Now the sophisticated look foregrounds the artifice, and produces a portrait which does not purport to capture the very essence of the sitter but declares itself to be a glimpse, an unplanned, momentary appearance.
Photomontage can pose a number of challenges to our visual system. We may be unsure:. Few photomontages are equally difficult in all four ways, but if we have difficulty with what , the latter questions are hard even to formulate. When determinations of what become effortful, we fall back on re-tracing elementary, usually automatic, processes of tracing edges and contours and looking for at least partial matches to familiar objects.
When looking at Figure 2. Rather than regarding this as an impossible object or optical illusion, however, we may try to naturalize it in some grotesque way "she is melting". There are other, harder cases. Titian's Venus is strongly outlined and then projected and painted all over a wooden vanity with open drawers, a sea shell and some trophies, the walls, floor, and the curtains. The oval piece of glass appears to be a mirror because it reflects the vanity table top with one of the little trophies and blocks the curtain.
Even with this extremely uneven "canvas" the varying surfaces of several objects with its own textures, the figures are clearly recognizable, and you have to make an effort to see the vanity, for example; such is the power of color filled outline! This to be sure is not photomontage, though one image is laid over another, as it were.
Rather, it is faux photomontage which will be taken up in the fourth section of this chapter. Rejlander: Hard Times c.
In the study of human vision, an edge is defined as an intensity gradient that changes sharply; in David Marr's foundational model, detection of edges is the very first step in perceiving objects in a world.
It is assumed that the eye works very much like an edge-detection filter in a graphics processing program, and images in which the edge-information is scrambled or atypical prove to various degrees hard to make out.
Perhaps the simplest semantic rule of all is associated with edges: edges indicate the boundaries of separate things, and when there is no clear or consistent [This frequently cited site is down, perhaps for the count. Rejlander called "Hard Times" which we sort into a present scene wife and child sleeping, man awake and a remembered scene of altercation with his now sleeping wife.
Edges and contours and indeed, objects are to various degrees problematic in a remarkable series of photomontages by Coryndon Luxmoore at The Birdhouse. This one "Gaze 4" is difficult for several reasons, notably the variable opacity of the women figure and the odd angle of vision. There is neither vertical nor horizontal in the entire piece—even what appears to be a corner of a wall.
The angle of view of the girl is not "canonical" there must be several canonical views of the human figure male and female, but this angle is unusual and it is hard to imagine a viewing point for us the camera. Also, the cable and one pipe make a solid horizon reference line to which the vertical pipes and brick ledge can be linked, so that there appears to be a supporting surface or floor upon which the woman lies.
Obviously the images are about contrasts of hard, edged, well-defined stone and metal shapes and the soft contours of human flesh, but the images don't read as cyborg fantasies or fantasies of penetration and violation of the body by the mechanical and rigid; the body, lacking a uniform opacity, seems to inexplicably fade in and out like a ground fog.
This uses the powers of a Photoshop type graphics program to gain a level of control that would be very difficult with multiple negatives, masks, bleach, and clever printing. The problem posed for perception here is that the image will not sort into planes or even into continuous if incomplete objects. The image cannot be made sense of according to the rules for constructing the world of material objects, so that even the hard metal and brick here become melted or dissolved in the desired or hallucinated body.
Here for comparison are the edge-detected and posterized versions of "Gaze 4" somewhat enlarged :. Most of the clear edges are those of cable and pipe; the only line that traces the edge of the woman's body runs along her forehead and down her nose, but it would be very difficult to see a human form based just on that line.
Here the shading is reduced to three levels black, white, and gray and actually does a somewhat better job than the edge-detected image at identifying a human shape. Note the shadow-line reinforcing the lower edge of the face which merges into the shadow cast by the pipe: that is not helpful at all! Clearly these will not get anyone called up on obscenity charges! Granted this is a complicated example involving perception of objects and orientations in space, but part of the uncertainty lies with what are the objects.
The "Gaze" series do not easily sort into figure-and-ground even though we automatically take the softly shaded bioform to be the figure ; most classic photomontage does not fade figure and ground in this way. Fading one object into another to make an impossible object was a favorite device of the Surrealists, but they did not often fade object into ground; further, they generally avoided the diaphanous, semi-transparent treatment of any objects, even and especially the impossible ones, presumably because they did not want to pre-sort the scene for the viewer in to more and less "real.
This is one of the general principles conventions? This female figure is a real pastiche: only a true, unconscious dedication to gestalt good forms sees this figure as a single object.
The upper body of an mannequin does not quite align with the lower body of a flesh and blood model, who, however, has a hinged doll's leg for a lower right leg. The torso is not only semi-transparent, it is eroded down to a wire mesh around the neck and throat. It appears to cast a shadow from a light source over the viewer's right shoulder but is illuminated and shaded from over the viewer's left shoulder as well. The semi-transparency is not uniform, but thins to nothing across most of the joint between mannequin and human, allowing the window sill to come through unattenuated.
And the aloe-ish looking house plant visible through the right thigh is simply unaccounted for. Laughlin places this image in his "Satire" group and his commentary holds forth a bit on the eye as that of Puritanical repression restraining and blighting the body and so forth, but visually and verbally he may be pulling the viewer's right, jointed leg. Perhaps it is because the picture appears to be a mannequin outside of a shop that we are befuddled by the image.
As an apparition—well, I'm am not sure I have hard and fast expectations about the opacity of immaterial bodies. Compare in this connection, the Teske image below. Another process that alters shading and edges is Inversion or "Negative" , in which all the color values switch sign, as it were, with perfect neutral gray being 0.
That is, the darkest become the lightest, hues become their complements. When the lighting is directional, Inversion makes it seem to be coming from the opposite direction; so, objects lighted from above will appear to be lighted from below. Once launched by photomontage down the path of "post exposure manipulation", Inversion is a next step away from what we commonly experience. It is not always as disruptive as one might think to perception, though it tends to look like an xray negative when applied to the human form.
That is perhaps for most people their main preparation for seeing it in photomontage. It is much employed in making fantasy and magic worlds because of the mysterious emanations of light it suggests. So in Figure 2. One click inverts the image, which then is lighted from above as is normal and the woman has a more clearly discernible profile.
Albertian single-vanishing point perspective comes with the camera and hence with every negative; indeed, it is built into the standard image-synthesizing ray-tracers as well. Refer to perspective demo. In addition, the camera also renders texture perspective the blocks and bricks of walls and floors get smaller with distance , atmospheric perspective distant objects are reduced in contrast, blurred in detail, and bluish in color , and of course shading and shadow.
Photomontage with two or more fairly robust perspective spaces are not going to blend or merge very smoothly. In some cases, tension between perspective spaces can be very productive, as in Figure 2. The shadows help to key this. This piece shows some horizon and perspective, particularly with the central receding passage, but equally clearly it sets up a space so that the women can break out of it, and the contemplative figure in black silhouette is in yet a third space.
Montage ideas are very important for your start. You can try those popular photo montage ideas such as collecting different backgrounds, collecting subjects, extracting subjects from photos, keeping the building.
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With every subsequent image being superimposed over the first one, it would give birth to ghostly images of people and objects that were added to the original scene. The photomontage as an art form has attracted many artists throughout the history of art, from early experimental photographers, Dadaists, Surrealists, and other avant-garde proponents.
Seeing it as a radical process that often created controversies, creatives have employed it with various intentions such as to infuse photography with more creativity, critique the society and reflect the social change, question the idea of what art is or simply deconstruct the idea of a photo. Allowing the remarkable creativity , but also being politically charged , this medium was highly diverse in practice. Since many prominent figures have been associated with the method, let's take a look at the most significant creativesnames who championed it.
A pioneering art photographer and an expert in photomontage, Oscar Rejlander is considered the father of art photography. After learning the wet-collodion and waxed-paper processes, he started working in portraiture, but also created significant erotic artworks with circus models, street children, and child prostitutes. After experimenting widely with combination printing, he made his infamous print The Two Ways of Life consisted of thirty-two pictures.
Showing two boys being offered guidance by the patriarch, the print initially caused quite a controversy for its partial nudity.
Still, the print ended up being a success and he was soon after admitted to t he Royal Photographic Society of London.
He continued to experiment with double exposure, photographic manipulation, and retouching throughout his career. Rejlander's ideas and methods were adopted by other photographers of the era. Henry Peach Robinson is best known for pioneering the process of combination printing as an early example of photomontage. His pictorialist photos and writings made him one of the most influential photographers of the second half of the 19th century. After working in commercial portraiture, he started making photographs that imitated themes and compositions of the anecdotal genre paintings.
His earliest-known pieces created through combination printing was Juliet with the Poison Bottle, but his most famous composite photo is Fading Away showing a girl on deathbed surrounded by her family. He perceived the creation of combination photos as demanding as the painting for the artist. This is a strategy that many Dadaists and Surrealists have adopted. Apart from photomontages, she often incorporated readymades , always questioning the notion and idea of art itself.
She is also famous for the Dada Dolls that were quite different from any other pieces associated with this movement.
A pioneer of using art as a political weapon , John Heartfield often incorporated anti-nazi and anti-fascist statements. After being introduced to Dada, he started creating art in mixed media with the cacophony of visual elements that conveyed a clear message to his audience.
He has developed a unique method where he appropriated and reused pictures to create pieces with a powerful political effect. Reflecting chaos and uncertainty that Germany has experienced during the s and 30s, his pieces transformed this form of art into a powerful form of mass communication.
He would choose shots of politicians from the press and disassemble and rearrange them to compose a radically changed meaning. Having been working within several genres such as Constructivism, Bauhaus, De Stijl and Surrealism and various media such as poetry, sound, painting, sculpture, typography and graphic design, Kurt Schwitters is most famous for his collages called Merz Pictures.
He specifically called these collages Merz to distinguish these pictures from Cubism, Expressionism and even Dadaism. Over the years, he extended this name to all his activities , including poetry, installations and performance. His Merz pieces were composed of rubbish materials such as labels, bus tickets and bits of broken wood. After , he started making large Merz constructions in his house in Hannover, the so-called the first Merzbau.
After fleeing to Norway, he constructed his second Merzbau. A significant contributor to Dadaism and Surrealism, Man Ray created photographs that operated in the gap between art and life. He made significant contributions to the avant-garde, fashion and portrait photography, but he is also very famous for his photomontages.
These prints play with femininity and form and experiment with various techniques such as multiple exposures. His most famous pieces of this kind are those featuring Alice Prin and Dora Maar.
Utilizing art for a social and political change, El Lissitzky was a Russian painter, designer, and typographer. During the late s and early s, Lissitzky experimented with the latest media such as typography, photography, and photomontage. This is considered as his most progressive period. For him, photography was the most efficient way to express the dynamic reshaping of his country. He experimented widely with photograms and photo collage and created mountings in the form of multilayered photos.
Using multiple exposures in printing, he exploited the effect of transparency and juxtaposition to achieve dynamic compositions. His art majorly influenced De Stijl's talents and Bauhaus instructors. As one of the most important avant-garde artist who has put his art in the service of political revolution, Alexander Rodchenko was an influential founder of the Constructivist movement.
Initially involved in painting, in , he started concentrating on three-dimensional design objects, architectural sketches, and photography. Through photos, he enjoyed the most success. He was famous for his avant-garde compositions and experimental approach to focus and contrast. Impressed by the German Dadaists, Rodchenko started experimenting with the medium. He first used found pictures, but later started shooting his own imagery. His works in the creation of photographs significantly contributed to European photography in the s.
British conceptual artist John Stezaker creates irreverent collages using glamourous s portraits featuring dapper suited men and Hollywood stars. He combines these pictures as readymades with other faces or even landscapes to make the effect of the uncanny and absurd. He re-examines various relationships to the photographic image such as the documentation of truth, purveyor of memory or the symbol of modern culture. Through elegant and clever juxtapositions he forms his own poignant meanings. He conjures radical ideas out of pictures that would otherwise allure the everyday viewer.
He avoids the term photomontage in favor of the collage. The work of the Spanish painter, poster designer and muralist Josep Renau was always political. After his exile in Mexico following the end of the Spanish Civil War, he became heavily influenced by the popular culture imagery of the US.
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