One of the biggest problems with modern and contemporary art, for many people, is the seeming lack of skill or workmanship. The criticism is that contemporary art is a scam, in which the usual suspects are talentless fame-hungry artists, unscrupulous gallery owners and self-important "artspeak" critics.

In this villainous panoply, photography should not escape our attention. Modern art, as noted by many art historians and critics, was born when the painterly ability to depict detail was made redundant by the invention of photography. Users of the new technology, however, were of an ambivalent status; were they technicians simply operating a mechanical process, or artists in their own right? The small "Pictorialism: Prelude to Modern Photography" exhibition at Fujifilm square is a great opportunity to see how photographers around the turn of the century hoped to raise the cultural capital of the medium by investing their work with the quality of handmade craftsmanship and references to classical oil painting.

An identifying characteristic of pictorial photography was the deliberate use of the labor-intensive platinum, gum bichromate and bromoil printing processes. Some of the featured photographers might be more well-known today than others and it’s no coincidence that these are the ones who moved on from this focus on manual dexterity and come out from the shadow of painting. Alfred Stieglitz, Edward Steichen and Edward Weston are here. Not their most famous work, it has to be said, and in Weston's case it's altogether better that he is remembered for "Pepper No. 30" and not the print in this exhibition, the soft-focus image of a naked and slightly chubby boy from behind.

Prints by Robert Demachy and Henry Peach Robinson showing pre-pubescent children standing in for cherubim, and others by Clarence H. White and Emile Constant Puyo of statuesque women in flowing gowns also exemplify why pictorialism has often been considered a retrograde and mawkish genre. In their time, however, these were artists of note and the rarity with which their work is exhibited now makes it all the more intriguing.

The soft-focus, sepia-toned images appear a little uncomfortably between display cases of Fujifilm brand cameras and the contemporary ultra-glossy, super-sharp digital photography that regularly pops up in the adjacent spaces. The exhibition also sadly lacks any representation of the then-very-active Japanese pictorialist photography scene.

It's not an "ideal" setting or situation, but this incongruence makes the hit-and-miss lyrical fantasy of the images even more visually striking. The viewer also has a context for considering how technology and time changes what we consider to be a photograph, let alone a good one. The cautionary message of pictorialism, for a long while, was that workmanship and traditional references did not in themselves make for masterpieces. In 2006 though, a pictorialist photograph by Steichen sold for just under $3 million. Of course you could always blame auctioneers for that.

"Pictorialism: Prelude to Modern Photography" at Fujifilm Square runs till April 30; open daily 10 a.m.-7 p.m. Free admission. fujifilmsquare.jp