Well before the end of the 19th century, art photography ceased to be a matter for individual endeavor. Amateur photographers began to organize themselves into clubs, working towards qualities comparable with painting and graphic art. Portrait photographers devoted themselves to the surpassing of the routine production of professional studios. The medium became divided into “art” and “non-art” categories. The amateur photographers were soon joined by some of the professionals themselves; Franz Grainer was among the firsts.
In landscape photography it was felt necessary that description, mere “copying of reality", be avoided. Morning and night shots intended to evince mood or emotion came to the fore, at the expense of exact description (Vladimir J. Bufka). Representation of the ordinary in non-ordinary fashion also became popular.
A subject demanded attention by means of the originality or subtlety with which it was represented. The craft and science of photography also sought to leave the previous era far behind. Gelatin-silver emulsions were progressively replaced by painstaking noble manipulative processes such as gum print, oil print and bromoil print (platinum print and carbon print had already been invented). That photographic positives had turned into graphic prints, thoroughly demanding in nature and highly reliant on the feel, experience and manual skills of the artist, became an integral part of arguments for the acknowledgment of photography as art, at a time when purely mechanical “imprints of reality" had no chance to be viewed as art.
The work of Jaroslav Rossler, a pioneer of European avant-garde photography, bears witness to the intertwining of various styles and technical approaches in the period before the situation in photography crystallized. Rossler initially employed oil print and bromoil print to produce photographs in the vein of art deco (Miss Gerta) and cubo-futurism (Ore Tarraco), but soon for purely photogenic works as well (Brother).
A subject demanded attention by means of the originality or subtlety with which it was represented. The craft and science of photography also sought to leave the previous era far behind. Gelatin-silver emulsions were progressively replaced by painstaking noble manipulative processes such as gum print, oil print and bromoil print (platinum print and carbon print had already been invented). That photographic positives had turned into graphic prints, thoroughly demanding in nature and highly reliant on the feel, experience and manual skills of the artist, became an integral part of arguments for the acknowledgment of photography as art, at a time when purely mechanical “imprints of reality" had no chance to be viewed as art.
The work of Jaroslav Rossler, a pioneer of European avant-garde photography, bears witness to the intertwining of various styles and technical approaches in the period before the situation in photography crystallized. Rossler initially employed oil print and bromoil print to produce photographs in the vein of art deco (Miss Gerta) and cubo-futurism (Ore Tarraco), but soon for purely photogenic works as well (Brother).
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| Alois Zych c.1912 |
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| Frantisek Drtikol 1925 |
