Untitled (Still Life: Interior with Horse Chestnuts, Lamp, and Tea Kettle)

Heinrich Kühn was a major figure in Pictorialism, an international movement that conceived of photography as a fine art and emphasized broad tonal effects that minimized detail. A warm, intimate closeness emanates from this atmospheric interior view, which features a dark mass of horse chestnuts in blossom. In counterpoint to the softly focused bough, lamplight illuminates, with varying intensity, the metal teapot, wooden desk, and ribbed leaves. A master of the gum bichromate process, Kühn made alterations in the print to achieve this broad, expressive range of tones, and he used a heavy, textured paper to enhance the painterly quality. Kühn adhered to Pictorialist principles throughout his long career.