American Grotesque: the Life and Art of William Mortensen Free

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Goodreads helps you keep track of books you want to read. Want to Read American Grotesque: The Life and Art of William Mortensen. Want to Read Currently Reading Read. Other editions. Enlarge cover. Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Open Preview See a Problem? Details if other :. Thanks for telling us about the problem. Return to Book Page. Preview — American Grotesque by William Mortensen. American Grotesque by William Mortensen. Larry Lytle Editor. Michael Moynihan Editor. American Grotesque is a lavish retrospective of grotesque, occult, and erotic images by the forgotten Hollywood photographer William Mortensen —an innovative pictorialist visionary whom Ansel Adams called the "Antichrist" and to whom Anton LaVey dedicated The Satanic Bible. Mortensen's countless technical innovations and inspired use of special effects prefigure American Grotesque is a lavish retrospective of grotesque, occult, and erotic images by the forgotten Hollywood photographer William Mortensen —an innovative pictorialist visionary whom Ansel Adams called the "Antichrist" and to whom Anton LaVey dedicated The Satanic Bible. Mortensen's countless technical innovations and inspired use of special effects prefigures the development of digital manipulation and Photoshop. Includes a gallery of more than one hundred striking photographs in duotone and color, many of them previously unseen, and accompanying essays by Mortensen and others on his life, work, techniques, and influence. Get A Copy. Hardcoverpages. Published November 25th by Feral House first published November 11th More Details Friend Reviews. To see what your friends thought of this book, please sign up. To ask other readers questions about American Grotesqueplease sign up. Lists with This Book. Community Reviews. Showing Average rating 4. Rating details. More filters. Sort order. Start your review of American Grotesque. Jun 06, Baal Of rated it it was amazing Shelves: cheesecakesardinessquid. Back in my early post-college days when I had 2 or 3 roommates, one of those roomies who had a college degree in the arts, when I expressed my appreciation for American Grotesque: The Life and Art of William Mortensen work of H. Giger and Salvador Dali, informed me that I had barbaric taste in art and spent some amount of time trying to convince me that I should love Seurat, Monet, and Picasso who were genuine artists unlike that hack Giger, and that lowbrow work-a-day Surrealist nonsense. Of course no amount of discourse on the merits of pointil Back in my early post-college days when I had 2 or 3 roommates, one of those roomies who had a college degree in the arts, when I expressed my appreciation for the work of H. Of course no amount of discourse on the merits of pointillist American Grotesque: The Life and Art of William Mortensen, Impressionism, or the Blue Period could force my taste anywhere, and as much as I can engage American Grotesque: The Life and Art of William Mortensen the historical and intellectual merits of classical artwork, it doesn't change the fact of what affects me emotionally. Nor does it alter the fact that I'll never hang a print of A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte on my wall because I don't give a fuck about the subject matter of a bunch of hoity-toity people lounging on some grass, and I do give a fuck about Alien, bio-mechanoids, and chest- bursters, and I do want that hanging on my wall. All of this is a roundabout way to get to the subject of this book, one William Mortensen, who I had never heard of before buying this book a few months back, and his erasure from the history of photography by the incredibly well-known and regarded Ansel Adams, whom I have known about since I was a child. I remember people waxing enthusiastic about Ansel Adams. My own reaction towards his work is general that it is stunningly well executed, and in general doesn't speak to me at all. I will never hang a piece of Adams work on on my wall, the facetious reason being because of my barbaric lack of taste for high art and my general distrust of anything "purist", and the more accurately reason being because I have no interest in landscapes or portraiture in my decor. In contrast there are several of Mortensen's pieces that I would consider having as prints for my wall. My taste runs towards the grotesque, the surreal, and the weird, and if that makes me a philistine, so be it. This book is a fantastic insight into Moretnsen's life and his influence on the history and development of photography. It covers his viewpoint on pictorialism photography which included all kinds of treatments and effects during the processing of the original film through negatives and to the final prints. These American Grotesque: The Life and Art of William Mortensen essentially physical precursors to modern day image software, and included such things as etching, physical scraping of the medium, hand tinting, drawing, and layering of images. The middle section of the book is Venus And Vulcan: An Essay On Creative Pictorialism in which Mortensen spells out in great detail his philosophy and contrasts it with the purist school primarily outlined by the f. Another section of the book describes the actual methods used and developed by Mortensen including bromoil transfer, the abrasion-tone process, and the metal-chrome process. Even though I am not a photographer I still found this section fascinating partially because of the sheer level of complexity and skill required - all of it now replaced by Photoshop, et al. What I found particularly fascinating just how much Ansel Adams hated Mortensen the quote on the front cover from Adams is "For us, Mortensen American Grotesque: The Life and Art of William Mortensen the anti-Christ" but also the fact that he deliberately used his influence to suppress the display of Mortensen's work, and deliberately help to erase him from the history of photography. It took me back to those days of post college arguments about art, and I suspect the my roommate and I would take opposite sides on this particular issue as well, but rest assured he and I are still friends, and he is a good person. This is a gorgeously produced book, with clean heavy paper and excellent reproduction of the photos, and I'm happy to add it to my bookshelf. And just to provide some balance, I found at work today Ansel Adams: An Autobiography which I snagged and I will be reading sometime in the next year. Mar 19, Karl rated it it was amazing Shelves: books-bought. William Mortensen was an American Photographer, primarily known for his Hollywood portraits in the ss in the pictorial style. Mortensen began his photographic career taking portraits of Hollywood actors and film stills. He preferred the pictorialism style of manipulating photographs to produce romanticist painting-like effects. The styl William Mortensen was an American Photographer, primarily known for his Hollywood portraits in the ss in the pictorial style. The style brought him criticism from straight photographers of the modern realist movement and, in particular, he carried on a prolonged written debate with Ansel Adams. His arguments defending romanticism photography led him to be ostracized from most authoritative canons of photographic history. Due to his approach both technically and philosophically in opposition to straight or purist adherents - he is among the most problematic figures in photography in the twentieth-century. Historians and critics have described his images as "anecdotal, highly sentimental, mildly erotic hand-colored prints", "bowdlerized versions American Grotesque: The Life and Art of William Mortensen garage calendar pin-ups and sadomasochist entertainments", "contrived set-ups and sappy facial expressions", and finally he was described by Ansel Adams as alternately the "Devil", and "the anti-Christ". View 2 comments. Dec 29, Autumn rated it liked it Shelves: artanddesignbiographycaliforniacelebritiesAmerican Grotesque: The Life and Art of William Mortensendeathfairy-tales. Recommended if your favorite movie of all time is Haxan. Oct 10, Mary Overton added it. His vision is bizarre, uncanny, terrifying, repellant, fascinating … the material of dreams and the unconscious. He often took hundreds of exposures of his American Grotesque: The Life and Art of William Mortensen. He began with an idea, but allowed it to play out and metamorphose in its own way as he worked with his model. Something might happen during the session that would lead to an unexpected outcome that was better than the initial direction he had pursued. In this, he was a bit like a surrealist, allowing the vagaries of chance or fate to act as part of the creative process. It might not be until American Grotesque: The Life and Art of William Mortensen the negatives were developed and the proof sheets made that he would notice previously unseen possibilities for an image that would then become the raw material for the finished picture. In this way he was essentially creating a new image that derived partly from a photograph and partly from his imagination. What mattered was a mastery of technique and materials in their enhancement of the concept. While the visual angle of the eye is much wider than that of the camera, its range of attention is much narrower. Thus the literal vision of the camera greatly exceeds that of the eye, which is inclined to see only that which it wishes to see, noting the essential points and ignoring or subordinating the minor ones. The camera, however, diligently records trivialities along with important matters. Hence it is doubly imperative that photography learn to avail itself of selection to the same comprehensive degree that the older arts do: by this it must stand or fall as an art. Otherwise we must concede that the camera has no more artistic potentiality than a gas-meter, and that its finest flower is a photostat. Three corollaries are derived from this proposition. As a language, art fails unless it is clear and unequivocal in saying what it means. Ideas may be communicated, not things. Art expresses itself, as all languages do, in terms of symbols. Jan 12, Andy Nieradko rated it it was amazing. Unfairly excluded from most written histories of photography, this book shows why Mortensen was an important visionary and should be remembered. Important in his own time, but quite at home in the digital age. The essays in the book are well crafted, but the breath taking photography will never let you forget it. Nov 28, John Roberson rated it really liked it. An interesting introduction it certainly was for me to a very unique Somewhere in between? An artist, definitely. And I give this book 4 stars on the basis of the amazing high quality of the work that is presented therein. But what keeps it from 5 is the high ratio of textual material much of it filler to photos presented. Reading Mortensen's own writings is great, but the rest could have been less and his photos could have been more. I say this as the simplest online An interesting introduction it certainly was for me to a very unique I say this as the simplest online search reveals all these photos, plus many, many more equally striking. American Grotesque » Feral House

Do the same for William Mortensen and you get what appears to be an etching of a naked nubile witch perched provocatively on a broomstick. Yet at the height of his fame in the s, Mortensen was perhaps the best-known practitioner of his craft: the first photographer-as-celebrity. Determined to find work as an actress, Vina soon changed her name to Fay Wray. She sent her mother copies of the photos Mortensen had taken of her, artfully draped in crepe de chine. American Grotesque: The Life and Art of William Mortensen Hollywood, Mortensen worked with Cecil B. DeMille — he was the first photographer to shoot still photos on set rather than posed in a studio. He was an ardent admirer of Goya and Daumier, and with his Hollywood access to costumes, sets, makeup and masks, would create elaborate tableaux vivants in his studio. He mastered the bromoil process early on and later developed and refined his own techniques for lighting, multiple exposures and the like. He was most famous and later infamous for retouching prints though seldom negatives with the abrasion control process, which used razor blades, carbon pencil, ink, powder tone, sable brush, eraser, pumice. The resulting images are almost indistinguishable from etchings or paintings. As the years passed, his work increasingly tended toward the gothic, a trend enhanced after he met occultist Manly P. Hall in In the s, Mortensen left Hollywood and founded his own school of photography in American Grotesque: The Life and Art of William Mortensen Beach, where his students included Hollywood cinematographers and silent film stars. The photographers sparred publicly in serialized essays that ran in the pages of Camera Craft magazine in Tragically, Mortensen was on the losing side of this particular artistic skirmish. According to critic A. This is often true. Others are merely camp. He had a legendary predilection for shooting female nudes and as his career declined produced way too many of the cheesecake photos he himself had once deplored. You American Grotesque: The Life and Art of William Mortensen occasionally receive promotional content from the Los Angeles Times. Review: Not your average queer, meta-fictional spooky Victorian romp. Bestsellers List Sunday, Oct. These biographies explain why. Hot Property. About Us. Brand Publishing. Times Events. Times News Platforms. Times Store. Facebook Twitter Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options. A self-portrait of William Mortensen, circa Feral House. Enter Email Address. More From the Los Angeles Times. Books Review: Not your average queer, meta-fictional spooky Victorian romp. Books Bestsellers List Sunday, Oct. Review: 'American Grotesque' resurrects William Mortensen's photos - Los Angeles Times

American Grotesque is a lavish retrospective of grotesque, occult, and erotic images by the forgotten Hollywood photographer William Mortensen —an innovative pictorialist visionary whom Ansel Adams called the "Antichrist" and to whom Anton LaVey dedicated The Satanic Bible. Mortensen's countless technical innovations and inspired use of American Grotesque: The Life and Art of William Mortensen effects prefigures the development of digital manipulation and Photoshop. Includes a gallery of more than one hundred striking photographs in duotone and color, many of them previously unseen, and accompanying essays by Mortensen and others on his life, work, techniques, and influence. All products on the Smithsonian magazine Store are sold through affiliates. All returns, defects, or inquiries about products should be directed to the affiliate. The Smithsonian is not responsible for and has no control over affiliate transactions. Please note that these vendors operate independently of the Smithsonian and may have their own privacy policies. When you visit their websites, you leave our Website and no longer will be subject to our privacy and security policies. The Smithsonian is not responsible for the privacy or security American Grotesque: The Life and Art of William Mortensen or the content of other sites, and such links are not intended to be an endorsement of those sites or their content. Categories Apparel. The Great Courses. Categories Categories.