CREATIVE PHOTOGRAPHY
JIVE PHOTOGRAPHY
CREATIVE
ra®T®<§RAra¥
Aesthetic Trends 1839-1960 by
HELMUT GERNSHEIM
BONANZA BOOKS • NEW YORK
Copyright (E) MCMLXIl by Helmut Gernsheim Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 74-76430 A 11 rights reserved. This edition is published by Bonanza Books a division of Crown Publishers, Inc. by arrangement with Faber and Faber abcdefgh Manufactured in the United States of A merica
CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION page II
I THE MIRROR OF NATURE 23
II THE PENCIL OF NATURE 32
III TOPOGRAPHY AND INTERPRETATION 40
IV A NEW INDUSTRY 56 V IMMORTAL PORTRAITS 60
VI THE PHOTOGRAPHER AS STAGE MANAGER 69
VII 'FINE ART' PHOTOGRAPHY 73
VIII GENRE 89
IX THE NUDE BEFORE THE CAMERA 96
X REPORTAGE AND DOCUMENTATION 102
XI PUSH-BUTTON PHOTOGRAPHY II5
XII NATURALISTIC PHOTOGRAPHY 119
XIII IMPRESSIONISTIC PHOTOGRAPHY 122
XIV IMITATION PAINTINGS 131 XV THE AESTHETIC MOVEMENT I35
XVI THE BEGINNING OF MODERN PHOTOGRAPHY I49
XVII PHOTOGRAPHY IN THE RETORT l6l
XVIII THE NEW OBJECTIVITY I72
XIX THE INFLUENCE OF SURREALISM I90
XX PHOTO-PATTERNS I96
XXI THE FACE OF OUR TIME 208 SHORT BIOGRAPHIES OF PHOTOGRAPHERS ILLUSTRATED 23I
PROCESSES 248
BIBLIOGRAPHY AND STUDY LIST 25I
INDEX OF NAMES 255
5
ILLUSTRATIONS
The author and> publisher gratefully acknowledge the loan of forty-four blocks from the Shenval Press.
Originals of all the illustrations in this book are in the Gernsheim Collection unless otherwise stated. Those by living
photographers are reproduced with their kind permission.
The following individuals and organizations have kindly allowed the reproduction of the following photographs:
Mrs Rosellina Bischof, 238, 239, 240; The Bodley Head, 86; Mr Paul Boissonnas, 125; The British Film Institute, 179,
181; British Railways, 3; Contemporary Films, 243; Mr Anthony Denny, 12; George Eastman House, Rochester, 100, 137,
158, 160; Edinburgh Public Library, 24; Mr Hans Hammarskiold, 119; Mr Peter Hunter, 219; Mrs Anneliese Lerski, 182;
The Library of Congress, Washington, 226, 227; London Press Exchange, 3, 4; Palace of the Legion of Honor, San
Francisco, 103; The Royal Photographic Society of Great Britain, 62, 63; the Societe Franchise de Photographie, 8, 19;
Stenger Collection, 38; Mr Brett Weston, 190; Mr Berthold Wolpe, 36; Mrs. A. Erfurth, 130.
1. Nicephore Niepce. The world's first photo- graph, 1826 page 12
2. Professor Schardin. Temperature distribution around a heated metal tube, c. 1950 14
3. A fast-moving train. Photographic poster, i960 16
4. Advertisement for Industrial Life Offices Asso- ciation, c. 1959 17
5. Helmut Gernsheim. Loch Linnhe at mid-day, 1946 18
6. Helmut Gernsheim. Loch Linnhe, late after- noon, 1946 18
7. Weegee (pseudonym for Arthur Fellig). Fire at
a New York tenement, c. 1939 21
8. L. J. M. Daguerre. Earliest surviving daguerreo- type, 1837 23
9. J. P. Girault de Prangey. The Metropolitan Church in Athens, detail. Daguerreotype, 1842 24
10. Richard Beard. Daguerreotype of a gentleman,
c. 1842 26
11. Interior of the first public daguerreotype studio in Europe, opened by Richard Beard on the roof of the Polytechnic Institution, London, in March 1 841. Woodcut by George Cruikshank, 1842 26
12. Antoine Claudet. Daguerreotype of a lady,
c. 1845 27
13. Daguerreotype of a gentleman, c. 1845 29
14. French daguerreotype, 1844 (reproduction). Left, Friedrich von Martens (inventor of pano- ramic daguerreotype, 1845). Right, the optician N. P. Lerebours. Standing, the chemist Marc- Antoine Gaudin 30
15. C. F. Stelzner. Daguerreotype, c. 1843. Left to right, Fraulein Reimer, Frau Stelzner, Fraulein Mathilde von Braunschweig 30
16. Babbitt. The Niagara Falls. Daguerreotype,
c. 1853 31
17. W. H. Fox Talbot. 'The Open Door.' Calotype,
c. 1844 32
18. W. H. Fox Talbot. 'The Chess Players.' Calo- type, 1842 33
19. Hippolyte Bayard. Windmills at Montmartre,
c. 1842 page 33
20. D. O. Hill and R. Adamson. The sculptor John Stevens and bust of Lucius Verus. Calotype,
1843-5 35
21. D. O. Hill and R. Adamson. Rev. George Gil- fillan and Dr Samuel Brown. Calotype,
c. 1843 36
22. D. O. Hill and R. Adamson. Elizabeth John- stone, the beauty of Newhaven village. Calo- type, c. 1845 37
23. D. O. Hill and R. Adamson. Sailors. Calotype,
c. 1845 38
24. D. O. Hill and R. Adamson. Highlanders at Edinburgh Castle. Calotype, 1843-7 39
25. John Shaw Smith. Relief on a temple at Thebes. Waxed paper, 1851 40
26. Roger Fenton. Domes of the Cathedral of the Resurrection, the Kremlin. Waxed paper, 1852 41
27. Dr Thomas Keith. Willow trees. Waxed paper,
c. 1854 42
28. Dr Thomas Keith. Reflections in a pond at Blackford Farm near Edinburgh. Waxed paper, 1855 42
29. 'Cuthbert Bede' (Rev. Edward Bradley). Title- page of Photographic Pleasures, 1855 43
30. James Mudd. Flood at Sheffield, 1864 44
31. James Anderson. Base of Trajan's Column, Rome, c. 1858 45
32. Francis Frith. Pyramids of Dakshoor, 1857-8 46
33. Edouard Baldus. Pont du Gard, c. 1855 46
34. Royal Engineers Military School, Chatham (Photographic Department). Study of plants,
c. i860 47
35. Bisson freres. Temple of Vespasian, Rome, detail of architrave, c. i860 48
36. James Robertson (attributed to). Malta fortress,
c. i860 48
37. Charles Negre. Statue, detail from St Gilles du Gard Abbey near Aries. Calotype, c. 1852 49
7
38,
39. 4o.
4i.
42. 43- 44- 45- 46
47- 48.
49.
5°, 5i 52.
53 54.
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63- 64. 65.
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67. 68.
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70. 7i.
72. 73-
74- 75- 76.
Charles Clifford. In the park of the royal summer residence Capricho, near Guadalajara, Spain, 1855 page 50
Henry White. Bramble and ivy, c. 1856 Gustave Le Gray. 'Brig upon the Water', 1856 Robert MacPherson. Garden of the Villa d'Este, Tivoli, c. 1857
Gustave Le Gray. Notre-Dame, Paris, 1858 Carlo Ponti. Piazza San Marco, Venice, c. 1862 Cheap photographer's advertisement, 1857 C. Schwartz. Christian Rauch, 1852 Ambrotype of an old gentleman, c. 1857 Nadar. George Sand, 1865 Maull and Polyblank. Michael Faraday, F.R.S., c. 1856. (Faraday is holding a piece of optical glass in an iron container, used to demonstrate magnetic rotatory polarization of light) Robert Howlett. Isambard Kingdom Brunei, 1857
Nadar. Baron Taylor, c. 1865 Etienne Carjat. Rossini, c. 1865 Melandri. Sarah Bernhardt with her self- portrait bust, c. 1876
Julia Margaret Cameron. Ellen Terry, 1864 Julia Margaret Cameron. Sir Henry Taylor, 1867
Disderi. Uncut sheet of eight carte-de-visite portraits of Princess Buonaparte-Gabriele, c. 1862
Disderi. Napoleon III, the Empress Eugenie and the Prince Imperial, 1859-60 Camille Silvy. The Countess of Caledon, c. 1862
William Notman. Bear hunt (posed in studio), 1867
John Leighton. Self-portrait, aged 30. Calo- type, 1853
William Lake Price. 'Don Quixote in his Study', 1855
O. G. Rejlander. Composition after a detail in Raphael's Sistine Madonna, c. 1856 O. G. Rejlander. 'The Two Ways of Life' (size 31 in. by 16 in.), 1857 H. P. Robinson. 'Fading Away', 1858 H. P. Robinson. 'The Lady of Shalott', 1861 H. P. Robinson. Preliminary sketch with photo- graph inserted, c. i860
H. P. Robinson. 'Dawn and Sunset', 1885 (size 294 in. by 21 in.) Detail of 66
Julia Margaret Cameron. Florence, 1872. In- scribed by G. F. Watts: 'I wish I could paint such a picture as this'
Julia Margaret Cameron. Florence, 1872 (another pose)
Julia Margaret Cameron. May Prinsep, c. 1870 Jane Morris posed by D. G. Rossetti, July 1865. Photographer unknown
Julia Margaret Cameron. 'King Arthur', 1874 Julia Margaret Cameron. 'The Passing of Arthur', 1874
William Lake Price. Partridge, c. 1855
O. G. Rejlander. Tossing chestnuts, c. i860
O. G. Rejlander. 'The Milkmaid', c. 1857
5i 52
53 54 55 57 58 59 60
60
61 62 63
65 66
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70
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78 79 80
81
82 83
84
85 86
87 88
88 89 89 90
77. Lady Hawarden. 'At the Window', c. 1864 page 91
78. Edward Draper. 'Boy with Parrots', c. 1865 92
79. William M. Grundy. 'The Country Stile', 1859
80. Lewis Carroll. 'The Elopement', 1862
81. Lewis Carroll. 'It Won't Come Smooth', 1863
82. Coloured French stereoscopic daguerreotype of an odalisque, c. 1853
83. O. G. Rejlander. Nude, 1857
84. Nadar. Christine Roux, the original 'Musette' of Murger's 'La Vie de Boheme', 1856
85. Clarence H. White and Alfred Stieglitz. Torso, 1907
86. Bill Brandt. Nude, 1958
87. Lusha Nelson. African woman, 1934
88. 'The Music Lesson.' Stereoscopic photograph, c. 1857
89. Alois Locherer. Transport of the colossal statue 'Bavaria', Munich, 1850
90. William England. Railway bridge over the Niagara River. Stereoscopic photograph, 1859
91. P. H. Delamotte. Opening of the rebuilt Crystal Palace at Sydenham by Queen Victoria, 10 June 1854
92. Edward Anthony. Broadway, New York, on a rainy day. Stereoscopic photograph, 1859
93. Nomination of parliamentary candidates at Dover, 1863
94. P. H. Delamotte. Rebuilding of the Crystal Palace at Sydenham, 1853
95. Roger Fenton. Crimean War, cookhouse of the 8th Hussars, 1855
96. Thomas Annan. Glasgow slum (No. 28, Salt- market), 1868
97. T. H. O'Sullivan. 'The Harvest of Death'— battlefield of Gettysburg, July 1863
98. La Butte de Montmartre during the Paris Commune, 1871
99. Jacob A. Riis. New York slum dweller on make- shift bed in a coal cellar, c. 1888. Flashlight photograph
100. Lewis Hine. Child labour in Carolina cotton- mill, 1908
101. Sir Benjamin Stone. Ox-roasting at Stratford- on-Avon 'mop', c. 1898
102. Paul Nadar. The first photo-interview: Nadar (Gaspard Felix Tournachon) interviews the centenarian scientist M. E. Chevreul, August 1886
103. Arnold Genthe. Public feeding after the San Francisco earthquake on 18 April 1906
104. Nahum Luboshez. Famine in Russia, c. 1910
105. Elliot and Fry. Sir Joseph Wilson Swan, 1904
106. Oscar van Zel. Skating, c. 1887
107. J. Bridson. Picnic, c. 1882
108. Paris International Exhibition, 1889: under the Eiffel Tower
109. P. H. Emerson. 'Setting the bow-net.' Platino- type, 1885
no. Frank Sutcliffe. 'Excitement.' Platinotype, 1888
in. P. H. Emerson. 'Towing the Reed.' Platino- type, 1885
112. Lyddell Sawyer. 'In the Twilight.' Photo- gravure, 1888
93 93 95
96 97
98
98
99 100
102
103
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106
106
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107 108
109
109
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no
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113 114
115 116
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118 120
121
121
8
113- George Davison. 'The Onion Field.' Photo- gravure, 1890 page 122
114. B. Gay Wilkinson. 'Sand Dunes.' Photo- gravure, 1889
115. Heinrich Kuhn. 'A Venetian Canal.' Gum print (charcoal colour), 1897 (reproduction)
116. Lacroix. 'Park Sweeper.' Photogravure of a gum print, c. 1900
117. Robert Demachy. 'Primavera.' Photogravure of a gum print (red chalk colour), c. 1896
118. Robert Demachy. 'Behind the Scenes.' Photo- gravure of a, gum print, 1904
119. Edward Steichen. Auguste Rodin with his sculpture of Victor Hugo and 'The Thinker', 1902
120. Cover of exhibition catalogue of artistic photo- graphy held at the Royal Academy of Art in Berlin, 1899
121. Frau E. Nothmann. 'In the Garden.' Photo- gravure of a gum print, c. 1896
122. Fred Boissonnas. 'Faust in His Study', 1898 (reproduction)
123. J. C. Strauss. Photographic portrait in the style of Frans Hals, 1904 (reproduction)
124. Richard Polak. Photograph in the style of Pieter de Hoogh, 1914 (reproduction)
125. Fred Boissonnas. 'Coming Home from the Theatre', c. 1902
126. Lejaren a Hiller. 'Deposition from the Cross', c. 1910
127. Edward Steichen. 'Portrait of Lady H.' Photo- gravure of a coloured gum print, c. 19 10
128. Hans Watzek. 'A Peasant.' Photogravure of a gum print, 1894
129. Theodorand Oskar Hofmeister. 'Great-grand- mother.' Photogravure of a gum print, 1897
130. Hugo Erfurth. Kathe Kollwitz. Oil-print, c. 1925
131. Alfred Stieglitz. 'The Terminal.' Photogravure, 1893
132. Title-page of catalogue of photographic exhibi- tion held at the Hamburg Kunsthalle (Art Gallery), 1899
133. First page of eight-page pamphlet of the Inter- national Society of Pictorial Photographers, 1 904
134. J. Craig Annan. The painter and etcher Sir William Strang. Photogravure, c. 1900
135. Maurice Bucquet. 'Effet de Pluie', c. 1899
136. H. H. H. Cameron. G. F. Watts. Photogravure, c. 1892
137. Frederick H. Evans. Aubrey Beardsley. Platino- type, c. 1895
138. Clarence H. White. 'Lady in Black.' Photo- gravure, 1898
139. Alice Hughes. The Arch-Duchess Stephanie (widow of Arch-Duke Rudolph of Hapsburg). Platinotype, 1905
140. H. Walter Barnett. Mrs Saxton Noble. Platino- type, c. 1908
141. Alexander Keighley. 'The Bridge.' Oil-print, 1906.
142. Alvin Langdon Coburn. Reflections. Photo- gravure, 1908
143. Alvin Langdon Coburn. W. B. Yeats. Photo- gravure, 1908 147
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127 128
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140 140
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145 146 146
144. Clarence H. White. 'In the Orchard.' Photo- gravure, 1902 page 147
45. Frederick H. Hollyer. Aubrey Beardsley, 1896 148
46. Alfred Stieglitz. 'Going to the Post.' Photo- gravure, 1904
47. Harry C. Rubincam. 'The Circus Rider.' Photo- gravure, 1905
48. Paul Strand. 'The White Fence.' Photogravure, 1916
49. Alfred Stieglitz. 'The Steerage.' Photogravure, 1907
50. Paul Strand. New York. Photogravure, 1915
51. Paul Strand. Abstract pattern made by bowls. Photogravure, 19 15
52. Paul Strand. Blind woman in New York. Photo- gravure, 191 5
53. John Thomson. Street locksmith, 1876
54. John Thomson. Poor woman with baby, 1876
55. Paul Martin. Flirtations on Yarmouth beach, c. 1892
56. Paul Martin. Listening to a concert party on Yarmouth beach, c. 1892
57. Anon. Young children selling food in New York slum quarter, Mulberry Bend, 1897
58. Eugene Atget. A prostitute at Versailles, c. 1920
59. Eugene Atget. Tree roots at St Cloud, c. 1905
60. Eugene Atget. Corset shop in the Boulevard de Strasbourg, Paris, c, 1905
61. W. H. Fox Talbot. Calotype of lace, 1842
62. Paul Strand. Shadow pattern. Photogravure, 1916
63. Alvin Langdon Coburn. Vortograph: the first abstract photograph, January 1917
64. Christian Schad. Schadograph, i960. (Replica specially made for this book)
65. Photo-montage, c. 1868
66. Man Ray. Rayograph, 1921
67. L. Moholy-Nagy. Photogram, 1922
68. Man Ray. Solarization, 1931
69. L. Moholy-Nagy. View from radio tower, Berlin, 1928
70. Andre Kertesz. Study of distortion, 1934 (re- production)
71. Helmut Gernsheim. One seed of a dandelion (35 x mag.), 1936
72. Harold E. Edgerton. Multiple flash photograph of the golfer Dennis Shute. 100 flashes per second, c. 1935
73. Dame Kathleen Lonsdale, F.R.S. X-ray dif- fraction photograph of a pentaerythritol crystal having tetragonal symmetry. (The sharp spots are due to the regular arrangement of the atoms; the diffuse spots are due to the thermal vibra- tions), i960
174. Harold E. Edgerton. Splash of milk resulting from the dropping of a ball, which is seen on the rebound. Exposure 1 100,000 sec. at F.64, 1936
175. Albert Renger-Patzsch. Driving shaft of a locomotive, 1923
176. Albert Renger-Patzsch. Leaf of a Collocasia, 1923
177. Albert Renger-Patzsch. Potter's hands, 1925
178. Albert Renger-Patzsch. Breakwater at St Malo, Brittany, 1942 174
149 150 150
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156 156
157 157 158
159 160
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162 163 164 164 165
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173 173
9
179- Close-up from D. W. Griffith's 'Intolerance',
1916 page 174
180. Albert Renger-Patzsch. Fisherwoman, 1927 175
181. Close-up from Eisenstein's 'Battleship Potem- kin', 1925 176
182. Helmar Lerski. Workman, 1931 177
183. Maurice Guibert. Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec
at Malrome, c. 1896 178
184. Maurice Guibert. Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec
(the first true close-up), c. 1896 179
185. E. O. Hoppe. Ship in drydock, 1928 180
186. E. O. Hoppe. Manhattan from Brooklyn Bridge, 1919 181
187. Paul Nash, 'Monster Field. Study No. 1',
c. 1943 181
188. C. J. Laughlin. 'The Unending Stream', 1939 182
189. Edward Steichen. Paul Robeson as 'The Emperor Jones', 1933 183
190. Edward Weston. Paprika, 1930 184
191. Ansel Adams. Pine cone and eucalyptus leaves, 1933 184
192. Helmut Gernsheim. Piano hammers, 1935 185
193. Helmut Gernsheim. The new town, 1935 186
194. Helmut Gernsheim. Spiral staircase at St Paul's Cathedral: looking down, 1943 187
195. Helmut Gernsheim. Skeleton of a leaf (detail). (Placed between two glass plates and enlarged
2| times directly on to bromide paper), 1936 188
196. Helmut Gernsheim. Hog-weed (heracleum), 1936 188
197. Helmut Gernsheim. Section of cucumber magnified four times, 1935 189
198. Casson. 'Accident' (double exposure), c. 1935 190
199. Casson. Surrealist photograph, c. 1935 190
200. Cecil Beaton. Jean Cocteau, 1936 191
201. Edmiston. Solarization, c. 1934 192
202. Angus McBean. Dame Peggy Ashcroft as Portia, 1938 192
203. Angus McBean. Pamela Stanley as Queen Victoria, 1938 193
204. Photo-montage, c. 1868 194
205. Sir Edward Blount. Photo-montage, 1873 195
206. Peter Keetman. Oscillation photograph, 1950 196
207. Peter Keetman. Oil drops, 1956 197
208. Peter Keetman. Ice on lake during snowfall, 1958 198
209. Hans Hammarskiold. Bark of a tree, 1952 199
210. Otto Steinert. 'Interchangeable Forms', 1955 200
211. Hans Hammarskiold. Cross-section through a tree, 195 1 201
212. Otto Steinert. Snow tracks. Negative montage, 1954 202
213. Caroline Hammarskiold. Fishnet reflection,
1950 page 203
214. Arno Hammachcr. Reflections in Amsterdam,
1 95 1 203
215. Arno Hammacher. Detail of iron construction
by Naum Gabo in Rotterdam, 1957 204
216. Rolf Winquist. Gertrud Fridh as Medea, 205 1951
217. 218. Peter Moeschlin. Seagull in flight, c. 1952 206 219. Erich Salomon. At the Second Hague Con- ference on Reparations, January 1930. Left to
right, Loucheur, Tardieu, Curtius, Cheron 208
220. Felix H. Man. Igor Stravinsky conducting at a rehearsal, 1929 209
221. Felix H. Man. Georges Braque in his studio, 1952 210
222. Brassai. Prostitute in Paris, 1933 211
223. Brassai. Entrance to the Bal Tabarin, Paris, 1932 212
224. Bill Brandt. Coal searcher, 1937 212
225. Ida Kar. Marc Chagall, 1954 213
226. Walker Evans. At Vicksburg, Penn., 1936 214
227. Dorothea Lange. Seasonal farm labourer's family in a Southern State, 1935-6 214
228. Arthur Rothstein. Farmer and sons in dust storm, Cimarron County, Oklahoma, 1936 215
229. Henri Cartier-Bresson. Sunday on the banks of
the Marne, 1938 216
230. Kurt Hutton. At the fair, 1938 217
231. Erich Auerbach. Retired civil servant, 1944 218
232. Henri Cartier-Bresson. Matisse in his studio, 1944 219
233. Cecil Beaton. After the raid, 1940 220
234. Cecil Beaton. Wrecked tank in the Libyan Desert, 1942 220
235. Anon. Demented political prisoner in Nazi con- centration camp after liberation, 1945 221
236. Bert Hardy. South Korean political prisoners at Pusan awaiting transport to a concentration camp and execution, 1950 221
237. Bert Hardy. Beggar children in Barcelona, 1950 222
238. Werner Bischof. Famine in Madras province, South India, 1951 223
239. Werner Bischof. Stepping-stones in the Heian Garden, Kyoto, 1952 225
240. Werner Bischof. Floods in East Hungary, 1947 226
241. George Oddner. Man with load, Peru, 1955 227
242. George Oddner. Blind beggar in Peru, 1955 228
243. Zacharia: still from 'Come Back Africa', pro- duced and directed by Lionel Rogosin, i960 228
244. George Oddner. Child selling vegetables in Peru, 1955 229
10
INTRODUCTION
1 he close of the eighteenth century, which gave birth to lithography, also saw the first steps towards the invention of photography.
Aloys Senefelder of Munich devised in 1798 a method of surface-printing from stone, a material which he had been using as a cheap substitute for copper plates in printing plays, music scores, prayer- books and similar work. Five years later the first pub- lication of artists' lithographs appeared1 — in England — and it was this that brought into prominence the possibilities of lithography as a new graphic art.
At the time of Senefelder's invention there was an increasing demand from the rising middle classes for inexpensive illustrations — reproductions of paint- ings, topographical views, and in particular portraits of themselves. It is impossible to say whether this demand led Thomas Wedgwood, son of the famous potter Josiah Wedgwood, to experiment with photo- graphy, or whether he was thinking first and fore- most of simplifying the task of the art department at the Etruria Works in their production of portrait plaques, and of dinner and tea services decorated with landscapes and the country seats of the aristo- cracy. But it is known for certain that Wedgwood employed in his experiments the camera obscura used by the firm for sketching such views.
Since the middle of the sixteenth century this optical instrument had been in demand to an ever- increasing extent as an aid to drawing in perfect per- spective and to achieve an exact copy of nature. The image thrown upon the ground-glass screen by the lens had to be traced by hand, and the desire to find
1 'Specimens of Polyautography, consisting of impres- sions taken from original drawings made purposely for this work.' Published bv Philipp Andre, London, 30 April 1803.
a chemical process 'by which natural objects may be made to delineate themselves without the aid of the artist's pencil' — as Fox Talbot put it — probably occurred to many artists and scientists using the ap- paratus. Thomas Wedgwood was the first person to attempt this. He failed owing to insufficient chemical knowledge, but his 'Account of a method of copying paintings upon glass and of making profiles by the agency of light upon nitrate of silver'2 describes the first deliberate experiments towards photography.
Independently, a number of other investigators in France and England took up the problem. The first to succeed was Nicephore Niepce, a French land- owner with scientific interests, who approached photography through Senefelder's invention, for originally he wanted to make lithographs, which had become a fashionable hobby in France. His artistic skill proving inadequate, Niepce tried to find a way of fixing the images of the camera obscura chemically — initially on lithographic stone. After ten years of experimentation with a great variety of materials Niepce managed in 1826 to obtain a faint 'helio- graph' or 'sun drawing' on a pewter plate coated with bitumen of Judea, a substance which he dis- covered to be light-sensitive. The exposure of this, the world's first photograph (No. 1), was eight hours in full sunshine!
Heliographic plates were intended to be etched and inked in order to print a large number of copies on paper. However, pictures from nature taken in the camera obscura were too faint, and Niepce only succeeded in printing from those plates which he had made by placing line engravings directly on the sensitive surface; i.e. art reproductions.
-Journal of the Royal Institution, London, June 1802.
1 1
I . Nicephore Niepce. View from his workroom window at his estate Gras near Chalon-sur-Saone. The point- illiste appearance of the reproduction is due to surface impurities of the pewter plate which are unnoticeable in the original.
Niepce, Daguerre, Talbot and other independent inventors of photography, the Rev J. B. Reade, Sir John Herschel, Hippolyte Bayard and Friedrich Gerber— all thought only of the practical usefulness of the invention in copying nature. The possibility of photography being a creative art was an idea as far removed from their minds as the artistic applica- tion of lithography had been from Senefelder's. As in the case of lithography, it was several years after the introduction of photography to the public that the first conscious effort in this direction emerged. Like the older technique, photography had to fight for recognition as a graphic art, though a host of dis- tinguished artists in both media have given ample proof that they can be creative art forms, as well as inexpensive methods of illustration.
There is probably no sphere of activity in our modern civilization that could be thought of today without photography. Its thousandfold applications to science, medicine, industry, commerce, education, the cinema, television, etc., have made photography indispensable in daily life. Next to the printed word the photographic image is the widest form of com- munication, and for this reason it has been aptly called the most important invention since that of the printing press. Photography in the service of man- kind disseminates information about man and nature, records the visible world, and extends our knowledge far beyond it.
In considering the artistic aspect of photography we are not concerned with photographs intended to serve scientific or technical purposes, although some
12
of them do have great aesthetic appeal, which is of course incidental (No. 2).
We can also ignore the billions of snapshots taken every year by the estimated hundred million camera users all over the world for no other purpose than to serve as mementoes of family events and holidays. For the snapshooter a photograph is merely 'a mir- ror with a memory', to borrow the expression from Oliver Wendell Holmes. It bears the same relation- ship to a composed creative picture, as noise does to music. Only a tiny core of amateurs and profes- sionals— perhaps no more than 1 per cent of all camera owners — strive to use their apparatus crea- tively. In other words, only a minute proportion of the immense output of photographs has any preten- sions to art — an important point which critics in- variably overlook in discussing the subject. If few photographers succeed in their intentions, this only proves the elusiveness of the creative element in a technique almost anyone can learn to master, but is no reason for denying to photography the existence of such creative possibilities. Is not the position anal- ogous to that in other art media in which thousands of mediocrities are produced for every masterpiece? Yet we admire these arts in spite of the abundance of failures.
Whether photography is or is not an art is a ques- tion that has been debated from the moment it came before the public in 1839. It is nonetheless a futile argument, for the question is not whether photo- graphy is an art per se — neither music, literature, painting nor sculpture can make that claim, although they are classed amongst the fine arts — but whether it is capable of artistic expression. In its compara- tively short history convincing proof has been forth- coming that in the hands of a true artist photography can be an art, and we trust that the illustrations bear this out.
Since its official introduction in 1839 photography has passed through a number of stylistic phases which coincide more or less with similar periods in painting; only in photography they are trends rather than periods, confined to a few photographers. Some were due to the influence of contemporary thought and taste, some to technical developments, and a few owe their origin to schools of painting. Whilst the majority of creative photographers have been satis- fied to explore the pictorial possibilities of their medium, remaining purely photographic in concep-
tion and execution, mistaken ambition to compete with painting drove a minority to artificial picture- making alien to the nature of photography. From the 1 850s onward for nearly a hundred years 'pictorial- ism' dominated photographic exhibitions, and it still forms a substantial proportion of certain Salon ex- hibitions today, just as descriptive popular painting remains entrenched in art academies. Thus whilst a number of progressive painters and photographers have explored new fields, constituting the modern movement in art and photography, for the defenders of traditional art time has stood still.
It is understandable that it has always been those photographs closest to contemporary painting in style and feeling, i.e. those apparently most ad- vanced, that make a special appeal to art critics. Un- fortunately, however, they are usually the very pic- tures that are least true to photographic technique — a fact to which the art critic seems quite oblivious. He is naturally so absorbed in the image-making of the painter and the graphic artist that he is apt to apply the same criteria to photography, seeking in it qualities characteristic of other art media. To appre- ciate photography requires above all understanding of the qualities and limitations peculiar to it.
Prejudice, jealousy, and sheer ignorance of the functions of photography were bound to frustrate any rational argument so long as it was considered a cheap substitute for, or a short-cut to, painting. For nearly a century the apparent parallelism of drawing with light and painting in oils befogged artists and critics alike. The misconception was first brought forward by the painter Paul Delaroche, whose classic remark on first seeing a daguerreotype: 'From today, painting is dead!' was prophetic, though premature. For a time, painting became still more naturalistic in competition with photography. From the point of view of those European schools of painting which from the fifteenth century onward considered a mir- ror-like imitation of nature the aim of art, photo- graphy seemed the ne plus ultra. The absurdity of judging paintings by the standards of photographic truth, and photographs by the degree to which they succeeded in imitating fine art was realized only after a great deal of trash had resulted.
Since the First World War a re-assessment of the functions for which each art is ideally suited inevit- ably led to the gradual withdrawal of the painter from representing the appearance of the outside
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world. A hundred years after Delaroche, painting as • he knew it was in fact dead — or at least confined to unprogressive academic circles. The bewildering number of styles and conflicting trends that followed each other in quick succession during the last sixty years aimed increasingly at divesting painting of any reference to reality, and left the recording of the visual world entirely to the still and cine-camera.
Photography and modern painting have become mutually exclusive in their subject matter: the photo- grapher draws his inspiration from the observation of life, registering with the camera what he is guided to by the eye. The painter is preoccupied with the observation of his mind; he seems bent upon the intellectualization of art, creating the purely subjec-
tive, abstract designs, which Moholy-Nagy pre- dicted in 1925 all painting would sooner or later be- come. An inevitable consequence of this develop- ment was that the artist lost touch with humanity, and the public grew more and more dependent on the camera.
'This powerful enemy' (wrote R. H. Wilenski a few years ago)1 'rejoicing in the rich completeness of his language, triumphant as an image-maker in the whole wide range of his narrative, dramatic and romantic subject matter, and master of immense dis- tributing resources, continually confronts all pain- ters; and the situation, as I see it, is just this. The
1 Preface to the 1956 edition of The Modern Movement in Art.
2. Professor Schardin. Temperature distribution around a heated metal tube, c. 1950
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art of painting can only conquer in this fight when the artists have finally abandoned to the camera and television men all the dramatic, sentimental, semi- erotic and descriptive material formerly used by painters, and when they have in fact invented a new and extensive symbolic pictorial technique which they can use to communicate to themselves their formal and other experiences.'
Judging from his chapter on 'The Camera's In- fluence', Mr Wilenski's knowledge of photography is limited to the old-fashioned type of Salon exhibi- tion so much in evidence at the Royal Photographic Society. Thus he has formed as erroneous views about photography, as anyone basing his knowledge of painting solely on the summer exhibitions at the Royal Academy would have of painting. 'Art' photo- graphers have long laboured under the delusion that they were elevating photography by distorting the image into a semblance of other forms of graphic art. Therein lies their conception of 'art'. Artists have committed no less serious errors of judgment as regards unsuitability of medium. (A recent ex- ample that comes to mind is the realistically modelled bronze chair with over-lifesize fruit and vegetables by Giacomo Manzu. The composition would have made an excellent photograph; as a nineteenth- century painting it might have been acceptable, but sculpture is the wrong medium for the subject.) Nevertheless a wise critic bases his opinions on the evidence of the positive qualities of an art, not on the failures of an outmoded clique. Yet this is ex- actly where his hostility to 'the enemy' has let Mr Wilenski down. He failed to enlarge his experience by studying the classic period of photography before the turn of the century, and is strangely unaware of the modern movement in photography which began just at the time he wrote his book in 1926.
Were it not for the fact that Mr Wilenski was one of the first art historians to discuss photography's influence on painting — whereas others simply failed to perceive it or ostrich-like tried to ignore it — I would not attach such importance to his statements. But some of his views on the aesthetics of photo- graphy are too distorted to be passed over. 'Today everyone recognizes that the camera cannot com- ment; that it cannot select.' I admit nothing of the kind. Photography is a constant process of selection, and in the power of commenting lies the reportage photographer's greatest strength.
I am equally confounded by Mr Wilenski's asser- tion that 'the camera cannot record a house, a tree, or a man. It can only record the momentary effects and degrees of light as affected by such physical objects and concrete things.' As proof he puts forward that 'a cottage recorded by the camera at ten in the morn- ing is a different cottage from that recorded by the same camera in the same position at four in the after- noon, because the lights and shades — which consti- tute the camera's records — have entirely changed'. Of course it is different — not only to the camera but to any observer. Similarly a photograph taken from the top of a step-ladder is bound to give a different view of the cottage from one taken at the same (or any other) moment from the ground. If these ex- amples prove anything, it is the great variety of possibilities at the photographer's disposal to record the cottage, but not his supposed inability to record its forms. A house not subject to such changes of light and apparent position does not exist.
It would be tedious to go into every point of this kind. I will only add that Mr Wilenski's claim that 'the camera can never represent motion' is no less fallacious than some of his other statements. No artist can suggest motion as well as a photographer, neither by the naturalistic technique as in Courbet's 'Wave' nor by symbolism such as the 'rocking-horse' atti- tude adopted by all nineteenth-century painters for fast-moving horses, until photography made this and other symbols (flashes of lightning, for instance) look ridiculous. Contrary to Mr Wilenski's view that 'the symbolic representational artist can always re- present motion' (whereas the camera cannot), I con- sider that this obsolete artist's formula does not represent horses galloping, as perceived by the human mind. Surely we have to correct the artist's impression, and not the camera's records, as Mr Wilenski claims, even though the press photograph of race-horses reproduced in his book is not the best example of its kind. Movement is sometimes inten- tionally 'frozen' by press photographers in the know- ledge that their editor, adhering to the popular misconception, would reject a photograph in which the moving objects were slightly blurred as 'technic- ally imperfect'. Nevertheless we see daily photo- graphs of fast-moving trains (No. 3), race-horses, motor racing, football players, birds, etc., conveying a perfect impression of movement by slight blurring
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3. A fast-moving train. Photographic poster, i960
either of the moving object, or of the background, the object itself being represented sharp.
To consider photography as the enemy of painting — which Mr Wilenski is not alone in doing — is an untenable view. In the nineteenth century it was the painter who stubbornly waged war on the photo- grapher as his rival — the more so since he adopted his rival's technique. Today, the aims of photo- graphy and painting are no longer confused. Artists have long made the necessary adjustment, but those critics who, like John Berger, see in a return to real- istic or descriptive painting the salvation of art from the contemporary chaos are equally mistaken. Real- istic painting would stand no chance of survival in competition with photography. We must face the fact that this is the age of photography. Even if photography were only 'a waste product of art', as
the professor of art history at Cologne University libelled it, there is no denying that it has success- fully taken over the traditional function of art as a means of communication.
Despite the constant comparisons of photography with painting, because of their mutual influence, they are two entirely different activities with different aims. Painting is concerned with recording the artist's experience of an event, photography with recording a selected aspect of the event itself. The camera intercepts images; the paint brush recon- structs them. Photographic technique is much more closely related to the processes of print-making, for photographs are usually small in size and lacking colour. Colour and large size play a very important part in the appreciation of painting. Their lack is not inherent in the photographic medium but has other causes. Good colour photographs can be taken any day but there is little demand for them as long as printing costs are prohibitive and the quality of re- production fails to do justice to the original. Few photographs are nowadays made for exhibition pur- poses, so the need for impressive size does not arise either in black and white or in colour.
The role size plays as a psychological factor in the general appreciation of photography was clearly demonstrated by the exhibition of Ida Kar's por- traits at the Whitechapel Art Gallery in spring i960. The moment critics saw photographs the size of mural paintings they were unanimous in their ver- dict: this is art. It was, but size did not enter into the question. The trained eye can see the artistic value of a picture — whether a photograph or a painting — in a small print. On this basis all qualities bar colour do admit of, and frequently force, a comparative evaluation of a painting with a photograph — at least in descriptive painting.
As in engraving, etching, and lithography, the artistic effort in photography goes into the produc- tion of the original image, which is unique, and from which a large number of prints can be made on paper. Each medium has its appropriate tools that are guided according to the artist's conception. In photography, the tool is the camera.
The camera imposes its own visual laws — optical laws, which differ from the rules of linear perspective laid down in the Renaissance for painting. Optical perspective varies greatly with the focal length of the lens used, with its distance from the object, and the
16
angle from which the picture is taken. It can result in distortions which astonish any inexperienced per- son naively believing the time-worn slogan 'Photo- graphy cannot lie' (No. 4).
Having freed the photographer from traditional rules of composition the camera also provided him with unlimited freedom of movement, novel view- points, and a casualness enjoyed by no artist before. In short, it enabled him to present old subjects in a new light.
Yet not only visually has photography introduced an entirely new way of depicting the world around us. In subject matter, too, the cameraman has — with the exception of portraiture and views — departed from the traditional themes of the painter by con- centrating on ordinary events and sights, and giving us close-ups and spontaneous slices of life — purely photographic subject matter. The new visual pre- sentation, known as 'photographic vision', has con- ditioned us to a new kind of aesthetics. Many painters acquired it through their use of the camera, or through extensive study of photographs, foremost amongst them Degas, Toulouse-Lautrec, Utrillo, Sickert.
On the other hand the camera imposes limitations that do not exist for the graphic artist, who can draw on experiences, give rein to his imagination, make nature conform to his conception, and express him- self in symbols. The photographer has none of these possibilities at his disposal, being bound to the de- piction of existing objects, but he can use the camera in an interpretative manner to overcome the limita- tions of literalism — and that is where the creative element enters into an otherwise mechanical and re- productive technique.
For the creative photographer, the camera is an extension of his vision — and through his, the on- looker's. Even the latest fully automatic camera can only ensure a correctly exposed and sharp negative: it cannot distinguish between a meaningless snap- shot and a significant picture. This distinction — the creative faculty — entirely depends on the man be- hind the camera. Where the mechanical photo- grapher will merely reproduce, the creative photo- grapher perceives essential qualities of form and composition and interprets effectively the mood and colour of a scene or object according to his taste, judgment and temperament. If photography were a purely mechanical reproduction of nature, half-a-
B
dozen photographers taking the same subject would produce six identical pictures. But quite on the contrary, their results will vary enormously accord- ing to their choice of viewpoint, camera angle, light- ing (Nos. 5 & 6), the selection of certain details and the elimination of others, the stressing of one aspect of the subject as against another through differential focus, etc. Choice of lens (wide-angle, normal, tele- photo), film (monochrome or colour), variations in developing and in the making of the positive print, allow the photographer additional latitude in inter- pretation. And these are only a few of the many ways in which he can express his personality in the picture.
It cannot be denied that the evolution of photo- graphic picture-making was largely influenced by technical development: (a) the evolution of the
4. Advertisement for Industrial Life Offices Association, c. 1959
5. Helmut Gernsheim. Loch Linnhe at mid-day. 1946
camera from the cumbersome apparatus of Daguerre's day to the modern miniature camera; (b) the increasing sensitivity of the material at the photographer's disposal, and (c) the invention of auxiliary equipment such as stroboscopic light. For this reason photography is understandably con- sidered first and foremost as a technique and tech- nical aspects of it predominate discussions in photo- graphic circles. Judging from the totally inadequate space accorded to the discussion and illustration of pictures in most photographic magazines, one is forced to the conclusion that training and outlook render most editors quite oblivious to aesthetic as distinct from technical qualities. Catering for a largely uncultured readership, they provide the means rather than the end. The photographic industry has conditioned photographers to believe that the quali- ties of a photograph depend on instruments and materials, and no editor dependent on advertising revenue will proclaim the truth — that good photo- graphs are the result of the perceptive powers and ability of the photographer and that technical data
6. Helmut Gernsheim. Loch Linnhe, late afternoon. 1946
are completely meaningless. It would not occur to anyone to ascribe the brilliance of a pianist to the outstanding qualities of his piano, and it would seem ridiculous were a painter to acknowledge the pro- ducer of his colours and brushes. Why, then, should we expect a photographer to mention his camera, lens, or shutter speed? The result obtained with one type of instrument or lens could have been just as well achieved with a different make.
To achieve artistically satisfying photographs re- quires an equally intensive study of art and cultiva- tion of mind as any other artistic activity. The cultivation of taste by frequent visits to art exhibi- tions, and the study of the work of leading photo- graphers and film directors form an essential part of the photographer's education. Some of the great- est photographers started with the advantage of having been artists in other fields first. But unfor- tunately, as in the case of photographic magazines, most European schools of photography neglect the art side, and are satisfied with turning out technic- ally competent operators. This is one of the reasons
why the number of creative photographers is so comparatively small — out of all proportion, in fact, to those practising it. Another is the lamentably low level of general education and culture of those taking up photography professionally, particularly in this country, where it is still classified as a trade open to anyone and 'qualifications' are measured by the financial success of the business. Photography does not, however, form an exception to other professions in its mental requirements, and the sooner the erron- eous idea dies that whoever has failed in everything else can still make the grade in photography, the better will it be for photography. In America the outlook for photography is much brighter: at least thirty Colleges and Universities give courses on photography as a creative art.
I am frequently asked why up to about 1900 Britain and France made the most important con- tribution to the development of photography. The explanation is simpler than most people suppose. Whereas in other countries photography was chiefly practised as a portrait business — and by the type of person nowadays engaged in it here — producing competent but uninspired work, in Britain and France there were in addition a large number of cultured amateurs of the professional middle and upper class, to whom photography was a hobby in the best sense of the word. Even when they adopted it as their profession they did so first and foremost from an urge to create; they photographed to satisfy their artistic urge and hoped thereby to elevate photography as an art. Taste and a critical faculty trained in classical art were perhaps their greatest assets. By far the largest group were former painters: D. O. Hill, O. G. Rejlander, James Anderson, Lake Price, Edouard Baldus, Charles Negre, Gustave Le Gray. Adam-Salomon was a sculptor, Nadar and Carjat caricaturists, P. H. Delamotte a professor of drawing. Thomas Keith and Robert MacPherson were surgeons, Henry White and Roger Fenton lawyers, Maxime Du Camp, Theophile Gautier and Lewis Carroll were authors, Paul Martin a wood-engraver, Eugene Atget an actor, Hippolyte Bayard a civil servant. Others belonged to the upper class or aristocracy: Mrs J. M. Cameron, Lady Ha warden, Lady Caledon, Count O. Aguado, Girault de Prangey, John Shaw Smith, Camille Silvy, Count Flacheron, Count Primoli and many others.
The development of photography as a creative art
testifies not only to the emergence of individual styles but also to the same aesthetic trends dependent on the Zeitgeist that are discernible in the other arts. To the critic acquainted with the work of great photographers there is evident as much difference in style, treatment of and preference for certain sub- jects, as a connoisseur of painting finds in the works of painters. Indeed, nothing but a wall of prejudice excludes photography from the fine arts, still defined by the Oxford Dictionary as 'those that appeal to the sense of beauty', although art has for several decades now expressed different ideals. Beauty is relative and takes on a different meaning with almost every generation. In Queen Victoria's reign morality and beauty became almost synonymous — an ideal first propounded by Kant, and responsible for much trash in art. In abstract art, the decorative element, the rhythm and vitality of form are its chief attrac- tion. The subject painter, if he is true to our time, is bound to reflect its disharmony, violence and ugli- ness. Far from delighting the onlooker's senses, he may evoke nausea.
The creative photographer, too, has come to realize that conventional beauty only results in hackneyed themes. He goes in search of something subtler and deeper — the interest of everyday life, the vitality of action, the expressiveness of a situation, the beauty which lies in unusual form, texture and pattern, and above all, human relationships. Ugli- ness, poverty, and sympathy with humanity have inspired some of the most powerful photographs. In showing the world as it really is — not a glorified Hollywood version — the modern photographer sees his most important function. In his hands the camera is a weapon; by virtue of its stark realism the impact of a photograph can rouse human emotion to a degree to which no other graphic art can aspire (No. 7).
The chief difference, then, between photography and the other graphic arts lies not in their creative possibilities, but in the purpose underlying their pro- duction. Photographs are made for use, paintings to be sold. The photographer requires his pictures to be reproduced, whilst the painter's main concern is to find a buyer for his canvases. (The portrait painter and portrait photographer work exclusively on com- mission and therefore fall into a different category.)
European easel-paintings have been in existence for about five and a half centuries and have been
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collected by patrons, connoisseurs and museums. Being symbols of wealth — apart from their intrinsic artistic value — a high proportion have survived. The world's leading art galleries pride themselves on their representative collections of the various schools.
Photography has only been before the public for 122 years. As in the case of the slightly older art of lithography, until recently1 no very high value has so far been attached to individual photographs, except in the case of news scoops. Yet unlike the other graphic arts, photographic prints are hardly ever published in editions. Rarely are more than three or four copies made. Not being intended for wall de- coration but as a rule for publication, photographs often die of neglect once they have served their pur- pose. The exhibition photographs that have survived from the early decades of photography are com- paratively few. Until quite recently photographs were not considered worth collecting, with the result that vast quantities of nineteenth-century photographs have been lost for ever. This neglect has made early photography one of the scarcest fields for the collec- tor, and now that a few perceptive people are be- coming aware of the important part played by photo- graphy in aesthetic development and its influence on painting, the difficulty of retrieving what former lack of imagination cast aside is insuperable.
Far from trying to rectify the situation, our museums of art and applied art have adopted such an arrogant attitude towards photography that the entire field is left to the care and interest of museums of science and technology. Consequently the public only sees such photographs as show a phase in the technical evolution of photography, together with apparatus and chemical bottles. In Munich a museum of 'photography' is in course of establish- ment, but so far its contents consist of a thousand lenses! Photography, the Cinderella of the arts, has so far failed to find a place in European art collec- tions. There is not one museum where a representa- tive selection of creative photography is on view to the public. The collection formed by the late Pro- fessor Stenger in Germany with lifelong devotion was bought by Agfa and put into storage. The out- standing French collection of nineteenth-century photography — the Cromer Collection — formed the
1 At an auction in Geneva in June 1961 Mrs Cameron's portrait of Sir John Herschel attained the record price of over £300.
nucleus of George Eastman House, Rochester, USA. The most important British collection — the Gerns- heim Collection — lies in packing cases between exhibitions on the Continent. All this is symptomatic of the narrow traditional attitude in Europe which unaccountably ignores photography although it is today the most important means of communication and documentation.
In the New World photography has long been recognized as an independent creative art. The Museum of Modern Art, the Metropolitan Museum, the Museum of the City of New York, the Chicago Art Institute, the Palace of the Legion of Honour in San Francisco, and several others have all long ago established departments of photography. For half a century Americans have been more alive than Euro- peans to all manifestations of contemporary art. Some of the greatest works of modern art, particu- larly of the Impressionist and Post-impressionist periods, once viewed with horror in the countries of their production, have crossed the Atlantic for ever. Compare the riches of American galleries in con- temporary and primitive art with the pitiful gaps in European museums. In Britain the Government grants to our national museums are woefully inade- quate. Besides being insufficient for new acquisi- tions, lack of funds restricts the much-needed modernization of display, lighting and air-condi- tioning, and above all extensions to existing build- ings.
It is hardly to be expected that in these circum- stances the idea of a national collection of photo- graphy could command much attention. Yet the immense interest aroused everywhere by our exhibi- tion 'A Century of Photography' raises the question whether photography has not stood the test of time considerably better than the general run of nine- teenth-century painting. Apart from the Impres- sionists and Post-impressionists and a dozen or so outstanding, mainly French and English, artists in the first three-quarters of the century, there were innumerable once-famous or fashionable painters whose canvases plastered the walls of the Paris Salon, Burlington House, and the Royal Academies in other European capitals. Where are they now? For- gotten, cast into limbo. Their pictures are relegated to the store-rooms of the leading art galleries, or for lack of something better fill the wall-space of pro- vincial museums. One thing is certain: a retrospec-
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7. Weegee (pseudonym for Arthur Fellig). Fire at a New York tenement, c. 1939
tive show would not increase our appreciation of them. Even Whistler's magic has surprisingly faded, with the exception of a few old favourites.
The intrinsic value of a work of art is largely subjective. There is no absolute aesthetic standard; it is conditioned by the taste of each period. While Sir John Millais was making £40,000 a year — and was duly elected President of the Royal Academy — Van Gogh and Gauguin and Cezanne were strug- gling artists without recognition, unable to sell a picture. Modern opinion of these artists is exactly re- versed. Ruskin accused Whistler of 'asking 200 guineas for flinging a pot of paint in the public's face'. Today, action painters literally fling paint on canvas,
and some get considerably more for this random daubing. Not so long ago Expressionism and Cubism were officially branded as 'decadent art' in Nazi Ger- many, and considered so in many circles elsewhere. Twenty-five years later there is an absolute craze for these pictures, particularly in the very country that had enforced their sale abroad. Examples could be multiplied a thousandfold.
If there is so much uncertainty surrounding the old art of painting, it is not surprising that there is still a wide divergence of opinion about the new art of photography. Lack of understanding and appre- ciation have their origin fundamentally in general ignorance of photography's artistic achievements.
21
Sargent received a thousand guineas for a common- place group of officers when a one guinea photo- graph would have been more apt for the purpose as well as doing the job better. Glaring stupidities of this sort are not isolated instances, but we are no nearer the solution proposed by Roger Fry thirty- five years ago:
'One day we may hope that the National Portrait Gallery may be deprived of so large a part of its grant, that it will turn to foster the art of photo- graphy, and will rely on its results for its records, instead of buying acres of canvas covered at great expense by fashionable practitioners in paint.'1
A few significant events in recent years point, however, to the emergence of a re-assessment.
The most important event in post-war photo- graphy was the World Exhibition of Photography held in Lucerne from May to August 1952. The entire art gallery was placed at the disposal of the chief organizer, Emil Buhrer (now art editor of Camera), who succeeded in giving an exhaustive re- view of photography's role in modern civilization. Two thousand five hundred well-chosen photo- graphs from all over the world were grouped into sixteen fields of activity and arranged in a modern setting. It was the largest photographic show ever staged, and the visitor was immediately gripped by the striking demonstration of the power of creative photography. For me, it was an experience that I have not felt at any other photographic exhibition.
Edward Steichen restricted himself to one theme in 'The Family of Man' (1955), and few people who have seen this exhibition can have remained unmoved by its tremendous impact. I have long felt that the usual exhibitions of unrelated photographs that have been traditional for the last hundred years have out-
1 Virginia Woolf and Roger Fry. Victorian Photographs of Famous Men and Fair Women, London, 1926.
lived their purpose, except for one-man shows. At 77, Steichen pioneered a new kind of exhibition, that must be further developed if photography is to fulfil its most important function as a medium of communication. The fine cultural exhibitions on particular themes arranged by L. Fritz Gruber as part of the various photokina trade fairs in Cologne during the last ten years have also made a significant contribution in this field.
In 1956 the Louvre made history by showing for the first time an exhibition of photographs — by Henri Cartier-Bresson. Leading art museums in Britain, Sweden, Holland, Germany, Switzerland and Italy, which had up to a few years ago repudi- ated photography, have on the evidence of the Art Council's sponsorship, and convinced by the artistic quality of our collection, opened their doors to our exhibition. In a television interview in June 1959 Sir Kenneth Clark concurred with the growing opinion that photography can be an art. The Metro- politan Museum of Art in spring 1959 put on an exhibition of great contemporary photographs with the intention of demonstrating photography's place in the fine arts. Even if these exhibitions were only a first, though important, step in the direction of a serious and sustained effort for the widest possible acceptance of fine photography as fine art, they came as a revelation to art critics and public alike and laid the foundation for the furtherance of a better appre- ciation of photography. It can only be a question of time before 'great photographs will find a permanent place in the leading galleries of the world, along with great paintings, pieces of sculpture, and the graphic arts'.2
London Helmut gernsheim
2 The Saturday Review, 16 May 1959. The entire issue was devoted to the cause of photography as a fine art.
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20. D. 0. Hill and R. Adamson. The sculptor John Stevens and bust of Lucius Verm. Calotype, 1843-5
21. D. O. Hill and R. Adamson. Rev. George Gilfillan and Dr Samuel Brown. Calotype, c. 1843
As a landscape painter Hill showed a preference for wild scenery with ancient castles, rugged moun- tains, romantic glens with waterfalls, gnarled trees, poetic sunsets that were part and parcel of the Romantic movement. Such subjects reflected con- temporary taste, nurtured on the poems of Byron and the novels of Sir Walter Scott. It is surprising, therefore, that scenery was not apparently a subject that appealed to Hill in photography. There are only a few dozen photographic landscapes in the joint opus, and most of these are signed by Adamson alone. Greyfriars Churchyard, Edinburgh, with its ivy-clad walls and monumental tombs was, however, much favoured as a picturesque background for small groups. A few of the portraits and genre pic- tures are imbued with a similar romantic quality. Contrary to his practice in painting, Hill never im-
pressed a preconceived style on photography, but varied it according to the subject.
Sometimes Hill and Adamson took their camera to nearby Leith harbour or the fishing village of Newhaven. Like an artist with sketchbook, Hill seized on anything that appealed to his sense of the picturesque, each time superbly interpreting the mood of the subject, whether it were fishing boats, old stone cottages, fishwives in their traditional cos- tume (No. 22) or a group of sailors in top-hats (No. 23). The last-mentioned picture has the spontaneity and unselfconsciousness of a modern reportage photograph, though of necessity posed, and shows a wonderful balance of light and dark masses. It has the power of a Daumier lithograph.
The group of Highlanders at Edinburgh Castle (No. 24) shows a similar intention to capture a spon-
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22. D. O. Hill and R. Adamson. Elizabeth Johnstone, the beauty of Newhaven village. Calotype, c.
23. D. O. Hill and R. Adamson. Sailors. Calotype, c. 1845
taneous scene, before photography was technically capable of it. The necessary under-exposure caused the halftones to be lost, so that only a ghostly pattern of light and dark remains which, combined with the unsharp outlines and the fibre of the paper, resulted in a strange impressionistic effect. It is perhaps not a coincidence that fifty years later when Impression- ism became the fashion among fin-de-siecle photo- graphers, the Hill/'Adamson opus was 'rediscovered' by J. Craig Annan, one of the group.
When Robert Adamson died early in 1848 Hill returned to painting, though he did not altogether lose interest in photography. About i860 he entered for a short time into collaboration with another Edin- burgh portrait photographer, A. Macglashon, but their intention to further 'the development of Fine Art in photography' only resulted in mediocre anec- dotal illustrations. The originality and fine quality of the 1 840s had vanished.
The artistic failure of Hill's short comeback to photography with another collaborator may also indicate that Adamson's role had been more than that of a technician, although Hill used to exhibit their pictures at the Royal Scottish Academy and elsewhere as 'Calotype portraits executed by R. Adamson under the artistic direction of D. O. Hill'. Significantly also, Hill portrayed himself with sketchbook and pencil and Adamson with the camera, in his enormous historical painting 'The First General Assembly of the Free Church of Scotland', on which he worked on and off for twenty- three years. Yet neither this horribly overcrowded canvas, resembling a 'photographic mosaic', nor the few quite charming landscape paintings that have survived, would rescue his name from oblivion: D. O. Hill's fame rests solely on the 1,500 or so Calotypes taken during his 4I years' collaboration with Robert Adamson.
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24. D. O. Hill and R. Adamson. Highlanders at Edinburgh Castle. Calotype, 1843-7
Ill
TOPOGRAPHY AND INTERPRETATION
1 hotography on paper was brought to its culmina- tion in the 'fifties by Gustave Le Gray, a painter and photographer. His waxed paper process made known in December 1851 was preferred by many to the Calotype because it gave much finer detail. More- over the paper could be sensitized several days in advance and the picture developed several days after it had been taken — important advantages over the Talbotype, particularly on excursions. Whilst Calo-
type negatives were sometimes waxed on the back to subdue the grainy effect and speed up printing (by making the paper transparent), in Le Gray's process the picture was taken on paper already im- pregnated with wax, which filled the pores and gave it almost glass-like transparency. The use of thin French paper also contributed to a much sharper and finer image, so detailed in fact that a positive printed from a waxed paper negative such as John
2$. John Shaw Smith. Relief on a temple at Thebes. Waxed paper, 185 1
40
26. Roger Fenton. Domes of the Cathedral of the Resurrection, the Kremlin. Waxed paper, 1852
Shaw Smith's photograph of a relief on a temple at Thebes (No. 25) cannot be distinguished in clarity from one printed from a glass negative.
The waxed paper process was particularly favoured by travellers, and in the summer of 1852 began a brief flowering of photography on paper before its eclipse by photography on glass. During that sum- mer Roger Fenton, a painter, solicitor and profes- sional photographer for eleven years, made a photo- graphic tour in Russia, visiting St Petersburg, Kiev and Moscow. The most outstanding and original view of the series shows the domes of the Cathedral of the Resurrection in the Kremlin (No. 26). Whilst at that period most artists and photographers would have taken a complete view of the cathedral from street level, Fenton sought a vantage point which provided him with a less obvious view over-looking the roofs and domes.
Unlike his friend D. O. Hill, Dr Thomas Keith took no portraits, but concentrated on picturesque
bits of old F.dinburgh, and the surrounding country- side, during the few years he practised photography in his spare time. His photograph of willow trees (No. 27) is so modern that it might have been taken by the founder of New Objectivity himself. In fact it perfectly stands up to Albert Renger-Patzsch's ren- dering of the same subject illustrated in his book Die Welt ist Schon (1928). Equally advanced is Keith's 'Reflections in a pond' (No. 28). Yet what a world of difference between this straightforward rendering, Alvin Langdon Coburn's impressionistic interpretation (No. 142) and Arno Hammacher's modern version (No. 214).
Apart from those already referred to, leading artistic photographers using one or other of the paper processes include: (in France) Edouard Baldus, L. Blanquart-Evrard, Maxime Du Camp, Comte F. Flacheron (active in Italy), Henri Le Secq, Charles Marville, Baron Humbert de Molard, Charles Negre, Eugene Piot; (in Britain) Philip H.
41
27. Dr Thomas Keith. Willow trees. Waxed paper, c. 1854
28. Dr Thomas Keith. Reflections in a pond at Blackford Farm near Edinburgh. Waxed paper, 1855
Delamotte, J. Forbes- White, Nicholaas Henneman, Hugh Owen, William Pumphrey, Benjamin Brack- nell Turner; (in Germany) Alois Locherer.
The collodion process on glass introduced by Frederick Scott Archer in 1851 owed its popularity not to any simplification of technique but to the fact that it was several times faster than the previous processes. For the landscape and architectural photo- grapher the necessity of transporting the entire dark- room equipment, glass plates and chemicals weigh- ing up to 120 lb. imppsed a burden that only real enthusiasts cared to undertake (No. 29). Even if the photographer hired a man to act as porter, or a cab for the transportation, the equipment had still to be carried to a good viewpoint, and the dark-tent pitched. The various preparations before a picture could be taken, and the necessity of developing and fixing it while the collodion was still moist, were so time-consuming that very few pictures could be taken on one outing. In these days of factory-pro- duced roll-films and plates we can hardly imagine the immense difficulties the photographer of the wet collodion period had to contend with. Yet these very difficulties were indirectly the cause of the high quality of the pictures produced. Obviously a far greater mental effort was made to get a well-com- posed picture of a worth-while subject, and this took shape in the photographer's mind before he even began to unpack his equipment.
At that period educated people received more art instruction than is usual today, and any photographer who had not,
'if he be possessed of a grain of sense or perception, will never rest until he has acquainted himself with the rules which are applied to art . . . and he will make it his constant and most anxious study how he can apply these rules to his own pursuit. . . . The student should bear in mind that what he has to aim at is not the production of a large number of good pictures, but if possible, of one that shall satisfy all the requirements of his judgment and taste. That one when produced will be, we need not say, of infinitely greater value to his feelings and reputa- tion than a lane-full of merely good pictures.' 1
Photography is too cheap and easy today. With thirty-six exposures on a roll, the temptation to snap- shoot haphazardly is overpowering to the majority of
1 Francis Frith, The Art of Photography; The Art Journal) 1859, p. 71.
POPULARLY PORTRAYED WITH PEN k PENCIL,
BY CUT H BERT BEDE, B.A. author of "Verdant grce/O
29. 'Cuthbert Beds' {Rev. Edward Bradley). Title- page of 'Photographic Pleasures', 1855
camera users. But conditions were very different in the nineteenth century, when enlarging was not prac- ticable. Those who wanted big pictures to hang in exhibitions, or for prints for sale, had to take them on paper or glass plates the required size. 12 in. x 16 in. was nothing out of the ordinary, and some professionals used 16 in. / 20 in. Under such condi- tions only the keenest and most capable photo- graphers 'survived'. Wherever they carried their camera, they had a purpose: whether the subject were the desolate scene of a flood (No. 30) or the grandiose monuments of Rome (No. 31), whether the icy mountain passes of the Himalayas or the hot sands of Egypt (No. 32), whether they photographed a general view (No. 33) or a close-up of some wood-
30. James Mudd. Flood at Sheffield, 1864
land plant [No. 34), or a detail of sculpture (No. 37), or a classical architrave (No. 35), they were ex- plorers in the visual field and not mere topographers. Their representations of nature and architecture are personal expressions of men endowed with artistic sensibility seeking new forms and combinations for pictorial art. If the photographer is an artist it will show in his negative just as it would on his canvas if he were a painter. He interprets the scene and communicates to others the characteristics of the view that have impressed him. A beauty spot is nearly always disappointing in photography; either the camera cannot do justice to it because wide views are invariably ineffective, or at best it will result in a conventional picture-postcard.
Landscape seems to have appealed particularly to the country-loving English, who right through the
nineteenth century were leading in this field. Some outstanding names include Francis Bedford, P. H. Delamotte, William England, Roger Fenton, Francis Frith, William Grundy, James Robertson (No. 36), Russell Sedgfield, James Valentine, G. W. Wilson, Henry White (No. 39). Samuel Bourne established himself in India, E. Muybridge in America, Charles Clifford in Spain (No. 38), MacPherson (No. 41) and Anderson in Rome. The two last-named are better known in the architectural field.
In France too there were many photographers of fine landscape and architectural views, foremost among them Edouard Baldus, the Bisson brothers, AdolpheBraun,C. M. Ferrier, Henri LeSecq, Charles Marville, Charles Negre, and Gustave Le Gray, whose seascapes were a great technical feat. Though a photographer at Le Havre is reputed to have taken
44
31. James Anderson. Base of Trajan's Column, Rome, c. 1858
33. Edouard Baldw. Pont du Gard, c. 1855
34- Royal Engineers Military School, Chatham (Photographic Department). Study of plants, c. i860
instantaneous photographs of rolling waves with ships sailing and clouds scudding across the sky in 1854,1 Le Gray's 'Brig upon the Water' (1856) (No. 40) caused a sensation on account of its contre-jour effect. The passing gleam of sunlight on the water, produced by the transit of a fleecy cloud, aroused the wonder and envy of all photographers. The 'moon- light' effect, which was later imitated countless times, was due to the necessary under-exposure. Landscapes at that time were characterized by a blank white sky, and at first it was thought that the clouds had been printed in from a separate negative, but this was not the case. Le Gray's success was due to the bright sunlight reflected from the sea, and those who hoped to photograph clouds over an ordinary landscape were disappointed, for the con- trast between green grass and foliage, to which the
1 The Liverpool Photographic Journal, Vol. I, 1854, P- 144.
then colour-blind negative material was not very sensitive, and the blue sky, to which it was over- sensitive, was too great. Either one had to expose for the sky, when the landscape became a mere sil- houette, or if the exposure were correct for the landscape, the sky became so dense that it printed white. The impossibility of obtaining a harmonious combination of sky and landscape was a general complaint in the 1850s and '60s.
After seeing Le Gray's seascapes, photographers were no longer content with a blank sky. Many of them dabbed artificial clouds on the negatives; others printed in clouds from a separate cloud negative — an innovation suggested by Hippolyte Bayard in 1852. This interference with the camera's image was per- haps justified for aesthetic reasons. Unfortunately not every photographer took the trouble to make a cloud negative immediately before or after the land- scape, as Silvy did. Laziness led some to use favourite
47
36. James Robertson {attributed to). Malta fortress, c. i860
cloud negatives for any scene, irrespective of whether it suited the landscape, weather, and light- ing conditions. The situation became still more ab- surd after 1880, when cloud negatives were an article of commerce until the introduction of ortho- chromatic plates and light filters made such shams obsolete.
A few excellent architectural and landscape photo- graphers in other countries deserve mention. Carlo Ponti in Venice (No. 43) and Luigi Bardi in Florence depicted tastefully the architectural treasures of their districts. Vittorio Sella of Turin specialized in Alpine views. In America, William Jackson is renowned for recording the opening up of the West.
The influence of landscape photography upon painting was profound, especially in France where academic painting was practically confined to enorm- ous historical and allegorical canvases. Courbet's one-
man show entitled 'Le Realisme', and consisting of paintings refused by the Salon, was held concur- rently with the first big display of photographs in France, at the International Exhibition of 1855. As he had already shown in 'The Stone Breakers' five years earlier, Courbet was striving for an objec- tive, unstylized reproduction of nature based solely on observation. In the first number of the magazine Realisme in July 1856 the champions of the new tenet declared: 'For us, art is a real, existing, visible, palpable thing: the scrupulous imitation of nature.' The photographic truism that 'one cannot photo- graph what one does not see' became with the sub- stitution of one word part of the new Realist mani- festo: 'One cannot paint what one does not see.' For the photographer, landscape was a natural field, accepted by the public, but Courbet's aesthetic ideals signified a break with academic subject matter.
39. Henry White. Bramble and ivy, c. 1856
5i
40. Gustave Le Gray. 'Brig upon the Water', 1856
The strange thing is that, despite the fact that photo- graphers and artists of the Realist school had an identical approach to nature, the Realist painters re- fused to consider photography as an art, just as their own works were denied recognition and sneered at as 'photographs'.
To Charles Baudelaire the doctrine of copying nature — whether by photography or by painting — was anathema. In a polemical essay on the occasion of photography's admission to the Salon of 1859, he slated it as 'the refuge of every would-be painter, every painter too ill-endowed or too lazy to complete his studies. ... By invading the territories of art, this industry has become art's most mortal enemy. If
photography is allowed to supplement art in some of its functions, it will soon have supplanted or cor- rupted it altogether.'1 Baudelaire was, however, no less disparaging about the state of painting at the time, attacking in equally strong terms the banalities of the academic historical painters, and what he considered the trivialities of the naturalist and realist painters. Thoroughly disgruntled, the poet pro- claimed, 'I consider it useless and tedious to repre- sent what exists, because nothing that exists satisfies me. Nature is ugly, and I prefer monsters of my fancy to what is positively trivial.'
1 Charles Baudelaire, 'The Salon of 1859: The Modern Public and Photography'; La Revue Francaise, June 1859.
52
41. Robert MacPherson. Garden of the Villa d'Este, Tivoli,
43. Carlo Ponti. Piazza San Marco, Venice, c. 1862
55
IV
A NEW INDUSTRY
Whilst landscapes, town views, and architecture were taken by professional and amateur photo- graphers to an almost equal extent, studio por- traiture remained understandably almost exclusively in the hands of professionals, as it does to this day.
Portraiture by the wet collodion process brought a large number of newcomers to the profession, partly on account of the constantly increasing de- mand for portraits, partly because collodion por- traits could be produced more cheaply than daguer- reotypes. In England there was an additional reason: the collodion process was the first to be free from patent restrictions, at any rate from the end of 1854.
The boom in portraiture is most clearly demon- strated by a few statistics. In 1851 there were only about a dozen portrait studios in London; in 1855 there were 66; two years later 155; in 1861 over 200; by 1866 the number had risen to 284. These figures do not take into account the less reputable photo- graphers, uneducated people who took portraits as a remunerative sideline to their original trade or trades. The following amusing advertisement of a Manchester Jack-of-all trades is revealing of the new state of affairs. L. Russell was probably the first to propagate hire-purchase for portraits! 'Mr LORENZO HENRY RUSSELL Professor of Singing and Music, Miniature Painter, Phrenologist, Taxidermist, Mesmerist, and Photographer. Alexandra Studio (opposite the entrance to Alexandra Park) and 2 Albion Terrace, Harpurhey, Manchester.
'Mr Russell respectfully announces to the inhabi- tants of Harpurhey and neighbourhood that he has erected a first-class Studio, for the production of the best styles in every branch of the art of Photo- graphy.— Mr R. calls special attention to his New
Opalotype Portraits, which, for beauty and delicacy of detail, are equal to Ivory Miniatures. — Wedding and other Groups taken at parties' private resi- dences. Horses, Dogs, and other favourites photo- graphed.— Cartes-de-Visite from 5.?. per dozen copied to Life-size. — Old Faded Daguerreotype Portraits renovated and restored to their original beauty — having had upwards of thirty years' experi- ence as an artist. The state of the weather is of no importance. — Family Residences, Machinery, &c. photographed on the shortest notice. — Families photographed at their own residences, without extra charge. — A Portrait Club, which enables every one to obtain a correct Portrait, coloured in Oil, in a gilt frame complete, and a dozen Cartes-de-visite for the low sum of £1 10s., payable at is. per week. —
'Busses from High Street run every five minutes, and alights passengers at the door.— Evening parties attended for Mesmeric Entertainments. Characters correctly delineated. — P.S. Birds and Animals pre- served and stuffed on the most approved and scientific principles. — Lessons in Singing, with Pianoforte accompaniment. — Picture Frames of every description made to order. — A Respectable Young Lady or Youth Wanted, as an Apprentice, Premium required, nevertheless.
'Mr R. wishes to correspond with a young or middle aged Lady, must be fond of Children and Music, with a view to Matrimony. A widow Lady with Children not objected. He is 49 years of age, tolerably good looking, likes a glass of Beer, and has a particular wish to live 36 years longer, then go home and see his mother, where he will sing God save the Queen and John Brown, the piper.'
Every town of note, and even some villages, soon had one or more photographers, and travelling
56
LIKENESSES.
Have no more bad Portraits!
CAUTI ON!!!
All Persons are respectfully cautioned against the many Spurious Imitators op tiik Art of Photography, who not possessing the requisite knowledge of Chemicals,
CANNOT ENSURE
A Correct & Lasting Portrait ! !
The consequence is. that thousands are dissatisfied with the Portraits, although they have paid High Prices for them. This evil can be entirely avoided by coming to
MR. & C. TIMES,
PRACTICAL PHOTOGRAPHIC ARTISTS,
41, Newington Causeway.
Who are always at home to take portraits ; the certainty of your bein^ pleased is. you arc requested not to pay until you are quite satisfied.
0. TIM MS offers advantages at his Establishment that are not to be had at any other in London, ami without ostentation assures Oil- Public that ins i-oaTasiTs \an ota- pa<sfd hy sonr, ami the Prices bespeak his determination to give complete satis- faction,." Many \ears experience lias proved to him that a tradesman's surcess is commensurate with bis honesty, he is therefore more desirous of Raining the grad- ually increasing Confidence of the Public, than to esclte a temporary inrlux of Cus- tomers at the <•« pcuv of Truth. All Portraits ate taken on the (iround floor, >o lh.it the aged arc not necessitated to ascend flight* of Stairs.
It ii particularly necessary to observe the Name ore*' the Door.
SiT C. Timms, 41, Newington Causeway,
An immense Stock of Gold and Bird's-eye Maple Frames to select from, also Uest Silk Velvet, Kancy Moroccu Cases, lockets and brooches made Clpressly for portraits.
EST-iYJlLIBllED TWELVE YEAKS.
N.B.---The Waterloo Omnibusses bring you from the Sta- tion to the Elephant & Castle, when there, please to enquire for ' ' TIMMS',"
44. Cheap photographer's advertisement, 1857
photographic vans made the round of outlying coun- try districts. No longer was photography for the privileged few; it became an art for the million.
'Photographic portraiture is the best feature of the fine arts for the million that the ingenuity of man has yet devised. It has in this sense swept away many of the illiberal distinctions of rank and wealth, so that the poor man who possesses but a few shil- lings can command as perfect a lifelike portrait of his wife or child as Sir Thomas Lawrence painted for the most distinguished sovereigns of Europe.' 1
Unfortunately a great many opportunists entered the field, who looked upon photography merely as a new industry. Most of them made ambrotypes, a simple form of collodion portrait enjoying great popularity on account of its cheapness (No. 44).
1 The Photographic News, 18 October 1861.
In size (usually 3 in. X 4 in. or less) and style of framing these glass positives formed a substitute for the daguerreotype (No. 46). The leading establish- ments had less demand for ambrotypes, but supplied prints (usually 6 in. X 8 in. or 8 in. x 10 in.) from col- lodion negatives (No. 45). The inconvenience of the wet-plate process was, of course, negligible when the dark-room was next to the studio.
The gradual falling off in the demand for minia- tures since the introduction of daguerreotype por- traits in 1 841 reached its lowest point in 1859, when for the first time no miniatures were shown at the Royal Academy annual exhibition. Even ordinary portrait painting was in the mid-fifties 'at one of the lowest ebbs in its history'.2 This superseding by photography of painted portraits was not without evil effects upon portrait photography, for the pub- lic, accustomed to flattering portraits from painters, expected photographers to conform to the same practice. Whilst it was not possible to alter daguer- reotype or ambrotype portraits, in the negative/posi- tive processes — Calotype, collodion, and much later gelatine — retouching could be done. Women fre- quently complained that photographs made them look plain and older, and the photographer now found himself in the same dilemma as the portrait painter before him. Few had the moral courage and financial independence to follow their artistic con- science. Whilst it is quite legitimate to minimize the sitter's shortcomings by skilful posing and lighting, actual beautifying can only be done by drawing on the negative or print, and in doing so the photo- grapher leaves his proper domain of drawing by light and becomes that undesirable hybrid, the painter-photographer.
The ease with which anyone with a little skill could add points of beauty or remove defects pre- sented a dangerous temptation to photographers to flatter the sitter. It is strange that many people's idea of attractiveness can only be fulfilled by obliterating everything that is characteristic. In the late 1850s re- touching and beautifying were carried to such ex- tremes that some photographic societies stipulated that in the case of touched-up photographs the negative must be shown alongside the print in their exhibitions.
'The colorist', ran one instruction, 'may correct with his brush defects which, if allowed to remain, * David Piper, The English Face, London, 1957.
45- C. Schwartz. Christian Ranch, 1852
spoil any picture. For instance, where a head is so irregular in form as to become unsightly, soften those features which are the most strikingly de- formed, and reduce the head to a greater semblance of beauty. Try to discover what good points there are — for all heads have some good points — and give these their full value.' 1
1 The Photographic News, 3 June 1859, p. 149.
The average photographer would try to make his sitter's features conform to the Victorian ideal of beauty.
(For women.) 'A handsome face is of an oval shape, both front view and in profile. The nose slightly prominent in the centre, with small, well-rounded end, fine nostrils: small, full, projecting lips, the upper one short and curved upwards in the centre, the lower one slightly hanging down in the centre, both turned up a little at the corners, and receding inside; chin round and small; very small, low cheek- bones, not perceptibly rising above the general rotundity. Eyes large, inclined upwards at the inner angles, downwards at outer angles; upper eyelids long, sloping beyond the white of the eye towards the temples. Eyebrows arched, forehead round, smooth and small; hair rather profuse. Of all things, do not draw the hair over the forehead if well formed, but rather up and away. See the Venus de Medici, and for comparison see also Canova's Venus, in which latter the hair is too broad.'
(For men. ) 'An intellectual head has the forehead and chin projecting, the high facial angle presenting nearly a straight line; bottom lip projecting a little; eyebrows rather near together and low (raised eye- brows indicate weakness). Broad forehead, over- hanging eyelids, sometimes cutting across the iris to the pupil.'-
As to the most important part — at that period — of the female figure, the waist, one instruction inter- preted retouching rather generously: 'The retoucher may slice off, or curve the lady's waist after his own idea of shape and form and size.' 2 loc. cit.
58
46. Ambrotype of an old gentleman, c. 1857
59
V
IMMORTAL PORTRAITS
The front rank photographers did not stoop to flattery by retouching. Many avoided the difficulty by refusing to photograph women and concentrating on famous men. It is no exaggeration to say that from these photographic portraits we receive a far truer and more intimate impression of those who left their mark on the last century than from painted portraits, particularly since the majority of these are only enlarged and coloured copies of photographs. Those fortunate enough to portray famous con-
47. Nadar. George Sand, 1S65
temporaries inevitably get all the limelight, and it should not be forgotten that many photographers whose names are unknown took no less excellent portraits (for example, No. 46). The photograph of I. K. Brunei (No. 49), the great civil engineer, standing in front of the launching chains of the Great Eastern, is an unforgettable portrait that has the quality of a modern reportage shot. Robert Howlett brought out the determination of the man, who was beset by one difficulty after another in the
48. Maull and Polyblank. Michael Faraday, F.R.S., c. 1856. (Faraday is holding a piece of optical glass in an iron container, used to demonstrate magnetic rotatory polarization of light)
60
Robert H owlet t. Isambard Kingdom Brunei, 1857
50. Nadar. Baron Taylor, c. 1865
62
51. Etienne Carjal. Rossini, c. 1865
63
launching of this leviathan, the largest steamship of the nineteenth century. Equally impressive is a series of portraits of distinguished men taken at the same period by Maull & Polyblank (No. 48), Thomas Annan, and many others.
The caricaturist's ability quickly to seize upon the essential characteristics of his sitter was an asset to Nadar and Car j at, the two great French photo- graphers, in immortalizing the famous. Following the tradition of the dagucrreotypists, their portraits are simple and realistic, yet far more forceful and striking in their intellectual power.
Nadar, who was equally famous as an intrepid aeronaut, had of necessity to leave the general run of portraiture to assistants, reserving to himself the most distinguished sitters, many of whom were his personal friends. He might be called the photo- grapher of the Second Empire and the Third Re- public; only, being an ardent republican, Nadar shunned any connection with the imperial family and the court. Indeed, in his crowded lithograph 'Le Pantheon Nadar' published in 1854, he gave vent to his anti-royalist feelings. The last figure in the queue of celebrities, in the likeness of the Emperor, is being kicked out of the picture.
Nadar's studio in the Boulevard des Capucines was the meeting-place of intellectuals, not society. With very few exceptions he refused to photograph women, on the grounds that they were 'too beautiful to serve my art' — but this was only an excuse. To his friend George Sand (No. 47), whose novels moved with the spirit of the time from romantic passion to socialism, Nadar dedicated one of his many books, Quand j'etais etudiant. Gustave Flaubert, who found photography a pictorial equivalent to his literary realism; Baudelaire who hated photography; Alexandre Dumas, Victor Hugo, Sainte-Beuve, Champfleury, Baron Taylor (No. 50); Rossini, Ber- lioz, Meyerbeer, Wagner, Liszt, Gounod; Gustave Dorc, Delacroix, Daumier, Millet, and the Impres- sionists, are only a few of the famous men to sit to Nadar. The only one, in fact, to refuse was Balzac, who feared that the camera might steal his soul: had not Nadar already stolen Gounod's eyes in his daring close-up? 'The good giant', as Leon Daudet called him, had a gift for friendship, and his kindness was remembered long afterwards by Monet, who re- called Nadar's generous and typical gesture in lend- ing his studio (from which he had just moved) to the
Impressionists for their first exhibition in April/May 1874. By nature a revolutionary (his house was painted bright red), Nadar was not at all put out by the uproar the exhibition caused in the art world:
Etienne Carjat had a photographic studio for about twenty years, from 1855 onward. Not striving for worldly success, and without assistants, his output was small compared with Nadar's, who was active as a photographer for about thirty-four years. Some famous men sat to both photographers and though Carjat was overshadowed by the publicity-minded Nadar, many of his portraits — Rossini (No. 51) and Baudelaire, for example — seem to go deeper in characterization. The publication of Galerie Con- temporaine made a large number of outstanding por- traits of great Frenchmen available to the public at a low price and provides the best source to study the work of these and other leading Parisian portrait photographers of the 1860s and '70s: Adam-Salomon, Bertall, Fontaine, Franck, Klary, Mulnier and Pierre Petit.
A. S. Adam-Salomon was considered by his numerous admirers the premier portrait photo- grapher in France. A successful sculptor of portrait busts, he devoted only two hours a day to photo- graphy. Critics praised the effect of relief and modelling in his photographs, which they ascribed to the sculptor's experience in lighting the sitter. But I think they imagined it; frankly I fail to discern a greater plastic effect in Adam-Salomon's portraits than in Nadar's and Carjat's. In modelling with light Julia Margaret Cameron showed a mastery that remained unmatched.
Adam-Salomon's mannerism of draping the sitter in velvet, posing him in the style of Rembrandt, Van Dyck or other Old Masters, appealed to people who failed to appreciate the camera's different, straightforward approach, and believed that by this kind of affectation photography became art. The poet Lamartine, who had hitherto despised photo- graphy as 'a plagiary of nature by optics', was com- pletely converted by Adam-Salomon's portraits. 'We no longer say photography is a craft, it is an art; it is better than an art, it is a solar phenomenon in which the artist collaborates with the sun.'1 This last statement was literally true, for Adam-Salomon
' A. dc Lamartine, Cours familiar de Litterature, Vol. vii, p. 43, Paris, 1859.
52, Melandri. Sarah Bernhardt with her self-portrait bust, c. 1876 E
53- Julia Margaret Cameron. Ellen Terry, 1864
made liberal use of the brush on his negatives. He had taken lessons from Erwin Hanfstaengl, who introduced negative retouching at the International Exhibition in Paris, 1855.
The changed outlook today calls for a re-assess- ment of Adam-Salomon's work. His portraits fail to come alive; there is no attempt at characterization. Many of them do not even rise above the average carte-de-visite level, through over-reliance on studio properties, which have a tendency to reduce the sitter to a figure in a composition instead of making him the composition itself. When Melandri photo- graphed Sarah Bernhardt in her own studio before the bust she modelled of herself {No. 52) there was a purpose in the staff age. His is a brilliant exploitation of an historic moment, in the way Howlett's portrait of Brunei is.
Julia Margaret Cameron deplored the shallowness and lack of individuality in the professional por- traits of her famous friends. They lacked any at- tempt at characterization, there was no endeavour to record what she called 'the greatness of the inner as well as the features of the outer man'. This feeling became a resolve when she was presented with a photographic outfit in 1863. Characteristically Mrs Cameron threw herself into this new occupation with enthusiasm and ambition. Photography was far more to her than a pastime; at last at the age of 48 she felt she had found her true purpose in life. Here was a means by which she could create beauty like her many artist friends, and for her, photography became a 'divine art'.
Self-taught, Mrs Cameron had perhaps too little regard for technical perfection, but her artistic con-
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54. Julia Margaret Cameron. Sir Henry Taylor, 1867
ception was far above that of most contemporary professional photographers. Working for her own satisfaction and not for a living, Mrs Cameron could afford to go her own way, and became a pioneer in a new kind of portraiture — the close-up. Influenced at first by David Wilkie Wynfield, a painter and amateur photographer whose costumed half-length portraits of well-known artists she admired, Mrs Cameron soon developed her own style and so far surpassed her model that only a superficial resem- blance exists between their work. Mrs Cameron dis- dained grandiose effects. Her large head studies (usually 12 in. x 16 in.) did not need elaboration by meaningless accessories, and the intellectual force of her sitters comes out so much the stronger.
In order to cut down exposures to the minimum, most professional portrait photographers let the light stream into their glasshouse from all sides, and this diffusion of light accounts for the flatness of the majority of their portraits. Mrs Cameron, on the other hand, shut out most of the light by curtains and directed it to model the features and to em- phasize the characteristics of the sitter, but she never let her posing or lighting become a mannerism. On the contrary, her striving to express individuality constantly set her fresh problems, in the handling of which she eventually developed a mastery that sets her work apart from that of other photographers. At exhibitions Mrs Cameron's photographs always aroused vehement discussion. Such work had never been seen before. Photographers on the whole did not take kindly to it, but some of the most famous artists and writers of the day were exceedingly enthusiastic in their praise.
A member of intellectual society, Mrs Cameron had many opportunities of meeting the eminent dur- ing the twelve years of her photographic activity, and they were pressed into her service, sometimes by persuasion, sometimes coerced into submission. Her portraits of Tennyson, Browning, Longfellow, Car- lyle, Trollope, Herschel, Darwin, Watts, Ellen Terry (No. 53), Sir Henry Taylor (No. 54) and many
others have won a lasting place in the history of an era. They are the works of a great personality — the most vigorous and expressive documents we have of the great Victorians, for Mrs Cameron had the real artist's gift of piercing through the outward struc- ture to the soul of the individual. Although the im- pressiveness of her portraits may owe something to the personality of the sitter — and this remark applies generally to portraits of famous people — her large head studies have a boldness which fills us with admiration and astonishment. They are startling in their originality of conception, and reveal such artistic feeling and depth of human understanding that they are in every case superior to the painted portraits of the same sitters by leading artists of the time. To Roger Fry it was evident that 'Mrs Cameron's photographs already bid fair to outlive most of the works of the artists who were her con- temporaries',1 and the same is true of the por- traits of Hill and Adamson, and indeed of a great many other good portrait photographers of the present as well as of the last century.
Our greatest contemporary representative of studio portraiture in the classical tradition is Yousuf Karsh of Ottawa. His famous wartime portrait of Sir Winston Churchill will, I am convinced, outlive all other representations of the great man in any medium, for the simple reason that it is more characteristic of him than any other portrait I know. And I should know, for no fewer than 80,000 por- traits of Churchill passed through my hands when I was compiling my pictorial biography of him.
What I have said about Karsh's photograph of Churchill applies equally to his fine studies of G.B.S. and other prominent men whom he photographed during the war for the Canadian Government. Karsh's 'Faces of Destiny' are full of vitality, and free from the mannerisms and over-glamourized effects he deemed necessary for smaller fry.
1 Virginia Woolf and Roger Fry, Victorian Photographs cf Famous Men ami Fair Women, London, 1926.
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VI
THE PHOTOGRAPHER AS STAGE MANAGER
The good professional portraitists had to face heavy competition from the cheap carte-de-visite which be- came the rage in Paris in 1859 and rapidly spread throughout Europe and America.
Realizing that the usual charge of 50 to 100 francs (£2 to £4) for a single 10 in. x 8 in. portrait was too high for the general public, A. E. Disderi, one of the new cheap traders in photography, hit upon a bril- liant idea to reduce prices and thereby bring photo- graphy within reach of the multitude. In his patent of 1854 Disderi described a method of taking ten photographs on one glass plate 'so that all the time and expense necessary to obtain one print from the negative are divided by ten, which reduces to very little the price of each of these ten prints'. In prac- tice, by means of a special camera with four lenses and a moving plate-holder, eight (not ten) photo- graphs were taken on one negative (No. 55). The resulting contact print was cut up into the individual portraits, which were then mounted on pasteboard the size of a visiting card. An additional saving in production cost was achieved because in these small pictures, usually of the full-length figure, the sitter's head was so small that retouching could be dispensed with. By this mass-production method Disderi could offer a dozen cartes-de-visite for 20 francs, thus tre- mendously undercutting all the other photographers.
The new format did not catch on until Napoleon III made it fashionable. In May 1859, riding at the head of the army corps departing for Italy, he halted his troops on a sudden whim at Disderi's studio and had his portrait taken. This rather ludi- crous incident was the best publicity Disderi could wish for. He found himself famous overnight. The whole of Paris followed the Emperor's example, and
so great was the demand that appointments had to be booked weeks in advance. Henceforth, the imperial family were often photographed by Disderi, who was appointed court photographer (No, 56). As ex- pected he was compensated a thousandfold for the smaller amount received from each client, by the much larger number of sitters. The middle and lower middle class could now afford to have their portraits taken in the same elegant and luxurious surround- ings as the nobility and gentry.
A few photographers found the mass-production of cartes distasteful and retired; the majority had no choice but to follow Disderi's example.
Not only in its small size, but also in the aesthetic sense, the carte started a new style in photography. In the degree to which the portrait itself was re- duced in size, its setting increased in importance. The photographer's studio became a stage with interchangeable properties and backgrounds in which the sitter was merely a figure in a landscape or drawing room.
Carte pictures of women were often in the nature of a small fashion-plate. The sitter was usually repre- sented full length to show off her crinoline, and as in all fashion-plates, head and body were only pegs on which to hang clothes. Facial expression was of minor importance, since only a tiny representation of the head appeared in the picture, and all the skill and flattery of the photographer was directed to- wards the arrangement of the pose, and his elegant interior decoration.
At first the background was usually the classical column with curtain drawn back to reveal a land- scape— an elegant framework which had served painters of royalty and the aristocracy from Van
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55. Disde'ri. Uncut sheet of eight carte-de-visite portraits of Princess Buonaparte-Gabriele, c. 1862
Dyck to Winterhalter. Society photographers like Camille Silvy managed their decorative arrangements very tastefully. Silvy, 'the Winterhalter of photo- graphy', frequently designed painted backgrounds specially to suit a particular sitter (No. 57): a view of St Paul's Cathedral for the Dean, the Wellington Arch for the Duchess of Wellington, a view of Buckingham Palace for the Princess Royal, a grand staircase for Lady Leicester, a wild Scottish glen for Lady Airlie. An oriel window and a Gothic chair seemed just right for a bishop, and so did a library for an author.
Photographers with less taste, or giving way to every whim of their clients, sometimes produced re- markably ludicrous effects: a country squire posing
with his gun and a dead hare, an animal-lover hold- ing her dog's paw, children and even men sitting monkey-like on top of columns, and Queen Victoria holding an open umbrella indoors.
People were frequently depicted in positions and surroundings totally different from those in which their friends knew them. But a magnificent effect was exactly what was wanted in this ostentatious period when people strove to appear above their station.The humbler the home, the stronger the desire for splen- dour; and the grander the studio, the more business a photographer could expect to do.
Certain sixteenth-century paintings show a similar incongruity of middle-class sitters in palatial decors or with obviously unsuitable accessories. Paulo
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Lomazzo complains in his 'Treatise on the Arts of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture' (1585) that it has become the practice to represent merchants and money-changers whom one only knew in business coat, with a pen behind their ear, in a grandiose pose holding a marshal's baton. Some of the Dutch mer- chants painted by Frans Hals are pompously posed in aristocratic attire in front of imaginary palatial backgrounds. So this was after all only a pictorial revival of the age-old desire to appear more import- ant than one really is.
The fact that most studio properties were sup- plied by a few wholesalers reduced the chances of individuality. Seavey's backgrounds and accessories imported from New York catered for every taste. Screens painted with interiors, landscapes and sea- scapes, were offered in great variety. Balustrades and staircases in French Renaissance style were adver- tised as 'accessories for the most fastidious', whilst
56. Disderi. Napoleon III, the Empress Eugenie and the Prince Imperial, 1859-60
rock-walls, stiles, rustic bridges, cottage and oriel windows, trees and rocks, were guaranteed modelled direct from nature.
Smedley & Co. of Blackburn supplied a very popular background, 'The Conservatory and Palm- house showing palatial entrance to drawing room, one end draped with curtain, opposite side Gothic window'. They also offered a remarkable selection of chairs and settees, carved and upholstered, painted and inlaid, in hybrid styles which will one day puzzle antique dealers, for none has ever been seen or heard of outside photographic studios.
Photographers who specialized in military cartes had a rampart, with gun and cannon balls, or a dis- tant castle with storming party. For portraying naval personnel, £7 would buy the deck of a steamship, wheel, cannon, funnel, bulwarks and all; or for less than half that sum the photographer could buy a ship's mast complete with rigging. The nautical
57. Camille Silvy. The Countess of Caledon, c. 1862
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craze began in 1869 when a Winchester photo- grapher advertised: 'W. Savage has a large pool of water, on which is a beautiful pair-oared boat, backed by immense gnarled roots of trees, planted with ferns and their allies [sic], which will form most in- teresting pictures'. Photographers without a garden did not allow themselves to be outdone: a boat was introduced into the studio, together with papier- mache rocks.
Each decade in the carte, and later Cabinet, period was typified by some fashionable accessory. In the 'sixties the balustrade, column and curtain were ubiquitous. In the 'seventies rustic bridges and stiles were popular; in the 'eighties came the hammock and swing (for ladies), and on the Continent the railway carriage (first-class, of course) was discovered as a setting. The naughty 'nineties went exotic with palm- trees and cockatoos, and for the New Woman there was the bicycle. When motoring became an aristo- cratic sport, a real motor-car in the studio had an
At Alexander Bassano's studio in Old Bond Street the sitter could choose a background from a large variety painted on a roll 80 ft. long. This background cloth, containing indoor and outdoor scenes suitable for all reasons of the year, was mounted on rollers like a moving panorama. For a lady in furs a winter scene was unrolled, and paper 'snow' sprinkled on her added a touch of 'reality'.
The palm for photographic scenery must, how- ever, be handed to William Notman, famous for his studies of Canadian life taken in his Montreal studio. Sledge and hunting parties were so expertly arranged that the unwary are completely deceived. Trees, logs, and rocks were brought into the studio, and tents, camp-fires, (stuffed) deer and bears arranged so that the armed trappers waiting for their kill seemed genuinely on the trail (No. 58). Salt made a convincing substitute for snow.
Thus the general run of photographers were con- stantly searching for novelties in presentation to attract new clients and obtain fresh sittings from old ones.
58. William Notman. Bear hunt (posed in studio), 1867
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VII
'FINE ART' PHOTOGRAPHY
Most early photographs have a direct approach that particularly appeals to us today. In the first fifteen years or so of photography only one attempt was made to deviate from the recording of reality which is its true function. The earliest exponent of 'Fine Art' or composition photography was John Edwin Mayall, an American daguerreotypist who settled in London in 1846. At the Great Exhibition of 1851 Mayall showed a series of ten daguerreotypes illus- trating the Lord's Prayer which he had taken in Philadelphia six years earlier. Apparently they have not survived, but the following extract from MayalPs brochure conveys an idea of the sentimentality and tastelessness of these compositions.
'These are the first efforts in developing the new branch of photographic fine art. . . . Female figures (some of the most beautiful and talented ladies of Philadelphia) have been chosen to embody the pre- cepts of this Divine Prayer. "Our Father Which Art in Heaven" — the illustration is a Lady on her knees before the Altar, her eyes directed to the Catholic emblem of the Redeemer, the Saviour on the Cross; the pure expression of humility and penitence in the countenance and attitude, finely embodies the open- ing sentiment of the prayer . . . "Give us this Day our Daily Bread" — a way-worn Pilgrim, with staff in hand, weary with fatigue, is receiving two loaves from the hands of a beautiful child.'1
Mayall also showed at the Crystal Palace other 'Daguerreotype pictures to illustrate poetry and sentiment': a set of six daguerreotypes taken in 1848 illustrating Thomas Campbell's poem 'The Soldier's Dream', and 'The Venerable Bede blessing an Anglo-Saxon Child'. In some of them, the landscape
1 J. E. Mayall, Daguerreotype Institution, London, 1848.
or background was painted in with a fine brush; in others, the models had been posed in front of painted scenery 'to make the whole harmonize to- gether'. The Athenaeum, which was full of praise for Mayall's portraits, cautioned its readers concerning his assertion that the daguerreotype was capable of illustrating legends. 'It seems to us a mistake. At best, he can only hope to get a mere naturalistic rendering. Ideality is unattainable — and imagination supplanted by the presence of fact.' Mayall perhaps recognized the validity of this criticism, for apart from a 24 in. x 15 in. 'Bacchus and Ariadne' he abandoned this hybrid art-photography, in spite of Prince Albert's encouragement.
After the defeat of Talbot's claim to Scott Archer's collodion process in December 1854 and the lapse of his Calotype patent, the number of photographers, both amateur and professional, greatly increased, and with the foundation of photo- graphic societies in the 'fifties, the ambition to com- pete with one another in exhibitions naturally fol- lowed. Up to that time, photography had been chiefly valued for its usefulness to artists, and for its various practical applications. Few people can have thought of it as an independent art medium; the pub- lic in general knew only daguerreotype portraits, and were inclined to consider these small portraits as productions of industry rather than as pictures ap- pealing to the aesthetic sense. It was not until the Great Exhibition that the public could gain any idea of the achievements of photography in other fields than portraiture, and in particular in other countries.
Whilst the Great Exhibition aroused much interest in the new art, the first exhibition entirely devoted to
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photography, held at the (Royal) Society of Arts in London in December 1852-January 1853, made a deep impression both by its size (over 800 photo- graphs) and by the quality of the photographs shown. Daguerreotypes were entirely absent, and the visitor saw large paper prints, which had an appeal as pictures.
Nearly twice the number of photographs was shown at the first exhibition of the Photographic Society of London (now the Royal Photographic Society of Great Britain) which was founded in January 1853. The fact that no less a person than the President of the Royal Academy, Sir Charles East- lake (soon to become also Director of the National Gallery), had accepted the position of President of the Photographic Society, and that Queen Victoria and Prince Albert had become its patrons, conferred upon photography a new status in the art world.
Owing to the circumstance that many men famous in art or science were either council or ordinary members, it was thought desirable to define the two aspects of photography. This task fell to the Vice- President, Sir William J. Newton, R.A., who at the Society's first meeting on 3 February 1853 rose to discourse 'Upon photography in an artistic view and its relations to the arts: with a view to establish that photography can only be considered as a science to those who investigate its properties, but that to the public its results, as depicting natural objects, ought to be in accordance (as far as possible) with the acknowledged principles of Fine Art'. Unfortunately Newton's admirable though lengthy definition went no further than the title of his paper. He simply gave an exposition of the aspect nearest his heart: the usefulness of photography to the painter. It had been pointed out, he said, that 'a photograph should always remain as represented in the camera', but he was 'desirous of removing such false and limited views' and propounded the controversial opinion that negatives might be altered 'in order to render them more like works of art'. In fact, any means were justified to attain that end, whether by a chemical or other process. Newton also recom- mended that 'the whole subject might be a little out of focus, thereby giving a greater breadth of effect, and consequently more suggestive of the true character of Nature'.1
A storm of protest caused Newton to explain 1 The Photographic Journal, 3 March 1853.
59. John Leighton. Self-portrait, aged 30. Calotype, 1853
later that his remarks were only intended for artists, in the expectation that 'by the united exertions of the arts and sciences . . . photography may be applied in a variety of ways not yet contemplated'. Yet the feeling gained ground that he had laid down the ideals for artistic photography, and his opinions had far-reaching repercussions. John Leighton and other artists who had joined the Society supported New- ton's heretical views, for they found photographs 'too literal to compete with works of art'. Considering themselves followers of Reynolds' style, they desired broad effects, not detail, in photographs (No. 59). Artistic photographs, Leighton recommended, 'may be out of focus, the distance fading away, the fore- ground indistinct, trees appearing in masses and figures obscured by shadows'. For admirers of the Pre-Raphaelite School it must have come as a shock to learn 'Art cannot rival Nature, and should not at- tempt to compete with her. The marvellous detail of microscopic photographs defies human imitation; but these are not works of art. Only in the lowest walks of art is direct imitation attempted.'2
2 John Leighton, The Photographic Journal, 21 June 1853.
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6o. William Lake Price. 'Don Quixote in his Study', 1855
To avert the danger of the controversy he had started getting out of hand, Sir William Newton tried to bridge the ever-widening rift with the liberal statement: 'Photography is a wide field; each may take from it what he requires; he is not bound or tied down to any rule that I know of; let every photographer take his own course, by which means photography will be improved and Art considerably advanced.'
Apart from Newton's influence, the blame for the perversion of photography rests to a large extent with critics, who had hitherto reviewed art exhibi- tions and were now also assigned to cover photo- graphic exhibitions. Before long they found the con-
stant repetition of portraits, views and still-lifes monotonous. These were, however, the only subjects possible with the large cameras and rather slow negative material then available. Deprecating the lack of imaginative subjects, critics pompously urged photographers to strive for loftier themes which would 'instruct, purify and ennoble', and to compose pictures worthy of being considered in the same class as paintings.
'Photography is an enormous stride forward in the region of art. The old world was well-nigh ex- hausted with its wearisome mothers and children called Madonnas; its everlasting dead bodies called Entombments; its wearisome nudities called Nymphs
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and Venuses; its endless porters called Marses and Vulcans; its dead Christianity and its deader Pagan- ism. Here was a world with the soil fainting and ex- hausted; worn by man into barrenness, over- crowded, over-housed, over-taxed, over-known. Then all at once breaks a small light in the far West, and a new world slowly widens to our sight — new sky, new earth, new flowers, a very heaven com- pared with the old earth. Here is room for man and beast for centuries to come, fresh pastures, virgin earth, untouched forests; here is land never trodden but by the angels on the day of Creation. This new land is photography, Art's youngest and fairest child; no rival of the old family, no struggler for worn-out birthrights, but heir to a new heaven and a new earth, found by itself, and to be left to its own chil- dren. For photography there are new secrets to con- quer, new difficulties to overcome, new Madonnas to invent, new ideals to imagine. There will be per- haps photograph Raphaels, photograph Titians, founders of new empires, and not subverters of the old."
Artists and photographers alike were advised to combine photographic realism with the idealism of the Italian Renaissance masters. Yet attempts to illus- trate scenes from literature, drama, and history, or allegorical subjects, by a medium whose chief con- tribution to art lies in actuality, inevitably result in incongruous effects.
'There is a terrible truthfulness about photo- graphy that sometimes makes a thing ridiculous', warned G. Bernard Shaw, himself a keen amateur at a later period. 'Take the case of the ordinary academician. He gets hold of a pretty model, he puts a dress on her, and he paints her as well as he can, and calls her "Juliet", and puts a nice verse from Shakespeare underneath, and puts the picture in the Gallery. It is admired beyond measure. The photo- grapher finds the same pretty girl; he dresses her up and photographs her, and calls her "Juliet", but somehow it is no good — it is still Miss Wilkins, the model. It is too true to be Juliet. '-
It was a most unfortunate circumstance both for art and for photography that up to World War I the
1 The Photographic Journal, 21 February 1857, p. 217. Attributed to Joseph Durham, ARA, a member of the Photographic Society.
2 G. B. Shaw, lecture on 'Photography in its Relation to Modern Art' at the Photographic Salon, 18 October 1909.
public, artists, and art critics alike were inclined to judge painting by photography — in its capacity for rendering detail — and photography by painting — in the sphere of imaginative composition. This con- fusion about the aims of photography and painting led to shocking errors of taste in both media, and the good that each might have derived from the other was lost to both.
The idea of elevating photography to the regions of Fine Art attracted chiefly former painters who found it easier to make a living with the camera than with the brush. In 1855 William Lake Price, a water- colour artist, astonished the world of art and photo- graphy with his 'Don Quixote in his Study' (No. 60), 'The Baron's Feast' and other compositions in the chivalric style of George Cattermole and other academic painters of the day. Most people agreed that this was picture-making by photography, though few realized the literal truth of their verdict, for some of these elaborate compositions were actually pieced together from several negatives. Lake Price followed up these successes with a series of photographs illus- trating the adventures of Robinson Crusoe. 'A Scene at the Tower' (1856) (representing the deposed boy- King Edward V and his brother, who were murdered at the instigation of Richard III) was much admired by Lewis Carroll, who had just taken up photography as a hobby. He entered in his diary, 'This is a very beautiful historical picture — a capital idea for making up pictures.' The Literary Gazette, on the other hand, rightly considered the attempt to emulate the his- torical painter a mistake.
Oscar Gustave Rejlander was a portrait painter and copyist of Old Masters before he became a pro- fessional photographer. Once in a lively discussion with a painter on whether or not photography were an art, the latter argued that it would never succeed in producing pictures like Raphael's. Instead of explaining that religious subjects are unsuitable for photography, Rejlander was spurred on to convince his friend of his capability by producing a photo- graphic version of the Sistine Madonna. I do not know to what extent he succeeded, but the cherubs (No. 61) — one of the studies for his Ersatz-Raphael — were eulogized as 'testing Raphael by nature and beating him hollow!'3 The Literary Gazette pointed out that 'We admire a Madonna by Raphael not
3 'The Atelier of the Sun'; The Irish Metropolitan Magazine, Vol. ii, Dublin, 1858.
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because he has faithfully copied a woman and child in a certain position, but because we see in its depth and purity of feeling a noble realization of an original and poetic idea. A photograph of the models Raphael used in the positions he placed them, and surrounded by all the accessories he introduced, would no doubt form a valuable study for a painter, but it would be a sorry substitute for his picture. What gives his pic- ture all its value is that which he added to its models, and not what he found in them.'
Unfavourable criticisms were few, however. Lake Price, Rejlander and others were convinced that they were ennobling photography, and Prince Albert extended his patronage by placing standing orders for their exhibition prints.
Rejlander set out to rescue photography from the reproach, often made by its critics, that it was a mechanical art, and the big Manchester Art Treasures Exhibition of 1857 was the immediate raison d'etre of 'The Two Ways of Life' — the most ambitious allegorical photograph ever made. For the first time, photographs were to be displayed along- side paintings, drawings, sculpture, and engravings, and Rejlander wanted to create a picture worthy of the place accorded to photography. 'The Two Ways of Life' bears a certain resemblance to Thomas Couture's 'Les Romains de la Decadence' (1847) in the Louvre, but the similarity of the compositions probably lies in their authors' inspiration by the Italian Renaissance: Couture by Veronese, Rejlander by Raphael. Raphael in 'The School of Athens' con- trasted Philosophy and Science; Rejlander's 'Two Ways' are Industry and Dissipation.
The picture was a sensation at the Art Treasures Exhibition, partly because it had never been thought possible to produce such a painterly composition by photography, and partly on account of the semi- nudity of some of the models. It was the first time in England that nudes depicted by the realistic medium of photography were shown in public, and some prudish people objected to this as 'indelicate', al- though the seal of royal approval was set on the pic- ture (No. 62) by Queen Victoria's purchase of it, deeply impressed by its moral content.
Two youths on the threshold of life are brought from the country (indicated in the far distance) to the city by a philosopher. The one on his right cannot resist the temptations of a life of idleness and dissi- pation, and rushes eagerly into the pleasures of lust,
61. O. G. Rejlander. Composition after a detail in Raphael's Sistine Madonna, c. 1856
drinking and gambling, that lead to despair. His wiser brother chooses the path of industry, education and good works. The partly nude veiled woman in the centre represents Penitence, turning from the evil way of life to the good.
At that time it was technically impossible to photo- graph a large group of people in difficult poses in one rather long exposure, for one or other of the models would certainly have moved and spoiled the picture. Rejlander took over thirty separate negatives of the various figures and parts of the background, and printed them skilfully on to two joined sheets of paper, as none was made large enough for the com- plete picture measuring 31 in. x 16 in. The produc- tion of the picture took Rejlander and his wife over six weeks.
'My ambition has been that this composition should be solely photographic', Rejlander explained, 'and I think that as far as the conception of a pic- ture, the composition thereof, with the various ex- pressions and postures of the figures, the arrange-
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62. O. G. Rejlander. 'The Two Ways of Life' (size 31 in. by 16 in.), 1857
ment of draperies and costume, the distribution of light and shade and the preserving it in one sub- ordinate whole — that these various points, which are essential in the production of a perfect picture, re- quire the same operations of mind, the same artistic treatment and careful manipulation, whether it be executed in crayon, paint, or by photographic agency.'1
Today "The Two Ways of Life' strikes us as an absurdity, but a painted picture of this subject would be equally unacceptable to modern taste.
Those of Rejlander's contemporaries who ap- proved of his 'masterpiece' considered it 'the sym- bol of a new era in photography'. His detractors objected to it not on the ground that it depicted an allegory photographically, but rather on account of the technique of combining a number of negatives in one composite photograph. Above all, it was the semi-nudity of some of the models that brought forth the strongest protests. It is difficult to under- stand why the Victorians were so shocked at these discreetly draped figures; yet the intention of ex- hibiting the picture at the Photographic Society of Scotland nearly resulted in its disruption. This dis- aster was averted at the eleventh hour by a typically
1 The Photographic Journal, 21 April 1858, p. 192.
British compromise: the respectable half of the pic- ture, Industry, was shown alone!
Rejlander followed up 'The Two Ways of Life' with a few other composite pictures, though nothing on so large a scale nor of so controversial a nature. 'Judith and Holofernes', 'The Head of St John the Baptist' and 'Home, Sweet Home' are a few of the titles. Then in January 1859 he wrote to H. P. Robinson, a rising star in the field of picture-making by photography, 'I am tired of photography-for-the- public, particularly composite photos, for there can be no gain and there is no honour, only cavil and misrepresentation. The next exhibition must only contain ivy'd ruins and landscapes for ever — besides portraits.'
Ceasing to build up composite photographs from more than one negative did not mean giving up com- position photography: on the contrary, Rejlander de- lighted in anecdotal and genre pictures, and in mak- ing studies for artists to paint from. The time in- volved in arranging symbolical, allegorical, biblical and classical figure studies for artists, plus the model's fee, was often worth more than he earned for these photographs, but they provided a welcome relaxation from commercial portraiture. His artistic feeling despised a business-like attitude to photo-
graphy, as it also revolted against photographing clients whose faces he disliked. Portraits by Rejlander are therefore comparatively rare, whereas his sur- viving opus includes numerous figure studies, both draped and nude.
Henry Peach Robinson was the most influential of all the art-photographers. In his youth he was an amateur painter and like Fenton, Lake Price, Rej- lander and some other photographers, exhibited at the Royal Academy. Making his living by stereo- typed carte-de-visite portraits, art photography offered a way of enhancing his prestige, and that of photography, by demonstrating the falseness of the view prevalent among artists that 'a photograph could have no influence on the feelings and on the emotions, that it had no soul'. Robinson's first com- position, 'Fading Away' (No. 63), exhibited in 1858, was admittedly 'calculated to excite painful emo- tions', and he fully succeeded in his intention. Whereas 'The Two Ways of Life' was objected to by some people for 'appealing to the passions', 'Fading Away', which depicted a 'dying' girl surrounded by her grieving mother, sister and fiance, was criticized
for its 'morbid sentiment'. But no one found fault with the artificiality of the photograph as such, for after all the whole thing was staged, and made up from five negatives. 'Fading Away' enjoyed enorm- ous success in exhibitions and this encouraged Robinson henceforth to produce every year one or more elaborate compositions for the annual exhibi- tion of the Photographic Society. The result was un- fortunate for photography, since Robinson's exhibi- tion pictures were contrived, and the praise and awards accorded to them, not only in England but also on the Continent and in America, led to a craze for artificial picture-making, from which photo- graphic salons all over the world have hardly recovered.
'The Lady of Shalott' (1861) (No. 64), a bold at- tempt to illustrate Tennyson's romantic poem, owes more to Millais' 'Ophelia' than to the Poet Laureate. This imaginative picture, made up from two nega- tives, is 'very Pre-Raphaelite, very weird, and very untrue to nature'. Robinson himself condemned it many years later as 'a ghastly mistake to attempt such a subject in our realistic art, and with the exception
63. H. P. Robinson. 'Fading Away', 1858
79
of an "Ophelia" done in a moment of aberration, I never afterwards went for themes beyond the limits of the life of our day'.1 Yet whilst this deliberately artificial picture succeeds in conveying something of the romantic spirit of Tennyson's poem, Robinson's favourite rural subjects, which usually include pro- fessional models dressed up as village maidens in smocks and sunbonnets (because he found genuine country peqple too clumsy), strive after naturalism and fail completely. It seems hardly credible that contemporary critics were deceived by the 'genuine- ness' of these rustic scenes. 'Mr Robinson avoids all appearance of trick, and all theatrical effect, by never troubling the costumier, or "dressing" his figures. They are presented in the homely garb of actual life which seems to befit them as naturally as the leaves belong to the trees.'2
In contrast to Rejlander's purely photographic technique, in which the figures were printed direct on to the sensitive paper, Robinson's picture-making was a scissors and paste-pot photo-montage job. His
' The Practical Photographer, Bradford, March 1897. - The Photographic Journal, 15 December 1863.
procedure, quite contrary to the aesthetics of photo- graphy, was to build up the picture in stages. After making a preliminary sketch of the composition he photographed individual figures (No. 65), then cut them out and pasted them on the separately photo- graphed foreground and background. After careful retouching of the outlines so that no joins remained visible, the whole picture was rephotographed for the final version.
In 'The Lady of Shalott' the chance of seizing a windless day that would not cause the boat to drift was remote. So Robinson took the landscape, and the boat with the model, separately, the latter probably in the garden behind his studio. Twenty years later, when the much faster gelatine dry plates were begin- ning to supplant wet collodion. Robinson laid down the axiom that no photograph that could be obtained in a single exposure should be produced from several negatives, and that combination printing should be reserved for effects that could not be obtained other- wise (such as 'Dawn and Sunset'). However, picture- making by photography had become such an obses- sion with him by then that even 'Carrolling' (1887)
65. H. P. Robinson. Preliminary sketch with photograph inserted, c. i860
— two girls and a flock of sheep in a summer land- scape— is a photo-montage. It is a picture that could easily have been taken instantaneously at that date, but separate studies for it in our collection prove it to have been a premeditated composition, in which the figures were printed into the landscape.
'Dawn and Sunset' (1885) (No. 66), made up from six negatives, leaves no doubt as to Robinson's skill in photo-montage. It could be argued that it was technically impossible to make this ambitious pic- ture, measuring 29J, in. ;<2I in., without resorting to photo-montage, but I feel that this is no justification for going beyond the limitations of photography. The great contrast between the dark cottage interior and the light streaming in through the window (at a time when plates were not backed against halation) neces- sitated combination printing, and Robinson achieved a perfectly harmonious effect; no one would suspect
F
that the picture was not taken in a straightforward way. Despite a strong resemblance between this and other compositions to certain paintings by Josef Israels and the Diisseldorf School, Robinson was not influenced by any particular artist. Similarity in subject matter is due to the spirit of the time.
A prolific writer, Robinson contributed articles on pictorial photography to practically every photo- graphic journal in the English language. In addition he published a number of books expounding his theories, of which Pictorial Effect in Photography (1869) and Picture Making by Photography (1884) are the best known, appearing in edition after edition, the latter as late as 1916. Both books were translated into French and German, and studied wherever pic- torialists were at work. Robinson's prestige was enormous and the harm done by his teaching incalculable.
66. H. P. Robinson. 'Dawn and Sunsef, 1885 (siz-: 29.^ in. by 21 in.)
Roger Fenton, who had also been an exhibitor at the Royal Academy in his youth, urged members of the Photographic Society not to make up pictures artificially but to photograph direct from nature. Nothing shows better the sincerity of his advice than his fine landscapes and photographs of English cathedrals, and above all his famous reportage of the Crimean War. Yet influenced by the taste of the period, Fenton was occasionally tempted to portray by photography anecdotal subjects like 'The Con- fessional', as he had earlier in painting. In contrast to contemporary critics, who bestowed unstinting praise on these compositions when shown at the Photographic Society's exhibition in 1859, today we regard Fenton's 'Nubian Water-carrier' and 'Egyp- tian Dancing-girl' as failures, because the English models betray by their selfconsciousness that the Eastern costume and attitudes are alien to them.
Julia Margaret Cameron's splendid close-ups of the great Victorians constitute unfortunately only a small proportion of her total opus during the twelve years she devoted to photography. Her fine art com-
positions seem unbearably pretentious, ludicrous, and amateurish, and must on the whole be con- demned as failures from the aesthetic point of view. Yet they reminded the critic of the Art Journal of 'Caravaggio, Tintoretto, Giorgione, Velasquez and other princes of their art. The aggroupments and figures are so skilfully arranged that it is difficult to determine what they could gain by being painted.'1 Another art critic called Mrs Cameron's allegorical compositions 'Faith', 'Hope' and 'Charity', 'the nearest approach to art, or rather, the most bold and successful application of the principles of fine art to photography'.2
No other photographer in the nineteenth century and only one in the twentieth (Henri Carder- Bresson) has won such general acclamation from art critics and leading artists as Julia Margaret Cameron. George Frederick Watts, considered by his con- temporaries as the nineteenth-century Titian (whom he incidentally strongly resembled in appearance)
1 The Art Journal, February 1868.
■ The Illustrated London News, May 1865.
82
67. Detail of 66
68. Julia Margaret Cameron. Florence, 1872. In- scribed by G. F. Watts: 7 wish I could paint such a picture as this'
(No. 136), believed 'her work will satisfy posterity that there lived in 1866 an artist as great as Venice knew',1 and beneath one of Mrs Cameron's photo- graphs of Florence Fisher he wrote: 'I wish I could paint such a picture as this'. It is typical that Watts's enthusiasm was aroused by the more fanciful picture of the two (No. 68). Present-day taste would un- questionably choose the straightforward portrait (No. 69) as being the stronger. It is in fact one of Mrs Cameron's finest photographs.
The photographic press was too preoccupied with technique to appreciate the aesthetic qualities of Mrs Cameron's portraits, and they were no less reluctant to accept her fancy compositions. 'The Committee much regret that they cannot concur in the lavish praise which has been bestowed on her productions by the non-photographic press, feeling convinced that she will herself adopt an entirely different mode
1 Marie A. Belloc, 'The Art of Photography'; The Woman at Home, Vol. viii, 1897.
of representing her poetic ideas when she has made herself acquainted with the capabilities of the art'.2 Some of the wisecracks made in the photographic press are not without justification. 'In the two pic- tures of "The Wise and the Foolish Virgins" it is difficult to distinguish which are the "Wise" and which are the "Foolish", the same models being employed for, and looking equally foolish in, both pictures.'3
The unstinted admiration from art circles, and above all Watts's praise, naturally led Mrs Cameron to over-estimate her powers and to create preten- tious compositions rivalling paintings. Watts's in- sistence on the importance of imaginative composi- tions, which he placed on a higher plane than portraiture, instilled in Mrs Cameron the idea that the noblest forms of art were symbolical, allegorical, literary, and religious subjects which 'uplifted the mind to higher spheres of devotion and contempla- tion'. Like her mentor, Mrs Cameron devoted her life to the beautiful. Like him, she was filled with admiration for the Italian Old Masters; hence her many Madonna studies and other compositions 'in the manner of Perugino, Raphael, Michelangelo, Leonardo, etc.
Active in the mid- Victorian period, Mrs Cameron could not help being influenced by the Zeitgeist and by the Pre-Raphaelite painters. Victorian sentimen- tality is strongly evident in such compositions as 'Pray God, bring Father safely home' and 'Seventy years ago, my darling, seventy years ago'. They are examples of Victorian story-telling at its worst, akin to the academic narrative painting of the period. Any affinity of her work with that of the Pre- Raphaelites lies in sentiment and subject matter — for Mrs Cameron did not share their devotion to meticulous detail, preferring broad effects. Occa- sionally she borrowed an idea from a painting by her nephew Val Prinsep (a follower of Rossetti), Arthur Hughes, or some other contemporary artist. The study of her niece May Prinsep (No. 70) (later the wife of the second Lord Tennyson) bears, for in- stance, a close resemblance to the pose of Milly Jones in Whistler's 'Symphony in White No. 3' painted three years earlier, except that the direction of the pose is reversed. Of course, nobody saw any objec-
'- Report of the exhibition committee, The Photographic Journal, 15 May 1865.
3 The Photographic Journal, 1 5 August 1865.
69. Julia Margaret Cameron. Florence^ 1872 {another pose)
tion to such emulation, least of all artists, who con- stantly copied photographs, frequently even posing the sitter for the photographer, as Rossetti did in the characteristically Pre-Raphaelite study of Jane Morris (No. 71).
Many of Mrs Cameron's beautiful women have the strange emotional quality and melancholy ex- pression that appears so frequently in Rossetti's models, but in contrast to his voluptuous types, Mrs Cameron always chose nice young girls whom she draped in robes of virgin whiteness, with their long hair flowing loosely. Though the virginity is beyond question the melancholy came of itself, for the rigours of Mrs Cameron's sittings were not conducive to an animated expression.
Whilst Watts was Mrs Cameron's chief adviser on artistic matters, Tennyson's romantic narrative poetry was one of the main sources of her inspiration. Both these great Victorians were close friends of Mrs Cameron and for many years her neighbours at Freshwater, Isle of Wight. Tennyson's verses
70. Julia Margaret Cameron. May Prinsep, c. 1870
touched her heart, and quotations from his poems constantly flowed from her lips. Her search for sitters to personify Tennyson's characters sometimes led to embarrassing moments, as when she met Bishop (later Cardinal) Vaughan, who seemed to her an ideal knightly figure. 'Alfred, I have found Sir Lancelot!' she cried in triumph, but Tennyson's bad sight prevented him from recognizing whom she was pointing out, and he replied in his deep, pene- trating voice, which attracted the attention of all the other guests: 'I want a face well worn with human passion.'
The majority of Mrs Cameron's illustrations to Tennyson are free interpretations having little in common with the original except the title: 'Enoch Arden', 'The Princess', 'The Dedication', 'St Agnes', 'Oenone', 'Maud', 'The Rosebud Garden of Girls', 'The May Queen'. It is chiefly when she tries to follow the text literally, as in some of her twenty- four illustrations to 'The Idylls of the King, and Other Poems', taken at Tennyson's request, that the result is immediately reminiscent of amateur theatri- cals. 'The Passing of Arthur' (No. 73) is unsurpassed in this. In the stately barge (an ordinary rowing boat) lies the wounded King (a local porter) looking some- what suspicious of his strange surroundings. Un- fortunately the boat is too small to contain the three mourning Queens, so two of them have to stand be- hind it, trying to prevent the King from falling into the 'water' contrived out of white muslin curtains. Three hooded monks lurk uneasily in the back- ground beneath the sails which do not stretch far enough, revealing odd corners and part of the studio roof, dominated by a waning moon scratched on the negative.
In my opinion the best illustration in the set is the heroic portrait of King Arthur (No. 72) 'with rage on his brow, and majestic defiance in his mien and gait, as though he should say "King am I, whatsoever be their cry"."
In illustrating 'The Idylls of the King' Julia Mar- garet Cameron attempted the impossible, things photography cannot and should not be made to do, things better left to the imaginative power of a graphic artist like Gustave Dore, who also illustrated the 'Idylls'. Any attempt to illustrate the unreal by a medium whose main contribution to art lies in its realism is inevitably doomed to failure.
1 From review in The Morning Post, 11 January 1875.
86
71. Jane Morris posed by D. G. Rossetti, July 1865. Photographer unknown
72. Julia Margaret Cameron. 'King Arthur', 1874 73. Julia Margaret Cameron. 'The Passing of Arthur',
1874
Tennyson, however, and some of his contempor- aries were delighted with the book.1 The Morning Post praised 'the rare dramatic quality of the artist's genius and her wonderful powers of composition. . . . They are distinguished in an eminent degree by the
1 Part I was published at Christmas 1874, Part II in May 1875.
intellectual attributes all-essential in such a work — affluence of imagination, tenderness of sentiment,
and idyllic grace of fancy The result is altogether
satisfactory, the general character of the work being such as to entitle it to take rank among the finest achievements of photographic art.'2 - The Morning Post, n January 1875.
88
VIII
GENRE
England was the only country in which photo- graphy was perverted in a mistaken attempt to rival painting. In France — as elsewhere — a much sounder view prevailed as to what constituted art in photo- graphy, at any rate until the mid-'nineties. The Societe Francaise de Photographie, founded in Paris in November 1854, gave no encouragement to arti- ficial picture-making, nor to retouching. Its Presi- dent, E. Durieu, laid down the doctrine of 'straight' photography, as well as condemning hand-work
74. William Lake Price. Partridge, c. 1855
absolutely. 'To call the brush to the aid of the photograph under the pretext of introducing art into it, is doing precisely the opposite — excluding photographic art.']
French painters who took up photography, like Constant Dutillcux, Gustave Le Gray, Vallou de Villeneuve and Charles Negre, practised it for its
1 'Sur la retouche des epreuves photographiques'; Bulletin de la Societe Francaise de Photographie, October 1855-
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75. 0. G. Rejlander. Tossing chestnuts, c. i860
76. 0. G. Rejlander. 'The Milkmaid', c. 1857
77. Lady Hawarden. 'At the Window', c. 1864
78. Edward Draper. 'Boy with Parrots', c. 1865
own aesthetic appeal. They did not go beyond legiti- mate genre photographs of picturesque characters such as an organ-grinder by Negre (which he copied as a painting for the Salon), or some Savoyard street musicians by Disderi.
It is regrettable that in England, scenes of every- day life, still-lifes, and even unpretentious anecdotal pictures did not find much favour, and that the ambi- tion of the serious art photographers was on the whole directed into wrong channels. Nevertheless, Roger Fenton's photographs of fruit and flowers and game have a delicacy and textural quality equal to the finest seventeenth-century Dutch still-lifes and flower paintings, and were deservedly honoured at the International Exhibition in London 1862. Fen- ton, Adolphe Braun and Lake Price (No. 74) were the acknowledged masters in this perfectly legitimate field of photography. The simplicity and lightness of their treatment, concentrating on a single or com- paratively few objects, gives a dignity to these photographs, often lacking in the heavy, over-
crowded canvases of their precursors, many of which are little more than a tour-de-force.
The fine art photographers' desire to advance the aesthetic side of photography was praiseworthy but their attempts to emulate painting ill-conceived. It was fortunate that lack of appreciation of his elabor- ate composite photographs directed Rej lander's en- deavours into other fields. Many of his delightful and characteristic genre pictures show genuine slices of life. His photographs of poor ragged children like 'Tossing chestnuts' (No. 75), 'Homeless', 'The Matchseller', 'The Crossing Sweeper'; 'The Milk- maid' (No. 76), 'Have a Tune, Miss?', 'Washing Day', 'The Blind Fiddler' and 'The Wayfarer' reveal the observation and sympathy of a fine artist, who had the makings of a modern reportage photographer but was hindered by the inadequacy of the technical means available at the time. 'I should be very glad to possess a lens that did not need focusing. I should carry it [the camera] in my pocket, and with a dry collodion process I could catch positions and ex- pressions in a crowd far better than with my own eyes. . . . The expression that is unpremeditated and unconscious [of the photographer's presence] is the best.'1
'At the Window' (No. 77) is one of the most charming genre pictures of the period, a clear at- tempt to create something that might appeal to the imagination. It shows one of the daughters of Lady Hawarden, a well-known amateur photographer whose pictures of children and other compositions Lewis Carroll greatly admired and collected.
Equally original are the 'Boy with Parrots' (No. 78) by another amateur, Edward Draper, or William M. Grundy's 'The Country Stile' (No. 79) whose pic- tures were compared with those of Teniers and Wilkie. These are well-composed pictures free from any pretensions to fine art, real gems of Victorian photography.
Photography was Lewis Carroll's chief hobby dur- ing the most important years of his life. As a pro- ducer of costume pictures he is almost always banal, but in imaginative portraits of children he showed remarkable originality and naturalness, achieving an excellence which raises his work far above that of his contemporaries in this field. Lewis Carroll did not aim at characterization, but at an attractive
1 The Yearbook of Photography and Photographic News Almanack for 1880, p. 81.
design. He was a master of composition, the whole arrangement of the picture is expressive: the position of the figure, the placing of accessories, the disposi- tion of the empty spaces around them, the trimming of the print — everything plays a part, and every- thing is arranged in a decorative way. Occasionally we share in a typical Carrollean game with his child friends. 'St George and the Dragon', 'It Won't Come Smooth' and 'The Elopement' are charming little anecdotal pictures in which the author of the 'Alice' books refrains from straining after artistic effect. They are visual expressions of his immense imaginative power, complementary to, though less known than, the fantastic stories he invented for his little girl friends and the delightful letters he wrote to them. In 'The Elopement' (No. 80)— perhaps a
curious subject for a clergyman to choose — Lewis Carroll conjures up a theme suitable for a Holly- wood script-writer. In spite of her solemn expres- sion, posing for this picture no doubt amused his little cousin as much as it did the photographer. Pre- sumably it was not as dangerous as it looks, standing with one foot on the rope ladder and dangling the other precariously in mid-air.
'It Won't Come Smooth' (No. 81) with Irene MacDonald, one of the daughers of the novelist and poet George MacDonald, is a charming pictorial interpretation of Lewis Carroll's little poem:
'My Mother bids mc bind my hair
And not go about such a figure.
It's a bother, of course, but what do I care,
I shall do as I please when I'm bigger.'
94
8i. Lewis Carroll. 'It Won't Come Smooth', 1863
IX
THE NUDE BEFORE THE CAMERA
The nude is one of the most difficult subjects for photography, demanding unusual refinement of taste, for the borderline between naked and nude is narrow.
Before the days of photography Ingres produced some extremely banal nudes — proof that deteriora- tion in taste had set in long before 1839. If anything, photography was an excellent mentor in correcting anatomical errors in representations of the body. Artists were, of course, the chief users of photo-
82. Coloured French stereoscopic daguerreotype of an odalisque, c. 1853
more economical to copy a photograph than to hire a model; for another, the photographer could record poses too difficult for the model to hold for any length of time for the artist.
N. P. Lerebours supplied the first 'academies' as early as summer 1840, before it was even possible to take portraits, for professional artists' models were the only people able to hold a pose for the 10-15 minutes' exposure then necessary. At this period Parisian models were nearly all dark Italian peasant girls from Naples or the Romagna, whose well- developed figures had not been distorted by the con- straint of fashionable corsets. These girls modelled for leading artists for the popular pictures of odalis- ques or bathers, or holding a pitcher for 'La Source'. Ingres, Courbet, and Delacroix frequently made use of photographic figure studies, which also aided the pompous compositions of typical Salon artists like Henner and Benjamin Constant. Delacroix, a mem- ber of the French Photographic Society, considered photographs 'treasures for an artist' and confided to Constant Dutilleux in 1854: 'How I regret that such a wonderful invention arrived so late, as far as I am concerned. The possibility of studying such results would have had an influence on me of which I can only get an idea from the use they still arc to me.' George Eastman House possessed two albums of photographic nudes that had been posed by Dela- croix. Occasionally he also bought professional daguerreotypes. On 22 October 1854 he entered in his diary: 'Worked a little at the Odalisque I am doing from the daguerreotype,' The illustration (No. 82) is of a similar contemporary French daguerreotype of a model in oriental costume.
Naturally, photographs of nudes were made not only for painters, sculptors, and for use in art
96
83. O. G. Rejlander. Nude, 1857 G
schools, but before long a trade began in typical Parisian souvenirs for tourists.
The introduction of stereoscopic photographs in 1 85 1 added the sensation of viewing the figure in re- lief. But the more lifelike photographs became, the stronger grew the objection to figure studies. The licence granted to the artist with brush or pencil was withheld from the camera-man on account of the greater realism of his medium. 'Filthy', 'infamous productions' and 'pruriently indecent' thundered the Photographic Society of London, and since it was naively assumed that no woman would willingly pose in the nude, it was taken for granted that 'these miserable women are the wives and sisters of the photographers themselves, dragged down by their vile companionship into such depths of shameless- ness'.
Rejlander was one of the few photographers who succeeded in posing the figure in such a way that
84. Nadar. Christine Roux, the original 'Musette' of Murger's lLa Vie de Boht"me\ 1856
the result would satisfy the most discerning critic (No. 83). There is nothing suggestive in complete nakedness when depicted with good taste. Yet some of Rejlander's fine nudes, which to me are equal to the best in painting, could not be sold owing to the action of the Society for the Suppression of Vice — and this at a time when every naked mediocrity executed in marble or oil paint enjoyed great popu- larity! The position is analogous at the time of writing, when we witness the prosecution of the publishers of Lady Chatterley's Lover, a genuine work of art, whilst sordid books of no literary merit escape prosecution only because they are suggestive rather than frank in their treatment of sex.
It is unlikely that prudish invective was hurled at Nadar's fine photograph of Christine Roux, the original Musette of Henri Murger's Scenes de la Vie de Boheme (No. 84), for it most probably served as a study for a painting and— like Moulin's photograph
85. Clarence H. White and Alfred Stieglitz. Torso, 1907
86. Bill Brandt. Nude, 195S
99
87. Lusha Nelson. African woman, 1934
of a nude model which Courbet used for his painting 'The Artist's Studio' — was never exhibited in its own right. Considering the uproar caused at the Salon of 1863 by Manet's 'Dejeuner sur l'Herbe', which Napoleon III declared to be indecent, and the public indignation aroused by the same artist's 'Olympia' two years later, the French can hardly be credited with greater broadmindedness than the English at that period. It is safe to assume, therefore, that Nadar's photograph of 'Musette' would have excited a comparable reaction, even though it lacks the suggestiveness so nakedly manifest in Manet's daringly naturalistic paintings — as they seemed to his contemporaries.
Nadar had known Christine Roux, the mistress of his friend Murger, in the Bohemian days of his youth. His photograph has the robust realism of a painting by Courbet, and if the pose is somewhat reminiscent of Ingres' 'La Source', painted in the same year 1856, it is because Ingres was in the habit of sending his sitters to Nadar's studio for pre- liminary photographs. We may assume, therefore, that this photograph belonged to a series of studies for 'La Source'.
Half a century later, Alfred Stieglitz and Clarence H. White photographed a beautiful torso slightly out of focus, producing broad, soft effects (No. 85). The contour of the figure is vague, against a light back- ground, hazy and undefined as in Eugene Carriere's paintings. This effect seemed appropriate for such controversial subject matter, and opposition to photo- graphic rendering of the nude melted away when the subject was not realistically treated.
The incursion of photography into pseudo-im- pressionism led the photographer to suppress nature to the utmost of his ability, and with all the charac- teristic shortcomings of the methods necessary for the transmutation of the pure camera image into an impressionist picture. Steichen's life studies look as though they were taken in a London pea-soup fog, or 'in coal-cellars' as Shaw sarcastically commented. 'He starts with brown, and gets no further than brown, and the parts of his figures which are obscured do not produce the effect of being obscured by dark- ness; they suddenly become indistinct and insub- stantial in a quite unconvincing and unreasonable way.'1
' G. Bernard Shaw, The Amateur Photographer, 16 October 1902.
The photographer's self-consciousness about nud- ity, which resulted in so many aberrations of taste, led Shaw to advocate dropping this feeling of false shame. 'The camera can represent flesh so superbly that if I dared, I would never photograph a figure without asking that figure to take its clothes off. . . . It is monstrous that custom should force us to dis- play our faces ostentatiously, however worn and wrinkled and mean they may be, whilst carefully concealing all our other parts, however shapely and well preserved. . . . Our fashionable books on African and Australian travel are full of photographs of dark ladies, undraped and unembarrassed, whose natural propriety passes unchallenged because their self- possession makes us forget our unnatural prudery.'2
When in the 1920s a reaction set in against the stuffiness and hypocrisy of the previous century, figure studies were no longer taboo and became a popular feature in photographic exhibitions. The objective photographer was no longer oppressed by the fear of giving offence with a sharp photograph showing the modelling of the body and realistic rendering of skin texture, which are the raison d'etre of photographing the human form at all. Instead of suppressing nature to the utmost of his ability, he now strove to represent it as perfectly as he could. In simple, natural poses, all straining after effect was avoided. Edward Weston, Andre Steiner, Andre de Dienes, Emmanuel Sougez, John Havinden and Tateyuki Nakamura are a few of the photographers whose sensitive handling of the human figure and feeling for form led to aesthetically satisfying pictures in which harmonious composition, modelling and volume combine to transform nakedness into art.
Bill Brandt's anatomical details of bodies detached from their context, and distortions of whole figures, illustrated in his recent book Perspective of Nudes, mark a break with the conventional representation of the nude. Brandt aimed to get rid of the accepted image. His 'nudes' are as different, in fact, as wrought-iron figures are from cast or chiselled sculpture. They are abstractions, lacking human form, volume and texture. They are nevertheless striking new images, created by a fertile mind pioneering new ground, but 'nudes' is a misnomer, perhaps, for Bill Brandt's pictures, most of which are as far removed from the human form as Reg Butler's wrought-iron women (No. 86).
' loc. cit.
IOI
X
REPORTAGE AND DOCUMENTATION
Contrary to general belief, documentary and re- portage photography are not new developments. The wish to record life and events existed even in the days of the daguerreotype but remained, with a few exceptions, unfulfilled until the introduction of the binocular (stereoscopic) camera in 1853, and a number of other small plate cameras during the next decade. The greatest advance in this field, however, was due to fast gelatine dry plates, available in Eng- land from the late 1870s onward.
Undeterred by the difficulty of the undertaking, Alois Locherer, a Munich photographer, recorded the transport and erection of the colossal statue 'Bavaria' in Munich in 1850. The 60 ft. high 'Bavaria' was the largest bronze statue of modern times, and Locherer took six photographs of the operation, from the loading of the sections of Ludwig Schwanthaler's sculpture at the foundry (No. 89) to the setting up of the figure. It is one of the earliest reportages ever made, and Locherer ingeniously arranged the people in active-looking poses to simu- late an instantaneous effect, although the exposure cannot have been less than about a minute.
It is obvious that large plate cameras requiring lenses of long focus and consequently a small stop to obtain perfect definition from foreground to distance, were generally too slow for reportage work. The small binocular camera introduced in 1853 by J. B. Dancer, a Manchester optician, revolutionized photography in the mid- Victorian era, just as the miniature camera has in our own time. Fitted with lenses of short focus, it gave a sharp picture at almost open aperture, and the use of hypersensitive collo- dion reduced the exposure to as little as half a second.
For the first time it became possible to take more or less instantaneous views of street life and domestic
scenes (No. 88), and even news photographs of un- usual historical interest; though the opening of the rebuilt Crystal Palace at Sydenham by Queen Vic- toria on 10 June 1854 (No. 91) was taken with an
88. 'The Music Lesson'. Stereoscopic photograph, c. 1857
102
89. Alois Locherer. Transport of the colossal statue 'Bavaria', Munich, 1850
90. William England. Raihoay bridge over the Niagara River.
ordinary stand camera, an opportune moment occur- ring during the Archbishop of Canterbury's prayer.
The London Stereoscopic Company, founded in J854, sent its staff" photographers as far afield as the Middle East. Four years later it was in a position to advertise a stock of 100,000 different photographs: architecture and scenery, domestic life, customs and costumes of other nations, and subjects similar to those that a present-day photographer working for illustrated papers would take, provided the action could be 'snapped' within an exposure of a second. The importance of stereoscopic slides as a source of nineteenth-century documentation has so far been overlooked: they provide a wealth of information, quite apart from the pleasure they frequently give as exquisite miniature pictures. Illustrations of social activities of the upper classes had the same function
1859
as some pre-war Hollywood films — to give a glimpse of luxurious living to those farthest removed from it. Although the great majority of these domestic scenes had to be staged (instantaneous photographs of in- door social events only became possible with the introduction of the 'Ermanox' camera in 1925 in conjunction with fast panchromatic plates), their value as social documents is in no way diminished since they are contemporary and made for a public which would have been critical of anything but a true-to-life picture.
In 1859 William England added to the thousands of stereoscopic photographs which he had taken for the Stereoscopic Company in many countries, a new series entitled 'America in the Stereoscope'. Being the first photographs of American scenery and archi- tecture to come across the Atlantic they aroused
104
much interest, especially his well-composed action shot of a train steaming across the suspension bridge which links America with Canada across the Niagara river (No. 90). Edward Anthony's view of Broadway on a rainy day (No. 92) taken the same year was a technical feat that surprised people by the novelty of the subject matter. To avoid obtaining blurred out- lines of fast-moving vehicles the photographer had to take his street views from some distance, usually a first- or second-floor window of a nearby house. Similar instantaneous street scenes appeared soon afterwards in other capitals. Adolphe Braun's photo- graphs of Parisian boulevards were the forerunners of similar painted views by Monet, Manet, Renoir and Degas.
Even with ordinary plate cameras, some photo- graphers managed to record an animated scene, as in the nomination of parliamentary candidates at Dover in 1863 (No. 93) in which the blurring of the crino- lined ladies and the flags enhances, if anything, the atmosphere of the picture. Modern photographers have come to realize this, for although nowadays even the fastest movement can be 'frozen', they fre- quently give a longer exposure than necessary in order to obtain slight blurring, which conveys the impression of movement much more convincingly.
The first extensive documentation of which we have any knowledge was made by P. H. Delamotte, professor of drawing at King's College, London, and official photographer to the Crystal Palace Company, for which he took weekly photographs of the work in progress during the rebuilding of the Crystal Palace at Sydenham. The 160 photographs which Dela- motte published in 1855 form an excellent survey (No. 94) of the building operations, from preparing the foundations to the opening by Queen Victoria already referred to.
In the same year Roger Fenton made his famous reportage of the allied troops before Sebastopol. The historic interest of this first war reportage is obvious, but only a photographer with an art training could have composed such natural groups, giving an impression of being instantaneous (No. 95).
Space unfortunately limits me to illustrating only a few of the numerous photographs that bring to life historic events in unforgettable pictures such as T. H. O'Sullivan's battlefield of Gettysburg (No. 97) during the American Civil War and the Butte de Montmartre during the Paris Commune (No. 98).
96. Thomas Annan. Glasgow slum (No. 28, Salt- market), 1868
The prototype of the Far Eastern reportages of Cartier-Bresson and Werner Bischof appeared in 1873-4 in London: Illustrations of China and its People is a four-volume work illustrated with 200 photographs by John Thomson, a well-known traveller and many-sided photographer who also pioneered social documentation (see p. 154) and 'at home' portraiture of celebrities.
Between 1868 and 1877 Thomas Annan took an interesting series of photographs of Glasgow slums for the Glasgow City Improvement Trust (No. 96). Much of his work goes deeper than the mere record- ing of a close or alley to be demolished, for the
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97- T. H. (T Sullivan. 'The Harvest of Death'— battlefield of Gettysburg, July 1863
99- Jacob A. Riis. New York slum dweller on makeshift bed in a coal cellar, c. 1888. Flashlight photograph
100. Lewis Ffine. Child labour in Carolina cottonmilh 1908
poverty-stricken people outside their ramshackle wooden houses are a vivid reminder to society of its obligations towards those who work for it.
A similar intention moved Jacob A. Riis, a Danish carpenter who became a newspaper reporter of police-court cases, first for the New York Tribune and later for the Evening Sun. His work brought him into contact with the terrible conditions in New York tenements in the 'eighties (No. 99) particularly in Mulberry Bend, a notorious slum. Realizing that they were the main cause of the crimes he was report- ing, and convinced that the camera would prove a mightier weapon than the pen against poverty and overcrowding, Riis took up photography in 1887 and became America's first photo-reporter. In articles, lectures and books Riis pictured 'How the
Other Half Lives' and rallied support for their relief. His success was the best proof of the power of photography to awaken the social conscience, for Theodore Roosevelt, then Governor of New York State, instigated a number of social reforms, in addi- tion to the demolition of Mulberry Bend and the rehousing of its inhabitants.
Lewis W. Hine, an American sociologist, also found the camera an indispensable aid in his work. His revelation of the exploitation of children in fac- tories (No. 100) led to the passing of the child labour laws. Hine also exposed the miserable conditions of penniless immigrants after their arrival at Ellis Island. His human documents were a terrible accusa- tion against the social injustice of the times, and had the desired effect.
101. Sir Benjamin Stone. Ox-roasting at Stratford-on-Avon 'mop', c. 1898
m
In 1897 Sir Benjamin Stone, MP for Birmingham, founded the National Photographic Record Associa- tion with the aim of documenting the manners and customs of the English, picturesque festivals and pageants, and traditional ceremonies which were slowly dying out. He himself was the most active photographer in the Association, and at his death left a collection of 22,000 photographs — some desper- ately dull records, others scenes of lively activity (No. 101).
Arnold Genthe's photograph of the feeding of the San Francisco earthquake survivors (No. 103) looks at first sight like a still from a film on account of its theatrical effect. Having lost everything himself, Genthe borrowed a camera to record the conditions after the catastrophe, producing a set of pictures which are visually appealing and at the same time valuable historic documents.
Equally moving is Nahum Luboshez's picture of starving peasants (No. 104) taken during one of the recurring famines in Russia.
The greatly increased mobility, which fast nega- tive material allowed, showed itself not only in out- door reportage but also in photo-interviews. For the first time it was possible to photograph people in
their own surroundings. This added considerably to the interest of a portrait, freeing the photographer from the danger of stereotyped effects. A pioneer in this field was John Thomson, who exhibited in 1881 a series of 'at home' portraits of well-known people at the London Photographic Society.
Photo-interviews with celebrities are also very much a feature of modern newspapers. Few people are aware that the first one took place as long ago as 1886 when Nadar interviewed the great scientist M. E. Chevreul on the eve of his hundredth birth- day. A good beginning to the conversation was the centenarian's opening remark: 'I was an enemy of photography until my ninety-seventh year, but three years ago I capitulated.' Chevreul's lively answers to a great variety of questions put by Nadar were noted by a stenographer while at the same time Nadar's son Paul took a series of instantaneous photographs. When No. 102 was taken, Chevreul was just saying — referring no doubt to General Boulangcr — 'Herein lies the disadvantage of the philosophy of the day. It is the philosophy of dema- gogues; nothing but empty words.' Thirteen of the photographs were published in Le Journal Illustre in September 1886. Three years later the two Nadars
102. Paul Nadar. The first photo-interview: Nadar (Gaspard Felix Tournachon) interviews the centenarian scientist M. E. Chevreul, August 1886
112
103. Arnold Gent he. Public feeding after the
San Francisco earthquake on 18 April 1906
104. Nahum Luboshez. Famine in Russia, c. 1910
r JHHR, *v
105. £//«br and Fry. Sir Joseph Wilson Swan, 1904
photo-interviewed General Boulanger for Le Figaro.
A remarkable book 1 of illustrated interviews with celebrities was published in 1904. The photographs by the author, W. B. Northrop, are very much on the lines of Elliot and Fry's portrait of Sir Joseph Wilson Swan (No. 105) taken in his laboratory in the same year. Today's 'portrait profiles' in the Sunday papers continue in this tradition. The reportage style of portraiture conveys the personality of the sitter through the atmosphere of his own surroun- dings and is particularly successful in the case of artists and scientists in their studio or laboratory because the objects present are bound to add to the meaning and expressiveness of the picture. This has
1 W. B. Northrop, With Pen and Camera : Interviews with Celebrities, London, 1 904.
been especially successfully demonstrated in Eight European Artists by Felix H. Man, and in Ida Kar's exhibition at the Whitechapel Art Gallery. The power of her pictures springs from the simplicity of composition with which she creates a feeling of depth and spaciousness (No. 225), and this is as marked as her liking for black and white contrast.
With the exception of a comparatively few photo- graphers making a living from portraying the highest and lowest in the social scale, amateur photography and modern reportage in their combined effect are gradually destroying the demand for the conven- tional studio portrait. Thus the professional portrait photographer, who fifty years ago more or less eliminated the portrait painter, is now in his turn ousted by the popular 'do it yourself activity of our times.
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XI
PUSH-BUTTON PHOTOGRAPHY
During the 1880s the general introduction of ready-made dry plates and films twenty times faster than any previous negative material, and of small cheap hand-cameras such as the Kodak, opened the door to hundreds of amateurs who had been deterred from learning to make pictures by the difficulties of the wet collodion process. For the first time in its history everything about photography was mass-
produced, from the apparatus, negative and positive material, to the pictures themselves. The new machine-man was content to follow manufacturers' instructions implicitly, and rely on the camera and the developing and printing firm to make the pic- tures for him. He lacked the enthusiasm of the early pioneers, who felt impelled to make pictures, how- ever difficult the task. Gone was the spirit of dis-
106. Oscar van Zel. Skating, c. 1887
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107. J. Bridson. Picnic, c. 1882
covery, of experimentation, the fascination of watch- ing the picture slowly appear as if by magic in the developing bath.
Clever advertising slogans like George Eastman's 'You press the button, we do the rest' inevitably lowered the status as well as the standard of photo- graphy. So easy had photography become that every- one who tried could produce a result of some kind. Eastman's persuasive statement that 'a collection of these [Kodak] pictures may be made to furnish a pictorial history of life as it is lived by the owner, that will grow more valuable every day that passes' was a brilliant application of mass psychology to business. This was, and is, all that the average camera user asks of photography. But the push-button method let loose many of the evils from which photography is suffering today.
Apart from a small group of serious amateurs who started the aesthetic movement in photography, most
of the new generation of photographers were entirely devoid of artistic training and feeling. They were not interested in the camera as a means of expression.
The dangers of haphazard snapshooting were fore- seen from the start by a few perceptive people. 'Whatever little notions of art a person might have in his head would certainly be driven out of it, for the knowledge that he could take an almost unlimited number of pictures would lead him to expose a sheet [of film] on every possible occasion, and probably 99 per cent of what he obtained would be thoroughly inartistic productions.'1
G. Bernard Shaw, one of the new amateurs, assured me that his classic remark 'The photo- grapher is like the cod, which produces a million eggs in order that one may reach maturity' was based on personal experience.
1 Sir W. de W. Ahney, Journal of the Society of Arts, 26 March 1886.
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No pursuit is better adapted than photography to cultivate the powers of observation, but this cultiva- tion demands attention and reflection. However simple the manipulation, there is no short cut to artistic knowledge. Intelligence and care are as vital for the production of good photographs as for suc- cess in any other medium. The subjects within the range of the amateur photographer are so diverse and the aspects of even one subject so numerous, that the need for thought assumes greater importance than ever.
'The evidence is clear enough', wrote P. H. Emerson, 'that had the artists and scientists who were the promotors of the first English Photographic Society held their own, photography today would
probably have been practised by artists and scientists alone — a noble and learned profession — instead of being practised, as is now only too often the case, by illiterate and ignorant tradesmen.'1 Considering the mentality of the average snapshooter today I despair of the results if Moholy-Nagy's prediction came true: 'the ignoramuses of the future will be not only those unable to read or write, but also those ignorant of photography'.2
As we have seen, the purposeful amateurs did ex- cellent work in social documentation and reportage
1 P. H. Hmerson, Pictures from Life in Field and Fen, London, 1887.
2 L. Moholy-Nagy in Modern Photography, London and New York, 1935.
108. Paris International Exhibition, 1889: under the Eiffel Tower
117
opened up by the technical advance. They rejuven- ated photography in other fields too. P. H. Emerson was one of the new amateurs, but a gulf separated him and others who sought to advance photography as an art, from the mass of push-button photo- graphers. Indeed, the progress of photography in its picture-making aspect has at every period been largely due to the pioneer work of serious amateurs, for professionals are by nature unadventurous, pre- ferring routine to ruin. Some amateurs made de- lightful spontaneous pictures (Nos. 106 and 107) that vibrate with life. Working by rule of thumb and using their eyes, they discovered that by a click of the shutter they could capture a slice of life for ever — as in this view of the Paris Exhibition 1889, with people half cut-off (No. 108). 'Horrible bungling amateur stuff', scoffed the pictorialists at the Photographic
Society, but to me these rather free-and-easy snap- shots have more aesthetic appeal than their well- composed affectations.
The pictorialists remained quite uninterested in the new range of subject matter. For them any photograph that showed life was 'record work'. They merely used the new simplified technique to indulge in fine art photography with greater facility. Their efforts to elevate photography by ambitious imita- tion paintings continued to fill photographic exhibi- tions with banalities on a par with those hung at the Royal Academy at the time. In the 'seventies and 'eighties there was a dearth of artistic photography, and the little that existed was confined to a clique of pictorialists dominated by H. P. Robinson. In the pursuit of a phantom, their pictures became more and more stereotyped.
109. P. H. Emerson. 'Setting the bow-net.' Platinotype, 1885
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XII
NATURALISTIC PHOTOGRAPHY
Uesiring to regenerate photography, P. H. Emerson called for a return to nature, as the Barbizon School and Courbet had done a generation earlier in paint- ing. 'Wherever the artist has been true to nature, an has been good; wherever the artist has neglected nature and followed his imagination there has re- sulted bad art. Nature, then, should be the artist's standard.' This was Emerson's anti-romantic Credo laid down in his book Naturalistic Photography (1889). He convincingly demonstrated in seven beau- tifully illustrated books on the Norfolk Broads (where he had a houseboat) that a photographer could imbue ordinary subjects with artistic quality bearing a personal stamp: consequently there was no need to resort to the artificialities of the fine art photographers.
With sensitive feeling Emerson rendered at all seasons of the year the atmospheric conditions of this low-lying land intersected with rivers and lakes. An admirer of J. F. Millet, who devoted his life to portraying the work of the peasants at Barbizon, Emerson depicted with similar insight and sympathy the simple life of the fenland people, setting and taking up their fishing-nets (No. 109), shooting duck and snipe, gathering reeds (No. m), ploughing and harvesting. Life and Landscape of the Norfolk Broads (1886), the finest and rarest of Emerson's books, contains original platinum prints; the succeeding volumes, also published in limited editions during the next nine years, were illustrated with photo- gravures or photo-etchings — processes which he considered more artistic in giving a broader, softer rendering than a photographic print.
In contrast to the landscape photographers of the eighteen-fifties and sixties, whose aim had been a
picture of all-over sharpness, Emerson advocated a certain degree of softness also in the negative through differential focusing (by which the principal subject of the picture was sharp and the remainder less so). Differential focusing, Emerson claimed, enabled the naturalistic photographer to give a subjective render- ing of nature, whereas the realistic photographer re- corded with objective, soulless precision. This was, however, only one of Emerson's many erroneous theories, for subjective photography as opposed to mechanical photography is dependent on the artistic- ability of the photographer and not on soft or sharp rendering. The creative photographer will employ whatever method is best suited to the interpretation of the particular subject. Yet in spite of Emerson's wordy expositions of naturalistic photography, it is difficult to detect much difference in technique be- tween the fine realist landscapes of the first genera- tion of photographers and his own.
Pictures of East Anglian Life (1888), a copy of which Emerson gave to every English photographic society, was intended to elucidate his views set forth in his textbook Naturalistic Photography, which had no illustrations. It was, however, not so much Emerson's innovations that aroused consternation amongst the older generation at the Photographic Society of London, as the constant stream of invec- tive directed against all who did not agree with him.
Emerson's contention that a soft photograph gives breadth of effect and is more suggestive of the true character of nature had in fact first been put forward, as we have seen, by Sir William Newton thirty-six years earlier. Now the controversial question soft versus sharp was revived with renewed vigour, based on the same arguments as before. To its opponents,
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no. Frank Sutcliffe. 'Excitement.'' Platinotype, 1888
the doctrine of soft focus attacked one of the funda- mental principles of photographic optics. To its ad- herents, beauty of form and expression was injured by sharpness of outline. They maintained that photographs were too technically perfect to be artistic, and that broad masses of light and shade would indicate a subject sufficiently well, leaving some play for the imagination. To achieve this, the proposal to construct intentionally defective lenses, first raised in 1853,1 was argued afresh. Dallmeyer's portrait lens of 1866 had in fact been designed in the vain belief that the slightly soft effect of Julia Margaret Cameron's portraits could be artificially imitated. Emerson was a great admirer of Mrs Cameron, and her work was again cited by the new advocates of soft focus. They did not realize that the softness noticeable in some of Mrs Cameron's por- traits was not deliberate, but arose from her use of a lens of unusually long focal length (30 in.) which obliged her to work at open aperture to arrive at
1 E. W. Dallas, The Photographic Journal, 21 April 1853.
exposures of manageable length. This resulted in differential focusing — sharp in the parts on which she focused, and rapidly falling off in the receding and projecting parts of the sitter. But, I repeat, there was no intentional softness for artistic reasons, as in the paintings and lithographs of Eugene Carriere, for instance.
Nevertheless Mrs Cameron's photographs, and the paintings of the Impressionists who had re- nounced objectivity and realistic representation, lent force to Emerson's arguments. But it was not until the public had become accustomed to the in- distinct contours of the Impressionists that the idea of soft focus gained ground — and then it soon got out of control.
Meanwhile a new school of landscape photography came into being through Emerson's influence. Its most prominent members were the amateurs George Davison, Col Joseph Gale, A. Horsley Hinton, J. B. B. Wellington, B. Gay Wilkinson, and the professionals Lyddell Sawyer (No. 112) and Frank M. Sutcliffe (No. no).
120
III. P. H. Emerson. 'Towing the Reed.' Platinotype, 1885
112. Lyddell Sawyer. 'In the Twilight. ' Photogravure, 1888
XIII
IMPRESSIONISTIC PHOTOGRAPHY
George Davison, one of the naturalistic photo- graphers, soon fell under the spell of Impressionism and went further than Emerson considered desirable in correcting the 'unpicturesque and lifeless exacti- tude' of landscape photographs. Davison aspired to produce such a rendering of nature as to convey the
general impression created at first glance. His tenet that no object should be sharply in focus was achieved by using a 'pinhole lens', and to increase the 'fuzzy' effect the photograph was printed on the roughest drawing paper. The earliest impressionist photograph, 'An Old
113. George Davison. 'The Onion Field.' Photogravure, 1890
122
114. B. Gay Wilkinson. 'Sand Dunes.' Photogravure, 1889
Farmstead' (later entitled 'The Onion Field') (No. 113) caused a sensation when shown in autumn 1890 at the Photographic Society's annual exhibition, where surprisingly it was hung in a place of honour and awarded a medal.
'Perhaps no more beautiful landscape has ever been produced by photographic methods than Mr Davison's "Old Farmstead",' wrote The Times. 'In this, atmospheric effect is admirably rendered and, looked at from a suitable distance, the picture gives a wonderfully true rendering of the subject.' It is paradoxical that at a time when the most perfect lens
to date, the anastigmat, had just been introduced, Davison should dispense with a lens altogether and use instead a piece of sheet-metal punched with a small hole. The ruse of excessive diffusion of focus and flat, low tones to give the photograph the appear- ance of an impressionist painting was, of course, only yet another way of perverting photography in imitation of painting — throwing away the substance for the shadow. An impressionistic photograph did not really deceive anyone; it loooked at best like a monochrome reproduction of a painting. But when- ever photographs resemble contemporary art they
123
115. Heinrich Kiihn. 'A Venetian Canal.'' Gum print {charcoal colour), 1897 {reproduction)
obscure the critical faculty of art critics, who are quite incapable of judging photographs for their photographic qualities. The exquisite little photo- graph 'Sand Dunes' {No. 114) by B. Gay Wilkinson, shown in the same exhibition, treated a simple sub- ject honestly and with more genuine artistry than Davison's painterly 'Old Farmstead'; yet it scarcely drew any attention from critics.
Impressionistic photography aroused fierce con- troversy, just as Impressionist painting had done before. The most vituperative attacks came from P. H. Emerson, for Davison had not only gone too far in his interpretation of naturalistic photography; he had dared, Emerson claimed, to lecture on 'Im- pressionism and Photography'1 without giving credit
1 Lecture at the (Royal) Society of Arts, December 1890.
116. Lacroix. 'Park Sweeper.' Photogravure of a gum print, c. 1900
to the master's fundamental theories on which im- pressionism was based. Emerson was enraged by Davison's assumption of leadership, and his re- nunciation of naturalistic photography in January 1 89 1 in a black-bordered pamphlet entitled 'The Death of Naturalistic Photography' — Emerson was always inclined to theatrical gestures — was largely the outcome of violent egotism and offended vanity. The reasons put forward by Emerson for his volte face were unconvincing and his arguments confused. With the same fervour with which he had made ex- aggerated art claims for photography only two years before, he now denounced it as 'the lowest of all the arts'. Had he grasped the true aims and limitations of photography much of his book Naturalistic Photography and the whole of his re- cantation need never have been written. Surprisingly,
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117- Robert Demachy. 'Primavera.' Photogravure of a gum print (red chalk colour), c. 1896
a third edition of Naturalistic Photography in 1899 by no means contradicted all that appeared in the first and second editions. Logic was not Emerson's strong point, as he had already shown in dedicating his book to the memory of Adam- Salomon, whose work was far removed from his ideals in photo- graphy.
Some photographers were content with 'Impres- sionism' as defined by George Davison. Blurring the image by optical means (a 'pinhole lens', a simple spectacle lens, or a specially constructed soft focus lens such as that designed in 1896 by T. R. Dall- meyer at the suggestion of J. S. Bergheim, a painter) and printing or enlarging it on coarse paper, was indeed still defensible as photographic technique. The erroneous notion, however, that even this failed to give an absolutely satisfactory rendering of nature led for the first time to a new conception of creative photography: modification. The painter, it was argued, is not bound by representation, he gives a free translation of the original, omitting or altering whatever impairs his design. A photographer striving to be an artist in his medium needs similar freedom. He must overcome the limitations of his instrument which restrict his powers of expression. Breaking up of the smooth halftones of the photographic image began to be considered inadequate in overcoming the 'unnaturalness' of photography. The required control, it was felt, could be brought about only by modifying the image through manual interference, which would rid photography at the same time of the never-ceasing reproach that it was a mechanical art. Hand-work, moreover, had the merit — so it was argued — of distinguishing the creative photographer from the ever-increasing tribe of thoughtless snap- shooters.
The gum bichromate printing process introduced in 1894 by A. Rouille-Ladeveze allowed the photo- grapher the artistic licence he had hoped for. He could remove details, alter tone values, and by vari- ous means modify the image to such an extent that it could no longer be considered a reproduction of nature made by the camera. It was a new work owing its existence to the ingenuity of his interpretation. This was creative photography, and he felt entitled to style himself 'art photographer'. By adding different pigments and using rough drawing paper, the print could be given the appearance of a red chalk (No. 117) or charcoal drawing (No. 115). By
exposing the negative initially to coarse canvas the photograph could be made to imitate a reproduction of a painting (No. 116). 'Precious daubs' and 'mere- tricious efforts', scoffed Emerson, justifiably, but to the 'paper stainers' and 'gum splodgers' this was photographic Art. Nothing delighted them more than the remark: 'By Jove, that doesn't look a bit like a photograph!'
I must admit that, in spite of not being pure photographs, the decorative quality of the best of these pictures gives them great charm. They are a remarkable manifestation of the fin-de-siecle decad- ence evident in art and literature. Robert Demachy's ballet dancer (No. 118) has the charm of a Degas pastel. Frau Nothmann's 'In the Garden' (No. 121) reminds one of a Renoir. Heinrich Kiihn's 'Venetian View' (No. 115) is like a watercolour by Sargent. Edward Steichen's masterpiece (No. 119) expresses the genius of Rodin silhouetted against the luminous white of his statue of Victor Hugo and contemplating his 'Thinker': it is a more pretentious essay in impressionism.
When one art copies the characteristic of another, decadence inevitably sets in. Thus Impressionism, which began in painting as a great movement, dwindled in photography to empty aestheticism. Yet at no time during its entire history was photo- graphy held in such high esteem by painters as at the fin de siecle, photographically speaking the years of decadence. The modern painters in Munich (1898) and in Vienna (1902) opened the doors of the Secession to the impressionist movement in photo- graphy. In Berlin the first Exhibition of Artistic Photography was held at the Royal Academy of Art in February-March 1899 (No. 120), so close had the relationship become. It was a marriage of con- venience from which each partner expected to profit: the photographers by recognition, the painters by photographic subject matter, for by this time most painters had dark-rooms attached to their studios.
Although the creator of gum prints was frequently only a forger of painter's work, and at best an imita- tor of non-photographic techniques, he was looked upon as an artist, vastly superior to those who be- lieved in, or had to be satisfied with, straight tech- nique.
'The art photographers have rightly realized that in spite of the expression of their personality in the arrangement of the object, the finished picture is
n8. Robert Demachy. 'Behind the Scenes.'' Photogravure of a gum print, 1904
due to a mechanical and impersonal apparatus. The picture has therefore the character of a mechanical, i.e. inartistic, reproduction. For this reason photo- graphers made a big step forward. They interfered with the positive print, by no longer printing the negative as it appeared. By the choice of paper, omitting details, adding to or deepening lights and shades, and by an unending series of manipulations which depend upon their personal judgment, they alter the photograph to such an extent that one can no longer speak of a merely mechanical reproduction by the apparatus. A process long known but rarely
used, the gum print, was recognized as the most suitable to allow these alterations to be made. Since the introduction of the gum print, the development of amateur photography has taken a surprising turn; indeed their results have no longer anything in com- mon with what used to be known as photography. For that reason one could proudly say these photo- grapers have broken the tradition of the artificial reproduction of Nature. They have freed themselves from photography. They have sought the ideal in the works of artists. They have done away with photo-
127
121. Frau E. Nothmann. lIn the Garden.'' Photogravure of a gum print, c. 1896 I 129
sentation of details, so that they can achieve simple broad effects.'1
Bernard Shaw had a better grasp of what was going on. A staunch supporter of photography as an art, he could not deny that impressionist photo- graphs had a certain fascination, yet he knew that he ought to condemn trickery and the critics who hailed it.
'When the photographer takes to forgery, the press encourages him. The critics, being professional connoisseurs of the shiftiest of the old makeshifts, come to the galleries where the forgeries are ex- hibited. They find to their relief that here, instead of a new business for them to learn, is a row of monochromes which their old jargon fits like a glove. Forthwith they proclaim that photography has become an art.'2
Despite occasional criticism, Shaw was so im- pressed by the ever-widening scope of art photo- graphy, particularly after the introduction of Lumiere colour plates in the 'nineties, that he made
1 Dr Karl Voll, Miinchner Allgemeine Zeitung, I Decem- ber 1898.
2 G. Bernard Shaw, 'The Unmechanicalness of Photo- graphy': The Amateur Photographer, 9 October 1902.
the audacious prophecy: 'Some day the camera will do the work of Velasquez and Pieter de Hoogh, colour and all. The artists have still left to them invention, and for a little while longer, colour. But selection and representation, covering ninety-nine- hundredths of our annual output of art, belong henceforth to photography.'3 Like practically every other art critic before him, Shaw fell into the same error of measuring the artistic merits of photo- grapy by comparison with Old Master paintings, and in his own inimitable way tried to confirm Dela- roche's opinion that painting was dead. Speaking of some photographic portraits of himself, Shavian ex- aggeration knew no bounds: 'Compare them with the best work with pencil, crayon, brush or silver- point you can find — with Holbein's finest Tudor drawings, with Rembrandt's Saskia, with Velasquez' Admiral, with anything you like — if you cannot see at a glance that the old game is up, that the camera has hopelessly beaten the pencil and paintbrush as an instrument of artistic representation, then you will never make a true critic.'4
:i G. Bernard Shaw, The Amateur Photographer, 11 October 1901. J ibid.
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XIV
IMITATION PAINTINGS
In their successful fight to win recognition for photography as an art, the photographers at the turn of the century had recourse to a formula which had proved successful in each generation: the production of photographs in which painters and art critics find the same characteristics that they look for in paint- ings. (Even today, art critics too often tend to value
122. Fred Boissonnas. 'Faust in His Study', 1898 (reproduction).
most those photographs that closely resemble paint- ings.) Photographers not only freed themselves from photography, as the Munich art critic paradoxically put it, but they also sought the ideal in the works of artists. It is remarkable that the very artists who had found inspiration in photographs now inspired photo- graphers, foremost Degas, Corot, Pissarro, Renoir,
123. J. C. Strauss. Photographic portrait in the style of Frans Hals, 1904 {reproduction).
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124. Richard Polak. Photograph in the style of Pieter de Hoogh, 1914 (reproduction)
but few well-known mid and late nineteenth- century painters were safe from photographic imita- tion. Paul Pichier, an Austrian photographer, created Bocklinesque landscapes with figures at San Vigilio on Lake Garda and at Ischia near Naples, which is considered the original of Bocklin's imaginative 'Island of the Dead'. Peasant interiors — typical sub- jects of Wilhelm Leibl — were favoured by other Austrian and German photographers. Men in ar- mour appeared a la Lovis Corinth. Edward Steichen,
the photographer and painter, gave a remarkably clever photographic rendering of his self-portrait in the style of Lenbach, the painter and photo- grapher, etc. etc.
Numerous painters made equally fruitful — or fruitless? — use of photographs, but I must resist the temptation to be sidetracked into a discussion of the interaction of painting and photography — a fascin- ating subject that demands separate treatment. In this review of aesthetic trends I must confine myself
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125- Fred Boissonnas. 'Coming Home from the Theatre', c. 1902
to mentioning that those who found impres- sionistic technique too difficult frequently turned to straightforward imitation of Old Master paintings as an alternative outlet for their 'ability'. Some photo- graphers specialized in portraits after Rembrandt, Frans Hals, Van Dyck, Gainsborough, etc. The Italian photographer Guido Rey made genre pictures in the style of almost every century from Graeco- Roman tableaux a la Alma-Tadema to the French Empire, a period which also attracted the French amateur C. Puyo. The craze for these aberrations was international. F. Boissonnas of Geneva (No. 122) and the Americans Richard Polak (No. 124) and J. C. Strauss who started his series 'After the Old Masters' in 1904 (No. 123) are only a few examples. Though taking the utmost pains to achieve historical accuracy, sometimes to the extent of making direct imitations of a certain artist's style, no photographer
as far as I know, except Rejlander, ever attempted the reconstruction of a particular painting.
In his 'Coming Home from the Theatre' (No. 125) Boissonnas was undoubtedly influenced by popular pictures of similar subjects, in particular, I imagine, Daumier's several well-known illustrations of 'The First Class Carriage'. There is perhaps some justifi- cation for Boissonnas' studio reconstruction of a railway carriage, because a genuine scene of this kind could not be photographed before the introduction of modern miniature cameras.
Even sacred subjects suitable only for the artist with brush or pencil were attempted. Madonnas and saints more convincing than Mrs Cameron's ap- peared: Mrs Barton portrayed herself complete with halo as St Agnes.
The Americans F. Holland Day and Lejaren a Hiller (No. 126) and L. Bovier in Belgium depicted
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126. Lejaren a Hiller. 'Deposition from the Cross', c. 1910
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Entombments and Crucifixions— extraordinary abe: rations of taste when arranged for exhibition pur- poses, but neither public nor photographers realizec
that, however accomplished, such productions completely failed to further the art of photo- graphy.
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XV
THE AESTHETIC MOVEMENT
In September 1891 a dispute about the non-hanging of some photographs sent in late by George Davison to the Photographic Society's annual exhibition led to his resignation. With him went all the naturalistic photographers except Emerson, and even the famous old pictorialist H. P. Robinson. This was one of many secessions that occurred in the 1890s, in
127. Edward Steichen. 'Portrait of Lady H.' Photo- gravure of a coloured gum print, c. 1910
painting as well as in photography. Though personal animosities played some part the secessionists had all along been dissatisfied at the scientific bias the Society had taken on under its present and previous President. In May 1892 Alfred Maskell founded with fourteen others the Linked Ring Brotherhood, which soon included the most prominent foreign as
128. Hans Watzek. 'A Peasant.' Photogravure of a gum print, 1894
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129. Theodor and Oskar Hofmeister. 'Great-grand- mother? Photogravure of a gum print, 1897
well as British artistic photographers. It was a loose organization without a President or Council and anyone of marked artistic ability could be elected. By 1895 the Linked Ring consisted of about forty British and foreign members of which the best known were: (Britain) J. Craig Annan, H. H. Hay Cameron (son of Julia Margaret Cameron), George Davison, Frederick H. Evans, Col J. Gale, A. Horsley Hinton, Frederick Hollyer, Lyddell Sawyer, Frank Sutcliffe, J. B. B. Wellington, B. Gay Wilkin- son; (France) Robert Demachy; (Austria) Dr Hugo Henneberg, Prof Hans Watzek; (America) Alfred Stieglitz.
A year after the foundation of the Linked Ring these independent amateur and professional photo- graphers held their first Salon at the Dudley Gal- lery (formerly the Egyptian Hall) in Piccadilly, Lon- don. By its success the Salon established itself for the next fifteen years as the most important event in the photographic world. Horsley Hinton, editor of The Amateur Photographer and spokesman for the Linked Ring, never ceased in his propaganda for the recognition of photography as a means of artistic
expression, and his own fine landscapes lent force to his arguments. A strong yet tolerant personality, Hinton was admirably suited to unite men of widely differing interests and divergent views, a task of great importance considering that the British group, as initiators of the aesthetic movement and having the longest tradition in pictorial photography, were looked upon as natural leaders by foreign amateur organizations that were founded in Paris, Vienna, Hamburg, Brussels and New York. Some became allied to the Linked Ring and so for the first time pictorial photography grew into an international movement.
The French Salon formed by the fashionable Photo-Club de Paris in 1894 nad a similar effect in France to the Salon of the Linked Ring in England. Its guiding spirits were Robert Demachy, Major C. Puyo, Rene Le Begue and Maurice Bucquet. Demachy and Puyo with inventive genius and ele- gance of style— though not without occasional lapses of taste — portrayed feminine grace and took many delightful landscapes with figures. Le Begue became famous for nudes; Bucquet depicted street life like a reportage photographer, achieving his effects by purely photographic means.
The most prominent members of the Vienna Camera Club, which organized its first international exhibition in 1891, were Heinrich Kiihn (No. 115), Hugo Henneberg, Prof Hans Watzek (No. 128) and Dr F. Spitzer.
Like most other countries apart from Britain and France, Germany had up to the mid-'nineties made no important contribution to artistic photography outside the field of portraiture. Hence the few people who were conscious of this lack were particularly vigorous in their support of the aesthetic movement. Ernst W. Juhl, founder of the Society for the Ad- vancement of Amateur Photography in Hamburg and organizer of its international exhibitions from 1893 to 1903, and the art historian Prof Alfred Lichtwark, director of the Kunsthalle in Hamburg, were the influential men behind it. Fritz Matthies- Masuren, author, photographer, and editor of several photographic art magazines, was its leading spokesman.
No fewer than 6,000 amateur photographs were shown in the Hamburg Kunsthalle in 1893. The mere idea of a photographic exhibition in a leading art gallery seemed to the public at the time as incon-
131. Alfred Stieglitz. 'The Terminal.' Photogravure, 1893
gruous as holding a scientific conference in a church. But Lichtwark made his gallery available in the hope that photography would revitalize painting, and especially portrait painting, which had almost died out. For the next decade the Hamburg exhibition established itself as an annual event. In 1899 Hill's and Adamson's portraits, seen for the first time out- side Britain, were considered the highlight, despite the fact that the world's leading pictorialists were represented in force. It was realized that artistic photography had existed half a century before the modern aesthetic movement. In these old Calotypes, explained Lichtwark, the characteristics of the sitter
had not been interfered with by retouching, then in vogue with professional photographers, and as long as the public demanded and received flattering, and therefore characterless, photographic portraits, he feared they would not be able to appreciate truth in painting. This was a complete reversal of the situa- tion during the early days of photography, when photographers complained that they were obliged to flatter the sitter because artists had made people accustomed to idealized portraits.
The influence of the exhibitions in Hamburg (No. 132) and other German cities was particularly marked in photographic portraiture, for in Germany
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it was not so much amateurs like the brothers Theodor and Oskar Hofmeister (No. 129) as a num- ber of professional portrait photographers who be- came the leading figures in the aesthetic movement: Rudolf Duhrkoop of Hamburg, Hugo Erfurth (Dresden) (No. 130), Nicola Perscheid (Leipzig) and Wilhelm Weimer (Darmstadt).
Within a few years the exhibitions raised the stan- dard and status of professional and amateur photo- graphy to an unprecedented level in Germany, win- ning for it official recognition in the highest circles. The Empress Frederick opened a big international exhibition of artistic photography in the Reichstag building in 1896, and three years later the Royal Academy of Art in Berlin opened its doors to a similar exhibition.
Lichtwark and Juhl had every reason to be satis- fied with the results of their efforts. The former re- ported later that Tn barely five years the German
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133. First page of eight-page pamphlet of the Inter- national Society of Pictorial Photographers, 1904
132. Title-page of catalogue of photographic exhibition held at the Hamburg Kunsthalle (Art Gallery), 1899
amateur photographers, until then the last, had come to the fore and brought to Germany, too, the decorative quality of photography as manifested in artistic expression and form.'1
In Italy realization that the camera could be used creatively became apparent for the first time at a photographic exhibition in Florence in 1895. This and subsequent exhibitions of artistic photography at Turin in 1897 and particularly in 1900 — the first international exhibition of artistic photography to be held in Italy — aroused a widespread desire for photographic picture-making. Guido Rey was the most prominent of the Italian pictorialists, others being Cesare Schiaparelli, Giacomo Grosso and Gatti Casazza.
The dominant figure of the Cercle d'Art Photo-
' Alfred Lichtwark, foreword to Kiinstlerische Photo- graphic: Entwicklung und Einfluss in Deutschland, by F. Matthies-Masuren, Berlin, 1907.
139
136. H. H. H. Cameron. G. F. Watts. Photogravure, c. 1892
137- Frederick H. Evans. Aubrey Beardsley. Platino- type, c. 1895
graphique established in Brussels in 1900 was Leonard Misonne. Like his better-known com- patriot Vlaminck, Misonne became noted for his stormy views by late afternoon light. He was a master of contre-jour effects, and in many of his landscapes the sun is breaking through clouds after rain. This was by no means always the natural effect, for a few good sky negatives served Misonne for many gum prints and bromoils. Other well-known Belgian pictorialists were C. Puttemans, A. Bourgeois and M. Vanderkindere.
Whilst the German, Italian and Belgian groups were not affiliated to the Linked Ring, the Americans under Alfred Stieglitz formed its strongest and most progressive contingent. Stieglitz was a consistent advocate of the integrity of straight photography and owing to his influence a reaction set in in America against the manipulated print, which owed more to the ingenuity of the photographer than to photography. Realizing that ordinary everyday
scenes had not been sufficiently explored, he set out to show that this was a field offering ample scope for the creative photographer, without the need to stoop to any artifices. Although some of Stieglitz's photo- graphs taken in the 1890s still show a certain influ- ence of impressionism in his preference for street scenes in wet or snowy weather {No. 131) or Monet- like railway stations — his approach was photo- graphic.
Since his aims clashed with the more conven- tional outlook of the New York Camera Club, of which he was Vice-President, Stieglitz founded in 1902 the Photo-Secession, with Alvin Langdon Coburn, Frank Eugene, Gertrude Kasebier, Edward Steichen, Clarence H. White and forty-one others. Some of the secessionists still clung to the controlled printing processes, foremost Edward Steichen {No. 119) and Coburn; others shared their leader's belief in straightforward technique. All were agreed on two fundamental principles: the desirability of exploring photographic subject matter, and of concentration on rendering the subtleties of light.
'Let us use our instrument for the purpose for which it was intended: let us concentrate on doing the thing that we can do best, and not prostitute our medium by trying to do what we can accomplish only in a lesser degree, but what other mediums do easily and well. Let us do to the best of our ability that thing in which no other worker can rival us. Light, light, always light! . . . See and record its delicacy and daintiness in the upper ranges, its sombre play in the darks, its strength and vigour in the full scale, its infinite gradations, its infinite variety. . . . Ever and always use light to express your thought.'1
Camera Work, the Photo- Secession's luxuriously produced quarterly journal, was started by Stieglitz in January 1903 with the purpose of winning recog- nition for photography as art by publishing the work of leading contemporary American and European pictorial photographers. From 1908 onward he made the magazine the propaganda platform for modern art in general, for to him all manifestations of it were equally important. With Edward Steichen he opened in November 1905 the Photo-Secession Gallery at 291 Fifth Avenue, New York — later called simply '291' — for shows of the controversial Photo- Seces- sion Group and leading European photographers of
1 Paul L. Anderson, 'Some Pictorial History': American Photography, Boston, Vol. xxix, No. 4, April 1935.
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138. Clarence H. White. 'Lady in Black: Photogravure, 1898
139- Alice Hughes. The Arch-Duchess Stephanie (widow of Arch-Duke Rudolph of Hapsburg). Platinotype, 1905
the aesthetic movement. Gradually he extended its scope to champion anyone breaking new ground in art. Stieglitz's artistic perception was far in advance of that of his contemporaries and made him the greatest protagonist of modern photography and modern art in the United States. It must be admitted that whilst the work of the artists still looks modern today, that of the photographers is — with a few ex- ceptions— dated. The illustrations in Camera Work prove that the majority of Stieglitz's followers fall far short of his ideals, and one is sometimes puzzled how he could possibly have accepted their work so whole- heartedly. For most of it is arty, much of it senti- mental, and some of it in questionable taste. The over-enthusiasm and conceit of the Photo- Secession- ists knew no bounds. It is surprising that a serious editor could have passed for publication such ludi- crous remarks as: 'One should not say he [SteichcnJ recalls Rembrandt but rather at this rate Rembrandt will, in time, remind us of Steichen.'
With the help of Steichen, who lived at the time in Paris, Stieglitz introduced to America the work of many now famous artists: Rodin drawings and works by Matisse (1908), John Marin and Toulouse- Lautrec lithographs (1909), Henri Rousseau and Cezanne (1910), Picasso (191 1), Picabia (1913), Brancusi and Braque (1914), Severini (1917). Stieg- litz also arranged the first exhibitions in the world of child art (1912) and Negro sculpture (1914) and furthered the development of what was later called Dadaism by publishing the magazine '291' during 1915-16. De Zayas, Picabia, Picasso, Max Jacob and Appollinaire were among the contributors, apart from Stieglitz and Steichen.
With his ever-increasing bias towards avant- garde art in Camera Work and at '291', the autocrat of the Photo-Secession alienated most of its mem- bers. One of them has described the shocked re- action of Americans to the paintings of blobby green females reclining on purple grass; magenta oceans and blue sunlight; paintings by children — and imbe- cile children at that; paintings of such a nature that only the maker could tell what they represented, and he had forgotten; pictures of the nightmares of delirium tremens; and pictures representing nothing that ever existed in the heavens above, or the earth beneath'.1 No wonder, then, that by 191 7 the sub-
1 Paul L. Anderson, 'Some Pictorial History': American Photography, Boston, Vol. xxix, No. 4, April 1935.
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140. H. Walter Barnett. Mrs Saxton Noble. Platino- type, c. 1908
scribers to Camera Work had dwindled to thirty-six, and with America's entry into the war both magazine and gallery closed down. However, in 1925 Stieglitz renewed his influential activities at 'The Intimate Gallery' and later at 'An American Place', New York.
In Europe, the