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ELI
SIEGEL. The question of emotion in photography is the question of
emotion in art. One of the things I said years ago is that great poetry
couldn't come without a great beginning emotion.
Therefore, it is necessary to ask what is meant by "a great emotion"? In a book which is still popular and which I used when I talked on photography
in 1953, Trois Siecles d'Art aux Etats-Unis, there are two photographs
which have caused a great emotion. One is Brady's "The Ruins of Richmond"
(1865) and the other is "The Steerage" of Stieglitz. In the Brady, this
mingling of pride and ruin--the standing up of the ruins and this gutting
does do something to one. The fact that it is reproduced says something
for it. Then there is "The Steerage" with somebody looking down at people
who are sad. There is pride and humility there.
The Steerage
....We are going after the greatest emotion; and when photographs, like
poems or plays or novels, live, it is attested to that someone had a great
emotion. The purpose of photography is to create an emotion about the world
through what has been carefully seen and selected.
Our object is to use other.people to have great emotions with, as Tristan
used Isolde, pretty easily, to have a great emotion with. But our purpose
is to have great emotion and in a way that shows our intent. That is, it
is very easy to have an emotion when a girl is close to you, but it is
sometimes hard to have an emotion if you are just walking on a street.
The idea of great emotion, aesthetically speaking, is what we are looking
for. There is a feeling, for example, that Wagner is greater than Victor
Herbert because there is a greater emotion in Wagner than in Victor Herbert.
That holds good for photography as far as I have seen it and if I am wrong
that should be known.
The purpose of photography, as of all art, is to use a specific object
to see the meaning of the world with. The world is repellent and sad, and
it is also attractive, and that is what we feel in "The Ruins of Richmond" picture ....Whether Brady felt it transitorially or not, he decided to take
this picture. He could have photographed something else. There were other
things in Richmond. He could have found some colonel somewhere. Anyway,
he photographed the ruins, and it has remained. It is as well known a picture
of the Civil War as any.
The problem of all art is: What can we get emotion from? All art is a looking
for that which can cause emotion; and if I were looking at a picture and
the photographer had a large emotion and I missed it, I am unfortunate
and unjust. It is not just the presence of opposites in a photograph--it
is the opposites in an eternal hug. The hug is what is lacking in some
pictures. The opposites are there but they could be more friendly. Aesthetic
Realism says that "In reality opposites are one; art shows this." Well,
the showing has to be showing....What are we looking for? What emotion
are we capable of?
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