Documentary Uses of Artistic Photography: Spain. Types and Costumes by Jose  Ortiz Echagu ¨e Javier Ortiz-Echagu ¨e and Julio Montero Dı ´az The photographs of Jose  Ortiz Echagu ¨e are often read in terms of artistic and documentary values, with the two poles in tension within his work. Echagu ¨e’s project Spain. Types and Costumes was an attempt to document systematically traditional Spanish costumes. At the same time, Echagu ¨e never abandoned pictori- alist techniques, which are often considered contrary to documentary intentions. This article discusses the types and costumes series from a historic perspective based in the social uses of photography. This perspective shows how the same images were considered in different contexts as artistic or documentary images, or as propaganda icons in both sides during the Spanish Civil War. Keywords: pictorialism, ethnographic photography, documentary photography, Spanish Pavilion, Paris World Fair 1937, Jose  Ortiz Echagu ¨e (1886–1980) There has been a clear awareness of the documentary value of photography since its origins. Metaphors such as ‘the pencil of nature’ or ‘the mirror with a memory’ were used to indicate that photography produces images in an automatic and supposedly reliable way. For the same reason, a number of photographers rebelled against its mechanical character and defended the artistic aspects of photography. Artistic photography often used methods of developing photographs to give them the appearance of drawings. In this way, photography that set out to be artistic was separated from other photographs in which the value of information was pre- eminent and therefore had other goals, mostly scientific and investigative. Artistic photography aspired to be something more than a ‘mere’ document. 1 In the twentieth century this distinction became problematic. Alfred Stieglitz defended in Camera Work the legitimacy of straight photography as an artistic form. A kind of image that was faithful to the nature of photography itself, executed in a direct way, clearly intelligible and without manipulation. 2 In this way, photography could capture ‘the very substance and quintessence of the thing itself’. 3 Starting from this point, a new documentary style was developed in photography. The notion of document was widespread and its functions broadened, from the simple act of registering details to the artistic sphere. This is how documentary photography came to be thought of as a genre. 4 Creative photography encompassed what is traditionally considered to be documentary style, as well as artistic photography. Taking this distinction into account, a great deal of the photography labelled ‘modern’ in the twentieth century is based on the adherence to criteria specific to the medium. This distinction has passed from the histories of photography into use, as This article is part of the Research Project ‘Historia del entretenimiento en Espan ˜a durante el franquismo: cultura, consumo y contenidos audiovisuales’, HAR2008– 06076/ARTE, Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation. We are grateful to Jordana Mendelson, who invited us to present this work in the seminar Exhibiting Spain, held at New York University in November 2007. Thanks also to Lee Fontanella’s generosity in making suggestions on the final version of the text. Email for correspondence: jortizec@hum.uc3m.es 1 – See Aaron Scharf, Art and Photography, London: The Penguin Press 1968. 2 – See Paul Strand, ‘Photography’, Camera Work XLIX–L (June 1917), 3–4. 3 – Edward Weston, Daybooks. Vol. I Mexico, Rochester: The George Eastman House 1961, 55. 4 – A study of this historical development is contained in Olivier Lugon, Le Style Documentaire. D’August Sander a ` Walker Evans, Paris: Macula 2001, 13–30. History of Photography, Volume 35, Number 4, November 2011 Print ISSN 0308-7298; Online ISSN 2150-7295 # 2011 Taylor & Francis