Page 95 - Expanded Photography

Expanded Photography Bob Cotton 95/146
Experimental Photography from the 1920s.
Rudolf Koppitz: Movement Study c1925 (with self-portrait-nude).
The Photo-Secessionist Koppitz responded to the Twenties zeitgeist with a series of remarkable nudes - nudes as it were seen in an ambience of symbolism - striking images celebrating life, beauty and freedom... The health and beauty body cults of the 1920s and 1930s came to character- ise this between-War era, partly due to various breakthroughs in women’s suffrage, partly due to a revulsion against the death, destruction, disability and disfigurement of the Great War, and partly due to a changing perception and self-perception of women - the experience of doing ‘mans’ work during the war contributed to the boyish cropped hair and slim figures of the 1920s - and partly to a consciousness of the importance of diet, health and exercise in the decades following the World War and the 1918 Influenza pandemic, a reaction to the rigours of the times; and partly of course to youth movements - including the Boy Scouts, the Wondervogel in Germany (and later Hitler Ju- gend), the YMCA and YWCA, the various swimming, rambling, hiking, hill-walking, and cycling and camping movements in this period. In the Arts, these developments catalysed works celebrating the human body, and Rudolf Koppitz is an iconic example, his work ranks alongside that of Alfred Steiglitz, Imogen Cunningham, Frank Eugene and other great pictorialist photographers. His self- portrait (background, above) nakedly and joyously celebrating the mountains and the new day, contrasts with with the rather dark procession surrounding the beautiful female nude...
Koppitz’ masterpiece, the Bewegungsstudie, or "Motion Study" of 1925 combines a kind of sym- bolist drama, a celebration of dance and the new body-form of the 1920s in this image featuring dancers from the Vienna State Opera - this fits well with the Viennese Jugendstjl movement of the pre-War period. His Self portrait, Nude is a physical celebration of the photographer’s youth, strength, awe and joy.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rudolf_Koppitz