Pictorialism: Photography as art but not anti - photographic art (Part 2)

Blog Entry No 9
Tutor: Ms. Scicluna
Date Uploaded/Updated: 14/01/16

Pictorialism: Photography as art but not anti - photographic art 

Robinson: Fading Away (1858)

Pictorialism acknowledge to the numerous amount of photographers, one can say that there was more than capturing a photograph, it is the indirect acceptance that the carefulness and records that were fundamental or lurking subjects in the photograph, it was a say that an image can be combined together as in an objective documentation and  a subjective message given to the viewer. The two aspects are an attempt to readjust both the science and the art of the photograph that it is the different element to experiment the individuality of the photograph to being definite or common but it is modified and distorted at the same time. 

Rejlander: Ways of Live (1857)

Manipulation wasn't considered as 'anti-photographic' similar to Rejlander or Robinson manipulations, other Pictorialists have engaged themselves in composing photographs. It was almost consistent that their disapproval to this form of manipulation. 

Emerson. P.H: Throwing the Cast Net (1886) - Process used (platinum print)

Peter Emerson was a different type of pictorialist photographer - focusing on naturalistic photography which a photograph speaks nature for itself, but it speaks for itself whilst the photographer adjusts the camera in a different manner that is captured by the human vision. Various pictorialists create a different process than that of Emerson's, which intentionally selects hand manipulation of the print, that to not use an anti-photographic aspect too much as a try to find a belief that self-expresses and to separate the photograph, for it to have a signature style. This type of anti-photographic process is often one of the particular criticisms of pictorialism that the work is little more than an interpretation of another artwork.

References

The End of Fact? Pictorialism <http://www.radford.edu/rbarris/art451%20Hist%20of%20Photog/pictorialism.html>