_By _ARTHUR WESLEY DOW
_Professor of Fine Arts in Teachers College, Columbia University_
The painter need not always paint with brushes, he can paint with light
itself. Modern photography has brought light under control and made it as
truly art-material as pigment or clay. The old etchers turned chemical
action to the service of Art. The modern photographer does the same,
using the mysterious forces of nature as agents in making his thoughts
visible. It’s a long story of effort and experiment since someone
observed that an inverted landscape on the wall of a darkened room was
painted by light coming through a hole in a shutter. The shutter and the
dark room are still acting, but now we can hold the fleeting vision.
While we rejoice in the triumph of Science it is the triumph of Art that
concerns us most. The photographer has demonstrated that his work need
not be mechanical imitation. He can control the quality of his lines, the
spacing of his masses, the depth of his tones and the harmony of his
gradations. He can eliminate detail, keeping only the significant. More
than this, he can reveal the secrets of personality. What is this but
Art?
Just here we must remember that neither light, nor chemicals, nor camera,
nor nature tell us anything of Art—that Art is not the child of Knowledge
or Science or Nature, but is born of trained Appreciation in the soul of
man. He that would paint with light must be first of all a Designer. His
chief concern will be to find and use his own powers of choice and
appreciation. He will need the studio more than the laboratory.
“What is Design?” Ask Korin, Hiroshige, Giotto, Rembrandt, Titian; ask the
master-photographers who can build harmonies of line and space and
texture. But the secret is not revealed by asking, only by DOING.