A large collection of Rejlander’s work is currently on display at The National Media Museum, Bradford. However, his influence extended for decades in the form of increasingly frequent debates regarding the merits of pictorialism, painterly effects and the value of more sharply detailed work. A series of photographs of facial expressions and gestures made by Rejlander was used by Charles Darwin in his Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals (1872).Īlthough he enjoyed a period of critical acclaim, Rejlander died impoverished. Rejlander was well known for his ability to capture an emotion or sentiment in his work.

In many of his works he sought painterly effects by combining and superimposing several negatives to make one print, resulting in a final image that moved beyond the results achieved by traditional photography printing techniques.

The way of folly is characterized by evil men who seek material gain through violence. Wisdom leads to peace and security, while the way of folly ends with death and destruction. He looked to the example of the Old Masters for their use of composition and pose, and often set up his own elaborate compositions in his studio. Proverbs chapter 1 is like a road map in that it outlines life in terms of only two ways-the way of wisdom and the way of folly. In his efforts to elevate photography to the status of a fine art, he made photographs that imitated painting. Rejlander rejected contemporary conceptions of photography as a scientific or technical medium. After considerable travel he settled in England, where from 1853 he practiced photography. Rejlander received his general education in Sweden, and studied painting and sculpture in Rome. Oscar Gustave Rejlander (1813-1875) was born in Sweden and is widely regarded as the ‘father of art photography’. The work will be shown together with a slideshow of photomontages created by other artists during the course of the 20th century. Typically Victorian, Rejlander’s work shows two apprentices choosing opposite paths in life: a path of immediate pleasure and sin contrasted to a path of education, trade and charity. The Two Ways of Life is an early photomontage of thirty prints, based on Raphael’s School of Athens (1510-11), an allegory of vice and virtue. It is a stylistic element that has been utilised by movements that include the Russian avant-garde, Cubism, Futurism, Surrealism, Pop Art, and that continues to be popular among many contemporary artists. Photomontage has been used by some of the most influential artists of the 20th century. Rejlander was also an important pioneer of photomontage, a technique that was later embraced by artists as well as photographers. Oscar Gustave Rejlander (1813-1875) was part of a generation of radical, young photographers working in the 19th century. Garage Centre for Contemporary Culture will be hosting an exhibition of Oscar Gustave Rejlander’s work, The Two Ways of Life (1857), to coincide with Portfolio Review Russia, which will also be held at Garage.

Rejlander the two ways of life