Ralph Steiner – A Pioneer Among Ecclectics or “The Beautiful Ripples of Water”

Rafał Syska

Abstract

Syska presents the life and work of Ralph Steiner (1899-1986), whose background, fate and biographical and social conditions were symptomatic of a career pattern typical of the American avant-garde of the late 1920s and 1930s of the 20^th century. According to Syska, American film avant-garde was not born, as many think, in 1943, together with the premiere of Maya Deren and Alexander Hammid’s Meshes of the Afternoon, but existed already for a decade or so, and developed within various artistic streams. It also helped to create artistic bohemians, and created a number of talented artists. Ralph Steiner was one of the most outstanding representatives of this trend. Syska concludes his review of Steiner’s work with the argument that for Steiner, the technique and the formal aspect of film making were not the most important elements of his creativity. Rather what mattered was the possibility of showing the beauty of rippling water (refined imagery devoid of meaningful references), which was the main theme of his famous movie H2O (1929).