Pictorial Photography, also known as Pictorialism, was an international artistic movement that emerged over the thirty years straddling the end of the 19th century.

The volume Impressionist Camera – Pictorial Photography in Europe 1888-1918 is the catalogue of the exhibition on pictorial photography held in 2006 at the Saint Louis Art Museum, organised in collaboration with the Musée des Beaux-Arts in Rennes. Spanning 344 pages, it provides a comprehensive overview of the various ways in which Pictorialism was expressed across different European countries before extending and further developing in America. It is not a monograph but a collection of articles written by scholars and historians of photography, accompanied by numerous high-quality images.

To understand the origins of Pictorialism, it is essential to consider that, from 1880 onwards, numerous technical innovations had made photography increasingly accessible to a wider audience. With the introduction of the dry plate, the complex process of sensitising plates (wet plate), which had to be carried out in a darkroom, was no longer necessary. Furthermore, the invention of celluloid film and the launch of the Kodak camera (1900) simplified photography even further, significantly reducing costs and expanding the number of enthusiasts. Amateur photography was born.

Pictorialism emerged in this context as a reaction to the vast number of predominantly documentary images produced by countless amateur photographers.

Pictorialists regarded photography not merely as a tool for documenting reality but also as a new means of interpreting it. They sought to have photography recognised as an art form, equal to the graphic arts, and this ambition drove them to emulate pictorial artworks through photography.

However, the aspiration to elevate photography to an artistic means of expression did not originate with the Pictorialist movement. Thirty years earlier, other photographers were already creating allegorical works using the so-called combination printing technique, which involved overlaying multiple negatives. Initially used in landscape photography to capture a wider tonal range, this technique reached its peak with Oscar Gustave Rejlander (1813-1875) and Henry Peach Robinson (1830-1901). Their images were the result of meticulous preparation, requiring preliminary sketches and multiple exposures that were later recombined through a painstaking process of layering negatives. Producing the final image could take weeks or even months.

Henry Peach Robinson also wrote several texts, including the essay Pictorial Effects in Photography¹ (1869), which became a key reference for the emerging “artistic photography” movement, as well as for the subsequent Pictorialist movement. However, Pictorialists did not adopt either the composite photography technique or the decidedly academic approach of these predecessors.

There was no single event that definitively marked the birth of Pictorialism, nor was there ever a manifesto outlining its principles and intentions. The movement arose spontaneously within amateur photographic circles and societies across different European countries, displaying highly diverse styles and characteristics. One of the techniques commonly adopted by Pictorialists was the deliberate use of soft focus, giving images a slightly poetic quality. This approach was often accompanied by printing methods that allowed manipulation of the final image, as can be seen in the works of Robert Demachy (1859-1936) and Constant Puyo (1857-1933).

Other Pictorialists preferred a more direct approach, avoiding manipulation and focusing on image composition while applying only a subtle blur effect, sometimes using special soft-focus lenses. Among them were the English photographers Frederick Henry Evans (1853-1943) and Peter Henry Emerson (1856-1936), the latter being the author of Naturalistic Photography for Students of the Art² (1889), the German Baron Adolph de Meyer (1868-1946), and the Italian Guido Rey (1861-1935), to name just a few. The English photographer George Davison (1854-1930), a founding member of the secessionist group Linked Ring Brotherhood alongside Henry Peach Robinson, even used a pinhole camera—a device with a tiny aperture instead of a lens—to achieve a slightly blurred effect.

The event that arguably marked the birth of Pictorialism was the 1891 exhibition organised in Vienna by the Klub der Amateur-Photographen (later the Wiener Kamera Club). The jury consisted exclusively of painters and sculptors, ensuring that the selected images were judged solely on their artistic value. The exhibition was a great success, acting as a catalyst for the formation of new clubs and magazines in Austria and across Europe, including the aforementioned Linked Ring Brotherhood.

Although the United States had pioneered the technological innovations that enabled the rise of amateur photography—and, consequently, Pictorialism—the movement did not develop independently in America but was instead “imported” from Europe. This was largely due to the influence of the Circle of Photo-Secessionists, which included Gertrude Käsebier (1852-1934), Edward Steichen (1879-1973), Alfred Stieglitz (1864-1946), and Clarence White (1871-1925). Stieglitz also managed the 291 gallery on New York’s Fifth Avenue, where he exhibited the works of Pictorialists (and later hosted the first American exhibitions of Matisse and Picasso). More importantly, he published Camera Work, a high-quality magazine that significantly contributed to the dissemination of Pictorialism in the United States.

It would be too lengthy to cover all the themes explored in Impressionist Camera, from the influence of Symbolist painting on early 20th-century photography to the many ways in which Pictorialism spread across different European countries, as well as the techniques used—particularly gum bichromate printing, in which Demachy and Puyo were universally recognised masters, and the autochrome process, patented by the Lumière brothers in 1903, which enabled the first colour images.

In conclusion, Impressionist Camera is an important work for those wishing to learn about and explore a pivotal era in the history of photography, one that left behind particularly beautiful images. Even though Pictorialism was eventually superseded by Straight Photography, the aesthetic motivations behind it inspired later artistic trends that continued to emerge throughout the following decades and can still be seen in contemporary photography, echoing the characteristics of Pictorialism.

References

1. https://archive.org/details/pictorialeffecti00robi, Henry Peach Robinson, Pictorial Effects in Photography[↩]
2. https://archive.org/details/naturalisticphot00emer/mode/2up, Peter Henry Emerson, Naturalistic photography for students of the art[↩]