Pictorialism

Pictorialism is the name given to an international style and aesthetic movement that dominated photography during the later 19th and early 20th centuries. There is no standard definition of the term, but in general it refers to a style in which the photographer has somehow manipulated what would otherwise be a straightforward photograph as a means of "creating" an image rather than simply recording it. Typically, a pictorial photograph appears to lack a sharp focus (some more so than others), is printed in one or more colors other than black-and-white (ranging from warm brown to deep blue) and may have visible brush strokes or other manipulation of the surface. For the pictorialist, a photograph, like a painting, drawing or engraving, was a way of projecting an emotional intent into the viewer's realm of imagination.

• …the strongest part of a picture is the sensation and the feeling which it creates, this being done through the agency of certain familiar objects more or less accurately depicted and represented with more or less completeness.
  The MOTIVE, then, in all pictorial work is to convey some thought or idea or sensation by means of a chosen subject.

• …we might now formulate a maxim to the effect that art -- that is, in our case, pictorial representation --- employs the image of concrete things to create abstract ideas.

• In selecting our subject…there are two factors which it should be borne in mind are essential, and these are Expression and Composition

• …a person looking at the picture is unconsciously satisfied, and for the time is oblivious of the fact that the picture is only a little piece selected from all the wide panorama, and forgets that there was anything else in the world worth looking at.

• …--- a view may include any number of interesting facts, may constitute a whole catalog of important and pretty items, and so be valuable as a view or as a record; but it would utterly fails as a pictorial composition.

• It is an acknowledged canon that in artistic matters the art should not betray itself --- that is to say, in composition for instance, there should be no appearance of the thing having been planned. Let the intention to secure a symmetrical arrangement once be self-confessed, and it immediately seems artificial.

• The composition may be ever so carefully worked out, but it must appear unconsciously done. And so it will be best in most cases to depart slightly from precise and symmetrical arrangement, as though unintentionally, lest the endeavor to obey artificial rules betrays itself.

• It may also be noticed that in saying that Expression and Composition are the two essential components of a picture I have placed Expression first ; and I have done this because, whilst good Composition is by no means to be neglected, yet if the expression or sentiment of the picture be very finely done, then I think so long as we avoid bad composition I do not know that we need go further ; indeed, if the sentiment suggested by the picture be only powerful enough, we might almost ignore the rules of composition as generally taught, for if the expression be forcible enough it might absorb the beholder to the extent of making him unconscious of the composition.

• But one may say, " I should rather photograph beautiful rippling water than streaks of mud and shining sand." Very likely, and if you want to photograph water, do so by all means ; but do not suppose that because, with a natural British instinct, we most of us experience a sense of pleasure at a broad expanse of water, that water is of itself and under all circumstances picturesque. What, after all, are the pleasant feelings which the mere sight of water call up ? Is it not a recollection of past experiences boating, swimming, or some such memory ? If you had never seen or heard of water before, what then ? Is it its brightness, smoothness, transparency, silent flowing, and the fresh, invigorating breeze, which makes you love the water ? If so, then remember that these attributes are actual physical facts, which may awaken feelings and memories, or associated ideas, but do not create new ones.

• The desire to see for the sake of seeing is with most people the only desire to be gratified ; hence the delight in detail.

• Hence SELECTION in photography, or at least in landscape and some other branches of work, often takes the place of what in painting becomes voluntary COMPOSITION.

• In order to convey an expression of an abstract idea, founded mainly on the effect of light, shade, and atmosphere, we select our objects for this purpose; then the objects themselves and for themselves are of no importance, be they fairest flowers, stateliest trees, dingiest wharves, dainty cottages, or grimy barges no matter what their nature, if they form a pleasing design and serve as means to express the varying phases of light and shade, that is the only purpose for which we require them.

• ...of course in some pictures the daintiness and beauty of the objects themselves may please us, I want to insist that such source of pleasure is of so little importance and so non-essential that we may have a supremely beautiful picture in which the objects composing it are not in themselves possessed of beauty or interest.

• If we are to select our subjects or arrange our groups with a pictorial motive we must absolutely and entirely sacrifice every other consideration, and be prepared to cut out of our composition the prettiest and most interesting item, if by so doing composition pure and simple is improved. And if some subject you are attached to will not admit of composition or will not admit of your treating it pictorially, then photograph it if you wish, but never suppose that it will form a picture.

• The Expression in a picture depends chiefly on the relative degrees of light and shade of its various portions, and also upon the manner in which objects are represented, especially as regards the amount of detail introduced.

• Nature, therefore, is not always suitable for the making of a picture, in which, as has been said, sentiment and emotion are essential, and hence our task is to seek for and choose those phases which do so appeal to our feelings.

• The prettiest or most interesting prospect may lack the conditions which awaken our emotions, and, lacking the essentials of the picture, must be passed by.

• The painter may make a sketch of a scene because the composition alone pleases him, and then he may subsequently introduce an effect of light and shade, an impression which he remembers having received in another place ; but the photographer must wait until nature itself offers both these favourable conditions simultaneously...

• … to put it into slightly different form, it is not the facts in nature that the good picture aims at portraying, but the effects of light and shade accompanied by a pleasing arrangement.

• Photography itself may err by inaccurately rendering the relative tones in Nature. Then we shall have to ask, What is " Tone "?...

• ...he (a photographer) forgets that unless he has learnt when the tones of a picture are right or not, he will not know whether his work is good or bad, nor know what to try and overcome in future.

• Very great care should then be taken to see that distant objects are rendered so as to appear distant that is, in correct relative tone when compared with the foreground or nearer portions.

• ...but it is no unusual thing to see photographic representations of scenes in which somehow atmosphere seems to have been utterly ignored and distant objects are so clear and appear in the same tone as near ones, and the latter are only recognized as nearer on account of their size or position.

• Such photographic productions must be familiar to all of us in which the objects or planes do not fall one behind the other and in which the more remote portions do not seem to go back ; and in such examples I think we shall have to admit that the character which in a picture may appeal to our feelings and imagination, is lacking.

• ...even as we listen to the gradually dying cadence of music as it becomes more distant, never quite sure when it has actually passed out of hearing.

• The louder a sound is, the more we recognize it as being near, so the louder the "tone" of objects that is, the blacker or whiter the nearer they seem ; and so if in our picture we wish to give a sense of distance, we must see that the darkest shadows and highest lights are in the foreground : and because we may not be able to materially alter things as the undiscriminating process gives them to us, we must seek for and select those scenes, those subjects, in which this arrangement of highest and deepest tones do come in the foreground, and then take care that our process renders them with fidelity, so that we may not lose the sense of their nearness or the feeling of greater distance of other planes which it is intended they shall give.

• It must be remembered that after all in making a picture we are endeavoring to set down on one plane various objects in such a way as to suggest an infinitude of varying planes, and hence we are justified in selecting such conditions of nature as shall help us to give the impression of truthfulness, even though it be not in particular cases absolutely true to fact.

• Tone must be clearly distinguished for tint which in monochrome is equivalent for local color.

• ...strictly speaking, tone is the relative lightness and darkness due to the effect of light governed by atmosphere, and has nothing to do with the relative lightness and darkness or relative value with which various colours appear when compared with each other.

• With most of us, even without special training, there is a certain instinctive sense of proportion, and thus we recognize the relative distance of objects by their relative size.
• We know the mountain peaks are lofty, and we think of them so, and we mentally enlarge them, but not the cottage at their foot, or the trees half way up.
• As a rule, in pictorial photography a long-focus lens will on the whole be most satisfactory.

• Practical Pictorial Photography by Alfred Horsley Hinton on archive.org