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The photographic news
- Bandzählung
- 12.1868
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- 1868
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- Hochschule für Grafik und Buchkunst Leipzig
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- Bandzählung
- No. 490, January 24, 1868
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Zeitschrift
The photographic news
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Band 12.1868
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- Titelblatt Titelblatt I
- Kapitel Preface III
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- Register The Index To Volume XII 619
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A word on another subject, and we are done. The Art Critic of our contemporary calls attention, “ for the sake of literary fairness,” to certain garbled quotations from his former remarks, made by the “ London Photographer ” in question. He says:—■“ For example, wo spoke of spotty lights, not frothy lights; we spoke of the light an artist chooses for his studio, not for his shades (!)” We hope it is scarcely necessary to assure our contemporary that the errors in question are either clerical or printer’s errors, most pro bably the latter. Our contributor is utterly incapable of the meanness of an intentional misquotation, which would here, moreover, be not more mean than purposeless and foolish. PICTORIAL EFFECT IN PHOTOGRAPHY; BEixg Lessons in Composition and CIaROscURA for Photographers . Introductory Remarks. " A11 arts having the same general end, which is to please; and address- ing themselves to the same faculties through the medium of the senses ; it follows that their rules and principles must have as great affinity as the different materials and the different organs or vehicles by which they pass to the mind, will permit them to retain.” « As our art is not a divine gift, so neither is it a mechanical trade. Its foundations are laid in solid science ; and practice, though essential to per fection, can never attain to that which it aims unless it works under the direction of principle.” Every opportunity should be taken to discountenance that false and vulgar opinion that rules are the fetters of genius ; they are fetters only to men of no genius ; as that armour which, upon the strong, is an armament and a defence, upon the weak and mis-shapen become a load, and cripples the body which it was made to protect.’’ “It must of nece-sity be that even works of genius, like every other effect, as they must have their cause, must likewise have their rules ; it cannot be by chance that excellences are produced with any constancy or any certainty ; for this is not the nature of chance.”—Discourses of Sir Joshua Reynolds. “ In a word, every art, from reasoning to riding and rowing, is learned by assiduous practice ; and if principles do any good, it is proportioned to the readiness with which they can be converted into rules, and the patient con stancy with which they are applied in all our attempts at excellence.”— Dr. Thompson's Outlines of the Laws of Thought. It has often been asserted that the artist, like the poet, is born, not made; and, within certain limits, the assertion is doubtless true : without a natural capacity for pictorial per ception no study and no amount of industry would produce an artist. “ Patience and sandpaper,” Ruskin remarks, “ will not make a picture.” But, no matter how great the natural capacity, or how undoubted the genius, certainty in excellence, and permanent success, cannot be attained with out a knowledge of the rules ami a study of the principles upon which pictorial effect depends. No mistake is more fatal than a reliance upon genius instead of effort, upon “ inborn taste ” instead of culture and the application of recognized and certain laws. It has been often alleged, that except in its lowest phases, and in its most limited degree, art can have nothing in com mon with photography, inasmuch as the latter must deal with nature, either in landscape or portraiture, only in its most literal forms; whilst the essential province of art is to deal with nature in its ideal forms, rendering that which it suggests as well as that which it presents, refining that which is vulgar, avoiding that which is common-place, or transfiguring and glorifying it by poetic treatment. Pho tography, it has been said, can but produce the aspects of nature as they are; and “ nature does not compose: her beautiful arrangements are but accidental combinations.” But it may be answered, that it is only the educated eye of one familiar with the laws upon which pictorial effect depend who can discover in nature these accidental beauties, and ascertain in what they consist. Burnett observes, “ Nature unveils herself only to him who can penetrate her sacred haunts. The enquiry, ‘ What is beautiful, and why ?’ can only be answered by him who has often asked the question.” The same writer, speaking of Turner’s early efforts, describes them as something like very common-place photographs; they were water-colour landscapes, “aspiring only to topographical correctness, the unadorned represen tations of individual scenes.” It was only subsequent study, and a higher knowledge of the resources of art, which “ gave him a hint that selection of a situation, and clothing it with effective light and shade, ennobled the picture and placed it more in the rank of a composition than a plain tran script.” The same is equally true of portraiture. Although likeness is the quality of first importance, artistic arrange ment is scarcely second to it. In some cases, indeed, art excellence possesses a wider and a more permanent value than mere verisimilitude. The portraits by Titian, or Ve lasquez, or Reynolds, live rather as pictures than as like nesses, and the Gervartius of Vandyke excites the admiration of thousands who scarcely bestow a thought on the identity of the original. Art-culture, however, materially aids in securing likeness by teaching the eye rapidly to seize the salient features, to determine the most suitable view, and to arrange the light so as to bring out the effect of character ; at the same time giving force and prominence to natural advantages, and concealing or subduing natural defects. It is unnecessary however, to enforce here the value of art culture and the advantages of a study of such part of art as can be reduced to rule and law, or stated in broad principles. A growing appreciation of the importance of the subject exists amongst photographers, and an increasing desire to be put in possession of the means of studying pic torial science. The enquiry has constantly been reaching us of late, “ How shall we begin to study art? Where shall we find instructions?” Of course it was easy to give the answer that the same sources of information, the same aids to study, were open to the photographer which were avail able to the painter. But this scarcely meets the case: the training in drawing and other elementary portions of the painter’s art brings with it a gradual familiarity with higher art study, whilst the chemical and mechanical nature of the photographer’s technical training does not necessarily bring him into contact with pictorial effects. Schools of art, academy lectures, &c., do not exist for him. Works on art of course there are, and many of them very excellent aids to the student; but they are all written with a direct reference to other modes of expression or application than those possible to the photographer, whose tools and materials are less plastic than any hitherto familiar to the artist. In photographic literature there has been much frag mentary treatment of art, and some of it by blind leaders of the blind. In an excellent paper once read before the Photographic Society of Scotland, a writer once well remarked on this subject, “Loose talk about art has never been a very scarce commodity, I am afraid; but it has certainly always been a mischievous one.” There has been talk enough about the mysteries of art, and no lack of rhapsodies on esthetics and the poetry of pictorial expression ; but no systematic teaching of what may be termed the mechanical bases on which pictorial effect must be built. Poetry there is in art, and mystery also; but it is little use prating of these to one who has not learned its alphabet. Instinctive perception of fitness and proportion will sometimes mate rially aid the artist in producing pictures, no matter what the tools by which they are produced ; but no steady or progressive success can be hoped for that is not based on knowledge. The grammar of art must be learned before the student can expect to succeed in composition. We wish here to speak very soberly : let us not be mis understood in thus speaking of art and of its application to photography. We here make no extravagant claims for photography. We know well how necessarily limited is its range compared to painting; but we also know, within its range, how perfect are its delineations when guided by the trained hand and cultivated brain. We know its power in pic torial expression from the many wondrously beautiful things it has given to the world ; and we feel assured that when a sound knowledge of art principles shall be more extensively applied, its powers will be developed, producing still more varied forms of beauty. Nor do wo overrate what of art can be taught. Much of art which can bo acquired by study
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