HISTORY OF MODERNISM IN ART & PHOTOGRAPHY
THE IMPACT OF PHOTOGRAPHY ON THE MODERN ART WORLD
MODERNISM was a major shift in art, literature, and music, which evolved during the first two decades of the twentieth century. Modernism implies a rejection of previous conventions in favor of radically different forms of personal and artistic expression.
MODERNISM was a major shift in art, literature, and music, which evolved during the first two decades of the twentieth century. Modernism implies a rejection of previous conventions in favor of radically different forms of personal and artistic expression.
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The advent of photography is often credited with triggering this revolution in painting. Since the camera could produce such perfect transcriptions of reality, artists were suddenly forced to be more than clever copyists of nature. This led them to such new ideas as Impressionism. However, modern art as a term applies to a vast number of artistic genres spanning more than a century, aesthetically speaking, modern art is characterized by the artist's intent to not only portray a subject as it exists in the world, but according to his or her unique perspective. This practice represents the beginnings of abstraction in the visual arts.
Photography, too, went through its own dramatic changes as part of the broader shift to Modernism. Most historians date the beginnings of Modernism in photography to the Photo-Secession, a movement founded by Alfred Stieglitz in 1902. The two images to the right demonstrate this shift in photographic conventions. On the top is a photograph from 1896 and the bottom was taken around 1935. What about the top image do you consider conventional? What is unconventional about the bottom image? http://www.photographymuseum.com/modernism1.html |
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Paul Strand (1890-1976): The Master of Modern Photography
- The distinctive place Paul Strand holds in the history of modern photography rests on his extraordinary artistic talent as well as his belief in the transformative power of the medium in which he chose to work. From his early experiments with street photography in New York to his sensitive portrayal of daily life in New England, Italy, and Ghana, Strand came to believe that the most enduring function of photography and his work as an artist was to reveal the essential nature of the human experience in a changing world. He was also a master craftsman, a rare and exacting maker of pictures.
Hernri Cartier-Bresson's Decisive Moment
The Father of Modern Photojournalism - Read The Art Story
The Father of Modern Photojournalism - Read The Art Story
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Extended List of Modernist Photographers
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Berenice Abbott
Werner Bischof Rene Burni Karl Blossfeldt Henri Cartier Bresson Harry Callahan Imogen Cunningham Robert Doiusneau Walker Evans Heinrich Kuhn |
Dorothea Lange
Irving Penn Arthur Rothestein August Sander W. Eugene Smith Frederick Sommer Alfred Stieglitz Paul Strand Brett Weston Edward Weston |