A New Art: Photography and Impressionism

The exhibition examines the new medium photography in its gradual establishment as an autonomous art form, while shedding light on its complex relation to Impressionist painting.

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In the 19th century, numerous photographers chose the same motifs as Impressionist painters: the forest of Fontainebleau, the cliffs of Étretat or the modern metropolis of Paris. They, too, studied the changing light, seasons and weather conditions. From its inception, photographers pursued artistic ambitions, as evidenced by their experimentation with composition and perspective, by means of various technical procedures. Until the First World War, the relationship between photography and painting was characterized both by competition and mutual influence. The exhibition examines these interactions from the 1850s to the early 20th century.

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From the very beginning, photography had artistic ambitions, which it tested by means of composition and perspective, different techniques and materials, as well as blurring, dramatization and montage. Nevertheless, nineteenth-century viewers regarded it as a hybrid of science, technology, industry, and art. In addition to painters, scientists were involved in the invention and development of photographic processes. Initially understood as an aid to painting, the early photographers quickly developed their own artistic self-awareness and measured themselves against fine art’s leading masters of the time. Painting, in turn, saw itself inferior in the exact reproduction of reality and had to develop new strategies to distinguish itself from photography.

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The show presents more than 150 works of around 70 photographers, such as Gustave Le Gray, Louise Deglane, Alfred Stieglitz and Heinrich Kühn. Their images present a variety of technical procedures. Important national and international lenders are the Münchner Stadtmuseum, the Photoinstitute Bonartes in Vienna, the Musée d’Orsay and the Société Française de Photographie in Paris.

An exhibition of the Museum Barberini, Potsdam, in cooperation with the Von der Heydt-Museum, Wuppertal

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