Art & Art History ETDs

Publication Date

5-2-1978

Abstract

During the intervening years between World War I and World War II an international spirit and style matured in art and architecture, based on a "machine esthetic," which was a blend of pre-World War I movements in painting (Cubism, Futurism) and a more sober and practical application of these abstract principles in architecture, design, and the popular arts which developed in France and Germany after the war. This style became recognized and accepted in America, and popularly characterized as “modernistic.” Two closely related institutions of American photography provided the impetus and direction of the modern style in photography: The Pictorial Photographers of America, and the Clarence White School of Photography. Max Weber, an American Cubist-inspired painter, along with Clarence White, provided instruction which encouraged the abandonment of the earlier soft-focus style of pictorial photography for the sharp, clear abstracted style which became Modern Photography. It is the purpose of this paper to examine the formal qualities, and esthetic principles of this style in photography, and to trace its development from the mid-twenties through its virtual demise just prior to World War II. The paper is divided into sections which treat different aspects of the style:

I. American Origins, in which the abstract photographs of Paul Strand and Charles Sheeler are mentioned, followed by a discussion of the teachings of Weber and White and the emergence of the modern style through the work of students of the White School, notably Paul Outerbridge and Anton Bruehl.

II. European Influences and the Machine Esthetic, in which the writings of van Doesburg and Le Corbusier, the Exposition des Arts Decoratifs in Paris (1925), and the experiments with photography at the Bauhaus are cited as influential in the development of the modern style and the machine esthetic generally, with special implications for photography.

III. Style and Composition in Modern Photography, in which the formal style of abstraction, the subordination of subject to composition, and the oblique repetition of shapes and patterns is discussed, along with the subsequent easing of the style to a more refined, "architectonic" style related to the International Style in architecture.

IV. Photography with a Function, in which the commercial nature of most Modern Photography is followed from the early struggle to get photography accepted by advertisers, the importance of style and design in Modern Photography in the gradual acceptance of photography in advertising and magazine illustration, and the struggle with those who felt that commercial work lowered the standards and respect for photography as an art form.

V. The Introduction of Color, in which the increased competition of black and white photographers and the commercial demand for color during the Depression, and the resultant technical difficulties encountered by photographers at the expense of the esthetic qualities of their work is discussed.

VI. Nationalism and the Depression, in which the decline of Modern Photography is traced to factors such as the Depression and the rise of nationalism, and to a return to realism and the felt need for "human drama" in art. Other influences in the decline of the modern style which are discussed are the rise in popularity in fashion photography of Surrealism and the miniature camera.

VII. Conclusion, in which the basic premises of Modern Photography are re-examined in light of the factors which caused its decline and the rapidity with which it disappeared from the pages of the publications which had sponsored and defended it.

Finally, Modern Photography is characterized as a movement in pictorial photography which, like its predecessor (tonalism), suffered by its mannerist style and its dependence upon European art in its claims for legitimacy.

Language

English

Document Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Arts

Level of Degree

Doctoral

Department Name

UNM Department of Art and Art History

First Committee Member (Chair)

Thomas R. Barrow

Second Committee Member

Beaumont Newhall

Third Committee Member

Van Deren Coke

Fourth Committee Member

Nicolai Cikovsky Jr.

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