Pictorialism was characterized by a romantic soft focus or haziness, which the photographers used to fade out details they felt distracted the painting-like impression. Pictorialists wanted to change the perception of photography as mere mechanic copying of nature.
The pictorial concept arrived in Finland from Central Europe and Sweden at the end of the 1890s and peaked in the 1920s, after which it also started receiving some criticism as it was considered to have abandoned the strengths of photography in favor of merely copying painting.
Pictorialism – the Dawn of Photographic Art is a unique, widescale exhibition of Finnish pictorialism the treasures of which are for the most part from the collections of the Finnish Museum of Photography. The exhibition links with the museum’s research project of several years, and an illustrated edited volume of articles (published by Parvs) based on the extensive research is published alongside it.
The exhibition is curated by Max Fritze, Sofia Lahti and Anni Wallenius.
