185 years, and counting - is it impossible for photography to produce a great artist?

<p>A short while ago, one PhotoNet photographer maintained in these forums that photography cannot be an art. His premise was that the medium has no equivalent to the artist with his brush strokes or sculpting chisel, which result from an innate artistic ability and a learned technique. The mechanical and optical nature of photography ruled out any possibility that it be an art.</p>

<p>I disagree strongly with that perception. For me, art is created in the mind of the artist, and whether he or she uses photographic tools or any other medium is completely unimportant. It's the result that counts. Great art communicates strong sentiments to the viewer, or incites that response in the perceiver.</p>

<p>We all know that photography can ably capture moments of human life, reproduce the beauty of nature or man made architecture, even create abstract or semi-abstract images of our world. It can titillate, and it can invoke pleasurable responses based upon compositions of some force. Many great photographers, and thousands of lesser known photographers, have succeeded quite well in these pursuits and have been recognised for that.</p>

<p>However, when it comes to great art, or naming a photographer who has succeeded as a great artist in photography, I feel that the list is extremely small, perhaps even blank. In the 185 years of photography, I know of no photographer who has experienced throughout his or her career the dedicated and difficult artistic experience that can be compared with an Edvard Munch or a Vincent Van Gogh, to name but two incredibly forward-looking and powerful artists.</p>

<p>Each was so completely dedicated to a search for manners of visually communicating their innermost feelings and artistic ideas that decades of that pursuit and difficulty of recognition eventually ostracised them from their social and artistic communities, and finally drove them to despair that resulted in both loosing confidence (thinking of themselves as fools in the light of their non-acceptance) in their self control and willing themselves to the treatment of mental hospitals. However, despite such incredible suffering in the name of artisatic creation, they never lost sight of their purpose and pursuits and their unique artistic aproach. I think that Munch was rejected some 40 to 50 times in exhibitions in Scandinavia, Europe and western Asia, but pursued his art and his communication nonetheless. One German philosopher and writer eventually understood the beauty of his work.</p>

<p>How many so-named great photographers have had such an experience as an artist? Perhaps Robert Frank? I'm not sure that even he qualifies, although he apparently experienced suffering and this is thought to have affected his perception of persons and places in "The Americans", photographed in a manner that no American photographer had previously seen. Certainly today, Frank is apparently no longer connected to his art, contrary to Munch and Van Gogh at the end of their lives. Suffering is not a pre-requisite for all great art, it is true, but I know of few photographers (perhaps even none) that have had careers, difficulties or innovative artistic intents of the like of Munch or Van Gogh (again, for the purposes of this post, to name only two artists).</p>

<p>Maybe photography at the higher levels is too much of a business, or is to coupled to reality, or suffers from too many paradigms, to favour artistic creation of the highest order?</p>

<p>If you can support the presence of great and continuous artistic creation in photography by examples, or, unlike me, name a photographer who has become a great artist (one who has communicated the essence of life, its beauty and its ugly aspects, and in an unexpected and ground-breaking manner), perhaps also (and necessarily) having suffered in their pursuits like Van Gogjh and Munch, then I may be convinced (and perhaps others who read this forum) that photography can create great and highly sensitive artists.</p>

<p>Or is it 185 years and counting?</p>

<p>I wrote a long answer to this, then erased it because I do not want to get into arguments, and almost every sentence was provocative. What it come down to is something that I have known for a long time. It is that though photography is indeed an art form, it is a lesser art form than painting, which itself is a lesser art form than sculpture. I am sure there will be plenty of disagreement, but I have been doing all three for many years, and that is my conclusion. In one case, I started teaching photography privately to a student many years ago. Then she wanted to learn to paint, so we worked on drawing for about a year, then watercolor, and finally oil paint. She has gotten better tha I expected, and 2 days ago called to say that she has just gotten a good gallery to add her to the stable. She is using her photo and painting skills in her very original work. So in her case, photography led to a serious pictorial interest which finally turned into painting. </p>

<p>In any field, the cream will rise to the top. What definition this entails of course will be as varied as there are people who consider such things.<br>

As to photography not being an art? Hmmm let's see: A painter starts with a blank canvas and creates a picture from nothingness. A photographer starts with the chaos and disorder of everyday life and selects from that a picture to create. Both require a series of choices in what to leave in, what to discard, and how one uses the tools at their disposal to give form to these choices. Sounds like art to me.</p>

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<p>Suffering is not a pre-requisite for all great art, it is true...</p>

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<p>and yet you keep hammering away at it. As for photography being too much of a business Rembrandt van Rijn had a business, taught a lot of young men the craft who became masters in their own right. Even Michelangelo,perhaps the greatest and most talented artist ever, was taught, the fact that he soon became better than any of his teachers notwithstanding. He later had students and a business as well. So much for that.</p>

<p>Every craft, whether it's painting, sculpturing or photography, needs to be studied and mastered regardless of talent. If you would state that to be succesfull at any kind of art one needs to work hard and persevere and be dedicated I would agree. As for the field of photography producing artists, all of us could provide a list. But since there are countless books on photographic history it seems far easier if you pick up one of those and see for yourself. Because you generalising and qualifying the lot of them as being so-called artists is indeed provocative and makes it useless to have any meaningfull kind of discussion.<br>

On the same token it is laughable to compare different fields and qualify one being better than the other.</p>

 

<p>Art is all in the mind of the beholder and very much a cultural thing. Musicians were not seen as artists until the Romantic era. Mozart and other musicians in the preceeding classical period were regarded as servants or technicians. It is only in retrospect that we can see then as artists.</p><p>I imagine the same thing will happen with photography. It will only be future generations who will be able to acknowledge the artistic merit of photographers. And that will only happen when photography or its future equivalent is seen as being a potential art form.</p><p>We will just have to soldier on as techbicians and craftsmen or some less evolved speies than the 'Artists' of today. </p>

<p>I'm on it. Give me another decade. But the fact that the perceived stereotype painter isn't parallel to that of the stereotype photographer isn't saying anything much about the output of either ones work as being or having the quality of great art.By mentioning Van Gogh and the artists suffering as an example it seems like the question is focusing more on the cult and myth of the person/artist behind the work then the work itself. So your question reads more like : " Is it possible for photography to produce a great artist/photographer who shares the same cult and myth surrounding their persona's like with the artists in painting such as Van Gogh ?" Perhaps not, but that would have more to do with being a cultural thing then the significance of the work itself I think. And if talking about what photography as a medium has produced in terms of art, you can't ignore filmmakers, Stanley Kubrick for example, not just because he started out as a photographer but because of the work he produced with motion film, with photography,and in the artistlabel department his name and persona rings as enigmatic and myth like as a Van Gogh...</p>

<p>And then there's Atget.</p>

<p>Simultaneous post with Colin, regarding the cultural thing...</p>

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<p ><a href="/photodb/user?user_id=2347092"><em>Arthur Plumpton</em></a><em> </em><a href="/member-status-icons"><em><img title="Subscriber" src="http://static.photo.net/v3graphics/member-status-icons/sub3.gif" alt="" /><img title="Frequent poster" src="http://static.photo.net/v3graphics/member-status-icons/3rolls.gif" alt="" /></em></a><em>, Sep 26, 2009; 09:21 p.m.</em><br>

<em>For me, art is created in the mind of the artist, and whether he or she uses photographic tools or any other medium is completely unimportant.</em></p>

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<p>You bet, Arrthur !<br>

Andy Warhol took art in a whole new direction with a.........</p>

<p>Polaroid.</p>

<p>How about that !</p>

<p>Bill P. </p>

<p>Arthur-<br>

You need to start by looking at art today- not 100 years ago. If you want to do that, let's start with Stieglitz' "Equivalents" . A landmark body of work that has as much relevance today as it did a century ago. There are many more along the way, so you can do your own homework. Photography's history is also short, whereas the painters you cite are creating work after 3,000 years of western history and art (criticism)- and only after this huge amount of time is their work considered masterful. Would they have been masters even 50 years earlier, doubtful. After the great diaspora of <em>everything</em> during the 20th century, we have to look at the surrounding factors that create a great artist. I'm sure after you have done more of your homework, including lots of understanding of the past 150 years of art, you will come to some better conclusions as to what constitutes a great photographer. I understand what you are getting at, but I don't think you have enough background to truly qualify a statement of such magnitude. </p>

<p>I love both Van Gogh and Munch, but without a pause I would put the work of a number of photographers forward as more sophisticated than the best work of either artist. Don't get me wrong -- I've stood before Van Gogh's and felt how masterfully they communicate emotion. It's just that I don't think that's the only measure for art.</p>

<p>I'll quickly draft a quick list for argument's sake:</p>

<p>I would put the work of <strong>Sophie Calle</strong> forward for its examination of personal, complicated psychology and identity.</p>

<p>I would put the work of <strong>Elliot Erwitt</strong> forward for its observation of human nature.</p>

<p>I would put the work of <strong>Mary Ellen Mark</strong> forward for its insight into human society.</p>

<p>I would put the work of <strong>Harry Callahan</strong> forward for its perception of beauty in the everyday.</p>

<p>I would put forward the work of <strong>Sebastiao Salgado</strong> for his response to human suffering.</p>

<p>I would also note that Van Gogh and Munch are considered, generally, painting by painting. Photographers tend to work at the level of the portfolio, the series, the book. While both Van Gogh and Munch did examine some subjects over time, they left no particular longitudinal work of importance comparable to their single pieces. All of the photographers I've named above have works that should be seen in series -- and that become even stronger than their individual pieces.</p>

<p>I intended the post to be provocative and I have purposely over-stated that point of view, because I believe that many well-known photographers are too often over-idealised in regard to their accomplishments in art or in regard to the significance of the art. The responses to this point are appreciated (I thank all for very thoughtful responses which I and no doubt others learn from) and I hope that what constitutes art in photography may see other fine arguments and examples. The topic may not be original at all, but I think it is important.</p>

<p>I look forward to more ideas on this. Ted, I would suggest that the portfolio is not unique to the photographer. You may want to read about Munch's persistent quest for artistic ways to express his viewpoints on humanity. His exhibitions were often set up by him to show the linkage between the themes and communicatins of various paintings and the reinforcement of that approach. If he is remembered for certain seminole works only, that is not his fault (but maybe hisshortcoming?). I believe, from what I have learned (which admittedly is limited), that artists like him were utterly dedicated to their intentions.</p>

<p>Salgado has shown some of that. There are no doubt others, but what often passes as fine art photography these days is often I think quite sterile and repetitive. Many photographs are technically and compositionally excellent but do not interrogate the soul (intellect, values, passions) of the viewer.</p>

<p>Arthur- "what often passes as fine art photography these days is often I think quite sterile and repetitive. Many photographs are technically and compositionally excellent but do not interrogate the soul (intellect, values, passions) of the viewer."</p>

<p>I think most people, including you, have fallen into a trap. Although you say intellect, values and passions are what you seek in great photographic art, you no doubt also look for excellence in things such as technical knowledge and composition. I think that today's great art photographers <em>are</em> finding forms of expression without these things, or shall I say, a greater comprehension of these things, so that it doesn't appear to be obvious to the viewer. Great art and great artists rarely work for the viewer either- it can only really be about one's self. Today's great art does interrogate the soul, but generally through media and form that is extremely intellectual and or so blatently obvious and non-aesthetic that it is easily bypassed by the uninformed. I agree, most of what passes for photographic art is redundant and derivative, but what you call great photography and I call great photography are most definitely two different things. </p>

<p>Martin: "but what you call great photography and I call great photography are most definitely two different things."</p>

<p>Perhaps, Martin, but I am not sure of that without examples. Great photography is for me synonymous with great art, which I find difficut to find in photography. If you could give some examples, I might understand the "differences" you refer to.</p>

<p>I do not look for excellence mainly in a technical or a compositional sense, in fact these criteria are quite low on my own list. I look for something that communicates from the artist his human views, values, passions, philosophies and aesthetic, something that will not look just pretty, or different. Many "great" photographers do not excite my response in that way. Ansell Adams is one of those. Maybe I must look more closely at their work. But I do disagree that great art does not work for most viewers. It does, with the possible exceptions of abstract art and some of the work of clique university or college photographic enclaves, which often have their own preferences or boundaries in art (not to mention the often burdensome post-modern justifications/explanations of the purpose). </p>

<p>How often are you seized with uncontrolled emotion looking at a photograph, other than one depicting obvious suffering or angst (like the great Minemata post WW2 photos of Smith)? On the other hand how often are you similarily affected, almost unexplainedly, when taking in a great work of art, whether that is painting, music or sculpture. I think the latter is far more prevalent.</p>

<p>Are we so wired to respond in that powerful way only to such works of what we traditionally encircle with the word art, or are great photographs not yet at that level? </p>

<p>When I saw a simultaneous exhibition of Irving Penn and Richard Avedon as one of the first I viewed I instantly recognized it as being photography, with the perfect magnetizing prints themselves as truly remarkably striking objects, in its highest form. They were very much art to me, many of them portraits, and they were/are art by both expressiveness of content and execution of form, very technical. It might as well been the statue of David standing or a Van Gogh painting hanging there instead of Irving Penn's platinum prints on the wall, because they to seemed works of such technical and emotional insights, they weren't just pictures that were hanging there, they became something else in the process of looking at them. Don't know how I would look at them now but I never forget that realization, and the strange relief of humbleness that came with it, that photography could do that, could be that grand.</p>

<p>To repeat one of my obsessive themes, I don't think the word "art" means much in photography. </p>

<p>Not as much as in cooking, for example. Photography often transcends that worn-out label...even banjo playing transcends it, sometimes, yet banjo playing isn't even music :-)</p>

<p>Picasso was an artist, if anyone has been...certainly as fully as was was Van Gogh or Munch... he didn't seem to do the much of the requisite "suffering," seemed never to face non-acceptance from anybody significant. Of the two, it was Picasso who most intentionally addressed " the essence of life.." (remember his bulls, his women and Guernica) "Essence of life" is not mere beauty.. can we agree on that?</p>

<p>Visual beauty is just a part of life, like sex, like carnage...Picasso addressed those three seemingly significant domains in his paintings. Van Gogh missed two of them, but had other issues: madness, dependence on family for money, and the paint itself.</p>

<p>I doubt Picasso or Van Gogh entertained fantasies about "life essence." I'm reminded of General Jack D. Ripper's thoughts on the matter: <a href="http://www.criticalconcern.com/dr-strangelove.htm">http://www.criticalconcern.com/dr-strangelove.htm</a></p>

<p>Plenty of photographers deal more intensively with the issues Munch touched upon, photojournalists in particular. That some of us dote on favorites like Frank, unaware of more recent photojournalists, tells its own tale.</p>

<p> <a href="http://inmotion.magnumphotos.com/essay/chernobyl">http://inmotion.magnumphotos.com/essay/chernobyl</a> A great photographer dealing with "essence of life."</p>

 

<p>Someone needs to give a camera to famous avantgarde artist Pierre Brassau.</p>

<p><a href="http://ecclesiastes911.net/story/pierre_brassau.html">http://ecclesiastes911.net/story/pierre_brassau.html</a></p>

<p>Since Phylo includes film makers, I submit Stan Brakhage and Alejandro Jodorowsky as being among the best artists in that medium. I do disagree with him about Avedon and Penn, who were consummate advertising photographers, and not much more, despite grand pretensions. Don't take my word for it, as it says in the Gospels "let he who has eyes see" (more or less quoted correctly).</p>

<p>Art is what you want it to be. It's not academic, it's not about craft (craft is it's servant), it's whether something can move another human being. There is no hierarchy in art. Paint vs sculpure vs ... Ridiculous! Perhaps one skill is more difficult for some, so what. Should we hand out degree's of difficulty like Olympic Diving? In art as in music it comes down to the result - a song, a performance or an image in 2 or 3 dimensions, unless you can handle more.</p>

<p>No one's mentioned some of the other great photographers - Ansel Adams, Henri Cartier-Bresson and Arthur Steiglitz (he was around for the beginning of this conversation at the turn of the century).</p>

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<p>"Paint vs sculpure vs ... Ridiculous!" --Ted Thayer</p>

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<p>BRAVO!</p>

<p>"consummate advertising photographers, and not much more,"</p>

<p>Regarding Penn and Avedon, well yes, advertisers, commercial, like many, many great artists throughout history. Which doesn't negate them still being artists, capable of creating and executing great art and/or photography. You did visited exhibitions of both photographers to come to that opinion, of them being consumate advertising photographers and nothing more, did you ? What matters mostly to me is not so much what they the photographers were ( starving, suffering, rich commercial advertisers, happy, mad,.. ) but what the photographs are.</p>

<p>I just saw the Pompeii Exhibition at LACMA here in Los Angeles. It attempted to recreate the atmosphere and setting of the sumptuous villas that wealthy Romans built around the Bay of Naples shortly before Mt. Vesuvius blew up. A good many Romans commissioned sculptures of themselves that to my eye today look like 3-D photographs. I wonder if realism in art found before the development of photography as we know it is photography with different tools.</p>

<p>Is art the process or the result? It's true that there have been many gifted people who are now remembered for the works they left behind although their personal lives are quite lost to us. Quite often one finds that the artistic result does not by itself explain how it was made. I would point out that it is not unusual for artists to have been unappreciated in their own lifetimes for the work they produced. Many of them were penniless. Van Gogh is one example.</p>

<p>"Greatness" like "genius" is a term used after the fact that allows a person to express how valuable she/he finds the work of another to be. Apparently the OP feels that he sets his own high standard and has no shoulders to stand on to get him there. With millions of people shooting pictures of just about anything, why shouldn't this be true for some one of them? An exception that proves the rule that 185 years of photography has produced little more than lackluster results.</p>

<p>I think that the search for the best way to assign the term 'greatness' to a photographer is not a good use of one's time. (Except of course as it might be instructive to college students.) Perhaps the best example is unknown to us because she/he is still alive!</p>

<p>As far as I'm concerned the term "art" is used subjectively to describe things conceived and largely made by the same hand where there is a quality evident in the result. For me, I get a lot more satisfaction and interest looking at the work of (say) Michael Kenna than I ever get from looking at Gaugin's paintings that I personally feel are uninteresting. There are others and I've selected Kenna as an example not necessarily as a unique pinnacle. Equally I can look at Frank Gehry's architecture and gain a whole lot more enjoyment , involvement, quality, whatever than I have got from any scuplture, ever, or any poetry, ever. I'd much rather look at Ed Leveckis' photographs than gaze at a collection of Titians and truth to tell i think there's a darn sight more imagination and creative thought in the former than in the latter. </p>

<p>So no surprises then that I don't accept the premise that photography has not produced great artists. But then I believe that I have the right to term "art" what impresses and influences me, and that much of what other people view as quality art - including but not limited to those who are appointed/appoint themselves to guide our taste - is dull or pointless or just plain bad. </p>

<p>Ted typed: " There is no hierarchy in art."</p>

<p> Exactly. The question reflects a basic misunderstanding (or bias). How quickly some forget the lessons of Stieglitz.</p>

<p> </p>

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<p>@Arther<br>

Ted, I would suggest that the portfolio is not unique to the photographer.</p>

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<p>Maybe not. But how many people painted their own version of the last supper. How many painted/sculpted Madonna and child. How many painted flowers. Do you think Michelangelo and Renoir and vanGogh were painting unique themes?</p>

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<p>@Albert:<br>

I wonder if realism in art found before the development of photography as we know it is photography with different tools.</p>

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<p>I think so. One POV I thought interesting is that once photography became widely accepted, it overtook painting as a medium of record and this freed painting to move into more abstract regions of art and so abstract became a more acceptable art form.</p>

<p>But how do you define 'great art'? Is it something regarded as 'great' now or 'great' in 100 years? Many now great (painting) artisits died unknown, disregarded and penniless - even Shakespeare's reputation has waxed and waned according to the culture of the times. And conversely there are many artists of all hues that were great in their day but whose reputations have nose-dived into obscurity. So what is your measure of 'great art'?</p>

 

On a very basic level, paintings and sculpture are much easier to display than photographs. Photos have to be viewed nearly head on in very good,even light. Sculpture can be appreciated from any angle and in any light and good paintings on a wall tend to improve a room no matter where you are in the room. Secondly, in general there is only one of a great painting or sculpture and it can only be seen in one place so that a general concensus of opinion can be accumulated but photos are more widely distributed, viewed in private, and public acceptance is not as well noted. Finally, when a photo is viewed by the public, many think "I could have taken that, no special skill required". All IMHO.

<p><em>"I do disagree with him about Avedon and Penn, who were consummate advertising photographers, and not much more, despite grand pretensions. "</em><br /><em></em><br />Soooo....if we "like" the work it can be "art," but not if we don't? And not if the "artist" is commercially successful (like Picasso and Jasper Johns)? And not if we're jealous of them (as I think I am, despite my love for Avedon's work). Admittedly, that's a traditional point of view, like the requirement for "suffering," "beret," and "rejected-by-establishment." :-)</p>

<p>As to Jodorovsky and Brackage, I may be the only other participant here who remembers their work...and for good reason.... IMO neither approached the "artistic" significance or quality of execution (production values) of, say, Jules Dassin, John Huston or Orson Welles...not to mention Clint Eastwood, or the various Europeans and Japanese, including (in the news) Roman Polanski (whose best was Macbeth, as was Kurosawa's Macbeth: Throne of Blood <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VT3AiGXTTAMMO)...all">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VT3AiGXTTAMMO)...</a> Unfortunately for that "art" label, all of them were commercial :-) </p>