id: 159975 accession number: 1997.245 share license status: CC0 url: https://clevelandart.org/art/1997.245 updated: 2024-03-26 02:00:33.594000 Life and Landscape on the Norfolk Broads: Poling the Marsh Hay, 1886. Peter Henry Emerson (British, 1856–1936). Platinum print; image: 23.3 x 28.8 cm (9 3/16 x 11 5/16 in.); matted: 45.7 x 55.9 cm (18 x 22 in.). The Cleveland Museum of Art, John L. Severance Fund 1997.245 title: Poling the Marsh Hay title in original language: series: Life and Landscape on the Norfolk Broads series in original language: creation date: 1886 creation date earliest: 1886 creation date latest: 1886 current location: creditline: John L. Severance Fund copyright: --- culture: England, 19th century technique: platinum print department: Photography collection: PH - British 19th Century type: Photograph find spot: catalogue raisonne: --- CREATORS * Peter Henry Emerson (British, 1856–1936) - artist Peter Henry Emerson British, b. Cuba, 1856-1936 Trained as a physician, Peter Henry Emerson abandoned medicine soon after receiving his degree in order to take up photography. His thorough command of the medium and his interest in reproducing rural subjects in a simple, direct manner led to an approach that he called naturalism. Emerson argued vehemently that the inherent qualities of photography should be used to portray subjects in a manner that eschewed artifice and the unnatural intrusions of the photographer's aesthetic style. This was in distinction to the academicism that Emerson despised, exemplified by the artificially constructed, often cloying images of Oscar G. Rejlander and Henry Peach Robinson. Emerson's several illustrated volumes of rural British life, beginning with Life and Landscape on the Norfolk Broads (1886), combined a clarity of vision derived from the advanced science of his day with a retrospective romanticism derived from French and British painting. The result was a unique style that helped direct photography away from artifice toward the visual integrity now associated with modernism and straight photography. Emerson's attempts as a writer and speaker to develop a theoretical base for his style, while highly regarded, are today thought to be a less powerful statement of his opinions than the work he produced. T.W.F. * Sampson Low, Marston, Searle, and Rivington [with T. F. Goodall - publisher --- measurements: Image: 23.3 x 28.8 cm (9 3/16 x 11 5/16 in.); Matted: 45.7 x 55.9 cm (18 x 22 in.) state of the work: edition of the work: support materials: inscriptions: inscription: Written in pencil on verso: "MFAH AOP EXH# 154"; on recto: "L1194" translation: remark: --- CURRENT EXHIBITIONS --- LEGACY EXHIBITIONS --- PROVENANCE (Charles Isaacs Photographs, Inc., New York, NY) date: footnotes: citations: The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH date: December 1, 1997 footnotes: citations: --- fun fact: digital description: wall description: --- RELATED WORKS --- CITATIONS --- IMAGES web: https://openaccess-cdn.clevelandart.org/1997.245/1997.245_web.jpg print: https://openaccess-cdn.clevelandart.org/1997.245/1997.245_print.jpg full: https://openaccess-cdn.clevelandart.org/1997.245/1997.245_full.tif