In the history of photography, the term pictorialism refers to an international style and aesthetic movement that flourished in particular between 1885 and 1915. Involving some of the greatest photographers of the time, pictorialism was a style of fine art photography in which the camera artist manipulates a regular photo in order to create an ‘artistic’ image. Pictorialism was an approach to photography that emphasized the beauty of the subject matter, tonality and composition rather than the documentation of reality.
A pictorial photograph has a distinct look. It tends to lack a sharp focus therefore details in the photograph aren’t easily seen, as they’re quite hazy. They were also printed in colour rather than just black and white, colours ranging from a warm brown to deep blue. Pictorial photographs also had visible manipulation on the surface of the photograph, which would be created in the darkroom, after the photograph was taken and printed. Pictorialists were experimenting with things such as smearing Vaseline over their camera lenses, or scratching the negative in the dark room, or painting chemicals on their prints to simulate brush strokes, as a way of “projecting an emotional intent into the viewers realm of imagination.”
When photography was first invented in 1839, it was used predominantly as a form of documentation for scientific discoveries, as a record of people, and as a way to spread news, as well as other reason. It was used for social and cultural studies, simply providing the people with truth and authenticity, which they loved. But then people taking photographs became artists as they started to take photographs as a means to evoke emotions from the viewers, rather than informing them of news. Pictorialism was the first aesthetic movement to occur in the late 1800s and it created a lot of discussion.
The public had become accustomed to the fact that photography was an authentic source of information; it had entered their worlds almost like the newspaper, it was seen as a truthful medium to which they could get a hold of their information on things such as current events and new discoveries. So having it transform into something completely different, something that you as the viewer had to put meaning to rather than the other way around, had the public feeling a sense of betrayal, for they didn’t know that they could trust what they saw in the visual images that they were provided with that supplied them information.
Pictorialists were pivotal in establishing photography as a legitimate art medium and gaining acceptance as artists. There had always been criticism and doubt as to whether photography should be considered an art form or not because of the way it is produced. It wasn’t seen as a fine art form like painting or drawing because it wasn’t the artists’ hands that were creating the visual image it was a machine. The reason behind why other artists began to see photography as an art form was due to all of the experimenting the pictorialists were doing with manipulation such as, painting over the top of a photograph in the dark room leaving a brush stroke visible. It was the work of the pictorialists that put an end to the question of whether photography was indeed art as it was no longer a mechanical process; you needed to use your hands to create these photographs and some of the art work that was produced had such a likeness of paint or pastels that it practically looked like paintings or drawings from the manipulation that the artists’ performed and that’s what made it relatable to other art forms and therefore was then recognised as art. So although there was disappointment from the public that photography was no longer a means primarily for spreading news, it was also what made people, other artists in particular, see photography as not only a science but as art as well, and that is what makes this movement so important.
The Linked Ring photographic society, were a group of English photographers who formed this brotherhood in 1892, who promoted that photography was just as much an art as it was a science, and encouraged people to experiment with and incorporate chemical processes, printing techniques and new styles into their art work. Henry Peach Robinson was notable among the founding members. There were also several other groups from other countries that did work very similar to that of the Linked Ring. In order to spread their views on photography, they held annual exhibitions that they called ‘salons’, a term they adopted from the world of painting in an attempt to “demonstrate their artistic purpose”. The salons would showcase the members’ own work as long as they believed that the pieces furthered “the development of the highest form of art of which photography is capable”. They were also vocal about their respect for other well-known international photographers such as Edward Steichen, Alfred Stieglitz, Gertrude Kasebier and Clarence H. White. It was through the salon that they established that pictorial photography could stand alone.
Some of the key pictorial artists, whose pictorialist images are scattered throughout this document, are, Robert Demachy, Peter Henry Emerson, Gustave Marissiaux, Henry Peach Robinson, Alvin Langdom Coburn, Julia Margaret Cameron, Gustave Le Gray, Karl Struss, Frank Eugene, Clarence White, Paul Strand, Constant Puyo, and Alfred Stieglitz. These photographers were predominantly pictorialists for most if not all of their careers.
Henry Peach Robinson’s work in pictorialism is what lead him to be one of the most influential photographers of the second half of the 19th century, as well as the leader of the pictorialist movement. He started out as a painter, moving to photography to follow his real passion. He is known for his combination printing, where he would combine separate negatives to have a composite image. One of his most famous pieces of work is ‘Fading Away’; a picture skillfully printed from five different negatives, achieving painterly effects in the photograph, as well as many of his other works.
Alfred Stieglitz is somewhat comparable to Henry Peach Robinson, in that like Henry Peach Robinson founded the Linked Ring, in 1902 Stieglitz formed a group in America called the Photo-Secession that was designed to break away from stodgy and conventional ideas in photography whilst also promoting photography as an art form. Stieglitz’s photographic work is difficult to describe as a whole as he contributed many pieces of work from various different genres and movements. However, ‘Winter, Fifth Avenue’ is an early pictorialist image by Stieglitz, that seems to respond to the photographer’s own life and place, being more sentimental than artistically correct.
The era that came after the pictorialist movement was modernism, firstly introduced by the idea of straight photography. It was seen as a more pure form of photography than pictorialism, as photography transformed from pictorialism into a more simplified form of social documentation. It was by the late 1920s that the aesthetics of modernism had solidified its place in the photography world, and the term pictorialism came to describe a “tired convention.”
Although pictorialism as a movement consequently ended in the late 1920s, and it isn’t a common thing for photographers to primarily take pictorial photographs anymore, we can still see the effects of pictorialism in photography today, whether it is intended or not. With social media acting as such a huge part in everyone’s lives, there has become this need to be seen as ‘perfect’ online. Young people in particular are editing their photographs to look a certain way; the way that is currently being idolized by society and it creates an illusion of the person and their life, because it’s not real. It isn’t exactly comparable to pictorialism, but the idea of distorting an image to appear as something else, or accentuate a certain aspect of the image for the viewers to fixate on is the same. Another example is in films. It is not at all detrimental like photo editing on social media can be, but instead can assist in creating a better movie, by highlighting transitions, or accentuating a certain portion within the frame, etc. The work that pictorialists did supported the beginning of an entire industry.
Styles and movements are what inform and structure our understanding and engagement with photography as an aesthetic movement. Even though art movements aren’t prominent in today’s society, they were especially important in modern art, when each consecutive movement was considered as a new avant-garde. Personally, photography even in its rawest form, completely untouched can be considered art, but once it has been manipulated after the photograph has been taken, it takes on a whole new calibre.