The Dancing Trees

A photographer who vigorously promoted the work of modern artists in all media, Alfred Stieglitz spearheaded turn–of–the–century debates on the role of photography as a fine art. Initially, this inquiry led him to promote Pictorialism, a style imitative of painting. By the 1910s, however, he had renounced this painterly mode in favor of “straight photography,” exploring qualities that—so he argued—photography alone possessed. At his summer house on Lake George, in upstate New York, Stieglitz isolated the components of landscape, photographing clouds without any indication of a horizon line and sections of trees separated from the surrounding woods. In The Dancing Trees, the composition produced by the layered and interlaced trunks and branches highlights Stieglitz’s primary aim at this time: “to think more about the relationships in the pictures than subject–matter for its own sake. For more on the Alfred Stieglitz collection at the Art Institute, along with in-depth object information, please visit the website: The Alfred Stieglitz Collection.