What’s the biggest challenge early photography pioneers faced? This captivating exhibition at The Met reveals all
Famous landscape painters like Constable and Singer Sargent meet early photography pioneers in a new exhibition at The Metropolitan Museum of Art The post What’s the biggest challenge early photography pioneers faced? This captivating exhibition at The Met reveals all appeared first on Amateur Photographer .
The Metropolitan Museum of Art's new exhibition, Chasing Clouds, delves into the challenges early photographers faced in capturing the ever-changing sky. The intimate exhibit, curated by Stephen C. Pinson from The Met's Department of Photographs, showcases works from the early 19th to the 20th century, spanning roughly the first 100 years of photography.
This exploration was made possible by works by early photographers like Gustave Le Gray and Alfred Stieglitz, as well as famous landscape painters John Constable and John Singer Sargent.
The exhibition highlights how limitations in early photography pushed artists to get creative with their techniques. For instance, painters started incorporating painted clouds into photographs, while others combined separately exposed negatives to depict the skies they witnessed. The Met's exhibition also looks at the evolving relationship between art, science, and photography, as well as the growing scientific interest in clouds during this period. As symbols of changing weather, clouds have always fascinated both artists and scientists.
The show opens with early 19th-century oil sketches, also known as plein air sketches. Landscape painters used these sketches to capture the fleeting effects of nature, treating clouds as a compelling test of their ability to record transient natural phenomena. Furthermore, the introduction of photography prompted photographers to find ways to overcome technical challenges, such as blue skies appearing as flat blank expanses due to variable sensitivity and duration required for exposures.
It wasn't until chemical and optical advances at the start of the 20th century that cloudscape photography could rival traditional paintings.
Among the highlights of the exhibition are Alfred Stieglitz's Equivalents series, alongside atmospheric cloud studies by painters such as Constable and Sargent. This captivating exhibition offers a rare opportunity to explore the intersection of art, science, and technological change as it relates to the representation of clouds in early photography.
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