Figure 1 – F. Holland Day, “The Last Seven Words of Christ, 1898,” from the Wikimedia Commons and in the public domain in the United States because it is more than 70 years old.

There is an intimate exhibition of pictorialist photography at Boston’s Museum of Fine Arts that runs through February 22, 2015, entitled “Truth and Beauty.” This exhibition celebrates the museum’s recent acquisition of four major works related to the Boston leader of the movement, F. Holland Day. His The Seven Last Words (1898) (see Figure 1), purchased in 2013 and three portraits of Day by Edward Steichen, James Craig Annan, and Clarence H. White.

For those of you not in the know, like myself, the last seven words of Christ refers not to seven parting words, but to seven parting phrases that bear deep meaning in Christianity. The last of these called “the words of reunion” are “Father, into your hands I commit my spirit!” Holland Day’s work is a small series of self portraits depicting the Christ upon the cross.  The copy at the MFA is much more subtle than the one depicted in the figure from the Metropolitan Museum in NYC. Day’s work has been referred to as “an important touchstone of Modernist photography,” by the New York Time.  Because of its small size and delicate toning it connects you with a very personal spiritual moment, even if you do not share the particular religious connotation.  This, I believe, is because it relates to a universal pattern of human consciousness – that which Joseph Campbell refers to as one of the great monomyths or the “Masks of God.”

Pictorialism as a movement in photography that triumphed in the thirty year period from 1885-1915, and like so many intellectual movements owes its demise, in part, to the traumatic events of the First World War.  Its ascendance coincided with the fiftieth anniversary of the invention of photography and to the threat of impending mediocrity to the art posed by George Eastman’s introsuction of the box camera in 1888.  These were fifty years during which the debate in the art world was whether photography was merely a means of recording an image or itself a fine art.  It was highly influenced by both classic traditions and the contemporary concept of fine painting as being  a means of conveying emotion through moody out-of-focus, often misty, imagery.

The first use of the term pictorial, in the context of photography, came in 1869 in English photographer Henry Peach Robinson‘s “Pictorial Effect in Photography: Being Hints On Composition And Chiaroscuro For Photographers.” He defined this style in terms of the then centuries old term from Italian painting “chiaroscuro” referring to the use of dramatic lighting and shading to convey an expressive mood.”  Robinson advocated “combination printing,” mixing elements from multi-negatives and  heavily manipulating the final print or negative.

Pictorialists often advocated and practiced the use of what they referred to as “enobling processes.” They would alter the appearance of their photographs using gum or bromoil printing.  These are materials that stick to the emulsion and enabled the photographers to create highly moody effects and so much altered their images that they were often mistaken for drawings or lithographs. A classic pictorialist image of this type, that we have spoken extensively about before, is Edward Steichen’s “Flat Iron Building at Night, 1904.”  It is probably a tribute to Steichen’s success with this image that today the blue versions are mistaken for early examples of color photography, which they are not.  Another pictorialist photographer whom we have previously discussed is Annie Brigman.  Among the striking images in the MFA exhibit is Alfred Stieglitz’s “The Hand of Man, 1902,” shown as Figure 2. It epitomizes the kind of moody imagery that defines pictorialism.

As noted, photography changed irrevocably with the world in 1914.  However, the pictorialist movement, championed by such masters as Holland Day, Alfred Stieglitz, and Edward Steichen triumphed before photography evolved to its next phase. Their principal advocacy was to see photography accepted as a “fine art.”  In 1910 the Albright Gallery in Buffalo bought 15 photographs from Stieglitz’ 291 Gallery.

As I’m writing this, I am revisiting the many wonderful works of the long career of Edward Steichen.  A retrospective at the Whitney Museum in 2000-2001 in NYC began with his pictorialist images and ended with photographs like his “Matches and Match Boxes, 1926.”  It demonstrates, on the one hand, how much art and photography have changed, and, on the other hand, how wonderful the medium is in its diversity.

Figure 2 – Alfred Stieglitz, “The Hand of Man, 1902.” From the Wikimediaxcommons and in the public domain because it was published before 1923.

I was reading today on BBC.com, a very poignant discussion of one blind man’s experiences dealing with his mother’s death. To sighted people it might not be obvious that the experience brings with it extra challenges and difficulties for the blind.  What particularly touched me was the comment:

“Sighted people are able to look at old photos and letters to help the grieving process. My photography skills leave a bit to be desired, and Mum could see so didn’t write to me in Braille.

I have ended up with: some old crockery, a couple of sound recordings and lots of memories. It doesn’t feel enough. Can my sighted friends and colleagues tell from my face when I am thinking of Mum, I wonder?”

We have previously discussed how photographs serve as time capsules, enabling us to bridge the time dimension.  This not just enables us to “interact” at some levels with people from a hundred years ago, but often they are all that remains for us of loved ones.  Vision is such a dominant sense for humans.  It is a sense denied blind people and they must rely on other sense and cues: letters perhaps or snippets of recorded voice. That is their perception space, and it is from perception that we form memories.

Of course, old photographs are never really enough either.  They are icons, often idealized ones, of what the person was or should have been.  They are poor substitutes indeed.  They endure the ages, offer some small level of immortality but in the end fall short by virtue of the fact that they are flat and two dimensional.  They do not breathe and worse they do not love us back.

Figure 1 – Swedish Prime MinisterTage Erlander in 1969 using an Ericcson videophone to talk to popular TV show host Lennart Hyland. From the Wikimedia Commons, uploaded by Esquilo, and in the public domain.

I was reading Scientific American last night. They have a long running feature called: “Fifty, One hundred, and One hundred and fifty years ago,” where they talk about what was featured in the magazine during these dates. I’ve been reading that column since I was a boy, when I would read my father’s copy. And here’s the thing, back then it was only “Fifty and a Hundred years ago.” I’m starting to feel a bit dated. And to make matters worse, the “fifty years ago” part is when I started reading it. Ah well, such is the unstoppable, indeed imperturbable flow of time. I guess that I’ll have to accept the fact that pretty soon people are going to be calling me “pops” and offering me seats on the subway, aka “The T.”

What caught my eye last night was a discussion of the ATT Videophone – and the dream of simultaneous video and audio telephone calls – that is one-on-one telephony (videophony?). Remarkably, in 1936 Georg Schubert (1900-1955) launched the world’s first video telephone service in  Germany, the  Gegensehn-Fernsprechanlagen or visual telephone system. It connected Berlin and Leipzip via dedicated coaxial cable. Those of you with cable TV won’t find this so retro!  The technology was based on  a system invented by Gunter Krawinkel’s and displayed at the 1929 Internationale Funkausstellung Berlin (Berlin International Radio Exposition). Schubet’s system was mechanical television based on a rotating Nipkow disk scanning a 20 cm square display at a resolution of 180 lines – so 30 lines per inch.  Come on, that’s pretty respectable for 1936.  It transmitted ~ 40,000 pixels per frame at 25 frames per second.  Eventually there were 1000 km of coaxial cable in the German system with the videophones located in public phone booths. 

During the 1950’s and ’60’s AT&T‘s Bell Labs spent close to $500M on research, product development, and public demonstrations of it’s videophone technology. The Picturephone Mod I’s was  promoted both at Disneyland and at the 1964 New York World’s Fair (Those of my generation may remember the jingle “part of the fun of the World’s Fair is the subway special that gets you there.” Well, maybe not so much). The first transcontinental videocall was made on April 20, 1964.

Well fast forward, and here we are in 2014.  We have achieved our videophone with teleconferencing, Skype, and Facetime.  Somehow, for once, it seems that Joni Mitchell was right in her song “The Circle Game.” “His dreams have lost some grandeur coming true.”  We love our cell phones.  We love sharing videos, even livestreaming to our friends from concerts and events.  We adore the immediacy of photography with these gadgets.  But videophones? Well yes, I know people who use them.  I even use them myself sometimes.  But the truth is that with video conferencing, when my Skype video goes down, I’m just as happy with voice only, as long as I can share PowerPoint presentations and documents. It’s not just an issue of unreliability or lack of bandwidth.  It’s a dimension that surprisingly we don’t seem to really need.

I know that people will disagree with me on this one.  The kids like to “see” mom or dad on a business trip.  But for me it’s all kind of a big yawn. “Calling Captain Video, wherever you are.“

Figure 1 – Photograph of the Archduke and his wife emerging from the Sarajevo Town Hall to board their car, a few minutes before the assassination. From the Wikimedia Commons uploaded from http://www.europeana1914-1918.eu/en/contributions/1225#sthash.RbkTiJmq.dpuf and put in the public domain under creative commons attribution license.

Last week,June 28 marked the 100th anniversary of the assasination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria, who was heir to the throne of the Austro-Hungarian throne, and his wife, Sophie, Duchess of Hohenberg.  The assassination was carried out in  Sarajevo by Gavrilo Princip, one of a group of six assassins.  WE should remember this event because it ultimately triggered a month later the First World War by setting in motion decade old treaties. We have only to look at the sectarian battles in the current Middle East to recognize that the brutal effects of that war are enduring. The triumphant European powers carved up the old Ottoman Empire into convenient states, oblivious to sectarian and religious lines.

But the subject here is photography, and what strikes me is how we hunger for images to show us what happened and if possible to explain it.  In a world where everything occurs under the robotic eyes of surveillance cameras, it is very unsatisfying that the only pictures that we have of this event are a picture of the Archduke and his wife getting into their carriage moments before the assassination (Figure 1) and a picture of Princip being arrested (Figure 2).

In a haunting way we may see parallels with John and Jackie Kennedy arriving in Dallas and of Lee Harvey Oswald being killed in a Dallas jail.  The photographs, in these instances, don’t really explain anything.  They only provide a visual context.  They are ultimately (merely?) memes –  in this case to events that we only know through history books.

We recognize in all of this how visual a species we are.  The death toll of this war was, and sadly continues to be, unthinkable. It was a very defining moment – a critical point where the world changed forever.  It was the end of innocence, the breakup of iron-fisted monarchy.  These are the lovely thoughts for a Sunday afternoon.  For the thousands who died in that senseless war, who continue to die, we have only the words of the British poet Wilfred Owens who died in this “War to End all Wars” to explain how they felt.  Eponine is not singing at the barricades.

Figure 2 – The arrest of Princip, from the Wikimedia Commons, uploadeed by Anominski and put in the public domain under create commons attribution license.

Our discussion yesterday about how every day the light is different reminded me of how when my son was small I took him every morning to day care and would have to drive by a lake,  Every morning the atmosphere and view were different than the day before.  The light was different, and I used to think that it would be interesting to stop each morning and take a picture from exactly the same spot with exactly the same camera angle.  Needless-to-say, I never did it.

But there are, of course, people who start their year with a New Year’s resolution to take a photograph every day, to create a photo-journal.  It seems to me that this is not narcisim.  As Socrates pointed out “the unexamined life is not worth living;” so there is value to this kind of nonverbal journal.  At the same time you can do it through a dedicated site like that of the 365 Project and, guess what, you are connecting with people all around the world.  Yes that’s through social media, but also you are connecting through pictures, participating in a greater community of photographers.  I feel the same about the various art photography groups on social media.  The whole point is getting involved, doing what you enjoy, and connecting.  Finally, the whole process of “forcing” yourself to find a photo-worthy subject every day and figure out how to express your thoughts is good for your artistic soul.  It is a challenge and by rising to this challenge you expand your photographic self.

I apologize but I need to digress.  Last Wednesday I posted a self portrait taken in the window of the 1912 Cafe.  When I was sitting and contemplating taking that photograph the light reminded me of a favorite painting; but my brain and Google failed me.  I have finally remembered that it is the amazing painting by American Realist Painter Scott Prior entitled “Nanny and Rose” (1983)  in Boston’s Museum of Fine Arts.  Nanny is the beautiful woman, Rose the dog.  Prior says of his work: “Nanny and Rose and the subsequent paintings… are very personal. To me they are like large snapshot photos, and as a collection they have become a memory album of my life. It has been my belief that the painted intimacies of ordinary life must be recorded and celebrated.”  This is really the appeal simple, compelling beauty in everyday things and events. That was what I was thinking about when I took that selfie.

Whenever I marvel at Prior’s work my brain hurts.  I wonder about technique, how painstaking it must be to create a painting so like a photograph.  I have come to realize that I may have it backwards.  First, there were paintings not the other way around. Maybe the first were cave paintings.  And paintings ran, and still run, the gamut from pure abstraction to absolute realism.  In some sense photography emerged as an attempt to paint in an absolutely realistic way with light.  But oil and tempera were its predecessors.

Photography is a combination of chemistry and physics.  It emerged with the limits and virtues of its science.  It was Fox Talbot’s “Pencil of Nature.”  Early photographers sought to emulate painters.  They pushed the new medium to sharp realism.

You look at a painting like “Nanny and Rose” and you realize that nobody could have posed long enough for that to be painted in such stunning and precise detail.  In some sense it had to be posed and constructed, even perhaps aided by a camera.  But the same is true of the photograph.  Many are spontaneous and candid. Others extensively set up and posed.  But as in all art there is inevitably a significant component of artist construction.  For the photograph this occurs first at conception and then the image is born again in the dark or light room.