EMERSON, PETER HENRY

born May 13, 1856, Cuba died May 12, 1936, Falmouth, Cornwall, Eng. English photographer, one of the first to promote photography as an independent art and to formulate an aesthetic theory for photography based on its peculiar characteristics. Trained as a physician, Emerson first began to photograph as an aid to an anthropological study of the peasants and fishermen of East Anglia. These photographs were published in such books as Life and Landscape on the Norfolk Broads (1886) and Pictures of East Anglian Life (1888). They form an intimate documentation of rural English life in the late 19th century. Emerson soon became convinced that photography was a medium of artistic expression superior to all other black-and-white graphic media because it reproduces the light, tones, and textures of nature with unrivaled fidelity. He was repelled by currently fashionable composite photographs, which sought artistic merit by imitating sentimental genre paintings. In his handbook Naturalistic Photography (1889), he outlined his system of aesthetics, which he called naturalism. A correct photograph, he stated, should be direct and simple, showing real people in their own environment, not costumed models posed before fake backdrops. Compositions should be spontaneous, ignoring predetermined formulas. Above all, photographs should look like photographs, not paintings. Emerson's book was so persuasive that, after its publication, he was generally considered one of the world's leading photographers. In 1891, however, he published a black-bordered pamphlet The Death of Naturalistic Photography, recanting his opinion that the accurate reproduction of nature was synonymous with art. Nevertheless, his original views remained influential and formed the rationale of much 20th-century photography.