Values of Romanian ethnological photographic art: Joseph Berman

Abstract

In this article, the author refers to one of the elite representatives of Romanian photographic art, Joseph Berman, a distinguished personality in the field of visual documentation, who contributed enormously to the development of ethnological field research. From a theoretical and practical perspective, a visual image immortalizes a moment in space and time, facilitating the recourse to the information it holds whenever needed. The photography can communicate to you several types of information, on the one hand, about the personality of the one who made this immortalization, revealing details about the preferences and skill of the master photographer, and on the other hand, it expresses realities, historical, social, ethnographic details of eternal temporal moments and habitats, motivating us to become critical consumers of visual images. For these reasons, the rhetoric of the image (Roland Barthes) becomes emblematic for ethnological research. Researchers in the field of Romanian ethnological photography delimit the period of flourishing (development) of visual documentation from the first half of the 20th century into two segments, the first up to Joseph Berman and the second – after him. With its affirmation in the photographic field, ethnological documentation took on color, becoming „alive”, loaded with deep meaning. The famous sociologist Dimitrie Gusti, appreciating his talent, called him: „co-author of the image of the Romanian village and peasant” and, rightly, did not accept a monographic campaign through the villages of Romania without Berman’s skill and talent, considering any other type of ethnological research compromised from the start.