Examining the Pictorialists’ work in a sociological context we can easily understand why their methods were thought to be not only worthless but sacrilegious with the new medium of Photography. From its very beginning, the first and utmost characteristic of photography relied on its capability to capture reality from a supposedly objective angle, leaving aside the subjectiveness of a human consciousness and presenting its subjects under the light of the purely universal and unequivocal Science. From this point of view, the work of the Pictorialists was merely a copy of painting, a waste of the possibilities of what only photography could deliver and an underestimation of its power and “seriousness” in the attempt of dragging it to the artistic sphere. Indisputably, pictorial photography relied greatly on painting, mimicking its themes to the point that some practitioners purposely limited themselves to recreating ancient myths and classical themes by means of models, a strong scenery or even the use of the tableaux vivant. Both mythical and religious topics had been the core of painting and sculpture for many centuries, and this particular group of Pictorialists, hoping to give dignity and approval to their works, revisited that accepted media in their photographs. (fig. 1 & 2)
In fact, Pictorialism looked not only at classical art, but at all other artistic movements such as the coetaneous Impressionism, Symbolism and even, in its later stages, at forms as abstract and far from photography as Cubism.
Fig 1: Frederick H. Evans, 1903 Fig 2: Pierre Dubreuil, 1900
“York Minster: in sure and certain hope” “Entombment of Christ” (detail)
Taking now the side of the Pictorialists, it is nothing but a fact that Art, just like everything else, has always leaned on what came before, and that this support is needed for some time in order to prepare the way for a breakthrough. Several were the characteristics that Pictorialists used in order to distance photography from its scientific realm and approach the world of Art. Among these, the most important and most commonly cited are the use of a soft focus (against the characteristically sharp focus of the fine mechanical instruments trough which even at the time photographs were taken), a big size printing (adding to that foggy atmosphere with the inherent loss of quality and also imitating the usual sizes of paintings, which gave prominence to the works) and the use of exotic and rare processes such as the gum bichromate and the toning of prints (against the realism of factual photographs and the spreading of the point & shoot photography that appeared with the invention of the cheap and easy to use Kodak Brownies, affordable to a vast majority of amateurs which threaten to exhaust the “magic” that photography had possessed until that moment). Many different styles can be encountered in the body of work of this movement. Some of them have earned their place in the History of Photography, maintaining even today the quality that we ask of a work of Art, while others have maybe lost their validity trough time for excessively limiting themselves to the copy of painting. A good example of this could be the two following photographs (Fig. 3 & 4).
Fig. 3: Nicola Perscheid, 1901. “The reaper”
Fig. 4: Theodor and Oskar Hofmeister, 1899. “The lonely horseman”
Whilst the image of Perscheid remains by today’s standards a true artistic photograph, the more pictorial approach of the Hofmeister brothers, in this and most of their works, suffer from an excessive proximity to painting and the abuse of colours, themes and atmospheres that nowadays would most certainly fall in the category of kitsch.
Most Pictorial photography would in fact get closer and closer to the approach taken here by Nicola Perscheid, trying still to render an emotive image but honoring with his images the works of the funding fathers of photography, whose photographs could very well be described as Pictorial in their approach. Indeed, if we compare the work of photographers during this time with the works of Talbot and his contemporaries, we do not find much difference (Fig. 5 & 6). The term Pictorialism was born more out of the necessity to make a statement than out of an actual change in photographic thinking. Artistic photography had existed since the very beginning of photography. The issue here was to make the world understand that those particular photographs were in themselves Art, and that the possibilities of photography could be exploited far beyond its mechanical and scientific nature.
Fig. 5 & 6: Henry Talbot. “The open door” (left) “The haystack” (right)
The Pictorialists themselves had difference of opinions, the major one related to the legitimacy of manipulating the negatives, which separated them into two main groups, the ones accepting this manipulation, and the ones opposing it, better known as straight-photographers. Straight Photography had its peak in America, with the Photo Secession group led by Alfred Stieglitz (Fig. 7), which funded the publication Camera Work. It is largely to this group and their published prints in the mentioned publication that Photography today owes its status as Art, and as Hostetler (2000:45) noted, they “were instrumental in establishing photography's expressive potential and demonstrating that its value laid beyond reproducing the outlines of the world around us”.
Fig. 7: Alfred Stieglitz, “The steerage”, 1907
In conclusion, when analyzing the work of the Pictorialists, we find a vast body of work which has in its majority kept its legitimacy to the present day. Both when considered under the light of the time and under the light of today’s standards, their work proves to be a strong statement in favour of the artistic nature of photography and a central piece in the History of this medium. Thanks to their works and ideas, but most importantly due to the fact that they chose to defend them against a world which would not agree with them, today Photography has an almost indisputable place in the Pantheon of Arts which wouldn’t have been possible otherwise.
Bibliography
Doty, R. (1978). Photo Secession; Stieglitz and the Fine Art Movement in Photography. New York: Dover Publications.
Hostetler, L. (2000). Pictorialism in America; Heilbrum Timeline of Art History. New York: MOMA.
Hower, W. I. (1983). Alfred Stieglitz and the Photo Secession. Canada: New York Graphic Society.
Clarence H. - White School of Photography (1996). Pictorialism into Modernism. New York: Rizzoli Publications.
Prodger P., Daum P. and (Eds.), Impressionist Camera: Pictorial Photography in Europe. (2006). London: Merrell.
Fulton Margolis, M. (Ed.), Camera Work, a Pictorial Guide. New York: Dover Publications.