Photography and the Industrial Revolution

975 Words4 Pages
Photography and the Industrial Revolution
During the Industrial Revolution, a factory driven time period and move away from beauty, Alfred Stieglitz, the photographer of “The Hand of Man”, showed how something so dark and mechanical like the locomotive train could be transformed into a work of art and beauty using ones own creativeness and artistic ability.
Alfred Stieglitz, an American photographer and modern art promoter, was born in Hoboken, New Jersey, in 1864. Growing up, he was trained as an engineer in Germany where he would then move to New York in 1890 to try and prove that photography was an acceptable work of art during this time period. While in New York, he joined many camera clubs and held exhibitions throughout the city to show his work (Minneapolis Institute of Arts). In 1903, Stieglitz created a magazine called “Camera Work” that was completely devoted to photography and contained only photographic images in it (Greenough, Sarah). Stieglitz had a greater impact on American Art than any other artist had.
In The Hand of Man, I see the industrious picture being related to the “Jungle” by Upton Sinclair and the Industrial revolution because it contains very modern objects such as the train or the factory while also having smoke, which provides you with a sense of belief that there is pollution caused by all this. Stieglitz was not afraid to show off this picture and is well known for his modern art exhibits and ideals about art and how it relates to the Industrial age.
The Hand of Man was first published in January 1903 in the inaugural issue of Camera Work. Stieglitz showed that a gritty urban landscape could have an atmospheric beauty and a symbolic value as potent as those of an unspoiled natural landscape (Paul J. pt. 1). The title expresses how the landscape went through a modern transformation and how the photography itself was a
Open Document