Activity #9

The Effect of the Camera on Visual Arts






The invention of the camera had huge effects on visual arts when it started to become more widespread. This new medium could record an event on the spot it was considered to bare truth. Because of the truth baring “new realism” of photography visual artists were free to begin to explore more expressive ways of depicting their subjects. They expressed themselves by changing color, or subject matter, or presentation of subject matter. The main medium of photography was light, visual artists of the day knew this and as a result they became more interested in the effects of light on objects and colors. This became a new matter of content for their work. Cameras also made use of the landscape and still life as a popular subject, therefore visual artists also began to see the possibilities of a subject that before had been considered low art. In a movement called pictoralism, photographers used a variety of techniques to undercut his objectivity of the camera, producing gauzy, atmospheric images that seemed more like a painting, thus more like art. But an important American photographer did not agree with this way of photography. He came to the conclusion that for photography to be an art, it must be true to its own nature, it should not try to be painting. Abstract images were later created by Paul Strand, using close up views tat would obscure the subject of the picture and create something else. Artists such as Hannah Hoch used found images, basically anything, as a new kind of raw material for art. This type of art is know as collage, and has its roots from the art movement data. These and many more are examples of the effect the camera had on visual arts. The camera took ordinary, hum-drum life, and turned it into art.