David Brewster

“ We have seen the portrait of a dog taken with such minute accuracy that the slightest trace of any motion could not be perceived. Its master directed his attention to a piece of bread, and he stood firmly waiting for his reward. Considering truth as an essential element in all photographs, we are unwilling to counsel the artist to have recourse to a large lens for the purpose of accelerating his process by seizing his restless object in a single instant of time; but what cannot be tolerated in the human form may be permitted in animal portraiture as a necessary evil. ”

“ The photographer who works with a very large lens chooses an angle which gives the least unfavourable results; his rival, with a lens of less size, chooses, on the same principle, a different angle; and the public, who are no judges of the result, are delighted with their pictures in relief, and when their noses are either pulled from their face, or flattened upon their cheek, or when an arm or a limb threatens to escape from their articulation, they are assured that nature and not art is to blame. ”

“ To instruct and reform a race that can neither read their Bible nor derive knowledge from books, is a task beyond human achievement. The dearest interests of society, therefore, call loudly for Secular Education,—the greatest boon which philanthropy ever demanded from the State. The minister who, in the face of sectarian factions, dares not identify himself with a large legislative measure for the education of the people, and resigns office when he fails to carry it, prefers power to duty, and, if he ever possessed it, divests himself of the character of a statesman and a patriot. ”

“ The teacher, however wisely chosen and well qualified, has not at his command the means of imparting knowledge. He may pour it in by the ear, or extract it from the printed page, or exhibit it in caricature in the miserable embellishments of the school-book, but unless he teaches through the eye, the great instrument of knowledge, by means of truthful pictures, or instruments, or models, or by the direct exhibition of the products of nature and of art, which can be submitted to the scrutiny of the senses, no satisfactory instruction can be conveyed. ”

“ But when all these appliances have been used in the most skilful manner, and art has exhausted its powers, we seldom, if ever, mistake the plane picture for the solid which it represents. The two eyes scan its surface, and by their distance-giving power indicate to the observer that every point of the picture is nearly at the same distance from his eye. But if the observer closes one eye, and thus deprives himself of the power of determining differences of distance by the convergency of the optical axes, the relief of the picture is increased. ”

“ The fragments of ancient grandeur which time and war have spared, the relics of bygone ages which have resisted the destructive elements, will, as the materials of art, give reality and truth to the pictorial history of times past, while the painter of modern events can command the most accurate representations not only of the costume, but of the very persons of the great men whose deeds he is called upon to immortalize. ”

“ Hence it is impossible to mistake a convexity for a concavity when its shadow extends beyond its base.
When the concavity upon a seal is a horse, or any other animal, it will often rise into a convexity when seen through a single lens, which does not invert it; but the illusion disappears at great obliquities. In this case, the illusion is favoured or produced by two causes; the first is, that the form of the horse or other animal in relief is the one which the mind is most disposed to seize, and the second is, that we use only one eye, with which we cannot measure depths as well as with two. ”

“ Swathed in impenetrable drapery the human figure mocks his eager eye, and it is only by stolen glances, or during angel visits, few and far between, that he can see those divine forms which it is his business to portray. ”

“ The works of human hands,—the structures of civilisation, will stand [Pg 199] before the historian and the antiquary, as well as the student, in their pristine solidity, or in their ruined grandeur,—the monuments by which sovereigns and nations have sought to perpetuate their names,—the gorgeous palaces of kings,—the garish temples of superstition,—the humbler edifices of Christian faith,—the bastions and strongholds of war, will display themselves in the stereoscope as if the observer were placed at their base, and warmed by the very sun which shone upon their walls. ”