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Stanko Abadžic - The Beach in Baska
Stanko Abadžic
The Beach in Baska
$1,500
Stanko Abadžic - Trees and Snow (from the Paris Cycle)
Stanko Abadžic
Trees and Snow (from the Paris Cycle)
$1,500
Laure Albin-Guillot - Road through the Woods
Laure Albin-Guillot
Road through the Woods
$4,500
Laure Albin-Guillot - Versailles
Laure Albin-Guillot
Versailles
$4,000
Edouard Baldus - Lyon, Viaduc du Rhone
Edouard Baldus
Lyon, Viaduc du Rhone
$8,000
Edouard Baldus - Ramparts Destroyed by the Flood, Avignon, France
Edouard Baldus
Ramparts Destroyed by the Flood, Avignon, France
$25,000
Edouard Baldus - Vue de Port de Boulogne
Edouard Baldus
Vue de Port de Boulogne
$25,000
Tom Baril - Drive-In, MA
Tom Baril
Drive-In, MA
$5,500
Tom Baril - New York Harbor (from the World Trade Center)
Tom Baril
New York Harbor (from the World Trade Center)
$7,000
Max Baur - Morning Light, Germany
Max Baur
Morning Light, Germany
$1,250
Max Baur - Snow Scene, Germany
Max Baur
Snow Scene, Germany
$1,250
Hippolyte Bayard - Property of the Château of Dampierre
Hippolyte Bayard
Property of the Château of Dampierre
P.O.R.
By Alex Novak

Most early landscape photographers were merely documenting gardens and places, often for artists to use in other art media, such as paintings and drawings. Some of these photographers, such as André Giroux, were themselves artists, who used their own landscape photographs for just this purpose.

But whether or not the primary motivation of these pioneering photographers was to document, the results themselves were often spectacular and moving. Often made in large formats to match the scope of what they encompassed, these images depicted landscapes with such detail and realism that mere artistic hand renderings could often not compete with them. Over time they found a broader audience, which replaced their fine oils over the mantel with mammoth-plate albumen prints, as did Carleton Watkins and William H. Jackson.

Such early landscape photographers naturally followed many of the classic painting techniques and approaches to composition, including a formal frame, including an object or person for scale, etc. But likewise photography influenced artist renderings of landscapes, as the concepts of the edges of the frame and the realistic interpretation of such scenes were repeatedly challenged. If painting established many of landscape photography's strictures, so photography freed painters to reinterpret their realities. The exchange and influence between the two media in the mid to late 19th-century had an extraordinary impact on art, although the camera obscura's use by artists also had earlier begun this transformation.

By the early 20th century photographers, such as pictorialist master Leonard Misonne, often felt they had to emulate the "impressionism" of the art world, that had created this approach exactly because of photography's better version of 'reality'.

In reaction, mid-20th-century photographers became obsessed with sharpness and depth of field. The F-64 movement was the driving force behind the view to capture images that were pure and unmanipulated.

Contemporary photographers often--if not usually--break all those rules, but in a way that still attracts and draws in the viewer. It is not unusual now for the main subject to be dead-centered, which was anathema to early photographers and artists. And contemporary photographers capture color as well as the view. But the colors can be dramatic and highly saturated. Subject matter for this contemporary art is not the "Kodak moment" that early landscapes brought to mind.

For instance, as Matt Damsker notes, "The photographs of Marcus Doyle transform the familiar spaces and landscapes of the modern world into twilight zones--nearly surreal, almost alien, yet always recognizable for what they are. Through Doyle's lens, a basketball court, a tennis court, a gas station, a parking lot or a motel swimming pool confront us in the preternaturally calm, deserted hours of the night, illuminated only by their ambient light, devoid of people yet clearly marked by man's urbanizing touch."

Other photographers, such as Charlie Schreiner, utilized the early processes (in his case the daguerreotype), but capture their landscapes from a decidedly modern point of view.

Mid-19th-century to Contemporary Landscape Photography
About This Exhibit
Image List

Exhibited and Sold By
Contemporary Works / Vintage Works, Ltd.

258 Inverness Circle
Chalfont, Pennsylvania   18914   USA

Contact Alex Novak and Marthe Smith

Email info@vintageworks.net

Phone +1-215-518-6962

Call for an Appointment

 

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