13.4 Modernist Photography
“The scene fascinated me: a round straw hat, the funnel leaning left, the stairway leaning right; the white drawbridge, its railings made of chain; white suspenders crossed on the back of a man below; circular iron machinery; a mast that cut into the sky, completing a triangle. I stood spellbound. I saw shapes related to one another—a picture of shapes, and underlying it, a new vision that held me: simple people; the feeling of ship, ocean, sky. … Rembrandt came into my mind, and I wondered if he would have felt as I did.
—Alfred Stieglitz, quoted in Norman, 1976, p. 9.
Here is Stieglitz’s famous Composition, often cited as the most influential photograph of the Modern era. What do you think?
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| The Steerage. (1907). |
Stieglitz
In a number of roles, Alfred Stieglitz led photography into maturity as an art form. As a member of the international Linked Ring and New York Camera Club, the increasingly esteemed Stieglitz shared technological innovations and styles with photographers serious about developing the form. As editor and contributor of articles and photographs to American Amateur Photographer and Camera Notes, he committed himself to “my fight—or rather my conscious struggle for the recognition of photography as a new medium of expression, to be respected in its own right, on the same basis as any other art form” (Norman, p. 6).
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| Reflections: Night, New York (1897). | The City of Ambition (1910). | Evening, New York. (1931) |
Photographs can be taken for a wide variety of reasons. Stieglitz always sought within moments of vision elements of light, shadow, Line and Form that could be composed for Aesthetic impact. Although color film was being developed, artistic photography embraced the limitation of a black and white palette to produce dramatic contrasts of light and shadow. Roaming New York, Stieglitz found in the sinuous streets and the mass and contours of buildings the building blocks of Geometrical Form.
In 1902, Stieglitz formed Photo-Secession, an organization of artistically minded photographers who wished to pull back from conventional practice. This led to a gallery at 291 Fifth Avenue which displayed not only ambitious photography, but Modern paintings as well. He helped to organize showings of major European artists, helping them find exposure and patronage in the U.S.
Stieglitz’s commitment to the Modern in art can be seen in his choices of subject matter. The modern orientation was inspired by the Geometrical Form that could be seen in technology, industry and contemporary architecture. Contributors to the Photo-Secession movement followed Cezanne in seeking Geometrical Forms that comprised visions, and the clean lines and shapes of technology laid them bare.
Strand
Paul Strand, an avid photographer, dropped into Stieglitz’s 291 gallery as a teenager. Stieglitz recognized his talent and featured his work in the gallery and his publications. Can you see in these examples of his work the eliciting of Geometric Form out of everyday visions? A street scene. An array of kitchen bowls. Shadows on a porch.
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| Wall Street. (1915). | Abstraction, Bowls. (1915). | Abstraction, Porch Shadows. (1917). |
Of course, one of photography’s great powers is realized in Portraits. Like most great photographers, Strand had a knack for capturing the essence of a person in a slit second exposure of film. The portability of the camera enables the photographer to bring the illumination of portraiture to humble, undistinguished people. At its core, photography is a profoundly democratic medium.
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| Blind Woman. (1916). | Men of Santa Ana. (1933). |
Bourke-White
Margaret Bourke-White found a different route to prominence. She opened a studio for photographing, not people, but commercial enterprises. Including architecture and industry. Despite its commercial patronage, Bourke-White’s industrial photography exalted Modern Form over commonplace documentation. Her images of power blades and radio speakers testify more to design than to product virtues.
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| Open hearth mill, Ford Motor Co., Detroit. (1925) | Power blades at the Oliver Chilled Plow Co. (1929). | Untitled (RCA Speakers). (1935). |
In 1936, the new Life magazine sent Bourke-White to shoot the Fort Peck Dam in Montana. How do you read the Form in these compositions?
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| Construction of Fort Peck Dam. (1936). | Fort Peck Dam, Montana. (1936). | Steps, Washington DC. (1934). |
Ansel Adams
Having grown up in San Francisco, Ansel Adams found the journey to Yosemite National Park a short one. He developed his photographic skills in the National Parks of the West. What principles of composition can you see in these dramatic landscapes? Do you see suggestions of the Sublime?
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| Tetons and the Snake River, Grand Teton National Park, Wyoming. (1942). | Yosemite Valley, Thunderstorm. (1949). | Monolith, the Face of Half Dome. (1927). |
Adams’ contribution to photographic technique was substantial. Advocating for a “pure” photography that uses no manipulation of the image, he helped develop the so-called Zone System for managing shades of light and shadow. Working extensively in large scale landscapes, he used “deep focus” lens settings to accentuate the zones that comprise Depth of Field: foreground, middle distance, deep distance. Compare your experience of these zones in the following compositions.
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| Mount Williamson, Sierra Nevada. (1944). | Half Dome from Glacier Point. (1947). | Monument Valley, Navajo Tribal Park. |
Adams would often trek all day through the wilds of a National Park carrying a one-shot camera. The discipline required to select and “get” that one shot for the day demands patience and a great eye. And that really is the essence of the art of photography. To be able to see the great shot and then to have the skill to bring the camera’s technologies to bear in capturing it. Many of us like to point our smart phone cameras at the images that crowd our lives. Few of us can forge art out of a fleeting moment.
Vital Questions
Context
The interesting thing about the context for Modern photography is the confluence of Avant-Garde artistic vision and industrial enterprise. For the Modern artist in the first decades of the 20th Century, technology was opening a door to a new and exciting world, encouraging a break with the past and seeming to demand a “new” approach to art.
Content
This fusion of Aesthetic and industrial agendas led to a split focus: on the one hand, the visual subject and on the other hand the component Forms that could be isolated and spotlit in the lens. As a Matisse or a Braque force our eyes to linger on Form, Texture, and Medium, so artists like Strand, Bourke-White, and Adams foreground the formal impact of the composition.
Form
The Modern photographer embraced a compressed range of formal options. Black and white Values that intensified the contrast between light and shadow. Close-ups and Composition that isolated Geometric Form. This was an art form that made a virtue out of limited formal materials.
References
Norman, Dorothy. (1976). Alfred Stieglitz. New York: Aperture.
Adams, A. (1947). Half Dome from Glacier Point [Photograph]. The Ansel Adams Gallery https://www.anseladams.com/half-dome-glacier-point/
Adams, A. (April 10, 1927). Monolith, the Face of Half Dome [Photograph]. The Ansel Adams Gallery https://www.anseladams.com/mfhd-about/
Adams, A. (1942). Tetons and the Snake River, Grand Teton National Park, Wyoming [Photograph]. The Ansel Adams Gallery. Jstor https://www.jstor.org/stable/community.13883413
Adams, A. (1949). Yosemite Valley, Thunderstorm [Photograph]. Tempe, AZ: University of Arizona Center for Creative Photography. AN 84.91.240. Jstor https://www.jstor.org/stable/community.17420853
Bourke-White, M. (1936). Construction of Fort Peck Dam [Photograph]. Rochester, NY: Eastman House. Jstor https://www.jstor.org/stable/community.14620429
Bourke-White, M. (1936). Fort Peck Dam, Montana [Photograph]. Jstor https://www.jstor.org/stable/community.13725957
Bourke-White, M. (1925). Open hearth mill, Ford Motor Co., Detroit [Photograph]. Jstor https://www.jstor.org/stable/community.13731709
Bourke-White, M. (1929). Power blades at the Oliver Chilled Plow Co [Photograph]. Jstor https://www.jstor.org/stable/community.13702126
Bourke-White, M. (1934). Steps, Washington DC. [Photograph]. The Phillips Collection. AN 1996.002.0001. Jstor https://www.jstor.org/stable/community.14393332
Bourke-White, M. (1935). Untitled (RCA Speakers) [Photograph]. San Francisco CA: San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. AN 91.374. Jstor https://www.jstor.org/stable/community.14178294
Stieglitz, A. (1910). The City of Ambition [Photograph]. San Francisco CA: San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. AN 52. Jstor https://www.jstor.org/stable/community.14724383
Stieglitz, A. (1931). Evening, New York from the Shelton [Photograph]. Jstor https://www.jstor.org/stable/community.13737838
Stieglitz, A. (1897). Reflections: Night, New York [Photograph]. Cambridge, MA: Harvard Art Museums. AN 2010.538.5. https://www.jstor.org/stable/community.10381527
Stieglitz, A. (1907). The Steerage [Photograph]. Minneapolis, MN: Minneapolis Institute of Art. AN MIA_.69.133.35.9 Jstor https://www.jstor.org/stable/community.15637453
Strand, P. (1915). Abstraction, Bowls [Photograph]. Jstor https://www.jstor.org/stable/community.13724066
Strand, P. (1917). Abstraction—Porch Shadows [Photograph]. https://www.jstor.org/stable/community.13558176
Strand, P. (1916). Blind Woman [Photograph]. Jstor https://www.jstor.org/stable/community.13755264
Strand, P. (1933). Men of Santa Ana [Photograph]. Jstor https://www.jstor.org/stable/community.13753618
Strand, P. (1915). Wall Street [Photograph]. Jstor https://www.jstor.org/stable/community.13554554
in visual art, the arrangement of visual elements for expressive and aesthetic impact: unity, proximity, similarity, variety and harmony, emphasis, rhythm, balance, etc
in visual art, a 2-dimensional path through space including length but not width or depth. Line may be straight or curved, directly drawn or implied, e.g. lines of sight, suggested lines of movement, etc.
the elements, patterns, techniques, styles and structures that comprise the composition without regard to subjects, meanings, or values
the dimension of an artistic experience that appeals to or challenges an au-dience’s sense of taste and experience of beauty, ugliness, the sublime, etc. A response distinct from “interested” concerns such as ideology, sexuality, social conflict or economics
a style in the arts associated with the early 20th Century that emphasized formal design and the surface of the medium over any represented or narrated subject
in visual art, a form suggesting human artifice in precise, smooth lines, shapes, and forms such as triangles, rectangles, pyramids or cylinders
in visual art, a composition that represents a human subject as an individual, meticulously capturing physical or psychological likenesses
an aesthetic effect in art in which the viewer or reader experiences awe, even fear in a representation that (safely!) carries the imagination into danger, terror, darkness, solitude, or infinity
in photography, the technique of adjusting the lenses to achieve clear focus on the foreground, the middle distance, the deep distance, or all distances at once (Infinity)
a general term referring to innovative, experimental artistic movements that challenge the conventions of the day
in visual art, the illusion of surface feel either of A) the represented object (e.g. textures of clothing) or B) of the artifact’s media (e.g. canvas weave, brushstrokes, daubs of paint)
the methods and materials from which the work is forged, e.g. oil paint, mosaic, metric verse, prose narrative