Marsh Weeds (before 1891, published 1895): Art, History and Details

Marsh Weeds (before 1891, published 1895) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection. The museum's creator attribution is Peter Henry Emerson (British, 1856–1936).

The work and its context

The museum's open-access catalogue describes the work:

Emerson’s early photographs emphasized naturalism, but his late works such as this one demonstrate influences from Japanese art, French Impressionism, and the painting and graphic art of Whistler, who was a personal acquaintance. This looser, more expressionistic, and emotional late style helped lay the groundwork for Pictorialist photography (for example, see 1980.141), the movement that succeeded in getting photography more widely accepted as a fine art.

Object facts

• Title: Marsh Weeds
• Date: before 1891, published 1895
• Creator attribution: Peter Henry Emerson (British, 1856–1936)
• Culture: England
• Type: Photograph
• Technique: photogravure
• Dimensions: Image: 10.2 x 14.3 cm (4 x 5 5/8 in.); Paper: 17.5 x 26.7 cm (6 7/8 x 10 1/2 in.)
• Collection: PH - British 19th Century
• Department: Photography
• Accession number: 2025.16

A detail from the museum

Around the time Emerson made this image, one of his most artistic, he wrote that he no longer believed photography to be an art form.

Collection credit

Mr. and Mrs. Roger J. Lerch in Memory of Carl J. Lerch and Winifred J. Lerch Endowment

View the collection record

See the museum's photographs and full catalogue entry. Catalogue text is reproduced from the Cleveland Museum of Art's open-access data, with HTML formatting removed. This object and its supplied image are designated CC0.