PICTORIALISM

ROBERT DEMACHY

-FEMALE NUDE CA. 1900-1910

Instantly to me this image appears to be a painting, resembling classic female nude portraiture, this is one of the first obvious elements of Pictorialism within Demachy's work. I feel that due to the unexplored territory of the photographic portrait people like Demachy would use their cameras to shoot as if they were creating painted artwork, and the composition and poses of the models would reflect this. I feel that this is also evident with how it seems the picture would have been printed onto textured paper rather than modern prints of high quality, again, to replicate the classic style of canvas painting; this may come across to some viewers as being very rough, although personally I love the grain and vague detail. Most Pictorialist imagery would have been traditionally tended to a lot by hand, for example, dodging and burning done to prints, and I feel this images roughness conveys this sense of extra work added by the photographer post-production.