"Pike Pool" (from below) c. 1880s

Curator: This is Peter Henry Emerson’s gelatin-silver print, “Pike Pool (from below),” taken sometime in the 1880s. It resides here at the Art Institute of Chicago. Editor: There’s such a quietness about this scene. The dense trees surrounding the water…it feels almost womb-like. You just want to disappear into it, to let nature absorb you completely. Curator: It does have that serene quality. Emerson was quite the proponent of naturalism in photography, a movement that championed representing subjects as they are, without idealization. He even wrote extensively about what he termed "artistic" or "naturalistic" photography. Editor: Interesting! So he wasn't simply documenting a scene. What were the specific tenets he laid out for “naturalistic” photography? Curator: He emphasized truthful representation, focusing on capturing the atmospheric effects and tones that the human eye actually perceives. Not unlike the Impressionists. Editor: That makes sense, considering the date! And, wow, that phrase rings especially true here: The subtle gradations of light…the water rendered almost indistinct by shadow and reflection... It challenges this assumption of photography offering some pure form of objective record, or proof, doesn’t it? Curator: Absolutely. He believed in what he called "differential focusing"–where the main subject is sharp, but the periphery is intentionally blurred to mimic human vision. Although later in life, he did renounce some of his theories, claiming that photography could never truly be considered high art. Editor: Oh, how tragic! The inner conflict of the artist! Maybe it stems from photography's democratization as a medium. I think about access, class… things painting couldn’t really offer at that time. The ramifications are profound, I think, still playing out. And yet here it sits! What do you make of it now? Curator: Well, I see Emerson’s “Pike Pool” as this lovely document of a particular moment, and sensibility. But more, I think about its potential to still prompt discourse about both artistic intention and representation itself, you know? To make the viewer question what it is they actually “see.” Editor: Yes, it does make you question what you see… I find it deeply inspiring, this negotiation between what something *is*, versus how we *perceive* it. Thank you, Emerson, for this very generative conflict!