Edward Steichen Pictorialism

One way to persuade the public that photography was a fine art was to produce photographs that copied the style or attitude of paintings or other mediums, that the public viewed as works of art. The desire of this movement was to pursue this strategy and it became the definition of Pictorialism.

Of course you know I have chosen Edward Steichen as one of the most influential of this movement. His work to me defined the aspirations of the pictorialist, meaning he desired, along with other experimental practices, to recreate his Tonalist effect of painting into his photographs. This seemed appropriate, as he was a painter first. He had been a practicing photographer since 1895 and was very good at achieving the pitorialist effect, giving his photographs depth and meaning, a life beyond that of the subject photographed. Steichen began to replace sharp details with indistinct yet suggestive shadows, to evoke the dreamy mystical characteristic of Pictorial photography. He used softly focused, dreamlike images to closely resembling
White, actually encouraged the introduction of Steiglitz to Steichen when he noticed some of Steichen's work at an exhibition in Chicago, he then wrote to Steichen to encourage him to see Steiglitz. White, who also began as an artist, produced sketchbooks filled with pencil sketches, pen-and-ink drawings and watercolors. His visions and use of light and color he brought into his photography.

Although he was a completely self-taught photographer, within a very short time, he was internationally known for his pictorial photographs. The more well known he became, many other photographers sought him out to learn from him, so in 1914 he established the Clarence H. White School of Photography, the first educational institution in the US to teach photography as an