Google gives a definition for Modernism as:
a style or movement in the arts that aims to depart significantly from classical and traditional forms. My Pocket Oxford Dictionary defines it as: the tendency to subordinate tradition to harmony with modern thought. Wikipedia says that it: is a philosophical movement that, along with cultural trends and changes, arose from wide-scale and far-reaching transformations in western society in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Among the factors that shaped Modernism were the development of modern industrial societies and the rapid growth of cities, followed then by the horror of World War 1.
The course notes tell us that modernism and photography have a particularly close relationship as they developed together. Perhaps my first acquaintance with modernism was when studying the Level 2 Landscape module and researching the early modernist or 'straight' photographers such as those who were part of Group f64: Ansel Adams, Edward Weston, Imogen Cunningham, John Paul Edwards, Sonia Nosowiak, Henry Swift and Willard Van Dyke. Although the group disbanded after only three years, it was to have a lasting influence on photographic practice. (Prodger, 2012) The group was set up as an antidote to earlier 'Pictorialist' photography which, after the brutality of the First World War, was seen to be hopelessly sentimental and nostalgic (Prodger, 2012). The group believed that photographers should make the most of the equipment at their disposal including the use of the smallest apertures available at the time (f64) to secure the greatest depth of field. They believed that they should remain independent of ideological conventions of art and aesthetics that harked back to the period the growth of the medium itself. These beliefs which paralleled the development in other arts, came to be known as Photographic Modernism (Prodger, 2012)
Modernism was not just about photography and the arts, however; the course notes tell us that it defined an era as much as a movement. The theories of both Karl Marx and Charles Darwin were both modernist theories. The notes go on to say that modernist painters, like the modernist photographers of f64 and others, developed their style as an antidote to the romanticism that dominated during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Premodernist artists, landscape painters in particular, created idealized pastoral scenes and omitted any reference to the urban or industrial, whereas modernist workers embraced both industrialisation and urbanism. Photography offered the ideal means of producing objective images, although that is not strictly the case. The camera can be made 'to lie' by judicious framing and cropping and in post production, whether in a dark room or digital imaging software.
Photgraphy gradually superseded lithography in the publication of images in newspapers and picture magazines and the contemporary masses became accustomed to seeing the reproduction of an object, building or landscape rather than the real thing. Siegrfried Kracaur was unhappy with this situation.
The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction
Walter Benjamin was associated with the Frankfurt School who became centrally concerned with (Marxist) critical theory, ideological processes, and the analysis of the operations of mass culture, for example, in the support of fascism. (Wells, 2011: Kindle location 801) John Berger tells us in his essay on Benjamin in 'The Look of Things' (1972) that he was born to a rich Jewish family in Belin in 1892. He studied philosophy and became a literary critic. He was a complex person with much tension in his life and thoughts. He became a Marxist and committed suicide in 1940 out of a fear of being captured by the Nazis (Berger 1972 pp 186-192)
Below I list my major points from the essay:-
- Works of art have always been reproducible but mechanical reproduction is something new. Methods included text printing, woodblock printing (engraving and etching) and lithography.
- Lithography improved rapidly and kept pace with printing but only a few decades after its invention it was surpassed by photography.
- Even the most perfect reproduction lacks the presence of the original in space and time. The reproduction never has the changes the original suffered over time nor the changes of ownership, its tradition.
- In the age of mechanical reproduction, a reproduction lacks the 'aura' of the original gained by the ravages of time.
- Multiple reproductions substitute a plurality of copies for a unique existence
- Because the masses today (1936) want things 'closer' but spatially and humanly, whether works of art or the natural world, they are happy to accept reproductions in picture magazines and newsreels. (today T.V., films and the internet?) This pries the original from its shell (?) and destroys its 'aura'.
- The earliest works of art had a basis in ritual, first magical (cave paintings) and then religious.
- The secular cult of beauty developed during the renaissance demonstrated the ritualistic basis in decline.
- With the advent of photography, the first truly revolutionary means of reproduction, along with the rise of socialism the 'art world' sensed an approaching crisis and closed in on itself. This resulted in the philosophy of art for arts sake which says that the intrinsic value of art and the 'only true art' is divorced from any didactic, moral or utilitarian function.
- There are two polar types of art: one based on cult value and one based on its exhibition value.
- Cave paintings (cult art) were never meant to be seen and only today have they become recognized as works of art. The same is true for some religious art which, even today, is still kept hidden away.
- Today the exhibition value of art gives it an entirely new function. Photography and film are the best examples of this.
- Photography and film also have a scientific value as well as an artistic one.
This essay had a major influence of the art world, especially the Frankfurt school. John Berger was heavily influenced by it and drew on it for his major 1972 BBC production 'Ways of Seeing' and his subsequent 1973 book. Bejamin postulated that mass reproduction 'pries the original work from its shell' and removes some of the 'aura' that the original gains over time through changes, wearing, darkening, damage and the change of ownership and tradition. Berger goes further than this and categorically states that modern means of production have destroyed the authority of art: "For the first time ever, images of art have become ephemeral, ubiquitous, insubstantial, available, valueless, free (Berger 1972 pp 32-34).
Liz Wells comments in Land Matters: Landscape Photography, Culture and Identity, that Benjamin particularly welcomed the mass reproduction and circulation of imagery, proposing that it undermined the aura of the uniqueness of the work of art. (Wells 2007, Kindle location 799)
So, what do I think of the arguments of Kracaur and Benjamin? To summarize, Kracauer disapproves of the mass reproduction of works of art, as objects will become known for how they appeared to the camera and not how they actually were. '.... the flood of photos sweeps away the dams of memory.' (Kracauer, [1927] 1995, p.58) Benjamin on the other hand suggests that it is a good thing that the aura and uniqueness of a work of art is destroyed as that work of art then becomes available for everybody not just the privileged few. I think that there are probably many works of art that I would never see if they had not been reproduced for mass consumption so in this way Benjamin is correct. That does not mean to say that it is not preferable to see the the genuine thing. I have seen many photographs of prehistoric cave paintings but I shall never forget that shiver of awe and wonder when I entered Font de Gaume near Les Eyzies in France and saw for myself the 'magical' originals lit as they would have been by prehistoric torchlight 10.000 years ago. The same can be said of famous works of art in galleries: reproductions and photographs are excellent but there is nothing like the thrill of seeing the original. Often with paintings by artists such has Turner and Constable reproductions are of the page of a book, magazine or on television but seeing the real thing, nearly the size of a wall is awesome. We also need to be careful when looking at photographic images and be aware of what we are not seeing. Does that beautiful landscape have a nuclear power station just out of shot or has a photojournalist cropped out or included a person that may or may not influence the tone of a political article; Joseph Stalin was a past master at writing his country's history this way. On balance though I think that Benjamin is correct: we all have a right to see works of art even if only in reproduction; they should not just be for the privileged few. Although there are many art galleries full of works of art that are available to the public, worryingly, many works of art are being sold into private ownership for investment or other reasons, many never to be seen again.
Berger, J. (1972) Ways of Seeing. London, Penguin
Berger, J. (1972) Walter Benjamin in Selected Essays (2001). London Bloomsbury Publishing
Kracauer, S. ([1927] 1995) The Mass Ornament: Weimar Essays. USA, Harvard College.
Prodger, P. (2012) Ansel Adams, Photography from the Mountains to the Sea, USA, Peabody Essex Museum
Wells, L. (2011) Land Matters: Landscape Photography, Culture and Identity. London/New York
