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THE PHOTOGRAPHIC NEWS. EDITED BK T. C- HEPWORTH, F.C.S Vol. XXXV. No. 1701.— April 10, 1891. CONTENTS. PAGE Af er the Storm 277 The Portraiture of the Unseen 278 Reviews 279 The Camera Club Conference 280 Notes 286 A Detective Shot 288 The Wheel Puzzle 288 Photography in France. By Leon Vidal 289 PAG Photography in Germany. By Hermann E. Gunther 291 Magazine Camera 292 Testing of Lenses at Kew Observatory 292 The Latest Use of Photography. By J. F. S 293 Patent Intelligence J. 294 Correspondence 294 Proceedings of Societies 295 Answers to Correspondents 296 AFTER THE STORM. The letter of Dr. Emerson’s which we published, last week under the title, “The Storm in the Naturalistic Grater,” once more reminds us of the somewhat bitter controversy—now, we are thankful to say, at an end — which for so long a time agitated the minds of many of our leading workers. In looking back upon the history of this discussion, which we have not the slightest desire to renew, we may, perhaps, usefully consider one view of the subject which appears to us to have been lost sight of by both sides. We may fairly assume, to begin with, that the term “natural istic photography ” would never have been invented if a certain school of artists had not first arisen -we refer to painters, not photographers—who worked by methods different to those to which people had become accus tomed, and which set at nought, in nearly every respect, the methods adopted in our schools of art. These “ impressionists,” as they called themselves, broke loose from the established order of things, and painted pictures, in some cases of considerable merit, but which, in others, seemed to represent nature in a way so distorted that the ordinary man could not under stand them. This wandering from the beaten track, instead of being a matter for surprise, should be regarded by the most careless student of human nature as a thing to be expected. Indeed, we have no hesitation in saying that, had it not been for this tendency to stray away which is inherent in human nature, all progress in the world would long ago have ceased. In children this feeling is largely developed, and we suppose that everyone must have felt, at some time in his early years, a yearning to be up and doing, and to break away from the restrictions which encompassed him. If a child find his playground in the meadows surrounding his home, the longing will take the form of a desire to go beyond the boundary line. He will first begin to wonder what lies beyond the visible horizon. “ What is there,” he will ask himself, “on the other side of the hills?” He will imagine that a more beautiful country awaits him there, and the longing to roam and to find it out will often be strong upon him. When early manhood comes the feeling is not relaxed, but is rather strengthened, only his ideas have expanded, and he begins to dream of fairer lands beyond the sea. If circumstances compel him to stay at home, the longing to break away from established custom will still be strong upon him, and may take the form of change of religion, or some other fancy which his elders will look upon regretfully, and regard as a foolish craze. It is not strange that artists and students generally, who have the imaginative faculty in a highly developed degree, should, more than any others of their kind, possess this strong tendency to seek fresh fields and pastures new ; and the history of all arts tells us that more than once new schools have thus arisen, and have often been productive of good. As a case in point, we may refer to the new German school of music, which, born of the marvellous genius of Wagner, has obtained such a firm footing, although we must admit that cer tain of his imitators have gone into excesses which bring their works too near to the boundary line which sepa rates harmony from mere noise. A glance at the list of the three hundred or more different “persua sions ” or forms of religion which exist in our own country alone, will show that this longing for something different, something better than the world has yet offered, is common even in the more serious phases of human thought. But returning to art, we find something akin to the present “impressionist” movement in the outbreak of what was called pre-Raphaelitism more than forty years ago, and which was thus summarised by a writer of the period: — “ Some three or four artistical aspirants have, within the last four years, exhibited certain pictures distin guished by a peculiar quaintness of conception—a cold, dry, hard, meagre manner, an equalised distinctness of parts, and a laborious and superabundant detail of particulars mistakenly regarded as high finish. In those doings wo find great attention paid to little things, and little consideration bestowed on great ones, and, supposing a purpose, the object of the artists seems to be to paint nature as she appears to untutored eyes—