Pictorialism and Modernism Free Essay Example, 2250 words

However, (Becker, 2005) argues that the difference between pictorialism and modernism has a thin line that is in most cases ignored without a good focus attention. In today’s art, pictorialism and modernism have a thin boundary and a few characteristic that differentiates them, and which are only clear to the technical knowledge in artists and not to armatures. In most cases, any art photography is considered as pictorial and this led the modern photographers to emphatically differentiate themselves from pictorialism. Comparison between pictorialism and modernism artists Adolf Fassbender vs. Ansel adams Fassbender was a renowned pictorialism photographer whose work was done with a high degree of clarity to an extent that there was little difference between the work of Adolf and the work of the modernism artists such as Adams. The most renowned photograph that was done by the two artists was a photograph that depicted water and hills on the background with a mist cover in the vicinity and a tree branch on the foreground (Becker). Fassbedner represented this photography in pictorialism while Adams represented it in modernism. In this photography, there are distinct similarities between the two artists to a level that it might be not possible to differentiate the two artistic works especially to an amateur in art work. We will write a custom essay sample on Pictorialism and Modernism or any topic specifically for you Only $17.96 $11.86/pageorder now The similarities portrayed a high degree of likeness between the methods of artistic work to an extent that one representation might be considered to be the other and vice versa. In this particular photo, the only difference that might be attributed is the focus. While Adams’ focuses sharp and portrays a high degree of natural reality, Fassbender’s focus is softer and portrays some degree of modification on the photo to present the desired impression. This little similarity as Backer (2005) further elaborates makes Adams to be a strict critic of pictorialism and dismisses the pictorialism representation particularly by Fassbender as â€Å"fuzzy-wuzzies†. The fuzziness might be argues to result for the modifications that are carried out on the actual photography to present the required impression and the textural paper that brings out the photography as soft and lacking a deep focus that characterizes modernism. The slight difference led modernism artists to wage a lot of criticism to pictorialism arguing that their works were grounded on the real, and like silence, it was predicated on portraying the nature’s truth his led Adams to coin the word transcendental perhaps to describe the mode of photography in modernism and to portray a significant difference between his work and that of Fassbender.