AestheticsOfPhotography
The New Vision in Photography
In the 1920s, the photographers of the new vision, László Moholy-Nagy (influenced by the Bauhaus), Alexandre Rodtchenko and El Lissitzky (influenced by constructivism), affirmed the primacy of formal research, particularly through graphic research and audacious framing that could go as far as abstraction. This movement was born in Germany in the 1920s and then spread. This style is characterized by an interest in the specificity of the medium and in graphic experiments. Germaine Krull participates in the search for audacious points of view.
Willi Ruge, Seconds Before Landing, 1931 ( MoMA Collection )
Several aspects attract László Moholy-Nagy to the new medium. First of all, it is undoubtedly its mechanical nature. Like many of his contemporaries, Moholy-Nagy was indeed fascinated by the new technical and industrial world; defining art as an agent of permanent improvement of human perception, he considered it the duty of the modern artist to integrate the contributions of technical progress. However, the main quality he credits to mechanical media is to rid artistic creation of manual mediation and subjective imprint.
Photography, product of a physico-chemical process more guided by the artist than truly created by him, would thus finally give access to a "pure optical image", to an "objective vision" pre-existing to any culture and any subjectivity, freeing our eyes from the veil of habit and knowledge. László Moholy-Nagy was a Bauhaus Master from 1923 to 1928.
The New Vision in Photography
In the 1920s, the photographers of the new vision, László Moholy-Nagy (influenced by the Bauhaus), Alexandre Rodtchenko and El Lissitzky (influenced by constructivism), affirmed the primacy of formal research, particularly through graphic research and audacious framing that could go as far as abstraction. This movement was born in Germany in the 1920s and then spread. This style is characterized by an interest in the specificity of the medium and in graphic experiments. Germaine Krull participates in the search for audacious points of view.
Willi Ruge, Seconds Before Landing, 1931 ( MoMA Collection )
Several aspects attract László Moholy-Nagy to the new medium. First of all, it is undoubtedly its mechanical nature. Like many of his contemporaries, Moholy-Nagy was indeed fascinated by the new technical and industrial world; defining art as an agent of permanent improvement of human perception, he considered it the duty of the modern artist to integrate the contributions of technical progress. However, the main quality he credits to mechanical media is to rid artistic creation of manual mediation and subjective imprint.
Photography, product of a physico-chemical process more guided by the artist than truly created by him, would thus finally give access to a "pure optical image", to an "objective vision" pre-existing to any culture and any subjectivity, freeing our eyes from the veil of habit and knowledge. László Moholy-Nagy was a Bauhaus Master from 1923 to 1928.