Art Photography in Poland, 1900–1939

Abstract

Abstract The beginnings of photography in Poland, and the course of its development during the first 60 years or so, have been described in this journal by Julius Garztecki1. The end of the 19th century marked a distinctive turning point in the aesthetic composition of photographic images. Until then, photography Lvas completely dependent on painting, which provided it with standardized motifs, and perpetuated its own viewpoint according to firmly established principles. Later on, the wide dissemination of photography led to a veritable flood ofpictures produced in stereotype fashion, something to which the more gifted amateurs strenuously objected. There were always some to whom photography was a scientific discipline, but most people treated it simply as a spare-time activity or hobby; what should be emphasized is the great independence of these people from the standards which professional photographers tended to impose. Amateurs aimed at making photography an art, that is to say, a medium of self-expression, according to their personal sensibilities. Through their individualism they separated themselves from ‘mechanical photography’ and from the ‘thoughtless following of rules’, as they searched for their own uniqueness. From the perspective of the present, we see that in this type of photography, painterly canons were taken for granted, and since the physical world was assuined to be the objective and perceptible reality, it was there that photographers looked for visual confirnlation of their philosophy, a procedure notable for its lack of ontological consistency.