'One Hundred Years of Photographic History Essays in Honor of Beaumont Newhall' Edited by Van Deren Coke

This is a compilation of essays by 21 internationaly known authorities in the field, that cover many facets fo the history of photography. (from the inside cover) It was put together to honor Beaumot Newhall, a preeminent photographic historian.

This book was copyright 1975 by Van Deren Coke and Printed in Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press.

Listed are the Essays as I have read them. Each is followed by own thoughts and further research of my own:
'Emile Zola, Photographer' by Jean Adhemar, Chief Curator, Cabinet des Estampes, Bibliotheque Nationale, Paris

Emile Zola was actually a famous French writer I found out.

This blog mentioned a book with some of Zola's photography - Truth, Beauty, Freedom and Books

'Three Photographers And Their Books' Thomas Barrow, Associate Director, University Art Museum and Associate Professor of Art, University of New Mexico

It seemed to be a critique of three books by three different photographers, Henri Cartier-Bresson 'Man and Machine', Elliott Erwitt 'Photographs and Anti-Photographs', Duane Michals 'The Journey of the Spirit after Death'.

Bresson's book was not given high praise at all in this particular essay. It states in regard to the photographs with in it, 'I think what is so disappointing is that Cartier-Bresson has made most of these pictures before and, almost without exception, much better.' Previous to this in the text it discusses the book itself saying, 'It is of the usual "ignore the image in the name of book design" guttered nonentity.

After that critique he moves onto Erwitt's book stating, '[it] has many of the same failings as Man and Machine, compounded by Sam Holmes's some-what embarrassing biographical essay.' As far as the photos go he states, 'The pictures are very much in the tradition of Dois-neau-witty quickies, flash observations that are not quite so profound at second glance but leave one with a sense of being a harmless voyeur on the human comedy.'

Last it continues with the third book. 'Finally, we come to what is, for me, the most exasperating book of this group: Duane Michals's The Journey of the Spirit after Death.' The text states that its book design is the least pretentious. He then explains ' The current popularity of Michals's sequential storytelling may be symptomatic of what appears to be an increasing tendency to confuse photography with a religion, mystic power, or a profound message-bearer that transcends all other forms in our time. The ultimate manifestation is Photograph as Magus or an even more primal yearning than this, as fundamental as the closing words of Michals's book, "Oh, to be the Light."'

The author of the essay does mention other work by the photographers that is better and then reflects on why these particular books failed and gives examples. In the end he states
 'Despite the preceding negative comments on three disappointing books it should not be thought that photographic books are a useless or atrophied method of exhibition. In fact, they remain the most convenient way for a photographer to expolore a variety of sequential ideas as well as the most permanent method of preserving a retrospective collection of his work.'

I really appreciated the incite that is gained by this essay onto how he viewed the works. I would next like to find these works and decide for myself if they are disappointing. Even if they are there may be something to be learned here for the future of Artist books being made.

'Notes on the Early Use of Combination Printing' James Borcoman, Curator of Photography national Gallery of Canada.

'But is it art?' by Cynthia Freeland

In the past it was questioned whether photography could be classified as 'Art'. It is in fact classified as 'art' anymore. I mean here I sit at a University devoted to 'art' and I am in a course devoted to photography. Personally I feel the question for our time regarding Photography and Art should be 'Is all photography 'art'?'. I don't intend on answering that just yet as it could get quite deep and I am not prepared for such an undertaking.

In trying to prepare for such a discussion I have read the book that the title for this post came from. The book covered 'art... from many eras and cultures'. It also discussed 'some of the primary theories in the field: ritual theory, theories of taste and beauty, imitation theory, theories that emphasize communication, whether for purposes of expression or cognition.' It was also helpful by 'examining accounts offered by art critics and anthropologists.'

Does it ever answer the question though? Hmm...Well lets just say that it provides some tools of knowledge and theory through a small education that makes our own ability to judge what to classify as art, possible.
Many different points stood out to me as I read through it. I will list those points and the page upon which they can be found below:

• pg32-Aristotle felt that tragedy could educate by appealing to people's minds, feelings, and senses
• pg34-35 distinguished art historian E H Gombrich...described the history of western art as a search for progressively more vivid renderings of reality. Innovations aimed at more perfect semblances. New theories of perspective in the Renaissance, and oil painting with its greater tactility and richness, enabled atists to achieve an increasingly convincing 'copy' of Nature.......but many developments have made the imitation theory of art seem less plausible in the last century. Paniting was prticularly challenged by the realism of an upstart new medium, photography. Since the late nineteenth century, imitation has seemed less and less to be the goal of many genres of art: impressionims, expressiomism, surrealism, abstraction.
• pg38-Aquinas did not defend an account of art as imitation. Aquinas theorized that Beauty was an essential or 'transendental'propterty of god, like Goodness and Unity. Human artworks should emulate and aspire to Gods' marvellous properties. The medievals followed three key prinsiples for beautiful creations like cathedrals: proportion, light, and allegory.
• pg42-Chartres manifested an array of artistic expertise ranging from architectural design to the highly skilled labour of masons, woodcarvers, stonecutters, window painters, and others. individuals of great ability worked here, perhaps receiving high pay and recognition, but ultimately subordinating their efforts to the spiritual purpose of the whole. the result of collaboration at Chartres is an overall harmony serving the three primary Gothic aesthetic principles of porportion, light, and allegory.
• pg43-in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, gardens were recognized as high artistic achievements.....Andre Le Notre was from a family of gardeners called upon by Louis XIV to design a garden grand enough to fit his image as 'The Sun King'. Le Notre spent 50 years of his life (beginning in the 1660s) upon the magnificent gardens of Versailles.
• pg55-Danto wrote a much-discussed paper, 'the art world', about this puzzle. His essay, in turn, prompted pholosopher George Dickie to formulate the 'institutional theory of art', according to which art is 'any artifact...which has had conferred upon it the stuts of candidate for appreciation by some person or persons acting on hehalf of a certain social instituion (the art world)'. this meant that an object like Brillo Boxes was baptized as 'art'if accepted by museum and gallery directors and purchased by art collectors.
• pg63-Can art break down barriers among cultures? John Dewey thought so; he wrote in his 1934 book 'art as experience' that art is the best possible window into another culture. insisting that 'art is a universal language', Dewey urged us to strive to achieve the internal experience of another culture. lll 'external facts'about geography, religion, and history: 'Barriers are dissolved , limiting preudices melt away, when we enter into the spirit of Begro Polynesian art. This insensible melting is far more efficacious than the chnage effected by reasoning, because it enters directly into attitude'.
• pg83-84- What holds a community together in periods of loss of their homeland is often their cultural traditions, including religions and rituals along with dance, singing, story-telling, painting, and so on. As people are forced (or choose) to move around teh globe, their descendants emerge with a new, hybridized identity.
• pg 90-Art and money interact in many instituions-in particular museums. Museums preserve, collect, and educate the public and convey standards about art's value and quality-but whose standards,a nd how?
• pg95-Kitsch=something vulgar and popular with great mass appeal (Clement Greenberg famously called it kitsch) examples given were Norman Rockwell's Saturday Evening Post and Thomas Kinkade, the self-designated 'Painter of Light' (Trademarked)
• Avant Garde
• Esoteric
• pg146- Religion, sexuality and politics have affected teh output, imageryand styles of artists over teh centuries, from ancient Athens to medieval Chartres, and on up through the Renaissance and beyond.
• pg147-in order to interpret artworks, we must look beyond gender and sexual prefrence to the broader context that gives any art its meaning. O'Keefe painted many subjects besides flowers; and even her flower images are also 'about' form, light, composition, and abstraction-just as female nudes by Picasso and De Kooning are 'about' cubism or expressionims, as well as libido.
• pg148-two main theories of art, the expression theory and the cognitive theory.
• pg 154- expression theory-art communicates emotions, so is like laughing or screaming. cognitive theory-communicates complex thoughts similar to language
• communicates: it can communicate feelings and emotions, or thoughts and ideas. Interpretation is important because it helpds explain how art does this. Art acquires meaning in part from its context.
• pg 155-leo Tolstoy, the Russian novelist (1828-1910), advocated this view in his famous essay, 'What is Art?', Tolstoy believed an artist's chief job is to express and communicate emotions to an audience: 'To evoke in oneself a feeling one has once experienced and having evoked it in oneself then by means of movements, lines, colours, sounds, or forms expressed in words, so to transmit this feeling that others experience the same feeling-this the activity of art...'
• pg157- Freud believed art expresses unconscious feelings-ones the artist might not even admit to having....Freud saw art as a form of 'sublimation', a gratification that substitutes for the actual satisfaction of our biologically given desires (such as the desire for oral or genital pleasure). Freud explained: '[The artist] is urged on by instinctual needs...' he longs to attain to honour, power, riches, fame, and the love of women; but he lacks the means of achieving these gratifications. So, like any other with an unsatisfied longing, he turns away from reality and transfers all his interest, and all his libido, on to the creation of his wishes in the life of fantasy, from which the way might readily lead to neurosis.'
• pg167-Dewey argued that art can be a source of knowledge just as much as science. (further down the page) Nelson Goodman, a Harvard professor whose important book.  Languages of Art, was published in 1968. he wrote: 'What we know through art is felt in our bones and nerves and muscles as well as grasped by our minds...[A]ll the sensitivity and responsiveness of the organism participates in the invention and interpretation of symbols.'
• pg179-philosopher and social critic Walter Benjamin (1892-1940) Benjamin celebrated the newer, more democratic forms of art that photography facilitates. he believed that mass reproduction contributed to human emancipation by promoting new modes of critical perception.
• pg181-it is difficult to endorse Benjamin's optimism today. True, movies are very popular, but the contrast between high and mass art has not vanished in cinema, as Benjamin predicted-
• pg189-the new 'global village' with its broad participation will restore the 'primitive'human capacities that have been lost, as we return to something more like an oral culture that is communal and emphasizes sharing, touching, and facial expressions. Electronic media will restore not just right-brain capacities for connection and insight, but also our capacities for integration and imagination: (my own thoughts here- I don't think that is actually happening we aren't encouraged to touch or facial expressions but to upload photos and touch our electronic items. They may help us be creative and explore what can be created into art but it has its own consequences in the ends)
• pg204-205-The Web's 'global village' effects seem ambiguous, too. it draws people together and cameras enhance the sense of contact across cyberspace. yet users remain isolated before their screens. Here we seem to have McLuhan's 'discarnate man', but does he have 'integral awareness'?

After reading this book, I immediately began to wonder how to define what is art. At this moment I would say 'Art is something created to be experienced'. With that thought in my mind, perhaps, 'Art is created from or during experience'.

In the end I am left educated by the author and glad she has taken the time to educate with her text.

Copyright

In search of answers pertaining to the legality of exhibiting the photographs of others I have come across some information regarding copyright. Lets face the facts that any body who picks up an image and exhibits it without permission of the photographer is in a gray area that needs to be understood before getting to deeply involved with 'Found Photography'.

Follow this link (http://www.copyrightservice.co.uk/protect/p16_photography_copyright) for the source of the information I have found as it relates to using others photographs which is stated as thus on that website,

'Using the work of others
As with all copyright work, you should first obtain permission from the copyright owner before you use someone else’s work.You should also be prepared to pay a fee, as many photographers will charge you for using their work.
Only the copyright owner, (or his/her authorised representative), can give permission, so you should contact the photographer, or his/her company, directly for consent. For images published on the Internet, it is typical to contact the webmaster of the site in the first instance, unless the site provides contact details for the owner of the images.
The copyright owner has no obligation to allow you to use their work, and can refuse permission for any reason.'

Even with that information now before us I find that others photographs are interesting. In any photograph it is possible to see that there are many influences that have caused the particular scene to be imaged the way it is. However it is also interesting to note that the subjects identity, and the photographers identity are at play in each image made. At this time we won't go into the intricacies of Identity and theory as it relates to photography at this time, however in the near future information will start to be posted on this blog as it relates to identity.

Found Photography

Have you ever seen a photograph lying on the pavement as you walked past? If you have the print was probably damaged from the effects of weather, feet, and the grime that covers the streets. Did you want to pick it up and look closely at the image which was dropped by the owner?

I walked past a photograph that was left lying on the ground at least 10 times not too long ago. It was in the same spot every day for many weeks. When I first saw it appear along my route it was in good condition. The image on its surface showed a young baby boy with dark hair in a blue blanket. It was slightly over exposed but nice to look at none-the-less.

However I did not pick this print up off of the ground to which it had been banished. I left it and each time I walked past the print was in a worse condition. I thought about picking it up but didn't know what I would do with the image. I have no need to try and publish it. I didn't want to deal with the bacteria that would no doubt be growing among its fibers now that it had been lying in the street for so long. It is no longer where I found it. My chance to look upon a random photo in a familiar spot is now over.

Since that day I have come to learn of 'Found Photography'. A practice where the artist involved is more of a curator of images that others don't want anything to do with. There are practicioners, who we will look at later on as my research progresses, that have found photographs and exhibited them. In my first bit of researching this small field of photography I have come across 'Look at Me a Collection of Found Photos' on the web. (http://www.moderna.org/lookatme/) It is a collection of photographs that have been found in various places such as flea markets, and the street.

This is certainly not the only places that found photographs can be gathered from. There are the obvious, trash bin, notice boards and lost and found receptacles. However there are other places they could come from such as the web or in print of some sort. However in these last two areas you will run into copyright issues. In fact copyright issues could be raised with any photograph that is published or exhibited without the consent of the copyright owner.

The previously mentioned website, 'Look at Me a Collection of Found Photos', was started by Frederic Bonn and Zoe Deleu in 1998. The projected has been featured in a number of places including the Financial Times and Design Week Magazine (UK). We find on the website itself a comment about the photographs, 'hey can't help but be interesting, as stories with only an introduction.' I would fully agree with this statement. People we don't know in settings we are unfamiliar with have a mystery about them. The unknown stories we find looking at them carry few visual clues which makes it that much more of a treasure. Looking at the collection of photographs on line it is easy to see that they are a step back in time; a look back at the history that has happened without the obvious stain of politics or economics splashed across them.

It is unfortunate I was unfamiliar with the project when I ignored the photograph that was on the ground. I could  have submitted it to this online collection of nameless  images. Perhaps the owner of the photograph found it themselves. Probably not. It was most likely picked up and thrown into a bag of rubbish that now sits in a landfill rotting, returning to the earth from which its materials were originally obtained.