Ch.6: The Great Divide

The technical innovations of the 19th century expanded the parameters of human vision, in both science and art.

• 1877 - phonograph invented.• 1879 - electric light bulb.• 1882 - the recoil operated machine gun.• 1883 - the first synthetic fiber (rayon).• 1893 - the Ford car.• 1885 - coated photographic paper invented.• 1895 - Freud publishes his studies on hysteria, x rays

discovered, the radio telegraph invented (Marconi), movie camera invented (Lumiere Bros.).

• 1903 - the magnetic recording of sound, the first voice radio transmission, Wright brothers made their first powered flight.

• 1905 - Albert Einstein formulated his theory of relativity - the photon theory of light. His formula of the law of mass energy wquivalence, E = Mc2, ushered in the nuclear age.

1870-1914: 2nd Industrial Revolution

• Vaious machinery was invented to help production, such as the combine and weaving loom.

• The halftone process made reproducing photographs for publication easier.

• The first halftone photographic reproductions appeared in daily newspapers in the 1890s. Images could be directly reproduced rather than through engravings.

Left: halftone dots. Right: How the human eye would see this arrangement from a sufficient distance.

William Warnecke, the Shooting of Mayor Gaynor, 1910

Portrait of Beatrice Tonnesen

Tonnesen, Mother and Children (“Cult of Motherhood” genre)

1878 - dry plate invented.

Celluloid was first developed for photographic film in 1889. Now, the emulsion is placed on an actual piece of film.

1883: Hurter and Driffield begin studies in sensitometry - how photographic materials respond to light and chemical processing.

• The stated it was “intolerable to practice an art whose principles were so little understood. The production of a perfect picture by means of photography is an art; the production of a technically perfect negative is a science.”

• Their discoveries let photographers make exposures and process film based on scientific study instead of experience and luck.

George Eastman

The Kodak

Two jolly gentlemen, one with a Kodak in hand, 1889

William H. Martin, Taking Our Geese to Market, 1909.

William H. Martin, Great Sportfishing here, 1909.

William H. Martin, A Load of Extra Good Apples, 1900s.

Peter Henry Emerson, Pulling the Marsh-Hay, 1886 - theory of Naturalistic Photography: a photograph should echo what the

human eye sees in nature.

Emerson, Marshman, 1880s.

Emerson, Toad in the Path, 1880s.

Emerson, 1880s.

Promoting Photography to the status of an art object was the goal of a movement known as Pictorialism (mid 1880s - 1920s).

• Based on the belief that camera images could engage the feelings and senses.• Grew out of the concept of Naturalism - and many photographers based their

work on Emerson’s techniques: soft focus, subdued tones, rural subjects.

Sergei Lobovikov, The Widow’s Pillow, c. 1900

The photographers who were advocates of Pictorialism felt that photographs should be concerned with beauty rather than fact.

Robert Demachy, Étude

Demachy, Struggle, 1904

Edward Steichen, gum print, 1904

Demachy, gum print

John Dudley Johnson, Liverpool, gum print, 1900s.

Émile Joachim Constant Puyo, Summer, pigment print, 1903

Frederick Evans, Durham Cathedral, a member of the Linked Ring, Evans favored ‘straight’ printing and chose to evoke feeling through

the use of light rahter than manipulation of materials.

Evans, Sea of Steps, 1903

Evans, Klemscott Manor

Steichen, Pond, 1898

George Davison, Onion Field, photogravure print, 1890

F. Holland Day, Youth in Forest, platinum print, 1907.

Day, St. Sebastian, 1907

Day, Crucifiction with Roman Soldiers, 1896

Day, Crucifiction Study #3

Day, Seven Last Words, 1898

F. Holland Day was influenced by the Decadent movement (also known as dandyism). To be a dandy was to be fashionably dressed, highly

intellectual and withdrawn from conventional society.

Followers of the Decadent movement claimed that life should be viewed from anaesthetic perspective (ie: beauty), and that art does not have to serve any moral,political or utilitarian purpose.

Day, Chief, 1896.

Anne Brigman

Anne Brigman, Incantation, gelatin silver print, 1905

Brigman, Soul of the Blasted Pine, platinum print, 1908

Gertrude Kasebier, Portrait of Rose O’Neill, 1907

Kasebier, Portrait of Chester Beach, sculptor, 1907

Kasebier, Portrait of Alfred Stieglitz

Kasebier, Mrs. Ward and Baby, 1903

Kasebier, the Manger, 1899

Kasebier, the Picture Book, 1903

Kasebier, Blessed Art Thou Among Women, platinum print, 1899

Kasebier, Miss N. (Evelyn Nesbitt), platinum print, 1902

Photo Secession, formed 1902.

• To advance photography as applied to pictorial expression.• To draw together those Americans practicing or otherwise interested in art.• To hold from time to time, at varying places, exhibitions not necessarily limited to the

productions of the Photo-secession or to American work.

Demachy, gum print, from Camera Work

Steichen, Rodin in studio, gum print, 1906, from Camera Work

Clarence White, Morning, photogravure print,1908, from Camera Work

White, Ring Toss, gum print, 1899

John Singer Sargent, the Daughters of Edward Darley Bout, oil on canvas,1882

Edward Steichen, Flatiron,1904, gum bichromate over platinum print