CLARENCE JOHN LAUGHLIN'S DESCRIPTIONS OF HIS PHOTOGRAPHIC GROUPS

GROUP A: STILL LIFES

This group, the earliest on which I worked, was begun in 1935. 1 started with no formal training at all as a
painter or photographer, but with some background as a writer, and a vast background as a reader. Although
this group originated in a desire to develop further an interest in composition incited b! the discover! of
certain art maga"ines in the 193#s$ it eventuall! became involved in an urge to see how far m! feelings about
ob%ects could become pro%ected through the camera& and in the discover! of ob%ects which could become the
clues to changes in the nature of American culture. Thus, here, as in much of m! work, there is a progression
from the semi'abstract to the poetic.
GROUP B: MARINE FORMS
Though ships, originall!, formed most of the material for this group ' the photographer(s attention, later,
focused chiefl! on ob%ects involved with the m!ster! of the sea ' and on the kind of )h!perrealit!) which the
camera, alone, can create ...
GROUP C: TREE FORMS
This *roup began in 193+& but much work was added to it from 19,- through 19-#. Its emphasis was not so
much on the beaut! of natural forms in themselves, as on the m!sterious realm where natural forms
intermingle significantl! and strangel! with pro%ections from the mind of man. This realm is related to the
great and ancient kingdom of fantas! which forms the core of all the arts, and which e.tends in painting
from /ieron!mus 0osch through 1ames 2nsor and Alfred 3ubin to come down in our own time to4aul 3lee.
Therefore in this group the trees become something more than trees ' the! become involved with the child(s
sense of wonder, and the! become clues also to the special and personal associations with which we invest
all ob%ects. And thus the photographer, like the painter, is seen to be able, when approaching nature, to
conve! something of his own inner world while, at the same time, evoking some of the ambiance
of m!ster! which surrounds all things, despite all our pretentious )knowledge.)
GROUP D: EARLY INDUSTRIALISM
This group presents images of the gradual and confused impact of industrialism in the deep south.
GROUP E: METAL MAGIC
This group also saw its inception in 193-. It is concerned, in photographic terms, with the magnificence of
steel, the strange and menacing magic of the contemporar! world of metal forms ' the ama"ing
cr!stalli"ations of man(s will and man(s greed, in the ob%ects of industr!.
GROUP F: GLASS MAGIC
*lass is fascinating because it acts so variabl! and subtl! with light5 offers so ma! suggestions that so'called
realit! is not the simple thing we usuall! conceive it to be5 that realit! embodies man! planes and man!
kinds of meanings. Too, it does man! surprising things with space& and this group, begun in 1936, gives
e.amples of this and, in addition, attempts to push further the magic 7ualit! which 2ugene Atget, the
ama"ing old 8rench photographer, obtained in his photographs of shop windows of nineteenth'centur!
4aris ' pictures in which he went well be!ond his own documentar! approach.
GROUP G: FANTASY IN OLD NEW ORLEANS
This group, which is 7uite large, deals with the special and indigenous fantas! which appeared in man! 9ew
:rleans buildings, and which is found in nearl! all of the stone and iron forms of the 9ew :rleans
cemeteries. 9ineteenth'centur! 9ew :rleans had a ph!sical and ps!chological background unlike that of an!
other American cit!. This special kind of fantas! appeared at one end of the scale in the unparalleled
development of funereal art in the old burial grounds of the cit!& and at the other end of the scale as a
counterbalance, perhaps$, in the wild fantas! of the ;ardi *ras.
GROUP H: LOST NEW ORLEANS
In this ver! e.tensive group of pictures, begun in 193+, I attempted to isolate visuall! the authentic 7ualit! of
the old buildings of 9ew :rleans ' those buildings which had neither been prettified for the tourist trade nor
)renovated) for commerce5 of those streets in 9ew :rleans which were )lost) in time. The buildings were
approached as ps!chological and poetic documents, rather than from the more narrow viewpoints of the
historian and the architect.
GROUP I: SATIRES
;ost photographers have never, e.cept in a ver! superficial wa!, e.tensivel! used the camera(s intrinsic
abilit! to create biting satire against a societ! filled with man! forms of h!pocris! and with countless forms
of social in%ustice. 0ut the ver! significant *erman photographer /ans /er"felde or1ohn /eartfield$
conclusive I< showed, during /itler(s rise to power, the camera I s great capacities in this direction. ;= own
efforts in this field are involved either with carefull! arranged effects which attempt to transcend mere
)contrivance)& or else e.ploit the accidental sardonic (%u.taposition of ob%ects.
GROUP J: THE IMAGES OF THE LOST
*roup 1 deals with the people re%ected b! our societ!& it is the first group primaril! devoted to human beings.
0ut the people were ver! seldom photographed where the! were actuall! found. Instead, a difficult method
was used5 a special background was selected for each person often from places discovered previousl!$ with
the intention of making the background work, not onl! in terms of design, but in terms of a subtle revelation
of the overall social situation of the person. The people themselves were not used as models ' the! were not
posed ' nor were the! used as )sociological documents.) The attempt was to treat them as individual human
beings. The overall composition was determined carefull! on the ground glass. 0ut the e.posure was not
made till each person seemed to reveal himself b! some spontaneous gesture or e.pression.
GROUP K: VISUAL POEMS
In 19,# I tried to push further the integration of the human figure with especiall! selected backgrounds
which I had to some degree begun in )*roup I5 >atires) and )*roup 15 The Images of the ?ost)& e.cept that
here the integration was not in terms of satiric intent, or of social revelation, but rather in terms of poetic
concepts.
;an! of these pictures are e.amples of the interaction of photograph! and literature, using either carefull!
arranged whole figures, or highl! individuali"ed portrait effects in close'up& but alwa!s with poetic
emphasis. >ome of the pictures started as literar! concepts& for man! !ears before I began photograph! I had
been a voracious reader, and in about 19@5 had begun to write. ;an! of the figures in this group create
combinations of line and tone and mood possible onl! in photograph!, and show how the camera can evoke
hidden elements in human beings as surel! as does painting.
GROUP L: POEMS OF THE INTERIOR WORLD
I feel that this group represents m! most original and difficult pro%ect up to this time. In it I tried to create a
m!tholog! from our contemporar! world. This m!tholog!, instead of having gods and goddesses ' has the
personifications of our fears and frustrations, our desires and dilemmas. 0! means of a comple. integration
of human figures never presented as individuals, since the figures are intended onl! as s!mbols of states of
mind$& carefull! chosen backgrounds& and selected ob%ects, I attempted to pro%ect the s!mbolic realit! of our
time, so that the pictures become images ofthe ps!chological substructure of confusion, want, and fear which
have led to the two great wars, and which ma! lead to the end of human societ!. 8ear and desire have the
deepest roots in us, and in the modern world their forms have become peculiarl! sharpened and twisted. In
releasing the s!mbolic contents of ob%ects m! intent was to present settings for the drama of the miser! and
madness of our time& to deal with the depersonali"ation of man, and the conditions leading to the rise of the
authoritarian ideologies. 0ut the pictures were not conceived in a coldl!, conscious wa!. The! were arrived
at mostl! b! means of subconscious intuitions and compulsions& and thus the! have a number of different
levels of meaning. All this, in 1939, when this group was initiated, represented a new departure for American
photograph!. 2ven now, in this countr!, the abilit! of the camera to deal with ps!chological realit!, and to
evoke s!mbols, has scarcel! been touched. 8or those not interested in s!mbolism, these pictures can be seen
in terms of their basic level of meaning, which is design in terms of light and dark. 8or those interested, a
more complete discussion of the character and ob%ective of this group can be found in 4oetr! *aller! >eries
maga"ine, no. @ ' a poetr! maga"ine published b! /arper >7uare 4ress, Ahicago, 19-6 'where a number of
pictures from this series are also reproduced.
GROUP M: THE LOUISIANA PLANTATIONS
*roup ; deals with the architectural achievements of the last great non'urban culture of this countr! ' the
nineteenth'centur! plantation culture of the lower ;ississippi <alle!. 0ut this is not entirel! in terms of
architectural recording, since it includes a number of pictures dealing with the atmosphere of houses, and
with the poetr! and the enigma of time in these structures from the past. Also, there are two subsections in
this group& one dealing with the 9egro countr! churches and the other with the swamp burial grounds where
is found an e.traordinar! kind of folk art. The primar! ob%ectives of *roup ; are5 1$ to outline the
evolution of ?ouisiana plantation architecture from its origins under strong 8rench provincial influence in the
eighteenth centur! ' to the onset of the Aivil Bar& @$ to indicate how in the 163#s and 16,#s a trul!
indigenous t!pe of house appeared on the ?ouisiana plantation, which was unlike an!thing else in America,
or in 2urope, where the plan of the house grew out of the nature of the climate and of the materials.
Bithin this centur!, fire and flood, levee set'backs, the ravages of heat and dampness, and the neglect due to
impoverishment, have all taken an increasing toll of the houses left from the great nineteenth'centur!
efflorescence. Borking against the accelerating tide of destruction, during the !ears 1939 to 19, 1, and 19,-
to 1953, 1 tried to rescue some of the tragic and poetic beaut! of this architecture. >ome of the more than
@,### negatives resulting appeared in m! second book, Ghosts Along the Mississippi with about 5#,###
words of te.t.
GROUP N: FORMS OF TODAY
CThis group consists primaril! of buildings constructed after Borld Bar 11, usuall! photographed on
assignment for the architect or contractor.D
GROUP 0: COLOR EXPERIMENTS
>ince I believe that there are a great man! more relationships between painting and photograph! than are
recogni"ed, or accepted, and since I further believe that these relationships do not necessaril! involve the
mere cop!ing of one medium b! the other, I have devoted some time to e.ploring the borderland between
these two arts, primaril! during the period 19,3 to 19,- ' the onl! time when the facilities for such
e.ploration were available to me.
I evolved a number of techni7ues to accomplish this e.ploration5 such as the use of watercolor and oil on
photographic collages& the use of photographic d!es and ink on photograms& the use of photographic d!es
and inks directl! on mordanted paper with or without a photographic image$& also the use of washoff relief
images on mordanted paper, but in unorthodo. wa!s.
8or some of these techni7ues I do not have names. 0ut enough has been clearl! done to indicate that all the
technical discoveries in color photographic chemistr!, etc., have esthetic potentialities which, as !et, have
scarcel! been touched.
GROUP P: ROCK FORMS
>ince all the material in this small group was photographed in the west ' and since the treatment of such
material b! such photographers as Ansel Adams has become so familiar and accepted ' there was a strong
temptation for the photographer to fall into the )4urist) approach.
A stud! of the pictures, however, should indicate that the photographer varies the character of his approach
in accordance with what the nature of the sub%ect matter suggests to his imagination. /e has never tried to
force one method of approach on ever! kind of material. /e has alwa!s attempted to make these alterations
in the use of the camera ' sub%ect, in turn, to the overall guidance of a personal vision.
>o, even in this group, where it would have been so eas! to use the accepted approach ' he tried to do
something more subtle& to incorporate )4urism) merel! as a basis upon which to build his own special
animistic and poetic vision ' and thus pro%ect, through the material, meanings which )4urism) would not
have been capable of.
GROUP Q: NEW ANATOMIES
In this comparativel! small group, which began in 1951, 1 have tried to show that the camera can e.plore the
plastic potentialities of the human bod! in %ust as real a sense as, for instance, 4icasso has done in some
marvelous drawings where he makes use of numerous kinds of distortion in recreating the bod!& although in
these photos distortion is not the method actuall! used. 9evertheless we are presented with visions of the
bod! which it would be impossible for the ph!sical e!e directl! to see. The pictures go completel! be!ond
the kind of 11 recording) function usuall! assigned to the camera, and instead of giving us the results of
direct vision, give us far more ' the h!per'real vision created b! the inner e!e in man ' the poetic, desiring,
and dreaming e!e. 0ecause of this, the erotic element becomes all the more intense. 0ut due to the
puritanical code dominating this countr! till recentl!, none of these pictures have ever been published or
e.hibited before. The basic 7uotation for this series is from /art Arane5 )9ew thresholds, new anatomiesE )
And the last half of this 7uotation is, literall!, the sub%ect for this group.
GROUP R: SCULPTURE SEEN ANEW
This group is devoted to showing significant sculpture ' from all periods, and from all over the world. 0ut
the selections were made entirel! from American collections, public and private. 0ecause of the richness of
American collections, and since there are over 1,+## negatives, the group eventuall! became a sort of visual
outline of world sculpture.
The other main purpose of the group is to outline some of the methods and there are 7uite a variet! of such
methods developed in these pictures$ b! which the camera can be used to interpret sculpture ' to intensif! the
e.perience of sculpture be!ond the direct e.perience of the ph!sical e!e.
The photographer has designed a ver! large show entitled )The 0ron"e Age to 0rancusi) ' based on these
pictures. The show consists of over +## images, on 1#5 panels, and opened up in the Fetroit Institute of Arts
in ;arch 195+.
GROUP S: THE MAGIC OF THE OBJECT
It should be pointed out that *roup > is the onl! one of the man! groups I worked on which is entirel!
devoted to so'called commonplace ob%ects. In this group I tr! to show how the photographer, like the painter
and poet, can release a level of meaning from the most ordinar! ob%ects, which has nothing to do with their
naturalistic meaning. The photographer, of course, does this through intensel! personal vision %ust as is true
of the painter and the poet$ and when this happens, what the photographer is reall! dealing with is what the
human mind has pro%ected into the ob%ect5 the secret language of inanimate ob%ects, the hidden images of
man(s hopes and 1o!s, his dreams and desires, b! which he makes more human the inhuman world around
him. Although most of these pictures use the )found) ob%ect, all the ob%ects are, in a deeper sense, )we11
arranged,) that is, lighting, composition, and other factors have been used, both consciousl! and
compulsivel!, to make more manifest the hidden meanings these ob%ects have for the sensibilit! of the
photographer. 0ut, aside from all this, man! of the ob%ects in these pictures can be trul!, considered part of
the iconograph! of our time.
GROUP T: THE MYSTERY OF SPACE
This group is involved in showing how the photographer can deal with space problems in as real a sense as
the painter, but without the help of color5 how, for instance, the camera can collapse space i.e., make a three'
dimensional ob%ect look flat$& or multipl! space i.e., make a two'dimensional ob%ect look three'
dimensional$. Also, this group indicates how the camera can semi'abstract ob%ects& and create significant
space illusions, as well, b! e.ploiting the difference between ph!sical space and visual space.
GROUP U: AMERICAN VICTORIAN ARCHITECTURE
:ver 5,### sheet film negatives were made for this group over a period of twent! !ears. The pictures were
made in such cities as Ahicago, ;ilwaukee, >t. ?ouis, ;emphis, ?ittle Gock, >alt ?ake Ait!, >an 8rancisco,
?os Angeles, *alveston, and >an Antonio, and man! of the pictures are involved with the special feeling of
certain houses and with the spirit of American places. Among the ob%ectives of this group were 1$ to show
that the 166#s and 9#s were probabl! the most important period architecturall! in American cultural histor!&
@$ to show wh! a new evaluation of American <ictorian buildings must be made& 3$ to discover important
new architectural material from this period, not in the books& ,$ to show that the American <ictorians had
made some ver! important discoveries, ;ostl! b! intuition, in the highl! significant field which can be
called )ps!chological functionalism) ' which enabled them to understand the supremel! important roles of
fantas! and decoration in architecture in a manner far be!ond an!thing we are capable of) ' and led to man!
of their houses being far more human and livable than ours& 5$ to show that it was little'known <ictorian
architects who first broke with 2uropean architectural traditions, rather than such people as >ullivan and
Bright.
GROUP V: VINTAGE PRINTS
CThis group of varied material contains the ver! earl! work of the photographer. ;an! of these pictures were
subse7uentl! assigned to other groups.D
GROUP W: FANTASY IN EUROPE
2ven in 2urope, %ust as in the Hnited >tates, the late nineteenth centur! seems the period most ignored. >o
when I reached 4aris for the first time in :ctober 19-5, and reali"ed the incredible riches of photograph! that
could easil! be found on almost ever!,, street, and also reali"ed m! limited time, I 7uickl! determined to
restrict m!self to the 166#s and 9#s. It was in this that I discovered m! roots& it is this period which is closest
to m! heart& because it is this period which was the most deepl! involved with the tremendous importance
clothe fantastic in human lives, and the primac!, of the needs of the human imagination. And, of course, as
alwa!s, but especiall!, here, I found more material than I could possibl! cope with& so that I ran out of both
time and mone!. 0ut I hope to go back, and, ultimatel!, to do a large show on this marvelous cit!, whose
streets have nurtured so man!, poets, whose atmosphere is the mother of the creative spirit.
In time I also managed to get to 2ngland, where I was fortunate enough to be able to do a set of pictures of
the peerless 0righton 4avilion.
C9.0. Fescriptions for *roups 9 and < in brackets were supplied b! the /istoric 9ew :rleans Aollection.D
>to leggendo in 7uesti giorni un bellissimo libro, dedicato alla vita di Alarence 1ohn ?aughlin, )Prophet
without honor) A.1. ;eek, Hniversit! 4ress of ;ississippi, solo in inglese, lo trovate su Ama"on o anche
7ui$. )Io lavoro dall'interno verso l'esterno, piuttosto che dall'esterno verso l'interno come fanno la maggior
parte dei fotografi. Questo significa che io fotografo esclusivamente le cose che davvero eccitano la mia
immaginazione, cose per le quali la mia immaginazione gi! stata pre"sensi#ilizzata cosicch$ io possa
percepire altri significati in quegli oggetti, che divengono cos% catalizzatori, punti focali o proiezioni del mio
mondo interiore. Questo significa che io non faccio mai foto casuali), affermava ?aughlin, fotografo davvero
poco o affatto$ noto in Italia, e in realtI non molto conosciuto nemmeno in America, sebbene sia stato, con
B!nn 0ullock, ;inor Bhite ed 2dward Beston il protagonista del periodo d(oro della fotografia americana,
tra gli anni (5# e i (+#. Aveva una caratteristica, ?aughlin che lo rendeva unico5 non accettava compromessi
nella sua arte. ;ai. 2ra un fotografo visionario e metafisico, interessato all(architettura e al mistero5 il suo
lavoro piJ noto K un libro fotografico dal significativo titolo )Ghosts along Mississippi& '()*+,, che in
diverse edi"ioni ha venduto oltre 1##.### copie. Il volume raccoglie alcune delle immagini piJ significative
che ?aughlin, originario di 9ew :rleans, ha dedicato alle vecchie ville padronali delle piantagioni
)coloniali) che si trovano appunto lungo il grande fiume americano. Gidotte spesso a ruderi in abbandono,
sommerse dalla vegeta"ione, 7ueste grandi ville dallo stile classico, an"i palladiano, sembravano fatte
apposta per eccitare la fantasia e l(interesse del fotografo. ;a i suoi contemporanei, il mondo delle
Accademie e delle HniversitI, i circoli dei fotografi famosi e degli artisti alla moda, sembravano incapaci di
appre""are il lavoro visionario di ?aughlin, il suomodus operandi a tratti ruvido e anche ro""o, ma colmo di
emo"ioni. >olo in tarda etI ebbe finalmente 7ualche riconoscimento e solo dopo la sua morte venne inserito
nel novero dei grandi fotografi americani. Hn destino non raro, in effetti. F(altra parte non era un tipo facile5
ad ogni foto era collegata una didascalia lunga e articolata ?aughlin voleva fare lo scrittore, oltre che il
fotografo$, che nonostante le richieste lui si rifiutava di ridurre o modificare& inoltre raramente accettava
sen"a rispondere in tono piccato le critiche che gli venivano rivolte, anche 7uando erano fatte con
motiva"ione di causa. Fa 7ui a farsi la fama di uomo difficile e intrattabile il passo fu breve, e ?aughlin pagL
la sua scarsa flessibilitI che perL era rispetto assoluto per il proprio lavoro$ con l(isolamento e pesanti
difficoltI economiche.