
Virginia M. Prall :: Two girls wearing white dresses and dark stockings reading a book, ca. 1900 / src: Library of Congress
images that haunt us

Virginia M. Prall :: Two girls wearing white dresses and dark stockings reading a book, ca. 1900 / src: Library of Congress

Edmund Osterloff :: ‘Miss Curiosity’ (Osterloff’s daughter Sophie Osterloff, married Lazutina), Tbilisi, Russia, ca.1908 / source: Jan
Weijers Servatius

George H. Seeley ::
The Brass Bowl, ca. 1905 / src: amici della fotografia
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Geisha Sakae dressing herself in the mirror, a postcard from around 1905 to 1910. / source: Blue Ruin (Flickr)

Joan Vilatobà :: Untitled, undated.
Silver gelatin on baryta-coated paper. | src and hi-res: Museu Nacional d’Art de Catalunya
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The massive industrialization of the photography based on the new models of Kodak in 1888, marked the birth of amateurism, and what could be considered its elitist complement and counterpart, Pictorialism, understood to be the first discourse of artistic legitimization of photography.
Faced with technological standardization and documental utilitarianism, Pictorialism proposed the use of pigmentary techniques that evoked the manual work of paintings, as well as their symbolic, picturesque or sublime themes, in accordance with the aesthetic paradigms of the modern art of the 19th century, which was based on the romantic principle of genius. In some way the concept of “creation” was introduced into photographic techniques, vindicating the figure of the photographer as an author and interpreter of reality. Within this framework, Joan Vilatobà created a series of works which moved between symbolic allegory and customs, and photography through topics such as beauty, death, love, etc., of which Where in heaven will I find you? is an example. | quoted from MNAC ~ Museu Nacional d’ Art de Catalunya
