Kaelyn Cox
3/1/2018
Anne Brigman
Anne Brigman was born in Hawaii in 1869, and was the oldest of 8 children. When Anne was 16 years old her family upped and moved to California. As a starting artist Anne was known as a painter, and eventually switched to photography in 1902. When photographing objects her favorite subjects were “slim, hearty, unaffected women of early maturity living a hardy out-of-door life in high boots and jeans, toughened to wind and sun”, these were not the only subjects she enjoyed as she also photographed nude scenes and landscapes. Infact, her best known photographs were taken in California’s Sierra Nevada mountains. Photography back in Anne’s day was not that easy as you had to lug around a camera that could weigh anywhere between five and ten pounds, a wooden tripod, photographic plates, and various other supplies and gear. Anyone who wanted to be a photographer had to have a great deal of dedication. Anne was “one of two original California members of the art photography group the Photo-Secession, founded by Alfred Stieglitz, and she was the only Western photographer to be made a Fellow of the group.” It wasn’t until 1929 when she moved to Long Beach in Southern California, where she continued to photograph but with new subjects such as sand erosions. In 1949 Anne decided to publish a book full of her photographs and poems called “Songs of a Pagan.” Throughout this paper we will talk about and compare one of Brigman’s paintings with that of another artists.
The photograph of hers that I will be. talking about is called “Mother Nursing Child, 1925”, the photograph features a woman breastfeeding her child. I decided to choose this image because it is much different than her other images. As I previously mentioned Brigman enjoyed taking images of nude people featured on different landscapes, but this image is focused just on the mother and her feeding child. This is very interesting to me because I feel like when an artist enjoys a subject they stick with it, and while this subject still features a nude woman it is more of a close up and not just a sort of silhouette of the body.
I believe that this image can relate to the art movement of Realism. “Realism believed that everyday life and the modern world were suitable subjects for art.” The photograph relates to this movement because breastfeeding tends to be looked down upon, even though it is a very natural real thing to do. Even in today's world women who breastfeed out in the open are often scolded, so having an image such as this one from 1925 is very unique to me.
A painting from the Realism movement. that I believe relates to “Mother Nursing Child” is called “Young Mother nursing her Child”. by French realist painter Jules Breton. “Young Mother nursing her Child” features a mother nursing her child outside. I decided to choose this .image .because just like Brigman’s photo this painting was done outside, and obviously the subject matter of the breastfeeding mother is the same. Another similarity of the. breastfeeding images is the way the mother is watching the child. In both images the mother is looking down at her nursing child and they each have somewhat of a small smile, and you can only see half of their faces. Breton and Brigman’s art styles are very similar to each other, which is another reason why I believe they can easily be compared. Breton’s paintings also feature women who are also standing on interesting landscapes. There are also differences between the two artists, the first is the fact that in Breton’s paintings the women are fully clothed. Another obvious difference is the fact that he uses color, while color photography wasn’t really popular yet so Brigman’s photos are in black and white. Lastly, Brigman’s photo is much more of a close up, while Breton’s photo is a bit farther back so you can see the landscape more.
Overall, Anne Brigman is a very well known pictorialist photographer whose works relate to that of the painters from the Realism art movement. From the subject matter to the way her photographs were set up, Brigman’s work will always be relevant and known in the history of photography and pictorialism.