ARTH1101

Stefania Koziolek

hw #9

“The Americans “by Robert Frank is regarded as one of the most influential photographic project of the 20th century.It consisted of 83 black photographs from his journey which showed a different America.When I first saw work from “The Americans “ I could make no sense of it. It wasn not artistic at all. It showed view of American society. How American people used to see themselves in their country. Frank’s subjects weren’t necessarily living the American dream of the 1950s: They were factory workers, black passengers in the trains. Making a bold attempt to indicate the direction in which America is heading in the second half of the 1950s, Frank goes beyond the traditional canons of photographic documentation. On the pages of the album draws a portrait of two-faced photographer of the American public. Economic growth, consumerism and higher demographic, which in America became the foundations for the shallow optimism of the Decade of the 1950s, have been compiled with images of past bitter face of America. Rising social tensions, the collapse of authority figures and national symbols, as well as departure from the Christian values-this turned out to be the fate of America in the 1960s, in which Frank tried to warn people.In my opinion it is not really artistic. However, I like them. We can see how much America changed since that time. Franks’ photographs photograph’s has inspired a lot of photographers across all genres.