The Art Spectre

Pictorialism is an international aesthetic movement in photography that began in the late 19th century in Europe. It approached the camera as a tool to create an aesthetic value of a photograph at par with the other forms of artistic expression. The movement brought forth many of the artistic elements of Romanticism like; soft focus, emphasis on beauty, tonality, and composition. There was an equal emphasis on printing techniques, which played a crucial role in bringing alive photographs to look like paintings. The techniques involved using certain chemicals to give the desired effect while processing the image. A few of the frequently used processes were; Gum Bichromate, Gum Bromoil, Carbon print, Cyanotype, Oil Print process, and Platinum print.

For Pictorialists, true individuality wasn’t just expressed through the creation of a unique print produced by various printing methods which ensured each print be exclusive from the rest, but also the addition of monograms and the presentation of their work in decorous frames and mats. The idea behind was to present photography as so much more than just a tool for documentation.

By 1900 the movement had reached slowly but steadily to countries around the world especially in the United States of America, Canada, Germany, England, Australia, India, and major exhibitions of pictorial photography were held in dozens of cities. Various groups were formed by like-minded artists to experiment and develop new theories catering to the strong establishment of the fine movement. One of the key figures in establishing the definition and direction of Pictorialism was Alfred Stieglitz, an American photographer who promoted photography through his publications; Camera Notes and Camera Work, and handpicking photographers for an exclusive group called “Photo-secession” promoting pictorial perspective in photography. He also established a gallery in New York that for many years exhibited only pictorial photographers.

India was not far behind in adopting the revolutionary wave of the Pictorialism perspective in Photography. Two of the strongest voices that championed Pictorialism in India were F.R Ratnagar and J.N. Unwalla. They along with a few other photographers formed a group called Camera Pictorialists of Bombay. They pursued artistic photography at a time when the medium was not considered too popular to be art.

Ratnagar, practiced photography with the concept of pictorialism, by composing the image placing emphasis on the color and the craft of the photographer. He framed his images artistically within the subject’s natural environment capturing a variety of subjects through his lens, from scenes of village life in India to the canals of Venice to artistic, experimental portraits. His images of nature encapsulate large vistas of landscapes dotted with a solitary figure or two, bringing out their beauty.