4 lesson

This week, we’ve spent some time exploring photography as an artistic form. To help you explore what we’ve learned about, your Unit 4 assignment will consist of writing an essay addressing using the following criteria: 

Essay Requirements: 

•    1,000 words or roughly four double-spaced pages. 
•    Make use of at least three scholarly sources to support and develop your ideas. Our course text may serve as one of these three sources.
•    Your essay should demonstrate a thorough understanding of the READ and ATTEND sections.
•    Be sure to cite your sources using proper APA format (7th edition). For help with APA, visit the Bethel Library website to explore a plethora of APA-related tutorials, help videos and resources. 

Essay Prompt: 
•    In this essay, you will choose one photographic image to critique as a work of art. You may choose an image from either the Straight Photography, The Documentarists or The Modern Eye sections of Chapter 11. Questions for you to consider in your essay: 
     o    Why did you choose this particular image? What appeals to you about it? What intrigues you?
     o    What ‘school’ or movement does it relate to i.e., straight, documentary or modern and what are some of the characteristics of your chosen image as it relates to the movement or school it’s a part of?
     o    Based on everything we’ve learned so far about art (and photography), how would you evaluate this photograph as a work of art? 

The Humanities
Through the Arts
Tenth Edition

Lee A. Jacobus │ F. David Martin

(NOTE: Pay particular attention to terms in italicized red font)

©McGraw-Hill Education. All rights reserved. Authorized only for instructor use in the classroom.  No reproduction or further distribution permitted without the prior written consent of McGraw-Hill Education.

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Chapter 11
Photography

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Introduction
First photograph, taken in 1839 by Louis Daguerre, was called Daguerreotypes.
Why would the French painter Paul Delaroche declare, “… painting is dead?”
Fig. 11-1. Paul Delaroche, Execution of Lady Jane Grey, 1843.

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Photographs and Painting:
Early Photographers
Portraitists
Robert Howlett
Julia M. Cameron
Étienne Carjat
(Fig. 11-4 portrait of Charles Baudelaire, 1870)
Landscapist
Timothy O’Sullivan
(Fig. 11-5 Canyon de Chelley, 1873)

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The Pictorialists
The pictorialists aimed toward realistic detail and composition in photographs.
Structure was similar to paintings in the 1800s,with lighting being sharp and clearly defined, as in Alfred Stieglitz’s early photo Paula (right).
Concentrated on soft focus and balanced symmetry and often sentimental in subject matter.
Fig. 11-6. Alfred Stieglitz, Sunrays, Paula. 1889.

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The f/64 Group
Alfred Stieglitz pioneered straight photography around 1905, striving for realism and perfection in technique.
f/64 comes from the small aperture on a camera which ensures that foreground, middle ground, and background are all in focus.
Notable photographers: Alfred Stieglitz (later), Edward Weston, Ansel Adams, Imogen Cunningham
Obsessed with a perfect print.
Fig. 11-8. Ansel Adams, Church, Taos Pueblo, 1941.

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The Documentarists, 1
Documentarists portray a world at one given moment.
Henry Cartier-Bresson captured images at their most intense points.
Eugène Atget photographed Paris extensively.
Paul Strand photographed people and buildings on Wall Street.

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The Documentarists, 2
Dorothea Lange and Walker Evans took part in a federal program to give work to photographers during the Great Depression of the 1930s.
These photos tend to humanize the viewer’s relationship with the subject matter, as in Lange’s Migrant Mother, 1936 (right).
Fig. 11-12

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The Modern Eye
Modern photography covers a multitude of different subject matter, technique, style, and composition.
A rebellion against earlier movements; has low technical demands, allows for cluttered composition, and catches reality
Nan Goldin, Bruce Davidson, Carrie Mae Weems, Tina Barney
Fig. 11-18. The Europeans: The Hands, Tina Barney, 2003.

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Digital Photography
Today, most fine-art photographs are digital.
They can be infinitely altered
and do not have to print only
what a camera sees.
Multiple photos can be layered
for depth.
Cindy Sherman, Wang Qingsong, Bill Gekas, Gregory Crewdson are notable digital photographers.
Fig. 11-19. Cindy Sherman, Untitled #466. 2008.

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Wrap-Up of the Chapter:
Terms and People to Remember
Terms
Daguerreotypes
Pictorialists
Straight photography
f/64 Group
Documentarists
Modern photography
Digital photography
People
Robert Howlett
Julia M. Cameron
Étienne Carjat
Timothy O’Sullivan
Alfred Stieglitz
Dorothea Lange
Walker Evans
Berenice Abbott
People
Edward Weston
Ansel Adams
Imogen Cunningham
Henry Cartier-Bresson
Eugène Atget
Louis Daguerre
Bruce Davidson
Cindy Sherman

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