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Has any photographer depicted war with artistic intent?
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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.
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...
Anything W. Eugene Smith did in WWII:
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They're magnificent, of course...but did he intend "art" in those photos?
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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
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.
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.
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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
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Beauty doesn't equal art. "Intent" isn't a hard concept.
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.
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So...for you, pleasing graphic composition indicates art..?
"War Against War!" - Earnst Freidrich, 1924
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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.
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What sort of "sense"? Serious question.
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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."
I would add that, for me, Smith's wounded soldier and the baby have all the power and beauty of Michelangelo's Pieta.
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"Punctum" seems much more to the point than "beauty" which for photographers seems often to refer to clouds, blurred water, sunsets, and young girls.
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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."
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