Nothing but a Berliner
November 20, 2014 2:25 PM Subscribe
This post contains nudity.
Photographic history is chock-full of people who were painters before they became photographers, but very few were in women's wear to begin with.
When Hitler came to power in 1933, Erwin Blumenfeld produced this premonitory photomontage which in 1943 the US Airforce dropped in their millions over Germany cities.
Possibly his most famous early work is the series Nude under wet veil reflecting Botticelli and Cranach .
From his early Dada and Surrealist photomontages to his later New York fashion shoots, Erwin Blumenfeld insistently parodied objects of desire.
Here is an illustrated lifeline and a brief bio. from weimarart blogspot.
His fashion shots were masterpieces as were some of his nudes.
73 Thumbnails and wiki.
Photographic history is chock-full of people who were painters before they became photographers, but very few were in women's wear to begin with.
When Hitler came to power in 1933, Erwin Blumenfeld produced this premonitory photomontage which in 1943 the US Airforce dropped in their millions over Germany cities.
Possibly his most famous early work is the series Nude under wet veil reflecting Botticelli and Cranach .
From his early Dada and Surrealist photomontages to his later New York fashion shoots, Erwin Blumenfeld insistently parodied objects of desire.
Here is an illustrated lifeline and a brief bio. from weimarart blogspot.
His fashion shots were masterpieces as were some of his nudes.
73 Thumbnails and wiki.
Blumenfeld came up with that recreating childhood photos meme in 1916. Here's a childhood photo of Blumenfeld and Paul Citoenn, and here in 1916 and again in 1926. Talk about being ahead of your time.
posted by Kattullus at 3:29 PM on November 20, 2014 [3 favorites]
posted by Kattullus at 3:29 PM on November 20, 2014 [3 favorites]
> Possibly his most famous early work is the series Nude under wet veil reflecting Botticelli and Cranach
I've never understood what's so wonderful about this series. I don't get it; it just feels like an excuse to look at breasts.
Can someone explain it to me like I'm a high school student?
posted by The corpse in the library at 4:38 PM on November 20, 2014
I've never understood what's so wonderful about this series. I don't get it; it just feels like an excuse to look at breasts.
Can someone explain it to me like I'm a high school student?
posted by The corpse in the library at 4:38 PM on November 20, 2014
corpse remember this isn't just digital happy snap photography
Sure Blumfeld was an unabashed erotocist but he was also a supurb photographer who reproduced what previously had only been seen in paintings.
“His images are sometimes so complex, it’s hard to figure out how he did it,” says Ute Eskildsen, curator of a retrospective of over 300 of his works at the Jeu de Paume in Paris
From Christies
'The female body became the plaything of Blumenfeld's fantasies; he cut it up, elongated it, distorted it, underlining the abstract beauty of an isolated detail. He was obsessed with Woman, transforming her, at times, into an ageless inaccessible goddess, at other times into a sleeping beauty surprised by the voyeur while awaiting the prince charming who will wake her from her long sleep.
The 'platonic erotomaniac' placed Woman beyond Blumenfeld's reach. From the depth of his childhood memories he remembered his first love paroxysms when he discovered women painted by Cranach, 'their insolent beauty all the more naked for their transparent veils...there was born in me the desire to see through the transparency.' (Blumenfeld: My One Hundred Best Photographs, p. 25)
and from The naked and the veiled
Erwin Blumenfeld shot to fame in 1938 with the publication of 14 sensational nude photographs in Verve magazine. The commission led to a career as one of the most gifted and sought-after fashion photographers of the '40s and '50s. However, throughout his career Blumenfeld remained fascinated with the naked female form and its representation within photography. In The Naked and the Veiled: The Photographic Nudes of Erwin Blumenfeld, his son Yorick traces Erwin's fascination with the nude to his visit at the age of 9 to an artist's studio in Berlin. Surprised by the young boy's entrance, the naked model quickly threw a diaphanous cloth over herself. But the outline of her body was still visible against the light. Inspired by this moment, Blumenfeld later claimed that women could become even more naked by their transparent veils. A psychoanalyst would have a field day with this comment, as well as Blumenfeld's subsequently compulsive and fetishistic photographs of the naked female form, captured over 40 years spanning his early days in Holland in the 1920s to his later years in the USA in the 1960s.
The 120 illustrations in duotone and color crisply reproduce Blumenfeld's obsession, from early experiments in form inspired by surrealism (and Man Ray in particular) to later, more classical nudes, playing with images of transparency and opacity. The Naked and the Veiled is an extraordinary photographic diary of a self-confessed erotomaniac.
posted by adamvasco at 4:51 PM on November 20, 2014 [2 favorites]
Sure Blumfeld was an unabashed erotocist but he was also a supurb photographer who reproduced what previously had only been seen in paintings.
“His images are sometimes so complex, it’s hard to figure out how he did it,” says Ute Eskildsen, curator of a retrospective of over 300 of his works at the Jeu de Paume in Paris
From Christies
'The female body became the plaything of Blumenfeld's fantasies; he cut it up, elongated it, distorted it, underlining the abstract beauty of an isolated detail. He was obsessed with Woman, transforming her, at times, into an ageless inaccessible goddess, at other times into a sleeping beauty surprised by the voyeur while awaiting the prince charming who will wake her from her long sleep.
The 'platonic erotomaniac' placed Woman beyond Blumenfeld's reach. From the depth of his childhood memories he remembered his first love paroxysms when he discovered women painted by Cranach, 'their insolent beauty all the more naked for their transparent veils...there was born in me the desire to see through the transparency.' (Blumenfeld: My One Hundred Best Photographs, p. 25)
and from The naked and the veiled
Erwin Blumenfeld shot to fame in 1938 with the publication of 14 sensational nude photographs in Verve magazine. The commission led to a career as one of the most gifted and sought-after fashion photographers of the '40s and '50s. However, throughout his career Blumenfeld remained fascinated with the naked female form and its representation within photography. In The Naked and the Veiled: The Photographic Nudes of Erwin Blumenfeld, his son Yorick traces Erwin's fascination with the nude to his visit at the age of 9 to an artist's studio in Berlin. Surprised by the young boy's entrance, the naked model quickly threw a diaphanous cloth over herself. But the outline of her body was still visible against the light. Inspired by this moment, Blumenfeld later claimed that women could become even more naked by their transparent veils. A psychoanalyst would have a field day with this comment, as well as Blumenfeld's subsequently compulsive and fetishistic photographs of the naked female form, captured over 40 years spanning his early days in Holland in the 1920s to his later years in the USA in the 1960s.
The 120 illustrations in duotone and color crisply reproduce Blumenfeld's obsession, from early experiments in form inspired by surrealism (and Man Ray in particular) to later, more classical nudes, playing with images of transparency and opacity. The Naked and the Veiled is an extraordinary photographic diary of a self-confessed erotomaniac.
posted by adamvasco at 4:51 PM on November 20, 2014 [2 favorites]
The breasts are the least interesting part of this photo.
posted by kenko at 5:05 PM on November 20, 2014
posted by kenko at 5:05 PM on November 20, 2014
Warning to other readers: kenko's link is to a site that's NSFW (depending on where you W, of course).
OK, so the breasts are the least interesting part. What's the most interesting part?
I know I sound boorish, but this has bothered me ever since I first studied photography. Why are all the nudes women? Why all the boobs? Why can't you do an interesting study of texture without a woman taking her clothes off?
posted by The corpse in the library at 6:13 PM on November 20, 2014
OK, so the breasts are the least interesting part. What's the most interesting part?
I know I sound boorish, but this has bothered me ever since I first studied photography. Why are all the nudes women? Why all the boobs? Why can't you do an interesting study of texture without a woman taking her clothes off?
posted by The corpse in the library at 6:13 PM on November 20, 2014
It is possible for a man to find simple beauty in the female form without it being reduced to lust or objectification. The world is full of beautiful things. Some of them are human women.
Nude photography is not all women. To tip the scales a bit, look up the work of Robert Mappelthorpe.
posted by Devils Rancher at 9:21 PM on November 20, 2014
Nude photography is not all women. To tip the scales a bit, look up the work of Robert Mappelthorpe.
posted by Devils Rancher at 9:21 PM on November 20, 2014
I know I sound boorish, but this has bothered me ever since I first studied photography.
You really are kinda threadshitting. Maybe you might want to skip this thread instead?
Amazing photography, and just an excellently formatted post all around, adamvasco, thanks for posting it.
The man was a genius.
posted by misha at 10:13 PM on November 20, 2014 [1 favorite]
You really are kinda threadshitting. Maybe you might want to skip this thread instead?
Amazing photography, and just an excellently formatted post all around, adamvasco, thanks for posting it.
The man was a genius.
posted by misha at 10:13 PM on November 20, 2014 [1 favorite]
I've seen a few of his photographs before, and they are incredibly striking. I would love to see these in person some day.
posted by Dip Flash at 11:01 PM on November 20, 2014
posted by Dip Flash at 11:01 PM on November 20, 2014
The photomontages are so tactile.
I've been really wanting to put a darkroom together. I used to really enjoy darkroom as an artform
posted by mattoxic at 11:21 PM on November 20, 2014
I've been really wanting to put a darkroom together. I used to really enjoy darkroom as an artform
posted by mattoxic at 11:21 PM on November 20, 2014
This is a fantastic post, thanks. I'd never heard of Erwin Blumenfeld before. His work is beautiful and haunting and fill me with awe.
mattoxic: "I've been really wanting to put a darkroom together. I used to really enjoy darkroom as an artform"
I took a black and white photography class when I was in 5th or 6th grade, and I've wanted to set up a darkroom ever since, but I think I looked for a how-to of what chemicals and setup and whatnot, and just got lost trying to figure it out.
posted by dejah420 at 6:10 AM on November 21, 2014
mattoxic: "I've been really wanting to put a darkroom together. I used to really enjoy darkroom as an artform"
I took a black and white photography class when I was in 5th or 6th grade, and I've wanted to set up a darkroom ever since, but I think I looked for a how-to of what chemicals and setup and whatnot, and just got lost trying to figure it out.
posted by dejah420 at 6:10 AM on November 21, 2014
> You really are kinda threadshitting. Maybe you might want to skip this thread instead?
I apologize. That wasn't my intention. I agree with most of what's said here, and didn't mean to derail with my Photo 101 questions.
posted by The corpse in the library at 6:33 AM on November 21, 2014 [1 favorite]
I apologize. That wasn't my intention. I agree with most of what's said here, and didn't mean to derail with my Photo 101 questions.
posted by The corpse in the library at 6:33 AM on November 21, 2014 [1 favorite]
corpse
no need to apologise, far worse things happen here as you know.
Here is an article What makes the nude into a work of art? with many responses.
I must admit to not reading them all.
Culture is probably a lot of the answer.
Boobs are beautiful could be another valid answer.
posted by adamvasco at 8:10 AM on November 21, 2014 [1 favorite]
no need to apologise, far worse things happen here as you know.
Here is an article What makes the nude into a work of art? with many responses.
I must admit to not reading them all.
Culture is probably a lot of the answer.
Boobs are beautiful could be another valid answer.
posted by adamvasco at 8:10 AM on November 21, 2014 [1 favorite]
Terrific post (and terrific photos). But a quick warning--if you click on any of the photos in the "Nude Under a Wet Veil" link to embiggen them you'll be taken to a site where you do get the embiggened photo but it's surrounded by hard-core porn shots.
posted by yoink at 9:05 AM on November 21, 2014
posted by yoink at 9:05 AM on November 21, 2014
« Older Position yourself, whenever possible, at the top... | Always on Twine Newer »
This thread has been archived and is closed to new comments
posted by vibrotronica at 2:57 PM on November 20, 2014