Plagens Again, Sam

[steve_swinehart]

William Mortensen -

 

Sorry Jeff - No one picked on Mortensen. His work is pure dreck. It is soft focus schlock that has NOTHING to do with Pictorialism. Look at the work - it uses the aesthetics of Pictorialism with NONE of the philosophic reasons for doing the work in that way. He deserves his place in the history of photography - no one suppressed him - his work was inferior.

[jtk]

"The author's summarization and blithe dismissal of an entire photographic movement - only serves to parade his ignorance on the subject, and not to inform the reader."

 

Movements can be interesting as academic notions to themselves, or they can be distractions (as here) unless on remembers that movements are not Art.

 

For example: From exposure to a great deal of Picasso's work, I think it's obvious that movements barely touched his work: if we are not blind we see flashes of discovery and developments from them. He was a god, an Artist, not one of several "artists" in a specific category. If you know his work, you know he was not a cubist or a realist or any other ist other than Artist.

 

It's joiners who issue manifestos and academics who obscure individual genius: their bread is buttered that way, and yes, the world needs them, but not as much as it needs cobblers. However, the world needs artists like it needs oxygen.

 

"Informing the reader" : sometimes a writer owes it to a reader to assume there's plenty of "information," so must take risks and introduce ideas that may not work. The greatness of Artists might not be noticed if they didn't have the courage to leap and slip. Mingus? Glenn Gould?

 

Unless one thinks photography has to do with capturing a unique sense of "reality," its been increasingly unproductive, since perhaps 1900, to separate it out as entirely different from painting, sports, literature, dance, journalism. Time marches on.

 

Confining photography to its "proper" pew ignores the debt photographers owe to phenomena such as wild parties at Bauhaus and Black Mountain College, Artists such as Diagalev and Chuck Close, Sports Illustrated, Life Magazine, Kerouac, or Bill Hamm's light shows . But for our political and religious infections we're well into the 21st century, well past of 19th century vanities of "movements" and "manafestos."

[steve_swinehart]

Whatever John --

 

I'm surprised you didn't refer to some inconsequential YouTube video to support your assertions...

[steve_swinehart]

"Movements can be interesting as academic notions to themselves, or they can be distractions (as here) unless on remembers that movements are not Art."

 

And you seem to miss the obvious fact that they drive art..and the art is reflected in the movement (or theory)... You want to exclude the end result from the theory...while often the theory is captured after the fact, the times in which the artist is living and the aesthetics are not defined in a hard copy you can reference, the artists are working to - and idea (or ideal) that is manifested in the work.

 

Art historians may quantify that after the fact, but it is still the framework in which the artist is creating at the time.

[jtk]

Steve, you seem to have shifted your position...

 

"Frameworks" of "movements" don't contain Artists, and they aren't "driven" by talkers, they create. Remember? Sometimes they make theory and work from that...but most are visual, not so linear.

 

"Movement" is historian talk. Artists don't do movements.

[jtk]

...by the way Steve, I'm sorry (and puzzled) that you dislike Youtube to such a degree. I'd thought you were a digital kind of guy.

 

I find it stimulating. Great music and interviews, fun snippets of film. Flikr's great as well...that's where the most creative photojuices seem to flow, despite the ugly format.

[Allen Herbert]

The Babel fish is small, yellow and leech-like, and probably the oddest thing in the Universe. It feeds on brainwave energy received not from its own carrier but from those around it;)

[jtk]

"...the author can't seem to separate the ideas about a photograph showing the subject as opposed to the photograph being the subject."

 

Steve, that's a significant point. All your points are significant.

 

I just wish you'd grapple more with the ideas, rather than damning their author.

 

Yes. He's imperfect, sloppy. But I think we're avoiding his thesis, and that of itself may tell a tale. Since his ideas are our OT, why not address them?

 

Seemingly, your view is that "photography" boils down to "images," is only incidentally a matter of "content" (photograph "of something").

 

Van Gogh loved paint, depicted haystacks. Perhaps you prefer Mondrian, who loved geometry and color. Do you deny Van Gogh's merit?

 

Plagens' concern is partially with "photograph of", the taste of "reality". Many of us look for that. Its slightest taste can elevate an image from mundane abstraction to photographic merit. IMO. And isn't that reasonably a concern for photojournalists, essayists, art directors, some publishers?

 

Did Robert Capa miss the point? Dead Spanish faces might better have been abstractions?

[Allen Herbert]

with "photograph of", the taste of "reality".

 

Now whose taste of? reality? would that be? And what would it taste like. One can only suspect the author's taste of "reality" would be the only taste of a "reality" one could possibly conceive of. Presumption and limiting doxology would seem to be the taste of the day.

[Spearhead]

<i>No one picked on Mortensen.</i><p>Not according to most historical accounts, here is a summary from a bio on Mortensen:<p><i> An incensed Adams took to calling Mortensen the ?Antichrist? -- and worked behind the scenes for decades to discourage historians and museum curators from exhibiting or acknowledging Mortensen?s work. </i><p>Regardless of the value of his photography, which some people now consider a precursor to post-modern photography, when someone spends their time making sure museums don't buy another's work, well that's pretty slimy and would certainly be considered "picking on."

[jtk]

Apologies in advance if your technology's not up to this (I'm on a 1G home XP but it works fine on a 512MB laptop)...

 

Heres a vote for "photograph of" and evidence that digital (in a slide show with sound) can make aesthetic wonders that are nearly inconceivable with film (Van Gogh might have done it with paint).

 

I think it lays waste to Plagens' larger thesis about digital Vs film.

 

...but individual digital stills seem to more easily raise the "reality" question.

 

And before you ask, yes, I think journalists and commercial photographers commonly work at a higher aesthetic level than "artists."

 

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/photography/la-burnover-f,1,4421226.flash?coll=la-headlines-photography&ctrack=1&cset=true

[don_e]

""From the Plagens article, "Later in the 19th century, "pictorialist" photographers used soft focus, toothy paper, sepia tones, multiple negatives and even scratching back into the image as ways of getting photographs to look more like paintings."

 

While to the uninformed, that may be the casual impression - it is far from the real reasons the works were done in the Pictorialist style."

 

-- steve.

 

I agree that making their photos "look more like paintings" is at best a crude reduction of Pictorialism. But, if you browse reproductions (and whatever originals available to you) of both Pictorialist photographs and Academic paintings, do you see anything they have in common? Subject matter? Style?

 

"Group f/64 limits its members and invitational names to those workers who are striving to define photography as an art form by simple and direct presentation through purely photographic methods. The Group will show no work at any time that does not conform to its standards of pure photography. Pure photography is defined as possessing no qualities of technique, composition or idea, derivative of any other art form. The production of the "Pictorialist," on the other hand, indicates a devotion to principles of art which are directly related to painting and the graphic arts." -- Group f64 manifesto

[Allen Herbert]

John, you are a hypothetical point in space which causes logical argument to be infinitely suppressed and become infinitely distorted. Your unrelenting theme is the "honesty of the image based on the contiguous touch of photocopier reality".

 

Yourself and the author are simply saying the further photography removes itself from the honesty of the perfect (reality) photocopier image, the further away photography removes itself from true Photographic Art. You cloak these arguments, to give them credence, in college art lessons for the masses.

 

You like to be the head teacher.

 

The truth is Photography like any other Art form moves on. King Canute failed miserably to hold back the sea.

 

"Canute is legendary for his apparant attempt to "hold back the tide". Canute sat his throne on the beach, and the evident disregard of the sea for his commands to roll the waves away from the land was proof to his courtiers of the limitations of a king. Their flattery drove him to this..."

[don_e]

According to the Wikipedia entry on Pictorialism (which has a paragraph reminiscent of quote above from Plagens [or vice versa]):

 

"Alfred Stieglitz is also know as the grandfather of "Pictorialism""

 

Leggat's History of Photography , in the Stieglitz entry:

 

"Stieglitz... has been dubbed the "patron saint of straight photography."

 

Hehe.

 

I'll go with Leggat. Anyway...who invented the label 'Pictorialism'? Was it Group f/64 in its manifesto or was it earlier? Did any "pictorialists" call themselves that back in the day? Or was it just some categorizing art critic or art historian making things up?

[._._z]

"According to the Wikipedia entry .... [According to Leggat's History of Photography"

 

Ah yes, Wikipedia....

[don_e]

Plagens (or whoever did his research) probably used Wikipedia (or whatever it is based on) as a source for the "more like paintings" quote in steve's response. It probably is the source of the "casual impression" of the "uninformed".

[._._z]

Plagens has written about art for over 30 years and is also an abstract painter. I doubt he has to resort to Wikipedia for evidence for anything he has written.

 

Wikipedia has never heard of him, which underscores its own lapses.

[don_e]

How many years has he been writing about photography?

[don_e]

"Wikipedia has never heard of him, which underscores its own lapses."

 

What an odd thing to say. If you think Wikipedia ought to have an article on Plagens then write it. Thus you correct one of its "lapses".

[._._z]

The dearth of information on a well-known critic underscores that Wikipedia has biases, lapses and errors.

 

since you know notyhing about the man, if you want to know more about Plagens I suggest you do a bit of research, especially before declaring what sources he "probably" used.

[don_e]

"...especially before declaring what sources he "probably" used."

 

 

"Plagens (or whoever did his research) probably used Wikipedia (or whatever it is based on)"

[don_e]

.[. Z, you might want to clarify this inconsistency:

 

"Wikipedia has biases, lapses and errors" and the page in question is the Wikipedia entry Pictorialism. That entry's second paragraph:

 

"Pictorialism largely subscribed to the idea that art photography needed to emulate the painting and etching of the time. Most of these pictures made were black & white or sepia-toned. Among the methods used were soft focus, special filters and lens coatings, heavy manipulation in the darkroom, and exotic printing processes. From 1898 rough-surface printing papers were added to the repertoire, to further break up a picture's sharpness. Some artists "etched" the surface of their prints using fine needles."

 

matches rather well with Plagens:

 

"Later in the 19th century, "pictorialist" photographers used soft focus, toothy paper, sepia tones, multiple negatives and even scratching back into the image as ways of getting photographs to look more like paintings."

 

You imply the Wikipedia article is biased, lapsed, and erroneous. If so, then so is Plagens.

 

Right?

[david_dorcich1]

At what point in the article did Plagens quote Wikipedia?

[don_e]

As I begin the count my blessings at the end of the old and the beginning of the new year, I am blessed to not ever had to teach English.

[jtk]

For all anybody seems to know, Plagens posted the Wikipedia content (rather than lifting it) or somebody read Plagens and posted him there. But who the hell cares about Wikipedia? Yikes.

 

How can we comment negatively on Plagens without even reading what he had to say? Doesn't bode well for the species.