I wonder if any viewer would look at this series and understand its message. That is why I included the headlines to help the viewer see my intent. This intent was to show that our landscape should be seen as stalwart in our lives. Whatever the media discusses our landscape, a landscape we create is a constant. There to nurture and succour in good times and bad.
Each individual image has little impact alone although some do more than others. The series however has impact as you see the dynamic elements of the landscape change through the year. Whilst I didn’t quite hit the bull’s eye in every image the overall project hits the mark.
In making the 12 composite images that make Transitions I was keen to have consistency in each image. So I ensured I was in the same place for every one. Whilst I didn’t want the images to stitched panoramas they needed to show the same image.
I think I achieved this with accuracy.
I ensured the light was coming from the left hand side as we in the west expect to see it from this direction. Then perspective of the road takes the eye into the picture taking you past the changes in the landscape. Contrast and Colour also show the eye these changes, from stark leaves to full bloom.
My voice shows through the images I could have made straight 4:3 images but thinking of David Hockneys work “Four Seasons” (Hockney, 2017) made me adapt my work to get and series of images that emphasise areas of the scene and make my eye work as I look around the images. I like the way your eye sees separate images but your brain makes a composition from what is on show. To me it makes the story a challenge to get to.
Using the rule of 1/3rds and the road for leading lines allowed the basic frame of the photo. This helped make the twelve images follow a standard composition even though each image is slightly different it makes the series consistent.
I chose to use manual settings as I knew that auto would alter the settings and so the photos too much making each series too varied. Doing this allowed me to finish with consistency of exposure, contrast and detail. I could have used a reflector to direct light into the shadow. This would have been difficult to keep aligned across the twelve images.
My first thoughts around presentation were to create a book of large images. Covid 19 means no sending in of physical work. This has meant a rethink and I have created a slideshow of the work. I like the fact I can control the amount of time each image is visible. The viewer can loupe the video if they want to see the images again. Also the music adds to the project helping with the flow.
I have enjoyed this project and will be carrying it on into the future.
During each of my courses I could not have worked without a notepad. I keep it with me all the time (you never know when an idea will arrive).
I note everything down, some things become work others just form ideas that haven’t been produced, yet. They are all important and although scruffy it works for me.
Here is a slideshow of some of the pages from my latest notebook to show how it works for me. I recommend using one to any photographer they are great to refer to later.
When I was researching David Hockney I found this video of him discussing the background to his collage photographs. I found it thought provoking and relevant to the work I was completing for transitions (Assignment 6). This work shows elements of both time and space. In this piece I want to look a little deeper at David Hockneys thoughts but start with a transcript taken straight from the video I found.
In the video David Hockney says “I was very aware of the photographs they didn’t have life in the way a drawing or painting did. It couldn’t, because of what it is. Compared to Rembrandt looking for hours and hours scrutinising his face putting all this time into the painting you are going to look at. Naturally their is many more hours than you can give it. A photograph is the other way round; it is a fraction of a second, frozen. So the moment you have looked at if for four seconds you have looked at it for far longer than the camera did. It dawned on me this is visible. I made a little experiment with a Polaroid by putting thirty of them together of this in a way I had been trying to paint this house from three different viewpoints. These photos excited me so much. Time was appearing in the picture and a bigger illusion space. Space is an illusion, I was aware of that but time is not an illusion, it is real and accounted for in the number of pictures” (Smithsonian, 2020).
This is a lengthy transcript but when I tried to extract segments the words no longer made sense so I include it all. The video is worth watching and you can find it here.
I wanted to consider what David Hockneys words said to me and look at some examples of pictures that convey my reaction to them.
Time.
A painter spends hours, day sometimes months looking at his subject. Then they make sketches, practise paintings before committing to canvas.
Leonardo Da Vinci Anomatical Drawing of a hand 1500. (Mail, 2013)
Leonardo Da Vinci performed autopsies to fully understand anatomy before painting hands etc. The process of painting is a lengthy one. Allowing painters to change imperfections add or subtract items honing their work until the painter or patron is happy with the finished work. Sometimes going back years later to change parts or all of the work to get the painting right. (Mail, 2013).
For a painter the skill is knowing when to put down the brush and stop. For the photographer who works in seconds it’s knowing the correct amount of time is needed to portray the story. My work in assignment 6 will show a year in one location but the exposures will be done in several seconds.
Bellini The Miracle of the true cross near San Lorenzon Bridge (Bellini, 1500).
Some paintings show a period of time and include a full story, Bellini in the “The miracle of the true cross near San Lorenzo Bridge” (Bellini, 1500), shows the story of the procession of the cross. From arriving in a gondola to delivery at the dock. In one image it captures several moments and depicts a story, I look and see what has happened here.
Etienne Jules Marey “Chronographic study of a man pole vaulting (1891)
Etienne Jules Marey “Chronophotographic study of a man pole vaulting (Marey,1891) shows the second it takes to pole vault but splits the second into ten images and then superimposes them so the story is shown in one image.
William Edgerton Milk Drop 1936.
With photography we can choose many ways to show time. Short exposures freeze time such as in Harold E. Edgerton’s “Milk drop” (1936). This photograph shows the fraction of a second a drop of milk hits the surface in a saucier forming a perfect crown. The whole story is visible from drop to crown in one image.
Nathan Lazarnick Autos racing on the beach 1916.
Long exposures show speed or movement. Nathan Lazarnick (1916) uses a longer shutter speed to depict the speed of a racing car. Blurring it within the frame, the tyre tracks give good leading lines whilst the background is sharp emphasising space. I can see the speed the cars have passed the spectators and that this is a race.
Hockney chooses to tell the story with a collage of many Polaroid images taken from different perspectives. These capture more time and create the space for him to “paint” a story. The experiment has speaks of in the video shows just a blue balcony however it shows the balcony in the same way the eye works darting around. The scene isn’t flat it shows us the space and the number of shots tells us that time has passed whilst he worked emphasised by the changing shadows and light cast onto the scene.
Space
Both photographers and painters are limited by space. The space created by what is before them is constrained and by the frame both need to be considered in regard to the message they want to convey.
Unknown A 13th Century Farming Scene La Regime de Princes 1279. The Grainger Collection.
Early paintings are two dimensional and appear flat however they still have great artistic merit. Later linear perspective added depth and changes the reality of the work. Non linear perspective use colour, light and dark areas to create depth and perspective to a picture. Haze in the distance does much the same. Both tools are important to a painter and a photographer when creating the space for our stories. When used correctly they make the work more interesting and hold the viewers gaze for longer.
Bellotto View of the Ponte Della Navi 1745 (Bellotto, 1745).
Berado Bellotto “View of the Ponte Della Navi, Venice” (Bellotto, 1745) shows a bridge over the canal. His use of leading lines and the vanishing point give depth to the image. The detail must have taken months to paint but the linear perspective holds the eye and makes a painting of a bridge compelling.
David Casper Friedrich “The Wreck of Hope” (1824).
Caspar David Friedrich “The wreck of Hope”, (Friedrich, 1824) shows a ship wrecked in the ice. The lines create mayhem but no perspective. The perspective derives form the delicate portrayal of ice in the distance hidden by mist. Also the delicate cloud with a finely painted horizon hints at the depth and cold.
David Hockney Pearl Blossom Highway (1986).
David Hockney shows us this use of time and space in photos such as “Pearl Blossom Highway” (1986) he uses hundreds of exposures to build a collage creating a huge space. In doing this he shows the time passing through the day with the Change of colour in the sky and the change in the shadows. This gives a different view than a single photo it brings the image to life.
In my work I will create space by increasing the area covered by the nine exposures in each image whilst the time naturally appears in the images I will use to complete Transitions.
Work Cited
Bellini, Gentile. The Miracle of the True Cross near San Lorenzo Bridge. 1500. Oil on canvas. Galleria Del Academia Vezezia.
Bellotto, Berado. View of Verona with the Ponte Delle Navi. 1745. Oil on Canvas, 132x233cm. Private collection on loan to the national gallery of Scotland.
Hockney, David. Pearblossom Highway 2. April 18, 1986. Collage of Polaroid Images. John Getty Collection.
Hockney, David. Blue Terrace Los Angeles March 8th 1982. August 3, 1982. Polaroid Collage, Photographs.
Marey, Etienne Jules. Chronophotographic Study of a Man Pole Vaulting. 1891 1890. Albumen Print. 88:0795:001. Museum Collection by Exchange.
Nathan, Lazarnick. Autos Racing on a Beach 1916. 1916. Gelatin on Nitrocellulose. 81:3051:0754. Gift of George Lazarnick. “Smithsonia Channel What David Hockneys Collages Reveal about Photography.” Accessed June 29, 2020. https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=3079256612155771&extid=ZB4HtuZiUc4PUZjP
Unknown. 13th Century Famers using a wheeled plough in France 1279. Manuscript. “The Grainger Collection”. Accessed 2020.
I wonder if any viewer would look at this series and understand its message. That is why I included the headlines to help the viewer see my intent. This intent was to show that our landscape should be seen as stalwart in our lives. Whatever the media discusses our landscape, a landscape we create is a constant. There to nurture and succour in good times and bad.
Each individual image has little impact alone although some do more than others. The series however has impact as you see the dynamic elements of the landscape change through the year. Whilst I didn’t quite hit the bull’s eye in every image the overall project hits the mark.
In making the 12 composite images that make Transitions I was keen to have consistency in each image. So I ensured I was in the same place for every one. Whilst I didn’t want the images to stitched panoramas they needed to show the same image.
I think I achieved this with accuracy.
I ensured the light was coming from the left hand side as we in the west expect to see it from this direction. Then perspective of the road takes the eye into the picture taking you past the changes in the landscape. Contrast and Colour also show the eye these changes, from stark leaves to full bloom.
My voice shows through the images I could have made straight 4:3 images but thinking of David Hockneys work “Four Seasons” (Hockney, 2017) made me adapt my work to get and series of images that emphasise areas of the scene and make my eye work as I look around the images. I like the way your eye sees separate images but your brain makes a composition from what is on show. To me it makes the story a challenge to get to.
Using the rule of 1/3rds and the road for leading lines allowed the basic frame of the photo. This helped make the twelve images follow a standard composition even though each image is slightly different it makes the series consistent.
I chose to use manual settings as I knew that auto would alter the settings and so the photos too much making each series too varied. Doing this allowed me to finish with consistency of exposure, contrast and detail. I could have used a reflector to direct light into the shadow. This would have been difficult to keep aligned across the twelve images.
My first thoughts around presentation were to create a book of large images. Covid 19 means no sending in of physical work. This has meant a rethink and I have created a slideshow of the work. I like the fact I can control the amount of time each image is visible. The viewer can loupe the video if they want to see the images again. Also the music adds to the project helping with the flow.
I have enjoyed this project and will be carrying it on into the future.
I felt it was appropriate after seeing David Hockney making Four Seasons in Warter Lane to do some research about what the work is about and how it will compare with my work.
Oxtoby Mingus Deep Blue Redfern Gallery
Boty Big Jim Colosimo. 1963
Lisle, Boys Fishing; Burton Gallery, University of Leeds.
Gallery of Works by David Hockneys fellow students at Bradford College.
David Hockney was born on July 9th 1937 in Heston Bradford. He went to Bradford Grammar School then into further education. He studied at Bradford College of Art where he was tutored by Frank Lisle his peers included Pauline Boty and David Oxtoby.
David Hockney Life Painting for a diplome Personal Collection 1962.
He progressed to the Royal Acadamy of the Arts in London. In 1962 the Royal Acadamy wouldn’t allow him to graduate until he produced a nude, life studyhe did calling it “Painting for a diploma”. Show both his rebellious side and his sense of playfulness. He proved to be an accomplished droughts man and artist with a keen interest in using new technology in his work. (BBC,2013).
He taught at Maidstone College for a short period before following his desire to be a stand alone artist. (BBC, 2013).
David Hockney “A Bigger Splash” 1967 Tate.
David Hockney then moved to Los Angeles and created a studio. He worked on projects including paintings, Lithographs and photographs. One of his most important works “A bigger Splash” was painted in his swimming pool. He experimented with photo collages making one of a blue balcony which subsequently led to the work Four Seasons which influenced my work for assignment 6.
82 Portraits and 1 Still life David Hockny Royal Acadamy of the Arts.
He exhibited 82 portraits and 1 still life at the Royal Acadamy in London. These portraits are in vibrant colours and have the subjects seated. It has one still life of fruit on a bench. Each portrait had to be completed in 3 days. All have the same background and the same chair. The still life has no meaning it is in the exhibition as an after thought.
Salts Mill David Hockney Gallery 1853
He support his friend Jonathan Silver who he had met at Grammar School to set up Gallery 1853 in Salts Mill, a building Silver saved, renovated and dedicated the Gallery to David Hockneys work. It houses one of the largest collections of his work in the UK. One being a painting of the mill in the entrance to the mill.
The Arrival of Spring at Gallery 1853 Salts Mill (Hockney).
Some of that work is David Hockneys Ipad work drawn in the Yorkshire Wolds the setting for Warter Lane the inspiration for “Four Seasons”. Also set in the Wolds are the massive paintings of the landscape entitled “The arrival of spring showing his embrace for new technologies.
Using video he uses different technology to take us into the Wolds Landscape in a different way. He didnt do it at the time but he recorded a disappearing landscape as the copse shown was to be chopped down. David Hockney tried to save it to no avail (2011).
Here is the video of hockney discussing Four Seasons.
Hockney speaks about “Four Seasons” on the Frieze website he says “Bertie says Perspective is a window, So where are you as the viewer? In a room not the landscape, lots of pictures counter act perspective putting you in the landscape not in the room, most photographs are flat, by changing the perspective this work is about time and space and more….” (Frieze, 2018).
In another video he made for the Smithsonian Channel Hockney talks about “I realised a photo has no life, unlike a painting, a paint artist spends hours looking at the subject before making a picture”. He continues “A camera looks for a fraction of a second”. In the video he is discussing his collage work and the way he uses time and space to create perspective in his collages. My research on Time and Space is here.
I want my work to put you in the landscape rather than just show a flat photograph. It is a dynamic living space that is there whatever is happening in the human world. I want to use still images so will have to take more images (12) in fact 72 to cover the year. I will change perspective by shooting images that are not stitches and will not align to make the viewer work harder to see the message.
The headlines from the Guardian will make my work different to Hockneys. However it is a key part of what I want to say.
Sitting in a room with the four screens of nine is a soothing experience, more soothing than walking down Warter Lane. Being in the middle of the screens makes you feel totally immersed in this installation.
Work Cited
David, Hockney. One Still Life. 2014. Acrylic on Canvas. Royal Academy of the Arts London. Hockney, David. A Bigger Splash. 1967. Oil on Canvas, 95 1/4×96 inches. T03254. The David Hockney Collection. https://thedavidhockneyfoundation.org/chronology/1967. ———.
Four Seasons. 2017. Video Installation, 36 screens making four images. Frieze Video. ———.
During my work for Assignment 5 I found Helen Sear. She is an artist who states she was influenced by David Casper Friedrichs. I couldn’t move on until I had completed some research into Helen and her work as she was unknown to me.
Helen was born in 1955 in Worcestershire in sight of Wales. She has made her reputation from her studio in Monmouthshire, Wales. As a small girl her father used to go on long walks with her where he taught her about the countryside and nature.
She came to prominence in 1991 when her work was included in the British Council exhibition “De-Composition Constructed Photography in Britain”, this exhibition was popular in Latin America and Eastern Europe (1997).
Artsy (2018) says of Sears work, “She explores her/our relationship with the natural world”. Her work “Inside out” (Sear) reminds me of Friedrichs work with the subject back to camera Helen adds elements to make the photo painterly and dreamlike.
Sear describes her work as a “Double time of image making” referring to the time between taking the initial image and the time during which she superimposes her photographic images (Artsy, 2018).
She was educated at:
1975-1979 Reading university, BA Hons.
1981-1983 Slade School London, HDFA.
2009 PhD University of Newport, Wales.
Jane Wainwright writing in says of her approach “I am trying to slow down the instantaneous of the camera” Wright continues about Sear “ She highlights the ordinary, making it extraordinary. Forcing the viewer to engage with the work and puzzle out the image”.
When Wainwright asked Sear if she had any particular artists or pictures that influenced her work she replied “I am interested in Romantic Painting particularly the work of Turner and perhaps the German romantics such as David Casper Friedrichs.
Pushed further she continues “The people who influenced me were in the end the ones who taught me at college. At the Slade artists like Tim Head and Helen Chadwick” (Wainwright, 2000).
Friedrich`s “Wanderer above a sea of fog” (1818) must have influenced Sear as it did me. However I can not find any specific reference to it doing so. When I look at Sears images I see a similar message as the one I wanted to portray however Sears images have added layers where mine are straight photographs. I want to experiment with this technique and will do so before I leave this research.
Three images from Helen Sears work “Inside the view” (Sear, 1997).
Valerie Reardon wrote off Sears’s body of work, “Sear draws on the Freud’s notion of the “unheimlich” the uncanny sense that what is hidden is also somehow ghastly. Jacques Lacan reworked this notion and came up with the term extemite a blurring of the line between interiority and exteriority which points to neither but is located where they coincide and become threatening”(1998).
This paragraph was challenging to me I didn’t understand the two words unheimlich and extemite. So I had to spend some time understanding them both. The former means Uncanny/weird and the latter means the lines become blurred and thus threatening. I can see this Angst in Sear’s images at first glance they look sweet but when you look and see the layers they take on new meaning which to me are somehow dark.
David Campany compares her work with Fox Talbot’s image of lace “Talbot placed black lace directly on to sensitised paper and exposed it to the sun, The lace appears white on a dark background it doesn’t look like a negative, the flat fabric is so well rendered by the simple technique. It is stoic and removed yet the light that touches the object then touches a receptive surface” (Campany, 2005). This is talking about the single layer Sear adds more layers to create her art.
Having looked at this work I thought that at first sight it seems simple. It is not, within the square frame are complex layers. The more I look and reflect the more the work asks me to think. I like Helen Sears work very much and I think I will have to explore the artists who influenced her.
Earlier I said I would experiment with how I see Sears’s images and here is that work.
Caspar David Friedrich The wanderer above a sea of fog 1818.
Caspar David Friedrichs was born on 5th September 1774 and died on 7th August 1840. He was a German Romantic landscape painter. He is known for allegorical paintings showing people in a landscape from behind, contemplating the glory of nature.
He studied in Copenhagen, Denmark and after his studies, he settled in Dresden.
Friedrichs felt disillusioned with the materialist world that was being created at this time. J.M.W Turner and John Constable felt some of the same and painted with this in mind showing nature as a divine creation. Constable said of Turner “Turner . . . seems to paint with tinted steam, so evanescent and so airy” (Frist, 2019). Steam was produced by nearly everything in the industrial revolution.
The sculpture David D`Angers said of Friedrichs “He has discovered the tragedy of landscape”, (Vaughn, 2004). Maybe Friedrichs felt this when he witnessed his brothers drowning in an icy lake as a teenager. His mother and two sisters died around the same time of ill health this could have been a catalyst for the tragedy in his work.
Friedrich won the Weimar competition in 1805 a competition organized by the writer and academic Johan Wolfgang von Goethe this competition had lost its way a little, attracting less skillful artists than Friedrichs. Winning this competition ensured his name was made locally and then his reputation grew. He completed watercolours and etchings completing very little work in oil at this time. Friedrich did draw and paint the local landscape in a divine sort of way.
Goethe said “We must praise the artist’s resourcefulness in this picture fairly. The drawing is well done the procession is ingenious and appropriate. His treatment combines a great deal of firmness, Diligence, and neatness” (Siegel, 1974).
Part of his education was at the Academy of Copenhagen this educational institution allowed him external visits to draw. On one of these outings he met and was later schooled by the theologian “Ludwig Gottard Kossgarten”, who worked with the Lutheran church preaching to a poor congregation of herring fishermen and women. Here Kossgarten preached “Where beauty is understood a metaphysical and related to the divine”. (Raisbeck, 2018). Listening to this would link the divine and Friedrichs landscapes.
In Copenhagen, Friedrichs had studied under Jens Juel who was part of the movement “Sturm and Drang” (Storm and Stress). This movement painted storms at sea or on the coast and often showed shipwrecks in a pre-romantic way. In the 2010 Radio 4 program (BBC, 2010) presented by Melvyn Bragg explored the whole of Sturm and Drang. This program looked at each part of the arts and discussed their part in this Romantic Movement.
In music composers, Mozart and Haydn are huge names within the movement writing soaring pieces of music that have stood the test of time. More angry young men producing art to counter the destruction of industry.
Henri Fuseli Falstaff Kunsthalle Hamburg 1792
Claude Vernet Storm on the Mediteranean Coast J.P. Getty Museum 1798.
Jens Juels Joseph Greenaway National Gallery London 1786
Jens Juel The dance in the glade at Sorgenfri Statens Museum For Kunst Copenhagen 1800.
Jens Juel Landscape with Northern Lights NY Glypotek 1790.
In Painting, Henri Fuseli was painting scenes from Shakespeare’s plays such as Falstaff (Fuseli 1792). Claude Joseph Vernet painted shipwrecks one being “A storm on the Mediterranean Coast” (Vernet, 1767). Jens Juel painted Joseph Greenaway (Juel, 1789) a portrait of a man who doesn’t quite fit the romantic movement but he then produced “The dancing glade at Sorenfri” (Juel, 1800) a painting of a glade just north of Copenhagen painted with the divine in mind. Later he painted “Landscape with Northern Lights” (Juel, 1836) a painting that connects the divine with natural phenomena and the land.
Casper David Friedrich Cross in the Mountain Gallery Nieu Dresden 1808.
Friedrichs completed his first major work in 1808. Cross in the Mountain (Friedrich, 1808). The painting shows the crucifixion of Christ in a different way. Before paintings of the crucifixion had the human figures as the main subject of the painting. Here the landscape is the main part with the crucifixion being smaller. It is the divine within the landscape. Siegel says “Logical climax of many other drawings of his in which he depicted a cross in nature’s world” (Siegel, 1978).
The German Lawyer and Art Critic Bascilus Von Ramdohr (Zeitung die elegant Walt, 1809), questioned landscape entering the church stating “Indeed it is a truly presumptuous thing, that Landscape Painting should try to slither into our churches and clamber onto our altars,”. Friedrichs counters this with “The ray of sunlight compares to the Light of the holy father”. This is the one and only time I can find Friedrich explaining his art?
In 1810 the Crown Prince of Prussia purchased several of Friedrichs work, shortly after these purchases Friedrich was elected a member of the Berlin Academy. This relationship and election reinforced his position within Germanic art.
In 1816 Friedrich applied for citizenship of Saxony this was a surprise as Saxony was pro-French. He acquired this citizenship in the same year sponsored by his friend Graf Virthum von Eckstart.
Casper David Friedrich Chalk Cliffs on Rugen Museum Oskar Reinhart Stuttgarten 1818.
Friedrich married Caroline Bummer with whom he had three children. At this point, he began showing more human figures in his work such as “Chalk cliffs on Rugen” (Friedrich, 1818). This painting is playful and shows three characters on the cliff perhaps retrieving a lost hat that has blown over the cliff. It shows the people from the back. This style is called Rückenfigur or figure from the rear. The painting was painted on their honeymoon and celebrates their marriage.
In later life, he met the Poet Vasily- Zukovsky who tutored Alexander II. They became good friends Alexander said of Friedrichs work “They please us by their precision, each awakening a memory in our mind” (Vaughn, 1980).
In 1835 Friedrich suffered a major stroke which left him paralyzed. He sold earlier works to allow him to convalesce in Czechoslovakia. He died on May 7th, 1840.
That covers his life now let’s consider his work.
Friedrich moved the landscape to the backdrop to human behavior. He employed the Rückenfigur to do this.
Casper David Friedrich Sea of Ice Kunsthalle Hamburg 1824.
This puts the viewer of the painting, in the painting, understanding what the Rückenfigur is seeing. “The sublime potential of nature, understanding that the scene is as perceived and idealized by a human”
(Prettejohn, 2005). Friedrich filled his landscapes with romantic meaning. “Die Romantische Stimmongscansschaft” (Beenken, 1938). His life experiences with death and loss meant his work reflected these losses. Perhaps he was thinking of his own mortality it would not be a surprise when you look at “Sea of Ice” to think of his brother falling through the ice to drown.
Max Ernst Ubu Imperator, Musee d Art Moderne Paris 1923
Edvard Munch The Lonely Ones Munch Museum Oslo 1935.
His work was influential notably to Johan Christian Dahl, Arnold Bocklin, Max Ernst and Edvard Munch. If you see Paul Nash work “Totes Mares” (Nash, 1940) a sea formed by Nazi warplanes you can see the influence of Friedrichs work “Sea of Ice”.
Anslem Keifer Fig 4 Occupations Tate Modern London 1969.
The Nazis claimed Friedrichs work and used it to reflect Germanic ideals. Hitler under his slogan “Blood and Soil” connected Nazism with the landscapes of many German artists. This meant Friedrichs work lost its popularity and didn’t regain recognition until the 1970s. In summer and autumn 1969 Anslem Kiefer completed a series of photographs showing ruined places with Keifer performing a Sieg Heil salute. This was controversial at the time as it would be now. One photo “Occupations” (Keifer, 1969) clearly reflects Friedrichs “Wanderer above a sea of fog”. This work helped regain public attention.
If the Nazis had understood the hidden meaning of the painting, Friedrich was showing someone in awe of the divine light feeling beneath the divine. The Nazis saw someone in uniform above Nature in control. This is the danger when you release work with subtle meaning it is left open to interpretation.
Caspar David Friedrich Wanderer above the sea of fog Kusthalle Hamburg 1800
The “Wanderer above a sea of fog” Shows a man on a rocky crag looking at trees shrouded by fog with an air of confidence. His hair is blown by the wind. He leans on a stick to support himself against the wind. The man wears the uniform of the volunteer rangers of the Saxony Army. This uniform was banned at the time as it was the uniform of the opposing army of Napoleon.
I see a man contemplating an uncertain future. Others think he is contemplating the divine. I think he has seen beauty in nature and he has frozen for a moment to take it all in. At first glance, it appears the painting locks us out with the figure showing us his back. However, this draws the eye into the picture as I want to explore the scene he is looking at.
The painting is unusual as it is painted in a portrait format this is done to emphasize the height of the man and the landscape. The landscape is shown with pinks and blues, the light in the valley seems to be from below this would be unusual almost divine. The green coat on the man repeats the green in the trees.
It makes the painting more mysterious, I want to know who he is? What he has seen? What is out of the frame? I have looked at this painting hundreds of times and I still don’t see the answers which makes me want to look again.
I see Friedrichs influence in the work of Alec Soth he puts a lone figure in the center of a lot of his work. In an environment that makes the person. Showing them having a divine moment. Whilst they are not taken from behind the person the influence is there to see. Soth wants to identify the person more, so shows them from the front looking straight at you.
Alec Soth, Joshua, Angola Prison, LA 2002
Thomas Struth took a series of large photos in Art Galleries across Europe in the 1980s (Struth, 1990). He had seen a photo of an art critic who was looking at a book of Art images. The photo spoke about peoples reaction to art and Struth went to his local gallery and started to take images of members of the public starting at paintings in a gallery all from behind. He wanted to show the connection between the almost religious reaction we have when we engage with art. His work shows the relationship between the Photographer and the viewer, The viewer and the art work and the camera and the whole scene. Whilst my images are of the scenery of Antarctica the premise is much the same.
Thomas Struth Art Institute of Chicago II 1990,
Works Cited
BBC (Composer). (2010). Sturm und Drung. [M. Bragg, Conductor] London, UK.
Beenken, H. (1938). Romantic Meaning. The Burlington magazine for connoseurs , 171-175.
Ernst, M. Ubu Imperator. Musee d Art Moderne, Paris. 1923.
Friedrich, C. D. Cross in the mountains. Galerie Nieu, Dresden, Germany.
Juel, J. Joseph Greenaway. National Gallery , London, UK.
Juel, J. Landscape with Northern Lights. Carlsberg Glypotek, Copenhagen, DK.
Juel, J. The Dancing Glade at Sorenfri. Staten Museum for Kunst, Copenhagen.
Kiefer, A. Occupations. Tate Modern, London.
Munch, E. The Lonely Ones, Munch Museum Oslo 1935.
Nash, P. Totes Mares. Tate Modern, London, England.
Prettejohn, E. (2005). Beauty and art (1750-2000). In E. Prettejohn, Beauty and art (pp. pp54-56). Oxford, England: Oxford University Press.
Ramdohr, B. V. (1809). Article criticising Cross in the mountain. Zeitung für die elegante , 17-21.
Rasbeck, J. (n.d.). University of Oxford. Retrieved 05 21, 2020, from Boydell and Brewer: HTTPS://dot.org/10.1017/9781787444379.013
Siegel, L. (1978). Casper David Friedrich and the age of German romanticism. In L. Siegel, Casper David Friedrich and the age of German romanticism (pp. p55-56). Boston: Branden Publishing Co.
Soth, A. (2002). Joshua, Angola Prison, LA, 2002. Sleeping by Mississippi. Mack Publishing 2004.
Struth, T. 1990 Thomas Struth.MoMA New York. Art Institute of Chicago 1990.
Vaughn, W. (2004). Friedrich. In W. Vaughn. London: Oxford Phaidon Press.
Vaughn, W. (1980). German Romantic Painting. Yale, USA: New Haven, Yale University Press.
Vernet, C. J. A Storm on the Mediteranian Coast. JP Getty Museum, Los Angeles, USA.
In this research I will look at Towards Los Angeles a photograph by Dorothea Lange taken in the great depression in the USA. Before I critique this photograph I would like to discuss the journey the artist took to get to the point of taking this photo.
Dorothea Lane was born on the 26th of May 1895 in Hoboken New York her birth name was Dorothea Margareta Nutzhorn her parents were of German dissent and were named Heinrich Nutzhorn and her mother Johanna Lange. In 1907 her father abandoned the family who were completed by a boy, Martin. When this happened Dorothea dropped her middle name and took her mother’s surname becoming Dorothea Lange.
At age seven she contracted polio and while many would see this as a handicap Dorothea embraced it saying “It formed me, guided me, instructed me, helped me and humiliated me. (Lange, 1998)” After graduating from school she attended Columbia University where she was tutored by Clarence H. White. Leaving university she worked in several of the best photographic studios in New York.
Her wanderlust took her on a trip with her friend they planned to see the world but were robbed in San Francisco so they settled there. She worked in photo studios meeting several influential people who helped her set up a successful studio taking photos of the wealthy. In 1920 she married Maynard Dixon and over the next ten years had two sons.
During this period she completed several projects one being of the unemployed and homeless. She by chance took an exposure at the soup kitchen run by a widow nicknamed “The White Widow” (Lange, 1936). This photo naturally had the title “White Angel Breadline” (Lange, 1936). It was liked locally by influential practitioners’ and it led to work with the Resettlement Administration (RA) the forerunner of the Farm Security Administration (FSA).
FSA Logo (1936)
During 1935 she divorced Dixon and married the economist Paul Schuster Taylor. Taylor was a Professor of Economics at the University of Berkeley. They went onto record the poverty around the area where they lived. Taylor wrote pieces about the families encountered while Dorothea photographed them.
Towards Los Angeles Dorothea Lange 1937
Working for the FSA allowed her to capture some of the most important photos of the time. “Migrant Mother” (Lange, 1937) is one of the most revered images of all time and was taken around the same time as “Towards Los Angeles.” (Lange, 1937) Many of her photos were printed by the “San Francisco News”, when they supported John Steinbeck’s work “The Harvest Gypsies” (Steinbeck, 1936), a collection of articles about the farmers suffering the depression supported by images including “Migrant Mother”.
John Steinbeck Pamphlet Harvest Gypsies 1938.
Her next big piece of work was documenting the lives of interred Japanese-Americans; this work was carried out for the War Relocation Authority. She applied herself to the plight of these people so well that the government wouldn’t let them be seen. They didn’t want any sympathy for the Japanese citizens.
In 1945 Ansell Adams asked Dorothea to teach at California School of Fine Arts. Their friend Imogen Cunninham from Group f.64 joined at the same time.
Life Magazine Logo
She Co-founded the magazine LIFE in 1952 and Dorothea did several pieces of work for this magazine including the damming of Berryessa and its effect on the residents. Again she documented the suffering warts and all.
Then in 1952 Dorothea Co-founded Aperture Magazine which is still in print today she had been familiar with Group f.64 and the magazine this group produced called “Camera Craft” (Lange, 1935).
Apperture Magazine Logo
John Szarkowski displayed her work at the MoMA between 26th January and 10th April 1966. He couldn’t believe the collection of work she held at home and how well they were indexed. She worked tirelessly even though her health was now failing.
From about this time until her death in San Francisco her health suffered. She died from Cancer on October 11th 1965. She must be remembered for her favourite saying “Grab a Hunk of Lightning”.
Susan Sontag (Sontag, 1979) says about privileged photographers hanging around the oppressed and even looking down on people. “Social misery has inspired the comfortably off with the urge to take photographs”. Susan Sontag On Photography ISBN 978-0-141-037678-9 Page 55 Par 1 Line 8. I don’t feel this with Lange. I see someone who wanted to tell the story visually whilst improving the lives of the people photographed and the ones who were not.
In it he discusses the returning German casualties being fitted with Prosthetic limbs. The Red Cross produced a book entitled “Reconstructing a man” in 1918. It acknowledges the fact that thousands of men were returning home and being “repaired” in fact made better than their pre-war selves by being fitted with prosthetic limbs. They even termed them “Homo Prostheticus”. These “Robots” could complete their work more efficiently than they could have before the war. Could this have been a driver for Sander to record the normal people who did these tasks less efficiently as well as recording the disappearing people pre metropolis? Was he afraid they would be taken over by man machines, and then later he may have seen the war coming with more “Homo Prostheticus” men to flood the county?
Heinrich Hoerle painted “Monument of the Unknown Prostheses’ (Denkmal der unbekannten Prothesen, 1930)”. To show how man had returned and being fitted with prosthetic limbs and had become an uber efficient machine a “better” version of himself. Hoerle wanted to questions this pointing to the anguish these individuals suffered due to their injuries. They were not “Uber Menschen” but victims of war injuries.
Heinrich Hoerle “Monument of the Unknown Prostheses’ (Denkmal der unbekannten Prothesen, 1930)”.
The photographers working for the FSA were doing much the same work. Sent out into the landscape to document the suffering of those people living on the land. These people were injured by the Great Depression and their injuries were mental, but just as damaging as losing a limb. You can see the mental anguish in the photograph “Migrant Mother” (Lange, 1936). Dorothea Lange captures it perfectly you can see the vulnerability of this woman at the same time seeing her pride, fear and concern for her offspring all in equal measure.
Migrant Mother (Lange, 1937).
In the “Great Depression” Franklin D Roosevelt set up several administrations to help show the state of the nation. Then to suggest and document any improvements carried out to improve the situation in the nation. One of these administrations was the Farm Security Administration (FSA).
The man placed in charge of the FSA was Roy Stryker. He was an academic and a man who had served in the US Infantry in World War One. He was disciplined and intelligent so had the right characteristics to complete this huge task. He thought photography was excellent at supporting the written word so employed 13 proven photographers (Dorothea Lange, Arthur Rothstein, Walker Evans, Ben Shahn, John Vachon, Marion Post-Walcott, Russell Lee, Jack Delano, Gordon Parks, John Collier, Carl Mydans, Edwin Rosskam and Louise Rosskam) to capture images across the USA. At the end of the FSA work in 1942 when the FSA was incorporated into the Office of War Information Stryker used all of his discipline to catalogue and archive these exposures including many of the ones with holes punched in them. He was assisted by
This project was a huge undertaking and he would have needed all of his military experience of logistical organization coupled with his knowledge of the US to send these few out into the field to capture the images. He was dictatorial in his approach, giving exposure lists to each of the photographers. Some as detailed as “A white house, with a white fence”, He wouldn’t let the photographers stray from his scripts.
When the negatives came in to his office in Washington he would review each one and any Stryker didn’t like or were out of focus or off topic would be destroyed with a hole punch. Most of the photographers were dismayed to see their work treat in this manner and complained to Stryker. Later in the project he relaxed this practice.
Photo showing a hole punched in it (LoC, 1937).
I found it interesting to consider the time scale for each part of the project exposures were made then posted into Washington, Stryker reviewed and printed them and sent them back to be captioned then they were returned to the office for use. This could take two or three weeks. Lange kept detailed notes of what was said by her subjects so she could caption the photos, often with the words the subjects had spoken. These are all kept and shown in the Library of Congress in Washington and are available to all online.
The FSA created 77,000 negatives including 644 in colour they are a record of the conditions agricultural workers were enduring trying to support themselves and their families. Most are regular shots fulfilling Stryker’s lists but some are moving and works of art. I do wonder as I look at Towards Los Angeles if it was staged and looked at examples from before this time where photographs had been manipulated to understand how far photographers and organizations would go to put across a theme.
Farm Labourers in Sugar Cane Jack Delano 1941.
Joseph Stalin had people removed from photographs as they fell out of favour. One shows a young commissar stood in a group by a river he must have fallen from grace because in later versions he is missing. Frank Hurley who was the photographer on Shackleton`s ill fated expedition recorded all aspects of the journey, but in the rescue photo only one lifeboat rows to shore, he had scratched out the other to make the exposure more dramatic. He had manipulated earlier photos to create his postcard business in Australia. Even Abraham Lincoln had featured in a manipulated negative when his head was imposed on John Calhoun’s body to make a well-used image. So well before Lange took Towards Los Angeles images were being altered to project a message.
Lincolns head on Calhouns body
Scratched out boat
Missing Comissar
I can find no evidence for Lange having manipulated the exposure and do not think she would do so. However the photo does look as if some staging may have been employed. The fact it is so perfectly aligned to the rule of 3rds both in the horizontal and the vertical. The timing of the steps almost too perfect a decisive moment. The tracks in the dust on the road verge suggests someone pulling over and discussing the staging. Does it matter if it was staged?
I considered the billboard in Lange’s photo and wondered if others had used them before her. I found that Walker Evans had shown billboards in “Billboards and houses in Atlanta 1936 (Evans, 1936). Lange was a colleague and friend of Evans so would have been aware of this shot. Then I found “Kentucky Flood” (Bourke-White, 1937) a photo, which depicts a group of people queuing for relief in front of a billboard with an all-American family driving a car under the slogan “Worlds highest standard of living”. This was taken just weeks before Lange took “Towards Los Angeles”. She would also have been aware of this image as it was featured across the press and was the cover of “Life” magazine. Evans earlier shot showed just billboards whilst Bourke-Whites image combined people with the billboard making a powerful image.
Kentucky Flood 1937
Kentucky Flood 1937
Pea Pickers behind billboard Lange 1937
Pea Pickers shelter Lange 1937
Billboard Route 99 1937
This research should enable me to review Lange’s photo and possibly expand further work describing the FSA and all that it achieved.
Bourke-White, Margaret. “The Kentucky Flood.” Whitney Museum of American Art. Art and Artists. New York.
Delano, Jack. “Farm Labourers in a sugar can field”. Library of Congress. Washington 1941.
Evans, Wlaker. “Houses and Billboards in Atlanta.” Museum of Modern Art. Art and Artists. New York, 1936.
Hoerle, Heinrich. Monument of the Unknown Prostheses. Berlin Museum of Art, Berlin.
Lange, Dorothea. Camera Craft. Camera Craft, 1935.
Grab a hunk of lightning. Directed by Dyanna Taylor. Performed by Dorothea Lange. 2014.
Lange, Dorothea. “Migrant Mother.” Library of Congress. Destitute pea pickers in California. Mother of seven children. Age thirty-two. Nipomo, California. Washington, 1936.
Lange, Dorothea. “The White Angell Bread Line.” MoMA. Chicago. 1936.
Lange, Dorothea. The White Widow. MoMA, Chicago.
“Library of Congress.” Washington USA: Library of Congress, 2020.
Definition: noun The attribution of human characteristics or behaviour to a god, animal or object.
Earliest example I can find is of a god/mystic from a cave in France painted 40,000 years ago. Zeus Apollo and other Greek deities all had human characteristics too. Hindu animal gods all have human traits to enhance their mystic properties.
God or wizard from French cave art.
First recorded use of the word in western culture is 1745-55 for applying human traits to Christian god! Male image at that.
Aesop’s fables all show animals with human personalities and morals.
Literature has many examples mainly in children’s novels. Here are five fron just the last century.
1. 1865 Alice in wonderland Lewis Carroll.
2. 1894 The Jungle book Rudyard Kipling.
3. 1928 The house at Pooh corner A.A. Milne.
4. 1954 Lord of the rings J.R.R. Tolkien.
5. 1972 Watership Down Richard Adams.
All have been made into films mainly by Disney Studios. Most have some animation within them.
Recent films include Cars, Planes, and Toy Story 1, 2, 3, 4. which move away from showing animals to depicting objects.
Cars Animation of McQueen.
Car design itself is a science of face usage from Smart Car and its friendly face to Ferrari and its angry face. Even the Trabant has a face on its front. Online you can find pages of car face design tips.
Ferrari shows its anger beautifully.
In art Giuseppe Arcimboldo uses inanimate fruit to form portraits the detail is sublime. Vegetables show the form and character of the subject. I wonder what they made of the images?
Giuseppe Arcemodi
Shinseungback Kimyonghun used face recognition surveillance software to look at the clouds in the sky. From 40,000 captured images 1000 clearly show detailed faces. The images were displayed in Bradford. At first I didn’t see them but when you do it is amazing how much detail you see.
Shinseungback Kimyonghun cloud faces.
As children we do this, playing with our imaginations, we grow out of it! Let’s not, let us use our imagination like a child again, the world would be better for it.
Finally…..for now! Agent Smith says in the Matrix “Humans are a disease Mr Anderson”. He is a Robot displaying feelings so even this pivotal scene in a film displays Anthropomorphism. It is everywhere look for yourself! What can you find?
For my research into this assignment I considered a journey I was about to make across the Drake Passage in the South Atlantic one of the biggest spaces on this planet. I thought there must be something about this space that could inspire me.
I looked at Maritime landscapes and liked three (1)JMW Turner The Fighting Temeraire. (2)Theodore Gericault The Raft of the Medusa and (3)Peter Breugel the Elder Landscape with the fall of Icarus
The Fighting Temeraire is a peaceful painting at first glance however on consideration it shows what must have a been troubling time for the Victorian people as sea travel transitted from sail to steam. The real scene should show two tugs but Turner showed this leviathan being towed into oblivion by just one. Hinting at the might of steam over the fragility of wind and sail. It is much smaller than the Temeraire which served Britain well at the Battle of Trafalgar. Turner was getting old when he painted it and it could show that Turner was thinking about his own mortality. Turner painted the Temeraire with its sails and masts when it fact it was a hulk with no masts. He wanted to depict her in all her glory. The painting clearly shows the end of the old system and the rise of a new industrial age. Depicting this with a setting Sun and a Rising moon. However this picture is too calm to inspire work from where I am heading. The sea is like a mirror reflecting the calm sky and the sunset.
JMW Turner The Fighting Temeraire.
The second picture I considered was painted by Theodore Gericault entitled The Raft of the Medusa. It shows the crew of the French Frigate Medusa at the moment of rescue. The survivors are deranged with thirst and starvation. Suffering so badly that they have resorted to canabilism. One suprising thing is the negro at the head of the mast leading the way to salvation. Gericault was showing that if you persevere you can move from despair and no hope to salvation rescue and hope. The sea is shown menacing, rough and the violent sky has menace also .One amusing thing clearly on show is the fact that the artist couldn’t paint feet so you will not find any in this painting unless its covered by another person or bandaged. If I was to pursue this for Assignment 3 I would need to use models and probably wont have time to pose them.
Theodore Gericault The Raft of the Medusa
The Third painting I looked at was purported to be by Peter Breugel the elder. Whether he painted it or not it is a superb painting with humour and a story.
Icarus the son of Daedlus stole his fathers wings made of feathers stuck with wax. He ignored his fathers warnings as he tried to climb higher than other men and crashed into the sea and drowned.
The painting shows the figure of a farmer in the foreground his red tunic hints at danger. Then you see a sheperd tending his flock. Your eye searches for Icarus but next you see a fisherman fishing from rocks on the shore and a ship with full sails and the crew working to control the ship. Where is Icarus? He should be by the setting sun the heat of which makes the drama unfold. Then under the ship you see a leg stuck out of the sea. At last Icarus and his demise are visible. A shock to find the main player shown as an insignifant bit player in a corner.
It is beautifully painted with strong colours and detail on every part of the canvas. It has humour all the people your eye sees are indifferent to the plight of Icarus. This is the paintings message it invites us to consider how we are indifferent to the suffering of others. With a second message of men who try to climb to higher levels than ordinary men usually take a tumble back to earth. The sea is depicted symbolically in a state of calm, it has played no part in Icarusses demise.
You can, I am sure think of men/women like this politicians, officials, colleagues at work. All try to climb to heights and most fail, then if we are not careful we are indifferent to their suffering even turning our backs on them.
The artist is extremely clever showing the whole story in one scene, (4)John Berger describes this process “In a painting all its elements are there to be seen simultaneously. The spectator may need time to examine each element of the painting but whenever he reaches a conclusion, the simultaneity of the whole painting is there to reverse or qualify his conclusion. The painting maintains its own authority”.
Landscape with the Fall of Icarus by Bruegel, Pieter the Elder (c.1525-69)
DISASTER
As I was considering this assignment onboard the ship a Chilean C130 Hercules crashed twelve miles from the ship. We spent the next 24 hours searching the sea in 60 mph wind and 5 metre waves in the pitch black of night and gloom of the Drake. We saw a light flash 4 times over a couple of minutes. 38 souls were lost in an instant. After the Chilean navy had taken over the search it seemed to fit into all my thoughts and research I had completed for this assignment.
Images showing detail of the disaster in the Drake Passage.
In my work I want show the space of the sea and how it becomes a place to the birds that inhabit it. The different states of the sea will show its different moods. Combining the two will show it is indifferent to human efforts and the technology we use to go into this space. These animals fly all their lives and look to be most relaxed when the elements are at there most extreme. I want it to be a tribute to these 38 lost souls.
Below is my contact sheet of 30 exposures from which I chose 12 in tribute to these 38 lost souls.
Contact sheet for Icarus.
Bibliography
(1)Turner, JMW, and John William Turner. The Fighting Temeraire. National Gallery, London.
(2)Gericault, Theodore. The Raft of the Medusa. The Louvre, Paris.
(3)Elder, Peter Breugel The. Landscape with the fall of Icarus. Royal Museum of Fine Arts, Brussels.
(4)Berger, John. Ways of seeing. London: Penguin, 1972.
Michael Green Landscape Studies 