PHOTOGRAMME
Selon ses domaines d'application, le terme "photogramme" désigne des images de nature différente. En technique cinématographique, il signifie la plus petite unité de prise de vue, l'image indivisible dont la succession, vingt-quatre fois par seconde, crée la continuité filmique. Le mot "photogramme" est aussi employé dans l'acception de "photographie", mais il s'applique alors, spécifiquement, au produit fini (l'image) et non au procédé technique permettant de l'obtenir. C'est en ce sens qu'il faut lire le titre de la célèbre revue britannique Photograms of the Year . Par ailleurs, le mot est utilisé en photographie scientifique pour dénommer un cliché résultant d'une expérience ou d'une observation pointue. Einstein parle ainsi d'un "photogramme de globules rouges". Cet usage scientifique du terme amènera le peintre constructiviste Moholy-Nagy à récupérer le mot, en 1921, pour désigner les images qu'il obtient en chambre noire - c'est-à-dire en laboratoire - sans appareil photographique ni objectif. Selon Moholy, il faut entendre par photogramme une image née de la simple exposition à la lumière d'objets divers posés directement sur le papier sensible. C'est cette définition qui est couramment retenue aujourd'hui.
Si elle doit son nom à Moholy-Nagy, la technique du photogramme n'en a pas moins été pressentie, bien longtemps avant la découverte de la photographie elle-même, par Thomas Wedgwood et Humphrey Davy, qui publient, en 1802, une Méthode pour copier des peintures sur verre et faire des profils par l'action de la lumière sur le nitrate d'argent . Cette application originale des propriétés chimiques de la lumière peut être considérée comme une préfiguration du photogramme. À partir de 1853, Corot et les peintres de Barbizon dessinent à la pointe sur une plaque de verre fumé ou verni qu'ils utilisent comme négatif pour impressionner par contact un papier sensible. Mais cette pratique, qu'ils appellent le "cliché-verre", est encore proche des méthodes picturales. Deux des inventeurs de la photographie, William Henry Fox Talbot en Angleterre et Hippolyte Bayard en France, "copient" des végétaux en les déposant directement sur le papier sensible. Aussi simples soient-elles, ces reproductions doivent pourtant être considérées comme d'authentiques photogrammes.
Les trois artistes qui explorèrent le plus systématiquement les potentialités créatives du photogramme sont Christian Schad, Man Ray et László Moholy-Nagy. En 1918, le peintre d'origine allemande Christian Schad, installé à Zurich où il fréquente les premiers cercles dadaïstes, entrevoit les possibilités de la photographie sans caméra. Il dépose sur la feuille sensible des papiers découpés, non plus pour les copier servilement, mais afin d'en tirer des images neuves. Aux yeux des dadaïstes, ces images ont plus d'une séduction, ne se confondant ni avec la peinture, puisqu'elles sont obtenues automatiquement, ni avec la photographie, puisqu'elles sont affranchies de la réalité; l'effet créé est en grande partie aléatoire et surtout absolument nouveau. Ces qualités suffisent pour plaire à Tristan Tzara, qui les appelle, en jouant sur les mots, des "shadographies" (de l'anglais shadow , ombre), et qui signera le texte accompagnant leur première publication dans le numéro 7 de Dada (1918).
Trois ans plus tard, Man Ray redécouvre le procédé par hasard en essayant de développer un papier qu'il avait oublié d'impressionner. Constatant son erreur, il abandonne la feuille dans le bain de révélateur où se trouvaient également une éprouvette et un thermomètre, et allume la lumière. Aussitôt, une image se forme, qui est à la fois l'ombre projetée des objets sur le papier et leur trace déformée, à cause de la réfraction de la lumière à travers le verre transparent. Au contraire de Schad, Man Ray se sert de vrais objets et non de papiers découpés, ce qui engendre dans ses images un effet tridimensionnel et met en œuvre toute la gamme des tons, du noir profond au blanc éclatant. Les objets ne perdent pas leur identité dans l'opération. Ils sont seulement sublimés en une réalité nouvelle, née du hasard, de l'automatisme du procédé et, bien sûr, des fantasmes de Man Ray: autrement dit, ils acquièrent une surréalité. En décembre 1922, Man Ray publie Les Champs délicieux qui comprend douze "rayographies", selon sa propre expression, avec une préface de Tristan Tzara, et dont le titre évoque Les Champs magnétiques de Breton et Soupault.
László Moholy-Nagy prétend avoir ignoré les travaux de Schad et de Man Ray quand il réalisa ses premiers photogrammes en 1921. Au début, il imite les collages de son ami Kurt Schwitters (qui créera à son tour des photogrammes à partir de 1929) et réalise des images abstraites obtenues par la juxtaposition sur le papier sensible de bandes de papier ou d'étoffes de diverses textures. Au contraire de Man Ray, Moholy transforme toujours les objets en formes non figuratives. Puisque ceux-ci ont peu de points de contact avec le papier, la lumière peut être diffusée par-dessous et brouiller les ombres portées. En utilisant deux ou plusieurs sources d'éclairage, éventuellement même des lampes mobiles, Moholy s'assure que le dessin de l'objet disparaît totalement au profit d'une structuration de l'espace par la lumière. On retrouve dans cette pratique le postulat de base de Moholy, celui qui est à l'origine de sa fameuse sculpture cinétique, le Raum-Licht-Modulator (Modulateur espace-lumière): l'espace existe a priori mais n'est pas visible. C'est la lumière qui le structure en le balisant petit à petit sur le plan de l'image.
Durant les années 1920 et 1930, de nombreux artistes expérimenteront le photogramme. Parmi ceux-ci, Raoul Hausmann, El Lissitzky, Jan Tschichold, Francis Bruguière, György Kepes, Theodore Roszak, Raoul Ubac et Maurice Tabard sont les plus connus. Dans les années 1950, le photogramme connut un regain d'intérêt auprès des adeptes de la Subjektive Fotografie rassemblés autour d'Otto Steinert et Heinz Hajek-Halke. Le flambeau fut repris par Luigi Veronesi, Jean-Pierre Sudre, János Gulyás, Dieter Roth, Dóra Maner et Floris M. Neusüss. On doit à ce photographe, lui-même créateur de photogrammes, d'avoir organisé à Kassel, en 1983, la première exposition rétrospective de photogrammes, dont le catalogue constitue une importante source d'informations que complète son recueil d'articles, intitulé Das Fotogramm in der Kunst des 20. Jahrhunderts (1990).
http://serge.teskrat.pagesperso-orange.fr/fac/termino.htm
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The Photogram- a History “Captured Shadows”
Les RUDNICK.“The shadows that things make The things that shadows make”
© 2004-2006 Les Rudnick
What kind of shape does the absence of light have? Photograms after 1900: Photogram images prior to the avant-garde period between WWI and WWII can, in general, be considered traces, or documents of existing shape or form. There are, of course, exceptions, but after WWI, the experiments of Christian Schad, followed by Man Ray and László Moholy-Nagy essentially changed the photogram from a process for documentation to one of creative expression. [Adolfo Martinez in PhotoVision 22, a quarterly publication, 1981, Arte y Proyectos Editoriales, S. L., p4]. See also Experimental Vision, The Evolution of the Photogram since 1919, by Floris M. Neususs, Thomas Barrow and Charles Hagen, 1994 Denver Art Museum]. The application of the concept of the photogram has its roots in the primordial moments of the history of chemical-based photography. During the early 19th century, as iron and silver based photographic processes were being tried, images were made by placing botanical specimens and delicate objects such as lace onto the chemically coated paper and exposing using sunlight. This was done as an alternative to drawing. Although, there is clearly artistic beauty in the arrangements of these objects in even the earliest photograms, it was not until the early 20th century that artists and photographers began to express new ideas via the photogram. In 1918 Christian Schad (1894-1962) (German), who was inspired by cubism, began experimenting in Europe by making cameraless photographic images. Talbot had originally called these images “photogenic drawings” which were prints made by placing objects onto photosensitive paper and then exposing the paper to sunlight. By 1919 Schad was creating photogenic drawings from random arrangements of discarded objects he had collected such as torn tickets, receipts and rags [Naomi Rosenblum, A World History of Photography, 3rd edition 1997, Abbeville Press, p393]. Schad's new imagery was constructed by taking discarded unimportant objects and arranging them. The photograms created from these arrangements had taken on a new form and meaning not considered previously. These prints were published in 1920 in the magazine Dadaphone by Tristan Tzara. She referred to these as “Schadographs”. It was Tristan Tzara who called these images Schadographs to express a Dadist desire to create art from discarded objects. Schad's descriptions of his techniques were eventually used by both Man Ray and Lazlo Moholy-Nagy in their more extensive explorations.[The J. Paul Getty museum handbook of the photographs collection/ Weston Naef, 1995]. Man Ray (1890-1976) was born Emanuel Rudnitsky in Philadelphia. He became famous because of his photogram imagery. His early influences in New York included attending the National Academy of Design and going to lectures at the avant garde Ferrer Social Center. During his formative years he was fortunate to have met Alfred Steiglitz, and later Marcel Duchamp, and Francis Picabia. Man Ray, became a colleague of Marcel Duchamp and Francis Picabia during the New York Dada period. In 1922 he experimented with producing images using only light and photographic paper. He called these images Rayographs, combining his name and the source of light and being similar to Andre Breton's "automatic writing
He produced these Rayographs by arranging transleucent and opaque objects on photosensitive materials. His techniques included immersing the object in the developer during exposure, and using stationary and moving light sources. [Naomi Rosenblum, A World History of Photography, 3rd edition 1997, Abbeville Press, p394]. Man Ray obviously did not invent the photogram, but he breathed life into the technique and gave it a spirit. He moved to Paris in 1921 where he did professional portraits and fashion photography. It was during this time that Man Ray explored many creative aspects of the photogram. László Moholy-Nagy (1895-1946), American, born in Austria-Hungary (in Bacsborsod). He moved to Vienna in 1919 after serving in the army. He later moved to Berlin, creating metal sculptures and paintings. In 1919 he and his wife Lucia Moholy began experimenting with the process of making photograms, and Lucia Moholy (Czechoslovakia) developed a technique they called the photogram, which is the term generally used today. This term was used as a direct comparison with the rapid direct communication of the telegram. http://anniehalliday.com/photograms.php . Moholy-Nagy considered the “mysteries” of the light effects and the analysis of space as experienced through the photogram to be important principles that he experimentally explored and advanced in his teaching throughout his life. [László Moholy-Nagy, Vision in Motion (1947)]. Moholy-Nagy, Gyorgy Kepes and Nathan Lerner design a traveling exhibition in 1941 of photograms created by students and faculty of the school called "How to Make a Photogram." This exhibit travelled through the winter of 1947. [Taken By Design, p148]. Moholy-Nagy used many unconventional methods to create effects in his photograms that noone had previously considered or demonstrated effectively. For example, he is reported to have squirted oil into developer and squeezed oil between sheets of glass during exposure to the photosesnsitive emulsion.
Moholy continued throughout his life to explore the possibilities of light. Moholy had claimed that he discovered the photogram without knowing of the work of Christian Schad or Man Ray. Early letters from Moholy and others concerning the discovery of the photogram have been published [Andreas Haus, "Laszlo Moholy-Nagy, Photographs and Photograms," Pantheon Books, 1980, translation from the German by Frederick Sanson pp 51-52]. Moholy-Nagy is considered a major influence on the history of photography. He trained photographers in the use of light. Whether or not he discovered or rediscovered the photogram process he certainly created via manipulation of light and object, memorable images based on the synergy of this combination. I suggest that generally Moholy-Nagy photograms can be distinguished from those of Man Ray in that Moholy’s photograms are more about light while those of Man Ray are more about the object employed in the process or in a sense of something real or a metaphor for something real. Moholy’s luminograms are completely about light and design. Timeline:The practitioners of photogram art during each recent decade are as follows: 1920-1930sHerbert Bayer (1900-1985) - was an Austrian-American graphic artist, architect and painter. He was born in Haag am Hausruch, Austria and died in 1985, Santa Barbara, California. Christian Schad (1894-1962) - Man Ray (1890-1976) - began making photograms in 1922 in Paris which he called Rayographs. László Maholy-Nagy (1895-1946)- worked with both staff and students at the Institute of Design (originally called the New Bauhaus) in Chicago, Moholy-Nagy and these other artists created a large body of photograms, luminograms and other cameraless images. many of his images were luminograms, whereby the image was created by moving the light source - in essence a way of painting with light to reveal the penetration of light through planes of the object intersecting the path of light. Eli Lissitzky (1890-1941) – born Elizar Morduchivitch Lissitzky, Russian, was one of the first to apply the photogram technique in advertizing art. In 1924 Lissitzky designed a poster for Pelikan inks. 1930-40sLotte Johanna Alexandra Jacobi (1896-1990) was born in Prussia and lived in Berlin from 1925-1935. She left Germany and emigrated to the United States to flee Nazi Germany. She lived in New York City for two decades and then lived in New Hampshire until her death. She is very well known for her portraits and created a variety of photogram and luminogram images. Carlotta Corpron (1901-1988) was born in Blue Earth, Minnesota. She spent her formative years in India at an English boarding school and returned to Michigan State Normal School (now Eastern Michigan University). After her B.S. degree in art education she studied art education and fabric design at Teacher's College of Columbia University obtaining her M.A in 1926. [The Handbook of Texas Online, s.v. "Corpron, Carlotta"' http://www.tsha.utexas.edu/handbook/online/articles/CC/fcoda.html]. Corpron became a teacher at Texas Woman's University in 1935 and in 1942 she led a light workshop for Lazlo Moholy-Nagy. Just two years later, Gyorky Kepes went to Texas Woman's University to write a book and his interest in her work encouraged her to produce several series of abstract images that would become some of the most notable of her career. Her "Light Patterns" and later "Light Follows Form" series employed light to create patterns on three-dimensional objects. Raoul Hausmann (1886-1971) was born in Austria and was a writer and sculptor. Hausmann was a cofounder of the Berlin Dada movement in 1917, just prior to the end of WWI. He also created photomontage. In 1923, Hausmann stopped painting in favor of exploring several experimental photographic techniques, including the photogram. Gyorky Kepes (1906 - 2001) -Hungarian - born in Selyp, Hungary and educated at the Budapest Royal Academy of Fine Arts. After completing his degree he joined the studio of Laszlo Moholy-Nagy and from 1930 until 1936 he worked with Moholy-Nagy. Through Moholy-Nagy he was able to meet Walter Gropius. He was later invited to run the Color and Light Department at the New Bauhaus and then later the Institute of Design in Chicago, Illinois, where he taught until 1943. From 1946 until 1974 he taught at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and during that time (1964) he created the Center for Advanced Studies at MIT where he was the director until 1974. Kurt Schwitters (1887-1948) - German - born in Hanover, Germany, he was a student of the Dresden Academy of Art. Schwitters was a painter who worked in Dada, Constructivist and Surrealist genres. He was a master of the collage. Early in his career he called one of his collages the Merz picture. Afterwards he referred to all of his work as Merz. Forced to leave Germany during the years leading up to WWII, he left Germany for Norway in 1937. By 1940 Germany had invaded Norway and he was again forced to flee to England where he was interned. He lived in london until 1945 and then moved to Ambleside (English Lake District) where he was able to create new work due to funds provided by the Museum of Modern Art in New York. Alexander Rodchenko (Aleksandr Mikhailovich Rodchenko) (1891-1956) Russian - born in St. Petersburg, Russia. He studied at the Kazan School of Art and at the Stroganov Institute in Moskow. An avant-garde artist, began taking photographs in 1924. He worked first as both a painter and graphic designer. Later he began to use photography and photomontage to communicate his social concepts in a way he could express better through photographic methods. He was influenced by the photomontage of the German Dadaists and began to use these techniques as early as 1923. Jaromir Funke – (1896-1945) Czech Curtis Moffat – English – assistant to Man Ray
http://www.photograms.org/chapter03.html
