Post Modernism and Appropriation

“Underneath a picture there is always another picture.” (1)This was the philosophy of Douglas Crimp, organizer of the Pictures exhibition in New York 1977. Crimp and the Pictures Artists were part of the Postmodernism Movement that believed that there was no originality left in the world. One of the  ways in which they dealt with this idea was to appropriate images in order to recontextualize the narrative and rebel against authority. Postmodernism was a reaction to the Modernists ideologies and the formal structures to which they were bound.  The movement challenged perceptions which allowed for female artists like Sherry Levine, Cindy Sherman, and Barbara Kruger, to have a voice. 

Cindy Sherman, Untitled Film Still #58, 1980. Gelatin silver print, 20.3 x 25.4 cm, edition 1/10. Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum,l Gift, Ginny Williams 97.4611(image source)

Cindy Sherman was a conceptual artist who took portraits of herself in various costumes and settings that emphasized the clichéd gender roles of women in film in order to take back the female form. She used her own image to play the stereotypical B-movie heroine. The above photo is #58 in her Untitled Film Stills series where she is playing the role of an innocent young woman dominated by the towering big city. She is gazing away with a vulnerable expression at an unknown object or person out of frame. There is a feeling of danger that she elicits through camera angles, expression, and voyeuristic setting. It’s an exaggeration of the female role in movies, but by making herself both photographer and model she is re-gaining control over the female form that for so long was exploited by men in the film industry. She was appropriating cinematic tropes and through her hyper-focused snapshots she was exploring the concepts of identity, sexuality, and femininity. (2)

By recycling various images from graphic and commercial art to television and film, Postmodern artists were able to reframe the narrative and create their own visual dialog. Cindy Sherman was one artist who made use of film stills in order to bring awareness to the feminist struggles. She was not just reclaiming images, but she was reclaiming the female body. Other artists of this genre used appropriation to represent a shift in attitude about authority and societal structures, but the singular theme that repeats during the movement is that “underneath a picture there is always another picture.” 

Sources

1. Gemmel, Mallory, “Postmodernism, The Pictures Generation, and Feminist Critique,” in Artshelp.net, accessed September 29, 2021, https://www.artshelp.net/art-theory-series-appropriation-part-two/.

2. Owen, Samantha Rosemary, “Gender and Vision Through the Lens of Cindy Sherman and the Pictures Generation,” in Scholarworks, accessed September 29, 2021, https://scholarworks.uvm.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1022&context=hcoltheses.

Pictorialism Revised

 Pictorialism, an art movement that dominated photography during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, was dedicated to promoting the medium as a fine art. It was an ever evolving movement that drew from popular painting techniques and was split into two major camps. The first consisted of artists who used photo manipulation while the second camp held true to the photographic process with little to no manipulation. The first group were taking inspiration from symbolism, poetry, and history while emphasizing texture. The second was using the ideas of composition, tone, and line in much the same way as the Cubists, Fauvists, and Futurists were at the time. (1)

Gertrude Käsebier, The Road to Rome, 1902 (image source)

 

In the image above, artist Gertrude Käsebieri is using photo manipulation to create a pictorial image. Gertrude has done a number of different manipulations in order to create this pastoral scene including painting on the gum-bichromate print. The layering of paint renders the scene less focused on detail and more on tonal structure. The use of chiaroscuro, or treatment of dark and light, leads the viewer down the path of innocence-the symbolism. She has created a more expressive photo than the original through her manipulations, and in keeping with the Pictorialist methods is playing on symbolism to enrich the story. (1)

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Alfred Stieglitz, The Steerage (1907) (      image source)

The next image is a photo taken by Alfred Stieglitz in 1907 entitled The Steerage. This photograph is quite different from the one by Gertrude Käsebier. It is a prime example of the second school of pictorialism where no manipulations have been added, and the artist is relying on the sensibilities of the abstract art movement for inspiration. Steiglitz was very proud of this photo because he was able to capture a perfect abstract-like composition of strong diagonals and lines contrasted by round and triangular shapes. There’s a nice balance of contrasting lights and darks for appeal as well. Steiglitz was not trying to produce an emotional connection to the people in this photo, even though a case could be made for that. He was simply using compositional devices like an abstract painter by capturing interesting lines, shapes, and tones through his lens. (2)

Pictorialism was an important and ever changing movement that sought to legitimize photography as a fine art. Whether it was being done with photo manipulation and symbolism, or by comparing a straight image with an abstract painting it didn’t matter.  The end goal was always the same, that photography could be more than mere documentation. It could be as beautiful and expressive as a painting. 

Sources

1. Bunnell, Peter C, “Towards New Photography, Renewals of Pictorialism,” in A New History of Photography, Köln: Könemann, 1998 17th Ed, 311-326.  

2. Belden-Adams, Dr. Kris, “Steiglitz, The Steerage,” in Khan Academy, accessed September 14, 2020, https://www.khanacademy.org/humanities/ap-art-history/later-europe-and-americas/modernity-ap/a/stieglitz-the-steerage

Pictorialism

Pictorialism, an art movement that dominated photography during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, was dedicated to promoting the medium as a fine art. It was an ever evolving movement that drew from popular painting techniques and was split into two major camps. The first consisted of artists who used photo manipulation while the second camp held true to the photographic process with little to no manipulation. The first group were taking inspiration from symbolism, poetry, and history while emphasizing texture. The second was using the ideas of composition, tone, and line in much the same way as the Cubists, Fauvists, and Futurists were at the time. (1)

Henry Peach Robinson, Fading Away (1858), (image source)

In the image above, artist Henry Peach Robinson is using photo manipulation to create a pictorial image. Robinson has not only combined five different negatives in order to create this intimate scene, but he is also playing on symbolism to enrich the story. The use of chiaroscuro, or treatment of dark and light, leads the viewer to a somber conclusion. The male figure is turned away in his dark suit set against the brightly lit sky in a pose of grief. The older lady in dark attire stares sadly at the girl while letting a book fall from her grasp. There is tension in the sky and the way the other female is leaning on the back of the sick bed suggests that death lingers. Robinison is using symbolism common to Vicorian painters to imply that the girl will ascend to heaven. It was a controversial subject to address as a photo, but it was an important topic to help state the case that photography could be art. (2)

Alfred Stieglitz, The Steerage (1907) (  image source)

The next image is a photo taken by Alfred Stieglitz in 1907 entitled The Steerage. This photograph is quite different from the one by Henry Peach Robinson. It is a prime example of the second school of pictorialism where no manipulations have been added, and the artist is relying on the sensibilities of the abstract art movement for inspiration. Steiglitz was very proud of this photo because he was able to capture a perfect abstract-like composition of strong diagonals and lines contrasted by round and triangular shapes. There’s a nice balance of contrasting lights and darks for appeal as well. Steiglitz was not trying to produce an emotional connection to the people in this photo, even though a case could be made for that. He was simply mimicking techniques the painters were using in the art movements of the time. (3)

Pictorialism was an important and ever changing movement that sought to legitimize photography as a fine art. Whether it was being done with photo manipulation and symbolism, or by comparing a straight image with an abstract painting it didn’t matter. The end goal was always the same, that photography could be more than mere documentation. It could be as beautiful and expressive as a painting.


Sources
  1. Bunnell, Peter C, “Towards New Photography, Renewals of Pictorialism,” in A New History of Photography , Köln: Könemann, 1998 17th Ed, 311-326.
  2. Mogensen, Jannie Uhre, “Fading into Innocence: Death, Sexuality and Moral Restoration in Henry Peach Robinson’s Fading Away,” Victorian Review 32, no. 1 (2006): 1-17, http://www.jstor.org/stable/27793587.
  3. Belden-Adams, Dr. Kris, “Steiglitz, The Steerage,” in Khan Academy, accessed September 14, 2020, https://www.khanacademy.org/humanities/ap-art-history/later-europe-and-americas/modernity-ap/a/stieglitz-the-steerage

Atget

Church of St Gervais, Paris, photograph by Eugène Atget, 1897-1903. Museum no. PH.224-1903. © Victoria and Albert Museum (image source)

Burdened down by large, heavy camera equipment, Eugene Atget would wander the streets of Paris in the quiet early morning hours in search of his subject. Curiously, instead of people he would choose the ghostly back alleys and deserted cobblestone streets as his subjects. He was not highly regarded during his lifetime, but like Van Gogh, his brilliance would reveal itself to future generations. 

In the article, Atget and the City , author John Fraser writes about why Eugene Atget was such an important figure in photography. Fraser believes that Atget was a genius not only because he chose a paradoxical subject, but also because he was masterful at the execution. The places he photographed hold our interest because they bear the marks of humanity even though none are present. It seems that Atget was a most competent artist with a vision.  His obsession with documenting every part of the city from the oldest churches to the most scabrous bordellos would become invaluable to those wanting to experience a Paris that existed before the World Wars took their toll. Even the surrealists of the early twentieth century understood the value these unpopulated photos held. (1)

Atget, however, was not limited to this style of photography. Fraser writes about Atget’s many examples of architectural detail and candid portraits that were pretty unremarkable. Atget was a creative person who understood what made a brilliant picture, but he just wasn’t that interested in things outside of Paris.(1) These mundane photos are not what we know him for, but how he made a living. He was a documentarian who sold his work to artists and historians. The purpose of his photography was to make a record, but when he was taking pictures of Paris he couldn’t help but be an artist. 

During Atget’s time, photography was rapidly moving forward. Atget, however, never upgraded from his large-format wooden bellows camera. There was much to be explored and Atget was masterful with his equipment. Why fix what isn’t broken? While most photographers were exploring portraiture or famous landmarks and landscapes he was quietly documenting reality with old but trusted technology.

 When I look at this photo I can almost see the ghost-like impressions of the people who once occupied this space. The composition is compelling, and I want to know more about this place. I want to know about the people who live there even though I see no one. These attributes contradict the idea of aura that were discussed in the article Little History of Photography by Benjamin Walters. Walters declares Atget to be a masterful craftsman who, “cleanses the atmosphere...He initiates the emancipation of object from aura, which is the most signal achievement of the latest school of photography.” Walters goes on to explain that aura is “a strange weave of space and time: the unique appearance or semblance of distance, no matter how close it may be.” He’s not describing it as something that belongs to anything specific, but without people (or important landmarks) these photographs are merely documenting the world. The lack of aura actually adds to the allure.(2)

Not to take value from the quality of Atgets' life, but I always find it depressing to learn about artists who spend their lives struggling, but are celebrated in death. It’s tragic, but maybe that struggle is what allows for the genius. It is a depressing paradox. It doesn’t seem to stop the artist from pursuing that vision. Artists like Atget are reminders that what we do can be valuable to others. He has not been forgotten, but will be remembered as one of the great pioneers of his time.  

Sources

1. Fraser, John, "Atget and the City," <i>The Cambridge Quarterly</i> 3, no. 3 (1968): 199-233. Accessed September 1, 2021, http://www.jstor.org/stable/42971620

2. Walters, Benjamin, “Little History of Photography,” trans. Rodney Livingstone and Others, Cambridge and London: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, accessed September 2, 2021, https://monoskop.org/images/0/0e/Benjamin_Walter_1931_1999_Little_History_of_Photography.pdf.