the outdoor landscape; 4) an impressionist rendering of the scene, in which the overall effect is more important than detail; and 5) the use of alternative printing processes: carbon and carbro, gum bichromate, oil and bromoil, direct carbon, and platinum.

Weaver's thoughts on this, and my own, were influence more by big "P" Pictorialism that flourished from about 1885 - 1920 than by modern neo-pictorialism.

Sandy King

[Struan Gray]

It might be more fair to say that historians are interested in a style or movement for as long as it remains influential.

I don't often disagree with you Paul, but that's really only true of a small minority of reactionary historians - the ones who like to construct linear 'whiggish' histories in which the idea of the march of progress features prominently. Mainstream history has for a long time now studied how ideas live on in the form of tradition and folk memory, long after their influence has faded from the intellectual and artistic elite.

It is arguable that Pictorial photography lived on in the camera clubs well into the 50s and 60s. The style is also widespread in illustration and among 'quiet' artists like, say, Gwen Raverat (http://www.broughtonhousegallery.co.uk/raverat_16.html). How much that is a case of parallel development, and how much of cause-and-effect is hard for me to judge: everyone, for example, seems to have been heavily influenced by Japanese woodblock prints.

Many traditions are much younger than we imagine, especially those that are national rather than local. But others - like track guages or heraldry colours in corporate logos - live on for a mixture of rational and irrational reasons. Working within a tradition can therefore be both more innovative and more backward looking than we realise.

Perhaps I'm just biased. Many of my favourite works of art are those produced by artists going back to pay homage to the masters of the past. For examples, see here (http://hurl.samples.dmpcontent.com/scripts/hurl.exe?clipid=008047801010700020&cid=600161) or here (http://hurl.samples.dmpcontent.com/scripts/hurl.exe?clipid=008223601140700020&cid=600161) or, if you must have a photograph, here (http://www.masters-of-photography.com/S/smith/smith_minamata_full.html).

[sanking]

[QUOTE=Darryl Baird;351785Sandy,

I think it might take two bottles of wine and at least two days to softly disagree about the Picturesque as a foremost characteristic of Pictorialism. I understand the term Picturesque to means "suitable for a painting" and was a fairly standardized aesthetic concept and construct by the late 1700s. The fact that people were making "pictures" before photography's invention came as something of a shock to me, but then I assumed the word was synonymous with photography.

Snip, snip, snip ....

I just don't think Pictorialism owes any more debt to the cult of the Picturesque than we do today.... but then, I'm still sober. :p[/QUOTE]

I found Mike Weaver's arguments very persuasive at a time in the past when I was highly involved intellectually in the study of Pictorialism. My mind is a bit fluffy these days on scholary type issues since I now spend most of my time with print making, having finally gotten out of academia and the need to publish or perish.

But if you have not done so, the book is Mike Weaver, The Photographic Art: Pictorial Traditions In Britain And America. Published back in the mid-1980s. A real good read for folks interested in Pictorialism.

However, I found very little to argue about in your comments.

Sandy

[paulr]

The fact that the author uses an old known method doesn't invalidate the work. And it doesn't necessarily make it derivative.

I would certainly agree with that. And I'm not even talking about whether work is valid or not, just if it's of historical significance.

There are many ways that something could be historicaly significant. Use of old tools wouldn't affect most of them. The question is more along the lines of what the tools are being used for. After a while, the pictorialist tradition, in its purest form, seemed spent, for the same reasons many traditions seem spent: the people working within the tradition stopped doing anything that hadn't been seen before, or stopped doing anything that seemed particularly relevent to the times they lived in.

It might be more about basic understandings of the world than about tools. Pictorialism is rooted in Romanticism, and Romanticism is a worldview. It's one that gave way for a long stretch to Modernism, and when it came back, it came back in very different forms that looked different from the old ones.

[paulr]

Should we decide John Sexton or Paul Caponigro did little besides derrivative work because they followed Ansel Adams and Minor White?

Sexton and Caponigro continued to explore within the same tradition. They expanded that tradition ... maybe not enormously, but enough that they left their mark.

I wouldn't put them in the same category as the guys who go out seeking Ansel's tripod holes!


... And I think the current trends in using soft/imperfect lenses might use some of the same tools as the original pictorialists, but the concerns and aesthetics are very different.

I'd agree with that completely. I'd also suggest that pictorialism was much more about certain concerns and aesthetics than it was about lenses. So there's no reason to assume that someone using soft lenses today is immitating the pictorialists.

[paulr]

I don't often disagree with you Paul, but that's really only true of a small minority of reactionary historians - the ones who like to construct linear 'whiggish' histories in which the idea of the march of progress features prominently. Mainstream history has for a long time now studied how ideas live on in the form of tradition and folk memory, long after their influence has faded from the intellectual and artistic elite.

I guess I haven't seen any such art histories. All the history I've read is about "progress" ... certainly not implying improvement, but noting a progression, driven primarilly by changing concerns and changing times. Sometimes the progress is fundamental, like the advent of Modernism that came out of many cultural paradigm shifts. Other times it's as fluffy changing fashion or changing socks!

I'm curious to know what you'd think, for example, if a group of artists started painting not only with the same style, but with the same subject matter and apparent concerns of the renaissance painters. If they added so little to the tradition that you might mistake their work for work of the old masters. Would this work be significant, from an art historical point of view?

[Dan Fromm]

[QUOTE=paulr;351996<snip> I'd also suggest that pictorialism was much more about certain concerns and aesthetics than it was about lenses. So there's no reason to assume that someone using soft lenses today is immitating the pictorialists.[/QUOTE]

Motivations are unknowable, even when a person asserts its own; we all lie to ourselves as well as to others. Results, in the form of prints, are, however, visible. Thing is, when I look at a print all I can say with any confidence that it is may be the print the photographer had in mind when it took the shot.

Some of the people who shoot nowadays with soft focus lenses or practice lens abuse (that swirly bokeh some prize highly) make prints that I sometimes find similar to others made quite a while ago. Do they spring from the same roots? Beats me. Can I tell new from old? Sometimes, which suggests that the new 'uns aren't imitating their elders. Can I be sure? No. Does it matter a lot to me? Since I'm an insensitive clod, no.

Cheers,

Dan

[Mark Sawyer]

Well, I'm not sure we're getting any closer to an answer to Jim's original query, "how you would define the parameters of a Pictorial Photograph?" And on the drive home from work today, I thought of a few reasons why...

We've talked about pictorialism imitating other art forms, especially Impressionism, but it also imitated/was-influenced-by Japanese prints, art nouveau, religious Rennaisance art, Vermeer, English landscape painting... And some seem artistically unique unto themselves, like Frederick Evans platinum print architectural studies.

The lens, which we've also focused on, (sorry, I couldn't help it!), doesn't seem a defining factor. Mortenson, pictorialism's standard-bearer against Adams, used heavy retouching and printing through textured screens more than soft lenses.

I don't know that we can very well define something that historically includes such diverse photographers as Henry Peach Robinson, early Alfred Steiglitz, William Mortenson, and George Hurrell. Or that currently includes Sally Mann, Jim Galli, and anyone who picks up a Holga or Lensbaby...

I think we just got lazy in thinking "lousy lens = Pictorialism". Or we just let the f/64 photographers define it through their rejection and new direction. But I don't think such a rich and diverse tradition should be defined by those who've rejected it. (And really, I believe the f/64 photographers and their current heirs are every bit as interested in the "picture" and "picturesque" as the Pictorialists.)

And really, what matters in the end is that I had a very insightful thought to conclude with. But I had an IPA while I was typing this, and now it's lost forever. Wonder what it was... *sigh*

never mind...

[paulr]

Some of the people who shoot nowadays with soft focus lenses or practice lens abuse (that swirly bokeh some prize highly) make prints that I sometimes find similar to others made quite a while ago. Do they spring from the same roots? Beats me.

Dan, I think these connections seem more ambiguous when you focus a technical detail, like soft focus. More pieces fall into place when you look at the images more broadly: subject matter, the way the image is constructed, the artist's whole body of work, maybe even a larger community of artists that he or she belongs to.

Intent was pretty easy to surmise with the original pictorialists. For one thing, they wrote about it! They issued manifestos just like the f64 guys did. And even if you mistrust artist's statements (probably a wise policy), it's easy to see the pictorialists as an extension not just of the Romantic and Barbizon painters, but of the various ideas about art and the world that those artists espoused. The pictorial images were full of iconic imagery and symbolism. Much of it was so heavy-handed that it's almost impossible to deny that it was intentional. These artists worked in a language of symbols that was commonplace at the time.

If you're curious about the roots of a contemporary soft focus image, it helps to look beyond the soft focus (which could belong to any number of traditions). For example, Jim Galli's picture of the car (the one that started this thread) doesn't strike me as having any connection at all to pictorialism. The subject matter is nostalgic, but not at all pastoral, or connected to nature in any way. There's nothing neoclassical about the construction of the image; there are no icons or symbols of the type that the pictorialsts used. I could be missing something, but you get the idea. If he'd shown us a picture of an alabaster-skinned, half-nude woman in a misty wooded grove, holding a chalice, I'd think, "yeah, this guy's been drinking the pictorial kool aid."

[jetcode]

Where does Steichen fit in? Was he a pictorialist?

[sanking]

Intent was pretty easy to surmise with the original pictorialists. For one thing, they wrote about it! They issued manifestos just like the f64 guys did. And even if you mistrust artist's statements (probably a wise policy), it's easy to see the pictorialists as an extension not just of the Romantic and Barbizon painters, but of the various ideas about art and the world that those artists espoused. The pictorial images were full of iconic imagery and symbolism. Much of it was so heavy-handed that it's almost impossible to deny that it was intentional. These artists worked in a language of symbols that was commonplace at the time.



Excellent point. Pictorialists adhered to the Emersonian concept of truth to nature, that is, objects depicted are less important for what they are than for the manner in which they are depicted, and the level at which they are read. The object is important primarily to the extent that it can be read at a symbolic level. A gnarled and decaying stump of a tree is revealed not just as an object, but for what it signifies, nature, death and decay. Trees demand reading not just as trees, but as order (or lack of it) in nature. The major goal of Pictorialism was not realistic depiction, but abstract symbolization of specific contextual and ideological referents.

Sandy King

[Mark Sawyer]

Where does Steichen fit in? Was he a pictorialist?

Very much so in his early years, when he was a key member of the Photo-Seccesion". His "The Pond, Moonlight" was the first photograph to ever sell for over a million dollars, and was very much a classic Pictorial work.

In his later years, he was a WWII navy photographer, then organized the "Family of Man" exhibit, so he strayed quite a ways from his roots...

[Darryl Baird]

Actually, Steichen had the second photograph over a million... the first (http://flickrnation.com/2005/11/richard-prince-print-sets-auction.html) was a Marlboro Man by Richard Prince. Prince is the reigning king of $$$ again with a 3.4 million sale in January. (http://www.pdn-pix.com/pdn/newswire/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1003692111) (That's a lovely set of bookends to wrap your head around if you're trying to explain the photo art market to a lay person).

I think it would be helpful to separate Pictorialism into Early P, Middle P, Late P, and Post P. I use this structure in introducing the topic in a class. It's easier to see Pictorialism as the first organized attempt to claim photography as a fine art. Previously the photo societies, clubs, and loose-knit social circles (Cameron, Rejlander, Carroll, and others) had no manifesto as such. The groups that Emerson helped promote and steer would set into motion an international cooperative that exhibited, shared ideas, and rewarded innovation with prizes. While you might claim HP Robinson as a member, his combination-printing images were denounced as un-natural by his Pictorialist peers and his influence was diminished.

Early P = gains influence and members who promote photography as a form of art

Middle P = "form of art" begins to change to reflect both Romanticsm and compete with painting (hand-coated emulsions, etc.) This is the pinnacle of "classic" Pictorialism as I usually define the movement.

Late P = Photo Secession groups (especially NYC - Stieglitz, Steichen, and all) push to elevate photography to high art, using European avant garde art and artist alongside photography. This is simultaneous with early Modernism (Suprematists, Futurist, Vorticist, etc.) Weston is in Mexico being introduced to Russian artists and their modern ideas (Suprematism, Constructivism) Strand drops the "straight" bomb and Stieglitz sees a new era.

Post P = Clarence White's school moves to Ohio and Pictorialism continues till (arguably) the 1940s.

Middle P and Late P seem to be the most easily identified by their look, processes, and subject matter. Early and Post are really waning and waxing periods that are harder to define cleanly.

Of all the above photographers, Steichen probably adapted the most to all the periods, IMHO.


Very much so in his early years, when he was a key member of the Photo-Seccesion". His "The Pond, Moonlight" was the first photograph to ever sell for over a million dollars, and was very much a classic Pictorial work.

In his later years, he was a WWII navy photographer, then organized the "Family of Man" exhibit, so he strayed quite a ways from his roots...

[paulr]

Where does Steichen fit in? Was he a pictorialist?

And what about Stieglitz? He's so fixed in our minds as the great champion of modernism that it's easy to overlook how romantic/old fashioned many of his pictures looked well into the modern period.

Szarkowski wrote about this in the exhibition catalog to his Stieglitz retrospective. People seemed to believe anything Stieglitz told them. When someone asked Beaumont Newhall (the first photo curator at moma) why certain victorian-looking Stieglitz photographs should be considered modern, Newhall said something like, "Stieglitz told me they were modern and I had no reason to doubt him."

Stieglitz definitely became modern after a while, following (oddly) behind his young disciples like Strand. But I'm wondering if those older, more romantic looking images ... mostly gravures ... like the night time pictures of woods, and the horses and carriages in the snow, could be seen as pictorialist.

edited to add:
I just read Darryl's post. I think you answered it. Very interesting, I never thought about different periods of pictorialism.

[jetcode]

And what about Stieglitz? He's so fixed in our minds as the great champion of modernism that it's easy to overlook how romantic/old fashioned many of his pictures looked well into the modern period.


I have a Stieglitz book that covers the period of his "Camera Work" era I believe. It has some of the most impressive images I've laid eyes to. I found this treatise to be exceptional in shaping what I know about photography and even used texture screens for a while on a 4x5 to try to achieve the same effect. Part of the charm is the times I must confess. When was the last time you saw a dock full of schooners?

My photography teacher has a Steichen portfolio and I got to view it one day. Dark moody prints. I wish I could see it again with the eyes I have today.

[Mark Sawyer]

Actually, Steichen had the second photograph over a million... the first (http://flickrnation.com/2005/11/richard-prince-print-sets-auction.html) was a Marlboro Man by Richard Prince. Prince is the reigning king of $$$ again with a 3.4 million sale in January. (http://www.pdn-pix.com/pdn/newswire/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1003692111) (That's a lovely set of bookends to wrap your head around if you're trying to explain the photo art market to a lay person).

My mistake! And I agree. If only I'd had the investment-oriented insight to buy a C-print copy of a mass-produced cigarette ad for a few million dollars because... because... ummm... uhhh...

My God, are we really letting the "art market" decide anything of value? I mean, do we really want the words "art" and "market" to be that closely associated with each other?

"Art Market"

hmmm...

I think this is what really killed Van Gogh...

(Sorry... a few glasses of red wine, and I wander off topic... Hey, last day of the semester...)

[domenico Foschi]

Excellent point. Pictorialists adhered to the Emersonian concept of truth to nature, that is, objects depicted are less important for what they are than for the manner in which they are depicted, and the level at which they are read. The object is important primarily to the extent that it can be read at a symbolic level. A gnarled and decaying stump of a tree is revealed not just as an object, but for what it signifies, nature, death and decay. Trees demand reading not just as trees, but as order (or lack of it) in nature. The major goal of Pictorialism was not realistic depiction, but abstract symbolization of specific contextual and ideological referents.

Sandy King

Ah! But this also the intent of the f 64 group.
Aside of the fact that the F64 was for overall sharpness, the rendition of the subject was an abstraction, see Weston, Adams himself to some extent and all the others.
Although admiring Weston's work I have never understood his utter rejection for some "pictorialists".
In his daybooks Weston doesn't mention the work of Coburn which makes me suspect he never knew his work. It is very hard not to see the genius in Coburn's images.
EW completely made a turn about on Stieglitz's work, mostly, in my opinion because of what Stieglitz said about his work in the early 30's.

I am not sure if there is any pictorialist work presently and definetly pictorialism is not defined by the use of Petzvals or any other kind of brass lens.
Lastly, I have never understood how a group of artists can get together and decide to form a group where the guidelines are so restrictive as to be a deterrent to any kind of departure.
This goes for pictorialists and F.64ists alike.

[paulr]

Lastly, I have never understood how a group of artists can get together and decide to form a group where the guidelines are so restrictive as to be a deterrent to any kind of departure.
This goes for pictorialists and F.64ists alike.

Yeah, it seems silly now. But that kind of tribal behavior was in fashion in all the arts back then. Think of all the -isms that competed for the honor of being the One True Art a hundred or so years ago. We should have contest to see who can name the most!

On one hand it seems like a whole lot of wasted energy ... why couldn't they just do their art and leave everyone else alone? On the other hand, I admire their passion. They really had to believe they were fighting for something important.

In the case of photography, they seemed to be fighting for the legitemacy of the medium. I suspect each group thought that photography's future as an art form depended on everyone seeing things their way. The f64 guys probably thought no one would take seriously a bunch of painter wannabes who made dark, fuzzy pictures. And the pictorialists probably thought no one would take seriously a bunch of technicians who made razor-sharp pictures of rocks.

It seemed like a recipe for mutually assured destruction. Just read the letters between Ansel (in other circumstances the nicest guy anyone had ever met) and Mortensen. There have been friendlier jihads.

[Darryl Baird]

Stieglitz's influence and status as a leader was well earned. He won many of the top prizes in pictorialist competitions (Linked Ring group mostly) for his nighttime and atmospheric weather images. His "partnership" with Stiechen was what makes him look like a genius. Stiechen provided the key to introducing the European artists into the Little Gallery of the Photo-Seccesion (291). Stiechen (also a painter) moved easily within those circles. Stieglitz early work (http://www.re-picture.info/LgFormat/StieglitzEarly.jpg) is pure Pictorialist. The horses and trains Stieglitz photographed were done in a similar fashion, but the subject matter really provides the key difference. Machines and the modern age are synonymous.... maybe Jim Galli is an early Modernists at heart.;)


A correction about Clarence White (http://www.loc.gov/loc/lcib/0112/white.html) and his school... he came from Ohio, but died in 1925 and his son took over, but the school failed financially in the 1940s. His real influence hasn't until recently truly acknowledged.


And what about Stieglitz? He's so fixed in our minds as the great champion of modernism that it's easy to overlook how romantic/old fashioned many of his pictures looked well into the modern period.

Szarkowski wrote about this in the exhibition catalog to his Stieglitz retrospective. People seemed to believe anything Stieglitz told them. When someone asked Beaumont Newhall (the first photo curator at moma) why certain victorian-looking Stieglitz photographs should be considered modern, Newhall said something like, "Stieglitz told me they were modern and I had no reason to doubt him."

Stieglitz definitely became modern after a while, following (oddly) behind his young disciples like Strand. But I'm wondering if those older, more romantic looking images ... mostly gravures ... like the night time pictures of woods, and the horses and carriages in the snow, could be seen as pictorialist.

edited to add:
I just read Darryl's post. I think you answered it. Very interesting, I never thought about different periods of pictorialism.

[paulr]

Stieglitz's influence and status as a leader was well earned.

Oh, yeah, I don't question that for a minute. He almost singlehandedly brought modernism from Europe to the sceptical U.S.. And I think of him as a genius when it comes to photography

I just think it's interesting that in his own work, at important times, he seemed to be a step or two behind his disciples (and his rhetoric). It's almost like he pushed Strand into the future, and then followed.

[Struan Gray]

I guess I haven't seen any such art histories.

Now you call me on it, neither have I. But I'm assuming they exist, if only in the form of papers at conferences and PhD theses. The "Story of Art"-style, authoritative, canon-building approach is certainly regarded as badly dated in more general history circles. Gombrich himself published books like this (http://www.amazon.com/Sense-Order-Psychology-Decorative-Wrightsman/dp/0714822590/ref=sr_1_5?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1211788195&sr=1-5) and this (http://www.amazon.com/Preference-Primitive-Episodes-History-Western/dp/0714846325/ref=pd_sim_b_title_4).

Miles Orvell's "American Photograph (http://www.amazon.com/American-Photography-Oxford-History-Art/dp/0192842714/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1211788071&sr=1-1)y" (which is just a recent general book I happen to own) does include a more complete history of the pictorialist movement than the classic histories, and does make the point that the style of photography lived on in camera clubs for a long while afterwards. Julian Bell's recent general history of art, "Mirror of the World (http://www.amazon.com/Mirror-World-New-History-Art/dp/0500238375/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1211788115&sr=1-1)", is much more inclusive, and more sensitive to themes and influences, than the older histories. Both examples show that popular culture and its history are edging their way into the mainstream.

In general, one of the best books of the history of ideas I have read is Keith Thomas' "Religion and the Decline of Magic (http://www.amazon.com/Religion-Decline-Magic-sixteenth-seventeenth/dp/0195213602)". It's a serious academic work, but very readable, and is now something of a classic among history texts. His book, and the rise of whole fields like the history of tourism, are more explicitly concerned with the propagatation and longevity of ideas at the conscious and sub-conscious level.



I'm curious to know what you'd think, for example, if a group of artists started painting not only with the same style, but with the same subject matter and apparent concerns of the renaissance painters. If they added so little to the tradition that you might mistake their work for work of the old masters. Would this work be significant, from an art historical point of view?

I get your point, and agree with it to some extent. In this particular case I suspect a lot would depend on how the works were presented and marketed. I can well imagine it having an artistic impact if accompanied by a suitably ironic conceptual statement - call it the "re-painting" movement. :-)

It would also be possible to make an impact simply as an attempt at experimental archeology, just like all those varsity oarsmen who spend their summers rowing a trireme around the Pelopennese.

And then there's the whole business of collecting famous fakes, or works by famous forgers. Have you ever read Robertson Davies' "What's bred in the bone"?

In some senses there has been a revolt against the whole idea of art being defined by a few celebrity practitioners. The celebration of the snapshot aesthetic and found photographs, as well as the general distain for craft skills, are examples of a rejection of art world authority and an embrace of the everyday and commonplace in the production of art, not just its subject matter. There are still red-carpet artists and grand openings, but there is also much collecting of vernacular art and commercial graphics even before they aquire respectability as antiques. These are the sorts of art that more usually look backwards to earlier styles, even if they don't acknowledge the fact.


I'm musing, not being argumentative. I think.

[Struan Gray]

PS. on Stieglitz: this photo makes me think that Steiglitz was inching towards a more modernist formal look when in Holland, even if the rest of the Dutch photos are more conventionally pictorialist:

http://www.luminous-lint.com/app/image/2695662702614171053879735219/

I've wondered for a while why Stieglitz went to Holland's fishing coast to take photos (it's not an obvious place for a visiting American to head for). I noticed that J.Craig Annan was taking similar photos a year or so prior to Steglitz, so perhaps it was a favourite pictorialist haunt.

[domenico Foschi]

I've wondered for a while why Stieglitz went to Holland's fishing coast to take photos (it's not an obvious place for a visiting American to head for). I noticed that J.Craig Annan was taking similar photos a year or so prior to Steglitz, so perhaps it was a favourite pictorialist haunt.

Nah, he was shopping for one of those fabulous dutch bikes.

[Struan Gray]

True, this particular dutch bike (http://dutchbikes.us/cobi/) would be perfect for the linked ring.

If anyone mentions the Revd. Spooner they'll be sent to the back of the class. Permanently.

[paulr]

In this particular case I suspect a lot would depend on how the works were presented and marketed. I can well imagine it having an artistic impact if accompanied by a suitably ironic conceptual statement - call it the "re-painting" movement. :-)

Exactly ... it's the difference between recontextualizing something and just re-doing it. The found art movement, in a sense, is about the finder-of-the-thing as artist more than the original maker-of-the-thing. Duchamp got credit for his readymades, not Acme Snow Shovels and Urinals, Inc..

Likewise, consider an artist with a conceptual bent who paints something in an anachronistic style (presumeably to make a point). More significance gets attributed to that point than to the standards that were important when that style of painting was contemporary.

He's doing something differentt than the people who paint in that style just because they like it. I think one reason later pictorialists got so little attention is that they were just hanging onto a style. Their art became about making pictures that looked like others, rather than making pictures that explored ideas or the world around them.

I don't think that a history is necessarily linear or monolithic or canonical just because it marginalizes work that's purely immitative. I agree that histories should be democratic and should acknowledge many parallel threads (this is what you're talking about, yes?). But it seems to me that a thread can become historically unimportant long before the last of its practitioners calls it quits.

[Jim Galli]

http://tonopahpictures.0catch.com/TurnerHoochLens/WhenEmptyReturn2RichfieldOilCoS.jpg
WHEN EMPTY RETURN 2 RICHFIELD OIL CO

..

[Mark Sawyer]

Does using a Pictorialist lens necessarily make a photographer a Pictorialist?

[Jim Galli]

Does using a Pictorialist lens necessarily make a photographer a Pictorialist?

See Above: :D:D

Actually, sounds like a whole new thread to me.

[Dave Wooten]

Does using a Pictorialist lens necessarily make a photographer a Pictorialist?


Yes most certainly, however you will get a bit more respect if you have the tee shirt and membership card. Also, the one with the most picto-formula lenses is the pictoralist held in the highest esteem.
An official list published of accredited and certified pictorial period lenses, and an anthology of images of the era and meeting the criteria of the genre, I am sure is soon to appear... the subject is certainly worthy of academic dissertation.

[Mark Sawyer]

I dunno, Jim...

It seems anyone who uses a soft lens is immediately cast as a "Pictorialist", from you and me to Linda Connor and Sally Mann. And historically, everyone from the Photo Secession and the Linked Ring to Mortenson and Hurrell. It's a pretty diverse group with pretty diverse intentions and results.

Nice oil drum! If only it were full, maybe you could afford another lens...

[Mark Sawyer]

Also, the one with the most picto-formula lenses is the pictoralist held in the highest esteem.

I guess I'll never compete with Alvin Langdon Coburn and his dozen-or-more P&S lenses. (Unless I build a few more of my own PoS lenses...)

[Mark Sawyer]

The more I think about it, at least at this moment, the more I think the critics (including ourselves) have decided "Pictorialist tools make and define Pictorialist works". If the original Pictorialist traits were being art-concious, imitating another art form, and producing allegorical works, then Cindy Sherman and Gregory Crewdson far better fit the description than any of the usual "modern Pictorialist" suspects.

And is there anyone recently using a soft lens (or diffusion device) who hasn't been cast as a contemporary Pictorialist?

[Struan Gray]

And is there anyone recently using a soft lens (or diffusion device) who hasn't been cast as a contemporary Pictorialist?

Sugimoto

There are aspects of pictorialism all over photography. Which shouldn't be surprising: it's what assimilation is all about.

Paul, I have mixed feelings about a lot of the appropriation buzz. Nearly all of it ends up being less interesting to see or experience than to read about - which means it fails my personal definition of art. One thing the pictorialists were big on was producing beautiful objects that people would want to own. That might at first sight make them perfect fodder for a bit of ironic reproduction, except that truly reproducing the physical artifacts is no easy task: the act of appropriation ends up actually confirming the pictorialist's central doctrine of handmade objects rather than questioning it.

I also think there is plenty of milage in using photography to investigate visual fossils lodged in the unexamined sediments at the murky bottom of our cultural lives. The ubiquitous belief that soft focus makes older women look more attractive baffles me, but is surely a hangover from pictorialist days. The lost tribe of pictorialists is surely alive and well and whooping it up on a cruise ship near you. Some stock pictorialist characters like the Pipe Smoking Fisherman are long dead and buried (alongside early film regulars like the Amiable Drunk), but the Naked Bint Enraptured By A Tree Trunk shows a vegetative tenacity worthy of kudzu.

As usual, I agree with much of what you say, but am enjoying playing Devil's advocate. I don't think lingering cultural phenomena are of no interest to historians, more that they interest a different sort of historian, and for different reasons.

[paulr]

I have mixed feelings about a lot of the appropriation buzz. Nearly all of it ends up being less interesting to see or experience than to read about - which means it fails my personal definition of art.

I suppose I could say the same thing about most conceptual art of any kind. Some people go crazy for it, so I won't say it fails my definition of art, but it often fails the "do I love it" test.


One thing the pictorialists were big on was producing beautiful objects that people would want to own. That might at first sight make them perfect fodder for a bit of ironic reproduction, except that truly reproducing the physical artifacts is no easy task: the act of appropriation ends up actually confirming the pictorialist's central doctrine of handmade objects rather than questioning it.

That's an interesting idea. It might also be significant that the most famous descendents of the pictorialists (Wall, Crewdson, etc.) have hung onto many of the pictorialist ideas, but not the precious handmade object one.


The ubiquitous belief that soft focus makes older women look more attractive baffles me, but is surely a hangover from pictorialist days.

It baffles you because vintage lenses cost so much more than beer?


I don't think lingering cultural phenomena are of no interest to historians, more that they interest a different sort of historian, and for different reasons.

Cultural historians maybe?

[Mark Sawyer]

Sugimoto


Forgive my ignorance, but does he use a soft focus lens or similar device? The closest I can think of is his "focus at twice infinity" work, though I'm only slightly familiar with his artwork. (He does some very thoughtful and wonderful work, regardless...)

[Struan Gray]

I won't be able to respond properly for a day or so, but here are a few quickies.


It might also be significant that the most famous descendents of the pictorialists (Wall, Crewdson, etc.) have hung onto many of the pictorialist ideas, but not the precious handmade object one.

I dunno. Wall's lightboxes pack a pretty good aura. They must have seemed even more special when he first started making them.


It baffles you because vintage lenses cost so much more than beer?

It baffles me that an effect that is intended to enhance allure ends up reminding me of my life's most knackered moments: staggering out of a chlorinated pool after too long a training session. As Byron said having swum the Hellespont, the miracle wasn't that Leander did it, but that he had the strength left to pay due attention to Hero.

Thread drift? I'm shocked. Shocked!


Cultural historians maybe?

Anthropologists mostly. Which doesn't let the conceptualists off the hook, since the vast preponderance of their work is merely lazy anthropology. So there.



(re: sugimoto) Forgive my ignorance, but does he use a soft focus lens or similar device? The closest I can think of is his "focus at twice infinity" work, ...

I was thinking of the twice infinity work. Superficially the images look very pictorial, especially online where you don't miss the texture of a gravure or gum-over-pt-over-roasted-gnats-eyeballs print. But I have never seen anyone even suggest that Sugimoto's aim is in any way connected with those of the pictorialists. He's just not nice enough.

[paulr]

I
Anthropologists mostly. Which doesn't let the conceptualists off the hook, since the vast preponderance of their work is merely lazy anthropology. So there.

ha! good point.

but i think you owe me more credit for the beer joke.

[russyoung]

Pardon the delay in jumping in this discussion. I can see that there are at least seven or eight people on earth (or at least LARGEFORMAT) who are truly interested in the topic. Here are some snippets from my dissertation:

Pictorialism has always been an elusive term, even contemporaneously, “It is very difficult to get two people to agree as to what constitutes 'Pictorial Photography [1909].” With the benefit of nearly another fifteen years of thought, Gillies found it was still “a very difficult thing to define [1923].” In general, the Pictorialists defined themselves not as a specific philosophy but as a counter-point to that which had preceded them, that which they had rebelled against, in the same way the f/64 Group would define itself as “An informal association founded in response to the prevailing Pictorialist school of the early twentieth century.” Considered at its broadest level, the movement included a diverse group of photographer-image makers diffused unevenly across most of Western civilization. At the time, a definition acceptable to most participants would have been the acceptance of photography as an individual art, with no specification as to media or method, as Stieglitz defined his Photo-Secession’s goal “to compel its recognition, not as the handmaiden of art, but as a distinctive medium of individual expression.” There was a manner of treatment involved, too evident to the participants to bother to codify in text, that was derived from Emerson, “when the intention is merely and purely to produce a beautiful thing,” who in turn had paraphrased Whistler.

A survey of modern photohistorians reveals coherence in defining Pictorialism as incorporating the element of diffusion. Curator Christian Peterson defined it, in part, as “de rigueur for pictorial images to be carefully composed, softly focused, and low in tonality ... Soft focus effects were universally used to suppress detail and to emphasize mass. Softly focused pictures did not seem of the real world and allowed pictorialists to escape into imagined dreamscapes.” William Crawford, the developer of the concept of syntax in photography defined it as “Expressive printmaking, matte surfaces, and the optically softened image. Historian, professor and photographer S. Carl King produced a very encompassing definition, one element of which was a “Tendency toward the suppression of detail, resulting in an impressionistic rendering of the scene,” accurately pinpointing the early Pictorialists’ motivation for diffusion and qualifying the concept with “tendency.” King is correct, and almost alone, in not defining Pictorialism with the certainty of diffusion as some workers who were clearly Pictorialists, such as Guido Rey, created only sharply focused images, and some such as Alice Boughton created both sharp and gently diffused prints. Clarence White made sharp photographs such as Lady in Black with Statuette, 1908, or Boys Going to School, 1908, as did Alvin Langdon Coburn Road to Algeciras, 1908. K&#252;hn explained that soft focus lenses were slow to catch on in Germany and Austria because of the wide spread use of gum printing and “only one lens… [the] Eidoscope by Hermagis in Paris, received, in the hands of German photographers, lasting use” yet there were significant Austrian and German pictorialists. Curator and museum director Douglas Nickel’s definition “Pictorialism was therefore not a style, but a shared sensibility reflecting an ideological crisis within modernity; its Romantic reassertion of individual temperament, its antiempirical alignment with Symbolism, and its (typically) Whistlerian promotion of mood over intellect could find expression through any number of visual means” is vague as was the movement itself, and yet this may constitute the most accurate definition of Pictorialism. It is crucial to comprehend that all soft focus was encompassed within Pictorialism, but not all Pictorialism was soft focus.
It is without reward to seek a useful definition in either Newhall or Gernsheim. Beaumont Newhall never used the term ‘pictorialism’ in either Photography 1839-1937 or The History of Photography from 1839 to the present day (1964 edition). Proto-Modern Photography, the final exhibit Newhall curated, contained soft focus photographs by Coburn (10 prints), Pierre Dubreuil (3), Steichen (2), Struss (3) and Weston, yet there was never the occurrence of the word ‘pictorialism’ in any of the labeling. Instead he invented the new term ‘proto-modern’ as a substitute. Newhall was simply unable to use the word ‘pictorialism’ although he used ‘Photo-Secession’ freely in his life of writing about photography; for the Newhalls, the art movement in photography was solely the provenance of Stieglitz’ Photo-Secession. As for Helmut Gernsheim, when the index in The History of Photography 1685-1914 is consulted under ‘pictorial photography’ (he cannot use the word ‘pictorialism’ either), it notes “see ‘art’ photography,” which refers to Rejlander, Robinson and Cameron, not Pictorialism, which is categorized as ‘the aesthetic movement.’

I hope there are a few folks who may find this of interest.

Russ

[Jim Galli]

:snip: I hope there are a few folks who may find this of interest. Russ

Mesmerized! Easy and interesting to see how Newhall treated this. He was definitely of the f64 generation. Had to hold this smelly stuff at arms length to keep the less well rounded folk at bay perhaps?

[paulr]

Thanks for that Russ. Really interesting.

So after surveying all the histories, what are your thoughts about pictorialism?

[Kerik Kouklis]

Dr. Young -Excellent! It is a shame that Newhall inflicted his narrow views on his version of the history of photography. He did his best to erase Mortenson and pictorialism from the map. Luckily, we have folks like you to shed new light.

Speaking of that, now that your dissertation has the Queen's blessing, why not publish it on something like LuLu and make it available to the unwashed masses hungry for the information. I'll buy the first one!

[Jeremy Moore]

I am working on uploading a couple of Public Domain books on pictorialism to our digital library collection. 2 books in the queue right now to upload:

1926 (no copyright notice) edition of Victorian Photographs of Famous Men & Fair Women by Julia Margaret
Cameron. The printing of the plates is rather poor, but it does
include 2 essays on her work, one by Virginia Woolf and the other by
Roger Fry.

The 2nd is Paul Lewis Anderson's 1914 book Pictorial Landscape-Photography.

We also have Mr. Anderson's Pictorial Photography; Its Principles and Practice in the queue, but no idea on when for that one yet. Probably 2 weeks for the others to go up.

Russ, I agree with Kerik in regards to your dissertation, I would love to read it!

[sanking]

\bly 2 weeks for the others to go up.

Russ, I agree with Kerik in regards to your dissertation, I would love to read it!

Add me to the list of those who would love to read the dissertation.

Sandy King

[Mark Sawyer]

Speaking of that, now that your dissertation has the Queen's blessing, why not publish it on something like LuLu and make it available to the unwashed masses hungry for the information. I'll buy the first one!

Not if I beat you to it! ;)

There are a few things in there I wonder about, though...

"It is crucial to comprehend that all soft focus was encompassed within Pictorialism, but not all Pictorialism was soft focus." So once a photographer put a Verito on the front of his camera, he was committed and condemned to being part of the Pictorialist art-for-art's-sake movement, with all its philosophical, intellectual, and aesthetic limits?

And considering the limiting definition art historians (such as Nickels) are assigning to Pictorialism, I wonder whether much of the new work being done with the old sf lenses would qualify as Pictorialist?

[stefan d]

I would like to read the dissertation too although my English is very bad. It sounds absolute amazing.
stefan d

[Kerik Kouklis]

So once a photographer put a Verito on the front of his camera, he was committed and condemned to being part of the Pictorialist art-for-art's-sake movement, with all its philosophical, intellectual, and aesthetic limits?
Not if he stopped down far enough!

[Dave Wooten]

Photo montages of the pictorialist era were often quite sharp...the discussion seems to be centered on "Pictorialist" as soft focus portraits, cityscapes and landscapes (?)

[Mark Sawyer]

Photo montages of the pictorialist era were often quite sharp...the discussion seems to be centered on "Pictorialist" as soft focus portraits, cityscapes and landscapes (?)

Soft lenses were tell-tale indicators of the Photo-Secession phase of pictorialism, but yes, there were other phases and styles using other lenses. Mortenson relied more on retouching and printing through textured screens that added a fine, sharp pattern to the print. Later pictorialists prefered the look of printing a sharp negative through a diffusion screen in the darkroom.

Some of the early pioneers of what became pictorialism, like Cameron, Robinson, and Emerson are variously defined as pictorialist or not. As the title of the thread implies, it's a vague and slippery term to define.

And, btw, some of the early f/64 work was done with soft, "pictorial" lenses stopped down for sharpness.

[Mark Sawyer]

Not if he stopped down far enough!

My intentions stand defined by my choice of f/stop!

I think we need to start a movement of our own, "Group f/4". And when we write our manifesto, we'll write it really, really fuzzy...

[domenico Foschi]

My intentions stand defined by my choice of f/stop!

I think we need to start a movement of our own, "Group f/4". And when we write our manifesto, we'll write it really, really fuzzy...

Yes, with the smudge tool. :)

[Dave Wooten]

What is the time line we consider the era of pictorialism? Wouldn't it be more the era of the rapid rectilinear, than it would be of the soft focus portrait Verito and the Visual Quality?

[Turner Reich]

Today it's called "Post Modern Neo Pictorial Photography" and is preferred by those who collect old lenses and make diffused prints. It can also be called "Reverso Retro Pictorial".

[Struan Gray]

I see quite a difference between the early pictorialists like Robinson and Rejlander, and the later pre-modernist bunch. It's the later ones, and the amateur clubs that turned their work into a fetish, who seem to have obsessed most about blurry effects.

As chance would have it, I was filling time between backups last night and idly thumbed an odd bound volume of "The English Illustrated Magazine" from 1883-4 that we inherited a while back. It has the first publication of a Hardy short story, and a fascinating (to this twig-obsessed photographer) description of coppice managment and charcoal burning in Westmorland. It also has page after page of engraved illustrations that look exactly like early pictorial photographs.

That's a sample of one, but such magazines were ubiquitous, and their visual language was as readily consumed as mainstream news photographs are today. It would be interesting to unravel the connections and influences between them, the pictorialist photographers, and other widespread pictures like the vast genre of travel prints and watercolours. For me, the pictorialists end up looking wholly unoriginal in their choice of subject matter and presentation, but perhaps they were more influencing than influenced.

Russ, like the others I would be fascinated to read your thesis. If you're not already talking to a 'real' publisher, a Lulu book would be a great way to distribute it to the enthusiast community.

[Jim Galli]

What is the time line we consider the era of pictorialism? Wouldn't it be more the era of the rapid rectilinear, than it would be of the soft focus portrait Verito and the Visual Quality?

When I started the thread the answer in my mind and the one I was looking for was re-affirmed by Russ Young

:snip: There was a manner of treatment involved, too evident to the participants to bother to codify in text, that was derived from Emerson, “when the intention is merely and purely to produce a beautiful thing,” who in turn had paraphrased Whistler.
:snip:

Christian Peterson in his book that I alluded to earlier; After the Photo-Secession: American Pictorial Photography, 1910-1955 widens the definition well beyond the obvious. Most here only think of the charcoal looking pictures of the Alvin Langdon Coburn era. Those are not my favorites, and indeed the work I enjoy doesn't look like that. So I thought it might be well to try to expand our thoughts a little. This has been a fine discussion. I'll stick to the Emersonian rule above. Whether I'm successful will be open to review.

This view is also liberating because dependent on what you're doing, sometimes a 270mm Computar at f32 is the best solution to "produce a beautiful thing".

So to address Dave's question: 1840 - present.

[Dave Wooten]

Last month I visited the show, "The Forests of Fountainebleau" in Washington DC. Paintings and photographs done in the forests outside of Paris, quite revealing, most of the photographs did not display intentional softness in being "painterly". This seems to have become a technique quite a bit later. IMNSHO, lenses like veritos etc where one has a choice diffusion, were primarily put into production for portrait photographers for reasons obvious, and a bit after what I would consider the "pictorialist prime".

[Jim Galli]

Last month I visited the show, "The Forests of Fountainebleau" in Washington DC. Paintings and photographs done in the forests outside of Paris, quite revealing, most of the photographs did not display intentional softness in being "painterly". This seems to have become a technique quite a bit later. IMNSHO, lenses like veritos etc where one has a choice diffusion, were primarily put into production for portrait photographers for reasons obvious, and a bit after what I would consider the "pictorialist prime".

Perhaps, and of course neither of us were there but I have to wonder if the whole soft lens idea by the USA makers didn't originate with Coburn and Steiglitz secession and then peter out about as fast as the mines at Troy Nevada. Meanwhile the lens makers had to recoup their investment in technology and production and aimed their products at the obvious. "Never retouch those pimples again with our soft focus Portrait lenses" etc.

[Dave Wooten]

One point to keep in mind is the disdain which was heaped on the "pictorialist" by you know what group and by you know who, and the gentleman involved in the formation of MOMA etc...often we construe that to mean the 1930's and 40's were the end of the "pictorialist" theme of expression, not so....they just did not seemingly have the press and the blessing of the self declared annointed ones! Now in retrospect much of the ignored art is coming to the fore...and getting a modicum of deserved appreciation...one must not blindly follow the saints, the gospel according to the zone system encouraged a prejudice that was rampant in many schools for 3 decades or more. Pictorialst-mush was disdained and ignored...not cool... That also IMNSHO. :)

[Jim Galli]

One point to keep in mind is the disdain which was heaped on the "pictorialist" by you know what group and by you know who, and the gentleman involved in the formation of MOMA etc...often we construe that to mean the 1930's and 40's were the end of the "pictorialist" theme of expression, not so....they just did not seemingly have the press and the blessing of the self declared annointed ones! Now in retrospect much of the ignored art is coming to the fore...and getting a modicum of deserved appreciation...one must not blindly follow the saints, the gospel according to the zone system encouraged a prejudice that was rampant in many schools for 3 decades or more. Pictorialst-mush was disdained and ignored...not cool... That also IMNSHO. :)


The group f64 was only re-playing what had already happened in Britain in the mid 1860's. The Royal Photographic Society didn't have one nice thing to say about Mrs. Cameron yet can you think of one of their names and the work they produced? Yet Julia Margaret Cameron is a household word.

[Kerik Kouklis]

I think we need to start a movement of our own, "Group f/4".
OK, who's gonna design the t-shirt and put it up on Cafe Press?

[wfwhitaker]

OK, who's gonna design the t-shirt and put it up on Cafe Press?

"Group f/4" or perhaps "The Aberrationist Society". Whatever the design is, it'll have to be suitably fuzzy.

[Darryl Baird]

my SO is a graphic designer, plus I've had done a few t-shirt designs in the past.. so I'll volunteer the t-shirt design and research cafe-press (I'd recommend a new book idea as well... BLURB or LULU... we also have experience with both book printers)

I like the "f/4 group," =, even though the fastest lens I own is and f/4.5.

Anyone like "neo-pictorialists" ?


OK, who's gonna design the t-shirt and put it up on Cafe Press?

[Jim Galli]

I like the "f/4 group," =, even though the fastest lens I own is and f/4.5.

Anyone like "neo-pictorialists" ?

How about "The Photo Sedition"

[domenico Foschi]

How about "The Photo Sedition"
I propose a band
The "fuzzy boys"?
The Fuzzies?
"The sharpvoids"
"They are not paintings, stupid!!
"The bromoils"
"The Van Dyke project"
"The Flat Irons"

[Hugo Zhang]

"Blurred visions"?

[Struan Gray]

Radically Vague

[Dave Wooten]

Ansel liked the term fuzzy wuzzy.

But back on topic a bit, I think that relating Pic photography as related and identified with the impressionistic painters, and abstraction, would identify Weston as pictorial and not modern, yes, even the sharp pepper....number 30 is my favorite. Painterly was not always fuzzy, painterly was compositional and use of form and angular shadow as in much of the work of Gustav Le Gray....

[Mark Sawyer]

I think Pictorialism as a Whistlerian "Art for Art's sake" as came up in Russ' dissertation post was a pretty close definition. But then, straight photography could make the same claim. Even "Beauty for Beauty's sake" or "Beauty is Truth, and Truth, Beauty..." couldn't cut it, as again, so many of Weston's and Adams' images are easily admired on that level.

Perhaps it's just a style, and as any concept or concern can be addressed within any style, the whole feud becomes rather silly, which I think is what we've finally arrived at today.

Garrisson Keillor had an opinion piece in this morning's paper with an observation on music which paralleled this issue nicely...

"A couple weeks ago I watched a tenor in a gondolier's outfit stride out on a stage and sing to an immense outdoor crowd "O Sole Mio" and "Torna a Sorrento" and "Finiculi-Finicula," three old cheeseballs that no serious singer does nowadays, and when he hit the big money note at the end of "O Sole Mio," that crowd jumped up as if bitten by badgers and yelled and whooped and whistled. I loved that. Serious artists seek to create challenging work that leaves the audience stunned, thoughtful, even angry, but what we the audience want is the pure joy of a man aiming at a very high note and hitting it squarely and us jumping up and yelling."

Perhaps as Pictorialists, even as post-modern neo-retro-turbo-techno-Pictorialists, we're still just throwing out cheeseballs that no serious artistic photographer would do. Maybe we just want that pure joy of the beauty of a well-made image from an old Verito or P&S, and enjoy the fantasy of people appreciating it for just that and nothing more than that.

I think the fine arts elite look down on the f/64 style today in very much the way f/64 photographers looked down on Pictorialist photographers in the 1930's and after, and with much the same rationalizations. But the fine arts world lives its existence only on the leading edge, and fails to see a wider view: it's all good.

A completely separate observation: isn't it wonderful that quite a few "Modern Pictorialists" use the Zone System or some variation thereof? And print on glossy papers, matted on simple white boards? I think in actuality, we're part of a sort of "Pictorialist-f/64 fusion".

[Dave Wooten]

what Mark said. So we should go ahead with the tee shirts, then?

[domenico Foschi]

Perhaps as Pictorialists, even as post-modern neo-retro-turbo-techno-Pictorialists, we're still just throwing out cheeseballs that no serious artistic photographer would do. Maybe we just want that pure joy of the beauty of a well-made image from an old Verito or P&S, and enjoy the fantasy of people appreciating it for just that and nothing more than that.

Uh, that's a generalization I would be a bit cautious to make. :)

[domenico Foschi]

T-shirts sounds good

[Mark Sawyer]

:rolleyes:
Uh, that's a generalization I would be a bit cautious to make. :)

Oh, absolutely, and I've changed my mind three times since I wrote that. But a generalization is almost as good as a rationalization...

I hope and I'm sure there's more to our photography than that. But like Keillor's singer, if an audience just enjoys it for that and only that, then maybe that's enough.

Or not... :rolleyes:

[Jim Galli]

My target audience has always always been the cheeseballs! I don't give a *$#@ what the fine arts elites think one way or 'tother.

Yes, tee shirts. Group F = fuzzy wuzzy ??

[Don Hutton]

It's when your gear/technique and vision suck so badly, everyone notices it and you need an excuse and a "genre" (and many drinks) to get people beyond the distraction of how obviously your gear/technique and vision suck.... "like I'm a pictorialist - and that's good fuzzy, and this is great chardonnay, and spectacular skunk - and Doris who owns this gallery is simply awesome"...

[Dave Wooten]

or wuzzy fuzzy? there should probably be some standards set for the owning and wearing of the tee shirt....

[Mark Sawyer]

Should it be Group f/4 or Group f/6.4? And do we want to make it an exclusive by-invitation-only membership? (If I were you guys, I wouldn't let me in...)

Should someone write a manifesto? Or does a t-shirt do the same thing more effectively these days?

And what other style can we say we're better than? It's not a valid art movement unless it's better than the previous art movement...

If we left it up to my high school students, we'd probably end up being called "Group f/you..."

[Dave Wooten]

in verito veritas:)

[Brian Bullen]

When can I register for admission to the Galli-Sawyer School of Modern Pictorialism. With instructors such as Jim, Mark, Kerik, Domineco, and the rest I'm fully ready to pay for tuiton. Dr. Young could be the dean. My only question, do I get a free t-shirt one I'm enrolled?

Thank you all for such a wonderful discussion!!

[russyoung]

Gentlemen-Artists,

Thank you for your kind remarks regarding the dissertation.

Publication on LULU doesn't seem practical for a 370 page publication. There are also serious issues regarding copyrights on vintage photographs; they are probably obtainable but would take quite some time (I've dealt with large museums before...) and be rather expensive. I doubt that ANY form of publication would ever recoup the expenses involved (not counting what seems to have been a sea of money spent during the four years of research). It should also have two more chapters added, one of which would be composed largely of images by contemporary artists (yes, some of you, if you will allow) such that we know with certainty which lens captured the image.

There may be a short term solution. I have very few good things to say about the university where I completed the degree (an exception would be my saintly supervisor, Dr. Normand). In a final act of insult, I was forced to allow them to place it on the internet (after which no publisher will likely ever be interested). This copy has the copyright issue images deleted but is otherwise complete. If you would, please try this link and let me know if it works: http://hdl.handle.net/10023/505

If it is accessible, please read and hopefully enjoy it. Those of you who are experienced with soft focus lenses - I would be greatly in your debt for useful criticism of the text or suggestions in general.

Warmly & softly,

Russ

[sanking]

Gentlemen-Artists,



There may be a short term solution. I have very few good things to say about the university where I completed the degree (an exception would be my saintly supervisor, Dr. Normand). In a final act of insult, I was forced to allow them to place it on the internet (after which no publisher will likely ever be interested). This copy has the copyright issue images deleted but is otherwise complete. If you would, please try this link and let me know if it works: http://hdl.handle.net/10023/505


Russ

Russ,

The link worked well for me and I have finished down loading the entire 359 pages of the .pdf file.

I look forward to reading it . Thanks for making it available.

Sandy

[Jim Galli]

Russ,

The link worked well for me and I have finished down loading the entire 359 pages of the .pdf file.

I look forward to reading it . Thanks for making it available.

Sandy

Me also. You are very generous. I've made it to page 5 so far. It is rich. Thank you. Jim

[stefan d]

Russ,
thank you very much for sharing your enormous work. I will print the pdf and read it from the paper because I don´t like sitting so long in front of the pc.
Sadly in Germany I don´t know anyone using old lenses.
All the best from Berlin
stefan d

[Struan Gray]

Russ, thanks very much for the link to your thesis. Duly downloaded and stashed away for bedtime reading. St. Andrews isn't all bad: for example, it is one of only two places in the world where you can buy Fisher and Donaldson (http://www.fisheranddonaldson.com/bestsell.html) fudge doughnuts. That has to be worth something :-)

Stefan: don't despair, I don't know anywhere else where vintage ULF lenses sell so cheaply (http://cgi.ebay.de/E-Suter-Basel-riesiges-uraltes-Objektiv_W0QQitemZ290230119704QQihZ019QQcategoryZ33191QQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem) :-)

[stefan d]

Struan: During that time I have been to holidays and I have missed this :mad:

[Dave Wooten]

This mornings NY Times Arts section: note page B32....Stephanie Franz "Goldent Tree" (as spelled) entry Alliance for Young Artists and Writers Scholastic Art and Writing Awards...Pictorialist, definately fuzzy wuzzy, equally soft focus through the entire frame , could be circa 1890-1905....Digital Imagery.

Also page B 23, review of new exhibition 13 photographers from Talbot to Evans, definately of interest.

[Brian Bullen]

Dr. Young,
Thank you so much for posting your thesis for all to read, a very generous gesture indeed! I've already started reading and it is quite enjoyable.


This thread has inspired me to take the following photograph.


8x10 X-ray film/ palladium print

[Jim Galli]

Dr. Young,
Thank you so much for posting your thesis for all to read, a very generous gesture indeed! I've already started reading and it is quite enjoyable.


This thread has inspired me to take the following photograph.


8x10 X-ray film/ palladium print

Again, great stuff with the xray film. Tones look superb on this. I like the simplicity of this shot.

[Brian Bullen]

Jim, thank you for the compliment. :)

[cowanw]

Dr. Young,
Thank you so much for posting your thesis for all to read, a very generous gesture indeed! I've already started reading and it is quite enjoyable.


This thread has inspired me to take the following photograph.


8x10 X-ray film/ palladium print

I too like this shot and I think it is very appropriate for this thread as it is reminiscent of the links between Clarence White's pictorialism and the modernism that his school of photography produced. I cant find the photo of Kichen taps that is in Margaret Watkins recent biography but these give you the idea of turning common place household items into madern photographic art
This picture of yours puts you firmly in the Pictorialist/moderist camp;)

http://www.robertmann.com/artists/watkins/about.html

http://images.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://www.luminous-lint.com/imagevault/html_15501_16000/15501_thm.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.luminous-lint.com/app/vexhibit/_SCHOOL_Clarence_H__White_01/4/0/0/&h=120&w=93&sz=13&hl=en&start=47&um=1&tbnid=tsINrCU5kzsMbM:&tbnh=88&tbnw=68&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dmargaret%2Bwatkins%2Bphotographer%26start%3D40%26ndsp%3D20%26um%3D1%26hl%3Den%26rls%3Dcom.microsoft:en-us%26sa%3DN
Regards
Bill

[Brian Bullen]

Bill, glad you liked the photo and thanks for the links.

[cjbroadbent]

I got knocked around for being pictorial in the eighties so I took the black stocking off the lens and moved the widow light away from the side to just behind my shoulder and from then on I was left alone. Illustrative photography - where you set things up for the shot - gets tarred with the pictorial brush. But I think it has more to do with image structure and light than subject matter.

[billschwab]

Thank you for your kind remarks regarding the dissertation.Thank you Russ for making it available!

Excellent. A very refreshing thread.

PS. ... how about "the Softies"

:)

[Chauncey Walden]

Just found the thread! As for the tee shirt, f/4 won't work for me; my "pictorial" lens is f/11. After all that has been written here, how about "fuzzy about the concept" on the tee? It also appears that some folks have not seen Ansel's beautiful early pictorial images - fuzzy and all. And, Emerson, being trained in medicine (which, being independently wealthy, he fortunately didn't have to practice) pushed the concept of selective focus. He said the eye did not see both its foreground subject and the horizon in sharp focus at the same time. With some long lenses from his friend, Dallmeyer, he made his images look that way, too. But, I'm not sure his plane of focus got fuzzy at the edges. That link to the 1921 publication on pictorial photography is nice. Look at the portrait by Laura Gilpin on page 31. Looks like she focused on the foreground lower right corner and left the rest up to really nice bokeh, no special lens required (except for one with really nice bokeh!)

[Jim Galli]

...no special lens required (except for one with really nice bokeh!)

Which brings up a good point. In 1921 I doubt if you could find a lens that we would consider bad Bokeh. All apertures were round and lenses were simple. Good and bad bokeh became an issue with all the super corrections required for 35mm slr cameras and apertures getting cheapened to 5 blades or worse, six. With large format it's mostly good, better, and best.