The photographic news

• Bandzählung: 35.1891
• Erscheinungsdatum: 1891
• Sprache: Englisch
• Signatur: F 135
• Vorlage: Hochschule für Grafik und Buchkunst Leipzig
• Digitalisat: Hochschule für Grafik und Buchkunst Leipzig
• Digitalisat: SLUB Dresden
• Rechtehinweis: Public Domain Mark 1.0
• URN: urn:nbn:de:bsz:14-db-id1780948042-189100009
• PURL: http://digital.slub-dresden.de/id1780948042-18910000
• OAI: oai:de:slub-dresden:db:id-1780948042-18910000
• Sammlungen: LDP: Historische Bestände der Hochschule für Grafik und Buchkunst Leipzig
• Sammlungen: Fotografie
• Strukturtyp: Band

• Digitalisat: SLUB Dresden
• Strukturtyp: Ausgabe

FEBRUARY 6, 1891.] THE PHOTOGRAPHIC NEWS. loi NOTES ON PORTRAITURE. BY H. P. ROBINSON. No. IV. The greatest difficulty in portraiture has always been the group. This has been almost as much evident to the painter as the photographer. If the painter represents his subjects as simple resemblances they are too often stagy and stiff; if, on the other hand, he supplies them with a centre of interest, and presents them as “ doing something,” they look as though they were doing it for the purpose of being painted, and who does not recog nise the air of conscious sham that pervades the repre sentations of even such spectacular subjects as court ceremonies, although they may be painted by the greatest artists'? What is the unfortuate artist to do? In his attempt to be pictorial he meets with many obstacles. He must not partly hide a face, or introduce a back view of a figure, often useful for obtaining variety of pose, and as a foil to other figures ; he must show every one at his best ; the chief personages must be conspicuous, even if they were not very visible in the real group. Of the painters, Wilkie and C. R. Leslie almost succeeded with these impossible subjects, but it was at some expense of truth. It was left for an impressionist painter to show us what would happen if such a subject were treated literally. In the Art Journal for January is a process block from a picture by Mr. John Lavery, representing the ceremony on the occasion of Iler Majesty’s visit to the Glasgow Exhibition, 1888. The principal object is an official in his robes filling a foreground corner, the reader of the address is a little figure in the distance, and Her Majesty is to be found, after diligent search, some way out of hearing distance of the reader. One half of the space is filled up with the steps of the spacious dais, under the canopy of which Her Majesty is seated almost out of sight. Ihis may have been a correct impression of the scene ; the picture may be full of air, and space, and trutli of the subtlest kind ; it may be full of expression and spirit, and all other impressionist qualities ; but if we may judge by the engraving, it does not do justice to the portraits, and thus the principal object of the picture is not fulfilled. Perhaps the most realistically natural group of two figures ever painted is to be found in the “ Portraits of a Merchant and his Wife,” by Van Eyck, in the National Gallery. It represents a man and woman standing to have their portraits taken. This is just what they must have been doing, and they look like it. Legends have been invented to explain the subject, and account for the pose of these two marvellously painted figures, but all that is apparent is that they were standing for the painter. Now-a-days, when we want to make figures look “ so natural,” we are expected to make them appear to be doing anything but pose for their portraits, while they are doing nothing else all the time. What is the most natural thing a boy will do when he is asked to stand for his portrait? He will look at the camera, and be in terested in what you are doing with it. This is an argu ment that may, of course, be carried too far, but there is exaggeration in the other extreme, which has been advocated to such an extent by recent writers on art who talk about nature without understanding, that the unfor tunate photographer is now almost afraid to allow his sitter to look at him. A portrait should not be a snap-shot accident of a man. It should be a deliberate presentment of the best that is in him, portrayed by the artist after a careful study of his sub ject, and cannot be other than to some extent a conventional representation. It is all very well if you can combine the natural with the portrait, but the effort, even with the greatest artists, almost always ends in the make-believe. Take, for instance, one of the greatest portrait pictures in the National Gallery, the “Family of Darius at the Feet of Alexander the Great, after the battle of Issus,” by Paul Veronese. That event purports to be the subject represented, but the principal figures are portraits of the Pisani family. The picture was intended for a portrait group, and the artist has taken an historical incident of the year 333 B.C., so as to give his figures an oppor tunity of “doing something ” and looking “ so natural.” To do this he has seen no absurdity in, and not scrupled to represent his sitters in, Venetian armour and robes of a period more than 1500 years later than the time of the incident portrayed. It is one of the great pictures of the world; is wonderfully painted; is marvellous in colour and handling; not one face looks 1 ‘ at the camera; ” but if one looks for the nature that is expected in modern art, one cannot help feeling that the monkey on the balustrade is the most natural bit in the picture. I do not pretend to argue that no portrait group should have a motive or leading idea, but I feel that this method of composing a group may be often carried too far, and is often strained. In the last century the group was a favourite method of presenting portraits, and Zoffany, Hogarth, and a few others, in their “ conversation pieces, "of which we see examples in every exhibition of Old Masters at the Royal Academy, managed to maintain the just medium between the natural motive and the unnatural strain ; with others the family group degenerated into burlesque, and was often ridiculed by the writers of the day. The descrip tion of the famous classical group in the “ Vicar of Wakefield,” “ by a limner who travelled the country, and took likenesses for fifteen shillings a head,” is an instance familiar to all who have read that delightful tale, and shows the perverted taste of the time. It will bear repeating. It was to be a large historical family piece, for all families of any taste were now drawn in the same manner, and designed to show the superiority in taste of the Primrose family over their neighbours, all the seven of whom had recently been drawn each with an orange a piece—“a thing quite out of taste, no variety in life, no composition in the world.” As the vicar relates, “My wife desired to be represented as Venus, and the painter was requested not to be too frugal of his diamonds in her stomacher and hair. Her two little ones were to be as Cupids at her side ; while I, in my gown and bands, was to present her with my books on the Whistonian con troversy. Olivia would be drawn as an Amazon, sitting upon a bank of flowers, dressed in a green joseph, richly laced with gold, and a whip in her hand. Sophia was to be a shepherdess, with as many sheep as the painter could put in for nothing; and Moses was to be dressed out in a hat and white feather." This is scarcely an exaggeration of the state of artistic taste at that period. Another less known anecdote may interest the reader, who knows the difficulty of composing a portrait group, and pleasing the whims and fancies of his exacting patrons. One day a wealthy merchant drove up to the door of Hoppner, the portrait painter. Out of the carriage