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

likeness taken of features contorted by the rude action of these harpies of the mind. Fortunately, on the other hand, a substitute is to be found displaying a remarkable resemblance of the ugliness they produce. Dr. Emerson hag introduced to us the crab. He has also introduced the octopus. Both these beasts remind him much of his fellow-men. They are, he tells us, fit company, these terrible monsters—the octopus and the crab to wit—and it is their ‘ 1 human-like actions that make them so loathsome.” Speaking of a crab which had, by a ruse of successful cunning and Machiavellian sagacity, obtained a portion of a bloater’s head, he says that after beating a hasty retreat to the water’s edge, he—the crab, not the doctor—“crouched down and began to tear and eat it in his repulsive and even human manner.” Another crab, occupied with a shrimp, clutched it, we are told, with greed—the greed of the miser. A full-grown ghoul came and sat down on the ooze by Dr. Emerson’s side, just like the big spider, to compare small things with great, by the side of Miss Muffet. But the doctor, far from being frightened away by his assessor, was “fascinated by his bestial actions, so human were they in movement and sentiment.” It is clear, then, that by the humble example of the crab we may hold up a mirror to human nature, and, without the necessity of wounding any feelings of delicacy or self-love in our sitters or squatters, may compose a gallery of faces animated by the various demons of passion, esthetically entertaining, if not morally useful. We have already seen that the attitude of the crab may express greed. The “ cold, cruel, chinless, triangular face, with wide-parted eyes and hairy mandibles, without one ray of light to illumine the dreadful countenance,” may also convey to an attentive observer the expression of “brutal lust.” This power of reproducing human passion is probably an exclusive endowment of the crab. Dr. Emerson has, indeed, also mentioned cursorily the octopus; but, in his illustrations, the crustacean reigns supreme. No other animal, from the tiger to the titmouse, parti cipates in this remarkable gift with the crab. No horse— whatever may be said of an ass—has, in all probability, ever reminded Edward Muybridge of a human creature by any similarity in the expression of evil. Nor, in a case where we might well look for it, has Ottomar Anschutz, it is confidently believed, ever yet confided to the public his detection of any resemblance in facial wickedness in the monkey and in the man. Therefore, let the photographer of animals confine himself to th® portraiture of the crab. He will learn to detect, with unerring constancy, that dreadful ugliness of likeness which, by its very likeness, is made more ugly—-as it adds deformity, according to Bacon, to an ape to be so like a man—an ugliness which is not noticed by the casual observer. He will become an artist in the highest and best sense of that much-abused appellation. He will by degrees attain that subtle feeling of diversities of aspect—born in some few highly-favoured men, but in the vast majority the slow result of culture and refinement—which enables the operator to produce what are commonly known as portrait effects. Every crab must constitute for him an all- important study. He must cultivate the acquaintance of every genus, of every species, of every family, of every individual of the brachyura, or short tailed-division of decapod crustaceans. The Carcinas Meenas, or common shore crab, must be his familiar friend; but the Cancer Pagurus, or edible crab, which is probably—though the matter is darkened by much doubt—the crab of which the physiognomy is in Dr. Emerson’s eyes so full of human interest, must be to our photographer, in no secondary sense, a brother. With him there must be nothing of that restraint which usually exists between strangers in the first dawning of social intercourse ; nor must too great familiarity, on the other hand, breed in either contempt. To say that the photographer must be extremely careful about the pose of his client; that, if aught is wrong, he must take means to secure another sitting ; that it is his duty to see the sitter’s good and bad points, to make the most of the latter, and, by adroit retouchings, to smooth away the former, are pieces of advice so trite that it almost demands an apology to repeat them. After some time, and by means of much patient study, our photographer may open a museum of portraits representing, in their most repulsive forms, the seven cardinal sins. The passions of lust and avarice, as they are reflected in these hard-shelled mirrors, have been already shown to us in words by Dr. Emerson in the case, probably, of the Cancer Payurus. In other inverte brates of the same genus other human failings may be found. Pride may appear in a carefully executed cabinet of the Stenorbynclms tennirostris; envy in a carte of the devil-crab or Portunus puber. The hermit crab might furnish an interesting picture of sloth ; the Cardisoma Carnifex, who in the West Indies enjoys his grave and gruesome banquet in a burial ground, of gluttony; and the Porcellana platychelys—who, moved by his passion, voluntarily resigns his limbs in instalments sooner than quit the field of combat—of anger. Photographs of this kind, if exposed in the shop windows of our streets, would counterbalance, in some degree, the present disconcerting and vexatious preponderance of the good and the excellent, the brave, the bountiful, and the beauteous, which appears in the portraits of our boxers, bishops, and ballet-girls, and from the mixture of opposites the mind of the spectator might attain neutral tranquility. The equable state of soul arising from a contemplation of photographic pictures of moral extremes is as desirable as that state which was the object of the wise prayer of Agur, the son of Jakeh: “Give me neither poverty nor riches; feed me with food convenient for me.” London and Provincial Photographic Association.— New quarters, the Champion Hotel, Aldersgate Street. Thursday, January 15th, adjourned discussion on “Developers.” Photography in Newcastle.—The following advertisement appears in The Neiocastle Daily Chronicle of January 5th last:— “ Central Exchange Art Gallery, Newcastle-on-Tyne. Now on view for a short period only, the London Camera Club collec tion of Mr. Lyddell Sawyer’s principal photographic studies. Old Newcastle places and faces, river scenes, marine subjects, instantaneous effects, genre studies, &c. Pronounced to be photographic chef d’auvres by all the London press. Awarded thirty-two medals and diplomas at all the prominent exhibi tions of the day.” Clubs, societies, and newspapers whose subscribers are in arrears with their payments, might adopt the following American specimen of gentle reminder : “ Lives of poor men oft remind us, honest toil don’t stand a chance ; more we work we leave behind us bigger patches on our pants. On our pants, once new and glossy, now are marks of different hue ; all because subscribers linger, and icon't pay up what is due. Then let all be up and doing ; send in your mite be it so small, or when the snows of winter strike us, we shall have no pants at all.”