ABSTRACT
The dominant photographic movement from the 1880s until the 1910s. Its international practitioners used soft focus and experimented with a broad range of processes and techniques to show that photography was not only a documentary tool, but also a form of visual expression equal to any other art form. Like many of the leading artistic photographers of his time, Henry Peach Robinson's approach to form, composition and style derived from academic painting. He explained his ideas in the influential Pictorial Effects in Photography, where alongside practical advice he dealt with Romantic concepts such as truth and beauty. Peter Henry Emerson rejected imitation and manipulation in favour of a naturalistic approach, and captured views with one area of the image in sharp focus and the rest softer, to mimic how the eye really sees. Though Pictorialism's practitioners were united in their desire to elevate photography to the status of fine art, they did not have a shared aesthetic.
