Skip to Main Content
 

Global Search Box

 
 
 
 

Files

File List


20953.pdf (3.31 MB)

ETD Abstract Container

Abstract Header

Die Kunst in der Photographie: Nostalgia and Modernity in the German Art Photography Journal, 1897–1908

Bauman, Emily
http://orcid.org/0000-0001-8001-3458
http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=ucin1459438626

Abstract Details

2016, MA, University of Cincinnati, Design, Architecture, Art and Planning: Art History.
Die Kunst in der Photographie was an early art photography journal published in Berlin from 1897 to 1908. The photographs in its pages are predominantly nostalgic, with landscape and genre scenes that offer sentimentalized or ruralized depictions of contemporary life. This tendency to turn away from industrialization and to embrace a certain rusticity resonates with the Romantic ideals that saw their peak in the early half of the nineteenth century, seeming to imply that Die Kunst in der Photographie fixed a stubborn eye on the past. Yet portrait photographs in the journal reveal a focus on intersubjectivity—an attempt to put the viewer into contact with the distinct personality of the subject—which demonstrates a break from what had become the traditional conventions of photographic portraiture. Rather than emphasizing what the sitter looked like, these portraits display an inwardness of composition, depicting the sitter in shadows and with down-turned eyes. This inwardness cuts against the theatricality, and perhaps pompousness, of contemporaneous photographs that depicted the sitter surrounded by lavish objects, staring back at the viewer. These portraits provide a modern counterpart to the journal’s nostalgic landscape and genre scenes. It is this tension between nostalgia and modernity that directs my examination of Die Kunst in der Photographie. While on one hand the journal shows modern characteristics, with stylistic connections to the contemporary Jugendstil movement and a clear interest in the development of photographic portraiture, it shows on the other hand a penchant for nostalgic motifs, with landscape and genre scenes that echo the visual languages of nineteenth century German Romanticism and French Realism. This body of photographs came not from an academic setting, but from the hands of participating camera club members who, ironically, showed a desire for a less mechanized society. Contributors to Die Kunst in der Photographie embraced Romantic ideals and Jugendstil ethics of artisanal culture as they asserted themselves as artists, and the photographs they made reveal how they conceived their identities. This thesis sheds new light on their art and practice.
Morgan Thomas, Ph.D. (Committee Chair)
Mikiko Hirayama, Ph.D. (Committee Member)
Valerie Weinstein, Ph.D. (Committee Member)
74 p.
Art History
early art photography; pictorialism; nostalgia; modernity; German national identity; intersubjectivity

Recommended Citations

Citations

  • Bauman, E. (2016). Die Kunst in der Photographie: Nostalgia and Modernity in the German Art Photography Journal, 1897–1908 [Master's thesis, University of Cincinnati]. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=ucin1459438626

    APA Style (7th edition)

  • Bauman, Emily. Die Kunst in der Photographie: Nostalgia and Modernity in the German Art Photography Journal, 1897–1908. 2016. University of Cincinnati, Master's thesis. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center, http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=ucin1459438626.

    MLA Style (8th edition)

  • Bauman, Emily. "Die Kunst in der Photographie: Nostalgia and Modernity in the German Art Photography Journal, 1897–1908." Master's thesis, University of Cincinnati, 2016. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=ucin1459438626

    Chicago Manual of Style (17th edition)

ucin1459438626
479
© 2016, some rights reserved.Creative Commons License Die Kunst in der Photographie: Nostalgia and Modernity in the German Art Photography Journal, 1897–1908 by Emily Bauman is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License. Based on a work at etd.ohiolink.edu.
This open access ETD is published by University of Cincinnati and OhioLINK.