Exercise

This exercise was to read Krauss’ journal article (Krauss, 1982) and comment / reflect upon it.

Comments

I found a number of concepts interesting in Krauss’ journal.

Aesthetic versus Record

The article begins by comparing two versions of an image of Tulfa Domes taken by Timothy O’Sullivan, one a photographic image and one a lithographic copy. Krauss talks about the mystical qualities of the original image with the rocks floating “suspended in a luminous ether” whereas the copy of the image has destroyed this, and other qualities of the original by adding detail.

Perhaps it is the quality of the copy of the journal that I looked at, but personally, I do not feel that the character of the two images is all that different. I agree that they are different but not to the extent that Krauss makes out in the two different ways that he describes them where he states that the second image is “an object of insistent visual banality. Everything that is mysterious in the photograph has been explained with supplemental, chatty detail”.

Krauss also states “Twentieth century sensibility welcomes the original O’Sullivan as a model of the mysterious, silent beauty to which landscape photography had access during the early decades of the medium”. I am not sure I agree with this either, was the lesser quality of the early images a deliberate attempt to create a sense of mystique about the landscape or simply a limitation of the photographic technology at the time. I don’t think that O’Sullivan necessarily captured the image in the way he did to create this impression.

Compare this point of view so somebody like Ansel Adams who believed in technical perfection and one would have to discount all of his work if this were the measure of what made the image artistic, beautiful, or sublime.

Discursive Spaces

Krauss goes on to introduce the idea of discursive spaces, that images are made for a particular purpose. The lithograph, he says, was produced for the purpose of geology and therefore it is right that it contains detail for the geologist to examine.

The original photograph though, belongs in an aesthetic space which he then goes on to describe. Here he discusses that photography has followed the path of landscape paintings, designed for gallery walls. This presentation of paintings on a flat wall has lead to perspective being reduced to diagonal lines, and broad horizons being achieved through the use of adjacent paintings, which he calls serial landscapes.

Given that this mode of thinking evolved after O’Sullivan created his image, Krauss asks if it is right to impose his analysis on the image, what space did O’Sullivan intend? Krauss believes it is right to impose the classification.

I question something broader. I wonder if an image really is taken for a gallery. The question reminds me of the classic Chicken and Egg question. Which comes first? Are images captured, by which I include spotted, composed and taken, specifically to suit a gallery wall or does a gallery choose images that it selects for a particular purpose? I would like to think that it is the later, images can of course be captured to suit an artist’s particular intent but I would hope that this is done with a deeper meaning than just something that would look good in, or is targeted towards, a gallery.

Artist versus Operator

Krauss discusses that to be an artist, one must surely be adding something to the image, that the repsonibility of creating the image in a manner that conveys the desired outcome lies with the photographer – and it is the photographer’s choices that make them an artist. An alternative view, particularly with regard to landscape, is that the land, or scene itself, is what creates the content of the image and the photographer is simply the operator that captures it. I think that one only has to look at a famous landmark and review the range of images available that capture it to understand that the photographer, artist or not, has a significant impact on the resultant image. I think, assuming we are not talking about a tourist creating snapshots, that the photographer will be trying to capture or portray something and therefore artist is a fair assessment; possibly a secondary question is whether aesthetic alone count as artistic choice (see next section).

Aesthetic Choices versus Sublime Landscape

I wrote earlier in this review that Krauss starts his paper comparing two versions of the image. Here I want to consider does an aesthetic choice alone count as artistic choice. My assessment is that it depends on where the photographer is coming from.

Almost all consumer photography magazines cover landscape photography on a regular basis and they will usually go for the same formula – golden hour light, a foreground point of interest, ideally something in the middle ground, and then a spectacular distant skyline. This is all very formulaic and therefore personally I think that although there is a skill in capturing the best images that follow this formula, the photographer is not realy trying to say anything and therefore it is not necessarily an artistic choice (but perhaps this is similar to targeting a formula to get oneself on a gallery wall?).

On the other hand, an image that wanted to capture an air of mystique perhaps and as a result was deliberately captured on a day with a lot of mist might be using the aesthetics of the image to emphasise the message.

Perhaps the label of ‘sublime’ comes from the land itself whereas aesthetics are choice of the photographer or artist but do not change the manifest sublime nature of the landscape. Of course, sublime is subjective.

Conclusion

This paper raises a surprising amount of questions in my mind. I hope to resolve or least evolve my thinking on them over the course studying this module.

Bibliography

Krauss, R., 1982. Photography’s Discursive Spaces: Landscape/View. Art Journal, 42(4), p.311.