Portrait of Stieglitz

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Tool of the Trade:
single lens reflex camera

There are many schools of painting. Why should there not be many schools of photographic art? There is hardly a right and a wrong in these matters, but there is truth, and that should form the basis of all works of art.

Alfred Stieglitz, American Amateur Photographer, 1893

 

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Camera Work
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Whether a watercolor is inferior to an oil [painting], or whether a drawing, an etching, or a photograph is not as important as either, is inconsequent. To have to despise something in order to respect something else is a sign of impotence.

– Paul Strand, Camera Work, 1917

Photography hasn’t always been considered an art. In early days, photographs were considered an advance of science, not art. Cameras were machines, and everyone knew that machines didn’t make art; people made art. But when Alfred Stieglitz made this picture he was leading a movement called Pictorialism, which promoted the photograph as art, the same kind of art as a drawing or painting. Stieglitz and other Pictorialists understood that a photograph was created when the camera was used as a tool, like a paintbrush was a tool. And they tried to show that they were a part of the art tradition by manipulating their photos in the darkroom, using tricks and techniques that were evidence of the human hand in the process.

Given that history, the title of this photo has two meanings. The steam engine was a human invention that had huge impact – not all of it good – on the landscape and on people’s lives. And this photograph was made by the hand of man, no mistake about it. The soft-focus effects and the romantic atmosphere were the results of handwork on the print after the film came out of the camera.

There are other references to the world of art in this photograph. Stieglitz was very involved in the modern art scene and had closely followed the Impressionist movement in Europe. Impressionists were some of the first artists to look to the city as a worthy subject for their paintings, and it was a new city they looked at. Machines and all things modern in the city were desirable subjects. At the same time, Impressionists represented these modern scenes in stop-motion glimpses, with plenty of atmosphere. European painters chose the steam engine as a subject and a symbol of the modern city. Stieglitz would embrace the city as his subject too, but he would use photography as his medium.

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Stieglitz stood for three hours in a driving blizzard to get this picture…
  

Alfred Stieglitz was always interested in photography as an art form. He was also interested in the technical boundaries of photography. This picture is one of his early experiments in stopping motion, in this case the motion of a horse-drawn carriage and the wind-whipped snow. Stieglitz stood for three hours in a driving blizzard to get this picture, waiting for something picturesque to come moving through the storm.

The snow was a critical aspect, for this picture was also a Stieglitz experiment in atmosphere. Rather than use a special soft-focus lens (called a “Lens of Atmosphere” in advertisements), Stieglitz wanted to take straight, hand-held “detective camera” photos of real, observed moments. He needed naturally-occuring atmosphere to create a mood, situating his pictures squarely in the realm of the art world. Weather provided the atmosphere, the fuzzy, soft-focus effects that could double as brushstrokes. Weather could be means to his artistic ends and Stieglitz would turn to it again and again.

 
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What Makes This Photo Pictorial?
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Critic Robert Hughes on Stieglitz:

“ His career spanned two cultural worlds in America: in it all manner of strands, both nineteenth- and twentieth-century, twined together, producing a uniquely vigorous . . . temperament. He was courageous, obdurately persistent, impatient with fools, and sometimes an arrogant prig. He could change his opinions but was incapable of compromise. A twentieth-century American, but with the bark still on him.”

(American Visions, 1997)

“As Stieglitz tells it… he had returned from Europe in 1890 and found New York to be a culturally barren place, and wondered how he was ever going to live in this desolation. He was out tromping around New York photographing, and came upon the streetcar driver patiently watering his horses at the end of the line. When he saw the streetcar driver nourishing his horses so they could continue their journey, Stieglitz decided that he should assume the same role and nourish the arts in this country.” (Sarah Greenough, In Focus: Alfred Stieglitz, 1995)

When Stieglitz took this picture in 1892 he was interested in pictorial photography, a style of picture-making that was meant to put photography on the same level as other art forms, such as painting and sculpture. For Pictorialist photographers, the everyday scenes in front of their cameras were not by themselves subjects for great art; the photographers needed to shape the picture to express their own artistry. Photographers used many devices to shape a photograph, and there were a few elements that applied to most turn-of-the-century pictorial photographs, including this one. Click on the diagram bar above to find out what makes this photo Pictorial.

 
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Photographers… ridiculed their colleagues who produced out of focus pictures by calling their style the "Fuzzy Wuzzy School."

Photographer Alfred Stieglitz subscribed to a theory that the principal subject of a photo should be in sharp focus while secondary elements should be left out of focus. The theory was called “naturalism” because it was thought that these types of photographs most closely resembled the way the human eye naturally sees things, focusing on one area while surrounding details fall away. In Spring Showers, New York, Stieglitz let the weather keep the photo’s background slightly out of focus, then added to the effect when he printed the negative by keeping the area in low contrast and evenly toned.

Controlled soft-focus effects like those in this picture are not to be confused with out of focus photographs. If this picture were out of focus the tree in the foreground would lack its sharp definition. It is just that definition, balanced with the soft gray in the background, that gives this photo its delicate feeling. Photographers at the turn of the century ridiculed their colleagues who produced out of focus pictures by calling their style the “Fuzzy Wuzzy School.”

The sanitation worker in the left side of the picture is not the subject; he provides “visual weight.” Without him, the off-center and slightly tilting tree combined with the curb’s diagonal line to the right would throw the picture out of balance.

 
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Modern Geometry
 

The racetrack was a place to see and be seen by the upper middle class when Alfred Stieglitz took this picture in 1904. The real subject of this photo, however, is the formal relationships of the curving track, the horizon line, and ceiling and pillars in front of them. Stieglitz, a fan of all things modern and tuned into modern art movements in Europe, used architectural elements to carve up space in this picture – a very modern idea indeed. The big, abstract shapes that result fit together like pieces of a puzzle. Modern painting at the turn of the century had begun to record the painter's physical, intellectual and emotional experience of things. As far as Stieglitz was concerned if painting was no longer limited to subjects like nature, religion, love and war, then photography would not be limited either. Now a painting, a photograph, and all art forms, could capture the vital essence of the modern world by reflecting the personal vision of the artist. The atmosphere of his earlier pictorial work is still here, but in this picture there's also a hint of modern things to come for Stieglitz.

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Abbott and Stieglitz

Japanese Prints
 

Alfred Stieglitz said the Flat-iron building “appeared to be moving toward me like the bow of a monster steamer–a picture of a new America still in the making.” (American Visions, Robert Hughes, 1997) For New Yorkers the Fuller building, nicknamed the Flat-iron because of its shape, was a symbol of a new, modern America. People either loved it or hated it. Contrasted with the natural shape of the tree and bathed in snow and evening light, the building is an element of quiet beauty in a photograph of soft tones and simple shapes.

The building and the tree form silhouettes, like cut-outs overlapping one on top of the other. This flattening of space comes from the influence of Japanese wood-block prints that were all the rage with modern artists of the time. Other clues that point to the influence of Japanese prints are the crescent of snow in the crook of the tree (the same tone as the building), and the tiny figure on the park bench. Humans were often dwarfed by mountains and rocks in Japanese prints; in New York, buildings do the job of making people seem tiny.

Stieglitz argued that photographers dealt with the same concerns that modern painters considered. Translating the influence of Japanese prints from painting and printmaking to photography was both a modern and an artistic thing to do.

 

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"I saw shapes related to one another–a picture of shapes, and underlying it, a new vision that held me…"

The 291 Gallery

Stieglitz opened a small gallery at 291 Fifth Avenue in 1905, just “291” for short, and for a few years he showed the work of photographers published in his magazine, Camera Work. But following an exhibit of drawings by the French sculptor Auguste Rodin in 1908, 291 became a showcase for the masters of European modernism, including Henri Matisse and Pablo Picasso. Stieglitz also promoted the work of American artists at 291, including that of an unknown young woman, Georgia O’Keeffe.

The Steerage marked a turning point for Alfred Stieglitz. In it, he abandoned the idea that photographs should bear some likeness to paintings, and embarked on a new path to explore photos as photos in their own right. The man who had led the charge for photographs to take a place beside painting in the world of art now took “straight” photographs that looked like camera work, not brushwork. In 1923, Stieglitz wrote, “My photographs look like photographs and they therefore can’t be considered art.” (Camera Work, A Pictorial Guide, 1978) He never even attempted to cover up the changes in his thinking.

The atmospheric effects and limited tonal range of pictorial photographs were replaced by sharp focus everywhere and a full range of blacks and whites in The Steerage. Also new in this photo was Stieglitz’s apparent belief that form and composition were the essential elements in a photograph. He described the moment he saw the picture, on a boat headed for Europe: “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 the triangle. I stood spellbound for a while. 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 . . .” (Weston Naef, ed., In Focus: Alfred Stieglitz, 1995)

As well as being a fundamental shift in Stieglitz’s thinking about pictorial photography, this picture serves as a comment on economic divisions of society. The white gangplank that divides the picture into two parts, upper and lower, also serves as a symbolic divide for the people in the picture. Below the line is the steerage, one big “hold” reserved for people who couldn’t afford staterooms. Above the line is an observation deck for everyone aboard the ship. The photographer’s graphic vision of shapes and balance and the social conditions of the day are united in one remarkable picture. Ironically, Stieglitz would not recognize the social aspect of this photograph until many years after he had taken it. For Stieglitz, the main considerations were visual.

 

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Pictorialism and Modern Art
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The “Deal” in the title of this picture refers to Deal, New Jersey, where Alfred Stieglitz took the picture. No longer concerned with photographs that looked like paintings, Stieglitz now emphasized modern art and photographs that looked like the work of a camera rather than a paintbrush.

Creative photographs, according to Stieglitz, should be photographic. Everyday subjects came into sharp focus in Stieglitz’s lens, preventing viewers from escaping into romantic images of life. No more soft, misty effects, contrast was now useful. A full tonal range of blacks and whites is evident in this print, unmistakably made by a camera.

Stieglitz still thought of the photograph as an avenue of expression, an idea he had fully developed with the Pictorialists. Now, however, he added concerns of modern art like line, shape and balance. This photography was really about photography.

 

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For more about Alfred Stieglitz:

Weston Naef, (ed.), In Focus: Alfred Stieglitz,
The J. Paul Getty Museum, 1995
 

Lots of photos and background on Stieglitz as a photographer.


Dorothy Norman, Alfred Stieglitz An American Seer,
Millerton, NY: Aperture, 1973
 

A biography of Stieglitz with big reproductions of selected photographs.


For more on Alfred Stieglitz and Camera Work:

Marianne Fulton Margolis, (ed.), Camera Work, A Pictorial Guide,
New York: Dover Publications, 1978
 

Photographs that appeared in all 50 issues of Camera Work plus an introductory essay.


John Green, (ed.), Camera Work: A Critical Anthology,
Millerton, NY: Aperture, 1973
 

Selected photos and articles that originally appeared in Camera Work, an introductory essay and indexes of all articles and photographs that appeared in all 50 issues.


ArtsConnectEd
http://www.artsconnected.org/
 

ArtsConnectEd is a collaboration between The Minneapolis Institute of Arts and the Walker Art Center which provides online access to the rich collections and reference, archive, media, and curriculum resources of both institutions.

Search ArtsConnectEd for related books and materials in the libraries of The Minneapolis Institute of Arts and the Walker Art Center

Search ArtsConnectEd for more Alfred Stieglitz photographs in the collections of The Minneapolis Institute of Arts and the Walker Art Center


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For more about Berenice Abbott:

Berenice Abbott, Berenice Abbott Photographs, New York: Horizon Press, 1970

An overview of the work of Berenice Abbott shown through photographs selected by Berenice Abbott, with an introduction by poet Muriel Rukeyser.

Hank O’Neal, Berenice Abbott American Photographer, New York: McGraw-Hill Book Company, 1982

The only biography of Abbott in print, it covers all of her work through the 1980s.

Bonnie Yochelson, Berenice Abbott: Changing New York, New York: The New Press, 1997

A new and improved edition, this book includes all of the photographs in Abbott’s ten-year photo documentary of New York. More than 300 pictures are divided into regions with detailed maps and captions from the original research. Includes a lively essay by Yochelson about Abbott’s New York work.

Berenice Abbott, New Guide to Better Photography, New York: Crown Publishers, Inc., 1953

The second updated edition of Abbott’s Guide to Better Photography, this how-to manual is illustrated with photographs by Abbott and others. Includes a revealing chapter on composition, Abbott-style.

Kay Weaver and Martha Wheelock, Berenice Abbott, A View of the 20th Century, Los Angeles: Ishtar Films, 1992 (Color, 59 minutes)

An entertaining documentary film about Berenice Abbott’s career, narrated by the artist.

Classic Essays on Photography, ed. Alan Trachtenberg, New Haven, Conn.: Leete’s Island Books, Inc., 1951

Abbott’s essay written for a photo magazine detailing her views on both photography as art and documentary photography.

Link to Museum of the City of New York
http://www.netresource.com:80/mcny/abbott.htm

All of the Abbott photos from her study of New York on-line, plus the essay by Bonnie Yochelson from the newly released book, Changing New York

     
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