Monsters & Madonnas
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Featured:  Illustration: Portrait fantaisiste du marquis de Sade (1866) by H. Biberstein |
- William Mortensen’s book Monsters & Madonnas, published in 1936, was a distilled manifesto of his thoughts and a response to the dominance of straight photography. Mortensen saw duality at work in the process of all artistic production. The technical, mechanical, and scientific were entwined yet at odds within the creative impulse. This duality was even more concentrated in photography, a process obsessed by the technical and mechanical "Monster." Mortensen saw the scientific "Threat of the Machine" -- The Monster -- standing beside its ancient antithesis, The Madonna -- "a symbol of fruitfulness and growth, of life and creative energy." --AJRMS[1][2]
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