Impressionistic Photographs
Pond in the Fog represents an artistic philosophy of some turn-of-the-century photographers.
John Chislett, like other members of the Salon Club of America, was devoted to the creative rather than the mimetic possibilities of photography. His soft-focused images and use of the tonally rich platinum printing process demonstrate his interest in the suggestive effects of light. Like other Salon photographers at the turn of the century who aspired to art, Chislett believed the medium's true aim was to record the impression of facts, not the facts themselves.
Learn more about the art of early photography in our online exhibition American Photographs: The First Century.
Source: Merry A. Foresta. American Photographs: The First Century (Washington, D.C.: National Museum of American Art with the Smithsonian Institution Press, 1996).
Pictured: John Chislett, 1856–1938, Pond in the Fog, about 1900, platium print on paper, 7 1/2 x 9 5/8 in., Smithsonian American Art Museum, Museum purchase from the Charles Isaacs Collection made possible in part by the Luisita L. and Franz H. Denhausen Endowment.
Pond in the Fog represents an artistic philosophy of some turn-of-the-century photographers.
John Chislett, like other members of the Salon Club of America, was devoted to the creative rather than the mimetic possibilities of photography. His soft-focused images and use of the tonally rich platinum printing process demonstrate his interest in the suggestive effects of light. Like other Salon photographers at the turn of the century who aspired to art, Chislett believed the medium's true aim was to record the impression of facts, not the facts themselves.