The Arbor (Julia Hall McCune)

Discussion

FROM THE CLEVELAND MUSEUM OF ART’S CATALOG

Clarence Hudson White was a pioneer of the American pictorialist vision. For more than 25 years, he helped shape the style and, by extenstion, the direction of 20th-century photography through his work as a practitioner, leader, teacher, and mentor. He was primarily a family photographer, who enjoyed posing his family and friends in intimate interiors against a window or outdoors at dawn or dusk. He enhanced his negative's soft quality by printing on platinum paper, a medium that renders the middle tones of a print with great sensitivity. In this image, White posed one of his favorite models, Julia Hall McCune, a family friend and student, in an arbor. McCune appears lost in thought. Her face is partially bathed in a soft light that heightens the quiet, meditative mood of the scene.

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