Positive (photography)

“ But not only in portraiture is photography a great art, for it catches the stately pose of the mountain, the grandeur of the sea, the beauty of the forest, or the majesty of Niagara Falls, and brings them all home to us, even to the vision of the bed-ridden invalid. The camera alike records the secrets of the starry heavens and the bacteria of the microscopic world. ”

“ Now the photographer, who studies and hopes to excel at decorative photography, must remember that he must work on the same general principles as he does in producing pictures, that is, he must pay attention, in a broad way, to the tone of the room, to effects of contrast, to harmonies, to the effect of artificial lights and of complementary colours, and above all to naturalism. Thus a delicate landscape must not be enamelled on a tea-cup, for it is obviously false in principle to place a picture on a curved surface. ”

“ But on the other hand if an artist paint the interior of a wax-work museum, or if an actor give a burlesque portrait of a man-statue on the stage, we have work of the spirit and artistic intuition. Finally, if photography have in it anything artistic, it will be to the extent that it transmits the intuition of the photographer, his point of view, the pose and grouping which he has striven to attain. And if photography be not quite an art, that is precisely because the element of nature in it remains more or less unconquered and ineradicable. ”

“ Photography is a reproduction; it becomes a betrayal. What is the copy interpreted by this betrayal? How can one extract the character of anything if the true model is not there?
“Here, then, is our engraver obliged to copy with his precise art from something quite vague. Photography sees the globs of color, the accidents of a picture, with as much interest as the most beautiful design. ”

“ You can hardly imagine how cumbrous and well-nigh hopeless a business it was in those days, not so long past, to pursue after wild life with a camera; but a thousand disheartening failures left him still grasping the inviolable shade, still confident that in photography, if it could only be given with rapidity and precision, lay the naturalist's hope. ”

“ In short, photography is an excellent servant and friend, but a dangerous master. It may easily beguile us by its seductive reproductions of surface relief and lighting to think more of these qualities than any other, and to endeavour to put them in the wrong places—in places where we want colour planes rather than shadow planes, flatness and repose rather than relief, for instance, as mostly in surface decoration. ”

“ In photography one man delights in the etching point and cannot stop until he has made a net work all over his plate and led us to look at this instead of his picture, which, if good, would have been let alone—a clever device of throwing dust into our eyes. ”

“ The day may come when our exhibitions will show masses of color on their walls which will make the water-colorists and the miniaturists green with envy, but that day is not yet. And I for one would be sorry to see it come. There is to me a charm about good monotone photography that is all its own and that puts it on a plane with etching, engraving, lithography, and other monotone processes. Of course some artists, strictly so called, object to regarding photography as anything but a mechanical process, but the number of those who would make art a close corporation is happily diminishing. ”

“ For one reason or another the men whose names were known ten or fifteen years ago seem to have dropped out and their places are being filled by new blood, men with high ideals and aspirations, who are not content merely with reproducing, by means of their cameras, pretty scenes and places, but who believe that photography is capable of much more—of showing not only the physical facts, but the very spirit of nature herself—a true impressionism ”

“ I pass on to consider rapidly a matter less abstruse and of more practical interest, a growing habit among artists to avail themselves of the assistance of photographs in their work. It will not be questioned that many artists of repute do use photographs to—well, to put it briefly, to save themselves trouble, expense, and, in some cases, to supplant defective education. But the influence of photography on art is so vast a subject, so multiple, so intricate, that I may do no more here than lift the very outer fringe. ”

“ The sun and the camera between them certainly do your picture for you, and as you urge, there is more of artifice in the merest Sunday-school tale than in the best of photographs. Still, you must remember that photography too has its artifice, its choice of the right and the wrong way, and its exercise of judgment; there is a great deal in it that is not mechanical; and in its essence it is of the same class as the books I have been alluding to. ”

“ Invention and design, feeling and imagination, are all a part of the photographer's suite. He employs them all. And these too are qualities the most artistic. Technique, which is manual and not spiritual, is the one point at which art and photography cannot coalesce. ”

“ The motion picture art can portray any miracle. From the impressive visual standpoint, no marvel is barred to trick photography. A man’s transparent astral body can be seen rising from his gross physical form, he can walk on the water, resurrect the dead, reverse the natural sequence of developments, and play havoc with time and space. Assembling the light images as he pleases, the photographer achieves optical wonders which a true master produces with actual light rays.
The lifelike images of the motion picture illustrate many truths concerning creation. ”

“ As the problems to the maker of pictures by photography are the same as those of the painter and the especial ambition of the former's art is to be painter-like, separations have been thought unnecessary in the address of the text. It is the best wish of the author that photography, following painting in her essential principles as she does, may prove herself a well met companion along art's highway,—seekers together, at arm's length, and in defined limits, of the same goal. ”

“ The development of the discovery announced by Daguerre in 1839, and first applied to portraits by one Draper,—this is the great historian. The photograph business, sir, alone sees life steadily and sees it whole. Photography is the supreme sociologist, master psychologist. In the sidewalk display of the cheap photographer is the poor, naked, human story,—poignantly touching, chastening of pride, opening the heart of the responsive beholder to deeper knowledge of the inherent kinship of all humankind. ”

“ The aim. We wish from the first to make it clearly understood as to what is our object in comparing photography with the other pictorial arts. It is not to condemn any of the other arts as inadequate for artistic expression, for we hold that good art, as expressed even by a lead pencil, is better than bad art expressed on the largest of canvases, but our object is to inquire what position the technique of photography takes when regarded side by side with the methods and limits of each of the pictorial arts. ”

“ Photography is shown to be the one radical advance in depiction since art began. In days of old an object had to be seen before it could be pictured; to-day new heavens and a new earth impress their images first in the camera, to declare themselves only afterward to the eye. ”

“ Through photography the whole world may become acquainted with the great statues, the great paintings, the victories of art. In this way the mind is enlarged, the sympathies quickened, the appreciation of the beautiful intensified, the taste refined and the character ennobled. ”

“ The literalness of photography, which prevents its ever competing with etching or painting in imaginative art, makes it of inestimable value in certain realms, and scientists of all sorts, astronomers, physicists, physicians, pathologists, as well as architects, building contractors, business men, who wish a precise and accurate record of any object, recognize the value of the camera. ”

“ We know from the camera how a lightning-flash really looks, what a horse is like when at full speed, the different actions of a bird’s wing when flying, the true shape of each wave in a storm, also the swing of drapery in a high wind, and how men and women really appear when excited; for before the days of instantaneous photography the painter was apt to be deceived, and take as one several motions and effects. ”

“ A photographic artist strives for the same end and in two points only does he fall short of the painter—in color and in the ability to render so accurately the relative values, although this is to a great extent compensated by the tone of the picture. How then is photography superior to etching, wood-cutting, charcoal drawing? The [pg 178] drawing of the lens is not to be equalled by any man. There is ample room for selection, judgment and posing, and, in a word, in capable hands a finished photograph is a work of art. ”

“ It would be utterly impossible to estimate the advantages Photography has conferred upon all mankind, or to anticipate the still greater wonders it is yet destined to achieve.
Having sketched the early struggles which Photography had to surmount to claim a high place for its followers, we now proceed to examine its distinguishing features. In scrutinizing the works of even the greatest artists of our day, we are sure to find some fault—some error. ”

“ The daily use made of photography by artists is another proof of the good opinion in which it is held by them. You could not get these men to say a word in favour of chromo-lithography, because that is a hybrid craft with few possibilities. These questions being disposed of, we will proceed to discuss an assertion of Mr. Hamerton’s, that photography is like a reflection in a mirror. Now from what we have shown in this book, means are at the artist’s command to influence the final picture in every stage of its development. ”

“ In the former case, however, the photographer cannot be regarded as more than an exceptionally sensitive and perceptive craftsman, and in the latter instance the camera user, of course, ceases to be a photographer and becomes a creative artist, using photography merely as a basis on which to construct an imaginative result. ”

“ Travel is no longer necessary for the masses in order to behold the marvels of American scenery, for the camera has gathered them all and lays every inspiring scene upon even the poor man’s table, to minister to the delight of his family circle. But photography likewise blesses the traveler, for study of the picture establishes acquaintanceship with that which is represented, while accompanying description quickens his understanding and gives a more intelligent conception of the pictorial subject. ”

“ It does not, however, seem probable that photography will ever entirely replace draughtsmanship for the illustration of fiction, since the very strength of the camera,—that is, its surpassing power of rendering accurately the outlines and gradations of natural objects,—operates as a severe limitation in the case of original, imaginative work. ”

“ No one will deny the interest there is in a sensitive, flexible line and in the rendition of [pg 200] mass by line. But photography is an art dealing with finished surfaces of perfect modelling, and workers in this art should preserve the “nature” of their subject. The man who feels line had better etch or use a pencil. ”

“ Compare the primitive system of photography, limited as it was, to objects of immediate presence to that now existing, whereby worlds and systems of worlds are made tributary to its discoveries and achievements. Now, instead of the wonders of the art inspiring hero worship of the men engaged in its studies and who produce the wondrous results, a feeling of awe and veneration for the continually increasing wonders of the creation is inspired. ”

“ While all these wonders have come to pass in practical service, photography has likewise grown and expanded in the field of fine art. There are photographic art schools, and clubs and exhibitions—all for the purpose of cultivating and developing the camera to the finest forms of expression. We have highly cultivated and skilled photographers who are true artists, and who are engaged in employing photography as a means to fine art achievement. ”

“ Art would be too austere if it were not for the makers of etchings and lithographs, of pastels and water-colours.
Photography, the latest arrival in the ranks of the graphic arts, has the widest range of expression, and its technique is interesting as far as it can express mechanically and with [Pg 171] comparative ease gradations of tone that without visible touches, marks, strokes or lines melt imperceptibly into each other. But this smoothness of texture will also be its most formidable drawback. There is no chance for manual expression without destroying the charm of photographic texture. ”

“ Nature does not jump into the camera, focus itself, expose itself, develop itself, and print itself. On the contrary, the artist, using photography as a medium, chooses his subject, selects his details, generalizes the whole in the way we have shown, and thus gives his view of nature. This is not copying or imitating nature, but interpreting her, and this is all any artist can do, and how perfectly he does it, depends on his technique, and his knowledge of this technique ”

“ But how much more popular and useful does photography become, when it can be used as a means of securing plates from which to print photographs in a regular printing press, and, what is more astonishing and delightful, to produce the real colors of nature as shown in the subject, no matter how brilliant or varied. ”