Blurred Boundaries in Early Dutch Photography: Petit Genre and the Photogram

At the beginning of the early twentieth century, various photographic societies were established such as the Brotherhood of the Linked Ring in England and de Nederlandse Club voor FotoKunst in the Netherlands, who profiled themselves as artists and promoted photography as a fine art. It is often argued that they solely produced images to evoke emotions or atmosphere, and that they exclusively looked back at painting styles to reach for the ultimate goal of including photography as a fine art. Moreover, the photographs are mainly described on the basis of art historical categories, techniques, or the biographies of the photographers. I argue that these perspectives neglect the crucial fact that the photographs are photographs, and that new perspectives are needed. Therefore, this research will take a more theoretical approach, by focussing on early Dutch photography from 1913-1927, the medium of photography, and the photo-theoretical concepts of light, straight and composed...Show moreAt the beginning of the early twentieth century, various photographic societies were established such as the Brotherhood of the Linked Ring in England and de Nederlandse Club voor FotoKunst in the Netherlands, who profiled themselves as artists and promoted photography as a fine art. It is often argued that they solely produced images to evoke emotions or atmosphere, and that they exclusively looked back at painting styles to reach for the ultimate goal of including photography as a fine art. Moreover, the photographs are mainly described on the basis of art historical categories, techniques, or the biographies of the photographers. I argue that these perspectives neglect the crucial fact that the photographs are photographs, and that new perspectives are needed. Therefore, this research will take a more theoretical approach, by focussing on early Dutch photography from 1913-1927, the medium of photography, and the photo-theoretical concepts of light, straight and composed photography, and time. In this research, the focus will specifically be on two seemingly different photographs: a photograph which looks like a seventeenth-century genre painting by Richard Polak and a cameraless photogram by Henri Berssenbrugge. In this analysis, the attention will be aimed on the fact that these photographs are photographs, by moving to the heart of the medium, and eventually highlighting that within this core, the boundaries are blurred. By combining the earliest theories of photography, with more modern and contemporary arguments considering the medium, new perspectives on the two photographs will be provided, which gives revived attention to the neglected or forgotten early Dutch photography. By taking a different perspective, it is shown that the photographs are more than the reproduction of paintings, or more than just another painterly technique for creating figurative and abstract painting.Show less

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Blurred Boundaries in Early Dutch Photography: Petit Genre and the Photogram