DOI Artikel:
Hinton, A. Horsley: Pictorial photography in Austria and Germany
DOI Seite / Zitierlink: https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.27086#0125
PICTORIAL PHOTOGRAPHY IN
AUSTRIA AND GERMANY. BY
A. HORSLEY HINTON.
S a means of delineation, photography, youngest
amongst the graphic arts with which it is so
often unnecessarily brought into comparison,
has had less than a score of years in which
to demonstrate the possibilities of that par-
ticular phase or application of its many
powers with which the present publication has
chiefly to do.
The present day Pictorial movement in photography which is exhi-
biting so much activity in nearly every country of Europe and also
in America, may be said to have taken definite shape somewhere
about 1891, when the Vienna Camera Club organised its first Exhi-
bition, an entire innovation as regards photographic exhibitions of
that time inasmuch as the competitive element was quite absent, and
the principal exponents of the artistic side of photography in various
countries were invited to exhibit ; from which it will be seen that
there were not wanting a considerable number of scattered and
isolated workers striving in the face of prejudice and misunderstanding
to apply photographic means to the expression of personal ideas.
Lost sight of amidst their more numerous technical and scientific
contemporaries they lacked organisation and the opportunity of
demonstrating their aims, and needed an exhibition in which interest
in the picture could be invited apart from the consideration of
the means employed in its making. Almost immediately the ex-
ample of Vienna was followed in England, and The Photographic
Salon founded in London in 1892 has been maintained annually
with obvious success.
From thence onward is, then, the period during which Pictorial
Photography has developed, shaking off the swaddling clothes of
technical tradition, as its growth and desire for independence
demanded greater freedom. For if it be claimed that Pictorial
Photography is of earlier origin, and the efforts of Rejlander,
Robinson, and others quoted in evidence, it may, I think, be easily
shown that the “ Art ” photography of their time and the Pictorial
movement of the nineties have been prompted by motives as different
G I
AUSTRIA AND GERMANY. BY
A. HORSLEY HINTON.
S a means of delineation, photography, youngest
amongst the graphic arts with which it is so
often unnecessarily brought into comparison,
has had less than a score of years in which
to demonstrate the possibilities of that par-
ticular phase or application of its many
powers with which the present publication has
chiefly to do.
The present day Pictorial movement in photography which is exhi-
biting so much activity in nearly every country of Europe and also
in America, may be said to have taken definite shape somewhere
about 1891, when the Vienna Camera Club organised its first Exhi-
bition, an entire innovation as regards photographic exhibitions of
that time inasmuch as the competitive element was quite absent, and
the principal exponents of the artistic side of photography in various
countries were invited to exhibit ; from which it will be seen that
there were not wanting a considerable number of scattered and
isolated workers striving in the face of prejudice and misunderstanding
to apply photographic means to the expression of personal ideas.
Lost sight of amidst their more numerous technical and scientific
contemporaries they lacked organisation and the opportunity of
demonstrating their aims, and needed an exhibition in which interest
in the picture could be invited apart from the consideration of
the means employed in its making. Almost immediately the ex-
ample of Vienna was followed in England, and The Photographic
Salon founded in London in 1892 has been maintained annually
with obvious success.
From thence onward is, then, the period during which Pictorial
Photography has developed, shaking off the swaddling clothes of
technical tradition, as its growth and desire for independence
demanded greater freedom. For if it be claimed that Pictorial
Photography is of earlier origin, and the efforts of Rejlander,
Robinson, and others quoted in evidence, it may, I think, be easily
shown that the “ Art ” photography of their time and the Pictorial
movement of the nineties have been prompted by motives as different
G I