Talk:Pictorialism

Research and collaboration

• I'm currently conducting research for a substantial expansion of this article. If anyone has an interest in collaborating, please let me know. I expect the research and writing will take several weeks. Lexaxis7 (talk) 16:29, 10 December 2011 (UTC)
  • I've followed through and significantly expanded the original article. It's still in need of more details, especially for photographers who worked in Europe, Australia and Japan. Also, please add more images from lesser known pictoralists. Lexaxis7 (talk) 04:13, 29 December 2011 (UTC)

It seems to me that since the advent of digital techniques, almost all serious non-news photography has become pictorialist. This is not reflected, or even hinted at, in the article. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 78.34.240.254 (talk) 07:56, 26 May 2015 (UTC)

Unlinked shortened footnotes

The shortened footnotes do not link to the source citations. I will fix this by putting the source citations into citation templates & then using {{sfn}} or {{harvnb}} as appropriate Peaceray (talk) 19:04, 9 February 2024 (UTC)

 Done Peaceray (talk) 19:43, 12 February 2024 (UTC)

Bunnell

Removed following oassage: "Over the years other names were given to pictorialism, including "art photography" and Camera Work (both by Alfred Stieglitz), "Impressionist photography" (by George Davison), "new vision (Neue Vision), and finally "subjective photography" (Subjektive Fotographie) in Germany after the 1940s. In Spain pictorial photographers were sometimes called "interventionists" (intervencionistas), although the style itself was not known as "interventionism"."

Without Bunnell's reasoning behind this odd sequence of styles, it is misleading, suggesting a relation between the styles. Neues Sehen (Bauhaus...) and even Subjektive Fotografie were rather straight photography, most of the manipulation of the picture took place in front of or in the camera (extreme lenses, unusual view points, movement, micro/macro), and alterations made later in the darkroom (like stark contrast, solarisation, negative) were genuine photographic effects. Bunnell's approach evolves around (bleak) "record" vs (artificial) "picture", adapting the revisionist view of the protagonists (displayed here in many words). Their attempts to let their phs look like 'art' appear rather as a disguise, while the earliest straight phs, to Atget, Strand, Friedlander, and Wall represent today what is essentially called photography. Pictorialism could be well explained with the evolvement of Stieglitz, but not without Paul Strand (1916) (who isn't mentioned at all). Early Hollywood portraiture (Steichen) owes much to pictorialism (not mentioned at all).

"Impressionist" with its allusion to the music and the painting style is a good characterization of the photography as well, sensual, blurry and flurry, playing with light. Although generally darker in tone pictorialism could be illustrated with this comparison more prominently. MenkinAlRire 18:55, 27 August 2024 (UTC)