Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2001/11/29
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By most accounts, "art photography" as a specialized activity developed
after 1851 as a reaction to all the professional "hack" photography that was
flooding the market. It began in England with the pre-Raphaelite
photographers, many of whom hung out with the pre-Raphaelite painters of the
period, like Rossetti, Millais and Hunt. In photography, it ment allegorical
subjects and "pictorial effect," which was not the same as "pictorialism",
which came later.
The most famoust early art photograpers were Rejlander, Robinson, Cameron
and Carrol, the latter of "Alice in Wonderland" fame. They were followed by
the "naturalism" movement, which was not "natural" at all. Although they
rejected symbolism, allegory and pictorial effect, so-called "naturalism"
was really closest to the Barbazon School and Whistler, the English Art
Club, and the Rustic School. It's best-known photograper was Peter Emerson,
who took up photography in 1881 and photographed in Cuba, East Anglia and the
Norfolk Broads. In 1890 he published his last book, "The Death of
Naturalism;" he then gave up photography.
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