PICTORIALISM

Pictorialism is a style of photography that was popular during the late 19th and early 20th century.

The movement aspired to make photographs look like popular paintings in picturesque subject matter and a painterly look.

Photographs often had titles that suggested there was a story involved.

Photographers used atmospheric conditions (like fog, clouds and smoke) to evoke painters depictions of light and subjugate the cameras mechanical transcription of a scene

Negatives were often manipulated to add texture or soften an image

"The Lonely Cottage"

John Kauffmann's photograph of a cottage at Baker's Flat, near Kapunda, South Australia. 

The original was a 15 x 12 carbon print exhibited at the London R.P.S. 1907 Exhibition.  A copy negative was made from a half-tone reproduction of the original in a magazine, a B & W print made, then scanned at 75 dpi, and sepia colour added electronically to simulate the appearance of the original.


John Kauffman, an Australian Pictorialist Photographer, was one of Australia's most famous Pictorialists. He was constantly having photo's accepted into the Royal Photographic Society in London.

Henry Peach Robinson was an English Pictorialist Photographer best known for his pioneering 'combination photography' - the technique of using negatives of two or more photos in conjunction with one another to create a single image.

Even though he was one of the most prominent Pictorialist's of his time, he is now considered to be conventional and even academic. 

His most famous composition 'Fading Away' (1858) was both fashionable and morbid. He was a follower of the pre-Raphaelites and was influenced by the aesthetic views of John Ruskin. In his Pre-Raphaelite phase he attempted to realise moments of timeless significance in a "mediaval" setting, anticipating the world of Julia Margaret Cameron, Burne-Jones and the Symbolists. According to his letters, he was influenced by the paintings of J.M.W. Turner.