PHOTOMONTAGE & SURREALISM

I feel that surrealism is one of the key areas which seem to influences the composite photograph, its also an area which i am extremely interested in. With this in mind I have decided to research briefly into numerous photographers within this genre.

Pierre Boucher

DIY manuals, 1937-41

This image of a hand and lake was apparently created by Boucher especially for the book by Marcel Natkin, Fascinating Fakes in Photography (1939). The text notes the need for seamless lighting of all elements, and that two arms were stuck to the print to obtain the reflection. A little later, Crazy Camera: Secrets of Photomontage (1941) was published by Focal Press, London. In the U.S., a translation of Croy's German photomontage manual Hunderterlei Kotokniffe (1936) was published in 1937.

Surrealist photography

Manifesto of Surrealism, 1924

Surrealist photography officially began with the publication of Andre Breton's Manifesto of Surrealism (1924). Double exposure, solarisation, distortion, shadows, reflections, and extreme close-up all became common approaches. Such photographs, and 'found' photography, are widely used in surrealist publications.

While surrealism clearly shows how art can be made from a dark and anxious eroticism..."The surrealist photographers (Man Ray, Raoul Hausman, Bill Brandt, Brassai, etc.)rarely used photomontage." — from:Photographic Conditions of Surrealism(1984), and... "comparatively few surrealists persisted with photomontage after initial experiments"— from: Ades, Photomontage (1976).

Max Ernst's collages

Engraving composites, 1919-1924

Max Ernst discovered the process of surreal collage in 1919, using Victorian engravings (many originally made from photographs), ..."I was struck by the obsession which held under my gaze the pages of an illustrated catalogue ... It was enough at that time to embellish these catalogue pages, in painting or drawing, and thereby ... transformed into revealing dramas my most secret desires from what had been before only some banal pages of advertising." Ernst credited Max Klinger (1857-1920), a Symbolist painter, as the inspiration for his collages. Many of Ernst's collages might better be termed composites - because many strive for a seamless consistency.

Max Ernst Collage

Dada photomontage

1916-1918: German dada 'invents' photomontage

The date of the 'invention' of photomontage is commonly claimed to have been in May 1916 in Germany, by George Grosz and John Heartfield; although their description of the event sounds more like a crude political collage of elements that happened to include some photographs from the German illustrated press.

Fellow dadaists Raoul Hausmann and Hannah Hoch made a slightly more convincing claim to have 'invented' photomontage in 1918, apparently having seen how ordinary people were sticking cut-out photos of the face of their loved-ones onto"a coloured lithograph of a grenadier in front of barracks".

Fake fairies

1917-1920: the "Cottingley fairies"

Sisters Elsie Wright (aged 16) and Frances Griffiths (aged 10) created five photographs that purported to show the girls with fairies and a gnome. Amazingly, the photographs sparked decades of heated debate over their authenticity. It is likely that the photographs were created using painted cardboard cut-outs held up with tacks. Elsie (seen below) went on to work in a photography studio, creating composite pictures of fallen First World War British soldiers with their loved ones.

Futurist photodynamism

1911-13: Anton Giulio Bragaglia

Bragaglia created a ghostly — almost spirit photography -like — photography of movement and blurring that he terms "photodynamism". He writes: "A shout, a tragical pause, a gesture of terror, the entire scene, the complete external unfolding of the intimate drama, can be expressed in one single work." — "Fotodinamismo Futurista" (1913).

Jacques Henri Lartigue, 1902 ~

Jacques Henri Lartigue created some of his most important 'trick' flying / levitating pictures from 1902 to about 1906. These included: "Zissou as a ghost" (1902); "Cousin Bichonnade in flight" (1905); "Zissou's first attempts at flying" (1905); and "My Nanny" (1904). His work only became widely known and published from the late 1960s and early 1970s. With this theme, he appears to contribute one of the major themes to the contemporary nu-real — although he was himself influenced by spirit photography.

Lartigue worked in stereo, a process that views pictures as if made up of elements suspended in "layered planes"; perhaps a spur to the appreciation of photomontage.

Spirit levitation

1872: Frederick Hudson

Frederick Hudson's "Spirit Photograph" (1872) can be seen in the left picture below. This is the first known spirit photograph that shows the 'levitation' of a table. The levitation happens in the presence of a man and a 'spirit'. Levitation and flying is a theme that is dominant in contemporary nu-real photography; possibly this arises out of seeing a handful of key Lartigue photographs, but in most cases it probably also reflect an awareness of early spirit photography.

Oscar Gustave Rejlander

1857: "The Two Ways of Life".

Working in Wolverhampton, Oscar Rejlander took six weeks to create a seamless combination print from 32 negatives. Loosely based on a classical theme, there were two versions — both complex high Victorian tableaux. They depict the life-choices of a young man, Industry or Dissipation. It was first shown at the Manchester Art Treasures Exhibition of 1857, when many objected to the nudity. But Royal patronage followed, and Rejlander moved to London and made his name as "the father of art photography".

source: http://www.d-log.info/timeline/index.html