Aims and Methods
The aim of this exercise was to read Marius De Zayas’ essay ‘Photography and Photography and Artistic-Photography’ http://www.camramirez.com/pdf/DI_Week6_PhotoAndArt.pdf and to:-
- summarise the key points
- note my responses to the author’s point of view
- consider whether these questions are still relevant today
- state my stance on this issue
Results
Summary of the key points
- Art and photography are not synonymous. Art, like religion, requires the imagination in order to fully appreciate it, whereas photography is the realisation of the preconceived idea of Form.
- Different expressions of form have defined different periods of art but De Zayas considered that the period in which he lived was devoid of new ideas and looked to the past for inspiration.
- Savages are incapable of distinguishing reality from fantasy yet their artwork is abstract.
- The history of art has progressed through various phases: decorative, factual representation through observation and, finally, analysis.
- Form can only truly be transcribed through a mechanical process: photography and photography clarifies the ‘Truth’ by excluding the imagination.
- the difference between photography and artistic-photography is that the former records form and the latter provides a representation of form i.e. is a function of the photographer’s means of expression or creative process.
Discussion
My responses to the author’s point of view, comment on whether these questions are relevant today and my stance on this issue
Much of what De Zayas says is timeless, including the complaint that he was living through an artistic cultural vacuum – we only truly appreciate contemporary art and artists in retrospect. De Zayas’ comment about ‘savages’ reflects the widely-held prejudice of those times that non-Europeans were uncultured, whereas in reality their cultures were not understood as they were so different and as language stood in the way of enlightenment and explanation.
The main thesis of the paper is that photography and non-photographic art are different but I disagree. Paintings, sculptures and photographs can be factual representations just as they can be abstract pieces or, alternatively, subversions of reality. The range between the real and the imagined in art is continuous, not binary. We have always looked to the past as a means of inspiration for the future and this is as true today as it was in De Zayas’ day – we have much to learn from it.
Landscape 