Has any photographer depicted war with artistic intent?

jtk · Jun 30, 2018

wfw said:
Kubrick? Spielberg?, maybe...

Yes!

BrianShaw · Jul 1, 2018

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dr._Strangelove

Not still, but very artistic!

jtk · Jul 2, 2018

BrianShaw said:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dr._Strangelove

Not still, but very artistic!

Of course Strangelove is "still" !

16 or whatever still shot's per second. Shot with a huge motorized advance..see the wiki photo. LOL

For some time now many films (e.g. videos on Netflix) have been crediting their camera operators as "photographers." I think that's an important recognition as video is obviously what many of the best photographers have been shooting.

Vaughn · Jul 2, 2018

The Art Department I worked for was across the way from the Journalism Department. Both depts had their own darkrooms. A fun little story that worked its way back to the Art Dept was that students would line up their prints for their first PhotoJournalism 101 assignment, then the instructor would go down the line and point out all the images that were made by art students. I guess 'artistic intent' was frowned upon in beginning photojournalism...

pbromaghin · Jul 2, 2018

Anything W. Eugene Smith did in WWII:

jtk · Jul 8, 2018

pbromaghin said:
Anything W. Eugene Smith did in WWII:
View attachment 203408 View attachment 203407 View attachment 203406 View attachment 203405

They're magnificent, of course...but did he intend "art" in those photos?

jtk · Jul 8, 2018

Vaughn said:
The Art Department I worked for was across the way from the Journalism Department. Both depts had their own darkrooms. A fun little story that worked its way back to the Art Dept was that students would line up their prints for their first PhotoJournalism 101 assignment, then the instructor would go down the line and point out all the images that were made by art students. I guess 'artistic intent' was frowned upon in beginning photojournalism...

Are you of the opinion that "art departments" host more art than do "journalism departments?" My thought is that art doesn't spring from either of those "departments' any more than it lives in "home economics" or "physics." YMMV

Vaughn · Jul 9, 2018

I am not quite sure of your use of the word "host". Art Departments train artists...artists of an Art Department, both the students and the faculty/staff, produce art, tend to look at the world thru art and communicate in the language of art. It is a valid path for many for becoming working artists, but there are many paths...different directions to spring.

I was not an art major. I have not taken an art history course. But I worked in a university darkroom for a few decades...as a student of photo classes, then after graduation, a volunteer for ten years (working for the US Forest Service in the summers), and then as the paid technician for 24 years. The main focus was teaching photography as an art form...not necessarily as a commercial endeavor. It was about the third photo program in the US to be set up under a college art department, so it took this seriously. So yes, my mileage will differ.

jtk · Jul 9, 2018

Interesting perspective. My thinking is that lit courses produce more "art" than do art programs. Sadly most journalism programs have (I think) died, but those that remain require video skills as in particular does photojournalism. Many accept that video is photo. I think the most important teachers have always had backgrounds like yours

Arthurwg · Jul 9, 2018

Artistic intent? To make something beautiful. But you don't need "intent" to do that. It comes naturally to many.

jtk · Jul 9, 2018

Arthurwg said:
Artistic intent? To make something beautiful. But you don't need "intent" to do that. It comes naturally to many.

Beauty doesn't equal art. "Intent" isn't a hard concept.

pbromaghin · Jul 9, 2018

jtk said:
They're magnificent, of course...but did he intend "art" in those photos?

There is an analysis somewhere on the web of his repeated use of diagonals throughout his career so I'm convinced the 2 in the middle (anti-aircraft fire and armourers reloading a Wildcat) must have been done with intent. The other 2, being live action, are prime examples of Cartier-Bresson's decisive moments.

jtk · Jul 9, 2018

pbromaghin said:
There is an analysis somewhere on the web of his repeated use of diagonals throughout his career so I'm convinced the 2 in the middle (anti-aircraft fire and armourers reloading a Wildcat) must have been done with intent. The other 2, being live action, are prime examples of Cartier-Bresson's decisive moments.

So...for you, pleasing graphic composition indicates art..?

ReginaldSMith · Jul 9, 2018

"War Against War!" - Earnst Freidrich, 1924

Arthurwg · Jul 9, 2018

jtk said:
Beauty doesn't equal art. "Intent" isn't a hard concept.

Correct that :"intent" is not a difficult concept. But intent is no guarantee of anything. And I do think art must be "beautiful" in some sense.

jtk · Jul 9, 2018

Arthurwg said:
Correct that :"intent" is not a difficult concept. But intent is no guarantee of anything. And I do think art must be "beautiful" in some sense.

I'm sure you'd agree that art doesn't come with the popular support that "beauty" and "composition" do. I admit that I don't think "art" can be popular.

pbromaghin · Jul 9, 2018

jtk said:
So...for you, pleasing graphic composition indicates art..?

Actually, I have no idea what art is. I believe you were asking about the artists intent.

Arthurwg · Jul 10, 2018

jtk said:
I'm sure you'd agree that art doesn't come with the popular support that "beauty" and "composition" do. I admit that I don't think "art" can be popular.

Usually not popular right away, but eventually. Contemporary reviews of Thelonious Monk said his music was crap. Now you get it in the elevator. And "art," the real thing, often changes the way beauty and composition are understood.

jtk · Jul 10, 2018

Arthurwg said:
Correct that :"intent" is not a difficult concept. But intent is no guarantee of anything. And I do think art must be "beautiful" in some sense.

What sort of "sense"? Serious question.

jtk · Jul 10, 2018

jtk said:
What sort of "sense"? Serious question.

...yes, there are no guarantees. That's why postcards and "figure studies" are so rarely art: no artistic intent, plenty of guarantees.

Arthurwg · Jul 10, 2018

Beauty in the eye of the beholder? Certainly not in a narrow "sense."

Arthurwg · Jul 10, 2018

pbromaghin said:
Anything W. Eugene Smith did in WWII:

PB you got that right. He was a genius. Worked hard at it too.

I think we might add the concept of "punctum" to this discussion, something in a photograph that establishes a "wounding, personally touching detail which establishes a direct relationship with the object or the person within it." That quote from Wikipedia. See Roland Barthes, "Camera Lucida." I might translate "punctum" as "shock of the new."

pbromaghin · Jul 10, 2018

I would add that, for me, Smith's wounded soldier and the baby have all the power and beauty of Michelangelo's Pieta.

jtk · Jul 10, 2018

Arthurwg said:
PB you got that right. He was a genius. Worked hard at it too.

I think we might add the concept of "punctum" to this discussion, something in a photograph that establishes a "wounding, personally touching detail which establishes a direct relationship with the object or the person within it." That quote from Wikipedia. See Roland Barthes, "Camera Lucida." I might translate "punctum" as "shock of the new."

"Punctum" seems much more to the point than "beauty" which for photographers seems often to refer to clouds, blurred water, sunsets, and young girls.

Arthurwg · Jul 10, 2018

pbromaghin said:
I would add that, for me, Smith's wounded soldier and the baby have all the power and beauty of Michelangelo's Pieta.

jtk said:
Punctum" seems much more to the point than "beauty" which for photographers seems often to refer to clouds, blurred water, sunsets, and young girls.

I note that PB refers to Smith's pictures of the soldier and the baby as "beautiful;" certainly not clouds, blurred water sunsets and young girls. I did not mean "pretty."

Has any photographer depicted war with artistic intent?

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