Art Movements in photography

Surrealism 

-        Surrealism is an art movement that surrounds ideas that aren't realistic, the idea is seen asif they're abstract and fantasy like. The movement was created in 1920 and was founded by Andre Breton in his 'The Surrealist manifesto'.
The movement stemmed from the Dadaism movement which the words 'Dada' mans nothing and the exploration of the unconventional. Many well known pieces from Dadaism are created to express feelings about politics and war due to many of the creators being far left.
Man Ray is a photographer who labelled himself as a 'practical dreamer' as he created photos without a camera, a kind of imagery referred to as rayogrpahs or rayogrammes.

Postmodernism

Notes

madernity - <1950

Post modernism - 1950-2018

Post modernism challenges common beliefs and common values that society believes in,

Post modernism is seen as radical and rebellious.

Intertexuality - When one text references another text, e.g when family guy references Star Wars.

Postmodernism focuses on how nothing new is created and everything is just similar copies.

Homage - when one text references another text in an act of respect 

Parody - When one text references another text for comedy 

Ideology - A view or opinion that we all recognise 

Postmodern photography is characterised by atypical compositions of subjects that are unconventional or sometimes completely absent.

Aspects of postmodernism include abstract and surrealism.

"Its still possible to ignore the rules and still create art" 

Postmodernism is characterised by self conscious and deliberate intertextuality, it references something that has come before it to create meaning.

Postmodern photography is usually a way to make a social commentary or meaning based by on a piece of art that has gone before this is called simulacrum  

Simularca simulating something that has happened before to create meaning 

The art of taking apart the text and unveiling the hidden connotations is what Jaques Derrida calls "deconstruction"

CINDY SHERMAN

One of the best known photographers who used simulacra, Concentrating on the representation of women, She had herself photographed in small monochrome images called "film stills" during the late 1970's.

She simulated the view of women in the 1930's and 40's to create simulacra.

She denotes in her images how emotionless, modest and focused on appearance the women were.

In all of Cindy's photographs she either refers to the models as "redeemers" or "destroyers", this is what Sherman was trying to discuss through the photos of her.

Futurism

Futurism is a theme of photography which revolves around the hatred for art of the past the movement is unconventional and untraditional, It stems from an Italian art movement which was founded by Poet Marinetti, the movement was popular between 1909 to 1944, The movement is a celebration of modern technology and scientific discoveries, speed and life.

Connotations however can also be very negative surrounding futurism for example futurism is also seen as representing danger,energy,speed,aggression and anti-nature.

Ideas for taking images portraying futurism would include

• showing speed or movement by either fast shutter speed to freeze the moment 
• Photographing modern architecture to demonstrate the modernity of buildings, Also photographing industrial sites instead of open green spaces.
• photograph modern objects or motifs e.g planes,cars or crowds 
• experiment with lighting,shadows or colours 
• hint at danger or daring 

IMPRESSIONISM

Impressionism relates to documentary photography or photojournalism, It relates to real life scenarios and is known to capture the real.

The root word of impressionism is impress, and this means reflecting and showing something this hence is why it links to photojournalism or documentary.

The first monochrome image was taken in 1826, this challenged artists as this threatened their jobs and hobby. This made the artists change their ideas of art as if a camera can catch real life they needed to set themselves apart. This is where impressionism was created, it was created by a reaction by artists as they tried to differentiate their art from photography.

Impressionism was developed in France in the nineteenth century and is based on the practice of painting out of doors and spontaneously on the spot, main impressionist subject were landscapes and everyday life. It is referred as capturing a slice of life.

CLAUDE MONET

The term impressionism come from a painting by Claude Monet, the image was named 'Soleil Levant', The art critic Louis Leroy saw this image and said that all art were just impressions.

Impressionist photographers

1. Pierre Renoir
2. Claude Monet 
3. Alfred Sisley 
4. Edgar Degas 
5. Eduard Manet 

Impressionism art techniques 

• Short thick strokes of paint, this is done to capture the scene more quickly focusing more on efficiency than detail, the paint is applied in 'impasto' (very thickly)
• colours are applied side by side to compliment each other 
• The play of natural light, many images include shadows and strong lighting to indicate freshness and outdoor atmospheres,

Impressionist photography techniques 

• Soft focus 
• Vivid colour palette 
• Isolation of subjects 
• Digital paintbrush 

Early impressionist photography 

• Karl Struss 
• Stieglitz - Winter 

Modern impressionist photography 

• Stephen d' Agostino
• Eva Polark
• Kat Clay 
• Christopher Dydyk

Photography techniques used in impressionism 

• Intentional Camera movement (long shutter speed and panning)
• Zooming (long shutter speed and zooming)
• Selective focus (wide/long aperture and select focus)
• Focus through (telephoto lens, partial transparent object, manual focus)
• Camera shake 
• Taking pictures through water or glass 

Brutalism/Brutalist research

- Architecture/ buildings, all made out of concrete/brick/steel/stone, anything that has a rough exterior. 

- Universities, government/council buildings because of the cost effective factor, this lead to these buildings being mass produced

- The movement started in the 1950's and carried onto the mid 1970's.

- The buildings created lots of jobs which was a positive aspect due to the recent ending of world war II, this rebuilt communities and created thousands of jobs over the UK, we call this time period 'post-war optimism' 

- In French raw concrete is 'beton brut', this was the origin of the word brutalism.

- Repetitive patterns featured in the buildings, very square, rectangular.

- Many brutalist images are in monochrome, this associates bleakness with the buildings.

- All brutalist buildings are very uniformed and functional they weren't designed for the purpose of aesthetic, however some would argue that they're unique and beauty in the buildings.

CUBISM

• Cubism was one of the most influential visual art styles of the early 20th century

• It was developed by Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque 

• French critic Louis Vauxcelles called the geometric forms in the highly abstract works "cubes"

• Influence from African art is present in cubism , Picasso first saw African art in 1907 in the ethnographic museum in Paris

• Cubist painters wanted to instead emphasis the two dimension quality of the canvas. So the reduced and fractured objects into geometric forms.

• inspired the abstract pop art in the 1960s/70s

Key cubist artists

- Pablo Picasso

- Albert Gleizes

- Georges Braque

- Jean Metzinger

- Marcel Duchamp

  

Diego Kuffer, David Hockney, Stephen McNally, Peter Oleo, Dave Murray,Tim Rogerson

- Fully abstract 

- Bighter colours

- simpler lines and shapes 

- collage used alongside paint

- broken objects down into a grid

- flat geometric shapes

- angular 

- a range of techniques as well techniques, mixed media