Photography at the end of the 19th century, due to its relatively short existence compared to other visual technologies, lacked its own cultural memory and, therefore, had to develop the concept of photographic art practically from scratch. To fill this cultural vacuum the simplest way of borrowing aesthetic principles from traditional visual practices, especially from painting and graphic arts, by photographers was initially proposed. For this reason, the new direction in photography began to be called pictorial photography. At the same time pictorialist photographers in their work could be guided by different directions in painting depending on their own aesthetic preferences and level of artistic awareness. In most cases these were already established artistic trends. At the end of the 19th century, such artistic styles were Impressionism and Symbolism, so Pictorialism developed under the influence of these trends in traditional art.

Pictorial photography was a significant step forward in terms of development of photographic theory and appreciation of photography as a unique visual medium. At the same time pictorialism was inextricably linked to the pictorial tradition, copying its aesthetic techniques, thus being a step backwards in the application of the achievements of photographic technology, which resulted in the crisis of this direction in the early 20th century.