On and beyond white walls by Liz Wells

On and beyond white walls - Photography as art Liz Wells

from Photography: A Critical Introduction Third Edition edited by Liz Wells.

History of photography has been more about pictures and practitioners than communication.

Williams (1976) Keywords London:Fontana defines art as expressive skill (akin to photography) as opposed to Art which is focussed on galleries and exhibitions.

It was 1989 before the Royal Academy mounted its first ever photography exhibition, The Art of Photography. Tate's first was 2003.

19th century attitudes were influenced by the distinction between the expressive art and the mechanical technology. Photography does comply with aesthetic conventions in terms of composition, subject-matters, treatment of light etc. But some did not view themselves as artists, such as Julia Margaret Cameron.  Emphasis was on picture taking rather than picture making.

Photography helped artists who used photographs as study devices - using a   photograph as the basis for a portrait for example. and as a method of note taking Photography let art loose from the constraint of having to represent reality  as seen, allowing to to be more experimental.

photography extended the reach of art, for example making portraiture more affordable, and in representing art - you could attend exhibitions, talks with slide shows to see works that formerly required travel.

Harker pointed out that different photographers will produce different pictorial results from the same object not merely because of the use of different technical techniques but also "because there is something different in each man's mind which somehow gets communicated to his fingers' ends and thence to his pictures."

The chapter then moves on to modernism and the development of photography as a democratising force, citing constructivism and Bauhaus movement.

American formalism, emphasising clarity of form,  was a very distinct style, demonstrated by Ansel Adams and Edward Weston among others. Formalism sought to be in galleries.

Surrealism used the Freudian distinction of Id (unconscious) and ego (conscious) in distinguishing between thought and reason, seeking to bypass the repressive nature of reason in order to express natural desires. Born out of Dada, it was anarchic. Used photomontage double exposure and other techniques in order to disorientate the viewer.