Albert Renger-Patzsch - Die Welt ist schön. Einhundert photographische Aufnahmen., Kurt Wolff, 1931, München
Hardcover cloth bound with dust jacket in publisher carboard slipcase. "Herausgegeben und eingeleitet von Carl Georg Heise." Book design by Alfred Mahlau, jacket by Friedrich Vordemberge-Gildewart.
One of the best-known titles in photobook history, Die Welt ist schön was originally going to be called Die Dinge (Things). From Things to The World is Beautiful is quite a leap, and is wholly significant in a photobook, for although the pictures inside might remain the same, a title can position a book differently in one's mind and influence one's whole rea ing of it. While Things would seem to predicate a certain neutrality of stance, The World is Beautiful - insisted upon by the publisher for commercial reasons - is a much more culturally loaded title, especially at the end of such an unsettled decade as the 1920s in Germany.
Seen by many as the epitome of the 'straight' photographic ethos because of its apparent stark objectivity, Renger-Patzsch's book can now be regarded as considerably less radical than it seemed to many at the time, whatever its title. Certainly, unless Die Welt ist Schön was meant to be ironic - and the book's contents hardly support such a reading - it comes across as somewhat pompous, almost wholly formalist in its aspirations and pointedly ignoring the socio-politica aspect of progressive German modernism. Those commentators looking to promote Renger-Patzsch's modernist credentials tend to concentrate on the industrial and natural images - the smokestack, the telegraph poles, the viper, the flower and so on - and conveniently ignore the implications of the book's sequenc-ing, its gradual progression towards God and its sententious ending of church interiors and the final image of hands clasped in prayer like Albrecht Dürer's famous drawing.
The single aspect of New Vision aesthetics that it explores with great thoroughness is the close-up, and therein lies both the book's impact and its limitation. As with Blossfeldt, the close-up allows the viewer to see the world as never before and, in the case of Renger-Patzsch, provides the unifying element for some disparate subject matter. But it also tends to close off readings of the work, except for the purely formal or the vaguely platitudinous. Despite its wide influence on 'straight' photography, this reactionary aspect of the book aroused suspicion even at the time. Franz Roh made a scathing reference to it in Foto-Auge, and Alfred Döblin took a swipe at it in the introduction to August Sander's Antlitz der Zeit (Face of our Time) when he claimed that Sander's methodology achieved a 'scientific viewpoint above and beyond that of the photographer of detail' (Parr & Badger, The Photobook: A History, Vol. 1)
Pages: 96
Place: München
Year: 1931
Publisher: Kurt Wolff
Size: 22 x 29 cm (approx.)
Hardcover cloth bound with dust jacket in publisher carboard slipcase. "Herausgegeben und eingeleitet von Carl Georg Heise." Book design by Alfred Mahlau, jacket by Friedrich Vordemberge-Gildewart.
One of the best-known titles in photobook history, Die Welt ist schön was originally going to be called Die Dinge (Things). From Things to The World is Beautiful is quite a leap, and is wholly significant in a photobook, for although the pictures inside might remain the same, a title can position a book differently in one's mind and influence one's whole rea ing of it. While Things would seem to predicate a certain neutrality of stance, The World is Beautiful - insisted upon by the publisher for commercial reasons - is a much more culturally loaded title, especially at the end of such an unsettled decade as the 1920s in Germany.
Seen by many as the epitome of the 'straight' photographic ethos because of its apparent stark objectivity, Renger-Patzsch's book can now be regarded as considerably less radical than it seemed to many at the time, whatever its title. Certainly, unless Die Welt ist Schön was meant to be ironic - and the book's contents hardly support such a reading - it comes across as somewhat pompous, almost wholly formalist in its aspirations and pointedly ignoring the socio-politica aspect of progressive German modernism. Those commentators looking to promote Renger-Patzsch's modernist credentials tend to concentrate on the industrial and natural images - the smokestack, the telegraph poles, the viper, the flower and so on - and conveniently ignore the implications of the book's sequenc-ing, its gradual progression towards God and its sententious ending of church interiors and the final image of hands clasped in prayer like Albrecht Dürer's famous drawing.
The single aspect of New Vision aesthetics that it explores with great thoroughness is the close-up, and therein lies both the book's impact and its limitation. As with Blossfeldt, the close-up allows the viewer to see the world as never before and, in the case of Renger-Patzsch, provides the unifying element for some disparate subject matter. But it also tends to close off readings of the work, except for the purely formal or the vaguely platitudinous. Despite its wide influence on 'straight' photography, this reactionary aspect of the book aroused suspicion even at the time. Franz Roh made a scathing reference to it in Foto-Auge, and Alfred Döblin took a swipe at it in the introduction to August Sander's Antlitz der Zeit (Face of our Time) when he claimed that Sander's methodology achieved a 'scientific viewpoint above and beyond that of the photographer of detail' (Parr & Badger, The Photobook: A History, Vol. 1)
Pages: 96
Place: München
Year: 1931
Publisher: Kurt Wolff
Size: 22 x 29 cm (approx.)
