The impressionist influence in The Terminal and Winter in Fifth Avenue Impressionism, came to be considered as one the of the

first modern movements that, apart from initiating a break from long-established Western traditions and influences in art, it set out to record and represent new social and material conditions of modernity after the emergence of modernism in response to the industrial Revolution and how it had changed the course of the world. Great, prominent and well-known artists, have worked under the influence of Impressionism, among whom, we may identify the messianic personage of Alfred Stieglitz. An inspiring personality, indeed, Stieglitz, soon became the leading American photographer, who, actually, pioneered photography as a fine art in America, alongside painting and sculpture. He changed the traditional perception of photography, and advanced, further, on introducing, what is broadly known, in photography, as pictorialism. Many of Stieglitzs works, like The Terminal and Winter in Fifth Avenue, in this particular case, embody, fairly enough, elements borrowed from Impressionism. First and foremost, Impressionist artists set forth a representation of the social, ephemeral world. Both of the afore-mentioned pictures come, as proofs of this very feature. Winter in Fifth Avenue, on the one hand, presents us with the image of a deserted avenue with carriages passing by. It stresses, in a quite realistic manner, the issue of social discrimination and inequalities. An avenue, supposedly, is a meeting point for the masses, but is, hence, depicted rather empty, or if it is proper to term it this way, ghostly and utterly devoid of human life. We may, therefore, speculate that it refers, possibly, to peoples inability to come forth and stand up for their own rights, to protest against the current order of things and claim their social class and worth, within an emerging capitalist and consumerist context. Moreover, in relation with a historical context, this photograph, in particular, was taken at 1893, before the dawn of the 20th century and some years before the outbreak of the First World War. This era, between the Civil War (1863) and the First World War (1914) was marked by serious political, economical and social upheavals. The Terminal, on the other hand, focuses on a rather different aspect of society, that of a rising capitalism, again in a close rapport with the issue of social classes. The terminal, in effect, symbolizes transport. A new means of transportation, first appearing at that time, being massively used. As a matter of fact, the United States had come of age as a modern nation and entered a period of expanding industrialisation which, in order to be realized, demanded a new urban working class to arise. Additionally, and to an extent, in connection with the social aspect, another issue that Stieglitz successfully sheds some light on is everyday life. According to French Impressionists, urban art projected everyday life, in an attempt to record our impression of experiences. The wintry landscape, the avenue as a meeting-point, the terminal, as a mean of transport, all, form parts of urban life, which Stieglitz successfully manages to capture.

Another striking impressionist characteristic is experimentation, at the level of technique. Impressionists, in fact, usually, opted for new techniques so as to provide a more realist and naturalistic representation of the world. Both photos come to verify this. The play with lighting, whiteness versus blackness, the blurry effect, give the impression, that the America depicted is, gradually, fading away or is, by a mysterious shadowy means, bound in its isolation, its consumerism. To further emphasise on the issue, our attention is immediately drawn on the subject-matter, the terminal and the deserted avenue respectively, that is, and its underlying meanings, leaving behind and other trivial and insignificant details. That latter reference to subject-matter, being regarded an Impressionist feature. What is also very interesting to allude to is the element of chance and intention, if we are to define it that way. Both photos show or even prove that they had been well-planned and well-organized. They were not the result of pure luck. Stieglitz, I think, waited for the most suitable moment. He intended for it. In the case of The Terminal, for instance, Stieglitz himself remarks that after having determined upon figures, subject-matter, lines and lighting, you have to wait for the moment in which everything is in perfect balance, the moment that satisfied your eye. Drawing a parallel to the issue of experiments at the level of technique, and in connection with the artists personal impressionist, eye-satisfactory vision, we cannot fail to notice how artfully, though subtly, and in a well-organized manner Stieglitz captures his own vision of America. Taking also in consideration the historical context behind the photos, Stieglitz presents us with a, if I am allowed to term it so, a dual aspect of his America. He, it is my firm belief, fuses the industrial, capitalist America, the America of socio-political unrest moving slowly to the outbreak of a World War, with, last but not least, the America as perceived by its own artistic force, Stieglitz himself included. Yet for all its economic prosperity, America remains a parochial, isolationist culture stifled by its own materialist values. A culture in which, it might be possible, art is driven by the very same mass production.