4rt ESO: exhibition Art and Photography

The exhibition shows the way in which the pioneers of photography adopted historical art as a point of reference and as a stimulus to their creativity. It also shows how today’s photographers take their inspiration from the same sources and rework the same themes, but by using new media that were unimaginable just a few years ago, and filtering them through a modern sensibility.

Photography first appeared in the 1830s, at a time when art was more accessible than ever before. Big exhibitions and public art galleries all helped to popularise the great works of painting and sculpture. With the aim of legitimising their art, photographers such as Roger Fenton, Julia Margaret Cameron, David Octavius Hill and Robert Adamson took well-known images as their point of reference. The public of the time thought that photography reproduced reality in an over-literal manner, far removed from the expressive, emotive synthesis achieved by paintings. But by looking closely at works of art, photographers gradually refined their perceptions and began to develop their own forms of expression. Nowadays, thanks to communication technologies, art can be found absolutely everywhere, but photographers no longer have to imitate or reproduce it relatively literally. They can borrow specific aspects from art works and play with the imaginary of the viewer and the role of the artwork in the cultural tradition, so as to create new meanings and excite new emotions.

the assignment:

1. What is the connection between the great masterpieces of painting, the first photographs and the work  of some contemporary photographers?
2. Describe the different areas of the exhibition.
3. Choose a nude picture amb compare it with an old painting.  Sketch, data and comparison.
4. Choose a still life photograph. Idem.
5. Choose a landscape. Idem.
6. Choose a portrait. Idem.
7. Which Goya’s painting is in the hall? Why?
8. Personal opinion.

*two extra points for the graphic quality. Hand in on April, the 29th.