The criticism of photography as art : the photographs of Jerry Uelsmann

We cite from the Foreword : /
"Three years ago two graduate students in photography I wrote papers for me in which they attempted to apply the techniques of art analysis and criticism (morphology, connois-seurship, etc.) to photographs. The results were disappointing. The students simply did not know how to make the techniques relevant to the analysis of photographs. My subsequent research into photographic literature made it evident that my students were not alone: I discovered only a handful of writers who had written important, sustained, analytical criticism of individual photographs in the entire history of the medium. And, although I found a vast body of literature which deals with photographic esthetics, most of it is made obsolete by current developments in both photography and esthetics. The present study is thus offered to the reader as a modest attempt to assess the value of the various partisan positions in photographic esthetics and criticism and to offer my own suggestions concerning what can be profitably written about meaning and value in photographs...."
The Foreword is digital available as: John_L_Ward_Criticism_1970_Foreword.pdf - / please click URL below.