Pictorialism was the vanguard movement that applied the principles of fine art to photography from the mid 1800s to the +- 1910. During this time photography had turned into a commercial business. This due to cheaper dry plate processes and the compact Kodak cameras. Emphasis was placed on technological advancement, often to the detriment of creative artistry. The simplified goal of pictorialism was to free photography from its documentary and technical stranglehold and to use it as a means of artistic expression.A few ground rules for pictorialism were set out by Henry Peach Robinson in his influential book Pictorial Effect in Photography.He emphasized that an interweaving of art, nature, truth, beauty and a fair bit of darkroom trickery were the key to creating a satisfying pictorial The fact that pictorial photographers were encouraged to use a mixture of the real and artificial manipulation in a picture in order to arrive at beauty ended up being the same reason causing factures and revolt within the ranks. In this period of photography, just as in many fine art movements, pictorialist photographers started organizing themselves into invitation-only groups.They held annual exhibitions, or salons, and published …show more content…
Emerson was one of the most influential voices in photography during the 1880s.He despised combination printing. Emerson promoted realistic and naturalistic vision. For Emerson photographic art was best learnt through practice and applying differential focusing. He believed that a successful pictorial could not be obtained through the application of artistic rules or by following the 18th-century aesthetic principles of the art academics. In saying that, Emerson often contradicted and eventually violently disagreed with his own theories. Initially he asserted that photography was an independent art of its own right, which was a very bold move back then. He ended up denying photographs any claim to art and called them “machine-made