Steichen pushed the boundaries of photographic art through photography that utilized painterly techniques. His work demonstrated that photography could be more than just documentation, but a medium of artistic expression.
Until the early 19th century, photography was perceived as a technological tool of modern civilization and a means of reproducing reality. People at the time considered photography to be an objective record that reproduced reality as it was. Gradually, however, many photographers attempted to express their own subjectivity by taking or creating staged photographs. They pursued artistic photography by imitating painterly expression through techniques such as light processing and compositing of original plates. The photographic works created in this trend are called pictorialist photography. It was an attempt to go beyond mere documentation to include artistic expression, opening the door for photography to be recognized as an art form on the same level as painting.
Steichen’s Rodin with Victor Hugo and a Thinking Man (1902) is considered to be the epitome of Pictorialist photography. The subjects are the sculptor Rodin and his works Victor Hugo and The Thinking Man. Steichen composited a photograph of Rodin in front of the marble sculpture Victor Hugo and a photograph of the bronze sculpture The Thinking Man into a single photographic work. In the composition of the photograph, Rodin and The Thinking Man are seated in similar positions facing each other in the darkened near view, while Victor Hugo looks down on them in the lightened far view. Rather than simply compositing the near and far views, Steichen employed a difficult composite photographic technique to ensure that the subjects of the two photographs were positioned in the same frame, as the artist intended. In addition, the printing process used a photosensitive solution that suppressed the texture of the subject.
Steichen had an artistic exchange with Rodin, photographing his works almost weekly from 1901 onward. Rodin’s sculptures emphasized vitality and expressiveness, a departure from the art world’s tendency at the time to reproduce only the outward appearance of objects, which Steichen appreciated and deeply resonated. Steichen believed that a photograph or sculpture could express the subjectivity and emotions of the artist and, like a literary work, could be subject to interpretation, and Rodin agreed, willingly serving as a model for his photographic works.
In this photo, I tried to make the subjects look like people by making their textures less lifelike. Rodin is shown contemplating in the same pose, facing the Thinking Man, as if he has become the Thinking Man himself, while the great gatekeeper Victor Hugo looks on. Victor Hugo’s white, brightly lit figure in the distance appears to radiate creative inspiration in contrast to the darker figures of Rodin and the Thinker in the foreground. The composition conveys the message that Rodin’s work, like his literary works, was created in creative anguish.
Steichen’s work had a major impact on the art world of his time and was instrumental in establishing photography as an art form. He showed that photography could be used as a medium of creative expression, not just a tool for documentation. By shooting for sharp contrasts, compositing plates to create compositions, and altering textures with special light sensitizers, Steichen sought to show that photography was an art that could be created and expressed in the same way as painting. These attempts inspired many later photographers and made important contributions to the development of the art of photography.
Thanks to the efforts of artists like Steichen, today we can appreciate photography as a work of art, more than just a document. As such, pictorialist photography is considered an important art historical trend that expanded the possibilities of photography and opened up new areas of art. While they are outstanding works of art in their own right, they are also significant as monumental achievements that played an important role in the historical development of photographic art.
