Pictorialist Photograph, The Washerwomen - Circa 1900 - N°10

Pictorialist work, chromated gum. Slightly tiled. unsigned - By Georges POTONNIÉE 1862-1949 - historian and photographer - Member of the French Society of Photography In 1913, he made the first alphabetical classification of the SFP collections, then he established the nomenclature of the prints. He was close to the pictorialist photographer Robert Demachy (a note reproducing a correspondence with Demachy, references to works he published, will be given to the purchaser.) ----------- The pictorialists were more interested in aesthetic effects than in the photographic act itself: the gum allows a composition of images by successive superposition of layers of different shades. Each of the layers is then exposed to sunlight and stripped in a tank of water. Each stripping is carried out with tools to be adapted by oneself, which constitutes an undeniable phase of creation. It is precisely in the act of stripping that the singular character of gum bichromate appears, far from mechanical movement and infinite reproduction.