Project 6: Photography: the new reality

(Sorry about the delay. I've had problems uploading images onto my blog - will build on the descriptions of the paintings)

This week’s task was to read, Photography versus Painting by Osip Brik (pp. 470-473 of Art in Theory).

Osip Brik (1888-1943) was a Russian literary critic and formalist. In Photography versus Painting, he argued that photography was in the position to eclipse painting as a means of representing reality. This also causes Brik to attack a contemporary revival in figurative painting.

Birk believed photography superseded painting because of its precision (faithful reproduction), speed and cheapness (Compared to painting). At the time the essay was written, the mid-1920s, colour was still unique to painting. Still, it could not reproduce more faithfully as photography as it could not transpose ‘real/natural’ colour. Photography was unable to falsify objects by giving them the wrong colour.

The skill of painting relied on mimesis until the invention of photography, and then the aim of painting was not to be identical to reality; but a recreation through imitation e.g. impressionism, cubism etc. If painters just copied reality they would be accused of copying the techniques of photography. Photographers capture life.

According to Brik, photographers have an important task. He hails them with social importance and calls them ‘humble workers’. They are removed from high art because of their commission work.  Obviously, this is to do with Marxist-Leninist ideology.

Brik states it is wrong for a photographer to pursue painterly effects as ‘he moves away from the faithful reproduction of nature and submits to the aesthetic laws which distort this very nature’. Ultimately, he wished for a new theory on the art of photography that was independent from the laws of painting.

Do you think that Brik’s article points to a practice that was taken up by photographers or other artists to any great extent?

No, I don’t believe that Brik’s ideas were taken up extensively by either photographers or artists due to the suppression of his work by the state.

Regardless of his article, the ‘humble’ photographer now has the status of a painter. Painterly effects, most importantly composition and perspective, are used by photographers due to it being a visual medium. The medium of photography changed with the introduction of colour, as photographers can be subjective in their use of colour. Back to the point, even Brik’s contemporaries, especially A.M Rodchenko (1891-1956), instead of photographing reality, he chose to manipulate it (in Rodchenko’s case photomontage and the creation of ‘dynamic’ images: an influence of the conceptual artist Barbara Kruger). For example, look at the contemporary intertextual use of Rodenchenko’s 1924 of Lilya Brik.

Despite, the popularity of Constructivism and the avant-garde following the October Revolution this period of formal experimentation in the Soviet Union didn’t last long. Photography still represented reality during Stalin’s socialist-realism but so did painting become figurative once again, this time to glorify the workers. Though, I can see his article pointing to a practice that could be taken up by photo-journalists.

It should be noted that sanctioned Soviet art can be considered in one form or another as political propaganda, espousing the ideology of the party.  Even Brik’s article can be seen as informed by Marxist-Leninist ideology and its influence on art and culture in the early Soviet Union. The support for the camera (importantly, it is wholly reliant on technology), links in with the mechanisation of the Soviet state.

Do you find any resonances with Brik’s ideas in contemporary discussions of photography and painting? 

Yes I do find some resonances of Brik in contemporary discussions of photography and painting, especially in the area of representation. Although written in late 1970s, I feel some resonances in Susan Sontag’s On Photography; especially, ‘In Plato’s Cave’. Which, still holds relevance to contemporary discussions about photography in the ‘Digital Age’. Both Brik and Sontag are trying to theorise the essence of photography and its relation to reality. Though I understand critical discussion has changed and developed since the writings of Brik and Sontag

I think an interesting application of Brik’s ideas about photography and painting would be to artwork and advertising in relation to Postmodernism.

To try and create a cohesive study plan I try and link with my OCA projects with my selective reading on film studies. This week, with the exploration of photography’s superiority in representing reality, I though appropriate reading was the French film critic, André Bazin’s ‘The Ontology of the Photographic Image’. Bazin’s conclusion is that photography allowed Western painting to achieve aesthetic autonomy as it was no longer obsessed with realism.

Find two examples of images that demonstrate the impact of photography on painting.
Annotate them noting, in particular, how the images acknowledge the shift in visual culture that came about with the advent photography?

I have chosen two images that demonstrate the impact of photography on painting. It is generally accepted that Modernist painting began as a reaction to the development and widespread use of photography. Painting was no longer enslaved to mimesis, which was inherent in photography. I have chosen paintings by French Post-Impressionist painters, Paul Cézanne and Henri Matisse which acknowledge a shift in visual culture because of the advent of photography.

Mountains in Provence (L'Estaque) c.1879 (oil on canvas); Paul Cézanne (1839-1906)

There is a distinct lack of stylistic elements (e.g. shading, outline) to suggest solidity in this landscape. Pure primary colours would, still endanger the illusion of reality so Cézanne uses natural tones. Ultimately, it gives the affect of tranquillity.

Still life with a Red Rug, 1906 (oil on canvas); Henri Matisse (1869-1954)

·     What I find important about Matisse is his vivid use of colour compared to the Cézanne. This still life has a table full of objects. The figures are distorted and almost simplified with simple outlines.  The use of red creates a warm affect.

Both pieces of art do not constitute to mimesis as in a photograph, they constitute to a subjective form of reality. There is a clear shift from the objective representation of reality in painting because of the advent of photography and its ability to document. Instead there is a distinct shift in visual culture between photography (a mass art form) and painting. Both [Clement] Greenberg (Modernist Painting, 1960) and Brik implied what constitutes as Modern art.

Bibliography


Bazin, Andre. (1967) What is Cinema?: Volume 1. Berkeley and Los Angeles, California: University of California Press

Brik, Osip. (1926). Photography versus Painting. In: Harrison, C  & Wood P. (eds) Art in Theory, 1900-2000: an anthology of changing ideas. Oxford: Blackwell Publishing.

Cézanne, P. (1879). Mountains in Provence (L'Estaque). [Painting]. National Museum, Wales.

Gombrich, E.H. (195) The Story of Art. New York: Phaidon Press.

Matisse, H. (1906). Still Life with a Red Rug. [Painting]. Musee des Beaux-Arts, Grenoble, France.