# Pictorialism

> Photographs made to be art on the model of painting: landscapes in mist, women and children in gardens and woods, portraits, nudes and allegories, all seen softly. Focus is diffused, contrast is low and tones are warm or tinted, and the print is a crafted object: platinum with long, gentle greys, or gum, oil and bromoil pigment worked by hand. Detail gives way to mood. The pictures were shown framed in salons and reproduced in photogravure, by photographers set on proving that a photograph could carry feeling.

- Period: 1885–1930
- Where it began: An international amateur movement that took shape in the late 1880s
- Kind: Pictorialist
- Also called: Pictorial photography, Art photography, Photo-Secession style, Kunstphotographie
- Page: https://lumogeny.com/styles/pictorialism/

## How the look is made

- Diffuse the focus: use a soft or uncorrected lens and let edges melt rather than resolve every detail.
- Choose atmosphere: mist, rain, dusk, backlight or window light that flattens forms into tonal masses.
- Compose like a painter: a figure off-centre against an empty field, planes flattened, a mood or an idea rather than a fact.
- Make the print by hand: platinum for long soft greys, gum or oil pigment for brushed tone, dodging and reworking until each print is unique.
- Keep contrast low and tones warm or tinted; avoid crisp blacks, hard detail and anything that looks like a snapshot.

## How it is lit

- Contre-jour daylight through mist, rain or haze, so forms dissolve into the air.
- Soft window or porch light on figures in a domestic interior or garden.
- Twilight and moonlit scenes in long exposures.

### A light plan from its choices (schematic)

- Key: the open sky, all around and above, soft.
- Rim or hair light: the sun, from behind, to the camera’s right, high, hard.

## Camera settings

45–90 mm · f/4.5–f/11 · 1/25–5 s · ISO 5–25 (on 9x12), documented. Lens data documented: Pinkham & Smith soft-focus lenses at f/6 and f/4.5, Kühn's Staeble Anachromat lenses of 17–31 cm on a 9 × 12 cm camera. Work near full aperture for softness; the times and plate speeds (about ISO 5–25) are inferred.

## Directing people

Turn faces from the lens: eyes lowered to a book, a child or the water, or gazing into the distance, often in profile or walking away. Keep bodies relaxed and unhurried: a woman crouching by a fountain, two sewing on a step, a mother holding her child. Allegorical figures in robes lean, kneel or recline to act out an idea.

## Styling

Pale, simple dresses in white or cream, hair loose or in a soft knot, no visible make-up; flowing robes and drapery for allegories. Gardens, porches, woods and the sitters' own rooms, lightly arranged so they look unplanned; landscapes, canals and streets are left as found.

## Before you shoot it

Pictorialist allegories and nudes sometimes show children unclothed; never generate nude or sexualised images of minors, and keep nudes to adults. A generated image in this style is not a vintage print: label it as AI-generated and never sell or show it as one.

## Photographs

- Clarence H. White, The Fountain, 1905/06. Art Institute of Chicago, Alfred Stieglitz Collection. Shown on the page: https://www.artic.edu/artworks/66755
- Constant Puyo, La Petite Princesse "Clair de Lune", 1890–1910. Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam. Shown on the page: https://www.rijksmuseum.nl/en/collection/RP-F-F00641
- Heinrich Kühn, In the dunes near Noordwijk, 1897–1904. Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam, purchased with the support of the VSBfonds. Shown on the page: https://www.rijksmuseum.nl/en/collection/RP-F-1995-10
- Robert Demachy, View of the Kolkje Canal, Amsterdam, 1907–14. Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam, purchased with the support of the VSBfonds. Shown on the page: https://www.rijksmuseum.nl/en/collection/RP-F-1996-25

## Sources

- Pictorialism, Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pictorialism (about 1885 to 1915, declining after 1920; international spread; the Linked Ring, Photo-Club de Paris, Photo-Secession; members named; bromoil, carbon, gum bichromate, oil and platinum; soft-focus lenses and hand-worked prints; tonalism; turn to straight photography)
- Linked Ring, Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linked_Ring (founded May 1892; Photographic Salon from 1893; gum bichromate and oil pigment; members)
- Photo-Secession, Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Photo-Secession (founded 17 February 1902 in New York; members; aim 'to advance photography as applied to pictorial expression'; dissolved 1917)
- Camera Work, Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Camera_Work (50 issues, 1903–1917; photogravures tipped in by Stieglitz; last issue given to Paul Strand's unsoftened work)
- Robert Demachy, Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Demachy (co-founded the Photo-Club de Paris in 1888; gum bichromate from 1894; Rawlins oil from 1904, bromoil by 1911; Puyo; Linked Ring 1895)
- Heinrich Kühn, Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heinrich_K%C3%BChn (multi-layer gum bichromate; autochromes from 1907)
- Peter Henry Emerson, Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Henry_Emerson (Naturalistic Photography, 1889; differential focus; platinum and photogravure books)
- The Fountain, Clarence H. White, Art Institute of Chicago: https://www.artic.edu/artworks/66755 (atmospheric, softly focused platinum prints; family members staged in apparently spontaneous scenes)
- Midnight Lake George, Edward Steichen, Art Institute of Chicago: https://www.artic.edu/artworks/66698 (gum bichromate over platinum, 1904: a night scene, layered pigment over platinum)
- Pinkham & Smith Visual Quality lenses, CameraQuest: https://cameraquest.com/pinkham_and_smith_visual_quality.htm (Series I and II semi-achromats at f/6, Series III at f/4.5, suggested by F. Holland Day and Alvin Langdon Coburn)
- Semi-Achromatic lens, 16-inch, George Eastman Museum: https://collections.eastman.org/objects/70638/semiachromatic-lens-16inch (a 16-inch Pinkham & Smith semi-achromatic lens engraved as made expressly for Alvin Langdon Coburn)
- Heinrich Kühn-Stegemann Studienkamera, Leitz Photographica Auction: https://www.leitz-auction.com/en/Heinrich-Kuehn-Stegemann-Studienkamera/AI-25-30331 (the 9 × 12 cm monorail camera designed for Kühn and used by him until 1944, c. 1925, with Dr. Staeble Anachromat Kühn lenses of 17, 20, 25 and 31 cm and multiple-hole aperture discs)
- The Photographs of Heinrich Kühn: Research Project on Artistic Technique, Gruber, Topics in Photographic Preservation 14 (2011), AIC: https://resources.culturalheritage.org/pmgtopics/2011-volume-fourteen/14-31_Gruber.html (Kühn had a camera and a lens, the Imagon, developed to his specifications)
- Colour photography in the Asia Pacific region, Robert Deane: https://mail.photo-web.com.au/robertdeane/papers/Colour-photography.htm (autochromes some fifty times slower than contemporary monochrome emulsions, one second at f/8 in full sun; used here to estimate monochrome plate speed around 1907)

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From Lumogeny (https://lumogeny.com/), a service of Van Riel Online Services. The shoot sheet for your own camera, lenses and lights is on the page: https://lumogeny.com/styles/pictorialism/#sheet