Week 13 Essay: Artistic Expression

Select two artists, and compare and contrast their work. Defend your choices by
explaining how their work qualifies as art.

Would you characterize their expressions as photographs? or mixed media images? or

multiple images or sequences?

Is size an element in their work?

In what way does the work relate to earlier traditions such as artistic photography or
documentary photography?

What other artistic, cultural, social, or political influences are evident in the work?

What effect do you think the digital revolution has had on how artists define photography
and make photographic images?

Alfred Stieglitz (1864-1946) - Edward Weston (1886-1958)

Alfred Stieglitz spent almost his entire life working to make the photography
accepted an art branch and, so he helped the photo to be accepted with arts
such as painting and sculpture. He is known as the man who made the photo art.
He was making pictorial photographs in his early times of his career, but then he
started to make realistic photographs. In his recent photographs he
photographed portrait, landscape and famous cloud photos and he named these
photos as ‘equivalents’.

Edward Weston Edward Weston is one of the most important photographers of

the past century. He took his first photographs in Chicago's parks and aunt’s
farm. Then he began portrait photography and he continues his life by
photographing of children, animals and funerals. Weston opened his own studio
in 1911. During this period, he received many awards for his photography in
pictorial style with his soft-focus lens. Edward Weston moved to New York in
1922 and met Alfred Stieglitz.

Alfred Stieglitz has taken photographs with more pointed corners, forcing borders
and geometric formality with modernism and innovative movement.

Edward Weston declined Pictorialism and focused on simple photo shoots, also he
totally abandoned the soft-focus shots. Edward has only intensified his work on
shells, plants and nudes since 1927.

Alfred Stieglitz is one of the talented and modernist photographer. His

photographs are innovative, creative and he also combined the soul with
technique.
Edward is seen today as one of the simplest creative modern photographers. His
photographs bear poetic traces because of his photographs have metaphoric
structures and have a fine formality, well thought-out compositions.

Both photographers are the most important representatives of modern American

photography. These two photographers brought out the aesthetic values hidden
in the photograph. The photographs revealed the potential for interpretation
based on the illusion of reality and we see them with successful photographs.

Photography has become an art form thanks to Alfred Stieglitz and the art of
photography has developed thanks to the work of Edward Weston. I can say they
are a true art photographer. Thanks to the exhibitions they participated and
opened, the present modern photography has occurred.

The photographic approach, technique, and subject are also changing as time
goes by. The openness and clarity of the photographic image is important. For
this reason, the perfection of the technique is targeted at every stage of
photography. Edward Weston also developed the f/64 (f/64 is the smallest
setting of a large-format camera diaphragm aperture that gives particularly good
resolution and depth of field) technique because he knew it.

The photographs were given as simple and direct presentations using only
photographic methods as an art. However, these works had to be based on the
principles of painting and graphic arts.
Alfred Stieglitz "Georgia O'Keeffe (Hands)" (1919)
Edward Weston "Nautilus" (1927)
Resources:
A. (2015, May 25). STIEGLITZ & STEICHEN: "Alfred Stieglitz and Edward Steichen's Legacy" (2001) |
#ASX. Retrieved December 8, 2017, from http://www.americansuburbx.com/2008/10/theory-alfred-
stieglitz-and-edward.html

Alfred Stieglitz Biography, Art, and Analysis of Works. (n.d.). Retrieved December 8, 2017, from
http://www.theartstory.org/artist-stieglitz-alfred.htm

Edward Weston Biography, Art, and Analysis of Works. (n.d.). Retrieved December 8, 2017, from
http://www.theartstory.org/artist-weston-edward.htm

Stieglitz, Alfred : Photography, History. (n.d.). Retrieved December 10, 2017, from
https://theredlist.com/wiki-2-16-601-797-view-pictorialism-profile-stieglitz-alfred.html

Weston, Edward : Photography, History. (n.d.). Retrieved December 10, 2017, from
https://theredlist.com/wiki-2-16-601-792-view-still-life-1-profile-weston-edward-2.html