Re: The future of the handmade print?

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From: Alejandro Lopez de Haro (alhr@wanadoo.fr)
Date: 03/11/02-05:56:47 AM Z


Dear Sandy:

Perhaps I have been influence by the French pictorialist and their belief
that Art should should pursue the aesthetics. Any how, I have seen and held
many Demachy's and Puyo's photographs. I must say, that every time I have
done so I feel overpower by their beauty. Not only from the image itself,
which is not our discussion, but what the Limited Edition wet-print itself,
crafted by the hands of the artist, conveys vis a vis a computer print. So
far, I have not seen a digital image output that matches the beauty of these
wet-prints.

In my personal library I have several original books by Puyo and Demachy and
in one of them: "Notes sur la Photographie Artistique" by C. Puyo even the
"héliogravures", which is closer to the spirit of the digital print (mass
reproduction) have a distinct delicacy which a computer print-out fails to
convey.

By the way, in this book, Puyo worries about if photography would ever be
considered an art form. He argued that like every new art form it needs
time to evolve and not only from the photographers point of view but also
from the public so they are willing to accept it as new art form. Maybe this
reasoning can be apply to a computer print-out, but still I worry about the
easiness of hitting the key of the printer and out it comes 10,000 prints.
Now this is no longer art but a poster factory or Look magazine at it's best
(from the point of view of circulation). Not to mention some the sizes of
these images which some of them could resemble more a billboard than art.

I know it is an endless discussion to argue about Art and what is art and
what isn't. But at the end it got to do about what the public likes and
finally what are they willing to pay for it. From this perspective I have a
question to ask you: If you have $100.000 and you must spend it on either a
Limited Edition 2/5 "extravagance*" brush-out platinum print or a Limited
Edition 2/5 computer print both made by Hiroshi Sugimoto, as an example:
Which one would you buy?

Regards,

Alejandro López de Haro

  a.. From my friend Carl Weese which call this printing technique:
"extravagatype".
----- Original Message -----
From: "Sandy King" <sanking@clemson.edu>
To: <alt-photo-process-l@sask.usask.ca>
Sent: Saturday, March 09, 2002 4:48 PM
Subject: Re: The future of the handmade print?

Alejandro López de Haro wrote:

>
>
>The future of commercial and everyday photography it seems is in the so
call
>digital photography. But, Fine Art Photography future and present is in the
>prints made by the hand of the artist.

snip, snip

>
>The art of doing Art by the hand of the artist and the way it is translate
>into the image because in the manner in which the artist makes the strokes
>of the brush on that special paper, which he could have made himself, or
>because the rhythmic movements of his hands when he wants the image a
little
>darker or lighter on silver base image. All of these, plus others
>intangibles like the artist delicacy in applying the coat on the paper, the
>application of pigments, the care of the print when it is being clear,
wash,
>tone and dry, somehow makes a projection to the viewer which makes him
>respond with an special attraction to the image that is before his eyes so
>as to feel the full power of that which has been created by the virtuosity
>of the artist hand.

The idea you express are virtually identical to the aesthetic
ideology espoused by the Pictorialists over a century ago,
specifically, only photographs that show hand work or intervention by
the photographers could be considered works of art. That idea, then
as now, is too narrowly construed. So too was the opposing modernist
view that photographs should only be made on glossy silver gelatin
papers.

One of the most outstanding photographers of the pictorial school in
Spain, Migue Goicochea (died Pamplona in 1983) made in 1928 a
statement about processes that I consider to be equally valid today.
My translation of the original statement that appeared in Spanish in
the magazine Foto follows.

"Let's talk about processes. I am convinced that they all have the
potential to produce art. If Robert Demachy were to read this he
might be incensed, since he was of the opinion that only the pigment
processes are capable of giving artistic results, and indeed, only a
few of these. But we should not be so intransigent in this matter.
Exclusiveness blinds up and prevents a proper appreciation of many
worthy things."

Regards,

Sandy King

--


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