Description
The project I am working on is part of my final, so it has 3 questions that need to be answered completely separately.
Question One Instructions (45 points)
Answer the following questions in complete essay form (three or more paragraphs). Be sure to support your answers by referencing the lectures and specific images you have studied over the last few weeks. Just mentioning an image/photograph is not enough, you must name, describe, and explain, how and why the particular image relates to the point you are making.
Question One:
Discuss the role and works (photographs, associated photography movements, magazines, galleries) of Alfred Stieglitz in solidifying photography as a legitimate art practice in the early 20th century. Why is he considered the father of modern photography in America?
PS Discussion Assignment on Stieglitz 5A is not the same question as this one. Do not use your answer for 5A here or you will lose significant points. This is a new question that requires a new answer.
Question Two Instructions (45 points)
Answer the following questions in complete essay form (three or more paragraphs). Be sure to support your answers by referencing the lectures and specific images you have studied over the last few weeks. Just mentioning an image/photograph is not enough, you must name, describe, and explain, how and why the particular image relates to the point you are making.
Question Two:
Thinking about photography since the beginning of the digital era, how have new technologies emboldened artists in their creative work? Discuss at least three artists and their works to illustrate the shift from formalism to more conceptual approaches.
If you have reading your lectures each week, you would know that Stieglitz, Steichen, Lange, and earlier photographer/artists are not digital! Digital began in the latter part of the 20th century and digital artists are discussed in YouTube’s 17 and 18.
Question Three (45 points)
Instructions
Answer the following prompt in a solid three paragraph essay. Be sure to provide details and or examples to demonstrate your understanding.
Consider Susan Sontag’s and John Berger’s essays. Where do you think the two agree on aspects of photography? Where do you think they most disagree?
9. Lecture
Roots of Pictorialism
By the 1880s, photography lost its lackluster, as lots of folks had cameras and called into question the profession of the photographer, his level of intelligence, sensitivity and skill required to make photographs. This was a big blow to photography. It also caused a loss of faith in science and technology and this was communicated in the loss of literalness and scientific objectivism. A revolt against realism ensued and a rise in symbolism was the result.
Harroun & Bierstadt, Photography Association of America, 1880
Symbolism shifted photographers to look inward to express the human psyche using symbolic metaphors to evoke emotions. For some of these photographers, spiritualism and dreams served as their guide. The Photography Association of America, 1880, was formed to reach out beyond the chemistry, optics, and mechanics of the craft. The association wanted photographers to take hold of the morals of the craft and encouraged self-respect. The association also thought that the public should honor photographers in a larger degree than they already had.
Schools like the Chicago College of Photography, 1881, validated photographic skill by offering certificate courses in photography. A graduate of Chicago College would presumably “possess the art, character, and tone” of a knowledgeable professional and thus command “higher money value… for his work.”
What are some of the characteristics of Pictorialism?
Not straight forward
Manipulated in some way (as long as it’s truthful)
A created image rather than a recorded image
Lacking sharp focus
Looks like an etching with lots of atmosphere
Making a picture look like a painting
Elicit emotion
Amateur photographers influenced many of these ideas.
Peter Henry Emerson (“P.H. Emerson”)
Emerson saw photography as an independent medium combining art and science. He saw the photographer as the one who determined the camera’s own intrinsic attributes. His goal was to elevate the status of photographic art but believed that photography should imitate the natural world, not alter it. Pictorialism shared this goal. This idea was founded on the premise that the camera images could engage the senses and emotions in a naturalistic manner.
Emerson wanted to emulate one’s natural eyesight in his works. He believed that his subject should appear crisp and sharp while everything else in the photo fades out of focus, He became aware of this when he had the realization that “nothing in nature has a hard outline.”
What is Naturalism according to P.H. Emerson?
When applied to the arts, naturalism asks the artists like the scientist to observe and record dispassionately. This is how one would explain phenomenon through natural forces rather than supernatural forces. One would look for causes instead of reasons. According to P.H. Emerson’s naturalistic theory of photography, enduring art is made directly from nature and the artist’s role is to imitate these effects on the eye. Emerson was not a fan of the handheld camera.
P.H. Emerson, Gathering Waterlilies, Platinum print, 1885, printed 1886
Emerson’s Method
Emerson photographed subjects within their natural environment, without so called artificial manipulation. Emerson did not rely on lighting, framing, or selective focus. He accompanied his photographs with text to describe the landscape. He photographed the disappearing customs of working rural people, often in their own voice. His photographs were made on location and provided a feeling of immediacy; thus, opposing Henry Peach Robinson’s constructed pictures.
While he did not employ artificial methods of manipulation, he did enlarge and/or retouch some of the delicate details of the contact print. His desire to manipulate the contact negative was based on his belief that the central portion of the human field of vision is sharp and should be transposed onto the contact print.
P.H. Emerson, The Poacher, A Hare in View, Suffolk, 1888
How did Emerson make the central portion of the human field of vision sharp?
Emerson made images slightly out of focus so the central area of the photograph would be sharp. He based this on his belief that the eye sees the central portion the sharpest, while all other parts seem subdued. Some people misunderstood and thought art picture must be out of focus forcing Emerson to defend his position.
He later recanted his position and asked for forgiveness in an interview. His recant was reprinted in “The Death of Naturalistic Photography” pamphlet. He no longer campaigned for photography to be viewed as an independent art form.
After her changed his mind about photography in terms of accuracy he moved toward pictorialism; thus, embracing the painterly style of photography. During this time, Emerson oversaw the Photo Secession Group of photographers, a movement that did not want to focus on accurate representations of the world. Credit: Getty Museum Emerson
He continued to do his work quietly now. Ultimately, his ideas marked the beginning of modern aesthetic philosophy, which was modeled on human vision instead of the mechanical objectivity of the camera. Future painting movements like impressionism would be guided by optical theories.
Development of Pictorial Effect in Photography
Pictorial effect rose in popularity from 1889 through the first world war. Pictorial effect stressed beauty over fact. Exactitude, the exact replication of a subject, as well as optical sharpness were viewed as inhibitors of individual expression. The pictorial movement broke with Emerson and other purists as many of its practitioners embraced hand manipulation of the print as a meaningful aspect of self expression. Pictorialists asserted that artistic photography should receive equal treatment by the art establishment.
Pictorialism in Photography
People wanted images that relied on some manipulation or post camera techniques. Pictorialism was linked to the public’s expectations of the creation of one-of-a-kind masterpieces. Some pictorialist photographers preferred paper because of its tactile suggestiveness that was used to assert control over the craft during a time of commercial standardization. Pictorial prints conveyed visual information emotionally due to the strong physical presence based on tonality, texture, and the manipulation of detail.
Jean-Francois Millet, The Gleaners, Oil on Canvas, 1857
What’s going on with the painters?
Jean-Francois Millet, French Painter, founded the Barbizon School. Millet is categorized as a painter of realism, representing subject matter truthfully and without artifice and supernatural overtones. The Barbizon school taught methods of pictorial painting. Millet used softened brushwork to create atmospheric effects as revealed here in The Gleaners, the painting depicted above. Before we talk about the painting, you may be asking yourself “what is a gleaner?” A gleaner is a poor woman or child given permission to remove left over bits of grain after the harvest. Millet believed the theme to be central, eternal, and reflective of Old Testament ideas.
During his years of preparatory studies, painter Millet contemplated how best to convey the sense of repetition and fatigue in the peasants’ daily lives on the canvas above. He used lines to trace over each woman’s back leading to the ground and then back up in a repetitive motion identical to their unending, backbreaking labor. Notice how along the horizon, the setting sun silhouettes the farm with its abundant stacks of grain, in contrast to the large shadowy figures in the foreground. The dark homespun dresses of the gleaners cut robust forms against the golden field, giving each woman a noble, monumental strength. It’s easy to see why photographers, like painters, were interested in pictorialist methods. Interestingly, at the time the work was displayed, the public reception of it was hostile at best.
Photographers Embraced the Traditions of the Painters
To counter the anonymous quality of photography, artistically minded photographers embraced the allegorical and general traditions of painting similar to what was conveyed in The Gleaners. They relied on light and line and sought to make sensitive and intuitive images that symbolically communicated what could not be stated in words.
George Davison
George Davison advanced photographic impressionism by renouncing objective and realistic representation in favor of visual impressions similar to impressionistic painting.
To create a monochromatic image of nature, he substituted a pinhole for the lens on his camera. He used impressionistic strategies and/or naturalistic subject matter. Impressionistic strategies concentrated on effect rather than naturalistic truths of the land and its inhabitants influencing others.
Vienna Club of Amateur Photographers mounted a major exhibition in 1891 and established a model for exhibiting photographs based on aesthetic qualities. This exhibition model was adopted throughout Europe.
The ability to suppress unwanted details, add color to alter tonal ranges, and synthesize negatives showed that photography could be an art form that is subject to the will and hand of the maker. This is in the case when the photograph was not limited to presenting reality rather than the relationship between photographer’s subject and viewers. This is what created a breach between photography and science. The pictorialists broke the link between the photographer and reality; thus, challenging photography’s machinelike authenticity.
Photography Clubs rose up and so did the secession group. New magazines popped up to cater to amateurs. Alternate venues popped up to display photographs.
George Davison, The Onion Field, 1890
In his efforts to achieve the impressionistic, painterly effects, Davison experimented widely with different techniques and processes. In 1890, one of his photographs, An Old Farmstead, also known as The Onion Field, taken with a pin-hole camera and printed on rough paper, was awarded a medal at the Photographic Society of Great Britain’s annual exhibition.
Rise of Art Nouveau Movement and the Influence of Japanese Art
Art Nouveau movement rejects academy painters of historical events, scenes from legends, and literature. Art Nouveau artists advocated for a withdrawal from the uniform, mechanical vulgarity of the industrial age by promoting the arts as an indispensable part of daily life.
The rise of aesthetic self-improvement clubs encouraged the procuring of splendid objects and the pursuit of music, poetry and picture making. Amateur photographers became part of this movement as picture makers without years of training.
Matthew Brady, Commodore Matthew Perry, 1856-58
A major influence of pictorialists was the Japanese art that filtered into Europe after Commodore Perry visited Japan in 1854 and opened communication between the West and East. Western artist incorporated the Japanese printmakers use of clear and vibrant colors, forceful outlines, foreshortened and aerial perspectives, asymmetrical, and cropped compositions, and this greatly influenced pictorial photography.
Japan Expedition Press published the letter written by President Fillmore to
the Emperor of Japan, 1853. The letter requested that Japan should live in peace with
the United States, provide coal and supplies as well as protect shipwrecked sailors.
Dutch Dinner Party by Kawahara Keiga, Early 19th century
On the left, Dutch Family, by Jo Girin, 1800, and on the right, Dutch Surgery, 19th Century
“Concrete knowledge of the West, including the United States, deepened over time. The Japanese obtained Chinese translations of certain American texts, including a standard history of the United States, and the very eve of Perry’s arrival saw the publication of both a full-length “New History of America” (which, among other things, singled out egalitarianism, beef eating, and milk drinking) and a “General Account of America” that described the Americans as educated and civilized, and stated that they should be met “with respect but not fear.” The most vivid and intimate information available to Japanese officials prior to Perry’s arrival came from “John Manjiro,” a celebrated Japanese youth who had been shipwrecked while fishing off the Japanese coast in 1841. Only 14 years old at the time, Manjiro was rescued by an American vessel and brought to the United States. He lived in Fairhaven, Massachusetts for three years, sailed for a while on an American whaler, and even briefly joined the gold rush to California in 1849. When Manjiro finally made his way back to Japan in 1851, samurai officials interrogated him at great length.”
For more on Commodore Perry and Japan opening its ports, go to: MIT Visualizing CulturesLinks to an external site.
American Perspectives
Alfred Stieglitz depicted on the left was born in Hoboken, N.J., in 1864. In 1881, Stieglitz went
to Berlin and met someone who convinced him to study photography.
He learned pictorial photography and became a crusader for photography’s acceptance as
an independent art form in the New World of America. He was profound in his desire to leave
Old World values behind and perhaps even that of his Jewish descent.
Judaism is based on the word, not the image. Robert Hirsch, author of the text Seizing the Light, suggests that perhaps his act of making photographs could be interpreted as an act of rebellion against the authority of the Old Testament. He could break tradition and embrace Christian pictorialism or a new wide open playing field. Perhaps by fulfilling the role of chosen one guiding his people out of the slavery of old or traditional practices, he could serve as a Rabbi leading his new congregation of photographers into a new monotheistic order. However, instead of studying the Torah he would study and polemicize the order of modernism from the part of the persecuted outsider.
Stieglitz was editor of the American Amateur Photographer ,and he promoted the handheld camera when most practitioners believed it to be a play thing. He suggested it was okay to use a small part of an original negative. This shocked people.
Alfred Stieglitz, Winter on Fifth Avenue, 1893
Stieglitz said serious image making would happen after the shutter was pressed. Example of Winter on Fifth Avenue, 1892, he used only or less than half his plate. He joined together the “proper moment” in front of the camera with post camera strategies in the darkroom. In the photo below, he showed that the weather condition had not be a deterrent in making pictures and that chance operation can be incorporated into the process.
Stieglitz, Reflection Night, 1896
Stieglitz, A Wet Day on the Boulevard, 1894
Stieglitz used a handheld camera to capture precisely observed moments from real time whether at night in Reflection Night, 1896, or in the rain in A Wet Day on the Boulevard, 1894.
Stieglitz, The Terminal, 1893
Stieglitz took this photograph in front of the Old Post Office in New York, where the Third Avenue railway system and the Madison Avenue streetcar system had their terminals. He reflected on his creation of the work 45 years later: “Naturally there was snow on the ground. A driver in a rubber coat was watering his steaming horses. There seemed to be something related to my deepest feeling in what I saw, and I decided to photograph what was within me.” For Stieglitz, who had returned from Europe to find that everyday use of the Kodak camera had supplanted serious photography. The Terminal represented new possibilities for photography and the hope for “an America in which I could breathe as a free man.”
Credit: Artic Steichen TerminalLinks to an external site.
Stieglitz, Reflections: Venice, Photogravure, 1897
Stieglitz, Reflections, New York, 1896
Stieglitz, The Hand of Man, 1902
A young Stieglitz behind the camera
Stieglitz called them snapshots and they were aesthetic revelation and broke with the attitude of the painted image, furthering photography’s quest to define itself based on intrinsic elements. He was a firm believer in that only inspired artists could make fine images.
Camera Notes was published from 1897 to 1903. Camera Notes featured
splendid reproduction of photographs, perceptive articles, and critical
reviews representing the standards of aesthetic excellence set forth by
Stieglitz that other photographers could look to for aesthetic guidance.
Pierre Dubreuil
At the turn of the century, Pierre Dubreuil was known for his soft focus, oil pigment prints, and impressionist depictions that made objects stand out while placing the main subject in the background and out of focus; thus, destroying traditional visual hierarchies.
Pierre Dubreuil, Interpretation Picasso: The Railway, 1911
He experimented with abstraction and used his camera to fragment key subjects within a scene as revealed in his work, Interpretation Picasso: The Railway, 1911. He sometimes painted the negative and effaced it repeatedly with rectangular shapes to produce an overlapping of geometric forms.
From the early 1900’s, Dubreuil evolved toward a more symbolist and audacious manner, a style that evoked that of the avant-garde with its conceptual and surrealist still-lives that have nonetheless preserved the elegant technique of his pictorialist production.
Pierre Dubreuil, Elephantasy, 1908
Pierre Dubreuil, Opera, Rainy Day, 1909
Pierre Dubreuil, Aviator,1929
Camera Notes
Camera Notes was a journal on photography published by the Camera Club of New York from 1897 to 1903. Camera Notes was edited by Alfred Stieglitz and was considered the most significant journal on photography for its time. Camera Notes portrayed the emerging style of the American pictorial movement. It espoused ideas suggesting that photographers focus on the production of the photograph rather than the subject itself, and also on soft focus which was used to evoke mystery and deemphasize photography’s connection with reality. He challenged readers to do more than copy technique and subject of others but to discover their own photographic medium visual model.
He wanted to do a major exhibit reflecting the pictorialist concerns such as:
Printing process
Post camera manipulation
Atmospheric effects
Tonal value of image over subject matter
Ultimately, he would show that photography was a TOOL similar to a PAINTBRUSH capable
of achieving aesthetics. However, he could not make it happen. So Bullock and Redfield
of the Photographic Society of Philadelphia produced an exhibit in 1899. The brochure cover
is provided to the right.
Photographic Society of Philadelphia and The Birth of the Photo Secession Group
The exhibit catalog by Bullock and Redfield, Photographic Society of Philadelphia, 1898, described their photographic works on display as showing “distinct evidence of individual artistic feeling and execution.” Eventually, the Photographic Society of Philadelphia fell apart and Stieglitz was on his own again.
The Photo Secession Group
Other groups followed suit and in Munich, photographs were hung along side paintings. His new group, the Photo Secession, was founded in 1902. The goal was to show that photography was not a hand maiden to the arts but a distinct medium of individual expression. He also was editor of Camera Notes, 1902, and launched Camera Work, 50 issues published from 1903-1917. Press run was 1,000 copies.
He introduced new art movements such as Fauvism, Cubism, Futurism, and he covered the evolution of the pictorial movement.
Camera Work had an intellectual appeal and covered the works of photographers like Julia Margaret Cameron. Articles written by George Bernard Shaw and Gertrude Stein raised the level of critical discourse and Camera Work claimed to be published for “those who know or want to know.”
He then opened a gallery called “291” named after its location at 291 Fifth Avenue, New York. It became a permanent exhibit space featuring leading pictorialists of America and Europe. From 1911-17, 291 was the only place in America to steadily present modern artists and engage in dialogues about their ideas.
The Epoch of Pictorialism
Stieglitz assembled a core group of photographers that played key roles in developing and expressing the pictorial aesthetic. The group included Edward Steichen, Adolph Meyer, Frank Eugene Smith and Clarence Hudson White. Examples of their works appear on the next five slides.
In November, 1910, Stieglitz organized a showing that marked the culmination of the pictorial movement. The exhibition was shown by the most beautiful gallery in America, the Albright Gallery in Buffalo, N.Y.
It was a sanctioning of photographers as artist and it was a recognition that photographers were capable of competing with traditional art mediums.
Pictorialists changed the status of their photographs through the investment of time in their handiwork. People were now willing to purchase photograph for DISPLAY ON THEIR WALLS.
The methods of the pictorialists separated the photographic process from the machine, elevating the image and its maker to the plane of art and artist.
‘A photograph would suggest something that could be done
better in a painting. The end-all and be-all of a photograph
was to record.’
– Edward Steichen, A Life In Photography, 1963
Edward Steichen Photography
Edward Steichen was a leading figure in 20th century photography and directed its development as a prominent photographer as well as an influential curator. Steichen initially painted and worked in lithography, before undertaking photography in 1896. HIs first works were exhibited at the Philadelphia Salon in 1899. He met Clarence White after exhibiting at the Chicago Salon, who encouraged his photography and later introduced him to Alfred Stieglitz. As Steichen spent time in Paris painting for the first 20 years of the 20th century, he was exposed to many modern artists like Rodin as well as many modern art movements. This helped him in his future works with Stieglitz where he was able to advise him in terms of exhibition selections. Credit: ICP.org SteichenLinks to an external site.
Edward Steichen, Flat Iron Building, NYC, 1904
Doesn’t the work above look like it’s color photography? Edward Steichen added color to the platinum print that forms the foundation of this photograph by using layers of pigment suspended in a light-sensitive solution of gum Arabic and potassium bichromate. Together with two variant prints in other colors “The Flatiron” is the quintessential chromatic study of twilight. Its composition is clearly indebted to the Japanese woodcuts that were in vogue at the turn of the 20th century.
Steichen and Stieglitz selected this photograph for inclusion in the “International Exhibition of Pictorial Photography” held at the Albright Art Gallery (now the Albright-Knox Art Gallery) in Buffalo, New York, in 1910. The exhibition of six hundred photographs represented the capstone of Stieglitz’s efforts to promote Ppctorialist photography as a fine art. Credit: Met Museum SteichenLinks to an external site.
Edward Steichen, Brooklyn Bridge, 1903
The use of light and darkness would aid the creative aspect of photography. In many of Steichen’s early photographs, we don’t see much detail. However, it creates a sense of mystery and drama, showing us just the information that he deems vital to aid our understanding. The Brooklyn Bridge above by Steichen is one of the most painterly photographs discussed in this lecture.
Other Pictorialist Works
Baron Adolf de Meyer, Still Life, 1908, Photogravure
Frank Eugene Smith, Adam and Eve, 1898-99, published in Camera Work
Clarence Hudson White, Morning, 1908,
published in Camera Work
Decline of Pictorialism
Success of the pictorialist resulted in numerous imitators intended only in achieving a pictorial look. Leading practitioners recognize that many pictorialists were meddling with their prints because they believed that any degree of alteration is a touchstone of art. By the time of the Albright-Knox Gallery Exhibit in Buffalo, Stieglitz’ group was disintegrating. Despite this, it was this special group of artists that helped photography realize its place as an artistic medium.
Alfred Stieglitz deserves his designation as the father of modern photography. This elastic medium called photography was an effective tool in interpreting life with the same impulses used to make paintings.
Alfred Stieglitz, The Steerage, 1907
The Steerage was considered by Stieglitz himself to be a work of importance as it relied on “related shapes and on the deepest human feeling.” It was taken on board a passenger ship while he was on his way to Europe in 1907. He found the scene in the steerage area, a place where the poorer people had to travel, far more interesting than his own first class compartment. Seeing a series of shapes (notice the circular hat, the rectangular plank, the volume cylinder smoke stack, etc.) i t reminded him of work produced by the painter Rembrandt.
10. Lecture
Please note: Yes, this is a course intended to discuss the history of photography. However, in this chapter we will look at a good number of paintings. The painters influenced photography greatly and vice versa.
Karl Marx, 1818- 1883
Karl Marx
Karl Marx was a German philosopher and revolutionary socialist who published the Communist Manifesto and Das Kapital, anti-capitalist written works that form the basis of Marxism. Marx believed art is part of shared social experience or reality and must be integrated into everyday life. Marx said that art should scrutinize political and social reality instead of being aesthetic. For art to be vital, Marxist say it must operate in society and reach a large and diverse audience. A goal in which photography based processes were ideal for.
Capitalist and Marxist positions diverged in western cultural values:
A lot of talk went on as to whether culture should express private beliefs or group values.
Karl Marx believed that the more wealth the lower classes produced, the more poorer they became. The worker becomes an ever cheaper commodity with the more commodities they create. Labor not only produces commodities; they produce workers as a commodity.
Merriam Webster Dictionary Definition
Marxism is the political, economic, and social theories of Karl Marx including the belief that the struggle between social classes is a major force in history and that we should strive for a society without classes.
Decline of State and Church
The nineteenth century saw the decline of state, church, and aristocratic patronage in
the arts. Modernist artists were only interested in photographing contemporary events
and experimental representations. They were no longer interested in depicting nature, historical subject matter, and Renaissance illusionism. The nineteenth century saw the growth of art for art’s sake, which means that the only true art should be divorced from moral, didactic, and utilitarian functions. These ideas reflected the nineteenth century thinking of French literary critics. It was in part a reaction to the Romantic movement’s desire to detach art from the periods increasing stress on rationalism. Art for art’s sake suggests that the only aim of an artwork is self expression of the artist who created it.
The crumbling of religious beliefs brought moral instability. Society was growing smarter thanks to an increase in knowledge based on Industrial Revolution inventions. Society was looking to new freedoms because of intellectual growth. The definition of modernism meant individual freedom over social authority and this went hand in hand with alienation and uncertainty. Feelings of alienation and uncertainty continued to grow and became a major theme in the knext century, the twentieth century. Artists and artworks were becoming isolated in mainstream society.
World War I and New Artistic Movements: Changes in the Art World
Aesthetic formalism was on the rise to emphasize form over content. Pure form could transcend content and become as important as subject matter. Pure form will be discussed in the section on photographer Edward Weston.
The Cubist Movement in Art
Changes in the modern world caused shifts in human consciousness thanks to the new technological landscape, which included photography. Many of these new ideas were inspired by artist Paul Cezanne. Cubist Pablo Picasso, Georges Braque, Fernand Leger, and Juan Gris attempted to parallel and fragment the dynamism of the machine age. They consulted enlightenment ideas that extolled analysis and reason.
Cubists during the years 1907-1920, abandoned painting perspective or objects receding in space because the camera captures perspective quick and easy. Cubist techniques permitted painters to make new kinds of paintings that bore no resemblance to the past. Cubist painters developed their own system by taking 3D subjects, fragmenting them, and redefining various points of view simultaneously. This began with Cezanne and his study of how visual relationships changed with the tilt of one’s head. Cezanne offered us new truths and new ways of seeing and, although Cezanne was a painter, these tools were used to organize a photograph.
Paul Cezanne, Mont-Sainte Victoire, 1904 – 06
Cezanne was a Post Impressionist painter who highly influenced Cubist painters. This painting breaks down the subject matter into color blocks or cubes and depicts the origins of Cubist painting. Picasso continued the work begun by Cezanne by breaking down his subject matter into geometric forms.
The Surrealist Movement in Art
The Surrealists harnessed the creative potential from the unconscious mind. The atrocities of World War I made people feel alienated and disillusioned and this is what inspired new movements such as Dada and Surrealism. While Dada wanted to obliterate the past, Surrealism was spontaneous, subconscious, and playful as opposed to rational ideas that offered a positive alternative to the past. Works of Freud, dream analysis, desire and the subconscious were of primary importance to Surrealists.
Salvador Dali, Persistence of Memory, Oil Paint, 1931
Surrealist Photography
Surrealist photography takes what was once a believable scene and transforms it into something fantastical and dreamlike. Below are some of the most stunning surreal photographic examples.
Man Ray, Observatory Time: The Lovers, (Dada and Surreal
