Ok, I have heard several references to Adams, Weston, and others of the Group f/64 that were also pictorialists in how they shot some photographs. Someone provide me with an example of one of their "pictorialist" photos.
The first print in a recent exhibit of Ansel Adams' that I saw was an image done in 1919 in the tradition of the "pictorialists". Quite beautiful, it had that common, out of focus look of the time and genre. Many of his early, non-pictorialist prints had a softer, warmer feel to them as well. It made me wonder what would have happened if he had stuck with that approach. It is just an opinion, but I think it was in a way even more striking than the cold, contrasty, sharp as a tack look most of the world knows him for.
Bill
When a tome refers to "pictorialism, or the "west coast school", or "pure photography" I have no more difficulty discerning the difference, than I would where the words "watercolor" , and "oil painting" The existence of one hardly demeans the other. "Truth" has nothing to do with it, but might be used as an expressed concept regarding one particular style.
These are names used to denote certain styles of photography.
A simple perusal of any serious minded book on the history of photography as art will aptly illustrate that. Jstraw has aptly explained his point, and it is well taken.
Beyond Jstraws provincial position, debating the application of the term "pictorialism" as the term applies to photography and photographic history is is quite frankly ridiculous.
'These are names used to denote certain styles of photography..........That was said by me early on, what the names and/or labels mean to different people, like we're discussing here, is a different issue, so if anything's ridiculous it's what you just said, and as to perusing any books, I seriously doubt if you've got any more art books than I do.
Are you a "straight" shooter or are you a "fuzzy wuzzy"?
Chuck
The optical (ie photographic) qualities of this image are not something I associate with painting or anything else.
Then I'm honestly sorry, but I'm not really sure what you and JStraw talking about. Perhaps it might serve to use a term that isn't usurped.
Ok, I have heard several references to Adams, Weston, and others of the Group f/64 that were also pictorialists in how they shot some photographs. Someone provide me with an example of one of their "pictorialist" photos.
According to the "Group F/64 Manifesto" of which Adams was elected to author, the group defined pure photography as:
"Pure photography is defined as possessing no qualities of technique, composition or idea, derivative of any other art form. The production of the "Pictorialist", on the other hand, indicates a devotion to principles of art which are directly related to painting and the graphic arts."
Despite how one may think that pictorialism has evolved to this point in time, I still think the main connection of the 1930's pictorialism versus todays pictorialism, is the use of the photographed image, in the end result, to resemble another form of art. Even though we all know that it is a photographed image, its purity as such has been compromised. It's a photographed image, but now it also looks like something else. So, though I can't see that politics has anything to do with it (as previously mentioned) but I certainly do see that there is a definite philosophy being adhered to.
A philosophy that also did not wish to hold any "deprecating opinion of the photographers who are not included in its shows". I think it was a definite attempt to say this is how we view photography and that it is an art form in its purist application.
Chuck
I'm game for that. I mean, I know a 'fuzzywuzzy' or an 'f64' when I see one. I just think some of what the west-coasters claimed they were not doing, they most certainly were doing, especially as pertains to composition...that is to say...using things that were not new or unique to photography.
My point is that whether we're talking about Ansel Adams or Sebastio Salgado, the notion that a photograph is a retrieved portion of reality is a conceit, a lie.
Adams' portrayal of half-dome may be non-fiction and Mortensen dressing up some model to be Venus may be fiction, but one is not more "real" than another. They are both, in my opinion, illustrations. They are both subjective. They are both the product of so many exterior influences that the fact that the fiction may involve a few more than the non-fiction is made immaterial.
In my opinion both groups were making pictures rather than documenting reality. As an aside, I also believe that even the best and most ethical photojournalists also make pictures rather than document reality.
I reject the idea that photographs can be pieces of reality. They (all photographs) can be honest. They can speak truth. They can tell stories. They are never retrieved reality. They are never bottled experience that we can share. They are inextricably made subjective by their makers and by the nature of the tools and of physics.
as for the manifesto -
it seems that they were trying to have photography stand on its own 3 legs. it is hard to believe that the f64 group were not at all influenced by romantic paintings, because it seems that photographic images that adams made were derivative of just that (to me at least, a turner seascape is the same as an adams photograph of yosemite - maybe that is just me though) ...
And that makes my point. F64's definition is just plain silly. (Although I understand why it was important to them at the time.) The real truth is that this image is intrinsically photographic and created by specific photographic tools and techniques that do not or are not intended to imitate anything else. Certainly no more than a sharp landscape photograph imitates a sharp landscape painting.So, by definition (Group f/64's anyway IMO) it is photography trying to imitate something else.
I'm not sure what "straight photograph" means. If it means sharp, then it is definitely not straight. But if straight means unmanipulated, then in fact it is much "straighter" than any of Ansel Adams' famous landscapes.Something that would not otherwise come from light focused on a film plane. Is it a photograph? Yes. Is it straight? I would have to argue no.
In my first post to this thread I tried (poorly i guess) to point out that "pictorialism" is the term historically used to describe the intent to imitate characteristics another art form, notably painting. In that sense the OP missed the mark.
JB,
Check the OP againNo ill-will, just lookin out for myself. Is my reference to "paintings of some sort" not the mark that you refer to?
Chuck
'Then I'm honestly sorry, but I'm not really sure what you and JStraw talking about. Perhaps it might serve to use a term that isn't being usurped from its historical meaning.'.........................................
.............................I'm certain you'd agree that you can, at the same time, accept the historical meaning, and engage in a clarification of just what it meant to you, or to others, concepts evolve, as they should, as does art, and what it means.
Take African Art, a subject I certainly no expert on, but one I've loved and studied for a long time. Europeans thought they KNEW what Arican Art was, primitive art, fashioned from primitive and dull minds.
I can suggest NOW and have most folks accept now that the inability to really see African Art/scuplture/Masked Performance by those folks for what it was, and what it represented, and why it was created, mirrored the dullness of their minds and not the African Art they were dismissive of.
The story is well know, Picasso comes into contact w/African Art and undergoes an epiphany, he understands, he sees, and he soars. He understands that the purpose of fashioning African Art/sculpture was for one's religious/belief system, created for emotional power, and as representations and metaphors of other things spiritual. And other folks then see African Art differently, they bought it/grabbed it/stole it, in fact, if you want to see African Art from way back, you have to go to Europe to see it.
I can accept the historical belief of a concept, and at the same time disagree with it, and grow because of it as I'm now doing by engaging in this discussion.
I'm not sure what "straight photograph" means. If it means sharp, then it is definitely not straight. But if straight means unmanipulated, then in fact it is much "straighter" than any of Ansel Adams' famous landscapes.
Chuck -
I'd respectfully disagree with your assessment that Kerik's image looks like some other art form. Frankly, the effects of making a wet-plate collodion image cannot be duplicated without knowledge of what a wet-plate image looks like. It is truly an original offshoot of photography as a medium.
I also think that a lot of folks have made the point here already that much of the F64/west coast landscape group's work is highly evocative of earlier painterly works. To me, the issue is that a number of people have put Ansel and his cohorts up on ivory pedestals because he was able to articulate a vision of what photography could be in a sensibility that resonated with his mid-century audience. The f64 ideology was very much influenced by the ascent of the industrial age and the rise of totalitarian politics. "A photograph should look like a photograph and not any other art form" is a rather absolutist, totalitarian way of thinking. In this simplification of photo-philosophy, it was a return to the proletarian approach. Photography, bereft of ideas, a "pure" photography that everyman could understand and accept, the artform that wasn't. They turned photography into exclusively craft, which was always there as a component, and in doing so, made it something that everyman could aspire to - "If St. Ansel can make a photo like that, if I learn his technique, maybe I can too!".
'I think you are comparing a very broad and evolving concept (African Art) with a very narrow and static word (pictorialism), with deference of couse to the pictorialist movement, which ended long ago.'...........
....................I disagree, I mean no such thing, as in your above quote, you 'think' that,............................I'm considering a concept held THEN by folks about African Art(which is I agree evolving), but apart from evolving, was initially dismissed because of folks inability THEN, to see what it really was.
What the word Pictorialism really means, how people used it to classify other folks work, and like we're discussing here, the premise that some folks were in denial about the pictorial aspects of their own work, is what I'm talking about with my reference to African Art................................be it African Art, or straight photography versus the 'fuzzy wuzzies', ............do we/did we/are we seeing the art for what is really is, and the arguments for what they really are.
YOU are adding the suggestion that I'm talking about 'a very narrow and static word (pictorialism),.......................... I'm not saying that at all.
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