Module 10: Submit - Realism and photography
- Due No Due Date
- Points 10
- Submitting a file upload
- File Types doc and docx
Context
The camera was incredibly important in the development of Realism in art, and it allowed for the idea that an artist or a photographer could be “objective.” Courbet sought an objective approach to his art. Below are three nineteenth-century photographs for you to consider. (Click on each of the three tabs) Each of the photographs represents a different way to think about and use the new technology, the camera. But can art and/or photography ever be objective?
Assignment
Analyze these three photographs for their objectivity and answer the following questions: In what ways are they objective? In what ways do they subscribe to the aims of Realism? And finally, in what ways do they demonstrate a complete lack of objectivity?
Type up your answers in a Word document and upload it to Canvas.
Photograph 1
Daguerreotype of a Gentleman, 1840’s
A portrait.
Photograph 2
Alexander Gardener, Home of a Rebel Sharpshooter, 1865
This is a sharp shooter’s den, but later analysis revealed that the photographer staged the image. He moved the body, positioned him, and placed the gun in that spot.
Photograph 3
Jacob Riis, Lodgers in a Crowded Bay Street Tenement, 1889.
Jacob Riis started his career as a news reporter for the New York Tribune and the Evening Sun. He became friends with the then Police Commissioner of New York City, Teddy Roosevelt. The two of them used to walk around New York late at night in order to get a feel for the real problems of the city. Images like this one were taken by Riis in order to document and highlight the problems faced by immigrants in New York and to draw focus on the terrible housing conditions in New York. As a result of images like this one, Teddy Roosevelt helped pass landmark legislation that improved tenement housing conditions in New York, which included things like proper ventilation.
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