From: Judy Seigel (jseigel@panix.com)
Date: 09/29/03-12:09:32 PM Z
On Mon, 29 Sep 2003 curzon@tegenlicht.com wrote:
> For instance: I'm reading The Keepers of Light (W Crawford). This is an
> excelent book on the techniques and its history, but also a good HOW TO
> book.
The Keepers of Light is a golden oldie, cherished for many reasons, as
pioneer, & for being, for its day, exceptionally reliable, also -- to my
mind anyway -- for stressing how PROCESS affected the path of photography,
including & especially the esthetics.... That alas is still not properly
respected in "the canon."
I refer here to the fact that of relatively recent books I happen to have
opened for one fool reason or another this month, all but one failed to
tell the medium of the illustrated prints, even though they are ABOUT
pictorialism which stressed other media and talk about the esthetic uses
of gum & other "pigment" processes in the text.
We know that the photographers at issue (Clarence White, Gertrude
Kasebier, et al) worked in various processes. We can often infer from the
reproduction what the medium was, but that's still half a book. The book
that did tell the medium, BTW, was in French (& I'm having a bit of
trouble with some of that, as I hope in due course to refer to the list).
In English, however, for instance, in Peter Bunnell's anthology of
Pictorialism -- not one print is identified by medium. The Princeton
museum magazine The Record, edited by Bunnell, based on a show with many
gums & various other media, identifies only the autochromes, which have a
separate section in color. An Aperture monograph on Clarence White, which
has a mere couple of pages of text, and the rest reproductions, doesn't
mention medium of a single print. Etc.
Which leads me to recall a long-ago seminar with Beaumont Newhall. He was
wonderful, and the course a thrill and privilege. But at one point when
he spoke about his labors hanging a show at MoMA, I piped up about how
frustrating it was that wall labels for old prints did not cite the
medium. He smiled, waved his hand, and said, I swear: "Oh they're so
beautiful, who cares?"
Meanwhile, however, with the advent of sources such as this list, how-to
info has taken a great leap forward. There are certain errors in Keepers
of Light, as well as shortfalls, and those surrounding the great GPR test
most assuredly bear mention, as the phenomenon appears there in pure form,
yet with its fallacy glaring.
TBC,
cheers,
Judy
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.5 : 10/01/03-03:09:00 PM Z CST