Pla-Janini

The photographer Joaquim Pla Janini (Tarragona, 1879-1970) is considered to be one of the most outstanding representatives of the pictorialist movement in Catalonia. The objective of the pictorialist current was for photography to obtain the same category of work of art as painting. For this reason photography imitated the pictorical technique.
According to the historian and artist Joan Fontcuberta: Pictorialism crowned the particularly splendid tradition in Victorian England of a photograph conceived as a poetic interpretation of reality. The photographs of Pla Janini cover different themes: the family, religion, landscape, the portrait and still life. His work covers local colour and customs and is also clearly marked by Catalan Noucentism. We can also appreciate the influences that Impressionism, Romanticism, Symbolism and Cubism exercise on Pla Janini, due to the adoption of forms and pictorial techniques such as the effects of sea mist, the contrast of lights and shadows and the balance of the composition. The photographs of this Catalan artist are marked by an exceptional naturalism that gives to their characters, landscapes and objects a great authenticity and richness.