2. • “Photography is not art, but can be
made into art” - De Zayas 1913
•Reaction against photography's use by painters (i.e.
Courbet) to help them paint
•Reaction against the documentary tradition of late 18th and
19th C – move away from a Humanist or people/societal
centred approach
•Linking the aesthetic ethos of art (fascination with
form, tone, light, colour)
Fine art takes in
all other genres!
3. • Photos began to
develop own codes
as art; no
manipulation of
reality-straight-pure-
form-no reference
to the subject as
such
• Composition is more
important than
context
• Alfred Stieglitz;
driving force behind
fine art photography
4. • Photographer
does not
record, but
creates
• Landscapes, as
popular theme
link to higher
ideals
• Stieglitz’s
Equivalents
series seek ideal
form and were
displayed in wide
white mounts to
emphasise purity
5. •Stieglitz was
committed to the
gallery as an ideal
•Gallery’s
contextualised art
photographer against
the wider history of art
•An art print gains
value from being hung
in an opposite way to a
documentary imaged
that is mass produced
•Art photography is
often envisaged as
such
6. • “The fullest
realisation of the
potential of the
subject through
the use of
straight
photographic
methods” - Paul
Strand
7. • Edward Weston:
Emphasis on form
• Body transcends
into natural shapes
• No longer a human
or cultural product
but part of the
wider
metaphysical
(almost spiritual)
world of shape
and form that
artists aspired to
8.
9. • The nude continues to be a seminal subject
for fine art photographers
Ruth Bernhard Sylvie Blum
10. • Ansel Adams
keeps fine
arts concern
with purity
and form and
makes the
ordinary into
something
unique
12. • John Paul Edwards & William Van Dyke were contemporaries of
Adams and Weston and together were some of the members of f.64;
a group dedicated to intense scrutiny of the world through the lens
and in a way that moved against earlier pictorial or painterly styles
14. • Other art
photographers do
focus on culture
• Paul Strand: works
within active world
of human meaning
– a documenters
approach?
• Movement (implied
sometimes) and
subject fit into
larger structure of
society
16. • Minor White: Expressionist; A movement in the arts during
the early part of the 20th century that emphasized
subjective expression of the artist's inner experiences
17. • Aaron Siskind: Abstract expressionism
• Taking reference from painterly forms yet still
focus on transforming the ordinary
18. • Ernst Haas Nature and Machine 1975
• Colour begins to get used in art photography
• B&W seen by purists as truer to intention of capturing
form
23. ed
• Gregory Crewdson from Beneath The Roses
• Contemporary fine art can include the dramatic and staged
and create a sense of narrative that does refer to society
24.
25. • Jeff Wall A Sudden Gust Of Wind
• Wall often recreates paintings, as such his style is very formal still
26. • Philip Lorca DiCorcia's hustler series
• alternates between informal snapshots and iconic
quality staged compositions
27. • Masahisa Fukase's Ravens
• Example of how contemporary art photography can be
a personal reference point
28. Summary
• Fine art photography began as reaction against
how photography was used in the art world and
as a reaction against the documentary ethos of
social engagement
• Focus on form (shape, pattern, line, texture etc)
• B&W holds elitist status (still?)
• Context of viewing is important
• Fine art can include other genres, even docu!
• Contemporary images often attempt to engage
the viewer more
Editor's Notes
What does this quote mean?
Stieglitz had a gallery, studio etc and often put on art photo shows of his and other workHis comments of the Steerage are how he saw funnels angling left, stairs angling right, round hats, lines in the ramp – essentially he sees form and not the crappy conditions of the passangers
Lack of link between photographer and cultural context links in with the romantic tradition of artists as philosophers and seers
We can see the Stieglitz influence on his contemporaries in this quote by Strand. There is a desire to show the ordinariness of everyday in a way that is not emotionally charged like docu at the time. This straight purity developed into a sub-genre (of docu?) called new objectivity
Can students spot rule of thirds, vanishing point etc?
These images show how art photography obsesses with the everyday and often look into private spaces. Everything is an object waiting to be transformed.
Get students to analyse this within the context of the last slideWall St encapsulates this idea of movement, both literally with the characters and figuratively within society. The relationship between people and business, the beginnings of the boom of modern capitalism. The dwarfed figures, the imposing darknessWhy is this art and not documentary? Still heavy focus on composition and form but does cross over!
Deine
B&W in art places stress on the image to exist in its own right, as a unique article that celebrates form rather than using colour and attempting to reproduce the world
Students to analyseColour is essential here. Notice the two points of white acting as counter balance to the red. Notice the lines cast by the shadows and the patterns of the brick. This is still art in the sense it shows us a slice of life in a pictorial sense There is little symbolism (like most art images) but it is a visual feast
Gursky displays his prints as large as possible, it is partly the display that classifies these as art and partly the insistence on form over context
Crewdson’s work often involves crews of people, and its cinematic affect is deliberate, often referencing films. His work gives a surreal take in everyday life and suburban America. Does this move towards a context exclude him from fine art? Is it going back to a staged docu style?
Important to note the viewing context still
everyday occurrences beyond the realm of how everyday and normal they are, he tries to inspire in his picture's spectators an awareness of the psychology and emotion contained in real-life situations
Ex Japanese Vogue who turned to fine art once girlfriend left with his assistant
