art1100 lva 9 online
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Art 1100
Joan Jonas“They Come to Us without a Word”U.S. Pavilion, Venice Biennale, 2015
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The Camera
Daguerreotype: earliest photography.
Photography1). As art.
Key figure: Alfred Stiegletz2). As document.
Key figures: Walker Evans and Dorothea Lange
Motion Studies: leads to motion pictures.Key figure: Eadweard Muybridge
Early Film 1). Lumiere Brothers2). Melies “Journey to the Moon”.
Chapter Nine: The Camera
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Camera obscura (Latin for dark room) was first invented during the Renaissance as a drawing tool for perspective and proportion. The image would appear upside down, and was traced onto a sheet of paper. Later, artists invented a lens to focus the blurry image, which helped them refine the technique for creating chiaroscuro.
Invention of Photography
Each daguerreotype is a remarkably detailed, one-of-a-kind photographic image on a highly polished, silver-plated sheet of copper, exposed in a large box camera with a variety of chemicals.Required 10-20 minute exposure.
Daguerreotype:Invented by Louis-Jacques-Mandé Daguerre in 1839.
Louis-Jacques-Mandé Daguerre, ca. 1844Unknown ArtistDaguerreotype
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0op6lFPxqrQ
Louis-Jacques-Mandé Daguerre,Le Boulevard du Temple, 1839.
Invention of Photography
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Other early Camera PioneersWilliam Henry Fox Talbot (1800–1877),
While using the camera obscura to draw one day Talbot wrote..
“The inimitable beauty of the pictures of nature's painting which the glass lens of the Camera throws upon the paper in its focus—fairy pictures, creations of a moment, and destined as rapidly to fade away." These thoughts in turn prompted Talbot to muse "how charming it would be if it were possible to cause these natural images to imprint themselves durably, and remain fixed upon the paper."
In 1834 he invented a chemical process based on salt solutions that darkened in the sun that he called “photogenic drawing”.
The Pencil of Nature, 1844–46William Henry Fox Talbot (British, 1800–1877)Printed book in six parts with 24 salted paper prints from paper negatives
Invention of Photography
A Scene in a Library, 1843–44William Henry Fox Talbot (British, 1800–1877)Salted paper print from paper negative
Invention of Photography
“It may suffice, then, to say, that the plates of this work have been obtained by the mere action of Light upon sensitive paper. [...] without the aid of any one acquainted with the art of drawing.
They are impressed by Nature's hand; and what they want as yet of delicacy and finish of execution arises chiefly from our want of sufficient knowledge of her laws.”
The Pencil of NatureWilliam Henry Fox Talbot
London, 1844
Invention of Photography
Articles of Glass, 1843William Henry Fox Talbot (British, 1800–1877)Salted paper print from paper negative
Invention of Photography
Woman and Dog on Beach, Far Rockaway, New York], ca. 1920Unknown Artist, American SchoolGelatin silver print
1888: George Eastman created the “Kodak” camera.
Sold with preloaded film for100 “snapshots.” When finished camera was returned to Eastman for processing.
Slogan: “You press the button,
we do the rest,”
Invention of Photography
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[Boston from a Hot-Air Balloon], October 13, 1860James Wallace Black (American, 1825–1896)
From the beginning, photography meant new ways of seeing the world. It also had a dual character as...
1). A medium of artistic expression
2). A powerful documentary and scientific tool
Invention of Photography
Photography as Art
Henry Peach Robinson, Fading Away, 1858.
Photography as Art
Initially photography wasn’t considered to be art.Early fine art photographers called the “Pictorialists”.
• Set up their subject matter.• Posed the hired actors.• Combined separate negatives to create their images.• Emulated serious painting compositions.
Henry Peach Robinson, Autumn, date unknown
Photography as Art
Dawn and Sunset, Henry Peach Robinson (English, 1830–1901)
Photography as Art
Alfred Stieglitz (1864-1946): American photographer who preferred a “straight” style of photography.
Defended photography as an artistic medium. This composition
(considered to be the first “art photo”) was not created, but rather discovered and captured by the artist.
Photography as Art
Stieglitz, The Steerage, 1907.
Alfred Stieglitz, The Steerage, 1907.
Equivalent, 1926Alfred Stieglitz (American, 1864–1946)
By photographing clouds, Stieglitz shows "to hold a moment, how to record something so completely, that all who see [the picture of it] will relive an equivalent of what has been expressed."
Photography as Art
From the Back
Window, 291, 1915
Alfred Stieglitz
(American, 1864–
1946)
Platinum print
Photography as Art
Criss-Crossed Conveyors, River Rouge Plant, Ford Motor Company, 1927Charles Sheeler (American, 1883–1965)
Photography as Art
Paul Strand Wire Wheel, New York, 1920Printed in 1976-77Palladium print
Photography as Art
Modernist photographers used cropping in photography to create “abstract” images.
Abstraction, Twin Lakes, Connecticut, 1916Paul Strand (American, 1890–1976)Silver-platinum print
Photography as Art
From the El, 1915
Paul Strand (American, 1890–1976)
Platinum print
Photography as Art
Photography as Art
Paul Strand’s Manhatta
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qduvk4zu_hs
Composition, 1929Maurice Tabard (French, 1897–1984)
Surrealism and Photography
Surrealists used techniques such as double exposure, combination printing, montage, and solarization to show the union of dream and reality.
Man Ray, Champs delicieux, second rayogram, 1922.
RayogramMade by placing objects directly on the negative and exposing it to light.
Surrealism and Photography
Rayograph, Man Ray (American, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 1890–1976 Paris), 1922Gelatin silver print
Surrealism and Photography
The Doll, 1934–35Hans Bellmer (French, born Silesia, 1902–1975)Gelatin silver print
Surrealism and Photography
Contemporary examples might include....
People who xerox their faces...
Bunuel and Dali, An Andalusian Dog, 1928.
Film
Artists and Film
Photography as Document
[Orange and Alexandria Railroad Bridge, near Union Mills, Virginia], ca. 1863Attributed to Andrew Joseph Russell (American, 1830–1902)Albumen silver print from glass negative
Photography as Document
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The other strand of photography was as a kind of document. Photography was used to record historical events, scientific experiments, working conditions, vanishing cultures and to provide political propaganda. Photography’s reputation as the “pencil of Nature” led to its’ being seen as a “truthful witness” of events that happened in front of the lens. The camera was an “index” of real events.
This leads to documentary film, crime scene photos, archeology documentation etc. etc. etc. Politically this kind of accurate depiction of real life events was a shocking new reality for people to deal with.
Photography as Document
Field Where General Reynolds Fell, Battlefield of Gettysburg, 1863Timothy O'Sullivan (American, 1840–1882)Albumen silver print from glass negative
Photography as Document
Newsies at Skeeter Branch, St. Louis, Missouri, 11:00 am, May 9, 1910Lewis W. Hine (American, 1874–1940)Gelatin silver print
Photography as Document
Photography as Document
Walker Evans, Times Square / Broadway Composition, New
York, 1930
"Fleeing a dust storm". Farmer Arthur Coble and sons walking in the face of a dust storm, Cimmaron County, Oklahoma. Arthur Rothstein, photographer, April, 1936. (Library of Congress)
Photography as Document
Photography and Documentary
During the Depression years of 1935–36,Walker Evans and Dorothea Lange. Employed by the U.S. Department of the Interior to photograph the Depression. Migration, starvation, public works projects associated with the New Deal.
Evans’ photographs of roadside architecture, rural churches, small-town barbers and cemeteries secured his reputation as America's preeminent documentarian.
Lange's photographs were intended to bolster support for the establishment of migrant camps in the area by the Resettlement Administration. She felt that her "negatives are loaded with ammunition." and that the situation was "no longer a publicity campaign for migratory agricultural labor camps" but rather "a major migration of people and a rotten mess."
Dorothea Lange, Resettlement Administration photographer, in California, 1936 Feb.
Alabama Tenant Farmer, 1936Walker Evans (American, 1903–1975)Gelatin silver print
As a series, Evans' photographs seem to have elucidated the whole tragedy of the Great Depression; individually, they are intimate, transcendent, and enigmatic, as in this portrait of the farmers Allie Mae and Floyd Burroughs.
Alabama Tenant Farmer Wife, 1936Walker Evans (American, 1903–1975)Gelatin silver print
Lange, Dorothea, photographer. Migrant agricultural worker in Holtville 1937 Feb.
Lange, Dorothea, photographer. Eighteen-year-old mother from Oklahoma, now a
California migrant. 1937 Feb.
Photography and Documentary
Dorothea Lange, Migratory Cotton Picker, Arizona, 1949
Photography as Document
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The Cinema!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ByTuwzTndBs
Film
“MOVEMENT OF THE HAND, DRAWING A CIRCLE” ANIMAL LOCOMOTION PLATE 532, 1887COLLOTYPE
By the 1860s, Eadweard Muybridge, born in
Kingston-upon-Thames, England, had
reinvented himself as “Helios”, one of San
Francisco’s most important landscape
photographers.
In 1872 Muybridge’s photographic skills•Prove whether a galloping horse lifts all four hooves off the ground at one point to settle a $25,000 bet by the wealthy businessman Leland Stanford.•Took place at his Sacramento racetrack.•Set up a series of 12 cameras that fire in succession.
Film
Eadweard Muybridge, Horse Galloping, 1878.
Film
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Eadweard Muybridge, Horse Galloping, 1878.
Each frame is another foot in the horses journey. This image settled the bet. YES! In fact the horse did raise all four feet when it galloped. It’s not hard to see from this image how the sequential photographing of objects in motion leads to the idea of film.
All that was needed were new cameras and a projection system.
He later combined successive images in a spinning wheel (similar to flip-books), called a zoopraxiscope. This led the search for continuous motion photography, or film.
Film
Auguste and Louis Lumiere, two brothers from Lyons, France, widely recognized as the world's first film makers. (1896-1900)
• Made more than 2,000 silent black-and-white short films.
• The first popular films to show in “cinemas”.
• Each lasts less than a minute.
• The films were “hand cranked” in front of the projector.
• Recorded the domestic and social life of their time.
Watch some Lumiere Brothers Films here(In the film examples tab)
McCay, Gertie the Trained Dinosaur, 1914.
Film
Animation: The creation of movement by making sequential images.
Requires 12-24 drawings per second of running time.
(In the film examples tab)
George Melies, Trip to the
Moon, 1902.
Film
The French filmmaker Georges Méliès (1861–1938) created this imaginary tale of a Trip to the Moon one year before the Wright brothers’ first flight. He used painted scenery and stop-motion photography to create special effects with real objects and people.
Show A Trip to the Moon here...(In the film examples tab)