Alfred Stieglitz's The Hand of Man and The Steerage

The Hand of Man by Alfred Stieglitz, 1902

The Steerage by Alfred Stieglitz, 1907

    I really wanted to take a look at another photograph of Alfred Stieglitz’s for this blog post, because I’ve always been interested in both photography and fine art, and have felt invalidated in the past by people who believe the two practices can’t overlap. Stieglitz however, back in the early 20th century, was rather obsessed with that very idea. He’s credited with being the proprietor of what would eventually become known as Gallery 291 - a small art gallery dedicated to showcasing mostly photography - and the editor of popular photographic journals of the era, Camera Notes and Camera Work (Szarkowski).

    The photo on the top, titled The Hand of Man, was taken in 1902 and originally published in Stieglitz’s debut issue of his journal Camera Work in 1903 (The Art Institute of Chicago). It depicts a locomotive blowing black smoke into an overcast Long Island sky while chugging along a maze of overlapping tracks. We spoke in class about the picture on the bottom - Stieglitz’s favorite of his career titled The Steerage - which depicts strong lines of a bridge and other structural elements of a barge leading your eye through an interesting composition of people situated on two levels of a ship in 1907 (The Met Museum).

    I wanted to compare these two photographs of his because, although the subjects are entirely different, they both really exemplify his photographic style and support the idea that photography alone can create strong compositional art pictures as well as traditional artists could through drawing and painting. I also think The Hand of Man is an interesting example of Stieglitz’s exploration in his technique that eventually led him to take The Steerage a few years later. In both of these photos, we see his preference for and mastery of using strong directional lines and contrast in his compositions to guide your eye around the piece and create visual interest.
    Actually, when first seeing The Steerage in the presentation in class, I thought he was experimenting with combining negatives to make a composite photo, as others were doing around that time. The dissection of the photo by the bridge in the middle, and the difference in mood between the women on the lower level and the men on the upper level, felt entirely too intentional of an artistic statement to be made without manipulation. But after looking more closely, I noticed the continuity of other aspects of the photo between both halves and realized what a fascinating naturally-occurring composition it was.

    We see the same visual techniques in this photo The Hand of Man from five years before, suggesting he’d been exploring these themes throughout his career. The horizon splits the photo in half, giving us the dark details of the smoke and the Long Island architecture against the light sky in the top half, and the light details of the reflections on the tracks against the dark foreground, creating visual contrast more literally using value as opposed to the contrast of gender/social class in The Steerage. There is something very somber about the depth of value and overcast sky in this photograph, with the layers of structures blending back into the horizon, that suggests a sense of mourning the loss of the natural landscape to the hand of man. So although this photograph doesn’t feature any people, the mood created by the visual contrast in value is still able to invoke emotion and thought in the viewer. 

    While some people still discredit photography as an art form, I think Stieglitz proved the point in the early 20th century that really good art is driven by composition and concept, and that even straight photographers, with no interest or ability in traditional media, can make a place for themselves at that table.






Works Cited:

The Art Institute of Chicago. (n.d.). The Hand of Man. Retrieved September 14, 2021, from https://www.artic.edu/artworks/66749/the-hand-of-man.

The Met Museum. (n.d.). The Steerage. metmuseum.org. Retrieved September 14, 2021, from https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/267836.

Stieglitz, A. (1902). The Hand of Man. MoMA. photograph, New York City. Retrieved September 14, 2021, from https://www.moma.org/collection/works/44102?artist_id=5664&page=1&sov_referrer=artist.

Stieglitz, A. (1907). The Steerage. Met Museum. photograph. Retrieved September 14, 2021, from https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/267836.Szarkowski, J. (n.d.). Alfred Stieglitz American Photographer. Encyclopædia Britannica. Retrieved September 14, 2021, from https://www.britannica.com/biography/Alfred-Stieglitz.