In my last post, we discussed how photography is not necessarily, if ever, truthful, and how photographers, consciously or unconsciously, bend the truth to fit their personal narrative. This, naturally, leads to today’s discussion on photography as a form of art (so, if you haven’t read last week’s post, please, feel free to do so now). This post will be written in two parts — the first part giving a (very) brief overview of how photography became a recognized form of art within the artistic community and the second discussing my personal take on photography as art by discussing what constitutes art in the first place. Also, in my best effort to keep this post as brief as possible and to prevent accusations of plagiarism, I will be including links to the resources I used to write this post so that, with one click, you can have access to even more information on the history of photography (because who doesn’t want that in their life?). Without further chit-chat, here’s some history for you
Photography as an idea has been around since the time of the camera obscura, which used a pinhole to project an upside-down image onto a wall or other surface. Photography as we now know it came into being in the 1820’s when Joseph Nicéphore Niépce exposed a pewter plate coated in bitumen to light via the camera obscura to create the first permanent photographic image, and, from there, the medium took off (for more history on advancements within early photography, click here). At first, photography was seen largely as a form of science and was used for documentary purposes, such to take pictures of people or places. Another turning-point in early photography that made it seem like even less of an artistic endeavor came with the advent of the Original Kodak in 1888 Kodak Brownie in 1900, which were both commercially available so that the middle-class could affordably make images of their family and friends. This promoted the idea of photography as something any amateur could do because a large number of people could get their hands on cameras (oh, how times have not changed one bit).
The first group to lobby for photography as a fine art were the Pictorialists, who rejected the snapshots that cameras like those made by Kodak has made popular in favor of labor-intensive forms of photography that showed the medium to be more than a mechanical process and, instead, one that involved great skill and craftsmanship. Under the umbrella of Pictorialism were the Photo-Secessionists, a group of photographers chosen and led by Alfred Stiegletz, whose aim was to move away from the idea of photography as a realistic representation of the world and, instead, toward a painterly aesthetic (for more on the Photo-Secessionists and for examples of their work, click here). Stiegletz, with the founding of The Little Galleries of the Photo-Secession (later re-branded simply as 291), was the first to exhibit photographs in a gallery setting, and was critical to the wider acceptance of photography as a fine art (what a guy).
In 1932, thirty years after the beginning of Photo-Secession, the Museum of Modern Art in New York City exhibited its first photograph; a year later, the first photographs were acquired for its collection and photographer Walker Evans exhibited the first one-man photography show, both within the museum and within the medium itself; in 1940, with influential photographer Ansel Adams as the Vice-Chairman of the Photography Committee, the Department of Photography at the MoMA was established, and, finally, in 1943, the Musuem of Modern Art Photography Center was established (to view the Department of Photography’s official press release, click here; for a complete chronology of the MoMA’s Department of Photography, click here). It is at this time in the 1940’s that, in The United States of America, photography becomes officially recognized as a form of fine art.
Needless to say, it would take an entire class (very likely more than one) to go over the history of photography, how it came to be known as art, and how it has since continued to evolve and thrive within the world of fine art. Also needless to say is that, although I have BFA in Fine Art, I am not (currently, anyway — maybe someday?) an art historian; I am simply interested in art history and, specifically and for obvious reasons, the history of photography. Finally, I felt that it was important to give the historical context of how photography became known as art before giving a talk on how photography is used in art today and my personal opinion on what makes it art because, well, context is everything, and, to understand the present, you must first understand the past (erm, well… in theory, anyway).
With all that being said, I hope you enjoyed today’s brief history lesson, and I hope to see you in my next post.