This book is a note written by Roland Barthes to record the dialectical way he thought about the eidos(form, essence, type, species) of Photographs. Roland Barthes was a French literary theorist, philosopher, linguist in his lifetime, but surprisingly he was not a photographer. As Barthes had a belief that art works consists with signs and structures, he had investigated semiotics and structuralism. However, through Camera Lucida, he realized the limitation of structuralism and the impression to analyze Photography with only semiotics and structuralism. Barthes concludes with talking about unclassifiable aspects of Photography. I could sense the direction Barthes wanted to go through the first chapter ‘Specialty of the Photograph’. He tried to define something by phenomenology
In the book, the Barthes creates some terms. Operator, Spectator and Spectrum are the first one. The Operator means the photographer, the viewer who looks at the Photograph becomes the Spectator and the thing emitted by subject is called eidolon(image, phantom, ghost), in other word the Spectrum. Barthes talks about Operator’s ability to take the picture of naturalness from the situation. He says that a Photograph is closer to the Spectator than the Operator and the Spectrum is the closest one. The stream of his thought naturally moves from the subject of the picture to viewers with excluding the person taking a picture. It was interesting for the artists like me because for artists, the subject matter goes first and then the work is created later. Particularly, for me, considering viewers mostly comes at the end or sometime, I even ignore the audience. For a viewer like Barthes, seeing the work is a completely opposite way to creating the work.
Camera Lu...
... middle of paper ...
... don’t need camera lucida and camera obscura. What we see instantly becomes a Photograph.
Not only quantitative aspect, but also qualitative aspect changed. The object and its referent are no longer inevitably real. There is no indexicality. The Boundary between painting and Photograph become blurred. Especially, in my case, as I am a painter who heavily relies on Photography, it becomes hard to define genre of my works. I wonder if I follow Barthes’ thoughts, what is eidos of my works. Are they included in Pictorialism? What are they?
(Left - Oil on canvas / Right - Oil on digital printed image on canvas)
I want to finish this review with Barthes’ word I liked.
Barthes says, "Death is the eidos of that Photograph (Barthes 15).
Works Cited
Barthes, Roland. Camera Lucida: Reflections on Photography. Geoff Dyer (Foreword by). Print. Apr 2014
Artists in the Modern period illustrated the existential idea of individuality through visual imagery to convey the power of man and the fallacious influence of the external world. For instance, M.C. Escher’s noteworthy piece, Hand with Reflecting Sphere, epitomizes the idea of self-derived identity. The message of the piece revolves around the idea that when searching for meaning, one should look within. Specifically, this is seen in the imagery of the reflecting sphere, for as Escher gazes into the sphere to discover his purpose, he simply sees himself. Moreover, the artistic element of depth amplifies the effect as the highlighted image is the one of the author, further illustrating how, at a primal level, the one unwavering source of meaning is the spirit of the person itself. In addition, M.C. Escher implements the aesthetic quality of contrast, by overlaying the detailed reflection on top of an unrefined background. Furthermore, this bolsters the message, as the importance of reflection is shown to be greater than the mundane outside
The Interpretation/Meaning (III) will be written without any guideline points, the aim of this part will be to determine what the painter wanted to express with his piece of work and what it tells us in a symbolic or not instantly clear way. This part will also handle why the artist drew the painting the way he did it and why he chose various techniques or tools.
What, if any impact did photography play in the role of arts ‘evolution’, in particular, what impact did photography have in the works of the impressionist painters. Two obviously conflicting opinions arise through texts by ‘Aaron Scharf’ and ‘Kirk Vanerdoe’. Scharf argues that the impact of ‘snapshot photography’ and the invention and wide distribution of portable camera’s had a significant influence on the works of the painter ‘Degas’. Vanerdoe takes the opportunity to question what makes an influence significant, and tends to see the creation of Impressionism stem from earlier art movements. Then comes the question, what, if any arguments are valid, what arguments are opinions and what can be sieved down to fact.
images in this painting, all of which have the power to symbolize to us, the viewer, of the painter’s
One example photograph he uses is the one taken by Charles Clifford in the year 1854 called “The Alhambra (Grenada)”. Barthes immediately notices the intricate details of the photograph and proceeds to list them out, “ An old house, a shadowy porch, tiles, a crumbling Arab decoration, a man sitting against the wall, a deserted street, a Mediterranean tree…” (Barthes pg. 38). Following his description of the photograph, Barthes mentions a key detail which is that the old photograph touches him. The fact that it touches Barthes is significant to him because it indicates that the environment he sees within the photograph is one that he is comfortable or familiar with, so much to the point where he says that he should like to live there (Barthes pg. 38). Although Barthes doesn’t mention anything about the operator, spectator, and spectrum, it is already clear, through his choice of example and description, who and what makes up those components. Another piece of information that Barthes left out was the studium and the punctum of the photograph. Nonetheless, the composition of these two elements can also be
...f the pristine photographic print and polished sculptural surface. The photographs are in color but with this sort of visual trickery Muniz subverts photography by employing it to reveal its own unreliability. Coplans with his black and white self-portraits of his aging hands man is mere representation of the celebration of his present in anticipation of his future.
For the purpose of this argument I will explore the image in the context using Barthes methodology in its “signs” (Barthes 1972) produced and deconstruct the image in basic building blocks.
In chapter six of the book, the pictorial imagery demonstrates a variety of art forms connoting its realism and diversity of the power of connecting to wealth in contradiction to the deprived in the western culture. The images used in this chapter relate to one another and state in the analogy the connection of realism that is depicted in social statues, landscapes, and portraiture, also present in the state of medium that was used to create this work of art. In fact, some of the works presented depict mythological paintings that resemble the transcending metaphysical matter of nature. Take for instance, the general aspect of the artwork presented in this chapter. They depict different social levels through the use of objects, emotions and various conditions.
The author’s objective is to explain what happens “more or less involuntarily” in viewers of a painting when they look at it. (133) This means that his journal entries try to make the reader see what he sees in his year of looking at these particular paintings. In his entry dated March 15, he puts his focus on lighting in
The daguerreotype process was when the image was exposed onto a mirror-polished surface of silver bearing a coating of silver halide particles deposited by iodine vapor. Henry Fox Talbot developed a calotype in 1841. His process used a silver iodide coated paper instead of halide. Louis Desire Blanquart-Evrard invented the albumen print in 1850. This was this first commercially used method of producing a photographic print on a piece of paper from a negative. James Ambrose Cutting patented the ambrotype in 1854. This was a process that creates a positive image on a sheet of glass using the wet collodion process. Frederick Scott Archer created the wet collodion process o few years earlier. Cutting used it as a positive not a negative. Adolphe-Alexandre Martin invented the ferrotype in 1853. This process is the same as the ambrotype expect the photograph is created on a sheet of metal instead of a sheet of glass. Dr. Richard L. Maddox in 1871 invented the dry plate process. This was the first economically successful durable medium. By 1879 the first dry plate factory had been established. Richard H. Norris in 1856 invented the wet plate process. The wet plate was also a successful process but had its drawback. It had to be used in a certain amount of time, its slow photographic speed, and numerous chemicals required.
By the cause of numerous squabbles with the British Photography Establishment, Emerson became the “lone wolf,” of the Pictorial Movement, straying from the acclaimed composite methods of eminent photographers while following along a rebellious philosophy filled with aesthetic purpose. To many photographers, “aesthetically” inclined photographs represented the meticulous significance of art. (n.d., 2016). In 1890, he released his first literary work, “Naturalistic Photography,” to the public. Between the essence of the three hundred and thirteen paged (book), Emerson touches base on the rudiments of aesthetics, giving broader explanations supporting the interpretations of nature’s superiority in the photographic realm. He goes on to bash photography based on “costumed models,” degrading its authentic structures and artistic value. Basing all focus on our surroundings, inferring that (nature) withholds some sort of inner importance that humans do not poses. PHOTO INTERPRETATION.* However, what Emerson lacks in understanding is the similar mystery humans obtain.
In art history, interpretation identifies the influences of time and place on the artist, thus images of the same subject may be created at different times or in different locations that may have little in common. Their differences reflect the contrasting personal and cultural traditions and values of each artist. Art helps one to analyze our peers by understanding the type of person one is interacting with, that is, the social skills that one needs to interact with individuals of different cultural backgrounds. By observing the subject of art, one is able to access the subject on how it relates to the current
The key themes in this module are about the effects visual elements and the principals of design have on how we, the audience, see and describe art. Visual elements: line, shape, mass, light, value, color, texture, and space are “what we perceive and respond to when we look at a works form” (Getlein 77) and help us “analyze our visual experience” (Getlein 77). For example, artists can use lines for a wide variety of purposes, Keith Haring and Sarah Sze use line to convey direction and movement in their works Untitled and Hidden Relief, respectively. Artists also uses lines to help the viewer navigate the artwork, as demonstrated by Henri Cartier-Bresson’s photograph Aquila, Abruzzi, Italy. The eye naturally follows the movement of the winding staircase and has their attention drawn to what the photographer wants them to notice, the woman holding a tray of bread atop her head. The way in which artists organize these elements is called composition, or design, and the principals or guidelines of design and the effect they have on the viewer is the other major theme in this module. The principals of design are: unity, variety, balance, emphasis, subordination, proportion, scale and rhythm, artists can also use some of these tools to direct the movement of the eye. One of the ways artists do this is by placing emphasis, making certain areas purposefully
Photography is generally basic in contrast with painting, which is a considerably more mind boggling errand. With photography, the structure is as of now totally organized, however with a composition the goal is substantially more open to elucidation by the craftsman. The craftsman can catch a great deal more feeling, comprehension, and importance in an occasion and apply this searing drive to his paintbrush while making his own particular magnum opus.
Camera History.The first camera like devices can be seen as far back as Ancient Greece and China. This piece of early technology was called the Obscura, the invention of this was an important part in developing cameras and photography. A camera Obscura is a dark closed space that is shaped like a box with a hole on the other side of it. The light that comes through the tiny hole projects an image that meets the wall of the box. The image was then drawn by an artist; however, the image was projected upside down.