NEOPICTORIALISM: A Paradigm Shift
by Evangelo CostadimasParadigm Shift
Thomas Kuhn coined the term Paradigm Shift in the early 1960s, whilst explaining his theory regarding scientific advancement. Kuhn claimed that scientific advancement and the evolution of scientific theories has not been linear, but rather that a "series of peaceful interludes is punctuated by intellectually violent revolutions" which often caused "one conceptual world view to be replaced by another view."
Today, the term is more often than not, used outside of the scientific context and can be applied to any area, including socio-political events, the invention of disruptive technologies, changes in systems of thoughts, global trends, the corporate world and so on.
A Paradigm Shift represents the type of change that does not simply occur naturally, it is driven by agents of change. When considerable transformation happens as a result of switching from one fundamental view to a differing one, and when such change brings discontinuity or disruption, it is a clear indication that a Paradigm Shift has occurred.
Reverse Technology Trend, a peculiar phenomenon
Technological improvements in information systems, and imaging technologies have now reached a point where computer based digital image capture rivals traditional film based images, often referred to as “analog”. Although the output device technology has been slower, there are presently a number of printing products or processes available that are as good as their film based predecessors. When combining the latest imaging technologies, powerful digital manipulation software and the new improvements in output technologies, today’s artist has unprecedented control of the final image. Unencumbered by the limitations of the analog work flow, artists today are crossing the threshold of a new era, an era of limitless possibilities when it comes to image control and transformation.
Despite these giant steps forward in imaging technology, a rather curious and interesting phenomenon seems to be prevailing, one that can be closely associated and easily observed in photography practice. This phenomenon is the backward trend to traditional forms of image capture and print making. Like the swing of the pendulum, it seems that the further the technological achievements reach, the more interest these generate on older alternatives. Typically the followers of this “Reverse Technology” trend come from the younger generations of photographers, or visual artists and other image makers.
For example, there has recently been a significant increase in the interest of using pinhole cameras, the simplest and most essential photographic device possible. Along with that, interest has risen in archaic photographic print making processes such as Palladium printing, Bromoil, Gum Bichromate printing, Cyanotypes, Wet Collodion plates and so on. There are any number of photographic workshops being offered in North America that teach such archaic photographic processes. Similarly, in this age of automatic, auto-focusing and auto-everything cameras, more than one camera manufacturers are producing new versions of vintage manual fully mechanical range finder cameras, such as Leica, Nikon, as well as brand new models from new manufacturers.
This trend is a peculiar phenomenon, a back-lash as it were, at all the modern electronic gadgets that are supposed to make things simple by thinking for you and at a press of a button generate great pictures. Though not wide spread, this backwardly looking phenomenon is driven by the desire of it’s followers to have more control over their images and a better understanding of the effects of varying aperture or shutter speed. They are also interested in keeping alive the traditional darkroom and continuing to produce photographs in this way arguing that they can still get the stylistic and visual effects that only analog film and silver gelatin prints can have.
A very similar Reverse Technology trend occurred at the turn of the 19th century and in effect, it brought the birth of Pictorialism.
The Birth of Pictorialism
Photography was already being practiced for more than five decades by the late 1800’s. Scientific and technological advancements had been made to the point that very good quality photographic prints on light sensitive papers were commercially available. These were used by professional photographers the great majority of whom were portraitists. The cameras were typically bulky and had to be supported by tripods. The negatives were made of coated glass panes which didn’t exactly make photographer’s lives easy and that’s why they charged a princely sum for their services. In addition to these professionals, photography was practiced by some amateurs or hobbyists (amateur is, by the way, the French word for lover) of the medium who painstakingly learned the craft in order to produce works of artistic expression. The photographic equipment and materials were not inexpensive, so this was a pastime of the wealthy and well to do. This small group of non-commercial practitioners of photography, created prints which they considered to be works of art, though the art establishments did not recognize them as such.
In 1888 things changed dramatically. Kodak introduced the first truly portable camera, and it was also the first point-and-shoot or instamatic camera. These wooden box cameras were pre-loaded with film and after the film was exposed, the camera was brought back to the Kodak service counter where the film was taken for processing and the camera was reloaded with fresh film. The availability of this portable camera spawned thousands, if not millions, of new amateur photographers, known as “kodakers”.
The advent of these Kodak cameras and the proliferation of weekend photographers, was seen with dismay by the first amateurs or “serious” photographers who had been pushing for their photogrpahs to be recognized as art. As result, they pushed themselves even further in attempting to make images that would be worthy artistically and at the same time would be as different as possible from the snapshots of the kodakers. Not only did these serious photographers make their own prints, they favoured complicated and difficult darkroom processes that would result in prints, which attempted to mimic etchings or charcoal drawings. They intentionally blurred the images and removed information from the printed image by bleaching it and then painting in the blank areas with brushes and printer’s ink. In some cases they altered the images by scratching directly on the negative. These processes, by their nature, would not yield two prints from the same negative that were alike. Each print was unique and it required skills that were comparable to those of other artists working in other media. Furthermore, these photographers, chose to represent idyllic nature scenes, nudes, portraits and other subject matter that was popular at the time with painters. This movement had its origins in Britain and Austria but soon gathered followers from all over Europe and eventually North America as well, it came to be known as Pictorialism and it was the first time that photographic works were beginning to get the attention of art lovers.
The Pictorialists drew heavily from the classics but in particular they were clearly influenced by Romanticism and later by Impressionism. One of the earlier practitioners, Julia Margaret Cameron, drew inspiration from the Pre-Raphaelites and routinely dressed up her family members and friends in costumes to pose for her highly symbolical series of photographs. She would intentionally shoot slightly out of focus to achieve a sfumato or blurry look which gave her images a dreamy effect.
The Pictorialists were instrumental in generating interest for specialty soft focus lenses that created a more dreamy effect. These began to appear in the U.K. manufactured by legendary optical companies such as Cooke. The pleasing quality caused by the “blurriness”, or to use the Japanese term that has been associated with this quality, the “bo-keh” of these lenses, or the out-of-focus areas of a scene, has never been successfully reproduced, making some of these over a century old lenses highly sought after.
The pictorialists employed these soft focus lenses, as well as other techniques because they were less concerned about showing their subjects in great clarity of detail, rather they were more concerned with making personally expressive works that when viewed would convey intense feelings that the viewer could relate to. For the pictorialists, there was no question, their photographic works were works of arts just like the pictures that were produced by other artists using different media.
By 1902, one of the most fervent proponents of the “Can Photography be Art” debate, Alfred Stieglitz, a wealthy American who was an art lover and an amateur photographer himself, formed an elite group of photographers who were the best of the best practitioners of Pictorialist. With this group he declared the beginning of the Photo-Secession, the work has to pass self imposed stringent criteria as was laid out by the group’s manifesto which declared “to produce pictures by means of photography. Pictures which shall stand the test of criticism; that one would apply to a picture in any other medium; that shall be satisfactory in composition, colour quality, tone and lighting; that shall have esthetic charm and shall involve some expression of the personal feeling of the photographer. “
One of the first to join was Eduard Steichen who was viewed as being the Pictorialist who produced works of the highest artistic merit. Alfred Stieglitz opened a small gallery which he called 291, in New York and began publishing a photography magazine using hand-pulled photo-gravures. It was called Camera Works and was a magazine with such high quality of reproduction, the likes of which have never been possible again. Both these ventures he financed personally.
The Photo-Secessionists with their Pictorialist aesthetics are credited as the first movement to gain the approval of the art establishment and Stieglitz’s major achievement was to get the world’s acceptance and agreement that photographs can also be works of art.
In every sense, Pictorialism is a prime example of a Paradigm Shift which came about as a reaction to the introduction and mass production of a new technology, the portable camera. It was also a “Reverse Technology” trend, as it’s proponents swung away from the “instantaneity” and convenience of the new cameras in preference for older more complex equipment and processes.
Then came Straight Photography
Although Alfred Stieglitz was instrumental in bringing photography to the approval of the art establishment by promoting and making use of Pictorialism, he himself was more interested in photographing everyday scenes of New York city in what we today would call a documentary way. Stieglitz frequently visited Europe and especially Paris where he became aware of the rise of another art movement: modernism. In fact, he was the first person to exhibit in America works by Cezanne, Matisse and Pablo Picasso.
By 1917, Alfred Stieglitz came to the realization that while Pictorialism helped usher photographic art to the world, it had outplayed its usefulness. With the advent of Modernism and modernist thinking, one no longer needed to make photographs that looked like paintings. Photographs could look like photographs and still be artistic in their own right. Around this time, Stieglitz met Paul Strand who was making interesting photographs of people in everyday situations which still were expressive but in a very modern way. With this in mind, he broke up the Photo-Secessionist group and convinced his long time ally Eduard Steichen to completely renounce Pictorialism and embrace the new style of photography which became known as “Straight Photography” probably because it was the antithesis of Pictorialism and its influences. Straight Photography was about recording reality with great clarity of detail yet maintaining an objectivity about its subjects.
Also that year, Paul Strand wrote an article in the journal Seven Arts in which he said: “unlike the other arts, which are really anti-photographic, objectivity is of the very essence of photography, its contribution and at the same time its limitation… The full potential power of every medium is dependent upon the purity of its use.”
Straight Photography picked up speed in the 1920’s and is still one of the most prevalent photographic practices to this day. Many great photographer artists contributed to the body of work, further cementing photography as an accepted art form.
Soon, another Paradigm Shift was to take place, again brought about because of another technological advance.
From Straight to Street Photography
At the turn of the 19th century, photographic emulsions became more stable and advances in various fields resulted in the possibility high quality portable cameras that made use of sheet film. These cameras made it possible for photographers to document events and life and soon photographs became prominent in newspapers, spawning the new occupation of photo-journalist. Some of these photographers began to take interest in photographing modern urban life, which for the most part takes place in the streets of our cities.
This lateral movement became known as Street Photography but it didn’t really take off until the late 1920’s. Until this time, portable cameras were still bulky and very obtrusive, furthermore, they only allowed the photographer to get one shot at a time before having to reload. As such it was problematic to capture everyday urban life until the arrival of the first 35mm camera.
In the year 1913, German engineer Oskar Barnack designed a prototype for the Leica camera. This camera would make use of motion picture roll film to take still photos. By 1924 Leica and Ermanox 35mm cameras were introduced. The pairing of motion picture roll film technology and small (considered miniature) cameras caused a technological disruption similar to the one thirty years earlier when Kodak had introduced its first portable camera. In 1928, Walker Evans began photographing the ordinary people in the streets of New York and this became a landmark.
Other photographers such as Andre Kertesz were also amongst the first to use the small 35mm cameras to make intensely personal observations. It wasn’t, however until the arrival of Henri Cartier-Bresson that the Street Photography genre came to realize it’s full potential. Cartier-Bresson coined the term “Decisive Moment” to describe his work. He said: “To take photographs means to recognize - simultaneously and within a fraction of a second - both the fact itself and the rigorous organization of visually perceived forms that give it meaning. It is putting one's head, one's eye and one's heart on the same axis.”
By the 1950’s Robert Frank and others from the “New York School” began making far more subjective work and making use of a far more radical visual language. Their reactive approach coincided with the arrival of the Beat generation and rebelliousness against “the establishment”. Robert Frank, Gary Winogrand, William Klein and others, brought to Street Photography their point of view which was a decidedly a fresh development. Photographers like Dianne Arbus became interested in showing the shabbier aspects of urban life and photographing those that lived in the fringes of society. Others such as post war French photographer Robert Doisneau were more interested in expressing their own romantic visions of Paris.
Street Photography has remained an influencial body of work, infecting or affecting photo-journalism, fashion, politics, and cinema and it is a form of photography that is practiced to this day. But what of Pictorialism? Did it simply disappear like a vague memory in the decades of post-modernism conceptual art?
The Return of Pictorialism
Post-Modernism with its requisite conceptual approach and its rebellious roots in the modernist era, became of significant importance during the two decades that followed the 60’s. Conceptual art became a trend but it may have lost its appeal with the general public as it remains largely unable to grasp the importance of the intellectual concepts behind it. Thus for the general public art may have become incomprehensible. During this epoch, the Pictorialists were routinely dismissed for their shallow Romanticism and this came as no surprise since Conceptual art may be viewed as an antithesis to everything that art represented pre-Duchamp and the Dadaists.
Perhaps the question that begs to be asked is whether the art establishment today is more conservative than it was a hundred years ago. To answer that it is, would imply a contradictory hypocrisy since the freedom to make art in the Modernist and Post-modernist era is virtually limitless. So it would be more than likely a negative response to the question and if so, then we should surmise by logic that the art establishment at the end of the nineteenth century must have found enough artistic merit in the work of the Pictorialists in order to make the huge admission that Photography can be Art after having shut her out for decades.
To overturn a decision as this in the staunchly conservative art establishment of a hundred years ago, there must have been more than a little artistic merit found in the Pictorialists’ works. If that is the case, time will tell and the tell-tale signs a century later are starting to say that perhaps the Pictorialists’ work ought to be re-examined.
Over the past decade or so, Photographic works of Art have gained popularity and even more acceptance in the art circles, art salons and most notably, the art auctions. A mere ten years ago, it would have been unheard of for a photographic print to fetch more than a hundred thousand dollars at an art auction. Yet, in recent years, this figure has been growing exponentially. In February of 2006, the record was broken at a special Sotheby’s auction in New York for the highest amount a photographic print has ever fetched. The amount was almost three million US dollars. The print was Eduard Steichen’s “The Pond - Moonlight”. It must be noted that this print was made in 1904. One could debate that its value as a rare antique might have something to do with the high price that it fetched. Yet there are thousands of prints that predate this one by as much as a half a century. One may speculate ad infinitum as to what was so special about this particular print but the simplest and most obvious answer might be that it packs considerable artistic merit.
Breaking the records for highest paid for a single print is of course not sufficient proof that interest in Pictorialism is on the rise. Over the past decade or two, there have been consistent sightings of photographic works by serious artists that have evidently drawn inspiration from the Pictorialists. These are too many to mention but the works of Mark Sink and Sarah Moon are two examples that are worth noting.
Evangelo Costadimas, June 2008