From: Sandy King (sanking@clemson.edu)
Date: 09/02/02-07:18:19 PM Z
Judy Seigel wrote:
>
>My question is, will "art critics" (not just photo nerds) of the future
>similarly proceed to take Ansel Adams seriously as more than "calendar
>artist"? What ideas will he carry forth beyond "ain't nature grand"?
>
The landscape work of Ansel Adams is the artistic culmination of an
impressive photographic tradition that began with the work of
photographers like Timothy O'Sullivan, William Bell, Carelton
Watkins, William Henry Jackson and others. None of Adams'
predecessors, I think, would have been in the least ashamed to have
been labeled a "calendar artist." In fact, most of these
photographers made their living selling postcard work, and were happy
to do so. They were PHOTOGRAPHERS and they were ARTISTS and they
shared common interests: a deep awe and reverence for the natural
landscape, and a desire to share that vision with other Americans.
And we are greatly indebted to them for their vision, for it resulted
in the saving of large expanses of the country for future generations
through the creation of national parks such as Yosemite, Yellowstone,
etc. I regret that none of these photographers worked in my native
Louisiana. If they had they might have photographed and helped to
preserve the old grown Cyprus forests of the Atchafalaya bassin.
Happily this landscape tradition lives on today, mostly in color, in
the work of photographers like David Muench, Jack Dykinga, and
numerous others.
Were I Ansel's ghost I should not be at all concerned about the
opinion of those art critics of today whose ignorance or blindness
makes them unable to understand or appreciate his work, or that
future art critics will not take him seriously. I think it much more
likely that a hundred years from today Ansel Admas will be seen as
one of the most important and influential photographers in the
history of the medium, when the world will have long forgotten the
photography of some of today's artist hacks, whose work has been
promoted in the contemporary period by the so-called "art critics".
Sandy King
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