Yet Stieglitz cultivated here above all the sense of photography as fragmentary, a partial viewing that lends itself to juxtaposition and serial development.
Stieglitz's decision to consider his photographs of O'Keeffe's hands "portraits" of her in their own right, rather than simply studies for a larger composition, is certainly indebted to the sculptural fragments made by Rodin and pursued to the point of abstraction by Rodin's one-time assistant Brancusi. Yet Stieglitz cultivated here above all the sense of photography as fragmentary, a partial viewing that lends itself to juxtaposition and serial development. Stieglitz called his ongoing studies of O'Keeffe a "composite portrait," meaning one that developed over time, piece by piece. This closely framed view of ecstatically clawing hands, sinewy fingers pressing into flesh, gives just one aspect of O'Keeffe's multifaceted personality as shaped through this portrait series.