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505.01 Naturalism > Naturalism and Pictorialism
  
The technology that was available to the 19th century photographer necessitated slow exposure times and this tended to promote the use of studio settings. Here the light could be controlled, the subjects posed and time taken to achieve the ideal composition often based upon classical or allegorical themes. Between 1886 and 1895 Peter Henry Emerson (1856-1936) published eight books or portfolios including:
Life and Landscape on the Norfolk Broads, 1886
The Complete Angler, Vol. 1 & 2, 1888
Pictures of East Anglian Life, 1888
Wild Life on a Tidal Water, 1890
On English Lagoons, 1893
Marsh Leaves, 1895
There was none of the rigidity of the studio in his Life and Landscape on the Norfolk Broads (1886) which included forty platinum prints of daily rural life in East Anglia (England). The images showed life as it was but at the same time the resulting images taken with a whole plate (6 1/2 x 8 1/2 inches) view camera have the beauty of a painting but lack the sentimentality that was common in contemporary Victorian painting. Although in the angry arguments that followed his assertion that photography is a pictorial art he later changed his opinion and came to the conclusion that because of technical limitations photography was not an art - he had an immense influence on the way 'artist' photography would develop.
505.02 Naturalism > Peter Henry Emerson (1856-1936)
About this photographer | Photographs by this photographer
   
Peter Henry Emerson was a motivated, argumentative and talented amateur photographer in Victorian England who attacked head on the staged portraiture of Henry Peach Robinson and Julia Margaret Cameron. He argued in his 1889 book Naturalistic Photography for Students of Art for Naturalism in photography that took the actual world that was in front of the camera. The image should imitate what the eye actually saw and this was not hard edged but soft and slightly out of focus - this approach had outcomes - firstly it heralded in a type of photography that was distinct from the over sentimental paintings that were in vogue at the time and secondly the softer prints had a profound effect of the pictorialists that followed him.
Emerson changed his views on photography the following year and published the black bordered pamphlet The Death of Naturalistic Photography: A Renunciation (1890) that shocked the community by stating that "Photography is a very limited art"
505.03 Naturalism > Peter Henry Emerson: Marsh Leaves (1895)
About this photographer | Photographs by this photographer
               
In 1895 Peter Henry Emerson produced Marsh Leaves, the last of his volumes of photographs to be published. Smaller in format than the early works, it is illustrated with sixteen photogravures. For On English Lagoons and Marsh Leaves Emerson did, as he claimed he would do, make all his own photogravure plates, finally freeing himself from commercial engravers.
Many of the photographs in this last book demonstrate that he was no longer exclusively concerned with the direct transcribing of perception. Several are taken with a lens of relatively long focal length, resulting in a distant, two-dimensional view quite different from unaided human vision. He was using, to borrow a phrase from Aaron Scharf, ‘the vocabulary and syntax’ of photography. It is possible that, released by his "Renunciation" from the requirement to follow artistic conventions, Emerson at last felt free to discover what photography itself had to offer.
It is tempting to see, in Emerson’s last published photographs, the first suggestions that he had begun to adopt an approach and a working practice that were closer to the twentieth century than to the nineteenth, and it is certainly true that he maintained a keen interest in the most recent technology. No photograph he took after the mid-nineties has been identified, however, so as far as posterity is concerned, his career as a photographer ended in 1895.
The distinctive characteristics of Emerson's later work have been noted by other writers, notably Ian Jeffrey, 1989, Emerson Overturned; On English Lagoons and Marsh Leaves in Weaver, Mike (ed.), 1989, British Photography in the Nineteenth Century (Cambridge University Press) and Mark Durden, 1994, Autumn, Peter Henry Emerson, The Limits of Representation, History of Photography, vol. 18 No. 3, pp. 281-4.
Emerson, PH, 1895, Marsh Leaves (London: David Nutt) [Illustrated with 16 photogravures]
The plates included are:
[Courtesy of David Stone]
alan@luminous-lint.com |
General reading
Lukacher, Brian, 1994, ‘Powers of Sight: Robinson, Emerson, and the Polemics of Pictorial Photography‘, in Handy, Ellen (ed.), Pictorial Effect Naturalistic Vision: The Photographs and Theories of Henry Peach Robinson and Peter Henry Emerson, pp.29-51 [Δ]
Taylor, John, 1992, ‘Aristocrats of Anthropology: A Study of P. H. Emerson and Other Tourists of the Norfolk Broads‘, Image, vol.35, no.1/2, pp.3-24 [Δ]
Readings on, or by, individual photographers
Peter Henry Emerson
Durden, Mark, 1994, Autumn, ‘Peter Henry Emerson, The Limits of Representation‘, History of Photography, vol.18, no.3, pp.281-284 [Δ]
Emerson, P.H., 1886, May, ‘Photography as a Pictorial Art‘, Amateur Photographer [Δ]
Emerson, P.H., 1888, Naturalistic Photography for Students of Art, (New York: Scovill & Adams) [Δ]
Emerson, P.H., 1890, August, ‘Rejoinder‘, Photographic Art Journal, vol.3, no.34, pp.142 [Δ]
Emerson, P.H., 1891, The Death of Naturalistic Photography: A Renunciation [Δ]
Emerson, P.H., 1973, Naturalistic Photography for Students of Art, (New York: Arno) [Δ]
Emerson, PH & Goodall, TF, 1884-1886, Life and Landscape on the Norfolk Broads, (Dundee: Valentine) [Δ]
Jeffrey, Ian, 1984, ‘Peter Henry Emerson: Art and Solitude‘, in Haworth-Booth, Mark (ed.), The Golden Age of British Photography 1839-1900 [Δ]
Jeffrey, Ian, 1989, ‘Emerson Overturned; On English Lagoons and Marsh Leaves‘, in Weaver, Mike (ed.), British Photography in the Nineteenth Century [Δ]
McWilliam, Neil & Sekules, Veronica (eds.), 1986, Life and Landscape: P. H. Emerson: Art and Photography in East Anglia, 1885-1900, (Sainsbury: Sainsbury Center for Visual Arts, University of East Anglia) [Δ]
Newhall, Nancy, 1975, P. H. Emerson: The Fight for Photography as a Fine Art, (New York: Aperture) [Δ]
Peterson, Christian A., 2008, Peter Henry Emerson and American Naturalistic Photography, (Minneapolis Institute of Arts) isbn-10: 0912964987 isbn-13: 978-0912964980 [Δ]
Scharf, Aaron, 1986, ‘P. H. Emerson: Naturalist and Iconoclast‘, in McWilliam, Neil & Sekules, Veronica (eds.), Life and Landscape: P. H. Emerson: Art and Photography in East Anglia, 1885-1900, pp.21-33 [Δ]
Taylor, John, 2006, The Old Order and the New: P.H. Emerson and Photography, 1885-1895, (Prestel) isbn-10: 3791336991 isbn-13: 978-3791336992 [Δ]
Turner, Peter & Wood, Richard, 1974, P. H. Emerson: Photographer of Norfolk, (London: Gordon Fraser) [Δ]
Emerson & Goodall
Emerson, PH & Goodall, TF, 1884-1886, Life and Landscape on the Norfolk Broads, (Dundee: Valentine) [Δ]
Thomas Frederick Goodall
Emerson, PH & Goodall, TF, 1884-1886, Life and Landscape on the Norfolk Broads, (Dundee: Valentine) [Δ]
Nancy Newhall
Newhall, Nancy, 1975, P. H. Emerson: The Fight for Photography as a Fine Art, (New York: Aperture) [Δ]
Henry Peach Robinson
Handy, Ellen (ed.), 1994, Pictorial Effect, Naturalistic Vision: The Photographs and Theories of Henry Peach Robinson and Peter Henry Emerson, (Norfolk, VA: Chrysler Museum) [Δ]
If you feel this list is missing a significant book or article please let me know - Alan - alan@luminous-lint.com
Peter Henry Emerson (1856-1936) • Emerson & Goodall • Thomas Frederick Goodall (check) | Home > Styles and movements > Naturalism
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