The debates surrounding ‘pictorialism’ versus ‘straight photography’ and whether photography can be considered an art are continued in two further essays in Trachtenberg (1980). Edward Weston was founder-member of Group f/64, discussed in course notes. Not as famous as Ansel Adams for grand landscape work, he is known for his study of form and the... Continue Reading →
Transitions – What a difference a week makes
‘Expect the unexpected’ is always good advice and has become particularly relevant to my Plan A location for ‘Transitions’. The location is in Chart Sutton, south of Maidstone, and (last week) was the edge of an orchard, with a footpath and some mature hedgerow trees. I plan to revisit approximately weekly, and yesterday it looked... Continue Reading →
Exercise 1.4: What is a photographer?
Marius De Zayas (1880–1961) was an essayist, intellectual and curator of modern art and was closely allied to the 291 gallery. His essay ‘Photography and Photography and Artistic-Photography’, first published in Camera Work no. 41 (1913), makes a distinction between the ‘artist photographer’ and ‘photographers’. Read the essay closely, summarising De Zayas’ key points. In... Continue Reading →
Exercise 1.5 – Visualising Assignment Six: Transitions
For this exercise you’ll begin working on Assignment Six: Transitions. Read ahead and familiarise yourself with the brief for this assignment now. Produce a series of images that responds to the idea of ‘transitions’ within the landscape. Work on this assignment throughout the course. Record the changes that a part of the landscape undergoes over... Continue Reading →
Exercise 1.3b – Establishing conventions (photographs)
Your research should provide you with some examples of the visual language and conventions that were known to the early photographers. Now try to find some examples of landscape photographs from any era that conform to these conventions. A Google search on ‘landscape photograph’ turns up 376,000,000 hits, which is unmanageable even if restricted to... Continue Reading →
Exercise 1.3a – Establishing conventions (paintings)
Using internet search engines and any other resources, find at least 12 examples of eighteenth- and nineteenth-century landscape paintings. List all of the commonalities you can find across your examples. Consider the same sorts of things as you did for the sketching exercise at the start of Part One. Where possible, try to find out... Continue Reading →
Landscape and Western Art
Malcolm Andrews’ Landscape and Western Art is the first book in the ‘General Reading’ section of the LPE course reading list. Its position is due to Andrews’ priority in the alphabetical list of authors but it is also an ideal introduction to the subject and to the ‘Beauty and the Sublime’ theme of Part One.... Continue Reading →
Victorian Pictorialism
The debate between realistic photography on one hand and ‘art’, ‘impressionistic’, ‘creative’ or (in the Victorian sense) ‘pictorial’ photography has been going on since the 1850s, almost as long as the medium has been in existence. A landmark date is 1892, with the separation of the Brotherhood of the Linked Ring from the Photographic Society... Continue Reading →
Exercise 1.2 – Photography in the museum or in the gallery?
Read Rosalind Krauss’s essay ‘Photography’s Discursive Spaces: Landscape/View’.Summarise Krauss’s key points in your learning log (in note form) and add any comments or reflections. The URL given by OCA as a source for Krauss’s article is not working. I located a copy at https://eportfolios.macaulay.cuny.edu/lklichfall13t/files/2013/09/Krauss.pdf, which quotes a JSTOR stable URL at http://www.jstor.org/stable/776691 The broad thrust... Continue Reading →
