Comparative study of typographic works of AugustSanderand Antoin Sevruguin

Abstract

Antoin Sevruguin was the most prominent and prolific professional photographer in Iran at the end of 19th century. He embarked on documentation of people in Qajar era and recordingvarious portraits of Iran. In addition to documentation, his portraitures of people during Qajar era have aesthetic values as well. AugustSander, a German social documentary photographer and member of new objectivity group, pictured dif-ferent classes of people of his time in Germany precisely and explicitly with socio- logical and purposeful view. Meanwhile, the typographic works of Sevruguin are very similarto the typographic works of AugustSander who lived somehow after Sevru- guin. Sevruguin and Sander’s works are similar to each other in terms of arrangement, structure and even aesthetics. The aim of the present study is to get familiar with the typographic expression of the two well-known photographers in the field of documen- tary and typography and after that comparative study of their works and specify their similarities and differences. The methodology of the study is descriptive-analytic, a type of qualitative study, and the texts, pictures and primary information are collected from two reference books of both artists using library documentations. From among the similarities of the typographic works of both photographers, that are more in terms of structure, are using rectangular framework, vertical and triangular structures, angle and depth of view etc. However,the aim, mindset and attitude of both photographers are different from each other; Sander looked for identity record of people of his time and Sevruguin wanted to register different portraits of Iran. The difference in both artists’ view and aim developed differences in their mode of expression such as in setting, lighting, gestures and postures of models. Sevruguin manipulated the setting, posture and gesture of his models and gave them an aesthetic value but Sander, with- .out any manipulation, recorded his models in an explicit and precise way

Keywords

• photograph
• typography
• sander
• sevruguin