Chapter 5

TWO DIMENTIONAL MEDIA

OVERVIEW
Artists find ways to express themselves with almost anything available. It is a stamp of their
creativity to make extraordinary images and objects from various but fairly ordinary materials.
From charcoal, paper and thread to paint, ink and found objects like leaves, artists continue to
search for ways to construct and deliver their message.
This learning materials explores traditional and non-traditional mediums associated with two-
dimensional artworks including:

 Drawing
 Painting
 Printmaking
 Collage

Two-dimensional media are grouped into general categories. Let’s look at each group to
understand their particular qualities and how artists use them.

OBJECTIVES
Upon completing this learning materials, students should be able to:

 Identify and describe specific characteristics of two-dimensional mediums artist use

 Describe how time-based mediums affect issues of content
 Explain and demonstrate how collage has a significant role in the development of modern
art
 Discuss how the advance of technology is reflected in the art historical record
 Describe how cultural styles are influenced through the use of different artistic mediums

DRAWING
Drawing is the simplest and most efficient way to communicate visual ideas, and for centuries
charcoal, chalk, graphite and paper have been adequate enough tools to launch some of the
most profound (Links to an external site.) images in art. Leonardo da Vinci’s The Virgin and
Child with Saint Anne and Saint John the Baptist wraps all four figures together in what is
essentially an extended family portrait. Da Vinci draws the figures in a spectacularly realistic
style, one that emphasizes individual identities and surrounds the figures in a grand, unfinished
landscape. He animates the scene with the Christ child pulling himself forward, trying to release
himself from Mary’s grasp to get closer to a young John the Baptist on the right, who himself is
turning toward the Christ child with a look of curious interest in his younger cousin.
The traditional role of drawing was to make sketches for larger compositions to be manifest as
paintings, sculpture or even architecture (Links to an external site.). Because of its relative
immediacy, this function for drawing continues today. A preliminary sketch by the contemporary
architect Frank Gehry (Links to an external site.) captures the complex organic forms (Links to
an external site.) of the buildings he designs (Links to an external site.).

Types of Drawing Media

Dry Media includes charcoal, graphite, chalks and pastels. Each of these mediums gives the
artist a wide range of mark making capabilities and effects, from thin lines to large areas of color
and tone. The artist can manipulate a drawing to achieve desired effects in many ways,
including exerting different pressures on the medium against the drawing’s surface, or by
erasure, blotting or rubbing.
This process of drawing can instantly transfer the sense of character to an image. From
energetic to subtle, these qualities are apparent in the simplest works: the immediate and
unalloyed spirit of the artist’s idea. You can see this in the self-portraits of two German artists;
Kathe Kollwitz (Links to an external site.) and Ernst Ludwig Kirchner (Links to an external site.).
Wounded during the first world war, his Self-Portrait Under the Influence of Morphine from about
1916 presents us with a nightmarish vision of himself wrapped in the fog of opiate drugs. His
hollow eyes and the graphic dysfunction of his marks attest to the power of his drawing.

Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, Self Portrait Under the Influence of Morphine, around 1916.
Ink on paper. Licensed under Creative Commons.

Graphite media includes pencils, powder or compressed sticks. Each one creates a range of
values depending on the hardness or softness inherent in the material. Hard graphite tones
range from light to dark gray, while softer graphite allows a range from light gray to nearly black.
French sculptor Gaston Lachaise’s Standing Nude with Drapery is a pencil drawing that fixes
the energy and sense of movement of the figure to the paper in just a few strokes. And Steven
Talasnik’s contemporary large- scale drawings (Links to an external site.) in graphite, with their
swirling, organic forms and architectural structures are testament to the power of pencil (and
eraser) on paper.
 Gaston Lachiase, Standing Nude with Drapery, 1891.
Graphite and ink on paper. Honolulu Academy of Arts.
Licensed under Creative Commons.

Charcoal, perhaps the oldest form of drawing media, is made by simply charring wooden sticks
or small branches, called vine charcoal, but is also available in a mechanically compressed
form. Vine charcoal comes in three densities: soft, medium and hard, each one handling a little
different than the other. Soft charcoals give a more velvety feel to a drawing. The artist doesn’t
have to apply as much pressure to the stick in order to get a solid mark. Hard vine charcoal
offers more control but generally doesn’t give the darkest tones. Compressed charcoals give
deeper blacks than vine charcoal, but are more difficult to manipulate once they are applied to
paper.

Left: vine charcoal sticks. Right: compressed charcoal squares.

Vine Charcoal examples, via Wikipedia Commons. Licensed under Creative Commons.

Charcoal drawings can range in value from light grays to rich, velvety blacks. A charcoal
drawing (Links to an external site.) by American artist Georgia O’Keeffe is a good example.

Pastels are essentially colored chalks usually compressed into stick form for better handling.
They are characterized by soft, subtle changes in tone or color. Pastel pigments allow for a
resonant quality that is more difficult to obtain with graphite or charcoal. Picasso’s Portrait of the
Artist's Mother (Links to an external site.) from 1896 emphasizes these qualities.
 Pastels, digital image licensed through Creative Commons.

More recent developments in dry media are oil pastels, pigment mixed with an organic oil
binder that deliver a heavier mark and lend themselves to more graphic and vibrant results. The
drawings of Beverly Buchanan (Links to an external site.) reflect this. Her work (Links to an
external site.) celebrates rural life of the south centered in the forms of old houses and shacks.
The buildings stir memories and provide a sense of place, and are usually surrounded by
people, flowers and bright landscapes. She also creates sculptures of the shacks, giving them
an identity beyond their physical presence.

Wet media
Ink: Wet drawing media traditionally refers to ink but really includes any substance that can be
put into solution and applied to a drawing’s surface. Because wet media is manipulated much
like paint – through thinning and the use of a brush – it blurs the line between drawing and
painting. Ink can be applied with a stick for linear effects and by brush to cover large areas with
tone. It can also be diluted with water to create values of gray. The Return of the Prodigal
Son (Links to an external site.) by Rembrandt shows an expressive use of brown ink in both the
line qualities and the larger brushed areas that create the illusion of light and shade.

Felt tip pens are considered a form of wet media. The ink is saturated into felt strips inside the
pen then released onto the paper or other support through the tip. The ink quickly dries, leaving
a permanent mark. The colored marker drawings of Donnabelle Casis (Links to an external
site.) have a flowing, organic character to them. The abstract quality of the subject matter infers
body parts and viscera.
Other liquids can be added to drawing media to enhance effects – or create new ones. Artist
Jim Dine has splashed soda onto charcoal drawings to make the surface bubble with
effervescence. The result is a visual texture unlike anything he could create with charcoal alone,
although his work is known for its strong manipulation (Links to an external site.). Dine’s
drawings often use both dry and liquid media. His subject matter includes animals, plants,
figures and tools, many times crowded together in dense, darkly romantic images (Links to an
external site.).
Traditional Chinese painting uses water-based inks and pigments. In fact, it is one of the oldest
continuous artistic traditions in the world. Painted on supports of paper or silk, the subject matter
includes landscapes, animals, figures and calligraphy, an art form that uses letters and script in
fluid, lyrical gestures.
Two examples of traditional Chinese painting are seen below. The first, a wall scroll painted by
Ma Lin (Links to an external site.) in 1246, demonstrates how adept the artist is in using ink in
an expressive form to denote figures, robes and landscape elements, especially the strong,
gnarled forms of the pine trees. There is sensitivity and boldness in the work. The second
example is the opening detail of a copy of "Preface to the Poems Composed at the Orchid
Pavilion (Links to an external site.)" made before the 13th century. Using ink and brush, the artist
makes language into art through the sure, gestural strokes and marks of the characters.
 Ma Lin, Wall Scroll, ink on silk. 1246
Used under GNU Free Documentation License (Links to an external site.)

Opening detail of a copy of Preface to the Poems Composed at the Orchid Pavilion. Before the 13th century.
Hand scroll, ink on paper. The Palace Museum, Beijing.
Licensed through Creative Commons.

Drawing is a foundation for other two and three-dimensional works of art, even being
incorporated with digital media that expands the idea of its formal expression. The art of
Matthew Ritchie (Links to an external site.) starts with small abstract drawings. He digitally
scans and projects them to large scales, taking up entire walls. Ritchie also uses the scans to
produce large, thin three-dimensional templates to create sculptures out of the original
drawings.

PAINTING
Painting is the application of pigments to a support surface that establishes an image, design or
decoration. In art the term ‘painting’ describes both the act and the result. Most painting is
created with pigment in liquid form and applied with a brush. Exceptions to this are found in
Navajo sand painting (Links to an external site.) and Tibetan mandala painting (Links to an
external site.) where powdered pigments are used. Painting as a medium has survived for
thousands of years and is, along with drawing and sculpture, one of the oldest creative
mediums. It’s used in some form by cultures around the world.
Three of the most recognizable images in Western art history are paintings: Leonardo da Vinci’s
Mona Lisa (Links to an external site.), Edvard Munch’s The Scream (Links to an external site.)
and Vincent van Gogh’s The Starry Night (Links to an external site.). These three art works are
examples of how painting can go beyond a simple mimetic function, that is, to only imitate what
is seen. The power in great painting is that it transcends perceptions to reflect emotional,
psychological, even spiritual levels of the human condition.

Painting mediums are extremely versatile because they can be applied to many different
surfaces (called supports) including paper, wood, canvas, plaster, clay, lacquer and concrete.
Because paint is usually applied in a liquid or semi-liquid state it has the ability to soak into
porous support material, which can, over time, weaken and damage the it.  To prevent this a
support is usually first covered with a ground, a mixture of binder and chalk that, when dry,
creates a non-porous layer between the support and the painted surface. A typical ground is
gesso (Links to an external site.).

 There are six major painting mediums, each with specific individual characteristics:

 Encaustic
 Tempera
 Fresco
 Oil
 Acrylic
 Watercolor

 All of them use three basic ingredients:

 Pigment
 Binder
 Solvent

Pigments are granular solids incorporated into the paint to contribute color. The binder,
commonly referred to as the vehicle, is the actual film-forming component of paint. The binder
holds the pigment in solution until it’s ready to be dispersed onto the surface. The solvent
controls the flow and application of the paint. It’s mixed into the paint, usually with a brush, to
dilute it to the proper viscosity, or thickness, before it’s applied to the surface. Once the solvent
has evaporated from the surface the remaining paint is fixed there. Solvents range from water to
oil-based products like linseed oil and mineral spirits.
Let’s look at each of the six main painting mediums:

1. Encaustic paint mixes dry pigment with a heated beeswax binder. The mixture is then
brushed or spread across a support surface. Reheating allows for longer manipulation of the
paint. Encaustic dates back to the first century C.E. and was used extensively in funerary
mummy portraits (Links to an external site.) from Fayum in Egypt. The characteristics of
encaustic painting include strong, resonant colors and extremely durable paintings. Because of
the beeswax binder, when encaustic cools it forms a tough skin on the surface of the painting.
Encaustic painting has seen resurgence in use since the 1990’s. The work of Joseph
Goldberg is noteworthy for his mastery of the encaustic method.  His painting Spring Mesa is
brushed and scraped in layers, exposing colors from underneath, giving the finished work a
hard, resonant surface with nuanced color networks
 .

Joseph Goldberg, Spring Mesa, 2002. Encaustic on panel

Used by permission of the artist

Modern electric and gas tools allow for extended periods of heating and paint manipulation.
Goldberg uses a blowtorch.

2. Tempera paint combines pigment with an egg yolk binder, then thinned and released with
water. Like encaustic, tempera has been used for thousands of years. It dries quickly to a
durable matte finish. Tempera paintings are traditionally applied in successive thin layers, called
glazes (Links to an external site.), painstakingly built up using networks of cross hatched lines.
Because of this technique tempera paintings are known for their detail.

 Duccio, The Crevole Madonna, c. 1280. Tempera on board

Museo dell’Opera del Duomo, Siena, Italy
Image is in the public domain

In early Christianity, tempera was used extensively to paint images of religious icons. The pre-
Renaissance Italian artist Duccio (c. 1255 – 1318), one of the most influential artists of the time,
used tempera paint in the creation of The Crevole Madonna (above). You can see the
sharpness of line and shape in this well-preserved work, and the detail he renders in the face
and skin tones of the Madonna (see the detail below).

Duccio, The Crevole Madonna, c. 1280. Tempera on board

 Museo dell’Opera del Duomo, Siena, Italy
Image is in the public domain

Contemporary painters still use tempera as a medium. American painter Andrew Wyeth (1917-
2009) used tempera to create Christina's World (Links to an external site.), a masterpiece of
detail, composition and mystery.

3. Fresco painting is used exclusively on plaster walls and ceilings. The medium of fresco has
been used for thousands of years, but is most associated with its use in Christian images during
the Renaissance period in Europe.
 There are two forms of fresco: Buon or “wet”, and secco, meaning “dry”.
 Buon fresco technique consists of painting in pigment mixed with water on a thin layer of wet,
fresh lime mortar (Links to an external site.) or plaster (Links to an external site.). The pigment is
applied to and absorbed by the wet plaster; after a number of hours, the plaster dries and reacts
with the air: it is this chemical reaction that fixes the pigment particles in the plaster. Because of
the chemical makeup of the plaster, a binder is not required. Buon fresco is more stable
because the pigment becomes part of the wall itself.
Domenico di Michelino’s Dante and the Divine Comedy from 1465 (below) is a superb example
of buon fresco. The colors and details are preserved in the dried plaster wall. Michelino shows
the Italian author and poet Dante Aleghieri standing with a copy of the Divine Comedy open in
his left hand, gesturing to the illustration of the story depicted around him. The artist shows us
four different realms associated with the narrative: the mortal realm on the right depicting
Florence, Italy; the heavenly realm indicated by the stepped mountain at the left center – you
can see an angel greeting the saved souls as they enter from the base of the mountain; the
realm of the damned to the left – with Satan surrounded by flames greeting them at the bottom
of the painting; and the realm of the cosmos arching over the entire scene.

 
Domenico di Michelino, Dante’s Divine Comedy, 1465, buon fresco, the Duomo, Florence, Italy
This image is in the public domain

Secco fresco refers to painting an image on the surface of a dry plaster wall. This medium
requires a binder since the pigment is not mixed into the wet plaster. Egg tempera is the most
common binder used for this purpose. It was common to use secco fresco over buon fresco
murals in order to repair damage or make changes to the original.

 Leonardo Da Vinci’s painting of The Last Supper (below) was done using secco
fresco.
 Leonardo Da Vinci, The Last Supper, 1495 – 98, dry fresco on plaster.
Church of Santa Maria delle Grazie, Milan
This image is in the public domain

4. Oil paint is the most versatile of all the painting mediums. It uses pigment mixed with a
binder of linseed oil (Links to an external site.). Linseed oil can also be used as the vehicle,
along with mineral spirits or turpentine. Oil painting was thought to have developed in Europe
during the 15th century, but recent research (Links to an external site.) on murals found in
Afghanistan caves show oil based paints were used there as early as the 7th century.
Some of the qualities of oil paint include a wide range of pigment choices, its ability to be
thinned down and applied in almost transparent glazes as well as used straight from the tube
(without the use of a vehicle), built up in thick layers called impasto (you can see this in many
works (Links to an external site.) by Vincent van Gogh). One drawback to the use of impasto is
that over time the body of the paint can split, leaving networks of cracks along the thickest parts
of the painting. Because oil paint dries slower than other mediums, it can be blended on the
support surface with meticulous detail. This extended working time also allows for adjustments
and changes to be made without having to scrape off sections of dried paint.
In Jan Brueghel the Elder (Links to an external site.)’s still life oil painting you can see many of
the qualities mentioned above. The richness of the paint itself is evident in both the resonant
lights and inky dark colors of the work. The working of the paint allows for many different effects
to be created, from the softness of the flower petals to the reflection on the vase and the many
visual textures in between.
Richard Diebenkorn (Links to an external site.)’s Cityscape #1 from 1963 shows how the artist
uses oil paint in a more fluid, expressive manner. He thins down the medium to obtain a quality
and gesture that reflects the sunny, breezy atmosphere of a California morning. Diebenkorn
used layers of oil paint, one over the other, to let the under painting show through and a flat,
more geometric space that blurs the line between realism and abstraction.

Jan Brueghel the Elder, Flowers in a Vase, 1599. Oil on wood

Kunsthistorisches Museum, Wien, Germany. Used under GNU Documentation Licensing
 Richard Diebenkorn, Cityscape #1, 1963. Oil on canvas, 60 ¼” x 50 ½”
Copyright The Estate of Richard Diebenkorn.  Used with permission

Georgia O’Keeffe’s oil paintings (Links to an external site.) show a range of handling between
soft and austere to very detailed and evocative. You rarely see her brushstrokes, but she has a
summary command of the medium of oil paint.
The abstract expressionist painters pushed the limits of what oil paint could do. Their focus was
in the act of painting as much as it was about the subject matter. Indeed, for many of them there
was no distinction between the two. The work (Links to an external site.) of Willem de Kooning
leaves a record of oil paint being brushed, dripped, scraped and wiped away all in a frenzy of
creative activity. This idea stays contemporary in the paintings of Celia Brown (Links to an
external site.).

5. Acrylic paint was developed in the 1950’s and became an alternative to oils. Pigment is
suspended in an acrylic polymer emulsion binder and uses water as the vehicle. The acrylic
polymer has characteristics like rubber or plastic. Acrylic paints offer the body, color resonance
and durability of oils without the expense, mess and toxicity issues of using heavy solvents to
mix them. One major difference is the relatively fast drying time of acrylics. They are water
soluble, but once dry become impervious to water or other solvents.  Moreover, acrylic paints
adhere to many different surfaces and are extremely durable. Acrylic impastos will not crack or
yellow over time.
The American artist Robert Colescott (Links to an external site.) (1925-2009) used acrylics on
large-scale paintings. He uses thin layers of under painting, scumbling (Links to an external
site.), high contrast colors and luscious surfaces to bring out the full range of effects that acrylics
offer.

6. Watercolor is the most sensitive of the painting mediums. It reacts to the lightest touch of
the artist and can become an over worked mess in a moment. There are two kinds of watercolor
media: transparent and opaque. Transparent watercolor operates in a reverse relationship to
the other painting mediums. It is traditionally applied to a paper support, and relies on the
whiteness of the paper to reflect light back through the applied color (see below), whereas
opaque paints (including opaque watercolors) reflect light off the skin of the paint itself.
Watercolor consists of pigment and a binder of gum arabic, a water-soluble compound made
from the sap of the acacia tree. It dissolves easily in water.

Image by Christopher Gildow. Used here with permission.

Watercolor paintings hold a sense of immediacy. The medium is extremely portable and
excellent for small format paintings. The paper used for watercolor is generally of two types: hot
pressed, which gives a smoother texture, and cold pressed, which results in a rougher texture.
Transparent watercolor techniques include the use of wash; an area of color applied with a
brush and diluted with water to let it flow across the paper. Wet-in-wet painting allows colors to
flow and drift into each other, creating soft transitions between them. Dry brush painting uses
little water and lets the brush run across the top ridges of the paper, resulting in a broken line of
color and lots of visual texture.

Examples of watercolor painting techniques: on the left, a wash. On the right, dry brush effects.
Image by Christopher Gildow. Used here with permission.

John Marin’s Brooklyn Bridge (Links to an external site.) (1912) shows extensive use of wash.
He renders the massive bridge almost invisible except for the support towers at both sides of
the painting. Even the Manhattan skyline becomes enveloped in the misty, abstract shapes
created by washes of color.
“Boy in a Red Vest” by French painter Paul Cezanne builds form through nuanced colors and
tones. The way the watercolor is laid onto the paper reflects a sensitivity and deliberation
common in Cezanne’s paintings.

Paul Cezanne, Boy in a Red Vest, c. 1890. Watercolor on paper.

This image is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License (Links to an external site.)

The watercolors of Andrew Wyeth indicate the landscape with earth tones and localized color,
often with dramatic areas of white paperleft untouched. Brandywine Valley (Links to an external
site.)is a good example.

Opaque watercolor, also called gouache, differs from transparent watercolor in that the
particles are larger, the ratio of pigment to water is much higher, and an additional, inert, white
pigment such as chalk (Links to an external site.) is also present. Because of this, gouache
paint gives stronger color than transparent watercolor, although it tends to dry to a slightly
lighter tone than when it is applied. Gouache paint doesn’t hold up well as impasto, tending to
crack and fall away from the surface. It holds up well in thinner applications and often is used to
cover large areas with color. Like transparent watercolor, dried gouache paint will become
soluble again in water.

Jacob Lawrence’s  paintings (Links to an external site.) use gouache to set the design of the
composition. Large areas of color – including the complements blue and orange, dominate the
figurative shapes in the foreground, while olive greens and neutral tones animate the
background with smaller shapes depicting tools, benches and tables. The characteristics of
gouache make it difficult to be used in areas of detail.

Gouache is a medium in traditional painting from other cultures too. Zal Consults the
Magi (Links to an external site.), part of an illuminated manuscript form 16 th century Iran, uses
bright colors of gouache along with ink, silver and gold to construct a vibrant composition full of
intricate patterns and contrasts. Ink is used to create lyrical calligraphic passages at the top and
bottom of the work.
Other painting mediums used by artists include the following:
Enamel paints form hard skins typically with a high-gloss finish. They use heavy solvents and
are extremely durable.
Powder coat paints differ from conventional paints in that they do not require a solvent to keep
the pigment and binder parts in suspension. They are applied to a surface as a powder then
cured with heat to form a tough skin that is stronger than most other paints. Powder coats are
applied mostly to metal surfaces.
Epoxy paints are polymers (Links to an external site.), created mixing pigment with two different
chemicals: a resin and a hardener. The chemical reaction between the two creates heat that
bonds them together. Epoxy paints, like powder coats and enamel, are extremely durable in
both indoor and outdoor conditions.
These industrial grade paints are used in sign painting, marine environments and aircraft
painting.

PRINTMAKING
Printmaking uses a transfer process to make multiples from an original image or template. The
multiple images are printed in an edition, with each print signed and numbered by the artist.  All
printmaking mediums result in images reversed from the original. Print results depend on how
the template (or matrix) is prepared. There are three basic techniques of printmaking: Relief,
Intaglio and Planar. You can get an idea of how they differ from the cross-section images
below, and view how each technique works from this site (Links to an external site.) at the
Museum of Modern Art in New York.

Cross section of printmaking mediums. Christopher Gildow. Used with permission

The black areas indicate the inked surface.
A relief print, such as a woodcut (Links to an external site.) or linoleum cut, is created when the
areas of the matrix (plate or block) that are to show the printed image are on the original
surface; the parts of the matrix that are to be ink free having been cut away, or otherwise
removed. The printed surface is in relief from the cut away sections of the plate. Once the area
around the image is cut away, the surface of the plate is rolled up with ink. Paper is laid over the
matrix, and both are run through a press, transferring the ink from the surface of the matrix to
the paper. The nature of the relief process doesn’t allow for lots of detail, but does result in
graphic images with strong contrasts. Carl Eugene Keel’s “Bar” shows the effects of a woodcut
printed in black ink.

Carl Eugene Keel, Bar, 2006. Woodcut print on paper.

Licensed by Creative Commons

Block printing (Links to an external site.) developed in China hundreds of years ago and was
common throughout East Asia. The Japanese woodblock print below shows dynamic effects of
implied motion and the contrasts created using only one color and black. Ukiyo-e (Links to an
external site.) or “floating world” prints became popular in the 19th century, even influencing
European artists during the Industrial Revolution.
Relief printmakers can use a separate block or matrix for each color printed or, in reduction
prints a single block is used, cutting away areas of color as the print develops. This method can
result in a print with many colors.

Christopher Gildow, Boathouse, 2007, from the Stillaguamish Series.

Reduction woodcut print
Used with permission

Intaglio prints such as etchings, are made by incising channels into a copper or metal plate with
a sharp instrument called a burin to create the image, inking the entire plate, then wiping the ink
from the surface of the plate, leaving ink only in the incised channels below the surface. Paper
is laid over the plate and put through a press under high pressure, forcing the ink to be
transferred to the paper.
Examples of the intaglio process include etching and dry point: In dry point, the artist creates
an image by scratching the burin directly into a metal plate (usually copper) before inking and
printing. Today artists also use plexi-glass, a hard clear plastic, as plates. Characteristically
these prints have strong line quality and exhibit a slightly blurred edge to the line as the result of
burrs created in the process of incising the plate, similar to clumps of soil laid to the edge of a
furrowed trench. A fine example of dry point is seen in Rembrandt’s Clump of Trees with a
Vista (Links to an external site.). The velvety darks are created by the effect of the burred-edged
lines.
Etching begins by first applying a protective wax-based coating to a thin metal plate. The artist
then scratches an image with a burin through the protective coating into the surface of the
metal. The plate is then submersed in a strong acid bath, etching the exposed lines. The plate is
removed from the acid and the protective coating is removed from the plate. Now the bare plate
is inked, wiped and printed. The image is created from the ink in the etched channels. The
amount of time a plate is kept in the acid bath determines the quality of tones in the resulting
print: the longer it is etched the darker the tones will be. ‘Correccion’ by the Spanish master
Francisco Goya shows the clear linear quality etching can produce. The acid bath removes any
burrs created by the initial dry point work, leaving details and value contrasts consistent with the
amount of lines and the distance between them. Goya presents a fantastic image of people,
animals and strange winged creatures. His work often involved biting social commentary.
‘Correccion’ is a contrast between the pious and the absurd.

Francisco Goya, Correccion, 1799. Etching on paper.

Private collection, used by permission.

There are many different techniques associated with intaglio, including aquatint (Links to an
external site.), scraping and burnishing.

Planar prints like monoprints (Links to an external site.) are created on the surface of the matrix
without any cutting or incising. In this technique the surface of the matrix (usually a thin metal
plate or Plexiglass) is completely covered with ink, then areas are partially removed by wiping,
scratching away or otherwise removed to form the image.  Paper is laid over the matrix, then
run through a press to transfer the image to the paper. Monoprints (also monotypes) are the
simplest and painterly of the printing mediums. By definition monotypes and monoprints cannot
be reproduced in editions. Kathryn Trigg (Links to an external site.)’s monotypes show how
close this print medium is related to painting and drawing.
Lithography is another example of planar printmaking, developed in Germany in the late 18 th
century. “Litho” means “stone” and “graph” means “to draw”. The traditional matrix for
lithography is the smooth surface of a limestone block.
 Lithographic stone is on the left with the negative image. Printed positive image is on the right. 
Image by Chris73. Licensed under Creative Commons.

While this matrix is still used extensively, thin zinc plates have also been introduced to the
medium. They eliminate the bulk and weight of the limestone block but provide the same
surface texture and characteristics. The lithographic process is based on the fact that grease
repels water. In traditional lithography, an image is created on the surface of the stone or plate
using grease pencils or wax crayons or a grease-based liquid medium called tusche (Links to an
external site.). The finished image is covered in a thin layer of gum arabic that includes a weak
solution of nitric acid as an etching agent. The resulting chemical reaction divides the surface
into two areas: the positive areas containing the image and that will repel water, and the
negative areas surrounding the image that will be water receptive. In printing a lithograph, the
gum arabic film is removed and the stone or metal surface is kept moist with water so when it’s
rolled up with an oil based ink the ink adheres to the positive (image) areas but not to the
negative (wet) areas.

Because of the mediums used to create the imagery, lithographic images show characteristics
much like drawings or paintings. In “A Brush for the Lead” by Currier And Ives (Links to an
external site.) (below), a full range of shading and more linear details of description combine to
illustrate a winter’s race down the town’s main road.

Currier and Ives, A Brush for the Lead; New York Flyers on the Snow, 1867. Lithograph
Library of Congress. Image is in the public domain.

Serigraphy, also known as Screen-printing, is a third type of planar printing medium. Screen-
printing is a printing technique that uses a woven mesh to support an ink-blocking stencil (Links
to an external site.). The attached stencil forms open areas of mesh that transfer ink or other
printable materials that can be pressed through the mesh as a sharp-edged image onto a
substrate such as paper or fabric. A roller or squeegee is moved across the screen stencil,
forcing or pumping ink past the threads of the woven mesh in the open areas. The image below
shows how a stencil’s positive (image) areas are isolated from the negative (non-image) areas.

Silkscreen box and stencil, Image by Meul. Licensed through Creative Commons.

In serigraphy, each color needs a separate stencil. You can watch how this process develops in
the accompanying video (Links to an external site.). Screen printing is an efficient way to print
posters, announcements and other kinds of popular culture images. Andy Warhol (Links to an
external site.)’s silk screens use images and iconography from popular culture.

COLLAGE
Collage is a medium that uses found objects or images such as newspaper or other printed
material, illustrations, photographs, even string or fabric, to create images. It also refers to
works of art (paintings, drawings and prints) that include pieces of collage within them. Collage
was made popular in western art history by Pablo Picasso and the cubists (Links to an external
site.). The German artist Kurt Schwitters used collage as the dominant formal element in his
works from the 1930’s. His work Opened by Customs (Links to an external site.) is an excellent
example of the importance of collage to the modern art movement in Europe before World War
Two.
Artist Romare Bearden used collage to comment on urban life and the black experience in
America. His Patchwork Quilt (Links to an external site.) presents us with a figure in profile
reminiscent of Egyptian painting (Links to an external site.). The starkness of the black figure
surrounded by a collage of patterned fabric and dark background color creates a shallow space
and dynamic composition.
The Japanese American artist Paul Horiuchi began as a painter but by mid career used collage
almost exclusively. Mesa (Links to an external site.) from 1960 is an abstract rendition of the
geologic feature: an isolated hill with steeply sloping sides and a flat top (compare it to Joseph
Goldberg’s “Spring Mesa” above in the encaustic painting section). Horiuchi’s art is a
successful blending of the formal elements of cubist ideas with the oriental aesthetic of his
Japanese heritage. His most ambitious piece is the Seattle Mural (Links to an external site.), a
huge glass mosaic commissioned for the site of the1962 World’s Fair. Though not collage, this
immense work mimics the artist’s collage technique in its shapes and composition.

Paul Horiuchi, Seattle Mural, 1962. Glass mosaic. The Seattle Center.
Digital image by Christopher Gildow. Used with permission.
Each individual two-dimensional medium has an extensive range of uses. Taken together their
breadth is wide and the visual, textural and emotional effects they give to works of art are
extremely varied as you can see in the many examples used throughout this module. Most of us
have had some exposure to drawing and painting, maybe even printmaking and collage. They
are tools artists use to express themselves, their thoughts and ideas. If your curiosity is stirred
by the exposure you’ve had here, sign up for a studio art course. You’ll have the opportunity to
learn additional techniques and skills in how to use them to express your own creative ideas.

Chapter 6
THE CAMERA ARTS

OVERVIEW
This learning materials provides an overview of the camera arts and how they’re used. They
include:

 Film photography
 Photography’s impact on traditional media
 Issues of Form and Content
 Darkroom Processes
 The Human Element
 Color Images
 Photojournalism
 Modern Developments
 Digital photography
 Time based mediums including motion pictures, video, digital streaming images

The invention of the camera and its ability to capture an image with light became the first “high
tech” artistic medium of the Industrial Age. Developed during the middle of the nineteenth
century, the photographic process changed forever our physical perception of the world and
created an uneasy but important relationship between the photograph and other more traditional
artistic media.

OBJECTIVES
Upon successful completion of this learning materials, you should be able to:

 Explain the effect photography has on traditional artistic media

 Communicate how time-based mediums affect issues of content 
 Compare and contrast different photographic processes
 Recognize and explain issues of form and content in photographs
 Explain the three elements of photojournalism
 Describe the effects photojournalism has on the news media

EARLY DEVELOPMENT
The first attempts to capture an image were made from a camera obscura used since the 16th
century. The device consists of a box or small room with a small hole in one side that acts as a
lens. Light from an external scene passes through the hole and strikes the opposite surface
inside where it is reproduced upside-down, but with color and perspective (Links to an external
site.) preserved. The image is usually projected onto paper adhered to the opposite wall, and
can then be traced to produce a highly accurate representation. Experiments in capturing
images on film had been conducted in Europe since the late 18th century.

Using the camera obscura as a guide, early photographers found ways to chemically fix the
projected images onto plates coated with light sensitive materials. Moreover, they installed glass
lenses in their early cameras and experimented with different exposure times for their images.
View from the Window at Le Gras (Links to an external site.) is one of the oldest existing
photographs, taken in 1826 by French inventor Joseph Niepce using a process he called
heliograpy (“helio” meaning sun and “graph” meaning write). The exposure for the image took
eight hours, resulting in the sun casting its light on both sides of the houses in the picture.
Further developments resulted in apertures (Links to an external site.) -- thin circular devices
that are calibrated to allow a certain amount of light onto the exposed film (see the examples
below). A wide aperture is used for low light conditions, while a smaller aperture is best for
bright conditions. Apertures allowed photographers better control over their exposure times.

 1. Large aperture. 2. Small aperture.

Licensed by Creative Commons
During the 1830’s Louis Daguerre (Links to an external site.), having worked with Niepce earlier,
developed a more reliable process to capture images on film by using a polished copper plate
treated with silver. He termed the images made by this process “Daguerreotypes”. They were
sharper in focus and the exposure times were shorter. His photograph Boulevard du Temp from
1838 is taken from his studio window overlooking a busy Paris street. Still, with an exposure of
ten minutes, none of the moving traffic or pedestrians stayed still long enough to be recorded.
The only person in the image is a man on the lower left, standing at the corner getting his shoes
shined.

Louis Daguerre, Boulevard du Temps, 1838.

Image in the public domain

At the same time in England, William Henry Fox Talbot was experimenting with other
photographic processes. He was creating photogenic drawings (Links to an external site.) by
simply placing objects (mostly botanical specimens) over light sensitive paper or plates, then
exposing them to the sun. By 1844 he had invented the calotype; a photographic print made
from a negative image. In contrast, Daguerreotypes were single, positive images that could not
be reproduced. Talbot’s calotypes allowed for multiple prints from one negative, setting the
standard for the new medium. “Latticed Window at Lacock Abbey” is a print made from the
oldest photographic negative in existence.

William Henry Fox Talbot, Latticed Window at Lacock Abbey, 1835. Photographic print.
National Museum of Photography, Film and Television collection, England.
Image is in the public domain.

FILM PHOTOGRAPHY
Film Photography is the art of taking photographs on thin, transparent strips of plastic we
call film. Photographic Film is a strip or sheet of transparent film base coated on one side
with a gelatin emulsion containing microscopically small light-sensitive silver halide crystals.
The sizes and other characteristics of the crystals determine the sensitivity, contrast and
resolution. Film photographers with a limited number of exposures available on a roll of
film must think more about their images before shooting them. Digital photographers tend
to take pictures first and think later, unlike digital cameras, film cameras are future proof and
don’t become obsolete. No power or
batteries needed.
 Camera and film
Film Choice

IMPACT ON OTHER MEDIA

The advent of photography caused a realignment
in the use of other two-dimensional media. The
photograph was now in direct competition with
drawing, painting and printmaking. The camera
turns its gaze on the human narrative that stands
before it. The photograph gave (for the most
part), a realistic and unedited view of our world. It
offered a more “true” image of nature because it’s
manifest in light, not by the subjective hand and
mind of the artist in their studio, which, depending on the style used, is open to manipulation. Its
use as a tool for documentation was immediate, which gave the photo a scientific role to play.
Talbot’s photogenic drawings of plant species became detailed documents for study, and the
“freeze frame” photos of Eadweard Muybridge (Links to an external site.) helped to understand
human and animal movement.  But the relative immediacy and improved clarity of the
photographic image quickly pitted the camera against painting in the genre of portraiture. Before
photography, painted portraits were afforded only to the wealthy and most prominent members
of society. They became symbols of social class distinctions. Now portraits became available to
individuals and families from all social levels. Let’s look at two examples from the different
mediums to compare and contrast.

Gilbert Stuart’s painted portrait of Mrs. Oliver Brewster (Catherine Jones) (Links to an external
site.) (1815) not only records the sitter’s identity but also a psychological essence. There is a
degree of informality in the work, as she leans forward in the chair, a shawl draped over one
shoulder, hands clasped, with raised eyebrows and a slight smile on her lips. Her amusement is
palpable and endearing.

In the photographic portrait of the English actress Ellen Terry, Julia Margaret Cameron (Links to
an external site.) captures the same informality and psychological complexities as Gilbert does,
except this time the sitter leans against a patterned background, a simple white gown slips off
her shoulders as she gently grasps a necklace with her right hand. Here the sitter’s gaze is cast
downward, unsmiling, in a moment of reflection or sadness. The lighting, coming from the right,
is used to dramatic effect as it illuminates the left side of Terry’s body but casts the right side in
shadow.

Julia Margaret Cameron, Portrait of Ellen Terry, 1864. Carbon print.

The Royal Photographic Society, United Kingdom.
Image is in the public domain

One obvious difference is the lack of color in Cameron’s photo. Her use of black and white
creates a graphic composition based on both dramatic and subtle changes in value. The first
color (Links to an external site.) photographs were developed as early as the 1860’s, but these
early processes were impractical and of little value.

Painters worried that this new medium would spell the end to theirs. In reality, early
photographers were influenced by popular styles of painting in creating their own compositions.
Cameron’s staged photograph Queen Esther before King Ahasuerus (Links to an external site.)
from 1865 mimics the Symbolist paintings of the time in both style and subject matter. They
used mythology, dramatic poses and other Romantic themes to create visual worlds with dream
like figures and dark emotions. You can see the similarity between Cameron’s photograph and
George Frederic Watts (Links to an external site.)’ painting “Paolo and Francesca” from about
the same time.

George Frederic Watts, Paolo and Francesca, c. 1865. Oil on canvas.

Image is in the public domain

It didn’t take long for photographers to see the aesthetic value in the new medium. As early as
1844 Henry Talbot was taking pictures with a concern towards formal composition. The Open
Door (Links to an external site.) uses mundane subject matter to create a study in contrasts,
visual balance and textures. The solid composition, anchored by the dark rectangle of the door
and interior space book ended by sunlit areas, becomes animated with diagonals created in the
heavy shadow cast on the door. The broom’s placement and its shadow reinforce this. Vines
cropped on each side of the photo’s frame give balance, and the broom straw, stone work and
door hardware create visual textures that enhance the effect. Finally, the lamp hanging near the
right edge of the frame creates an accent that draws our eye.

Early photographs were made from single plates of metal, glass or paper, each one
painstakingly prepared, exposed and developed. In 1884 George Eastman (Links to an external
site.) invented transparent roll film; strips of celluloid coated with a light-sensitive emulsion. Four
years later he developed the first hand held camera loaded with roll film. The combination
brought access to photography within the reach of almost anyone. Additional advances were
made in lens optics and shutter mechanics. By the turn of the nineteenth century the
photograph represented not only a new artistic medium but also a record -- and a symbol -- of
the Industrial age itself.

ISSUES OF FORM & CONTENT

The darkroom became the studio of the photographer.  It was there where visual ideas
translated into images:  an opportunity to manipulate the film negative, to explore techniques
and discover the potential the photograph had in interpreting objects and ideas.
Alfred Stieglitz (Links to an external site.) understood this potential, and as a photographer,
editor and gallery owner, was a major force in promoting photography as an art form. He led in
forming the Photo Secession in 1902, a group of photographers who were interested in
defining the photograph as an art form in itself, not just by the subject matter in front of the lens.
Subject matter became a vehicle for an emphasis on composition, lighting and textural effects.
His own photographs reflect a range of themes. The Terminal (Links to an external site.) (1892)
is an example of “straight photography”: images from the everyday taken with smaller
cameras and little manipulation. In The Terminal Stieglitz captures a moment of bustling city
street life on a cold winter day. A massive stone façade looms in the background while a half-
circle of horses and street wagons are led out of the picture to the right. The whole cold, gritty
scene is softened by steam rising off the horses and the snow provides highlights. But the photo
holds more than formal aesthetic value. The jumble of buildings, machines, humans, animals
and weather conditions provides a glimpse into American urban culture straddling two centuries.
Within ten years from the time this photo was taken horses will be replaced by automobiles and
subway stations will transform a large city’s movement into the twentieth century.
Other photographs by Stieglitz concentrate on more conceptual ideas. His series of cloud
photos, called Equivalents (Links to an external site.), are efforts to record the essence of a
particular reality, and to do it “so completely, that all who see [the picture of it] will relive an
equivalent of what has been expressed”. His Equivalents photos establish a new level for the
aesthetic content of ideas, and are essentially the first abstract photographs.
Darkroom Processes: The camera’s ability to capture a moment in time is not without
difficulties. We’ve all had the experience where we declare “If I only had a camera with me!” On
one hand, photographs taken in the studio are controlled productions, with the photographer
working to find balances with lighting and composition. On the other hand, straight outdoor
photography is unpredictable. Lighting and weather conditions change quickly, and so do the
locations where the photographer will find that “one great shot”. To compensate for these
variables, photographers typically take hundreds of pictures, bracketing shutter speeds and
aperture settings as they go, then carefully editing each negative and print until they find the
handful, or perhaps only the one, that will be the best image of them all.
The darkroom is where the exposed film is developed. It must be dark to eliminate any chance
of outside light ruining the exposed film. In black and white film developing, a low-intensity red
or amber colored lamp called a safe light is used so the photographer can see their way around
during developing. The light emitted from the lamp is of a wavelength that does not affect
exposure results.

Safelight used in the darkroom.

Licensed through Creative Commons

Other tools used in a darkroom are typically an enlarger, an instrument with a lens and aperture
in it that projects the image from a negative onto a base. Photographic paper is then placed
under the projected image and exposed to light. The paper is put into a series of solutions that
progressively start and stop the development of the positive photographic image. The
development process gives the photographer another opportunity to manipulate the original
image. Specific areas on the print can be exposed to more light (“burning” or darkening areas)
or less light (“dodging” or lightening areas) in order to bring up details or create more dramatic
visual effects.  The image can also be cropped from its original size depending on how the
photographer wants to present the final image.
Photograph of the body of water with dodge and burn text overlaid in order to give an example of the
two effects.
Licensed through Creative Commons

Light meters are used to calibrate the amount of light available for a certain exposure. The
photographer adjusts the aperture of the camera to allow for more or less light to fall on the film
during the initial exposure. But light meters alone don’t guarantee the perfect photograph
because they indicate the total amount of light, without respect to specific areas of light or dark
within the format of the picture.
For this, the photographers Ansel Adams (Links to an external site.) and Fred Archer (Links to
an external site.) created the zone system. The system relies on two interrelated factors – the
visualization of how the photographer wants the print to look even before they take it, and a
correct light calibration from all the areas by assigning numbers to different brightness values –
or ‘zones’ on the value scale, from white to black and all the various gray tones in between. The
zone system is tedious both in the field and in the darkroom, but, since its inception in 1940, has
spurred creation of photographs absolutely stunning in their clarity, composition and graphic
drama. Adams’ Taos Pueblo below is an example.

Ansel Adams, Taos Pueblo, 1942. Black and white photograph.

Collection of the National Archives, Washington, D.C.
Library of Congress Image in the public domain

THE HUMAN ELEMENT

Photography became the most contemporary of artistic media, one particularly suited to record
the human dramas being played out in an increasingly modern world. French photographer
Robert Doisneau’s The Kiss on the Sidewalk (Links to an external site.) from 1950 shows a
romantic kiss as an oasis in the middle of a busy Paris sidewalk. That the photo was not
spontaneous but a reenactment (Links to an external site.) takes nothing away from the emotional
content: Paris as the city of Love. Eugene Atget (pronounced “Ah-jay”) (1856-1927) was one of
the first to use the photograph as a cultural and social document. His images (Links to an external
site.) of Paris and its surroundings give poetic witness to the buildings, people and scenes that
inhabit and define the city.
The work of Diane Arbus (1923-1971) challenges us as we gaze at others who are deviant,
marginalized or stand out because of the context in which we see their normality. Arbus’
lens (Links to an external site.) is unflinching in its honesty. She presents images of strangeness
and alienation without condescension or judgment. It’s up to us to try to fill in the blanks.

Many of the photographs in Robert Frank’s series The Americans (Links to an external site.)
depicts groups of people in different situations, including riding a bus, watching a rodeo and
listening to a speech. His photo essay on American life is seen through the eyes of an observer,
not a participant. Instead of voyeuristic, they give a sense of detachment. Only a few of the
figures look directly into the camera or directly at other people in the photo. Frank worked hard
to maintain the observer’s point of view. Similar to Arbus, the photographs carry overtones of
alienation – between the individual and the group. Controversial when first published in the
United States in 1959, the book now is seen as one of the most important modern photographic
social commentaries.

COLOR IMAGES
The wider use of color film after 1935 added another dimension to photography. Color can give
a stronger sense of reality: the photo looks much like the way we actually see the scene with
our eyes.  Moreover, the use of color affects the viewer’s perception, triggering memory and
reinforcing visual details. Photographers can manipulate color and its effects either before or after the
picture is taken.

Even though there is no figure present in Grand Canyon, 1973 (Links to an external site.), we observe the
landscape through the eyes of the photographer. Joel Meyerowitz makes use of raking light and two sets
of complementary colors; orange and blue, yellow and violet giving stark contrast and vibrancy to the
photograph. The foreground, bathed in warm light, has details and patterns created by the scrub brush
dotting the hill. A bright yellow spike plant rises up out of the desert like a beacon, an exclamation point
on a vast, barren landscape. The cool blues and purples in the background soften the plateaus and hills
as they disappear on the horizon.

In a final example, the finely meshed screen sporting flies in the foreground dilutes and blurs a warm
monochromatic color scheme in Irving Penn’s Summer Sleep (Links to an external site.) (1949). Distortion
in the center of the photo takes on a blue hue, visually hovering like a mist over the sleeping figure in the
background. For its seemingly informal set up, Penn’s photo is actually a meticulously arranged
composition. And the narrative is just as meticulously crafted: serene, gauzy sleep within while trouble
waits just beyond.

PHOTOJOURNALISM
The news industry was fundamentally changed with the invention of the photograph. Although
pictures were taken of newsworthy stories as early as the 1850’s, the photograph needed to be
translated into an engraving before being printed in a newspaper. It wasn’t until the turn of the
nineteenth century that newspaper presses could copy original photographs. Photos from
around the world showed up on front pages of newspapers defining and illustrating stories, and
the world became smaller as this early mass medium gave people access to up to date
information…with pictures!
Photojournalism is a particular form of journalism (Links to an external site.) that creates
images in order to tell a news story and is defined by these three elements:

 Timeliness — the images have meaning in the context of a recently published record of
events.
 Objectivity — the situation implied by the images is a fair and accurate representation of
the events they depict in both content and tone.

 Narrative — the images combine with other news elements to make facts relatable to the
viewer or reader on a cultural level.

As visual information, news images help in shaping our perception of reality and the context
surrounding them.
Photographs taken by Mathew Brady (Links to an external site.) and Timothy O'Sullivan (Links
to an external site.) during the American Civil War (below) gave sobering witness to the carnage
it produced. Images of soldiers killed in the field help people realize the human toll of war and
desensitize their ideas of battle as being particularly heroic.

Timothy O’Sullivan,
Spotsylvania Court House,
Virginia, vicinity. Body of another
Confederate soldier near Mrs.
Alsop’s house. 1864.
Photograph from glass plate. 
Library of Congress. Image
in the public domain.

Sometimes soldiers
themselves take
photographs in the
battlefield. In the picture
below, Robert F.
Sargent, a Chief Photographer’s Mate in the U.S. Coast Guard, gives an eyewitness visual
account of Allied troops coming ashore in France on D-Day, 1944.

Robert F. Sargent, Landing Craft at Omaha Beach, June 6, 1944. Black and White photograph.
United States Coast Guard photo. Library of Congress. Image in the public domain.

Photojournalism’s “Golden Age” took place between 1930 and 1950, coinciding with advances
in the mediums of radio and television.
Margaret Bourke-White (Links to an external site.)’s photographs helped define the standards of
photojournalism. Her work with Life magazine and as the first female war correspondent in
Europe produced indelible images of the rise of industry, the effects of the Dust Bowl, the Great
Depression and World War Two. Ammonia Storage Tanks (Links to an external site.) (1930)
shows masterful composition as she gets four of the massive tanks into the picture. The
shadows, industrial grids of metalwork and the inclusion of figures at the top for an indication of
scale make a powerful visual statement about the modern industrial landscape. One of her later
photographs (Links to an external site.), A Mile Underground, Kimberly Diamond Mine, South
Africa from 1950 frames two black mine workers staring back at the camera lens, their heads
high with looks of resigned determination on their faces.

Dorothea Lange (Links to an external site.) was employed by the federal government’s Farm
Security Administration to document the plight of migrant workers and families dislocated by the
Dust Bowl (Links to an external site.) and the Great Depression In America during the 1930’s.
Migrant Mother, Nipomo Valley, California (Links to an external site.) is an iconic image of its
hardships and the human resolve to survive. Like O’Sullivan’s civil war photos, Lange’s picture
puts a face on human tragedy. Photographs like this helped win continued support for president
Franklin Roosevelt’s social aid programs.

Photojournalism does not always find the story in far away places. More often it is in the urban
settings of big cities.  Weegee (Links to an external site.) (born Arthur Fellig) made a living as a
ubiquitous news photographer on the streets of New York City. He documented the sensational,
from murders to entertainment, and kept a police radio in his car so as to be the first on the
scene of the action. His photo Simply Add Boiling Water (Links to an external site.) from 1937
shows the Hygrade frankfurter building in flames while firemen spray water into it. The photo’s
title is ironic and taken from the sign across the center of the building.

MODERN DEVELOPMENTS
Edwin Land (Links to an external site.) invented the instant camera, capable of taking and
developing a photograph, in 1947, followed by the popular SX-70 instant camera in 1972. The
SX-70 produced a 3” square-format positive image that developed in front of your eyes. The
beauty of instant development for the artist was that during the two or three minutes it took for
the image to appear, the film emulsion stayed malleable and able to manipulate. The artist
Lucas Samaras used this technique of manipulation to produce some of the most imaginative
and visually perplexing images in a series he termed photo-transformations (Links to an external
site.). Using himself as subject, Samaras explores ideas of self-identity, emotional states and
the altered reality he creates on film.

Polaroid SX-70 Instant Camera.

Licensed through Creative Commons

Digital cameras appeared on the market in the mid 1980’s. They allow the capture and storage
of images through electronic means (the charge-coupled device (Links to an external site.))
instead of photographic film. This new medium created big advantages over the film camera:
the digital camera produces an image instantly, stores many images on a memory card in the
camera, and the images can be downloaded to a computer, where they can be further
manipulated by editing software and sent anywhere through cyberspace. This eliminated the
time and cost involved in film development and created another revolution in the way we access
visual information.
Digital images start to replace those made with film while still adhering to traditional ideas of
design and composition. “Bingo Time” by photographer Jere DeWaters (below) uses a digital
camera to capture a visually arresting scene within ordinary surroundings. He uses a rational
approach to create a geometric order within the format, with contrasting diagonals set up
between sloping pickets and ramps, with an implied angle leading from the tire on the lower left
to the white window frame in the center and culminating at the clock on the upper right. And
even though the sign yells out to us for attention, the black rectangle in the center is what gets
it.
 Jere DeWaters, Bingo Time, 2006, digital color print. Used by permission.

In addition, digital cameras and editing software let artists explore the notion of staged reality:
not just recording what they see but creating a new visual reality for the viewer. Sandy
Skogland (Links to an external site.) creates and photographs elaborate tableaus inhabited by
animals and humans, many times in cornered, theatrical spaces. In a series of images titled True
Fiction Two (Links to an external site.)she uses the digital process – and the irony in the title to
build fantastically colored, dream like images of decidedly mundane places. By straddling both
installation and digital imaging, Skoglund blurs the line between the real and the imagined in art.

The photographs of Jeff Wall (Links to an external site.) are similar in content – a blend of the
staged and the real, but present them selves in a straightforward style the artist terms as “near
documentary”.

TIME BASED MEDIA: FILM, VIDEO, DIGITAL

With traditional film, what we see as a continuous moving image is actually a linear progression
of still photos on a single reel that pass through a lens at a certain rate of speed and are
projected onto a screen. We saw a simple form of this process earlier in the pioneering work of
Eadweard Muybridge.

Eadweard Muybridge, Sequence of a Horse Jumping, 1904.

Image is in the public domain

The first motion picture cameras were invented in Europe during the late nineteenth century.
These early “movies” lacked a soundtrack and were normally shown along with a live pianist,
organ player or orchestra in the theatre to provide the musical accompaniment. In the United
States, film went from being a novelty to an art form with D. W. Griffith’s Birth of a Nation (Links
to an external site.) in 1915. In it Griffith presents a narrative of the Civil War and its aftermath
but with a decidedly racist view of American blacks and the Ku Klux Klan.
Film scholars agree, however, that it is the single most important and key film of all time in
American movie history - it contains many new cinematic innovations and refinements, technical
effects and artistic advancements, including a color sequence at the end. It had a formative
influence on future films and has had a recognized impact on film history and the development
of film as art. In addition, at almost three hours in length, it was the longest film to date (From
Filmsite Movie Review: The Birth of a Nation).

Unique to the moving image is its ability to unfold an idea or narrative over time, using the same
elements and principles inherent in any artistic medium. Film stills (Links to an external site.)
show how dramatic use of lighting, staging and set compositions are embedded throughout an
entire film (for formal comparisons, see the work of Cindy Sherman above).

Video art, first appearing in the 1960’s and 70’s, uses magnetic tape to record image and
sound together. The advantage of video over film is its instant playback and editing capability.
One of the pioneers in using video as an art form was Doris Chase (Links to an external site.).
She began by integrating her sculptures with interactive dancers, using special effects to create
dreamlike work, and spoke of her ideas in terms of painting with light. Unlike filmmakers, video
artists frequently combine their medium with installation (Links to an external site.), an art form
that uses entire rooms or other specific spaces, to achieve effects beyond mere projection.
South Korean video artist Nam June Paik (Links to an external site.) made breakthrough works
that comment on culture, technology and politics. Contemporary video artist Bill Viola (Links to
an external site.) creates work that is more painterly and physically dramatic, often training the
camera on figures within a staged set or spotlighted figures in dark surroundings as they act out
emotional gestures and expressions in slow motion. Indeed, his work The Greeting (Links to an
external site.) reenacts the emotional embrace seen in the Italian Renaissance painter Jocopo
Pontormo’s work The Visitation below.

Jacopo Pontormo, The Visitation, 1528, oil on canvas.

The Church of San Francesco e Michele, Carmignano, Italy.
Source:The Yorck Project: 10.000 Meisterwerke der Malerei. DVD-ROM, 2002.
ISBN 3936122202 (Links to an external site.).
Distributed by DIRECTMEDIA Publishing GmbH. Image is the public domain.

Computers and digital technology have, like the camera did over one hundred and fifty years
ago, revolutionized the visual art landscape. Some artists now use digital technology to extend
the reach of creative possibilities. Sophisticated software allows any computer user the
opportunity to create and manipulate images and information. From still images and animation
to streaming digital content and digital installations, computers have become high tech creative
tools.

In a blending of traditional and new media, artist Chris Finley uses digital templates – software
based composition formats – to create his paintings (Links to an external site.).

The work of German artist Jochem Hendricks combines digital technology and human sight. His
eye drawings (Links to an external site.) rely on a computer interface to translate the process of
looking into physical drawings.
Digital technology is a big part of the video and motion picture industries with the capability for
high definition images, better editing resources and more areas for exploration to the artist.

The camera arts are relatively new mediums to the world of art but their contributions are
perhaps the most significant of all. They are certainly the most complex. Like traditional
mediums of drawing, painting and sculpture they allow creative exploration of ideas and the
making of objects and images. The difference is in their avenue of expression: by recording
images and experiences through light and electronics they, on the one hand, narrow the gap
between the worlds of the ‘real’ and the ‘imagined’ and on the other offers us an art form that
can invent its own reality with the inclusion of the dimension of time. We watch as a narrative
unfolds in front of our eyes. Digital technology has created a whole new kind of spatial
dimension: cyberspace.