Prior to the formation of Group f64 in 1934, artists such as Christopher Richard Wynne Nevinson and Percy wyndham were painting in the styles of vorticism and futurism.
Vorticism reflected the new machine age and was coloured also by the earlier cubism age, using brash colours and harsh lines to depict their meaning
Wyndham Lewis
Workshop 1914–15
Also, another product of cubism was Futurism, where the artists would meld the ideas of Vorticism and the machine age, with the onset of new ideas and technologies which gave their abstract art its unique modern appearance. The below painting could easily be an abstract paining of a modern car so in its portrayal it has become timeless. Futurism's point totally validated.
Dynamism of a Car.
Luigi Russolo 1913
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The straight photography movement and the Group f64
Alfred Stieglitz was an American photographer who lived through the end of the 19th century and into the 20th, dying at the age of 82 in 1946. As well as being a photographer he was also an exponent of modern art which culminated in the first exhibitions of modern art in America at the 291 gallery in New York. As well as featuring pioneering photographers of the time such as, Edward Steichen, Clarence H White and Alvin Coburn, amongst others, he also featured prominent artists such as Picasso, Matisse and the French sculptor Auguste Rodin. Up until now Pictorialism had dominated the art of photography and photographs were more akin to works of art with soft edges, lacking any sharp focus and some even had brush strokes where the image had been manipulated. Influenced by the 291 Gallery exhibition, Alfred Stieglitz and Paul Strand were to popularise a new form of photography called straight photography; the idea being, to produce clear sharp high contrast images of the real world. While painters were moving away from, painting to reproduce what they saw, and turning to new forms of expression such as cubism and surrealism, photographers were moving from artistic forms of photography into precise depictions of the real world, with sharp clear images. And so the straight photography movement came about which gave birth to the short lived Group f64 who went on to create their first exhibition in 1932.
Group f64
Ansel Adams Merced river Yosimite
So named after the smallest aperture setting of f64, to create a precise clear depiction of the image with a full depth of field, the group 's original seven members were;
Ansel Adams, Imogen Cunningham, Edward Weston, Willard Van Dyke, Henry Swift, John Paul Edwards and Sonya Noskowiak.
Other Photographers were invited to display their work at the group f64 exhibitions. The first invites were handed out to;
Preston Holder, Consuelo Kanaga, Alma Lavenson and Brett Weston
Edward Weston straight photography close up
Further info in Research Studies
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Photo Secessionists link to philosophy time line
Link to Pioneers of Photography in Research Methods
Further info in Research Studies
Early Printing Methods
Examples of painted Daguerreotype images
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Example of a calotype image
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Daguerreotype
Long before group f64 was even heard of, two photographers were developing their own methods of producing photographic prints in the early 19th century. These pioneers of print were the French man Louise Jacques Mande Daguerre and the Englishman William Henry Fox Talbot.
Louise Jacques Mande Daguerre 1787-1851
Daguerre perfected the method of producing an image directly onto a silver iodide coated copper plate around 1837. Each image created was a singular image that could not be copied. In some cases the image would be painted by applying a thin coating of gum arabic and then having powdered colour pigment applied.
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William Henry Fox Talbot 1800-1877
Calotype
Instead of copper plate, Fox used silver iodide coated paper to produce a translucent image. Once this image had been made, it could be used over and over again to produce copies.
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Wet Collodian Method
Fredrick Scott Archer 1813-1857
Moving forward to 1851, Archer produced the first detailed negatives on glass, after which many paper prints could be produced from the one negative. Talbot was so convinced the method was only a variation on his Calotype method and brought a lawsuit against Archer that was dismissed. By the end of the 1860's this method became popular practically superseding the Daguerre method.
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Mathew Brady 1822-1896
Brady and his team of around twenty photographers were responsible for thousands of photographs depicting the American civil war. Brady used the daguerreotype method in his early work and went on to use the wet collodian method in the field which required a portable dark room. So called as the plates were coated with a mixture of collodian and silver nitrate and were placed in the camera, still wet, for exposure.
Union artillery. American civil war
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Sally Mann
1951-
Mann was a controversial figure in the world of photography, most notable for publishing photographs of her three daughters, in the nude. Her book entitled, 'Immediate family' was met with praise and great acclaim but in some quarters was looked upon as bordering on child pornography. It seems an age old argument ,where art and beauty, conflict with taste and morality. In context, this book was published before the age of the internet and the modern problems of online pornography, but it could be said, even in the nineteen nineties, there was an awareness of child pornography and child grooming . Out of the 65 Photo's, depicted in the book, 13 were of her naked daughters. Her defence was that child pornography was not in the public's conscience at the time. From a photographic view point, she went on to use the above mentioned wet collodian method in the nineties to photograph landscapes, using antique cameras from the early 1890's.
Sally Mann's children at play
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Photo Secessionists link to philosophy time line
Link to Pioneers of Photography in Research Methods
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Context within the fields of creative endeavour
We all have the ability to create art and hopefully have the drive and imagination to do so. But, if one understands the formal elements that make up a work of art we can then understand that, that is the context that forms the basis for creativity. To understand the context that art is created in, can be a valuable tool to creative achievement.
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Formal qualities of artwork
Like a formal occasion that becomes the sum of its parts, a piece of art is also made up of formal elements, or qualities. A wedding for example has many formal parts. The invitations, the reception, the dress, the taxi's, the flowers, the church, etc are all elements of the special day, but not necessarily all of them are used. Art also has a number of elements that make up its formal qualities, and it has long since been established that there are seven of these in the form of..
Line
Pretty much as it sounds. A line drawn straight, curved or any number of ways by any drawing or painting implement.
Pretty much as it sounds. A line drawn straight, curved or any number of ways by any drawing or painting implement.
Shape
Any shape that can be formed by lines and is two dimensional
Form
Three dimensional shapes that have depth.
Tone, sometimes refereed to as Value
The overall dark and,or, light areas of colour
Texture
Texture can be real to the touch or a virtual texture that appears to be texture, through use of any of the elements of art to create the illusion.
Pattern
Any repeating visual pattern
Pattern
Any repeating visual pattern
Colour
Colour or hue is what the eye sees when light is reflected off a surface. When mixing paint, all colours can be made up from the three primary colours which are red, blue and yellow. Where photography is concerned, the medium for mixing colour is light. The three primary colours of light that you would find as an adobe standard colour gamut are red, green and blue, commonly referred to as RGB. Most modern monitors show a slightly smaller colour gamut known as sRGB
Colour or hue is what the eye sees when light is reflected off a surface. When mixing paint, all colours can be made up from the three primary colours which are red, blue and yellow. Where photography is concerned, the medium for mixing colour is light. The three primary colours of light that you would find as an adobe standard colour gamut are red, green and blue, commonly referred to as RGB. Most modern monitors show a slightly smaller colour gamut known as sRGB
A piece of art may not necessarily have all these parts, some may have them all.
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Tricycle, Ian Fletcher 2018.
Tricycle, William Eggleston 1969.
Dexter, Emma (2003). Cruel and Tender:
Tate Publishing
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Modernist Art
Surrealism is an example of modernist art which began around 1920.
The Modernist order can be very complex and at first, the works of art during the modernist movement, may not appear to be connected to the real world, but they are a result of the surroundings and a reflection of the view of the world at that time.
The first days of spring. 1929.
Salvador Dali
Unexpected Answer. 1933.
Rene Magritte
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Wabi Sabi
Based on Japanese ideals going back two centuries, the term wabi sabi deals with the acceptance of imperfection. Or put simply, perfection in imperfection.
The broken pot
The weeds in a stone pavement joint
Contextual Studies. The lecture's by P.Grace,
Contextual studies deals with historical social ideas, movements and tendencies in art and design, where art relates to design and vice versa.
One can relate contextual studies to ones own personnel preferences, the cultural significance of art and design, and the synthesising and driving together of different ideas. One can then form a critique, or critical analysis which can take into account ones own aesthetic judgement, deciding if the piece of art or design is personally likeable, and if so, why?
Art, design and photography relating to social events and causes.
An example of art attracting attention to the social subject of Human Rights by
American designer and illustrator Paula Scher.
Photographer Pierre-Emmanuel Michel bringing attention to Project Pearls, a charity helping out with the social issues relating to the poorest children in the Philipines.
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Modernism.
The modernist order is open to wide interpretation but is concerned with the change in art and design as it is being influenced by the social culture at any given moment in time.
Modernism in itself is the cultural response to modernity, though when did modernity begin? How far back does one go. The industrial revolution is an example of a big change in art, design, photography and even music which were all influenced by this particular event at the beginning of the 18th century.
A 'Robert's loom depicting the art work of its time 1835.
Photography during the industrial revolution.
By Robert Howlett, (1831-1858) who was commissioned to photograph the building of The Great Eastern (1857)
Study era to be 1860 to 1960.
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The Bauhaus
The Bahaus building in the German town, Dessau
Founded in 1925/1926 and designed by Walter Gropius, the Bauhaus was a school of art with various workshops dealing with art and design post WW1. The school ran from 1919 to 1933 in three cities beginning in Weimar and ending in Berlin. The Bauhaus in Dessau ran from 1925 to 1932. It was eventually close through pressure from the Nazi's.
The ultimate aim of all visual arts is the complete building! To embellish buildings was once the noblest function of the fine arts; they were the indispensable components of great architecture. Today the arts exist in isolation, from which they can be rescued only through the conscious, cooperative effort of all craftsmen. Architects, painters, and sculptors must recognize anew and learn to grasp the composite character of a building both as an entity and in its separate parts. Only then will their work be imbued with the architectonic spirit which it has lost as “salon art.” The old schools of art were unable to produce this unity; how could they, since art cannot be taught. They must be merged once more with the workshop. The mere drawing and painting world of the pattern designer and the applied artist must become a world that builds again. When young people who take a joy in artistic creation once more begin their life's work by learning a trade, then the unproductive “artist” will no longer be condemned to deficient artistry, for their skill will now be preserved for the crafts, in which they will be able to achieve excellence. Architects, sculptors, painters, we all must return to the crafts! For art is not a “profession.” There is no essential difference between the artist and the craftsman. The artist is an exalted craftsman. In rare moments of inspiration, transcending the consciousness of his will, the grace of heaven may cause his work to blossom into art. But proficiency in a craft is essential to every artist. Therein lies the prime source of creative imagination. Let us then create a new guild of craftsmen without the class distinctions that raise an arrogant barrier between craftsman and artist! Together let us desire, conceive, and create the new structure of the future, which will embrace architecture and sculpture and painting in one unity and which will one day rise toward heaven from the hands of a million workers like the crystal symbol of a new faith. Walter Gropius.
Walter Gropius, “Bauhaus Manifesto and Program” (1919)
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Wassily chair by Marcel Breuer 1925
This design follows the adage Form follows function, where an object is designed with its intended use at the forefront of its concept.
Artwork by Piet Mondrian between 1920 and 1940
Composition C, Piet Mondrian. 1935
Geometric forms making their way into architecture during the modernist movement:-
The Villa Savoye in Poissy. 1928
A modernist villa designed by Swiss Architect
LeCorbusier
Vkhutemas
Vkhutmas was the Russian equivalent of the German Bauhaus and was founded in 1920, Moscow.
The book cover Architecture at Vkhutemas
by El Lissitzky
Alexander Rodchenko
A Painter and graphic designer who turned to photography completely in 1927. The years following the Russian revolution.
Examples of his work:-
As a graphic designer
As a photographer
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Dadaism Movement Disorder and Dissonance
The opening of the first Dada exhibition. The figure hanging from the ceiling is that of a German officer with a pigs head.
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Dadaism was also portrayed in audio by Kurt Schwitters, in the piece entitled
Ursonate, which was an early example of sound poetry'
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Vladimir Mayakovsky
The author of 'The Bathhouse' written in 1929. A 6 act drama satirising the growth of bureaucracy and its control over social goals and individual lives.
Dada Artist Hanna Hoch. 1889-1978
Cut with a kitchen knife, H.Hoch (1919)
One of Hoch's political collage, photo montage, works, depicting images and text criticising the failings of the German government.
_________________________________________________________________________________Dada Artist George Gosz
A prominent member of the Berlin Dada group. Known for his paintings and drawings of Berlin life.
Especially attacking the social corruption of Germany relating to capitalist's, the middle classes and even prostitutes.
Suicide. 1916
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Art and the Russian Revolution 1918
The Bolsheviks, the reds, came to power by defeating the 'whites', an anti communist force, during the Russian civil war 1917-1922.
A Soviet propaganda poster showing the rise of the proletariat against the capitalist state in an illustrative style.
A more abstract piece of propaganda.
A 1919 poster with English translation.
A man with a movie camera.
A movie about ordinary everyday life in Russia after the revolution by Dziga Vertov
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In 1905 during that years revolution, seen as a prequel to the 1917 Russian revolution, The crew of the Russian Battleship Potemkin rebelled against the officers on board. A film by Sergei Eisenstein used the mutiny as a basis foir his movie 'The battleship Potemkin'
The Odessa Steps, sequence from the movie. Some scholars believe that the massacre never actually happened as portrayed in the movie.
By 1924, after the Russian revolution, Lenin became the first communist leader. These were revolutionary times affecting the social and political values in Russian society.
In 1930 the symbiotic nature of art and design were producing new works such as the 1924 movie by Yakov Protazanov 'Aelita, Queen of mars' which deals with the very subject of revolution in its storyline.
Yakov Protazanov's 'Aelita, Queen of mars'
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The Hospitality of Abraham.
Andrei Rublev's trinity.
The most famous of all Russian icons made in the 15th century. Very little attention was paid to perspective in these early paintings. Towards the end of the 16th century a 'Riza' was fashioned to venerate but also to protect the icon.
Boris Godunov's riza, made from gold and silver encrusted with gemstones and pearls.
20th Century Russian Art
In answer to the Furutrism and Cubism in Europe, Russia went through it's own Avant garde art movement creating these examples among many others.
The Cockerel. 1914.
Mikhail Larionov 1881-1964.
Larionov is credited with inventing this style of abstract art known as Rayonism. An art form said to deal with interacting linear forms, or 'rays' of light.
Architectonic
Lyubov |Popova 1889-1924
The Knife Grinder
Kasimir Malevich 1879-1935
The Black Square
Kasimir Malevich 1915.
Quote:-
"Up until now there were no attempts at painting as such, without any attribute of real life… Painting was the aesthetic side of a thing, but never was original and an end in itself" Malevich 2015 (Tate.org.uk)
Constructivism
Model of the Monument to the 3rd International
Vladimir Tatlin.
Vladimir Tatlin.
Tatlin This model was planned as a monument to the celebrate the Russian revolution but was never built. It was originally intended to be 1300 feet high. Tatlin's models were seen as a connection between architecture and sculpture and he is credited as a major player in the Constructivist movement.
Kasimir malevich gave up photography and moved into contructivism creating 3d models akin to the style of cubism.
Suprematist Ornaments. Malevich
A Hanging spatial sculptor by one of the founders of Constructivism
Alexander Rodchenko 1891-1956.
Rodchenko later moved from sculptor into the world of photography.
Decoration for the Winter Palace 1918.
By Nathan Altman 1889-1970
La Dama Duenda.
Alexander Ekster 1882-1949
Ekster was a Russian painter and designer who would paint her designs for costume. Some of Eksters designs were used for the costumes in the afore mentioned Russian movie, 'Aelita, Queen of mars'
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Contextual Studies Assignment, Deadline, 7th Jan 2019
James Francis Hurley. 1885-1962.
J.F Hurley was an Australian photographer and movie maker born in Sydney Australia to parents Margret and Edward. He was raised in Glebe, a Suburb of Sydney and eventually returned to Sydney, Collaroy Plateau where he passed away due to a heart attack at the age of 76.
Hurley was an adventurer and a documentary photographer and filmmaker who spent many years in Antarctica as the official photographer documenting numerous expeditions including the ill-fated Shackleton expedition in 1914. By 1917 Hurley had joined the Australian Imperial Force and went on to photograph images of WW1 and then later, WW2.
Hurley was said to be adventurous and a man who would go to great extremes to capture and document events, even putting his life in danger. If not at the Third Battle of Ypres on the Western front, then, as a younger man, standing on rail tracks to take photographs of oncoming steam locomotives.
One of Hurly's Locomotive pictures featured in an article in the Australian Magazine ‘Lone Hand’ in 1911
Between the wars, Hurly turned his attention to the plight of the native Papua people, who had found themselves under Australian administration from 1906. Hurly photographically documented the traditional culture of the Papua people which clashed with the colonial settlers.
Inauaia Village, Meko area. (Australian Museum)
Frank Hurly’s photograph of the Ernest Shackleton’s ship, The Endurance
In 1914, Shackleton’s Antarctic mission ended when the Endurance became icebound and eventually sunk 3 years later. Not knowing if the crew or himself, were even going to survive, Hurly still continued to take photographs. Many photographic plates were left behind, and it is said that up to 400 were destroyed to reduce weight. The photograph itself shows the bleak cloudy sky and the ill-fated endurance firmly trapped with an eerie, dead, abandoned look about it. Yet, in the foreground, a pack of sled dogs appears to show that things aren’t over and a means of transport leading to safety still existed.
Yevgeny Khaldei. 1917-1997
Khaldei was a Jewish journalistic photographer, born in Ukraine, the youngest of six children. His mother was killed in a mob attack on the Jewish people which was referred to as a Pogrom. At the age of 18, he landed a job with the Russian news agency ‘Tass’ and went on to photographically document all the days of world war two. His father and three of his four sisters were killed by the Nazi’s during that war.
It is said that he would stage photographs, but Khaldei insisted it was only to emphasise any particular event, but it also lent itself to Khaldei’s style. At the outbreak of the war, he was sent to the Arctic city of Murmansk where he captured images of the extreme cold that was endured there.
Northern fleet submarine in the art ocean near Murmansk
Khaldei was taking his famous photographs during the battles on the Eastern front, said to be the scene of the biggest battles, leading to the highest fatalities of the second world war. As the German war machine was pushed back by the Russian forces, many being killed because of Hitler’s ‘No retreat Policy’, Khaldei continued to document the advancement of the Red Army while himself carrying a rifle and engaging in combat. These photographs were put together and published in a 93-page book called ‘Ot Murmanska do Berlina (From Murmansk to Berlin) published in 1984.
Soldier raising the Soviet flag over the Reichstag in Berlin during the closing stages of world war two.
Possibly Khaldei’s most famous photograph, though has been the subject of many debates concerning the manner in which it was taken. Khaldei had been asked by Soviet authorities, possibly Stalin himself to produce a work to emphasise the Soviet victory. This would account for the composition which seems expertly administered and over 30 shots were said to have been taken of this scene. It is also said that the photograph has been doctored many times, from adding darker smoke to removing wristwatches on the soldiers.
Hurly and Kahldei were both war photographers yet on opposite fronts. Hurly on the western front during WW1 and WW2. Kahldei on the other hand who was a child during WW1 would take his photographs on the Eastern front. Hurley was pretty much self-styled and had the fortune of photographing expeditions in peacetime, and even between the wars he would choose his own projects or be invited to document certain activities such as those of the Anglican missionaries in Papua.
Khaldia, as a Jew, had to suffer the Antisemitism that came about after the chaos of the Russian revolution and the violence of the Pogroms claiming his mother's life. He didn't have the luxury of peacetime as Hurly did, having grown up during the Russian civil war.
I aim to show how these two photographers used photography in a journalistic way to document the opposite fronts of the world wars and how they are said to have manipulated their photographs to add impact and emphasis to their work, and their justification for doing so.
I aim to show how these two photographers used photography in a journalistic way to document the opposite fronts of the world wars and how they are said to have manipulated their photographs to add impact and emphasis to their work, and their justification for doing so.
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Surealism
Extract from Andre Breton's surrealist manifesto:-
“The simplest Surrealist act consists of dashing down the street, pistol in hand, and firing blindly, as fast as you can pull the trigger, into the crowd. Anyone who, at least once in his life, has not dreamed of thus putting an end to the petty system of debasement and cretinization in effect has a well-defined place in that crowd with his belly at barrel-level.”
The various abstract depictions of The Temptation of St Antony
Michelangelo 1487-1488
Hieronymus Bosch 1501-1516
1559
Pieter Brugel 1564–1638
1888
French Odilon Redon 1840-1916
1945
German Max Ernst 1891-1976
1946
Spanish. Salvador Dahli 1904-1989
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Medieval Abstract Art'
The Garden of Earthly Delights 1504
Hieronymous Bosch 1450-1516
smiling spider
Cactus man
French. Odilon Redon 1840-1916
merging human faces with animals and plants.
British. Leonora Carrington 1917-2011
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Surrealism in film and movies
At Land Maya Deren 1944
Salvador dali's dream sequence from the Hitchcock movie
Spellbound
Lady in the radiator sequence from the movie
Eraserhead 1977
Sequence from 'Street of Crocodiles'
Brothers Quay 1986
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Contemporary Photography
Susan Fenton
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Chloe Dewe Mathews
Juliya Burvinyova travelled 1000 miles from Moscow to receive the Naftalan treatment. She is one of a growing number of young Russians, who soak in oil for it’s cosmetic benefits. During the fifties, the Naftalan treatment was identified by the Soviets as a potential holiday resort. They built 2,500 capacity sanatoriums, and by the late eighties, 75,000 people were being treated each year, with free flights offered by the Soviet government. From Caspian © Chloe Dewe Mathews
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Corrine Day
(19 February 1962 – 27 August 2010) was a British fashion photographer, documentary photographer, and fashion model.
Kate Moss
As One of Kate Moss's best friends, Day took many photographs of her. At one stage they even lived together.
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Sam Taylor-Johnson Wood
Escape Artist (Green & Red) 2010
English filmmaker and photographer. . She is one of a group of artists known as the Young British Artists.
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Navad Kander
Projection
Nadav Kander is a London-based photographer, artist and director, known for his portraiture and landscapes. Kander has produced a number of books and had his work exhibited widely. He received an Honorary Fellowship from the Royal Photographic Society in 2015, won the Prix Pictet and a World Press Photo award.
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Brian Griffin
Portrait of Madonna, taken in Iceland for a project for Reykjavik Energy called 'The Water People' (2006)
Born in Birmingham in 1948, Brian Griffin is one of England’s most influential and creative portrait photographers. Brian also started to work with a huge variety of music industry clients including Depeche Mode, REM, Elvis Costello, Iggy Pop, Ringo Starr, Peter Gabriel and Queen's Brian May.
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Madame Periptie
Madame Peripetie aka Sylwana Zybura is a photographer and linguist based in Germany and UK working internationally on diverse art projects and for various independent magazines. She explores the boundaries between fashion, sculpture and the human body, experimenting with various fabrics and patterns; whilst infusing high fashion elements with abstract and conceptual ideas, creating an eccentric escapade of colour and texture. In her work she is focusing on character design and it’s influence on modern fashion photography. Her inspirations include surrealism, dadaism as well as postmodernism (the new wave era of the 80s) and the avant-garde theater of Robert Wilson.
What it does'nt mention in the above write up is the obvious amount of Post Processing that has been used to create these images
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Alex Burdine Lazursky
Another photographer making extensive use of Post Processing.
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MAN RAY.
Man Ray was also known for his pictograms, laying objects directly onto photographic paper without the use of negatives, known as Rayographs.
Man Ray’s “Solarisations”
Solorized Lillies
Man Ray self portrait 1932
Primat de la Matiere sur la pensee,
Man Ray’s “Solarizations”
During the developing process, Man Ray would momentarily flicker his studio lights, forming that distinctive inverse of tones around in his subjects.
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The Bombing of Guernica
Also 1937. Picasso's 'weeping woman'
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Abstract Expressionism. 1940's
AB EX
Birth: The most influential movement in post-war abstract painting, Abstract Expressionism flourished in New York, establishing America over Paris as the post-war leader of modern art.
Jackson Pollock 'Expressing his feelings rather than Illustrating them'
Mark Rothko
Helen FrankenthalerCritics of the time
Harold Rosenberg (1906–1978) was an American writer, educator, philosopher and art critic. He coined the term Action Painting in 1952 for what was later to be known as abstract expressionism. Rosenberg is best known for his art criticism. From 1967 until his death, he was the art critic of The New Yorker.
Clement Greenberg (January 16, 1909 – May 7, 1994), was an American essayist known mainly as a visual art critic closely associated with American Modern art of the mid-20th century. He is best remembered for his promotion of the abstract expressionist movement and was among the first published critics to praise the work of painter Jackson Pollock
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TORFSKERI
(Norse for peat bog cutting tool)
Harmful effects caused by the destruction of peat bogs:-
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Fay Godwin (17 February 1931 – 27 May 2005) was a British photographer known for her black-and-white landscapes of the British countryside and coast.
My way into photography was through family snaps in the mid-1960s. I had no formal training, but after the snaps came portraits, reportage, and finally, through my love of walking, landscape photography, all in black and white. A Fellowship with the National Museum of Photography in Bradford led to urban landscape in colour, and very personal close-up work in colour has followed.
Fay Godwin 2000.
Fay Godwin 2000.
John Druie
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Ian Fletcher FDA Year 1
Contextual Studies Assignment
IA10078, IA11120, IA10018, IA18109
Essay, 2500 words, 15 credits
Due 18/03/2019
Total word count…3164
Word count, references and quotes…481
Essay word count…2683
Surviving the Journey
Introduction.
James Francis Hurly, official
photographer of the Shackleton, Trans-Antarctic Expedition, began his fight for
survival with the crew of The Endurance when the ship became permanently
trapped in the Antarctic ice flows in January 1915.
Yevgeny Khaldei, an enlisted,
Russian, combat soldier, began his uncertain journey as a photographer for the
Soviet news agency Tass, in the port city of Murmansk in 1941.
Hurley's enemy was the cold and the real risk of starvation, being cut off from the outside world and having
a perilous journey of 1200 miles back to
civilisation. Khadei's
enemy was the German war machine during his 1700 mile trek from Murmansk
to Berlin.
James Francis
Hurley. 1885-1962
J.F Hurley was an Australian
photographer and movie maker born in Sydney Australia to parents Margret and
Edward. Hurley was an adventurer and a documentary photographer and filmmaker
who spent many years in Antarctica as an official photographer, documenting
numerous expeditions. He was raised in Glebe, a Suburb of Sydney and eventually
returned to Sydney, Collaroy Plateau where he passed away due to a heart
attack at the age of 76.
Hurley set out on the ill-fated Shackleton expedition at a time when
the world was in turmoil, departing from Plymouth on August 8th, 1914 only days
after Britain declared war on Germany. Even so, on his return from the ill-fated expedition, Hurley was not a man to
lick his wounds and sit back. He joined the Australian Imperial Force and went
on to photograph images of WW1.
Hurley was said to be adventurous and a man who would go to
great extremes to capture and document events, even putting his own life in
danger. If not at the Third Battle of Ypres on the Western front, then, as a
younger man, standing on rail tracks, to take photographs of oncoming steam
locomotives.
One of Hurly's Locomotive
pictures featured in an article in the Australian Magazine ‘Lone Hand’ in 1911
(photo-web:
FJH - Frank Hurley - FJH - James Francis Hurley - 1885-1962)
Hurley was no stranger to Antarctic expeditions and before
setting off on the 1914 Shackleton expedition, he had already explored the
Antarctic with the 1911 Douglas Mawson's
Australasian Antarctic Expedition.
Fellow explorer, Robert Falcon Scott (1868-1912) took Herbert Ponting as his official photographer who, like
Hurley, had a preference for photographic
glass plates even though celluloid film had been around for over twenty years. Ponting was one of the first photographers to
use a movie camera in the Antarctic, something that Hurley also went on to do. As a middle-aged
man, Ponting was not included in the final, and what turned out to be the fatal, push for the south pole. Scott's entire party of four succumbed to the
freezing conditions on their return journey.
Terra Nova (Ponting, 1910)
Herbert Ponting's
photograph of Scott's ship is not too
dissimilar to Hurley's photography of the Endurance in similar climes.
The
Endurance (Griffiths, 2015)
By 1914 Hurley was able
to take colour photographs using the
relatively new Paget process. He also took a movie camera to take motion
pictures. His list of equipment was quite extensive including at least eight or
nine cameras according to an Inventory made by Hurley at Ocean camp, a camp
established close to the wreck of the Endurance.
Among his equipment were
a large half plate 108 x 170 mm (Goert Ashutz) and a full plate 170 x 215mm camera
(unknown make). Also a Kodak No4 Panoram,
1899, 83 x 305 mm. Hurley also made short movie sequences using the two
cinecameras he also took with him. A Prestwich No.5 (1901) and a Newman and
Sinclair cinecamera. (Hurley,
2001b, p. 240)
During this period many other journalistic photographers were busy covering the war effort. Ernest
Brooks and John Warwick Brooke are two
noted Photographers of the time.
Trench warfare by John
Warwick Brook
(John Warwick
Brooke - Photographers - First World War ‘Official Photographs')
Meanwhile, other photographers such as Walter Bennington (1872-1936)
took on the safer task of portrait photography, during the years of conflict,
photographing eminent people of the time, such as Arthur Conan Doyle and Albert
Einstein.
Albert Einstein by Walter
Bennington (1928)
(Walter Benington: photographic portraits 1914-1922)
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Frank Hurley. The Photographs
(Hurley,
2001a, p. 75)
A well-composed
photograph using leading lines and
symmetry to fill the frame. A bold 'V'
shape clearly shows the passage of the Endurance through the ice flow using the
masts to add balance to the composition and giving the photograph a frame of
reference.
“During the day, we had a very gratifying run, passing through vast fields of
young ice, or rather recently formed ice in a rapid state of dissipation. The
ship cut her way through in noble style, leaving a long wake which could be
traced, and remaining open, for a mile or so”
Hurley diary, Jan 1st, 1915
(Hurley,
2001a, p. 24)
Hurley would go to extreme lengths for a photograph. Carrying over a hundred pounds of camera equipment
aloft, and precariously sitting at the
end of a yardarm he produced many stunning pictures.
At times Hurley would take his cine
camera into the rigging to make impressive movie sequences.
(Hurley,
2001b, p. 139)
It is clear in this picture that Hurley could orchestrate a
shot and the crew of the Endurance seemed happy to comply. It is very unlikely
that as many men and dogs would be on the ladder and gangplank at the same
time, if not for the sake of the photograph.
(Hurley,
2001a, p. 209)
Five months after the order to abandon ship was given,
three boats, that had to be dragged from the ship were launched. Nearly a week
at sea later, the party landed on the uninhabited Elephant Isle. According to Shackleton in his book 'South' this "unkempt assemblage", had suffered extreme deprivation to such an extent, a change of underwear had not been possible in over six months . After such a
monumental journey, Hurley gathered the men for this photograph noting: -
"The most motley and unkempt
assemblage
that ever was projected on a plate"
Hurley May 10th, 1916
(Hurley,
2001a, p. 116)
In October of 1915, the pressure of the constantly moving
ice flows had literally pushed the Endurance out of the water inflicting severe damage to its structure. The Ship had
been stuck in the ice for nine months when the order was given to abandon her.
During time Hurley took numerous photographs of the ship from many angles,
always filling the frame from corner to corner leaving nothing to the
imagination. The ship had been abandoned, yet eerily sailed on in the moving
ice flows while the crew set up 'Patience camp' to wait for the ice flow to
carry them further north.
(Hurley,
2001a, p. 167)
Hurley photographically documented the remaining days of
the Endurance. This photograph is the most widely distributed of the wreck.
The photograph itself shows the bleak grey sky and the
ill-fated endurance firmly trapped in the ice, with an eerie, dead, abandoned
look with the sharp angular lines epitomizing
the look of an old shipwreck and
supplying the punctum of the image. Yet,
in the foreground, a pack of sled dogs informs the observer that all is not
lost, and a means of transport leading to safety still existed. It is of note
that Shackleton ordered two dog teams to be shot to save on rations for the
remainder. (Smith,
2015)
(Hurley,
2001a, p. 168)
Paying their last visit to the wreck, Frank Wild looks on,
pipe in hand, with a relaxed posture and resigned demeanour, as if to say 'oh well, that's that then'.
Hurley captures this
decisive moment which was the last photograph of the Endurance before she sank
on Nov 21st, 1915
(Hurley,
2001a, p. 118)
The dogs were weighed every week to ensure their
health. Hurley took this opportunity to partake in some flash
photography.
"After three attempts, I succeed in
securing flash-light of my
team being fed. The charges of flash
powder were placed in three
shielded receptacles and fired
electrically. The dogs were extremely
scared, the kennel entrances having to be
blocked to keep them out."
Frank
Hurley May 29th, 1915(Hurley,
2001a)
(Hurley,
2001a, p. 234)
Known as the Spectre Ship, this photograph entailed the use of around twenty flashes, but not
simultaneously. The shadow of the anchor
and bow chains can be clearly seen caused by at least two of the flashes used.
This picture shows the original full plate shot. It is interesting to note that
use of the rule of thirds is evident
leaving open space to the left as though the ship itself has room to move into
it.
(Hurley,
2001a, p. 83)
Hurley took several colour
photographs using the Paget process which
was relatively new and had only been patented in 1912. This study shows bosun
John Vincent repairing a net.
_____________________________
At
the beginning of 1917, Hurley spent a month in South Georgia photographing
wildlife before joining the Australian Imperial Force as their official
photographer. It was at this time, the Russian revolution takes place and also
when Yevgeny Khaldei was born.
______________________________________
Yevgeny
Khaldei. 1917-1997
Khaldei was a Jewish
journalistic photographer, born in Ukraine, the youngest of six children.
His mother was killed by a mob, known as
a Pogram, a group set on the massacre or persecution of an ethnic or
religious group, in this case, the Jews,
during the civil unrest following the Russian revolution.
Khaldei
grew at a time when art forms were being shaped by the chaos at the end of the first world war, notably the
Da Da movement. The Dadaism movement was
a reaction to WW1 and began around 1916 from Zurich to New York and Paris etc, the first Dada exhibition being
in Berlin, June 1920. The movement was a rejection of logic and reason and
produced a more nonsensical disorder and dissonance to art forms. While
photography was still being used to document reality other artists such as Man Ray were using it to create surrealist
art that had begun around 1920.
(Man Ray
Overview and Analysis)
At
the age of 18, Khaldei landed a job with the Russian news agency ‘Tass’ and
later, the newspaper Pravda. At the outbreak of world war two, a 25-year-old Khaldei
was sent to the Arctic city of Murmansk in June 1941. With his Leica Camera and fifty meters of film,
Khaldei started his journey from there, photographing every day of the second world war, right up to fall of Berlin in
1945.
Meanwhile, Man Ray took his photographic skills to Los Angeles and away from the war raging in Europe.
Meanwhile, Man Ray took his photographic skills to Los Angeles and away from the war raging in Europe.
The actual leica III camera used by Khaldei (‘Bonhams
Auctions, 2014)
Khaldei
took his photographs during the battles
on the Eastern front, said to be the scene of the biggest battles of WW2,
leading to the highest number of fatalities.
As the German war machine was pushed back by the Russian forces, many being
killed because of Hitler’s ‘No retreat Policy’, Khaldei continued to document
the advancement of the Red Army while himself carrying a rifle and engaging in
combat. These photographs were put together and published in a 93-page
book called ‘Ot Murmanska do Berlina'
(From Murmansk to Berlin) published in 1984.
Khaldei's book 'Ot Murmanska do Berlina'
(E, 1979)
______________________________________________
The ruins of Murmansk
All that was left
of the wooden of Murmansk was the stone chimneys. Khadei captured this striking image of what could have been one of
the last people to vacate the misery left behind. The vast empty space
punctuated by the lone figure, thrown
into stark relief against the backdrop of destruction starkly portrays the destructive reality of war.
“An
old woman was walking alone, and behind her chimneys, chimney, chimneys-all
that was left of wooden Murmansk. I had my Leica around my neck, and I took a
picture of her walking with her box. Suddenly she stopped and said, ‘aren’t you
ashamed of yourself, taking pictures of our suffering?’ I didn’t expect a
question like that, so specific, from such a simple old woman. My God. So I
said, ‘What can I do mother? It’s everybody’s suffering’ “
(Khaldei, 1997, p. 23)
Bathing in Sevastopol
After Sevastopol
had been freed from German occupation in 1944, Khaldei’s shot of sunbathers
relaxing amongst the ruins suggests at least some return to normality.
The ruins of Nuremberg
Nuremberg
after the war. Khadei must have climbed
high up a building that was most likely in the same condition as the ruined
ones in the photograph. In August 1943, British
bombers dropped 3000 tons of bombs on Nuremberg
destroying ninety percent of the building including many historic landmarks
dating back to the 15th century. As one source puts it. Six
centuries lost in one hour.
The Nuremberg trials
After
the war, Khaldei attended and
photographed many moments from the Nuremberg trials. Goering, being a prominent
figure during the proceedings became one of Khaldei’s most interesting subjects,
so much so, Khaldei wanted his photograph
taken with the man himself. In this photograph, one can see Khaldei on the left
getting into position, but Goring, though tolerating photographers from other nations, covered his face at the
sight of Khaldei’s Soviet Navy uniform, as he apparently realised
what was about to transpire.
Raising a Flag
over the Reichstag
Possibly Khaldei’s most famous
photograph, though it has been the subject of many debates concerning the way
it was taken, is that of the Russian flag being flown over the Reichstag in
Berlin. Khaldei had been asked by Soviet
authorities, possibly Stalin himself to produce a work to emphasise the Soviet victory. This would
account for the composition which seems expertly administered and over 30 shots
were said to have been taken of this scene.
__________________________________________
Hurley and Khaldei
Hurly and Kahldei were both
war photographers yet on opposite fronts. Hurley took his photographs in WW1,
and on the western front during WW2. Kahldei,
who was a child during WW1, would take his photographs on the Eastern front
during WW2. Though born many years apart, they were now both documenting a
common event in our history.
In this endeavor, both men had an eye for the
photograph itself as opposed to just randomly shooting anything that appeared
in front of them. They had a mutual understanding of creating a photograph for
dramatic effect, to tell a story, to make the observer feel something. To this
end, both men came under criticism from their peers.
Soviet Realism
tended toward showing life as it ought to be, rather than as it is. This way of
thinking, more in tune with visual arts and literature, was making its mark in photojournalism. Khaldei was known to, but not always,
orchestrate a photograph at the time of it’s taking or by the manipulation of
negatives, afterwards. Though Khaldei’s
methods were accepted, Hurleys style wasn’t met with the same enthusiasm.
________________________________________
Examples of photographic
manipulation from Hurley and Khaldei
Khaldei’s composite showing the plight of a reindeer amid the
bombings.
Though a composite, that Khaldei freely admitted to makin, he still insisted that the image was
justifiable in the sense that the reindeer was there when the bombings
occurred.
“During the bombings, a reindeer came out of the tundra. He
wanted to be with people. They built him a shed to live in and gave him a name, Yasha. Every time the alarm sounded, he ran
to be with the soldiers-he didn’t want to be alone.”
(Khaldei, 1997, p. 8)
________________________________
Battle at Passchendaele, Flander
One of Hurley’s WW1 composites. The sun and dark cloud were added
to make this scene more dramatic.
This kind of photographic fakery was condemned by The Department
of Information and when Australia declared war in 1939 Hurley was surprised not
to have been given an active role, Partly due to his age and possibly due to
Charles Bean’s (war correspondent) condemnation of Hurley’s photographic style
and dramatic manipulation of negatives.
A 23-year-old unknown, George Silk who had presented a simple portfolio
taken with 35mm film was appointed as a war photographer by the Prime
Minister’s Office along with a young Damien Parer
An aging Frank Hurly, determined to get back into war journalism,
landed a job with the Australian
Broadcasting Corporation. A change of leadership at the Department of
Information led to Hurley receiving an Active Major rank and being posted to
the middle east, overseeing the Official Cinematographic and Photographic Unit
where he found himself in charge of the young men who had been appointed as war
photographers in his place.
Hurley (rear)
with young ‘Turks’ Parer, Silk and
Williams
_______________________________
The Men and their Cameras
James Francis Hurley
Yevgeny
Anan’evich Khaldei
_____________________________________________________________
________________________________________________
___________________________
________________________________________________
___________________________
_
Surealism gave way to abstract expressionism and then the last of the 'movements' could be said to be 'colour field' painting.
Harold Rosenberg
Rosenberg was an American writer, educator, philosopher and art critic. He coined the term Action Painting in 1952 for what was later to be known as abstract expressionism.
For artists, Rosenberg argued, freedom lay in the act of creating art itself.
“The big moment came when it was decided to paint... just to PAINT. The gesture on the canvas was a gesture of liberation, from Value—political, aesthetic, moral.”
'Rosenberg'
Joan Mitchel
Strata 1948
_________________________________________________________________
Elaine de Kooning
Kooning was an Abstract Expressionist and Figurative Expressionist painter in the post-World War II era.
"A painting to me is primarily a verb, not a noun, an event first and only secondarily an image." (Elaine de Kooning)
"A painting to me is primarily a verb, not a noun, an event first and only secondarily an image." (Elaine de Kooning)
'Bullfight' 1959
____________________________________________________________________
Colour field painting
1950-51
Barnett Newman
Barnett Newman was an American artist. He is seen as one of the major figures in abstract expressionism and one of the foremost of the colour field painters. His paintings are existential in tone and content, explicitly composed with the intention of communicating a sense of locality, presence, and contingency.
Vir Heroicus Sublimias 1950-51
Barnett was producing colour field painting as early as 1949
"
"Be I" 1949
_______________________________________
Abraham 1949
A paining named after Barnett's Father's name.
Barnetts lines within his paintings were knows as 'zips'
From 1958 to 1966, master color field painter Barnett Newman created The Stations of the Cross - Lema Sabachthani, a cycle of fourteen canvas paintings, each of them 5 x 6 1/2 feet.
Newman wrote,
“Lema Sabachtani—why? Why did you forsake me? Why forsake me? To what purpose? Why? This is the Passion. This outcry of Jesus. Not the terrible walk up the Via Dolorosa, but the question that has no answer.”
According to the art critic Harold Rosenberg there is nothing religious about Barnett Newman’s series of fourteen roughly human-sized, black and white paintings.
_____________________________________________________________
Ellsworth Kelly
Kelly was an American painter, sculptor, and printmaker associated with hard-edge painting, Colour Field painting and minimalism.
Spectrum 1953
__________________________________________________________________________
The Seagram Murals by
Mark Rothko 1958
Mark Rothko 1958
These murals were intended to be hung on the walls of the Four Seasons restaurant in New York, at the Seagram Building in Park Avenue.
After several changes of location, they ended up at the third floor of the Tate Modern in London and became part of a permanent exhibition called “Transformed Visions”.
________________________________________________________
Minimalism to Pop
After several changes of location, they ended up at the third floor of the Tate Modern in London and became part of a permanent exhibition called “Transformed Visions”.
________________________________________________________
Minimalism to Pop
Modernism is said to be the last of the recognised art movement as we moved into the post modernist era of pop art. Even though pop art began in the 1950's, minimalism was still used in some works into the 1960's
Ad Reinhardt 1913-1967. Minimalism in the 1950's (American)
Quote "Art is Art. Everything else is everything else"
Clearly Reinhardt was totally distancing himself from social influences in his art work.
Blue. 1952.
Joseph Albers 1888-1976
Albers took minimalism into the 60's with this series of works called
'Homage to the Square'
'Beaming 1963'
Frank Stella 1936-, (American).
Stella's view on minimalism was that his paintings made no attempt to represent the outside world.
Quote " What you see is what you see"
Stella's view on minimalism was that his paintings made no attempt to represent the outside world.
Quote " What you see is what you see"
Stella 1962
Into the 60's we begin to see a rise in mass media and consumer culture which was reflected in the works of artists such as Wesselman and Warhol.
Tom Wesselman 'Still Life Project'
__________________________________________________________________
Andy Warhol 1928-1987
Warhol was an American artist, director and producer who was a leading figure in the visual art movement known as pop art.He was not known for giving meaning to his work and would not be pushed in that direction in interviews. In most interviews it would seem the interviewers were still asking closed question, which seemed to be a mark of the times. This basicaly led to straight forward yes,no, replies from Warhol.
Pop art challenged modernism and there became no 'unity of style' as there had been in previous art movements, with everyone being different.
Warhols silkscreen work:-
Marilyn Diptych 1962
Although Warhol’s early work focused on post-war America’s love affair with consumerism (which explains his obsession with Campbell’s soup tins and Coca-Cola bottles), Warhol’s most highly priced pieces featured female celebrities. By relying on his signature screen-printing techniques to scribble over the iconic features of famous female faces, Warhol was responsible for making these celebrities even more popular even in death.
16 Jackies 1963
Robert Rauschenbrg 1925-2008 (American)
Estate 1963
Retroactive II
1963
__________________________________________________
James Turrel 1943-present (American artist concerned with light and space)__________________________________________________
Split Descision (2018)
The Roden Crater
The artist James Turrell, for his land art project, acquired the 400,000-year-old, 3-mile-wide (4.8 km) crater's land. Turrell has since been transforming the inner cone of the crater into a massive naked-eye observatory, designed specifically for viewing and experiencing sky-light, solar, and celestial phenomena. The fleeting winter and summer solstice events will be highlighted.
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