My Opera
The Baroque of Photograpy
Wednesday, February 16, 2011 2:54:54 PM
Slowly but steadily I am reading John Berger's book Ways of Seeing. It is a remarkable piece of thinking which has to be consumed as slowly as possible. The third chapter in which Berger finds a strong parallel between realistic (oil) painting and materialism is especially intriguing:
What are these paintings?
Before they are anything else, they are themselves objects which can be bought and owned. Unique objects. A patron can not be surrounded by music or poems in the same way he can be surrounded by his pictures.
It is as though a collector lives in a house built of paintings. What is their advantage over walls of stone or wood? THEY SHOW HIM SIGHTS: SIGHTS OF WHAT HE MAY POSSESS. - John Berger
Before the renaissance painters were no more than anonymous (yet skilled) craftsmen, very much like carpenters or plumbers today. But when Giotto first painted his Lamentation of Christ, he introduced not just a new way of painting, but also a new way of seeing things. Painting was no longer symbolic, now it offered a window into another reality, a replica of physical world. What follows is an never-ending pursuit of perfection; how to make painting as realistic as possible, that is to say, how to make an illusion of reality as perfect as possible. Because: what is painting if not just drops of color on flat canvas or a wall. Whatever 'realistic' we might see in a painting is just a trick of the brain.
From here it is just another logical step; if we could paint things in a realistic manner, we could show things. THINGS THAT MONEY CAN BUY. In other words; we can show off. Patrons were commissioning paintings of their castles, belongings, wifes, horses, exotic animals, even more exotic food (it is how still life was born), and so on... Painters were trapped in a position which was well payed, but a bit boring... Suddenly they were a slave of realism with little or no space for more sublime symbolic thought. Only rare exceptions (Rembrandt, Rubens, Raphael, Michelangelo...) were able to transcend this claws and create something that went into history. Myriads of others didn't. During the late baroque period techniques of realistic painting reached perfection.
Luckily for painters photography was invented just in time! Suddenly painters were free! They could finally venture back into symbolism where they belonged (imagine a poet trapped in a job of a news reporter). Now it was the photographer's job to recreate physical reality onto 2-dimensional plane.
I believe photographers are trapped in the same way painters were during the famous "realistic" periods (14th to 18th century). Better yet, photographers are today in the same position as painters during the late baroque. The techniques of reproduction are perfected to the level at which we are being bored by it. Wedding, portrait, still life, commercial and other types of photography are mere reproduction of physical reality (and how funny, most of them are dedicated to the 'things that money can buy'). Even photojournalism rarely goes beyond that. This is why photojournalists have their mouths full of 'stories' and 'humanitarianism' - they need a deeper reason to justify their menial craft.
The way in which I am pulled more and more by each passing day is symbolism. I am tired of being a slave to physical reality, I want to produce some of my own. I am not happy just by reporting anymore, I want to write my own (fictional?) stories or even poems instead. This is the main motive behind my new project: 52.
Last year it was all about capturing daily impressions with my mobile camera. This year I am doing something more profound, something more planned and contemplated. I am doing a project of one photo per week. I am trying to venture into the world of symbols, as deep as I could go. I want to explore the world of dreams, fears, emotions... To me the whole thing is very close to filming movies; I have to write a story, organize the filming (find locations, actors...) and at the end shoot the whole thing. It is very challenging and I hope to make it trough. So far I am doing it on Hasselblad camera (I really want that quality). You can follow me on flickr.
What are these paintings?
Before they are anything else, they are themselves objects which can be bought and owned. Unique objects. A patron can not be surrounded by music or poems in the same way he can be surrounded by his pictures.
It is as though a collector lives in a house built of paintings. What is their advantage over walls of stone or wood? THEY SHOW HIM SIGHTS: SIGHTS OF WHAT HE MAY POSSESS. - John Berger
Before the renaissance painters were no more than anonymous (yet skilled) craftsmen, very much like carpenters or plumbers today. But when Giotto first painted his Lamentation of Christ, he introduced not just a new way of painting, but also a new way of seeing things. Painting was no longer symbolic, now it offered a window into another reality, a replica of physical world. What follows is an never-ending pursuit of perfection; how to make painting as realistic as possible, that is to say, how to make an illusion of reality as perfect as possible. Because: what is painting if not just drops of color on flat canvas or a wall. Whatever 'realistic' we might see in a painting is just a trick of the brain.
From here it is just another logical step; if we could paint things in a realistic manner, we could show things. THINGS THAT MONEY CAN BUY. In other words; we can show off. Patrons were commissioning paintings of their castles, belongings, wifes, horses, exotic animals, even more exotic food (it is how still life was born), and so on... Painters were trapped in a position which was well payed, but a bit boring... Suddenly they were a slave of realism with little or no space for more sublime symbolic thought. Only rare exceptions (Rembrandt, Rubens, Raphael, Michelangelo...) were able to transcend this claws and create something that went into history. Myriads of others didn't. During the late baroque period techniques of realistic painting reached perfection.
Luckily for painters photography was invented just in time! Suddenly painters were free! They could finally venture back into symbolism where they belonged (imagine a poet trapped in a job of a news reporter). Now it was the photographer's job to recreate physical reality onto 2-dimensional plane.
I believe photographers are trapped in the same way painters were during the famous "realistic" periods (14th to 18th century). Better yet, photographers are today in the same position as painters during the late baroque. The techniques of reproduction are perfected to the level at which we are being bored by it. Wedding, portrait, still life, commercial and other types of photography are mere reproduction of physical reality (and how funny, most of them are dedicated to the 'things that money can buy'). Even photojournalism rarely goes beyond that. This is why photojournalists have their mouths full of 'stories' and 'humanitarianism' - they need a deeper reason to justify their menial craft.
The way in which I am pulled more and more by each passing day is symbolism. I am tired of being a slave to physical reality, I want to produce some of my own. I am not happy just by reporting anymore, I want to write my own (fictional?) stories or even poems instead. This is the main motive behind my new project: 52.
Last year it was all about capturing daily impressions with my mobile camera. This year I am doing something more profound, something more planned and contemplated. I am doing a project of one photo per week. I am trying to venture into the world of symbols, as deep as I could go. I want to explore the world of dreams, fears, emotions... To me the whole thing is very close to filming movies; I have to write a story, organize the filming (find locations, actors...) and at the end shoot the whole thing. It is very challenging and I hope to make it trough. So far I am doing it on Hasselblad camera (I really want that quality). You can follow me on flickr.
