PICTORIALISM In the last few years since I "discovered" the pictorialist movement, I've been inspired by many beautiful images created before 1940. Ansel Adams made many attempts to obliterate the Pictorialists from photographic history because he disagreed with the Pictorialist philosophy. However, good work always resurfaces and there are now numerous exhibits and several new books that re-examine the best work of the period. If you would like to see some of these images for yourself, go to a good library and look at any issue of the American Annual of Photography or Pictograms of the Year before 1937. Some of the pictorialists from about 1900 to about 1950 whose work I admire and whose work has influenced my view of the world: William Mortensen, Clarence White, Alvin Langdon Coburn, Robert Demachy, Leonard Misonne Max Thorek, Gertrude Kasebier, Eduard Steichen, Alfred Stieglitz, Baron Adolph de Meyer Arthur Kayles, Adolph Fassbender, Axel Bahnsen |
| The following is an excerpt from A History of Photography by Dr. Robert
Leggat MA M.Ed FRPS FRSA of the Royal Photographic Society.
© Robert Leggat, 1996. PICTORIALISM The modern usage of this term may give a misleading picture of the movement as it arose in the second half of the nineteenth century; in any case, like the all-embracing word "art" it is a most elusive, intangible, and highly subjective term. In modern parlance it is sometimes taken to suggest conservatism, and the unwillingness to explore new approaches. In its original meaning anything that put the finished picture first and the subject second was pictorialism. Given such a meaning, pictorialism by no means excluded more modern trends; any photograph that stressed atmosphere or viewpoint rather than the subject would come under this category. By the second half of the nineteenth century the novelty of capturing images was beginning to wear off, and some people were now beginning to question whether the camera, as it was then being used, was in fact too accurate and too detailed in what it recorded. This, coupled with the fact that painting enjoyed a much higher status than this new mechanistic process, caused some photographers to adopt new techniques which, as they saw it, made photography more of an art form. These new techniques came also to be known as High-Art photography. In effect, the term Pictorialism is used to describe photographs in which the actual scene depicted is of less importance than the artistic quality of the image. Pictorialists would be more concerned with the aesthetics and, sometimes, the emotional impact of the image, rather than what actually was in front of their camera. Because pictorialism was seen as artistic photography, one would not be surprised that current styles of art would be reflected in their work; as impressionism was in vogue at the time, many photographs have more than a passing resemblance to paintings in this style. Examples of this approach include combination printing, the use of focus, the manipulation of the negative, and the use of techniques such as gum bichromate, which greatly lessened the detail and produced a more artistic image. Among the major workers who are associated with this approach to photography were Oscar Rejlander, Henry Peach Robinson (who wrote a major book entitled "Pictorial Effect in Photography"), Robert Demachy, and George Davidson. A History of Photography © Robert Leggat, 1996.
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