Bridging the Great Divide: Ecocritical Theory and the Great Unwashed
Ch.6: The Great Divide
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Transcript of Ch.6: The Great Divide
The technical innovations of the 19th century expanded the parameters of human vision, in both science and art.
• 1877 - phonograph invented.• 1879 - electric light bulb.• 1882 - the recoil operated machine gun.• 1883 - the first synthetic fiber (rayon).• 1893 - the Ford car.• 1885 - coated photographic paper invented.• 1895 - Freud publishes his studies on hysteria, x rays
discovered, the radio telegraph invented (Marconi), movie camera invented (Lumiere Bros.).
• 1903 - the magnetic recording of sound, the first voice radio transmission, Wright brothers made their first powered flight.
• 1905 - Albert Einstein formulated his theory of relativity - the photon theory of light. His formula of the law of mass energy wquivalence, E = Mc2, ushered in the nuclear age.
1870-1914: 2nd Industrial Revolution
• Vaious machinery was invented to help production, such as the combine and weaving loom.
• The halftone process made reproducing photographs for publication easier.
• The first halftone photographic reproductions appeared in daily newspapers in the 1890s. Images could be directly reproduced rather than through engravings.
Left: halftone dots. Right: How the human eye would see this arrangement from a sufficient distance.
William Warnecke, the Shooting of Mayor Gaynor, 1910
Portrait of Beatrice Tonnesen
Tonnesen, Mother and Children (“Cult of Motherhood” genre)
1878 - dry plate invented.
Celluloid was first developed for photographic film in 1889. Now, the emulsion is placed on an actual piece of film.
1883: Hurter and Driffield begin studies in sensitometry - how photographic materials respond to light and chemical processing.
• The stated it was “intolerable to practice an art whose principles were so little understood. The production of a perfect picture by means of photography is an art; the production of a technically perfect negative is a science.”
• Their discoveries let photographers make exposures and process film based on scientific study instead of experience and luck.
George Eastman
The Kodak
Two jolly gentlemen, one with a Kodak in hand, 1889
William H. Martin, Taking Our Geese to Market, 1909.
William H. Martin, Great Sportfishing here, 1909.
William H. Martin, A Load of Extra Good Apples, 1900s.
Peter Henry Emerson, Pulling the Marsh-Hay, 1886 - theory of Naturalistic Photography: a photograph should echo what the
human eye sees in nature.
Emerson, Marshman, 1880s.
Emerson, Toad in the Path, 1880s.
Emerson, 1880s.
Promoting Photography to the status of an art object was the goal of a movement known as Pictorialism (mid 1880s - 1920s).
• Based on the belief that camera images could engage the feelings and senses.• Grew out of the concept of Naturalism - and many photographers based their
work on Emerson’s techniques: soft focus, subdued tones, rural subjects.
Sergei Lobovikov, The Widow’s Pillow, c. 1900
The photographers who were advocates of Pictorialism felt that photographs should be concerned with beauty rather than fact.
Robert Demachy, Étude
Demachy, Struggle, 1904
Edward Steichen, gum print, 1904
Demachy, gum print
John Dudley Johnson, Liverpool, gum print, 1900s.
Émile Joachim Constant Puyo, Summer, pigment print, 1903
Frederick Evans, Durham Cathedral, a member of the Linked Ring, Evans favored ‘straight’ printing and chose to evoke feeling through
the use of light rahter than manipulation of materials.
Evans, Sea of Steps, 1903
Evans, Klemscott Manor
Steichen, Pond, 1898
George Davison, Onion Field, photogravure print, 1890
F. Holland Day, Youth in Forest, platinum print, 1907.
Day, St. Sebastian, 1907
Day, Crucifiction with Roman Soldiers, 1896
Day, Crucifiction Study #3
Day, Seven Last Words, 1898
F. Holland Day was influenced by the Decadent movement (also known as dandyism). To be a dandy was to be fashionably dressed, highly
intellectual and withdrawn from conventional society.
Followers of the Decadent movement claimed that life should be viewed from anaesthetic perspective (ie: beauty), and that art does not have to serve any moral,political or utilitarian purpose.
Day, Chief, 1896.
Anne Brigman
Anne Brigman, Incantation, gelatin silver print, 1905
Brigman, Soul of the Blasted Pine, platinum print, 1908
Gertrude Kasebier, Portrait of Rose O’Neill, 1907
Kasebier, Portrait of Chester Beach, sculptor, 1907
Kasebier, Portrait of Alfred Stieglitz
Kasebier, Mrs. Ward and Baby, 1903
Kasebier, the Manger, 1899
Kasebier, the Picture Book, 1903
Kasebier, Blessed Art Thou Among Women, platinum print, 1899
Kasebier, Miss N. (Evelyn Nesbitt), platinum print, 1902
Photo Secession, formed 1902.
• To advance photography as applied to pictorial expression.• To draw together those Americans practicing or otherwise interested in art.• To hold from time to time, at varying places, exhibitions not necessarily limited to the
productions of the Photo-secession or to American work.
Demachy, gum print, from Camera Work
Steichen, Rodin in studio, gum print, 1906, from Camera Work
Clarence White, Morning, photogravure print,1908, from Camera Work
White, Ring Toss, gum print, 1899
John Singer Sargent, the Daughters of Edward Darley Bout, oil on canvas,1882
Edward Steichen, Flatiron,1904, gum bichromate over platinum print