In my Introduction to Media Studies course we briefly studied Walter Benjamin's writing. Our lecture quickly introduced the artist Karl Blossfeldt as an example of Benjamin's theory of the optical unconscious: "It is through photography that we first discover the existence of this optical unconscious through psychoanalysis. Details of structure, cellular tissue, with which technology and medicine are normally concerned-all this is in its origins more native to the camera than the atmospheric landscape or the soulful portrait. Yet at the same time photography reveals in this material the physiognomic aspects of visual worlds which dwell in the smallest things, meaningful yet covert enough to find a hiding place in waking dreams...Thus Blossfeldt with his astonishing plant photographs reveals the forms of ancient columns in horse willow, a bishop's crosier in the ostrich fern, totem poles in the tenfold enlargements of chestnut and maple shoots, and gothic tracery in the fuller's thistle." (59)
For some background information, Blossfeldt (1865-1932) was raised in Schielo, Germany and as a young child enjoyed walking and collecting flowers and plant cuttings, which he then arranged into small gardens. He began work as a sculpturing and iron casting apprentice, and then received a scholarship to study at the Royal Arts and Crafts Museum. For several years he toured Europe with his professor of ornament and design, Moritz Meurer. Rather than collect plant specimens for models, that would quickly wilt, he began taking photographs for a reference. In 1899 Blossfeldt became a professor of modeling at the same Institute of Royal Arts and Crafts Museum, a position he held for 31 years. He continued to collect pictures for his teaching, on which Hans Christian Adam comments "He did not consider his photos an artistic achievement in their own right. For him, the camera served only to bring out and reproduce plant details that hitherto had been ignored owing to their tininess."
Blossfeldt is considered to be one of the leaders of the movement, "New Objectivity" (neue sachlichkeit). As a reaction to World War I, this style is characterized by a cool, detached approach. The MoMA defines it well as, "a style in Germany in the 1920s as a challenge to Expressionism. As its name suggests, it offered a return to unsentimental reality and a focus on the objective world, as opposed to the more abstract, romantic, or idealistic tendencies of Expressionism." Blossfeldt's work is objective and cool by removing the plants from their original context, placing them against a blank white background instead. Though I would often say that I am drawn to the sentimentality of the romantic era, visually I often am drawn to clean, elegant lines.
Blossfeldt's "breakthrough" took place when art dealer Nierendorf approached him and wanted to publish his work, Art Forms in Nature (1927). The couple who archives Blossfeldt's work, Ann and Jurgen Wilde, found collages of photographs that were never published by Blossfeldt himself and stated the following: "Nierendorf played an important part in the reevaluation of Blossfeldt's photographic work, not only as a 'discoverer,' and as an initiator of Art Forms in Nature, but also as author of the book's introductory essay. Nierendorf's role as the 'engineer' of Blossfeldt's success is often mentioned in the related literature. However, as the working collages have established, Blossfeldt himself was actively involved in the publication of his book, and various factors indicate that between 1926 and 1928 Blossfeldt used the collages in planning Art Forms in Nature."
In a later work, Magic Garden of Nature (1932), Blossfeldt himself commented on how he viewed his work which again echoes the relationship of his work to architecture. It also highlights how Blossfeldt was not concerned with his own artistry, rather, in keeping with "new objectivity," he viewed himself as a simply the facilitator to showcasing the art inherent in nature: "The plant may be described as an architectural structure, shaped and designed ornamentally and objectively. Compelled in its fight for existence to build in a purposeful manner, it contracts the necessary, practical units for its advancement, governed by the laws familiar to every architect, and combines practicality and expedience in the highest form of art, but equally in the realm of science, Nature is our best teacher."
Sources:
"Karl Blossfeldt: 1865-1932." Adam, Hans Christian.
"Working Collages." Blossfeldt, Karl (edited by Ann and Jurgen Wilde).
"A Short History of Photography." Benjamin, Walter.
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