A New Art: Photography and Impressionism

12. February – May 8, 2022

The exhibition examined the new medium photography in its gradual establishment as an autonomous art form, while shedding light on its complex relation to Impressionist painting.

In the 19th century, numerous photographers chose the same motifs as Impressionist painters: the forest of Fontainebleau, the cliffs of Étretat or the modern metropolis of Paris. They, too, studied the changing light, seasons and weather conditions. From its inception, photographers pursued artistic ambitions, as evidenced by their experimentation with composition and perspective, by means of various technical procedures. Until the First World War, the relationship between photography and painting was characterized both by competition and mutual influence. The exhibition examined these interactions from the 1850s to the early 20th century.

#PhotographieBarberini

"This is the first exhibition on photography at the Museum Barberini. Developed from our core theme of Impressionism, we highlight how the early medium of photography developed into an autonomous art form and how it positioned itself in relation to Impressionist painting."

Ortrud Westheider, Director, Museum Barberini

From the very beginning, photography had artistic ambitions, which it tested by means of composition and perspective, different techniques and materials, as well as blurring, dramatization and montage. Nevertheless, nineteenth-century viewers regarded it as a hybrid of science, technology, industry, and art. In addition to painters, scientists were involved in the invention and development of photographic processes. Initially understood as an aid to painting, the early photographers quickly developed their own artistic self-awareness and measured themselves against fine art’s leading masters of the time. Painting, in turn, saw itself inferior in the exact reproduction of reality and had to develop new strategies to distinguish itself from photography.

The show presented more than 150 works of around 70 photographers, such as Gustave Le Gray, Louise Deglane, Alfred Stieglitz and Heinrich Kühn. Their images present a variety of technical procedures. Important national and international lenders were the Münchner Stadtmuseum, the Photoinstitute Bonartes in Vienna, the Musée d’Orsay and the Société Française de Photographie in Paris.

An exhibition of the Museum Barberini, Potsdam, in cooperation with the Von der Heydt-Museum, Wuppertal

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Reviews

"This has never been seen so impressively (…) The Potsdam exhibition confirms the rank of photography as art in the most beautiful way."

Der Tagesspiegel

"Epic debates entwined around photography as the new image medium of the 19th century (…) In any case, it is: spectacular, as in this exhibition also the approximately 150 magnificent historical photographs"

Deutschlandfunk

"The work of [Heinrich] Kühn and his contemporaries is being shown at a new exhibition at the Museum Barberini, illuminating the complex interplay between photography and Impressionism."

Financial Times

"Amusingly, the exhibition (…) describes the development as a competition between painting and photography (…) The exhibition makes one understand the amazement at the entrancing sharpness when looking through the stereoscope."

Deutschlandfunk Kultur

"It is delight at least that now comes over you in the Museum Barberini, or rather: astonishment, as in the 19th century numerous photographers chose the same motifs as the painters of Impressionism (…) With the paintings of the Impressionists from the collection of the museum's founder Hasso Plattner, they form a surprising artistic unity."

rbb inforadio

"School of Seeing: A new exhibition at the Museum Barberini is dedicated to the fascinating early days of photography."

Berliner Morgenpost

"They are photographs as if they were painted. While the Impressionists went out into nature to capture landscapes and people on canvas as naturally as never before, photographers painted Impressionism with their cameras."

B.Z.

"Visitors are left in awe of the mastery of photographic art."

Märkische Allgemeine

" (...) a visit to the exhibition is highly recommended in any case, if not only because the prints, with one exception, all date from the time of their creation. One sees a lot of remarkable, partly famous, partly completely unknown pictures, of which one would like to characterize many (...) with an expression that literally imposes itself in connection with Impressionism, namely: impressive."

Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung

"With this exhibition, the museum is following a path that has been less trodden in art history. And lo and behold, turn-of-the-century photographers chose similar subjects and were passionate about similar phenomena as their colleagues on canvas."

Monopol

"By the end of the 19th century, photographers were even able to wrest impressionistic traits from their medium - whether in subjects such as forests and portraits or still lifes. In a refined way and with complicated methods, they bring blurriness into the photo - and finally even color: The world blurs into beauty. At the Barberini, you can see the photos as well as the technique for all this."

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