Photo by Seneca Ray Stoddard
The peak of romantic art in the Adirondacks, the late 19th century, was also a time when the camera was being used more and more frequently. I think it is interesting that both paintings and photographs were used to promote tourism and conservation in the Adirondacks. Photographs provided a concrete, obviously realistic image of something that actually existed in the Park, while paintings were an artists impression of an aspect of Adirondack Wilderness that was less "realistic" but allowed for a lot of artistic freedom.
"Adirondack Evening", by Peter Corbin
Peter Corbin's painting has a similar subject matter to Stoddard's photograph. Although a viewer of the painting would not be sure that it is an accurate representation of the Adirondacks, its use of color in some ways makes the painting feel more realistic than the photograph. I wonder if the publications and advertisements of the time had a preference for photographs over paintings or vice versa, or if one type of image was considered "more valuable" or "more artistic" than the other.
Your comment about the view of photography as compared to paintings is very interesting. In a way a picture cannot be exaggerated or romanticized and maybe was seen as a more "accurate" depiction of the Adirondacks. However, I also feel that since photography was such a new concept many still relied on paintings to visualize the Adirondacks. I wonder if there was any backlash against using photography or if it was easily incorporated into peoples view of art.
ReplyDeleteI've been waiting for someone to post something about pictures so I could share my opinion. We tend to think of photography as a very factual profession (you take pictures of things, how much more real could it get). Photoshopping of pictures has also increased this sense of how a virgin picture is real. But actually, when a photographer takes a picture, they have a huge amount of control not only over the characteristics of the image but of what the image is of. If they wanted to leave that ugly great camp out of the shot, it would be easy.
ReplyDeleteSo I agree with Annie that the painting could be more realistic than the picture. In a painting you can more easily highlight the most impressive features of a scene and depict it like you would remember it, effectively making it more real. For this reason I bet there was some backlash, since photography might have made certain scenes more bland (you can only fit so much in one shot). Just as magazines like "Outside" only select the most fantastic of images for their covers, the magazines might have kept the paintings, especially if the tourists liked them more. It would be interesting to know!