Mortensen and pictorialism

Mortensen and pictorialism

I've been lucky enough to see a set of Mortensen's original prints, and I can only admire his skill and imagination.
 
Be it pictorialism or cross processing, things like that can be easily ridden to death if they are applied to every shot without thought, so that people get fed up seeing it. Both methods mentioned also have results that stand out clearly, whereas tack sharp pictures can be boring but easily forgotten.
Thanks for brinig up Mortensen, I'll look him up immediately.
Sad thing that greats like AA or Picasso also have some really dark stains in their personal history. Even Sadder that there are enough people who thinks one has to behave that was in order to be "great"
Bill I like your flower picture very much. It also serves to show my point in a thread show your p-st pictures there would be suddenly an abundance of pictrures by people who follow your example and suddenly we have "pictorialism as a nusiance"
The covered bridge would not be prictorialism for my eye.
 
The problem I have with Pictorialism isn’t so much with the methods or practise, but with the subjects they chose to use and the composition they employed.

Pictorialism always seems to lack confidence in some way, always a reflection of another art form rather than form in itself, in it's own right. Nice but why didn’t they do more with it at the time
 
Last edited:
Sparrow said:
The problem I have with Pictorialism isn’t so much with the methods or practise, but with the subjects they chose to use and the composition they employed.

Pictorialism always seems to lack confidence in some way, always a reflection of another art form rather than form in itself, in it's own right. Nice but why didn’t they do more with it at the time
Click to expand...

Sturgeon's Law? (Nine tenths of anything is crap?)

When I read your post, my immediate reaction was "Yes, he's right, why did I never think of that?"

On further reflection, though, I suspect that Sturgeon's Law has a large part to play and the the reason why f/64 vs. pictorialism was so poisonous and vituperative was because both were being superseded by 'miniature' cameras (including Rolleis as well as Leicas) so they were fighting a rearguard action. It's a bit like the Life of Brian: the Judaean People's Liberation Front and the People's Liberation Front of Judaea fighting each other more than the Romans.

Consider Erich Salomon and his Ermanox, before, I think, even 1920. Both f/64 and pictorialism were idealizations, in different ways, whereas Salomon (and of course HCB later) were not. Or if they were, they were a completely different idealization.

Cheers,

R.
 
Roger Hicks said:
Sturgeon's Law? (Nine tenths of anything is crap?)

When I read your post, my immediate reaction was "Yes, he's right, why did I never think of that?"

On further reflection, though, I suspect that Sturgeon's Law has a large part to play and the the reason why f/64 vs. pictorialism was so poisonous and vituperative was because both were being superseded by 'miniature' cameras (including Rolleis as well as Leicas) so they were fighting a rearguard action. It's a bit like the Life of Brian: the Judaean People's Liberation Front and the People's Liberation Front of Judaea fighting each other more than the Romans.

Consider Erich Salomon and his Ermanox, before, I think, even 1920. Both f/64 and pictorialism were idealizations, in different ways, whereas Salomon (and of course HCB later) were not. Or if they were, they were a completely different idealization.

Cheers,

R.
Click to expand...

Yes but consider that both the Pictorialists and Group f64 went nowhere, at a time when, as you say, cameras were finding there way into middle class hands, their style never developed never changed or formed the bases for anything else

There wasn’t a graphic idiom for photography at the time so both the Pictorialists and Group f64 aped “proper art” in one way or another. The former Impressionism with whom they were contemporary and the latter the English landscape school that had been influential in the first half of the 19th century and remained the popular concept of “artistic” even in the early 20th.

If one contrast that with the development of the “French Postcard” through the same period you have conclude the real talent of the time was working in pornography
 
Last edited:
3081710541_93756b8c73_o.jpg


3081710415_b90136263b_o.jpg


col-007.jpg

I get into trouble with people who say that the above falls under 'lomography'. I correct their impression (notion, thought, etc) that the above "style" is really pictorialist and predates that over-hyped fad. These people often have no sense of history and believe (and will insist) that everything which isn't sharp, or is fuzzy, or grainy, or have wierd colours was invented only at end of the 1990s when two Viennese students came out of St Petersburg with an LKA....
 
Last edited:
Sparrow said:
Yes but consider that both the Pictorialists and Group f64 went nowhere, at a time when, as you say, cameras were finding there way into middle class hands, their style never developed never changed or formed the bases for anything else

There wasn’t a graphic idiom for photography at the time so both the Pictorialists and Group f64 aped “proper art” in one way or another. The former Impressionism with whom they were contemporary and the latter the English landscape school that had been influential in the first half of the 19th century and remained the popular concept of “artistic” in the early 20th.

If one contrast that with the development of the “French Postcard” through the same period you have conclude the real talent of the time was working in pornography
Click to expand...

Dear Stewart,

I am sure you are right on all counts, though I shall have to conduct further research into feelthy French postcards (no doubt there is a Taschen book!).

Cheers,

Roger
 
Roger Hicks said:
Dear Stewart,

I am sure you are right on all counts, though I shall have to conduct further research into feelthy French postcards (no doubt there is a Taschen book!).

Cheers,

Roger
Click to expand...


I have seen one such book, not by Taschen though, but still feelthy by all means!
 
Roger Hicks said:
Dear Stewart,

I am sure you are right on all counts, though I shall have to conduct further research into feelthy French postcards (no doubt there is a Taschen book!).

Cheers,

Roger
Click to expand...

porn from the start of the 20th century was based on Victorian classicism, so was almost free of the erotic to our eyes.

3704208199_7ebe930bf1.jpg


by the 20's the photographers had learned how to portray erotic , and we had learned how to interpret it

3704211369_576a443b48.jpg


It's difficult to believe those photos are probably only about 20 years apart, sorry but somebody has to study this stuff you'll understand

P.S. it’s interesting that the second one has true Pictorialists tendencies
 
Last edited:
ZorkiKat said:
I have seen one such book, not by Taschen though, but still feelthy by all means!
Click to expand...

Ah...

I was going to reply anyway, to your previous post, saying that 'Lomography' has become a quick, easy, lazy ex post facto description of a style of photography that has always existed -- or if not always, at least for a very long time indeed.

But whether you call it Pictorialism or Lomography, I suspect that Sturgeon's Law is in this case an understatement: try 99%.

In general I much prefer conventional technical quality, but even when that is 'lacking' there can still be an extraordinary jolt of recognition, which I certainly got from the table/chair/mug/bread shot. That jolt is substantially independent of technical quality: a technically perfect image of the same subject might or might not deliver it.

To me, though, the trouble is that there is often an omitted middle. You (one) can make great pictures on outdated film with dust and scratches and rotten focus and everything else, THEREFORE all pictures made on outdated film with dust and scratches and rotten focus and everything else are great...

Cheers,

R.
 
Last edited:
...I remember when reading the LIFE photobooks that beside Baron de Meyer also Pictorialism was described in a derisive manner. Unusaul in the LIFE books as thgey were ususally very compassionate when writing about photographers.
I notoced that the wikipedia article on Mortensen is bearely a stub, Isn't somebody knowledgeable enough here to write one. Othetrwise AA would have "won"
Not everything containing nude skin should be subsumed as as "porn". That would be too easy...
 
Last edited:
I occasionally go for painterly effects, and this thread makes me think I should do it more often. This is a picture of some chickens shot through a thin sheet of ice that I was carrying around the yard with corn tongs:

3344092773_f6ca9d70dc.jpg


And this was shot through a plastic magnifying glass and manipulated in Lightroom. Both pics were with a digital P&S.

3344928002_d76a326639.jpg
 
Roger, I met Mortenson at a PPA show in Chicago in the early 1950s. His prints, although not to my taste, were striking.

I wonder if AA's hatred came more from his distaste for WM's subject matter (AA called him 'antichrist.') and WM's sexual preferences?
 
Some great shots here. Loved the chicken and the Polaroid with cigarette.

Rick: I'd not heard the 'antichrist' reference, but given AA's antipathy, I'm not entirely surprised.

I suppose we are all of our time, but some of us at least try to be aware of that.

It's also the case that while (in my view) AA was the better photographer, WM was a vastly better writer. No-one reads AA for pleasure: the best you can hope for is information. WM you can read for entertainment as well.

Cheers,

R.
 
Maybe Adams was in denial of his own latent tendencies.

The erotic in art has been problematic since the 4th century, a pity really, it blinds us to a lot of the ancient stuff.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom