Produced by KD Weeks, Chris Curnow and the Online
Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This
file was produced from images generously made available
by The Internet Archive)
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Transcriber’s Note:
Minor errors, attributable to the printer, have been corrected. Please
see the transcriber’s note at the end of this text for details regarding
the handling of any textual issues encountered during its preparation.
There are a few apothecary symbols employed which may not display
properly in your reader, depending upon local character sets.
This version of the text cannot represent certain typographical effects.
Italics are delimited with the ‘_’ character as _italic_. Bold
characters are delimited with '=' and underlined characters with '=='. A
carat (^) is used to denote a superscripted character.
Footnotes have been moved to follow the paragraphs in which they are
referenced. Sidenotes appear either before the paragraph which they
annotate, or inline delimited as [Sidenote: ...].
------------------------------------------------------------------------
_FRY'S_
=====
ARGENTIC BROMIDE
ENLARGEMENTS
============
“ARE LIKE FINE ENGRAVINGS.”—_British Journal of Photography._
“ARTISTIC IN THE HIGHEST DEGREE.”—_Court Circular._
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Enlarging and Finishing upon PAPER.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Dimensions Cut Finishing
of Paper Enlargement Mounts Finishing in Mono- in
in inches. Enlargement mounted extra chrome. Beyond water-colours
only. on Card. any Enlargement and in
shape Charge. oils.
opening.
3rd. 2nd. 1st.
s. d. s. d. s. d. s. d. s. d. s. d.
8½×6½, 12×7 } 2 6 3 0 0 9 5 0 10 0 15 0
10×8, 12×10 }
15×12 3 0 3 9 1 0 6 0 12 0 18 0
18×15 3 6 4 6 1 3 7 0 14 0 21 0 second-class
20×16 4 0 5 0 1 3 8 0 16 0 24 0 Monochrome
23×17 5 0 6 0 1 3 10 0 20 0 30 0 to double
24×18 } 7 6 9 0 2 0 10 0 20 0 30 0 first-class
24×20 } ditto
30×22 10 0 11 6 2 6 12 6 25 0 37 6
30×25 12 6 15 0 3 0 15 0 30 0 45 0
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Enlarging and Finishing on OPAL.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Dimensions Finishing in Mono- Finishing in ENLARGEMENTS
of Opal Enlargement chrome. Beyond Water Colours ON CANVAS.
in inches. only. Enlargement and in Oils.
Charge.
3rd. 2nd. 1st.
s. d. s. d. s. d. s. d. s. d. s. d.
8½ × 6½, 4 0 5 0 10 0 15 0 10 0 to 30 0
10 × 8 4 6 6 0 12 0 24 0 12 0 ” 36 0
12 × 7½ } 5 0 7 6 15 0 30 0 15 0 ” 45 0
12 × 10 }
15 × 12 } 7 6 10 0 20 0 35 0 17 0 ” 45 0 PRICES ON
17 × 10½ }
18 × 15 15 0 14 0 25 3 7 0 20 0 ” 50 0 APPLICATION
20 × 16 20 0 16 0 27 3 8 0 22 0 ” 70 0
24 × 18 25 0 20 0 20 0 10 0 25 0 ” 70 0
FULL PRICE LISTS OF
DRY PLATES, BROMIDE PAPERS, ENLARGEMENTS,
CHEMICALS, CARD MOUNTS, &c., &c.,
FREE ON APPLICATION TO
SAMUEL FRY & CO.,
LIMITED,
_5, Chandos St., Charing Cross, LONDON, W.C._
Works: KINGSTON-ON-THAMES. Telegraphic Address: “ENLARGEMENTS,
LONDON.”
THE AUTOTYPE COMPANY, LONDON.
------------------------------------
FOR THE ARTISTIC DECORATION OF THE HOME,
VISIT THE
AUTOTYPE FINE ART GALLERY,
=74, NEW OXFORD STREET=
(20 doors west of Mudie’s Library).
------------------------------------
SPLENDID COPIES OF THE OLD MASTERS, from the most celebrated Galleries of
Europe.
REPRODUCTIONS OF MODERN PAINTINGS, from the Luxembourg, “The Salon,” Royal
Academy, &c.
DELIGHTFUL LITTLE PICTURES, elegantly framed, after BARTOLOZZI, SIR JOSHUA
REYNOLDS, ROMNEY, and the Great English Portraitists.
TURNER'S “LIBER STUDIORUM,” with Notes by STOPFORD BROOKE, M.B.
A Pamphlet, “AUTOTYPE: A Decorative and Educational Art.” Four
Illustrations—Description of Autotype—Suggestions for Pictures and
Framing, &c. Free by Post.
AUTOTYPE BOOK ILLUSTRATIONS.
The AUTOTYPE COMPANY offer their services to AUTHORS and PUBLISHERS to
produce by the Autotype Process, Book Illustrations of the highest
excellence of any subjects capable of being photographed.
Among the WORK RECENTLY DONE may be cited Wyon’s “Great Seals of
England;” Dr. Crookshank’s “Micro-Photographs of Bacteria;” “Famous
Monuments of Central India,” for Sir Lepel Griffin, K.C.S.I.;
“Facsimiles of Early Italian Engravings,” for the Trustees of the
British Museum; “The Palæographical Society’s Fasciculus for 1888;”
“Illustrations for the Journal of the Hellenic Society,” Lindt’s “New
Guinea,” &c., &c.
------------------------------------
RECENTLY PUBLISHED.
=Idylls of the Norfolk Broads.=
By P. H. EMERSON, B.A., M.B. Twelve Plates by Auto-Gravure, in handsome
Portfolio,
with Descriptive Letterpress.
Proofs on India Paper (limited to 150) £1 11s. 6d.
Prints on Plate Paper £1 1s. 0d.
_Prospectus on application._
--------------------------------------------------
=Old Paris.=
Ten Etchings by C. MÉRYON. Reproduced on Copper by the Auto-Gravure
Process, and accompanied with Preface and Illustrative Notes by STOPFORD
A. BROOKE, M.A. The Plates are attached, by the upper edge, to Whatman
Paper cut-out Mounts, and enclosed in an elegant Portfolio. Price Three
Guineas.
---------------------------------------------------------
=_THE AUTOTYPE COMPANY,_=
74, NEW OXFORD STREET, LONDON, W.C.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
MORGAN & KIDD,
INVENTORS OF THE
=ARGENTIC-GELATINO-BROMIDE PROCESS=
The Standard Method of Producing Permanent Enlargements
and Contact Prints.
----------------------------
PRICE LIST OF THE ARGENTIC-GELATINO-BROMIDE PAPERS.
=POSITIVE PAPER.=—For Enlarging and Printing direct
from the Negative.
┌──────────┬──────────┬────────┬──────┬──────┬──────┬──────┬──────┐
│Size. │ 1-doz. │ Size. │1-doz.│½-doz.│ Size.│1-doz.│½-doz.│
├──────────┼──────────┼────────┼──────┼──────┼──────┼──────┼──────┤
│4¼ × 3¼ │ (2-dz.) │ 10 × 8 │ 3/-│ —│ 23×17│ 12/6│ 6/9│
│ │ 1/3 │ │ │ │ │ │ │
├──────────┼──────────┼────────┼──────┼──────┼──────┼──────┼──────┤
│6½ × 4¾ │ 1/3 │12½×10½ │ 4/6│ 3/-│ 25×21│ 18/6│ 10/-│
├──────────┼──────────┼────────┼──────┼──────┼──────┼──────┼──────┤
│8 × 5 │ 1/9 │15½×12½ │ 7/-│ 4/-│ 30x23│ 24/6│ 12/6│
├──────────┼──────────┼────────┼──────┼──────┼──────┼──────┼──────┤
│8½ × 6½ │ 2/3 │ 18 ×15 │ 9/6│ 5/3│ 30×25│ 26/6│ 14/-│
└──────────┴──────────┴────────┴──────┴──────┴──────┴──────┴──────┘
In Rolls of 20 ft., 17 in. wide, 12_s._; 25 in. wide, 17_s._ 6_d._; and
30 in. wide, 21_s._ The Positive Paper can also be had with a _rough_
surface, same price; but in all cases, unless _rough_ is specially
ordered, smooth is sent.
_NOTE.—The Argentic-Gelatino-Bromide Papers are sent post free. SAMPLE
SHEET, 23 × 17½, 1s. 6d._
------------------------------------
=ENLARGEMENTS,=
By MORGAN & KIDD,
From good small Negatives, are full of Delicacy and Vigour,
AND
_EQUAL TO A FINE ENGRAVING._
=_ARTISTIC, PERMANENT & INEXPENSIVE._=
An Enlargement from a good Negative is A PICTURE AND A WORK OF ART, and
is far better than a mere Photo-scrap.
_Send for full Price List post free on application._
----------------------------
=MORGAN & KIDD,=
=Argentic=Gelatino=Bromide Works,=
KEW FOOT RD., RICHMOND, LONDON, S.W.
PARIS—29, Boulevard des Italiens. Telegrams: “Argentic, Richmond,
Surrey,”
------------------------------------------------------------------------
_=PLATINOTYPE.=_
------------------------------------
THE
_COLD BATH PROCESS._
------------------------------------
The attention of Photographers is called to this beautiful process, now
fully introduced. Some of the advantages are here enumerated:—
1st.—High artistic rendering both of high lights and shadows.
2nd.—Prints either vigorous or soft, either cold or warm in colour, well
in command of operator.
3rd.—Prints dry up with less loss of effect than in
any other process.
4th.—Short exposure required, being less than in the Hot Bath Process.
5th.—Economy, especially to large users.
--------------------------------------------------
=NO LICENSE required by users of the Patented Papers
manufactured by the Company.=
----------------------------
_The Sensitized Papers are now obtainable from Agents in the
principal towns._
--------------------------------------------------
FOR PROSPECTUS APPLY TO
THE PLATINOTYPE CO.,
=29, SOUTHAMPTON ROW, HOLBORN.=
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Council Medal and Highest Award, Great Exhibition, London, 1851,—Gold
Medal, Paris Exposition, 1867.—Medal and Highest Award, Exhibition,
London, 1862.—Medal and Diploma, Centennial Exhibition, Philadelphia,
1876.—Medal and Diploma, Antwerp, 1878.—Gold Medal and Diploma, Paris
Exposition, 1878.—Gold Medal, Inventions Exhibition, 1885.
------------------------------------
=ROSS'=
PORTRAIT AND VIEW LENSES,
Unsurpassed for Brilliancy of Definition, Flatness of Field, and Depth
of
Focus. Used by the leading Photographers throughout the World.
=PORTRAIT LENSES.=
IMPROVED.
No. 3 for Portraits 6½×4¾ £17 10 0
” 3A ” 8½×6½ 26 15 0
” 4 ” 10×8 38 0 0
” 5 ” 18×16 42 10 0
” 6 ” 22×18 54 0 0
-------
=RAPID “CABINET.”=
No. 1 for Cabinets, 14 ft. distance £13 0 0
” 2 ” 18 ” ” 17 10 0
” 3 ” 20 ” ” 19 10 0
-------
=QUICK-ACTING C.D.V.=
No. 1 for Cards, 14 ft. distance £5 15 0
” 2 ” 16 ” ” 6 10 0
” 3 ” 19 ” ” 11 10 0
-------
=UNIVERSAL.=
For Portraits, Groups, &c.
View Group Back
No. Size. Size. Focus. Price.
1 8½×6½ 7¼×4½ 8½ in. 7 10 0
2 10×8 8½×6½ 10¾ ” 9 0 0
3 12×10 10×8 13½ ” 12 10 0
4 15×12 12×10 16½ ” 16 10 0
5 18×16 15×12 20 ” 25 0 0
6 22×18 18×16 24 ” 45 0 0
7 25×21 22×18 30 ” 55 0 0
=VIEW LENSES.=
SYMMETRICAL.[A]
For Landscapes and Architecture.
No. 1 3×3 4×3 5×4 3 in. £3
” 2 4×3 5×4 7¼×4½ 4 ” 3 5
” 3 5×4 7¼×4½ 8×5 5 ” 3 10
” 4 7¼×4½ 8×5 8½×6½ 6 ” 4 0
” 5 8×5 8½×6½ 9×7 7 ” 5 0
” 6 8½×6½ 9x7 10×8 8 ” 6 0
” 7 9×7 10×8 12×10 9 ” 7 0
” 8 10×8 12×10 13×11 10 ” 8 0
” 9 12×10 13×11 15×12 12 ” 9 0
” 10 13×11 15×12 18×16 15 ” 10 0
” 11 15×12 18×16 22×18 18 ” 12 0
” 12 18×16 22×20 25×21 21 ” 15 0
RAPID SYMMETRICALS.[A]
For Groups, Views, Interiors, and Copying.
The most useful Lens for all Out-door
Photography.
Size of Size of Equivalent
View. Group. Focus. Price.
4×3 Stereo. 4½ in. £4 0 0
5×4 4×3 6 ” 4 5 0
6×5 5×4 7½ ” 5 5 0
8×5 7¼×4½ 9 ” 5 15 0
8½×6½ 8×5 10½ ” 6 10 0
9×7 8½×6½ 12 ” 7 10 0
10×8 8½×6½ 14 ” 8 10 0
12×10 10×8 16 ” 10 10 0
13×11 11×9 18 ” 11 10 0
15×12 13×11 20 ” 14 10 0
18×16 15×12 24 ” 18 10 0
22×18 18×16 30 ” 25 0 0
25×22 22×18 34 ” 30 0 0
_Ten per cent. Discount for Cash with Order._
FURTHER PARTICULARS & CATALOGUES, with Estimates, on application.
------------------
=ROSS & CO.=, 112, New Bond Street, LONDON, W.
Steam Works—Brook Street.
JOHN J. GRIFFIN & SONS,
MANUFACTURERS OF
Chemical and Philosophical Apparatus.
-------------------------------------------
=PURE CHEMICALS.=
-------------------------------------------
MAKERS OF APPARATUS TO
THE ADMIRALTY, WAR DEPARTMENT, INDIAN AND
COLONIAL GOVERNMENTS.
[Illustration]
-------------------------------------------
GAS FURNACES FOR MELTING AND ENAMELLING.
-------------------------------------------
Balances and Weights, Stills, Argentometers, Graduated Measures, Mortars
and Pestles, Porcelain and Glass Basins, Dishes, Finest Bohemian Glass
Beakers, Flasks, Funnels, Test Tubes, Spirit Lamps, &c.
----------------------------
ILLUSTRATED PRICE LIST, POST FREE, 6d.
----------------------------
BRIN'S COMPRESSED OXYGEN IN STEEL CYLINDERS.
----------------------------
JOHN J. GRIFFIN & SONS,
22, GARRICK STREET, LONDON, W.C.
J. H. DALLMEYER,
=Optician,=
25, NEWMAN ST., OXFORD ST., W.
(Removed from 19, Bloomsbury Street).
[Illustration]
DALLMEYER'S
==PHOTOGRAPHIC LENSES==
Are used by all the leading Photographic Artists throughout the world,
and have obtained the =Highest Awards= wherever exhibited.
-------------------------------------------
DALLMEYER
“On the Choice and Use of Photographic
Lenses.”
EIGHTH THOUSAND. 1s.
This Pamphlet contains concise information for Selecting Lenses for any
particular purposes, whether in Portraiture, Landscape, or Architectural
subjects, &c., the proper use of Diaphragms, Tables of Comparative
Exposures, the use of the Swing Back to the Camera, a simple Explanation
of the law of Conjugate Foci, and Tables for Reduction and Enlargement.
-------------------------------------------
DALLMEYER'S
_New Descriptive Catalogue_
(Post free on application)
Contains full particulars of all Lenses and the purposes for which they
are
designed; also of the latest Inventions in Photographic Lenses, viz.,
DALLMEYER'S RAPID LONG FOCUS LANDSCAPE LENS, AND
DALLMEYER'S NEW RECTILINEAR LANDSCAPE LENS.
--------------
=For ABRIDGED CATALOGUE see INSIDE OF BACK COVER.=
NATURALISTIC PHOTOGRAPHY.
LONDON
PRINTED BY GILBERT AND RIVINGTON, LIMITED,
ST. JOHN'S HOUSE, CLERKENWELL ROAD.
NATURALISTIC PHOTOGRAPHY
FOR
_STUDENTS OF THE ART_
BY
P. H. EMERSON, B.A., M.B. (CANTAB.)
AUTHOR OF “PICTURES OF EAST ANGLIAN LIFE,” “PICTURES FROM LIFE IN FIELD
AND FEN,” “IDYLS OF THE NORFOLK BROADS,” AND JOINT AUTHOR OF
“LIFE AND LANDSCAPE ON THE NORFOLK BROADS.”
“Beauty is truth, truth beauty,—that is all
Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know.”
KEATS, “_Ode on a Grecian Urn._”
SECOND EDITION, REVISED
NEW YORK
E. & F. SPON
12, CORTLANDT STREET
1890
_Copyright, 1889._
P. H. EMERSON.
TO THE MEMORY
OF
ADAM SALOMON
SCULPTOR AND PHOTOGRAPHER,
_Chevalier de l’ordre de la légion d’honneur_,
=This work is Dedicated=
BY THE AUTHOR
AS A TRIBUTE OF ADMIRATION AND RESPECT
FOR THE FIRST ARTIST OF ACKNOWLEDGED ABILITY WHO WAS ORIGINAL ENOUGH
TO PRACTISE PHOTOGRAPHY FOR ITS OWN SAKE,
AND WHO WAS BRAVE ENOUGH
TO APPEAR BEFORE A PREJUDICED ART WORLD AS A PHOTOGRAPHER
AS WELL AS A SCULPTOR.
_Bonne renommée vaut mieux que ceinture dorée._
PREFACE TO SECOND EDITION.
-------
My first and pleasantest duty is to offer my heartiest thanks to the
numerous correspondents who have honoured me with sympathetic letters of
approval and with valuable criticisms. Judging from these kind letters,
which have poured upon me in grateful showers, my book has filled a want
in art literature. These letters, coming as they do from artists of all
kinds, art-masters and photographers, many of whom are perfect strangers
to me, have supplied me with suggestions and criticisms which I shall
make use of in a later edition, if the public so will that there be one,
and some of my correspondents I shall take the liberty of publicly
thanking.
The call for this second edition has come so soon that I have only had
time to correct a few superficial errors, and as but few reviews have as
yet reached me, I cannot answer any criticisms upon my work. So far
there is nothing to answer.
I can only repeat that the student will do well to make artists his
final court of appeal, and he must then act as he thinks fit. I have no
burning desire to make converts, my sole object has been to tell the
student what I could—if he wished to know it. As to my views, I am
perfectly willing that no one shall accept them, and am content to let
posterity judge between me and my adverse critics.
In deference to the opinion of a highly valued friend—a well-known
artist—I have included in this edition (as an Appendix) my paper on
“Science and Art” read at the Camera Club Conference on March 26th,
1889.
P. H. E.
CHISWICK, _March, 1889_.
CONTENTS.
PAGE
PREFACE vii
TABLE OF CONTENTS ix
INTRODUCTION.
Daguerre at a _séance_ of the French Academy, Aug., 1839 1
Retrospect of work done by Photography since 1839 2
Influence of Photography on the Glyptic and Pictorial Arts, 5
and _vice versâ_
Aim of this book 8
The Naturalistic School of Photography 8
A word to artists 9
The three branches of Photography—Artistic, Scientific, and
Industrial:—
A. Art Division 10
B. Science Division 11
C. Industrial Division 11
“Professional and Amateur” photographers 12
A College of Photography 13
The Future of Photography 13
BOOK I.
TERMINOLOGY AND ARGUMENT.
CHAPTER I.
TERMINOLOGY.
Preamble 17
Analysis 17
Art 17
“Art-Science” 18
Artistic 18
Breadth 18
Colour 18
Creative Artist 19
Fine Art 19
High Art 20
Ideal 20
Imaginative 22
Impressionism 22
Interpreting Nature 22
Local Colour 22
Low Art 22
Naturalism 22
Original Work 24
Photographic 24
Quality 24
Realism 24
Relative Tone or Value 25
Sentiment 25
Sentimentality 25
Soul 25
Technique 26
Tone 26
Transcript of Nature 26
CHAPTER II.
NATURALISM IN PICTORIAL AND GLYPTIC ART.
An inquiry into the influence of the study of Nature on Art 28
Egyptian Art 30
Monarchies of Western Asia 32
Ancient Greek and Italian Art 33
Early Christian Art 44
Mediæval Art 47
Eastern Art—Mohammedan 52
Chinese and Japanese Art 54
The Renascence 59
From the Renascence to Modern Times 67
A. Spanish Art 67
B. German Art 68
C. Flemish Art 69
D. English Art 69
E. American Art 78
F. Dutch Art 80
G. French Art 84
H. Sculpture 92
Retrospect 94
CHAPTER III.
PHENOMENA OF SIGHT, AND ART PRINCIPLES DEDUCED THEREFROM.
Introduction and Argument 97
Optic Nerves 97
Le Conte’s Classification of the subject 98
Physical characters of the eye as an optical instrument 98
Direction of Light 102
Intensity of Light 103
Colour 108
Psychological data, and binocular vision 111
Perspective, depth, size, and solidity 112
Art principles deduced from the above data 114
BOOK II.
TECHNIQUE AND PRACTICE.
CHAPTER I.
THE CAMERA AND TRIPOD.
The Camera 125
Choice of a camera; tripod and bags 125
Manipulating the Camera 129
Pin-hole Photography 131
Accidents to the Camera 132
Hand Cameras 132
CHAPTER II.
LENSES.
Optics 134
Dallmeyer’s long-focus rectilinear landscape lens 135
False drawing of photographic lenses 136
Hints on the correct use of the lens 136
Lenses for special purposes 137
Diaphragms or “stops” 138
Physical qualities of Lenses 138
Hints on lenses 140
CHAPTER III.
DARK ROOM AND APPARATUS.
Dark Room 141
A developing rule 141
Ventilation of dark room 141
Apparatus 141
CHAPTER IV.
STUDIO AND FURNITURE.
Studio 144
Studio Furniture 145
Studio effects. A rule for studio lighting 147
CHAPTER V.
FOCUSSING.
How to focalize 148
The ground-glass picture 149
Examples and Illustration in point 150
CHAPTER VI.
EXPOSURE.
Ways of Exposing 154
Rule for Exposing 154
Classification of Exposures 154
A. Quick Exposures 155
B. Time Exposures 155
Exposure Shutters 156
Variation of exposure, and conditions causing them 157
On Exposure Tables 160
CHAPTER VII.
DEVELOPMENT AND NEGATIVE FINISHING.
Study of Chemistry 162
On Plate making 163
Wet-plate process 163
Tonality and development 166
On developing 170
On developers 171
Local development 171
On the study of tone 173
Accidents and faults, and their remedies 174
Varnishing the negative 179
Roller slides and paper negatives 180
Orthochromatic photography 181
CHAPTER VIII.
RETOUCHING.
Definition of retouching 184
On working up photographs 184
On retouching 186
Adam Salomon and Rejlander on retouching 187
CHAPTER IX.
PRINTING.
Various printing processes 191
The Platinotype process 195
Vignetting 196
Combination printing 197
On cloud negatives and printing in of clouds 198
CHAPTER X.
ENLARGEMENTS.
On enlarging 200
CHAPTER XI.
TRANSPARENCIES, LANTERN AND STEREOSCOPIC SLIDES.
Transparencies 202
Lantern Slides 202
Stereoscopic Slides 202
CHAPTER XII.
PHOTO-MECHANICAL PROCESSES.
Photo-mechanical processes 204
A. For diagrams and topographical work 204
B. For pictures 204
Photo-etching 207
The Typographic Etching Co. 208
Hints for those having plates reproduced by photo-etching 210
W. L. Colls on “Methods of reproducing negatives from 212
Nature for the copper-plate press”
CHAPTER XIII.
MOUNTING AND FRAMING.
Mountants 218
Mounts 219
Frames 219
Albums 220
CHAPTER XIV.
COPYRIGHTING.
On copyrighting 221
Method of copyright 221
Law of copyright 222
CHAPTER XV.
EXHIBITING AND EXHIBITION.
Exhibitions 225
Medals 226
Judges 227
CHAPTER XVI.
CONCLUSION.
Conclusion 229
BOOK III.
PICTORIAL ART.
CHAPTER I.
EDUCATED SIGHT.
Men born blind 233
Education of Sight 234
CHAPTER II.
COMPOSITION.
On Composition 237
Burnet’s “Treatise on Painting” 238
CHAPTER III.
OUT-DOOR AND IN-DOOR WORK.
Out-door portraiture 243
Landscape 245
On picture-making 250
Figure and Landscape 251
Studio-portraiture 252
CHAPTER IV.
HINTS ON ART.
Practical hints 254
CHAPTER V.
DECORATIVE ART.
Decorative art 260
Naturalism in decorative art 260
Photography as applied to decorative art 261
Principles of decorative art 261
Practice of decorative art 261
_L'ENVOI._
PHOTOGRAPHY—A PICTORIAL ART.
On different art methods of expression 269
Answers to criticism on “Photography a pictorial Art” 278
Artists on Photography 279
Some masters of the minor arts 289
APPENDIX I.
ON PHOTOGRAPHIC LIBRARIES.
Art books 293
Art-teaching 293
Books recommended 293
Photographic Libraries 294
APPENDIX II.
“Science and Art,” a paper read at the Camera Club 295
Conference, held in the rooms of the Society of Arts in
London on March 26th, 1889
INDEX 303
NATURALISTIC PHOTOGRAPHY.
-------
INTRODUCTION.
[Sidenote: Daguerre and the French Academy.]
At a meeting of the French Academy of Sciences, held in Paris on the
19th day of August, 1839, Louis Jacques Mandé Daguerre, in the presence
of the flower of Parisian art, literature and science, gave a
demonstration of his new discovery—the Daguerreotype. The success of the
_séance_ was complete, and the gathering of illustrious men was
intoxicated with enthusiasm in favour of the Daguerreotype. It is, then,
almost fifty years ago that the result of the work of the father of
photography, Joseph Nicéphore de Niepce, who had died six years
previously, and of the partner of his latter days—Daguerre—was given to
the French public, for though Arago declared that “France had adopted
the discovery and was proud to hand it as a present to the whole world,”
Daguerre, sharp business man that he was, took out a patent for his
process in England on the 15th of July, 1839.
It may be said, then, that for fifty years the influence of photography
has been working amongst the people for better for worse; but a short
half-century has photography had to develop, and we naturally feel a
little curious to know what it has been doing all that time. Has the art
been lying idle and stagnating, or has it been developing and extending
its roots into all the industrial, scientific and artistic fields of
enterprise? Let us see what this cool young goddess, born of art and
science, who generally comes to stay and finally to oust the old
goddesses from their temples, has been doing these fifty years.
[Sidenote: Retrospect of progress of photography in astronomy.]
In the fields of science she has been most busy. She has been giving us
photographs of the moon, the stars, and even of the _nebulæ_. She has
recorded eclipses and a transit of Venus for us. She has drawn too the
Sun’s corona, and registered those great volcanic explosions which
playfully take place there periodically. She has shown us that there are
stars which no telescope can find, and she has in another form
registered for us the composition of the sun and of many of the stars;
and now she is busy mapping out the heavens. Like an all-powerful
goddess, she plays with the planets and records on our plates, with
delicate taps, the stars. She runs through the vast space of the kosmos
doing our biddings with a precision and delicacy never equalled—in short
she is fast becoming the right hand of the astronomer.
[Sidenote: Microscopy.]
Not content with her vast triumphs in space over the infinitely great,
she dives down to the infinitely small, and stores up for us portraits
of the disease-bearing generation of _Schizomycetes_, the stiff-necked
_bacteria_, and the wriggling _vibrio_, the rolling _microccus_, and the
fungoid _actinomycosis_—with deadly tresses; these she pictures for us,
so that we may either keep them on small plates, or else she throws them
on large screens so that we are enabled to study their structure. On
these screens too we can gaze on the structure of the Proteus-like white
blood corpuscle, and we are able to study the very cells of our tongues,
our eyes, our bones, our teeth, our hairs, and to keep drawings of them
such as man never had before. So the kindly bright goddess stints us in
nothing, for wherever the microscope leads there will she be found at
our bidding. With the greatness of an all-seeing mind, it matters not to
her whether she draws the _protococcus_ or the blood-cells of an
elephant, whether she depicts the eroding cancer cell or the golden
scale on the butterfly’s wing—anything that we ask of her she does; if
we will but be patient.
[Sidenote: Chemistry.]
But the little goddess, the light-bearer, is not content with these
sciences but she must needs go and woo chemistry and register the belted
zones of the spectrum and tell us the mysterious secrets of the
composition of matter.
[Sidenote: Meteorology.]
Meteorology, too, has claimed her, and she draws for the meteorologist
the frowning _nimbus_ and the bright rolling _cumulus_. She scratches
quickly on his plate the lightning’s flash, and even measures the
risings and fallings of the mercuries in his long glass barometers and
thin-stemmed thermometers, so that the meteorologist can go and rest in
the sun; and good-naturedly, too, she hints to him that his registerings
are but fumblings after her precise and delicate work. [Sidenote:
Surveying.] This versatile little goddess, too, is playing with and
hinting to the surveyors how she will not be coy if they will but woo
her, for, says she, “have I not already shown you how to measure the
altitude of mountains, and how to project maps by my aid?”
[Sidenote: Geography.]
The geographer, too, is another lover well favoured by the dainty
goddess, he always takes her on his travels now-a-days, and brings us
back her inimitable drawings of skulls, savages, weapons, waterfalls,
geological strata, fossils, animals, birds, trees, landscapes, and men,
and we believe him when we know the light-bearer was with him, and soon
in all his geographies, in all his botanies, in all his zoologies, in
all his geologies, his entomologies, and all the rest of his valuable
“ologies,” we shall find the crisp and inimitable drawings of his dainty
companion.
[Sidenote: Engineering.]
The horny-handed engineer, too, is wooing her; he makes love to her away
down in dark caissons half-buried in river beds; whilst above-ground she
scatters his plans far and wide. He uses her to show how his works are
growing beneath the strong arms of his horny-handed gangs, and he even
uses her to determine the temperature of the depths of the sea, and the
direction of oceanic currents; yes, she does the work for him and he
loves her. [Sidenote: Medicine and Biology.] The earnest doctor and the
curious biologist are amongst her lowers, and the dainty one does not
disdain their work, for she knows it to be good; for though she is
fickle, she is kind at heart. For them she goes into the mysterious
globe of the eye; down into the hollow larynx; and into the internal
ear; and drags forth drawings. The tumour-deformed leg, the tossing
epileptic, the deformed leprous body, the ulcerous scalp, the unsightly
skin disease, the dead brain, the delicate dissection, the galloping
horse, the flying gull, and erring man does she with quick and dainty
strokes draw and give her lovers the physician and biologist.
[Sidenote: Military and naval services.]
Then like the Valkyria she too delights in dire war. For her heroes she
writes so finely that her letters are carried in a quill beneath a
pigeon’s wing into and out of beleaguered cities. She draws hasty notes
of the country for the leaders of an invading army; she preserves a
record of the killed and she gives truthful drawings of the fields of
battle and of the poor torn and jaded men after a battle; whilst in
times of peace she draws for the officer the effects of the explosion of
a shell, the path of a bullet through the air, or the water thrown on
high, like a geyser, by a hidden torpedo. [Sidenote: Forensic medicine.]
She is the warder’s friend too, for she draws the skulking thief, the
greedy forger, and the cruel murderer; she draws, too, the knife that
stabbed in the dark, and the dress all blood-besmirched; she detects the
forged bank note, and draws without quibble the position of the
overturned and splintered railway car; and she shows the scorched and
gutted ruins of the burnt house for the insurance agent. [Sidenote:
Libraries.] She has her fun, too, for she twits the librarians with the
ever increasing deluge of books, and hints laughingly they must one day
come to her, for she will show them how to keep a library in a
tea-caddy. [Sidenote: Industrial arts.] The haggling tradesman she does
not disdain, she will draw portraits of his fabrics to be circulated all
over the world, she will copy the bad paintings and drawings done for
him as advertisements by the pariahs of art. She reproduces trade-marks
and signatures, and oh, naughty goddess! she even, on the sly, copies on
old yellow paper old etchings and engravings so that the connoisseur
does not know the new from the old. She helps in all kinds of
advertising, reproducing the scenery by railways for the railway
companies, sketching topographically for tourists, drawing mothers and
fathers and children for the world, so that the loved ones can go across
the seas and leave themselves behind in form and feature. And so that
the dead may not be forgotten she soothes the living with their dear
faces done in her pretty way. Nay, she even goes so far as to allow her
works to be burnt on porcelain and sold in brooches, on plates and other
ware.
[Sidenote: Art.]
Nor do the children love you in vain, pretty goddess, for you give them
magic-lanterns, and invisible pictures of yourself; to be made visible
by a little secret you tell them. You give them magic cigar-holders and
stereoscopes, all this out of your bountiful lap do you scatter; but,
pretty dainty light-bearer, have you no love dearer to you than all
these, is there none amongst your wooers that you prefer? Yes, blush
not, oh, dainty one, it is the artist who sees in you a subtler, finer
aid than his sorry hand, so monkey-like in its fumblings. To him you
give your delicate drawings on zinc to illustrate his books, or on
copper to fill his portfolios, to him you give poems of the winds
whispering amongst the reed-beds, of the waves roaring in the grey
gloaming, of the laughing, bright-eyed mortal sisters of yours. To him,
your favoured one, your chief love, you give the subtlety of drawing of
the wind-shorn and leaf-bare oak, the spirit of the wild colts on the
flowery marsh, the ripple of the river and the glancing flight of the
sea-fowl. Together you and he spend days and nights, mid the streams and
the woods, culling the silvery flowers of nature. Oh! bright generous
little goddess, who has stolen the light from the sun for mortals, and
brought it to them not in a narthex reed as did Prometheus bring his
living spark, but in silvery drops to be moulded to your lover’s wish,
be he star-gazer, light-breaker, wonder-seeker, sea-fighter or
land-fighter, earth-roamer, seller-of-goods, judger-of-crimes,
lover-of-toys, builder-of-bridges, curer-of-ills, or lover of the woods
and streams.
The influence of photography on the sister arts of sculpture, painting,
engraving, etching and wood-cutting during these fifty years has been
tremendous, as have they influenced in turn photography. Sculpture has
been, perhaps, least influenced, although without photography thousands
of posthumous statues which now grace the streets and the squares of the
world could not have been modelled at all, or could only have been very
conventionally and unsatisfactorily modelled. As it is, they are often
excellent portraits. The effect of sculpture on photography has been to
induce experimentalists to attempt a production of models in clay by
means of an instrument called a pantograph. It is reported that these
methods succeeded, but we never saw any of the productions and have
little faith in the methods.
The influence of photography on painting, on the other hand, has been
nothing short of marvellous, as can be seen in the great general
improvement in the drawing of movement. It is a common practice for
painters to take photographs of their models and throw enlargements of
these on to a screen when the outlines are boldly sketched in. Again, it
is a practice for painters to study the delicate tonality of
photography, which is of course quite legitimate. Another influence of
photography on painting is that the painter often tries to emulate the
detail of the photograph. But this was more noticeable in the early days
of photography, and it had a bad effect on painting, for the painter did
not know enough of photography to know that what he was striving to
imitate was due to an ignorant use of the art. He thought, as many
people think now-a-days, that there is an absolute and unvarying quality
in all photographs. The effect on miniature painting was disastrous; it
has been all but killed by photography, and we think rightly. And it
must be remembered that photography killed it notwithstanding the fact
that many of the best miniature painters adopted the new art as soon as
they could. Newton was a photographer. Photography also killed the
itinerant portrait painter who used to stump the country and paint
hideous portraits for a few shillings, or a night’s lodging. Photography
too, has, unfortunately, been the cause of a vast production of weak and
feeble water-colours, oil-paintings and etchings. Second and third rate
practitioners of these arts have simply copied photographs and supplied
the colouring from their imagination, and thousands of feeble
productions has been the result; this is a dishonest use of photography,
but one by no means uncommon. We often have food for reflection on the
gullibility of man, when we see poor paintings and etchings exhibited at
“one man” exhibitions and elsewhere, which are nothing but ruined
photographs; the very drawing shows that, and the time in which such a
collection of paintings is painted also hints at the method. All the
drawing has been done by the photographic lens, and transferred to the
panel or canvas. These are the very men who decry photography. Such work
is only admissible if confessed, but of course such people as this keep
their method quite secret. The etchings done in this way are simply
impudent. The influence of painting on photography has been great and
good as a factor in the cultivation of the æsthetic faculty, but its
conventionality has often been harmful.
As we have said, by the aid of photography feeble painters and etchers
are able to produce fairly passable work, where otherwise their work
would have been disgraceful. Wood-cutters and line engravers too gain
much help from us, but they find photography a rival that will surely
kill them both. We have gone into this vexed question in detail in the
body of this work. One of the best and most noted wood engravers since
Bewick’s time has given it as his opinion that there is no need for wood
engraving now that the “processes” can so truly reproduce pictures, for,
as he says, no great original genius in wood-cutting will ever be kept
back by “process work,” and it is a good thing that all others should be
killed.
The chief thing which at present oppresses photography is “the trade.”
Print sellers have accumulated stocks of engravings and etchings and as
they may not come down in price, they therefore give photogravures and
photographs the cold shoulder. A print seller who would confine himself
to the sale and publication of photo-etchings and photographs is sorely
needed.
Such, briefly, are the effects of photography on her sister arts and of
them on her.
Incredible indeed seems the all-pervading power of this light-bearing
goddess. Next to printing, photography is the greatest weapon given to
mankind for his intellectual advancement. The mind is lost in wonderment
at the gigantic strides made by this art in its first fifty years of
development, and we feel sure if any one will take the trouble to
inquire briefly what photography has done and is doing in every
department of life he will be astonished by the results of his
inquiries.
[Sidenote: Branches of photography.]
From what has been said it is very evident that the practice of
photography must be very different in the different branches of human
knowledge to which it is applied.
[Sidenote: Aim of Naturalistic photography.]
The application of its practice and principles has been most ably
treated in some of these branches, especially the scientific branches,
but hitherto there has been no book which gives only just sufficient
science for art-students and at the same time treats of the art side.
We propose in this book to treat photography from the artistic
standpoint. We shall give enough science to lead to a comprehension of
the principles which we adduce for our arguments for naturalistic
photography, and we shall give such little instruction in art as is
possible by written matter, for art we hold is to be learned by practice
alone. That, then, is our aim, and no one knows better than ourselves
how far short of our ideal we have fallen, but we trust the task as
attempted may do a little good and lead some earnest wandering workers
into the right path. We know that we have not accomplished our task
without errors, all we plead is that we have endeavoured to reduce the
number to a minimum, and where we have failed we trust those who detect
our failures will kindly, not carpingly, communicate them to us, so that
if we ever reach a second edition we may therein be regenerated.
[Sidenote: Contents of book.]
The photographic student, whose aim is to make pictures, will find in
this book all directions, such as the choosing of apparatus, the science
which must be learned, the pictures and sculpture which must be studied,
the art canons which are to be avoided, the technique to be learned,
including all manipulations; the fundamental principles of art, and a
critical _résumé_ of conventional art canons, including much other
advice.
In addition to this the book is an argument for the Naturalistic school
of photography, of which we preached the first gospel in an address
delivered before the members of the Camera Club in London in March,
1886.[1]
-----
Footnote 1:
Vide _Photographic News_ for March 19, 1886.
-----
The necessity of this book may not be patent to artists who do not know
the photographic world, but if they will consider for a moment the
present position of a student of photography, whose aim is to produce
artistic work, they will see the necessity for some such work. The
position of the photographic world at present is this: nearly all the
text-books teach how to cultivate the scientific side of photography,
and they are so diffuse that we find photo-micrography, spectrum
analysis and art all mixed up together. And when we assure the artistic
reader that the few books and articles published with a view to teaching
art, contain _résumés_ of Burnet’s teachings, as set forth in his
well-known “Treatise on Painting;” that the widest read of these books
lays down laws for the sizes of pictures as advocated by that “eminent
painter Norman Macbeth;” cautions the student not to take pictures on
grey days; and contains various other erroneous ideas; we say when
artists know this, and in addition that there is no book in which “tone”
is properly defined, they will perhaps understand the necessity for some
such book as this one. Lastly, the artist must remember that
photographers are very loath to listen to any one but photographers on
any subject connected with their art.
To give the student a clear insight into the first principles of art is
of course, as we have said, the chief aim of the book, but besides that
it is an attempt to start a departure from the scientific side of
photography. This departure must be made, and the time is now ripe. It
should be clearly and definitely understood, that although a preliminary
scientific education is necessary for all photographers, after that
preliminary education the paths and aims of the scientist, industrial
photographer and artist, lie widely apart. This matter should be kept
constantly in view, and specialists in one branch should not meddle with
other branches. The art has so extended its fields for work that there
is scope, even in a sub-branch of the scientific division to occupy the
full energies and attention of the most able men. At exhibitions, too,
the three great divisions into which photography falls should be kept
rigidly separated. The writer sees in all these branches equal good and
equal use, but he sees also the necessity of keeping their aims and
methods separate. That this differentiation is now possible and
necessary is, from the evolutionary standpoint, the greatest sign of
development. The author feels convinced that if any student is going to
succeed in any one branch he must not scatter his energies, but devote
himself with singlemindedness to that particular branch. Directly the
aims and methods of the separate branches of the art are fully
recognized there will no longer be ignorance and misunderstandings of
first principles. We shall not hear a first-rate lantern slide described
as artistic, because it is untouched, and we shall not hear of a
“high-art” photographer criticizing photo-micrographs of _bacteria_,
matters that none but a medical microscopist can criticize. And above
all, we shall not have the hack-writer talking of our “art-science.”
We have drawn up a rough table of classification to illustrate our
meaning, but of course it must be remembered that this division is
arbitrary, but it would, we think, be a good working classification.
THE ART OF PHOTOGRAPHY.
_A.—Art Division._
[Sidenote: Art division.]
In this division the aim of the work is to give æsthetic pleasure
_alone_, and the artist’s only wish is to produce works of art. Such
work can be judged only by trained artists, and the aims and scope of
such work can be fully appreciated only by trained artists.
Photographers who qualify themselves by an art training, and their works
alone, belong to this class. They alone are artists. Included in this
class would be original artists, first-rate photo-etchers, and
typo-blockmakers, whose aim is to reproduce in facsimile all the
artistic quality of _original works of art_. Such photographers should
have an artistic training without fail, as all the best have had.
_B.—Science Division._
[Sidenote: Science Division.]
In this division the aim of the work is to investigate the phenomena of
nature, and by experiment to make new discoveries, and corroborate or
falsify old experiments. The workers in this great and valuable
department of photography may be divided into—
_a._ Scientific experimentalists in all branches of science.
_b._ Chemists and spectrum-analysts.
_c._ Astronomers.
_d._ Microscopists.
_e._ Engineers.
_f._ Military and naval photographers.
_g._ Meteorologists.
_h._ Biologists.
_i._ Geographers.
_j._ Geologists.
_k._ Medical men.
_l._ Physicists.
_m._ Anthropologists.
These sub-divisions include all that vast host of _trained_ scientific
men who are photographers in connection with their work. Their aim is
the advancement of science.
_C.—Industrial Division._
[Sidenote: Industrial Division.]
This class includes that great majority of the photographic world—the
craftsmen. These men have learned the methods of their craft, and go on
from day to day meeting the industrial requirements of the age,
producing good useful work, and often filling their pockets at the same
time. Their aim is utilitarian, but in some branches they may at the
same time aim to give an æsthetic pleasure by their productions, but
this is always _subordinated to the utility_ of the work. When they aim
at giving this æsthetic pleasure as well, they become art-craftsmen.
Amongst these craftsmen are included photographers who will take any one
or anything if paid to do so, such forming what is known as
“professional photographers.”
All reproducers of pictures, patterns, &c., by photo-mechanical
processes, in which the aim is not solely æsthetic pleasure, as in
reproducing topographic views. All plate makers. Transparency, opal,
lantern-slide, and stereoscopic slide makers. All _facsimile_
photographers; photographers of pictures, statuary, &c. All makers of
invisible photographs, magic cigar photographs. All operators who work
under the guidance of artists or scientists for pay, they not having
artistic and scientific training themselves, as in the preparation of
lantern slides for a biologist. All enlargers, operators, spotters,
printers, retouchers, mounters, &c. Producers of porcelain pictures.
Producers of facsimile type blocks and copper plates, with no artistic
aim, _et id genus omne_. All photographs produced for amusement by the
untrained in art or science. All photographers who produce pattern
photographs, “bits” of scenery, and animals for draughtsmen to work
from.
It will thus be clear to the student that all these photographers serve
useful purposes and each is invaluable in his way, but we repeat the aim
of the three groups of photographers is very different and quite
distinct, as distinct as in draughtmanship are the etchings of
Rembrandt, the scientific drawings of Huxley, and the pattern plates of
a store catalogue. All are useful in their place, and who shall dare to
say which is more useful than the other; but all are distinct, and can
in no way be compared with one another or classed together any more than
can the poems of Mr. Swinburne, the text of Professor Tyndall’s “Light,”
and the Blue-books. All can be good in their way, but the aims and
methods of the one must not be confounded with the aims and methods of
the other, and we fear that such is the case in the photographic world
at present.
[Sidenote: “Amateur” and “professional” photographers.]
There is one obstacle which we must clear from the student’s path in
this introduction, and that is the confusion of the terms “professional”
and “amateur,” as used in the photographic world; for in this world it
must be understood that these terms are used as in no other world.
Briefly, photographers mean by “professional” one who gains his living
by photography, and an “amateur” means one who does not practise
photography for his living. The folly of this is obvious, for by this
definition the greatest English scientific photographer, Captain Abney,
is an “amateur” and the sands photographer at Margate is a
“professional.”
This anomalous definition of the two classes has led journalists into
strange errors and mistakes. We remember one journal, which prides
itself upon its accuracy, breaking into satirical writing because the
judges at a certain photographic exhibition were to be “amateurs.” Of
course the journalist who wrote that article used “amateur” in the
ordinary English sense, and hence his amusement; but, as we have shown,
he made a great error in fact.
In reality professional photographers are those who have studied one
branch of photography thoroughly, and are masters of all its resources,
and no others. It is no question of £ s. d., this “professional” and
“amateur” question, but a question of knowledge and capacity. An amateur
is a dabbler without aim, without thorough knowledge, and often without
capacity, no matter how many of his productions he may sell. We think,
then, the words “professional” and “amateur” should be abolished from
the photographic world, until that day shall arise when there is a
central training and examining body, that shall have the power of making
real professional photographers, when all possessing a diploma would be
professionals and all others amateurs.
[Sidenote: A college of photography and diplomas.]
We fondly hope that a college of photography may one day be instituted,
where a good art and science training may be obtained, where regular
classes will be held by professors and regular terms kept, and where
some sort of distinguishing diploma as Member of the Royal Photographic
College will be given to all who pass certain examinations. The M.R.P.C.
would then have a status, and the profession which would then exist—but
only exists as a trade now—would be able to draw up salutary laws for
the government and good behaviour of its members, and the status of
photography would be everywhere raised. The diploma of F.R.P.C. (Fellow
of the Royal Photographic College) could be given to distinguish
photographers at home and abroad as an honorary title.
But if such an institution is to have weight it must procure a charter.
Money must be obtained to give honorariums to the lecturers, and the
lectureships must be held by the best men. To begin with, all
photographers in practice could be admitted upon passing a very simple
examination in the subjects of elementary education and photography. If
ever such a thing is brought about—and we trust it may be—we should find
many gentlemen of education would join the ranks, as indeed they are
doing now; and with the taste and education they brought to the work, we
should see them working quietly in studios like painters, and the
“show-case” and the vulgar mounts with medals and other decorations, and
the “shop-window,” and the “shop-feeling” would all disappear. We need
not despair if we will all do what is in us to kill “vulgarity,” for
painters were not so well off as most photographers are now but a very
few decades ago. What gives us hope for these golden days is the fact
that we number in our ranks in some branch or the other probably more
intellectual men than any other calling. We have an emperor, and quite a
profusion of royal-blooded wights and aristocrats, whilst every learned
profession gives us of its best. Law, medicine, art, science, all
contribute largely important members to swell our ranks.
Here, then, we must end our introductory remarks, and we wish the
student who comes to the study of photography with capacity and
earnestness all success.
P. H. E.
CHISWICK, _July, 1888_.
BOOK I.
TERMINOLOGY AND ARGUMENT.
“The dignity of the snow-capped mountain is lost in distinctness, but
the joy of the tourist is to recognize the traveller on the top. The
desire to see, for the sake of seeing, is, with the mass, alone the one
to be grasped, hence the delight in detail.”
J. M. WHISTLER.
CHAPTER I.
TERMINOLOGY.
[Sidenote: Terminology.]
It were better at the outset to define our terms, for nothing leads more
certainly to confusion in studying a subject than a hazy conception of
the meanings of words and expressions. Perhaps in no branch of writing
have words so many meanings as in writings on Art, where every expositor
seems intent upon having his own word or expression. For this reason we
wish clearly to define the words and art expressions in use in this
book. Not, be it understood, that we claim in any way for any
definitions that they are the rigid and final definitions of the
expressions used, but we define what _we_ mean by certain words and
terms so that the reader may understand clearly the text in which such
words occur, our aim being to be clear and to avoid all empty
phraseology.
[Sidenote: Analysis.]
Seizing the impression of natural objects, and rendering this impression
in its essentials has been called analyzing nature; and the impression
so rendered is an analysis.
[Sidenote: Art.]
Art is the application of knowledge for certain ends. But art is raised
to _Fine Art_ when man so applies this knowledge that he affects the
emotions through the senses, and so produces æsthetic pleasure in us;
and the man so raising an art into a fine art is an _artist_. Therefore
the real test as to whether the result of any method of expression is a
fine art or not, depends upon how much of the intellectual element is
required in its production. Thus Photography may be, and is, in the
hands of an artist, a method of expression producing works of fine art,
because no such works can be produced in photography by a man who is not
an artist; whereas organ-grinding is a mode of expressing music, but the
result is not a fine art, because no intellect, and therefore no artist,
is required to produce the expression; a monkey might produce as good
music on a hand-organ as could a Beethoven.
[Sidenote: Art-science.]
A compound term applied by some writers to photography, and by others to
all crafts founded upon science. It is an absurd term, and its use
should be strongly discouraged. It is to be found in no good dictionary.
It is an unmeaning expression, because photography is an art founded
upon science, just as is etching, and to call photography an
“art-science” is to show imperfect knowledge of the English language,
and especially of the meaning of the two words of which the compound is
formed—art and science.
[Sidenote: Artistic.]
A word greatly misused by photographers. When applied to a person, it
means one _trained in art_, and when applied to a work, it means leaving
the impression of an artist’s handiwork; and this photographers should
not forget, neither should they forget that an artist has been _trained
in art_. This should especially be borne in mind by those who dub
themselves “artist-photographers,” whatever they may mean by that
compound. Photographers should wait for other people to call them
artists, and when artists call a photographer a brother artist, he will
probably deserve the title, and not before. In the same way they should
refrain from calling things artistic or inartistic, for it must be
remembered that to use these words aright implies that the speaker
possesses a knowledge of art.
[Sidenote: Breadth.]
Is a term used to describe simple arrangements of light and shade of
colour, which produce a sense of the largeness and space of nature. All
great work has breadth, all petty work is devoid of it; for petty minds
cannot see the breadth in nature, so they are naturally unable to get it
into their work.
[Sidenote: Colour.]
“This theory of what constitutes fine colour is one of the peculiar
traits of the old-time painters, and of the landscape critic who studies
nature in the National Gallery. If one may judge by their remarks or by
the examples they worship, a painting to be fine in colour must first of
all be brown, or at least yellow; the shadows must all be hot and
transparent; lakes and crimsons must be used freely, while a certain
amount of very deep blue should be introduced somewhere, that the rest
of the picture may appear the warmer by the contrast. Above all things
it must not be natural, or it ceases to be fine and sinks to the level
of the commonplace. In fact, these colourists appear to admire a picture
from just the same point of view they would an Indian carpet, a Persian
rug, old tapestry, or any other conventional design, and seem to judge
of it by similar standards; if one suggests that it has no resemblance
to what it claims to represent, they reply, ‘Ah, but it is a glorious
frame, full of colour!’ But colour in painting can only be really fine
so far as it is true to nature. A grey picture may be just as fine in
colour as the most gorgeous. Beauty in colour, as in form, depends on
its fitness and truth.”—_T. F. Goodall._
The vulgar view of fine colour is easily explained on evolutionary
grounds, it is but a harking back to the instincts of the frugivorous
apes—our ancestors.
[Sidenote: Creative artist.]
There is much misconception as to the use of the word “creator” in the
arts. Some think only those gentlemen who paint mythological pictures,
or story-telling pictures, are creators. Of course such distinction is
absurd; any artist is a creator when he produces a picture or writes a
poem; he creates the picture or speech by which he appeals to others. He
is the author, creator, or whatever you like to call him, he is
responsible for its existence.
[Sidenote: Fine art.]
Versifying, Prose-writing, Music, Sculpture, Painting, Photography,
Etching, Engraving, and Acting, are all arts, but none is in itself a
fine art, yet each and all can be raised to the dignity of a fine art
when an artist by any of these methods of expression so raises his art
by his intellect to be a fine art. For this reason every one who writes
verse and prose, who sculpts, paints, photographs, etches, engraves, is
not necessarily an artist at all, for he does not necessarily have the
intellect, or use it in practising his art. It has long been customary
to call all painters and sculptors artists, as it has long been
customary in Edinburgh to call all medical students doctors. But in both
cases the terms are equally loosely applied. Our definition, then, of an
artist is a person who whether by verse, prose, sculpture, painting,
photography, etching, engraving, or music, raises his art to a fine art
by his work, and the works of such artist alone are works of art.
[Sidenote: High art.]
In a word, high and low art are absurd terms, no art is high or low. Art
is either good or bad art, not high or low, except when skied or floored
at exhibitions. “High art” and “higher artistic sense” we shall not use
because they are meaningless terms, for if they are not meaningless then
every picture falls under one or other category, high or low; if so let
some one classify all pictures into these two divisions and he will find
himself famous—as the laughing-stock of the world.
[Sidenote: Ideal.]
A volume might be written on this word, but it would be a volume of
words with little meaning. As applied to art, the meaning of “ideal” has
generally been that of something existing in fancy or in imagination,
something visionary, an imaginary type of perfection. G. H. Lewes says,
“Nothing exists but what is perceived;” we would say, nothing exists
_for us_ but what is perceived, and this we would make a first principle
of all art. A work of pictorial art is no abstract thing, but a physical
fact, and must be judged by physical laws. If a man draws a monster
which does not exist, what is it? It is but a modified form of some
existing thing or combination of things, and is after all not half so
terrible as many realities. What is more terrible than some of the
snakes than the octopus, than the green slimy crabs of our own waters?
Certainly none of the dragons and monsters drawn from the imagination is
half so horrible. Did the great Greek artist, Æschylus, describe a
dragon as gnawing at the liver of Prometheus? No, he simply drew the
picture of a vulture as being sufficiently emblematic. But let us
assume, for the sake of argument, that the dragon is more dreadful than
any reality, even then the pictorial and glyptic artist cannot use it,
for as he has no model to work from, the technique will necessarily be
bad, there will be no subtleties of tone, of colour, of drawing, all
which make nature so wonderful and beautiful. The dragon will be a pure
caricature, that is all. Again, some people consider it wonderful that a
painter takes a myth and renders it on canvas, and he is called
“learned” and “scholarly” for this work. But what does he do? Let us say
he wishes to paint the Judgment of Paris. He, if he is a good painter,
will paint the background from physical matter, shaped as nearly like
the Greek as possible, and he will paint the Paris and the ladies from
living models. The work may be perfect technically, but where is the
Greek part of it; what, then, does the painter rely upon? Why, the
_Greek story_, for if not why does he not call it by a modern name? But
no, he relies upon the well-known story—the Judgment of Paris—_in fact
he is taking the greater part of the merit that belongs to another man_.
The story of the Judgment of Paris is not his, yet it is that which
draws the public; and these men are called original, and clever, and
learned. Jean François Millet, in one of his scenes of Peasant Life, has
more originality than all of these others put together. Many people, not
conversant with the methods of art, think artists draw and paint and
sculpt things “out of their heads.” Well, some do, but no good artist
ever did. We have in our possession a beautiful low relief in marble,
done from a well-known Italian model in London. The work is as good as
any work the Greeks did, the type is most admirable, and it was done by
one of the sternest naturalistic sculptors of to-day.
A highly educated friend, an old Oxford man, called on us not long ago,
and was greatly taken with the head; after looking at it a long while,
he turned to us and said, “An ideal head, of course!” So it is the cant
of “idealism” runs through the world. But we have heard some of the most
original and naturalistic artists use the word “ideal,” and on pressing
them, they admitted it was misleading to others for them to use the
word; but they meant by it simply intellectual, that is, the work of art
had been done with intelligence and knowledge, but every suggestion had
been taken from nature. The word ideal, to our mind, is so apt to
mislead that we shall not use it.
[Sidenote: Imaginative work.]
Ideal work (q.v.).
[Sidenote: Impressionism.]
To us Impressionism means the same thing as naturalism, but since the
word allows so much latitude to the artist, even to the verging on
absurdity, we prefer the term Naturalism, because in the latter the work
can always be referred to a standard—Nature. Whereas if impressionism is
used, the painter can always claim that he sees so much, and only so
much, of Nature; and each individual painter thus becomes a standard for
himself and others, and there is no natural standard for all. A genius
like Manet tried to work out new ways of looking at nature, and that was
legitimate, but when weak followers took up his “manner” and had not his
genius, the result was eccentricity. For these reasons, therefore, we
prefer and have used the term “naturalism” throughout this work. But, as
we have said, we regard the terms “impressionism” and “naturalism” as
fundamentally synonymous, although we think the work of many of the
so-called modern “impressionists” but a passing craze.
[Sidenote: Interpreting.]
The method of rendering a picture as it appears to the eye has been
called interpreting nature. Perhaps interpreting is as good an
expression as any, for the artist in his language (for art is only a
language) interprets or explains his view of nature by his picture.
[Sidenote: Local Colour.]
“The local or proper colour of an object (_Körper-farbe_) is that which
it shows in common white light, while the illumination colour
(_Licht-farbe_) is that which is produced by coloured light. Thus the
red of some sandstone rocks, seen by common white light, is their proper
local colour, that of a snow mountain in the rays of the setting sun is
an illumination colour.”—_E. Atkinson_, Ph.D., F.R.S.
[Sidenote: Low art.]
See high art.
[Sidenote: Naturalism.]
By this term we mean the true and natural expression of an impression of
nature by an art. Now it will immediately be said that all men see
nature differently. Granted. But the artist sees deeper, penetrates more
into the beauty and mystery of nature than the commonplace man. _The
beauty is there in nature._ It has been thus from the beginning, so the
artist’s work is no idealizing of nature; but through quicker sympathies
and training the good artist sees the deeper and more fundamental
beauties, and he seizes upon them, “tears them out,” as Durer says, and
renders them on his [Sidenote: Durer.] canvas, or on his photographic
plate, or on his written page. And therefore the work is the test of the
man—for by the work we see whether the man’s mind is commonplace or not.
It is for this reason, therefore, that artists are the best judges of
pictures, and even a trained second-rate painter will recognize a good
picture far quicker than a layman, though he may not be able to produce
such a one himself. Of course Naturalism premisses that all the
suggestions for the work are taken from and studied from nature. The
subject in nature must be the thing which strikes the man and moves him
to render it, not the plate he has to fill. Directly he begins thinking
how he can fill a certain canvas or plate, he is no longer naturalistic,
he may even then show he is a good draughtsman or a good colourist, but
he will not show that he is naturalistic. Naturalistic painters know
well enough that very often painting in a tree or some other subject
might improve the picture in the eyes of many, but they will not put it
in because they have _not the tree before them to study from_. Again, it
has been said that arranging a foreground and then painting it might
improve the picture, but the naturalistic painter says no, by so doing
“all the little subtleties are lost, which give quality to the picture!”
Nature, is so full of surprises that, all things considered, she is best
painted as she is. [Sidenote: Aristotle.] Aristotle of old called poetry
“an imitative art,” and we do not think any one has ever given a better
definition of poetry, though the word “imitative” must not in our
present state of knowledge be used rigidly. The poetry is all in nature,
all pathos and tragedy is in nature, and only wants finding and tearing
forth. But there’s the rub, the best work looks so easy to do _when it
is done_. [Sidenote: Burns.] Does not Burns' poem “To a mouse” look easy
to write? This, then, is what we understand by naturalism, that all
suggestions should come from nature, and all techniques should be
employed to give as true an _impression_ of nature as possible.
[Sidenote: Original.]
This is a mightily misused word. Only those artists can be called
original who have something _new to say_, no matter by what methods they
say it. A photograph may be far more original than a painting.
[Sidenote: Photographic.]
Some of the best writers and journalists of the day have adopted the use
of the word “photographic,” as applying to written descriptions of
scenes which are absolutely correct in detail and bald fact, though they
are lacking in sentiment and poetry. What a trap these writers have
fallen into will be seen in this work, for what they think so true is
often utterly false. And, on the other hand, photography is capable of
producing pictures full of sentiment and poetry. The word “photographic”
should not be applied to anything except photography. No written
descriptions can be “photographic.” The use of the word, when applied to
writing, leads to a confusion of different phenomena, and therefore to
deceptive inferences. This cannot be too strongly insisted upon, as some
cultured writers have been guilty of the wrong use of the word
“photographic,” and therefore of writing bad English.
[Sidenote: Quality.]
Quality is used when speaking of a picture or work which has in it
artistic properties of a special character, in a word, artistic
properties which are distinctive and characteristic of the fineness and
subtlety of nature.
[Sidenote: Realism.]
By Naturalism it will be seen that we mean a very different thing from
Realism. The realist makes no analysis, he is satisfied with the motes
and leaves out the sunbeam. He will, in so far as he is able, paint all
the veins of the leaves as they really are, and not as _they look_ as a
whole. For example, the realist, if painting a tree a hundred yards off,
would not strive to render the tree as it appears to him from where he
is sitting, but he would probably gather leaves of the tree and place
them before him, and paint them as they looked within twelve inches of
his eyes, and as the modern Pre-Raphaelites did, he might even imitate
the local colour of things themselves. [Sidenote: Pre-Raphaelites.]
Whereas the naturalistic painter would care for none of these things, he
would endeavour to render the impression of the tree as it _appeared_ to
him when standing a hundred yards off, the tree taken as a whole, and as
it looked, modified as it would be by various phenomena and accidental
circumstances. The naturalist’s work we should call true to nature. The
realist’s false to nature. The work of the realist would do well for a
botany but not for a picture, there is no scope for fine art in realism,
realism belongs to the province of science. This we shall still further
illustrate in the following pages.
[Sidenote: Relative tone and value.]
Relative tone or value is the difference in the amount of light received
on the different planes of objects when compared with one another.
[Sidenote: Sentiment.]
Artists speak of the “sentiment of nature” as a highly desirable quality
in a picture. This means that naturalism should have been the leading
idea which has governed the general conception and execution of the
work. Thus the sentiment of nature is a healthful and highly desirable
quality in a picture. Thus “true in sentiment” is a term of high praise.
“Sentiment” is really normal sympathetic “feeling.”
[Sidenote: Sentimentality.]
As opposed to sentiment, is a highly undesirable quality, and a quality
to be seen in all bad work. It is an _affectation_ of _sentiment_, and
relies by artificiality and mawkishness upon appealing to the morbid and
uncultured. It is the bane of English art. The one is normal, the other
morbid.
[Sidenote: Soul.]
Soul = Vis medicatrix = Plastic force = Vital force = Vital principle =
O. The word is, however, used by some of the most advanced thinkers in
art, and when asked to explain it they say they mean by it “the
fundamental.” From what we can gather, the word “soul” is the formula by
which they express the sum total of qualities which make up the life of
the individual. Thus a man when he has got the “soul” into a statue, has
not only rendered the organic _structure_ of the model, but also all the
model’s subtleties of harmony, of movement and expression, and thought,
which are due to the _physical fact_ of his being a living organism.
This “life” is of course the fundamental thing, and first thing to
obtain in any work of art. In this way, then, we can understand the use
of the word “soul” as synonymous with the “life” of the model. The
“soul” or life is always found in nature, in the model, and the artist
seizes upon it first, and subdues all things to it. “Soul,” then, to us
is a term for the expression of the epitome of the characteristics of a
living thing. The Egyptians expressed the “soul” or life of a lion,
Landseer did not.
[Sidenote: Technique.]
By technique is meant, in photography, a knowledge of optics and
chemistry, and of the preparation and employment of the photographic
materials by the means of which pictures are secured. It does in no way
refer to the _manner_ of using these materials, that is the “practice.”
[Sidenote: Tone.]
To begin with, as this book is for photographers, we must tell them they
invariably use the word tone in a wrong sense. What photographers call
“tone” should properly be colour or tint, thus: a brown tint, a purple
tint, or colour.
The correct meaning of tone is the amount of light received upon the
different planes of an object.
[Sidenote: Transcript of nature.]
“‘A mere transcript of nature’ is one of the stock phrases of the art
critic, and of many artists of a certain school. The precise meaning
attached to it puzzles us; were it not always used as a term of
reproach, we should believe it the highest praise that could be bestowed
upon a picture. What adds to our perplexity is that the phrase is
generally applied by the critic to work which has nothing in common with
nature about it: and is used by artists who themselves have never in
their lives painted a picture with the simplest values correct, as
though transcribing nature to canvas were a stage in the painter’s
development through which they had passed, and which was now beneath
them. The critic must have but a very superficial acquaintance with
nature who applies this term, as is frequently done, to work in which
all the subtleties of nature are wanting. We have heard of pictures in
which no two tones have been in right relation to one another, in which
noisy detail has been mistaken for finish, and the mingling of decision
and indecision in fine opposition—the mysterious lost and found, the
chief charm of nature—has been utterly unfelt, described as ‘transcripts
of nature.’ Those artists who use the phrase, adopt it as a convenient
barricade behind which they may defend their own incompetence.”—_T. F.
Goodall._
[Sidenote: Da Vinci.]
All photographers would do well to lay these remarks to heart. Instead
of it being an easy thing to paint “a mere transcript of nature,” we
shall show it to be _utterly impossible_. No man can do this either by
painting or photography, he can only give a translation, or impression,
as Leonardo da Vinci said long ago; but he can give this impression
truly or falsely.
CHAPTER II.
NATURALISM IN PICTORIAL AND GLYPTIC ART.
[Sidenote: An inquiry into the influence of the study of nature on art.]
In this chapter we shall endeavour to trace the influence of the study
of nature on all the best art up to the present day. [Sidenote: Woltmann
and Woermann.] In order to do this it will be necessary to follow in
chronological order the development of art, and we propose taking as our
guide in this matter Messrs. Woltmann and Woermann, who seem the most
trustworthy and are the most recent of art historians. We feel, however,
that we must state our attitude towards them as historians of art. For
the main historical facts, we willingly accept as authorities these
writers, since they have studied the matter, but when these historians
try to trace the causes and effects of different phases of art on
contemporary life then we entirely part company from them, for there are
so many wheels within wheels in this complex comedy of life that we
cannot with patience listen to searchers of manuscripts and students of
autographs, who trace the fall of an empire to an oil painting, or the
decadence of painting to the cheapness of wheat: such dreams may still
serve, as they have always served, as a peg whereon to hang rhetorical
rhapsodies, but they can have no attraction for rational minds. What we
propose, then, is briefly to compile a short outline, consisting of the
salient facts in the history of art, in so far as they bear on our
subject, that is, how far the best artists have been naturalistic, and
how true in impression their interpretation of nature. When we agree
with any of the critical remarks of these gentlemen, we shall quote them
in full, acknowledging them in the usual way, but we reserve to
ourselves the right to differ entirely from them on artistic points. We
ourselves feel much diffidence in advancing any critical remarks of our
own upon these arts, for we are convinced, after a long and practical
study of the subject, that no one can criticize any branch of art _and
the criticism be authoritative_, unless he be a _practical master
artist_ in the branch of art which he is criticizing; but as our
opinions have been put to the touchstone of some first-rate practical
artists in other branches than our own, we offer them, standing always
ready to be corrected by any good practical artist on any point. As to
who are good artists is again another wide question. Certainly their
name is not legion.
[Sidenote: Criticism.]
Our object in traversing all this ground, then, is one of inquiry, to
really see how far “naturalism” is the only wear for all good art, and
we have done it in an impartial spirit, arriving at the conclusion that
in all the glyptic and pictorial arts the touchstone answers. How far
this is the case with the arts of Fiction, Poetry, &c., is a more
complex matter, and one we cannot now deal with, but we feel that in the
literary arts the matter is very different, for in these arts we are not
confined, as we are in the pictorial and glyptic arts, to physical facts
and their representation; for there is no such thing as abstract beauty
of form or colour. Art has served as a peg on which to hang all sorts of
fads—fine writing, very admirable in its place—morality, not to be
despised—classical knowledge and literature generally, both of the
highest æsthetic value, but in no way connected with the glyptic and
pictorial arts. Naturalistic art has been found and lost, and lost and
found time after time, and it is because the Dutch, French, English and
American artists of to-day are finding it again that we feel hopeful for
the art of the future.
[Sidenote: Our aim.]
Our object is, by these notes, to lead our readers to the works of art
themselves, hoping that by this means they will, to some extent, educate
themselves and finally form independent judgments on art matters. Much
of the lamentable ignorance existing on these subjects is due to the
acceptance of the dicta of writers on pictures, without the readers
seeing the pictures themselves. We earnestly beg, therefore, of any one
who may be sufficiently interested in the subject as to read this book,
that he will go and see the original pictures and sculptures cited; all
of which are within easy reach. It was our original intention to
introduce photographic reproductions of the best pieces of sculpture,
and the best pictures into this work, but we have decided against so
doing, fearing that the reader might be tempted to look at the
reproductions and neglect the originals, and a translation, however good
it may be, is but a small part of the truth. In thus expressing our
conclusions on naturalism in art, we do not set up as the preacher of
any new gospel. Such opinions as ours are as old as the art of ancient
Greece, nay older, for from the early days of Egypt downwards these
ideas have been held, we shall find, by great artists in all ages. It is
only in the application of these ideas to photography, and in attempting
to reduce them to scientific first principles that we presume to claim
any originality.
EGYPTIAN ART.
[Sidenote: Egyptian art.]
On examining specimens of Egyptian art, whether it be their paintings,
architecture, sculpture or book illustrations (the papyri), one is
struck by the wonderful simplicity, decision and force with which they
expressed themselves. The history of Egypt has been so little studied,
save by students of history, and the old popular stories concerning the
nations of the past are so inaccurate and misleading, that one is at
first surprised to find such power in the works of those whom we were
taught, not so long ago, to look upon as Philistines; so that we might
gaze on the Pyramids of Gizeh, the statues of Rameses, and the granite
lions, with the wonderment of incomprehension. But now, of course, every
one knows that the Egyptians were masters in certain directions, where
we are but in our infancy. Even in their _cavi relievi_ and wall
paintings, though these latter are but tinted outlines, they are not the
outlines of childish draughtsmen, weak and unmeaning, but they show the
force of a powerful skill that in one bold outline can give all the
essentials of a man, bird or beast, so that the picture looks living and
doing. All through their work there is a bigness of conception, a solid
grip of nature which makes their work surpass many of the elaborately
finished and richly detailed pictures of our modern art galleries.
[Sidenote: Works to be studied.]
Let us call the reader’s attention to such examples as are easily to be
seen, namely, [Sidenote: The lions.]the granite lions, the _cavi
relievi_ and the papyri in the British Museum. The lions, which are
remarkable for strength of character and truthfulness of impression, may
be taken as representative of the greatest period of Egyptian art, a
period which ended about the time of Rameses II.; for after that time
the artist began to neglect the study of nature, and gradual decadence
set in.
[Sidenote: Landseer’s lions.]
We strongly advise all our readers to go to the British Museum and look
well at these lions. They are hewn from granite, or porphyry, the
hardest of stones, they have conventional moustaches, and are lying in
conventional positions, yet withal, there is a wonderful expression of
life and reserved strength about them which makes you respect them,
stone though they be; and they convey to you, as you look on their long
lithe flanks so broadly and simply treated, the truthful impression of
strong and merciless _animals_. Your thoughts involuntarily turn from
them to Landseer’s bronze lions guarding Trafalgar Square. In them you
remember all the tufts of hair correctly rendered, even to the wool in
the ears, the mane, the moustaches. Even the claws are there, and yet
you feel instinctively you would rather meet those[2] tame cats of
Trafalgar Square, with all their claws, than the Egyptian lions in the
British Museum. The reason of this is that the Egyptians knew how to
epitomize, so as to express the fundamental characteristics of the lion,
they cared not to say how many hairs went to make up the tufted tail,
nor yet how many claws each paw should have, but what they tried to do,
and succeeded in doing, was to convey a sense of his power and
animalism, or to convey, in short, an impression of _his nature_.
-----
Footnote 2:
Since this was written Mr. Frith has published that Landseer modelled
these lions from a tame cat.
-----
These lions were the outcome of the best period of Egyptian sculpture.
The Egyptian artists who carved those lions had been striving to
interpret Nature, and hence their great success; but as soon as their
successors began to neglect nature, and took to drawing up rules, they
went wrong, and produced caricatures. [Sidenote: Rameses II. and
decadence.] We read that after the time of Rameses II. “every figure is
now mathematically designed according to a prescribed canon of numerical
proportions between the parts.”
[Sidenote: Wilkinson’s “Ancient Egyptians.”]
All this we can trace for ourselves in the plates supplied with
Wilkinson’s learned work, entitled, “The Ancient Egyptians.” We see in
those plates that something has happened to the people and objects
represented, something that makes them no longer tell their own story,
they no longer look alive, but are meaningless; the reason of this
falling off was that the artist no longer used his eyes to any purpose,
but did what was then supposed to be the right thing to do, namely,
followed the laws laid down by some men of narrow intellect—laws called
as now the “canons of art.” The very life of the Egyptian artists of
that period was against good work, for they were incorporated into
guilds, and the laws of caste worked as harmfully as they now do in the
Orient. [Sidenote: Artists' status.] There is, then, distinct evidence
that on the one hand the Egyptian artists of the best period, when
untrammelled by conventionality, created works which, though lacking the
innumerable qualities of later Greek art, yet possessed, _so far as they
went_, the first essential of all art—truth of impression. Again, on the
other hand, directly anything like “rules of art” appeared, and the
study of nature was neglected, their art degenerated into meaningless
conventionality, and as this conventionality and neglect of nature were
never cast aside, the art of Egypt never developed beyond the work done
by the artists who carved the stone lions.
MONARCHIES OF WESTERN ASIA.
[Sidenote: Assyrian art.]
Assyrian art differed from that of Egypt in that the outline of the
figures was much stronger, and that they painted their bas-reliefs; but
the “imitation of nature was the watchword” in Assyria, as it was in
Babylon.
[Sidenote: Assyrian bas-reliefs.]
In studying the Assyrian bas-reliefs, those interested in the subject
should go to the Assyrian rooms in the basement of the British Museum,
and look at the reliefs of Bani-Pal—the famous lion-hunting scenes.
[Sidenote: The lion-hunt.] There is, of course, much conventionality in
the work, as there was in that of the Egyptians; but no observer can
fail to detect that the Assyrians were naturalistic to a degree that
strikes us as marvellous when we consider the subjects they were
treating. Note the lioness, wounded in the spine, dragging her
hindquarters painfully along. Does this not give a powerful impression
of the wounded animal? and does it not occur to you how wonderful was
the power of the man who in so little expressed and conveys to you so
much. Consider when those Assyrian sculptors lived. Look, too, at the
bas-reliefs numbered 47 and 49; and in 50 note the marvellous
truthfulness of impression of the horseman, who is riding at a gallop.
There is life and movement in the work, though there is much scope for
improvement in the truth of the movements. Look, too, at the laden mules
in bas-reliefs numbers 70 and 72. Such works as these were done by great
men in art, and though crudeness of methods prevented them from
rivalling some of the later work, their work is at least honest, and, as
far as it goes, naturalistic. The work does not say all that there is to
say about the subject; but it does say much of what is _most essential_,
and by doing that is artistically greater than work done by scores of
modern men. [Sidenote: Historical value of the bas-reliefs.]In addition
to their artistic value, how interesting are these works as records of
history. Indisputable, as written history can never be, they are to us a
valuable record of the life and times. They constitute historical art in
its only good sense.
ANCIENT GREEK AND ITALIAN ART.
[Sidenote: Ancient]
Greek and Italian art.
In discussing Greek _painting_ we shall rely entirely upon the erudite
historical work of Messrs. Woltmann and Woermann, giving a short
_résumé_ of their remarks on the subject. [Sidenote: No Greek paintings
extant.] This is absolutely necessary, as not one specimen of Greek
painting has come down to us.[3] But on the other, hand, in dealing with
Greek and Græco-Roman sculpture we shall base our remarks on the Greek
and Græco-Roman sculpture in the British Museum.
-----
Footnote 3:
Some paintings quite recently discovered in Egypt are apparently the
work of Greek artists, and tend to confirm this written testimony.
-----
[Sidenote: History of Greek painting.]
Beginning then with Greek painting, let us see what the historians tell
us. They begin by saying, in painting “the Greeks effected nothing short
of a revolution ... by right of which they deserve the glory of having
first made painting a truthful mirror of realities.” This fact, that
their pictorial art reached such perfection, is not generally known, for
the reason that the assertion rests on written testimony,—but it is
reliable testimony. The historians “insist on the fact that no single
work of any one of the famous painters recognized in the history of
Greek art has survived to our time.” Let us then briefly trace the rise
of Greek painting till it culminated in Apelles. [Sidenote: Polygnotos.]
Polygnotos (B.C. 475-55) is the first name we hear of, and of his works
we are told, “they were just as far from being really complete pictorial
representations as the wall-pictures of the Assyrians and Egyptians
themselves,” although in some particulars there must have been a
distinct advancement on the work of the orientals. For example, we are
told Polygnotos painted the “fishes of Acheron shadowy grey, and the
pebbles of the river-bed so that they could be seen through the water.”
Polygnotos fell, however, into a pitfall which has entrapped many
painters since, he painted imaginative pictures. We are told he “was a
painter of heroes,” some of his school attempted portraiture, “but
painting though in this age was still a mere system of tinted outline
design.” [Sidenote: Agatharchos.] Then followed Agatharchos, “the leader
of a real revolution, a revolution by which art was enabled to achieve
great and decisive progress towards a system of representation
corresponding with the laws of optics and the full truth of nature.”
Agatharchos was a scene-painter, and was no doubt led by striving for
naturalism in his scenery to study naturalism in painting generally.
[Sidenote: Scene-painting.] As the historians remark, “In scene-painting
as thus practised, we find the origins not only of all representations
of determinate backgrounds, but also, and more especially, of landscape
painting. It is impossible to over-estimate the importance of the
invention of scene-painting as the most decisive turning-point in the
entire history of the art, and Agatharchos is named as the master who,
at the inspiration of Æschylus, first devoted himself to practising the
invention.” [Sidenote: Perspective.] This painter, it is said, also paid
great attention to perspective, and left a treatise which was afterwards
used in drawing up the laws of perspective. It is said his manner of
treatment was “comparatively broad and picturesque.” [Sidenote:
Apollodoros.] Next came Apollodoros, a figure-painter, who also combined
landscape and figure subjects, and of whom Pliny says “that he was the
first to give the appearance of reality to his pictures, the first to
bring the brush into just repute, [Sidenote: Easel-pictures.] and even
that before him no easel-picture (_tabula_) had existed by any master
fit to charm the eye of the spectator.” [Sidenote: Chiaro-oscuro.]
Apollodoros was the first to give his pictures a natural and definite
background in true perspective; he was the first, it is emphatically
stated, “who rightly managed chiaro-oscuro and the fusion of colours....
He will have also been the first to soften off the outlines of his
figures.... [Sidenote: Brunn.] For this reason we may, with Brunn, in a
certain sense call Apollodoros “the first true painter.” We are told,
however, that his “painting was, in comparison with his successors, hard
and imperfect,” and that the innovations made by him in the relation of
foreground and background cannot be compared to the improvements
effected by the brothers Van Eyck in modern times. [Sidenote: Zeuxis,
Parrhasios, and Timanthes.] We now read of Zeuxis, Parrhasios, and
Timanthes, who, we are told, “perfected a system of pictorial
representation, adequately rendering on the flat surface the relief and
variety of nature, in other particulars if not in colour.” The endeavour
of Zeuxis was “by the brilliant use of the brush to rival nature
herself,” and from anecdotes related of him and of Parrhasios, we gather
that they “laid the greatest stress on carrying out to the point of
actual illusion the deceptive likeness to nature.” Many of Zeuxis'
subjects were taken from everyday life—another step in the right
direction. [Sidenote: Eupompos.] We now come to the Dorian school, with
Eupompos as its founder; and here we find a determination to study
painting scientifically, and to conscientiously observe nature, for we
are told Eupompos expressed the opinion “that the artist who wished to
succeed must go first of all to nature as his teacher.” [Sidenote:
Pamphilos.] Pamphilos, a pupil of Eupompos, brought this school to
maturity, and insisted on the “necessity of scientific study for the
painter.” [Sidenote: Melanthios.] He was followed by Melanthios, who
pursued the same lines of scientific investigation; and was in his turn
succeeded by Pausias, of whom we hear, [Sidenote: Pausias.] “It is
quoted as a novel and striking effect, that in one of his pictures the
face of Methê (or personified Intoxication) was visible through the
transparent substance of the glass out of which she drank.” His work was
considered to have great technical excellence, his subjects were taken
from everyday life, and his pictures were all on a small scale. Pliny
says “his favourite themes were ‘boys,’ that is, no doubt, scenes of
child-life.... He developed, it seems, a more natural method of
representing the modelling of objects by the gradations of a single
colour.” We read, too, that his paintings drawn fresh from life “were
much appreciated by the Romans.” Such is the case with all good
naturalistic works, they always interest posterity, whereas the
so-called imaginative works only interest the age for which they are
painted. We should to-day prefer and treasure as beyond price one of
Pausias' studies of familiar Greek life, whereas the heroes of
Polygnotos would lack interest for us, and excite but little enthusiasm.
[Sidenote: The Theban-Attic school.] There was a third school of Greek
painting, that called the Theban-Attic, and of this we read that there
was “a great ease and versatility, and an invention more intent upon the
expression of human emotion,” but no painter of this school made any
very great advance. [Sidenote: Apelles.] At length we come to Apelles,
the most famous of all Greek painters. He, although already well known
and highly thought of, went to the Sikyonian school, to study under
Pamphilos, and we afterwards hear of him as court painter to Alexander
the Great. We are told that at court his “mission was to celebrate the
person and the deeds of the king, as well as those of his captains and
chief men.” This was at any rate legitimate historical painting.
Woltmann and Woermann say, “In faithful imitation of nature he was
second to none; he was first of all in refinement of light and shade,
and consequent fulness of relief and completeness of modelling.” And
again we read, “Astonishing technical perfection in the illusory
imitation of nature” distinguished Apelles. Thus we see that the great
aim of the greatest of Greek painters was to paint nature exactly as she
is, or as glib critics would say, to paint “mere transcripts of nature.”
[Sidenote: Protogenes.] Contemporary with Apelles was Protogenes, whose
aim was to reach the “highest degree of illusion in detail.” The cycle
of development seemed now to have reached its highest point, and as the
naturalistic teachings fell into the hands of inferior men, they were
abused, and Woltmann and Woermann tell us the imitative principle was
not kept subservient to artistic ends, and in the hands of Theon of
Samos the principle of illusion became an end in itself, and art
degenerated into _legerdemain_. This same tendency is now showing its
hydra head, and in London, Brussels, and other places are to be seen
inferior works hidden in dark rooms, or to be viewed through peep-holes.
[Sidenote: Theon.] We only want the trumpets of Theon or the music of
the opera bouffe to complete the degradation.Following Theon, and
probably disgusted with his phantasies, came painters of small
subjects;[Sidenote: The rhyparographi.] the rhyparographi of Pliny, or
the rag-and-tatter painters, “who painted barbers' shops, asses,
eatables, and such-like.” “We see, therefore, that about B.C. 300 ...
Greek painting had already extended its achievements to almost all
conceivable themes, with the single exception of landscape. Within the
space of a hundred and fifty years the art had passed through every
technical stage, from the tinted profile system of Polygnotos to the
properly pictorial system of natural scenes, enclosed in natural
backgrounds, and thence to the system of trick and artifice, which aimed
at the realism of actual illusion by means beyond the legitimate scope
of art.”
“The creative power of Greek painting was as good as exhausted by this
series of efforts. In the following centuries the art survived indeed as
a pleasant after-growth, in some of its old seats, but few artists stand
out with strong individuality from among their contemporaries. Only a
master here and there makes a name for himself. [Sidenote: Timomachos.]
The one of these whom we have here especially to notice is Timomachos,
of Byzantium, an exception of undeniable importance, since even at this
late period of Greek culture he won for himself a world-wide celebrity.”
Decadence, however, had already set in, and we find that Timomachos
neglected the study of familiar subjects, and returned to the so-called
imaginative style, producing such works as “Ajax and Medea,” and
“Iphigenia in Taurus.” [Sidenote: Greek landscape painting.] Curiously
enough, it was during this period that the only branch of painting not
yet tried by the Greeks, namely, landscape painting, was attempted.
Woltmann and Woermann suggest a reason for this new departure when they
say, “We can gather with certainty from poetry and literature that it
was in the age of the Diadochi (the kings who divided amongst them the
kingdom of Alexander) that the innate Greek instinct of
anthropomorphism, of personifying nature in human forms, from a
combination of causes was gradually modified in the direction of an
appreciation of natural scenes for their own sake, and as they really
are.” Landscape painting, however, did not reach any great perfection,
for we are told it “scarcely got beyond the superficial character of
decorative work.” [Sidenote: Decadence.] With this period ends the true
history of Greek painting, though it still lingers on, and becomes so
far merged into that of Roman art that between the two it is not
possible to draw a line of distinction. [Sidenote: Fabius and Ludius.]
Roman art had a character of its own, and even two painters, whose
names, Fabius and Ludius, and in the case of the latter whose works,
have been handed down to us; but the works of Ludius do not appear to
have been more than decorative work.
[Sidenote: Vases, mosaics, &c., &c.]
Besides the written testimony referred to, the state of art can be
gathered from the vases, bronzes, mosaics, paintings on stone, and mural
decorations which have come down to us. These were chiefly the work of
Greek journeymen, and though there is much that is excellent in these
productions, their period of decadence very soon set in. [Sidenote:
Antiques for tourists.] It is a gauge of the art knowledge of to-day to
watch the gullible English and Americans purchasing third-rate copies of
the works of Greek journeymen house-decorators, and taking them home and
hoarding them as works of art,—works which were only valuable in their
own time, in connection with the life and architecture then existing,
but which at the present day are interesting merely from an historical
point of view, for no really artistic mind can possibly find
satisfaction in such work for its own sake. Did these uncultured buyers
but reflect and study for a while the natural beauties around them, they
would soon see the error of their ways.
In their conclusion on Græco-Roman art Woltmann and Woermann say that
they “have no doubt that Greek painting had at last fully acquired the
power to produce adequate semblances of living fact and nature,” which
could not be said of any painting up to that time. Here then we have
traced a quick development of Greek painting, and an almost equally
quick decline, and all through we find the never-failing truth,—that so
long as nature was the standard, and all efforts were directed towards
interpreting her faithfully, so long did the national art grow and
improve till it culminated in the statues of Pheidias and the paintings
of Apelles; but that directly nature was neglected, as it was in the
time of Theon, art degenerated, till at last it fell, as we shall see,
into the meaningless work of the early Christian artists. [Sidenote: Art
criticism.]We find even thus early that the pedantic writer who knows
nothing of practical art had begun to fill the world with his mysterious
nonsense. [Sidenote: Rhetoricians.] Such were the rhetoricians of the
empire who describe works “purely anonymous, indeed in many cases it is
clear that the picture has been invented by the man of letters, as a peg
whereon to hang his eloquence.”
It cannot be too often repeated that technical criticism is not
authoritative unless made by masters of the several arts.
[Sidenote: Greek and Græco-Roman sculpture.]
Let us now proceed to the British Museum, and look at the best specimens
of Greek and Græco-Roman sculpture as exhibited there.
[Sidenote: The British Museum collection.]
Taking for examination the specimens nearest at hand; we refer to those
to be seen in the gallery leading out of the entrance-hall of the
British Museum. [Sidenote: Nero’s bust.] The busts which strike us most
forcibly are those of Nero, Trajan, Publius Hevius Pertinax, Cordianus
Africanus, Caracalla, Commodus, and Julius Cæsar. The bust of Nero (No.
11) strikes one by the simplicity and breadth of its treatment, combined
as these qualities are with the expression of great strength and energy.
The sculptor has evidently gone at his work with a thorough knowledge of
the technique, and hewn the statue straight from the marble, a custom,
by the way, followed by only one modern sculptor, namely, J. Havard
Thomas. Look at the broad treatment of the chin and neck of this bust of
Nero. Nowadays one rarely meets with even living awe-inspiring men, but
that marble carries with it such force, that, all cold and stony as it
is, it creates in you a feeling of respect and awe. It should be studied
from various distances and coigns of vantage, and if well studied it can
surely never be forgotten. It gives the head of a domineering, cruel,
sensual, yet strong man. [Sidenote: Trajan’s bust.] In the bust of
Trajan (No. 15), we have the same powerful technique employed this time
in rendering the animal strength of a powerful man. With his low
forehead, small head, and splendid neck, the embodiment of strength,
Trajan looks down on us somewhat scornfully. [Sidenote: Bust of Publius
Pertinax.] Then, too, No. 35, the bust of Publius Hevius Pertinax, is no
mask, but a face with a _brain behind it_. You feel this man might
speak, and if he did, what he had to say would be worth listening to.
Perhaps for grip of the impression of life this is the best of all these
busts. Compare it with the mask (it can be called nothing else) on the
shelf above it, and you will see the difference. [Sidenote: Busts of
Cordianus and Caracalla.] The portrait busts of Cordianus Africanus (No.
39) and Caracalla are also marvellous for life-like expression. Look
well at the cropped head and beard of Cordianus from a little distance,
and see how true and life-like the _impression_ is; then go up close and
see how the hair of the beard is rendered. It is done by chipping out
little wedges of the marble. Here is a very good example of the
distinction between what is called _realism_ and _naturalism_ or
_impressionism_, for the two last we hold to be synonymous, though for
lucidity we have defined them differently. If all the detail of that
beard had been rendered, every hair or curl correctly cut to represent a
hair or curl, and this is what the modern Italian sculptor would have
done, we should have had realism and bad work. This should be borne in
mind in portrait photography, that the essence, the true impression, is
what is required; the fundamental is all that counts; the rest is small,
niggling, contemptible.
[Sidenote: Bust of Commodus.]
Let us turn to No. 33,—the sensual face of Commodus,—he re-lives in the
marble. [Sidenote: Bust of Homer.] Another very notable bust is that of
Homer (No. 117), in the corner of the gallery at right angles to that we
are leaving. Look how truly the impression is rendered of the withered
old literary man; how the story of his long life is stamped on his face,
the unmistakable look of the studious, contemplative man.
Pass we now to the next gallery, and stop at the wonderfully fine torso,
No. 172. [Sidenote: Torso, and boy and thorn.] Look well at this
beautiful work, so feelingly, sympathetically, and simply treated by the
sculptor. You can almost see the light glance as the muscles glide
beneath the skin. This is a marvellous natural work, as is also the boy
pulling out a thorn from his foot. [Sidenote: Young satyr.]The young
satyr (No. 184) is also a wonderfully fine piece of sculpture, and well
worth close study. The student will have ample opportunity for studying,
side by side, in this gallery, bad stone cutting and fine sculpture, for
many of the fine marbles have been barbarously restored. As an example,
we cite the lifeless, stony arms of No. 188, which compare with the rest
of the figure, look at the india-rubber finger of the right hand, and
you will understand what bad work is, if you did not know it already.
[Sidenote: Apotheosis of Homer.] Before leaving this gallery let the
reader look at No. 159, the Apotheosis of Homer. Now, as can be
imagined, this is the delight of the pedantic critic, and more ignorant
rhapsodies have been written on this work than perhaps on any other
piece of sculpture. Of course, as any candid and competent observer will
see, this is, as a work of art, very poor, and hardly worth talking
about, except as a warning. In passing into the gallery where are the
remains of the Parthenon frieze, notice an archaic nude torso which
stands on the left, and see how the artist was feeling his way to
nature. [Sidenote: Parthenon frieze.] All portions of the Parthenon
frieze should be most carefully studied. The animals in 60 and 61 are
fairly true, as in fact is the whole work. [Sidenote: Muybridge and his
cantering horse.] It was on seeing one of Muybridge’s photographs of a
man cantering on a bare-backed horse, that a sculptor remarked to us, “I
wonder if the Greeks knew of photography.” And yet critics and feeble
artists call this work ideal, and declare they discover imaginary
groupings according to geometrical laws, and heaven knows what; all of
which the best sculptors deny. [Sidenote: Horse of Selene.] The student
must now look at the “Horse of Selene,” one of the most marvellous
pieces of work ever done by man. It was a long time before we could see
the full beauty and truthfulness of impression of this great work, and
the reason was due to a simple physical fact. We stood too near to it.
To see it well you should stand about twenty or thirty feet off, and out
of the grey background you will see the marble horse tossing its living
head, and you will be spell-bound. Having observed the truthfulness of
impression, go to it close up, and note the wonderful truth with which
the bony structure of the skull is suggested beneath the skin. We can
say no more than that it is a true impression taken direct from nature,
for in no other way could it have been obtained. Nothing ideal about it
at all, simply naturalism.
Much nonsense has been written, too, about “idealism” in Greek coins.
[Sidenote: Greek coins.] To us they seem simply impressions taken from
busts or other works; but to make assurance doubly sure, we have taken
the opinion of two of the very best modern sculptors, who are, we
venture to prophesy, going to show us as good work as any done by the
Greeks, and in many ways even better work.[4] Well, their opinion as to
“idealism” in Greek sculpture is emphatically that it existed not. They
say that the Greeks were naturalistic, the study of nature was the
mainspring of their art, and the truthful expression of the poetry of
nature their sole end and aim. That they attained this end in many ways
we know, and in certain ways they will never be surpassed, but in other
directions their work will one day appear childish.
-----
Footnote 4:
All old work is to be surpassed, and that in the fundamental matter of
movement. This advance is entirely due to Photography.
-----
[Sidenote: Technical criticism.]
We do not attempt to give a detailed technical criticism of sculpture as
executed by the Greeks, for, as we have said before, none but a
_first-rate sculptor_ can do that; and as there are not half a dozen
such in England, and as they have quite enough work to do at present, we
fear the public will have to wait some time for such criticism. In the
meantime those interested in the subject cannot do better than study the
works mentioned, and let them leave all others alone; let them spend
days in studying those pointed out, and they will soon find themselves
able to distinguish good work from bad. [Sidenote: Gibson gallery.]
Then, if they want a good shock, let them walk into the Gibson Gallery
at Burlington House, for there they will see _nothing_ but bad work.
There is one point to be borne in mind when we look at the surpassing
beauty of the Greek statues, and that is the natural beauty of the Greek
race, and the number of excellent models the Greek sculptors had before
them to choose from. [Sidenote: Taine.] Taine, in his charming but
atechnical volume on “La Philosophie de l’art Grec,” goes as thoroughly
into this question as a historian and philosopher can enter into the
life of the past, and into art questions, which in our opinion is to a
very limited extent. Nevertheless, his book is full of suggestions, and
if our sculptors do not to-day equal in beauty the antiques, the cause,
in our opinion, lies in the lack of perfect models, for the best
technical work of to-day we think is superior to that of the Greeks. We
have seen impressionistic renderings of nature by some modern sculptors
which we think more natural in _all points_ than anything of the kind to
be found in Greek sculpture.
[Sidenote: Modern French school.]
Like the Greeks have the leading men of the modern French school adhered
to nature,—a school in our mind more akin to the Greek school at its
best than any other, and for the simple reason that it is more loyal to
nature than any art has been since the time of Apelles. [Sidenote:
Horizon-line.] As an example of the kinship between the two schools we
quote Woltmann and Woermann, who tell us the Greeks “placed their
horizon abnormally high according to our ideas; and distributed the
various objects over an ample space in clear and equable light.” Now
modern painters have happily discarded all laws for the position of the
horizon-line, and common sense shows that the height of the horizon
naturally depends on how much foreground is included in the picture. The
angle included by the eye vertically as well as horizontally varies with
the distance of the object from us, and the only law therefore is to
include in the picture as much as is included by the eye; and this of
course varies with the position of the _motif_ or chief point of
interest. [Sidenote: Millet.] Millet has a good many high horizons, and
we feel they are normal not abnormal. On this point therefore we think
the Greeks were very advanced.
EARLY CHRISTIAN ART.
[Sidenote: Early Christian art.]
Leaving Greek art, we now come to the art of the early Christians.
Woltmann and Woermann tell us that “Early Christian art does not differ
in its beginnings from the art of antiquity.... The only perceptible
differences are those differences of subject which betoken the fact that
art has now to embody a changed order of religious ideas, and even from
this point of view the classical connection is but gradually, and at
first imperfectly, severed.... At the outset Christianity, as was
inevitable from its Jewish origin, had no need for art. In many quarters
the aversion to works of material imagery ...—the antagonism to the
idolatries of antiquity—remained long unabated. Yet when Christianity,
far outstepping the narrow circle of Judaism, had been taken up by
classically educated Greeks and Romans, the prejudice against works of
art could not continue to be general, nor could Christendom escape the
craving for art which is common to civilized mankind. The dislike of
images used as objects of worship did not include mere chamber
decorations, and while independent sculpture found no footing in the
Christian world, or at least was applied only to secular and not to
religious uses, painting, on the other hand, found encouragement for
purely decorative purposes, in the execution of which a
characteristically Christian element began to assert itself by degrees.”
[Sidenote: The catacombs.]
The pure Christian element began to assert itself silently in decorative
work in the catacombs, and “these cemeteries are the only places in
which we find remains of Christian paintings of earlier date than the
close of the fourth century.” These works, however, “constituted no more
than a kind of picture writing,” as any one who has seen them can
certify. But this symbolism got very mixed with pagan stories, and we
get Orpheus in a Phrygian cap, and Hermes carrying a ram, both
representing the Good Shepherd. At other times the artists seem to have
set themselves to represent a Christ constructed on their knowledge of
the attributes ascribed to him, and we get a beardless youth approaching
“closely to the kindred types of the classical gods and heroes.” “Mary
appears as a Roman matron, generally praying with uplifted hands.”
[Sidenote: St. Peter’s statue at Rome.]Peter and Paul “appear as ancient
philosophers,” and the well-known bronze statue of St. Peter, in the
cathedral dedicated to him at Rome, is no less than a _bonâ fide_
antique statue of a Roman consul. Here we have the same neglect of
nature, and the bad work always to be expected from this neglect and
from enslaved minds.
[Sidenote: Mosaics.]
The mosaics of Christian art were also handed down from classical
antiquity. Though rarely found in the catacombs, this art was being much
used above ground for architectural decoration. This art, as Woltmann
and Woermann rightly say, was “only a laborious industry, which by
fitting together minute coloured blocks produces a copy of a design,
which design the workers are bound by. They may proceed mechanically,
but not so flimsily and carelessly as the decorative painters.” From
about A.D. 450 we are told that church pictures become no longer only
decorative, but also instructive. Here then was a wrong use of pictorial
art—it is not meant to be symbolic and allegorical, or to teach, but to
interpret the poetry of nature.
A new conception of Christ it seems now appeared in the mosaics,—a
bearded type,—and this time we get the features of Zeus represented.
[Sidenote: The emperors' school.] By means of the mosaics a new impulse
was given to art, and in A.D. 375 a school was founded by the Emperors
Valentinian, Valens, and Gratian, of which we read, “The schools of art
now once more encourage the observance of traditions; strictness of
discipline and academical training were the objects kept in view; and
the student was taught to work, not independently by study from nature,
but according to the precedent of the best classical models.”
[Sidenote: Byzantine art.]
At this time art, though lying under the influence of antique
traditions, held its own for a longer time in Byzantium, where the
decorative style of the early Christians lived on after the iconoclastic
schism in the eighth century, and where we read that this ornamental
style began to be commonly employed. [Sidenote: Justinian.]After the age
of Justinian (which itself has left no creation of art at Rome), many
poor and conventional works were executed at Ravenna. We read that for
“lack of inner life and significance, amends are attempted to be made by
material splendour, brilliancy of costume, and a gold groundwork, which
had now become the rule here as well as in Byzantium.” Thus we see the
artists became completely lost in confusion since they had left nature,
and they knew not what to do, but, like many weak painters of the
present day, tried to make their work attractive by meretricious
ornaments, and true art there was none. This is carried out to-day to
its fullest development by many men of medium talent, who make pictures
in far countries, or of popular resorts, or religious subjects, and
strive to appeal, and do appeal to an uneducated class, through the
_subject_ of their work, which in itself may be a work of the poorest
description.
[Sidenote: Mosaics.]
We read that in the year 640, “the superficial and unequal character of
mosaic workmanship increased quickly.” [Sidenote: Miniatures.] The
miniatures of the early Christians, however, we are told, showed
considerable power, but the iconoclastic schism brought all this to an
end. [Sidenote: Mohammedans.] “The gibes of the Mohammedans” were the
cause of Leo the Third’s edict against image worship in A.D. 726. All
the pictures in the East were destroyed by armed bands, and the painters
thrown into prison, and so ended Byzantine art. This movement did not
affect Italian art.
MEDIÆVAL ART.
[Sidenote: Mediæval.]
We have followed Messrs. Woltmann and Woermann closely in their account
of the decadence of art from the greatest days of Greek sculpture and
painting to the end of the Christian period; but as our object is
avowedly only to deal with the best art—that which is good for all
time—and to see how far that is naturalistic or otherwise, we shall
speak but briefly of (the main points connected with) mediæval art,
which has but little interest for us until we come to Niccola Pisano,
and Giotto. [Sidenote: Miniaturists.] During the early years of what are
called the Middle Ages, miniaturists were evolving monstrosities from
their own inner consciousness, but with Charlemagne, who said,
[Sidenote: Charlemagne.] “We neither destroy pictures nor pray to them,”
the standard adopted was again classical antiquity. [Sidenote: Ivan the
Terrible.]So art continuously declined until it became a slave to the
Church, and the worst phase of this slavery was to be seen in the East,
under Ivan the Terrible, for we read that “artists were under the
strictest tutelage to the clergy, who chose the subjects to be painted,
prescribed the manner of the treatment, watched over the morality of the
painters, and had it in their power to give and refuse commissions.
Bishops alone could promote a pupil to be a master, and it was their
duty to see that the work was done according to ancient models.” Here
was indeed a pretty state of things, a painter to be watched by a
priest; to have his subjects selected for him! One cannot imagine
anything more certain to degrade art. Religion has ever been on the side
of mental retrogression, has ever been the first and most pertinacious
foe to intellectual progress, but perhaps to nothing has she been so
harmful as to art, unless it has been to science.
During the period of this slavery, the Church used art as a tool, as a
disseminator of her tenets, as a means of imparting religious knowledge.
Very clever of her, but very disastrous for poor art.
[Sidenote: Glass paintings.]
How conventional art was during the Romanesque period can be seen in the
glass paintings that decorate many of the old churches, to admire which
crowds go to Italy and waste their short time in the unhealthy interiors
of churches, instead of spending it at Sorrento or Capri. These go back
to their own country, oppressed with dim recollections of blue and red
dresses, crude green landscapes, and with parrot-like talks of “subdued
lights,” “rich tones mellowed by time,” and such cant.
The Romanesque style of architecture was superseded in the fourteenth
century by the Gothic. [Sidenote: Gothic.] A transformation took place
in art and France now took the lead. The painters of this period
emancipated themselves from the direction of the priesthood—a great step
indeed. [Sidenote: The guilds.] The masters of this age were
specialists; the guilds now ruled supreme in art matters. We read that
“now popular sentiment began to acknowledge that the artist’s own mode
of conceiving a subject had a certain claim, side by side with tradition
and sacerdotal prescription.... They took their impressions direct from
nature,” but their insight into nature was scanty. As Messrs. Woltmann
and Woermann very truly remark, “If for the purpose of depicting human
beings, either separately or in determined groups and scenes, the artist
wishes to develop a language for the expression of emotion, there is
only one means open to him—a closer grasp and observation of nature. In
the age which we are now approaching, the painter’s knowledge of nature
remains but scanty. He does not succeed in fathoming and mastering her
aspects; but his eyes are open to them so far as is demanded by the
expressional phenomena which it is his great motive to represent; since
it is not yet for their own sakes, but only for the sake of giving
expression to a particular range of sentiments that he seeks to imitate
the realities of the world.”
There was a struggle at this period for the study of nature, and the
tyranny of the Church was being thrown off; there was then hope that art
would at last advance, and advance it did. What was wanting was a deeper
insight into nature, for nature is not a book to be read at a glance,
she requires constant study, and will not reveal all her beauties
without much wooing. [Sidenote: Thirteenth century sketch-book.] And
though we read of a sketch-book of this time, the thirteenth century, in
which appears a sketch of a lion, which “looks extremely heraldic,” and
to which the artist has appended the remark, “N.B.—Drawn from life,”
this in no way surprises us, for have we not been seriously told in this
nineteenth century by the painters of catchy, meretricious
water-colours, with reds, blues and greens such as would delight a
child, that they had painted them from nature; pictures in which no two
tones were correct, in which detail, called by the ignorant, finish, had
been painfully elaborated, whilst the broad facts of nature had been
ignored. Such work is generally painted from memory or photographs.
Happily work of this kind will never live, however much the gullible
public may buy it. Next we read that “the germs of realism already
existing in art by degrees unfold themselves further, and artists
venture upon a closer grip of nature.” [Sidenote: Niccola Pisano.] Here,
then, were the signs of coming success, and the great effect of these
gradual changes was first manifested in the work of Niccola Pisano, who
“made a sudden and powerful return to the example of the antique.” All
honour to this man, who was an epoch-maker, who based his conception
“upon a sudden and powerful return to the example of the antique, of the
Roman relief.” His work is by no means naturalistic or perfect, but it
was enough for one man to do such a herculean task as to ignore his own
times and rise superior to them. [Sidenote: Cimabue.] Painting, however,
took no such quick turn, but Cimabue was the first of those who were to
bring it into the right way. The principal works ascribed to him,
however, are not authenticated.
[Sidenote: Giotto.]
Another epoch-maker, Giotto, now appears. He seems to have been a
remarkable man in himself, which however hardly concerns us. The
historian of his works says, “The bodies still show a want of
independent study of nature; the proportions of the several members (as
we know by the handbook of Cemieno hereafter to be mentioned) were
regulated by a fixed system of measurement;” again, “The drawing is
still on the whole conventional, and the modelling not carried far.” His
trees and animals are like toys. Yet we read that “their naturalism is
the very point which the contemporaries of Giotto extol in his
creations,” but, as Woltmann and Woermann say, this must be accepted
according to the notion entertained of what nature was, and we are by
this means able to see how crude the notions of nature can become in
educated men when they neglect the study of it. But from all this
evidence we gather that Giotto’s intellect was great, and that his
strides towards the truthful suggesting of nature were enormous. His
attempts too at expression are wonderful for his age, see his
“Presentations,” the figures are almost _natural_ notwithstanding their
crude drawing; he got some of the charm and life of the children around
him. We read that in some of his pictures, he took his models direct
from nature, as also did Dante in his poetry, but like Dante he
attempted at times the doctrinal in his pictures, as in the “Marriage of
St. Francis and Poverty,” he tried in fact what many moderns are still
trying to do, and daily fail to do, namely, to teach by means of their
pictures—a fatal error. Doctrinal subjects are unsuitable for pictorial
art, and will never live. Who cares now for Giotto’s “Marriage of St.
Francis and Poverty”? but who would _not_ care for a landscape or figure
subject taken by Giotto from the life and landscape of his own times?—it
would be priceless. Owing to circumstances, we hear that he had to put
“much of his art at the service of the Franciscans,” and though not a
slave to them, yet we read this disgusted him with the monkish temper.
In 1337 Giotto died, but he had done much. Without Kepler there might
have been no Newton, so without Giotto there might have been no
Velasquez.
[Sidenote: The guilds.]
Artists at this time belonged to one of the seven higher of the
twenty-one guilds into which Florentine craftsmen were divided, namely,
that of the surgeons and apothecaries (medici and speziali). Here art
and science were enrolled in the same guild, and so were connected, as
they always will be, for the study of nature is at the foundation of
both, the very first principle of both. Together they have been
enslaved, persecuted, and their progress hampered; together they have
endured; and now to-day together they stand out glorious in their
achievements, free to study, free to do. The one is lending a hand to
the other, and the other returns the help with graceful affection.
Superstition, priestcraft, tyranny, all their old persecutors are daily
losing power, and will finally perish, as do all falsehoods.
[Sidenote: Summary.]
We thus leave the art of the Middle Ages, as we left the catacombs, with
a wish never to see any more of it. One feels the deepest sympathy for
great intellects like Giotto, and his greatest followers, whose lots
were cast in times of darkness, and we cannot but respect such as
struggled with this darkness, and fought to gain the road to nature’s
fountains of truth and beauty. But at the same time, though we may in
these pictures see a graceful pose here, a good expression there, or a
beautiful and true bit of colour or quality elsewhere, yet we cannot get
away from the subject-matter of many of the pictures, which, allegorical
and doctrinal as they are, do not lie within the scope of art, and above
all one cannot in any way get rid of the false sentiment and
untruthfulness of the whole work. Such works will always be interesting
to the historian and to the philosopher, but beyond that, to us they are
valueless, and we would far rather possess a drawing by Millet than a
masterpiece by Giotto.
When abroad, and being actually persuaded of their great littleness, we
have been moved with pity for the victims we have met, victims of the
pedant and the guide-book, who are led by the nose, and stand gaping
before middle-age monstrosities, whilst some incompetent pretender pours
into their ears endless cant of grace, spirituality, lustrous colouring,
mellifluous line, idealism, _et id genus omne_, until, bewildered and
sick at heart, they return home to retail their lesson diluted, and to
swell the number of those who pay homage at the shrine of pedantry and
mysticism. Had these travellers spent their short and valuable time in
the fields of Italy, they would have “learnt more art,” whatever they
may mean by that term of theirs, than they ever did in the bourgeois
Campo Santo or dark interior of Santa Croce or Santa Maria Novella.
Alas! that the painters of the Middle Ages were unable to paint well.
Had they been able to paint, as can some of the moderns, and had they
painted truthfully the life and landscape around them, there is no
distance some of us would not go to see a gallery of their works: works
showing men and women as they were, and as they lived, and in their own
surroundings. There at once would have been the pictures, the history,
and the idyllic poetry of a bygone age; and what have we now in their
place? Diluted types of repulsive asceticism, sentimental types of
ignorance and credulity, pictures hideous and untrue and painful to gaze
upon, lies and libels on our beautiful world, and on our own race. And
whom have we to thank for this? Religion—the so-called encourager of
truth, charity, and all that is beautiful and good.
EASTERN ART.
Before beginning the renascence we must glance through Mohammedan,
Chinese, and Japanese art. [Sidenote: Mohammedan Art.] With Mohammedan
art we have little to do, as it was entirely decorative. It is seen at
its best in the Alhambra, and was not the outcome of any study of
nature. The Arabian mind seems to have been unable to rise beyond a
conventional geometrical picture-writing. Such minds are seen to-day in
all countries amongst the undeveloped. Quite recently we have seen some
of the best modern negro work from the West Coast of Africa; there too
was the love of geometrical ornamentation as strong as in the Arabian
art. [Sidenote: Art amongst the Philistines.] We repeat, this
artistically-speaking low standard of development is often seen among
the people of to-day, and though highly educated in all else, in art
they are uneducated, in short they are survivals; and the mischief is,
that they judge pictures by their survival decorative standard; they
look for bright colours placed in Persian-rug juxtaposition, and talk of
“glorious colouring.” It never seems to occur to them what art really
is, and what the artist has tried to express, and how well he has
expressed it; and they never refer their “glorious colouring” to the
infallible standard—nature; but seem to imagine there are abstract
standards of colour and form. [Sidenote: Water-colours.] “Glorious
colourings” are oftener than not meretricious lies dressed out in
gaudiest, vulgarest apparel, and when compared with nature these
“colourings” will be found veritable strumpets. Look carefully at many
of the much-vaunted water-colours, and then carefully study the same
scene in nature, and if many of those water-colours please you
afterwards—well, in matters artistic, you have the taste of a
frugivorous ape. But apply this test to the water-colours of Israels or
Mauve, and you will see they interpret nature. But they have painted
chiefly in oils, and wisely so, as there is more to be expressed by
oil-painting, and we know of few, if any, great men who confine
themselves to water-colour as a medium. But it serves the turn of a host
of men—painters, but not artists, who, with their pretty paints, make
pot-boilers, of which the form and idea are often stolen—stolen,
perhaps, from a photograph. Do such ever study nature? No. They sit at
home, and coin vulgar counterfeits with no more of nature in them than
the perpetrators have of honesty. It is time that it was clearly and
distinctly understood that the man who copies a photograph is as
despicable as the man who copies a painting, and it is very certain
neither will ever be respected by his contemporaries, or remembered by
his successors. Yet the “cheap” work of these men sells well, and the
gulled public talk glibly over them of “strength” and “tone” and
“colouring,” and what not. Nature is so subtle and astonishing in her
facts that but few even of those who do paint directly from her can come
anywhere near her, whereas, those who do not study her at all, who do
not paint _coram ipse_, fake and fake, and by faking they lie, and set
the example to others to lie, and, if not fought against, this sort of
thing would speedily take us back to the art of the Middle Ages, when we
should be under the tyranny of Crœsus, instead of Clericus.
[Sidenote: Picture-buyers.]
It is, then, the absolute duty of every picture-buyer, who has any
regard for truth, and any interest in the future of art, to learn to
study nature carefully, and to buy only that which is true and sincere,
and let the pink and white school of dishonesty die of inanition.
In short, it is high time that educated people ceased to judge painting
as they often do, by the standard of coloured rugs. This talk of
“colour” is one of the stumbling-blocks of the weak-kneed in art. Colour
is good so long as it is true, and no longer. A Persian rug, or Turkey
carpet, is not the standard of colour whereby to judge pictures, and
only those in the mental state of the frugivorous ape or the Arab
craftsmen can think so.
CHINESE AND JAPANESE ART.
[Sidenote: China and Japan.]
In China and Japan things were very different. Following Mr. Anderson’s
invaluable work, the “Pictorial Arts of Japan,” we find that their
history of pictorial art begins about A.D. 457. [Sidenote: First
period.] Mr. Anderson thinks, however, that art was only actually
planted in Japan with the introduction of Buddhism in the sixth century.
[Sidenote: Buddhism.] Then it begins badly, for it was under the
influence of religion, and in fact we read that the earliest art
consisted of Buddhist images and mural decorations. This religious
influence, together with a servile imitation of the Chinese masters, so
enslaved art, that no development of importance took place till the end
of the ninth century.
[Sidenote: The “Ni Ō.”]
Looking at the plate of the “Ni Ō,”—a wooden statue—considered the
greatest work of the time, we can see the artist had really struggled to
interpret nature, and no doubt studies were made from the nude, for the
work on the anatomy could not otherwise have been so well expressed;
but, good as it is, it runs in the Michael Angelo spirit, is
exaggerated, and lacks entirely all the greatness of the Greek
sculpture. This work—the greatest of what Mr. Anderson has called the
first period—shows that there had been a struggle towards the expression
of nature.
[Sidenote: Second period.]
The second period, we learn, ends with the fourteenth century, and is
parallel, therefore, with the European mediæval period. On comparing
plates of the Japanese work with that of the same period in Europe, we
are forced to give the palm to the Japanese artists, they were, in fact,
vastly superior. In looking at the plate of “The Death of Kosé No
Hirotaka” we cannot but feel there was much more respect for nature in
Japan than there was in Europe at that time, notwithstanding the fact
that Buddhism bore the same relation to art in Japan as Christianity did
in Europe. [Sidenote: Nobuzané.] We read also that in the twelfth
century there was one, Nobuzané, who had a brilliant reputation for
“portraits and other studies from Nature.” The specimen of Nobuzané’s
work is admirable in expression, he has caught the living expression of
his model, but the rest is conventional. [Sidenote: Chinese renascence.]
We are told that the Chinese renascence began about 1275, and that the
painters of this movement were naturalistic, “Ink sketches of birds and
bamboos, portraits and landscapes were the subjects chosen,” and though
these were only a kind of picture-writing, yet the movement led the
artists more and more to study nature.
[Sidenote: Third period.]
Coming now to Mr. Anderson’s third period, from the end of the
fourteenth century to the last quarter of the eighteenth,[Sidenote:
Meichō.] we find that Meichō seems to have been to Japanese art what
Giotto was to European art, and at about the same period. We read
further on that in the early part of the fifteenth century the revived
Chinese movement referred to made its influence felt in Japan.
[Sidenote: Shiūbun.] An example given by Mr. Anderson of Shiūbun’s
idealized landscape painting, while far from satisfactory or even
pleasing, is, we venture to think, superior to the work of Giotto.
Therein is shown some power, and there is not the childishness which is
visible in Giotto’s work. [Sidenote: Soga Jasoku.] Much more
naturalistic, powerful, and pleasing are the works of Soga Jasoku,
fifteenth-century Chinese school. These landscapes show the artist had a
feeling for nature, and although he attempted in the upper plate (Plate
16) what we consider to be beyond the scope of art, yet in the lower the
master-hand shows itself. There is atmosphere in the picture. Close
observation of nature resulted in a grasp of subtlest movement and
expression. [Sidenote: Soga Chokuan.] Witness the “Falcon and Egret” by
Soga Chokuan (sixteenth century), where the power shown in depicting the
grasp of the falcon’s talon as it mercilessly crushes the helpless
egret, is very great. Then look at the paintings of birds in any of our
books, and see how wooden, how lifeless they are, compared with even the
sixteenth-century Japanese representations of bird life.
[Sidenote: Sesshiū.]
Sesshiū, we are told, was another great painter, and the founder of a
school (1420-1509). This great man, we are told, “did not follow in the
footsteps of the ancients, but developed a style peculiar to himself.
His power was greatest in landscape, after which he excelled most in
figures, then in flowers and birds,” and later on, we are told, in
animals. He preferred working in monochrome, and it is said asserted
“the scenery of nature was his final teacher.”
[Sidenote: Kano school.]
Then came the Kano School, all of whose artists evidently struggled for
Naturalism, and had great power of expression of movement but not of
form. The leader, we are told, was an eclectic, and painted Chinese
landscapes in Japan, so that he must have neglected nature, and his
works belong to the so-called imaginative or unnatural school. The best
men of this period were decidedly impressionists, and their chief aim
seems to have been to give the impression of the scene and neglect the
details, and it is perfectly marvellous how well they succeeded in
depicting movement by a very few lines. The “Rain Scene” by Kano Tanyu
is a fine example of this.
We read that the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries were periods of
decadence; we conclude therefore that in Japan art reached its highest
state during the second period, under Shiūbun, Soga Jasoku, Sesshiū and
Tanyu, who were all students of nature, and several of whom would have
been called impressionists had they painted in these days.
[Sidenote: Matahei.]
We are told that Matahei tried to found a naturalistic school, whose
followers should go direct to nature for their subjects, but the
movement did not receive any hearty impulse. However it was taken up
afterwards by a series of book-illustrators. [Sidenote: Kôrin.] Next we
read of Kôrin whose “works demonstrate remarkable boldness of invention,
associated with great delicacy of colouring, and often ... masterly
drawing and composition.” It is quite marvellous to see the work of this
seventeenth-century artist.
Winding up his account of the third period, Mr. Anderson says, “But
three-quarters of the eighteenth century were allowed to pass without a
struggle on the part of the older schools to elevate the standard of
their art, and painting was beginning to languish into inanition when
the revolutionary doctrines of a naturalistic school and of a few
artisan book-illustrators brought new aims and new workers to inaugurate
the last and most characteristic period of Japanese art.”
[Sidenote: Fourth period.]
Mr. Anderson says, “The fourth and last era began about thirty years
before the close of the last century, with the rise of the [Sidenote:
Shijo school.]Shijo naturalistic school of painting in Kioto, and a
wider development of the artisan popular school in Yedo and Osaka, two
steps which conferred upon Japanese art the strongest of those national
characteristics that have now completed its separation from the parent
art of Amia.”
He goes on to say “that the study of nature was admitted to be the best
means of achieving the highest result in art by the older painters of
China and Japan, but they limited its interpretation.”
[Sidenote: Ōkio.]
We are told that Maruyama Ōkio was the first painter who seriously
endeavoured to establish naturalistic art (1733-1795). He preached
radical ideas in art at Kioto, the centre of Japanese conservatism, and
gathered a school around him. In summing up this school, Mr. Anderson
remarks, “The chief characteristics of the Shijo school are a graceful
flowing outline, freed from the arbitrary mannerisms of touch indulged
in by many of the older masters; comparative, sometimes almost absolute,
correctness in the interpretation of the forms of animal life; and
lastly, a light colouring, suggestive of the prevailing tones of the
objects depicted, and full of delicate harmonies and gradations.” Their
naturalistic principles do not, however, seem to have fully developed,
and their works show ignorance of the scientific facts of nature,
except, perhaps, in the painting of plants, birds, and animals. Yet the
work has a _verve_ which renders it very fascinating.
[Sidenote: Hokusai.]
One great man, Hokusai, appears as the last of the race purely Japanese
and uninfluenced by European ideas, as all the Japanese artists are now.
So we find that through various phases the Japanese developed to
impressionistic landscape-painting, and no doubt when they have got more
scientific knowledge, they will make for themselves, by their wonderful
originality and patience, a position in art which will surpass all their
past efforts.
[Sidenote: Japanese art at the British Museum.]
Since writing this section, a collection of Japanese and Chinese art has
been opened at the British Museum, which the student must by all means
study, for there he will see works of most of the masters cited in these
notes. [Sidenote: The Japanese Commission.] In connection with this
subject our readers may have seen the very interesting report on Art by
the Japanese Commission that visited the galleries and schools of
Europe; wherein the conclusion of the commission on the best European
art is very interesting,—Millet being the greatest painter to their
mind. They think, too, that Japan will soon be able to show the world
something better than anything yet accomplished, which we very much
doubt.
[Sidenote: Japanese art.]
We feel, however, that wonderful as Japanese art has been, yet there is
a great gulf between it and the best Greek and modern art. To us
Japanese art is the product of a semi-civilized race, a race in which
there is strong sympathy with nature, but a very superficial
acquaintance with her marvellous workings. In short, we feel the
Japanese need a deeper and more scientific knowledge of nature, and that
their work falls far short of the best European work. At the present day
there is a craze for anything Japanese, but like all crazes it will end
in bringing ridicule upon Japanese work; for their work, though fine for
an uncivilized nation, is absurd in many points, and this stupid craze
by indiscriminate praise will only kill the qualities to be really
admired.
[Sidenote: Chinese art.]
The earliest authentic records of Chinese painting date about A.D. 251.
The earliest painters were painters of Buddhist pictures. [Sidenote:
Wu-Tao-Tsz’.] Mr. Anderson mentions as one of the best known of the
early masters, one Wu-Tao-Tsz’, whose animals were remarkable. He thinks
that the art of China of to-day is feeble compared with that which
flourished 1100 years ago. We are informed too that the “artistic
appreciation of natural scenery existed in China many centuries before
landscapes played a higher part in the European picture than that of an
accessory,” and judging from the specimens he gives in his book of the
work of the Sung Dynasty (960-1279 A.D.), the Chinese artists had a
great feeling for landscape. We are told that the painters of the
thirteenth century “studied nature from the aspect of the
impressionist,” and their subjects were all taken from nature, landscape
especially delighting them. In the fifteenth century we read “decadence
began by their neglect of nature and their cultivation of decorative
colouring, calligraphic dexterity, and a compensating disregard for
naturalistic canons.” We are told, and can readily believe it, that in
painting of bird life they were unequalled save by the Japanese, and
that down to 1279 the Chinese were at the head of the world in painting,
and their only rivals were their pupils, the Japanese. Korean art seems
also to have degenerated since the sixteenth century.
Thus we ever find the same old story. China, when she painted from
nature, was unequalled by any nation in the world; when she neglected
nature, as she does now, she fell to the lowest rank.
THE RENASCENCE.
[Sidenote: Renascence.]
This is a period of a return to the study of nature, of a carrying out
of the feelings which seemed to be developing even in Giotto’s time. No
longer now was the artist to be separated from nature by the
intervention of the Church, and though natural science was not advancing
as fast as art was, still a growing regard for nature was the order of
the day. [Sidenote: The Van Eycks.] This feeling first showed itself
strongly in the Netherlands, with the brothers Van Eyck. We are told
that the Van Eycks “mixed the colours with the medium on the palette and
worked them together on the picture itself, thus obtaining more
brilliant effects of light as well as more delicate gradations of tone,
with an infinitely nearer approach to the truth of nature.”
The Van Eycks regarded nature lovingly, and tried truthfully to
represent her, and though many of their works were of sacred subjects,
yet they were evidently studied from nature with loving
conscientiousness; and so successful were they that to this day the
picture by one of the brothers (a portrait of a merchant and his wife),
in the National Gallery, remains almost unsurpassed. [Sidenote: Portrait
of a merchant and his wife.] It is well worth a journey to the National
Gallery on purpose to see it, and we trust all those who do not already
know the picture will take the trouble to go and study it well. It is
wonderful in technical perfection, in sentiment, in truthfulness of
impression. Note the reflection of the orange in the mirror, with what
skill it is painted. In fact the whole is full of life and beauty,—the
beauty of naturalism. It is a master-piece good for all time, and yet it
is but the portrait of a merchant and his wife. No religious subject
here inspired John Van Eyck, but a mere merchant family, yet in many
ways the picture remains, and will remain, unsurpassed. Such powerful
minds as the brothers Van Eyck of course influenced all art, and they
had many followers; but it does not seem that these followers had the
insight into nature that characterized the Van Eycks, and the work falls
off after the death of the brothers, whose names represent, and ably
represent, all that was best of the fifteenth century.
[Sidenote: Quinten Massys.]
In the sixteenth century Quinten Massys was the greatest and most
naturalistic painter. He was said to be the “originator of a peculiar
class of _genre_ pictures, being in fact life-like studies from the
citizen life of Antwerp.” Here was an honourable departure from
conventionality. His followers, however, having no mind to see _how_ he
was so great, were led away from the study of nature, and where are they
now? Their names we all know, but who cares to see their works? Massys,
the greatest painter of this period in the Netherlands, was content to
take his subjects from the life of his own times, as all great men have
been, from the Egyptians downwards.
[Sidenote: Germany.]
Turning now to Germany, we shall see what the best men there thought of
naturalism. The movement towards the study of nature seems to have begun
in the methods of engraving as practised by the goldsmiths, who were
trained artists. The earliest plates we find are of subjects
illustrating the life of the times, a hopeful augury for Germany, which
was fulfilled by the work of the master, Albert Durer. [Sidenote: Albert
Durer.] We are told he had “unlimited reverence for nature, which made
him one of the most realistic painters that have ever existed.” What
strikes us most after an examination of his plates at the British
Museum, is the wonderful strength and direction with which the man tells
his tale. His engravings are, of course, without tone, and when he does
natural landscapes, as was often the case, this lack of tone is a
serious fault; but for draughtsmanship he is marvellous, and it is with
joy we learn that such a master said, “Art is hidden in nature, those
who care have only to tear it forth.” Every one interested in art, and
who is not already well acquainted with Durer’s work, should make a
point of going to the Print Room in the British Museum, and studying
carefully all examples of his work. They will, perhaps, at the same
time, notice what struck us, namely, that one of the best draughtsmen on
_Punch’s_ staff has evidently been a great admirer of Durer.
Woltmann and Woermann, speaking of Durer’s landscapes illustrative of
his travels south of the Alps, say that “he reveals himself as one of
the founders of the modern school of landscape painting.”
His “Mill” is remarkable. His etchings are mostly of familiar subjects
of every-day life. The great danger of a man like Durer is the bad
effect of his influence in later times, for inferior men imitate his
faults and not his merit, as is always the case with imitators, and they
forget that though Durer was a genius, yet did he live today he would
probably work very differently and interpret different subjects. An
artist’s time and environment must always be reckoned with.
[Sidenote: Evolution in art.]
There are so many people who cannot understand the principle of
development in art, and cannot distinguish, and appreciate, and value
artists according to their periods, and as steps in development, but are
now-a-days led by them, holding them up as models for modern painters,
whereas they are but the undeveloped efforts of earlier times. There are
numbers of young men who paint better than Durer ever did, but who lack
Durer’s genius; just as an undergraduate may know more science than
Galileo, or more mathematics than Newton, but yet be incomparably less
great than either Galileo or Newton. A work of art, however, is only
valuable for its intrinsic merits, and much as we feel the value of
Durer, Michael Angelo, Raphael, and others in their own time, for many
of their works as works of art, _quâ_ art, we care but little now, but
as historical documents they are priceless.
It may be asked how Durer, the Van Eycks, and others can be called
“naturalists,” when they painted so many religious pictures. Of course
the one explanation of this is that they painted conscientiously from
living models and natural landscapes, and not from what is called their
“imagination.” The influence of the times on these painters could not
but be tremendous, but if a man must perforce paint an “imaginative”
picture, its artistic value must always be in proportion to the truth of
the picture; and, therefore, what is good in the picture is the
naturalism of it. All the rest seems to our mind—for how could Durer or
any one else paint the Virgin Mary?—uninteresting. For Durer and the men
of his day there was, of course, every excuse, but to-day there is none;
and if painters will persist in painting—from their imagination—woolly
landscapes, peopled by impossible men, women, and animals, they will pay
the penalty of such vivid imagination—by quick and well-merited
consignment to oblivion. The public call such men learned. Learned,
forsooth! when Lemprière or the poets have supplied the idea. “There is
something great behind a picture,” is another favourite expression;
well, so there is behind many an impostor’s work, but _that greatness
belongs to another man_.
An artist looks at the art of the picture, a sentimentalist at the
subject alone; to him a badly-painted subject may bring tears to the
eyes, to an artist the same subject will probably bring a laugh. What is
the sense of copying our predecessors? And even as copyists, these
painters of “imaginative” works fall immeasurably below their models.
Botticelli towers yet like a giant over Blake and Rossetti, yet we know
he was very far from perfect.
[Sidenote: Hans Holbein.]
The next great German was Hans Holbein the younger. He had advantages
over Durer, for he was born when the feeling for nature was strong, and
thus started with a clear mind, and arrived at achievements never yet
surpassed. Hans Holbein stands out as a master for all time. His
portraits are wonderful. He, again, threw all his energy into the study
of nature, and his works are chiefly representative of the life of his
own times, portraits of merchants and fellow-citizens. There is the
full-length portrait of a gentleman in the National Gallery, whose name
has not come down to us; yet is the interest less great for that? The
dead Christ at Basle too is wonderful, as every one (with good
observation, be it always said) who has seen a naked dead body, will
affirm, but the anatomy of the skeleton in Holbein’s “Dance of Death”
would make a first year’s medical student laugh. It must have been drawn
from the imagination.
Much of Holbein’s best work was done in London, and is at present in
England, and we cannot leave this part of the subject without begging
our readers to take every opportunity of seeing the work of this
wonderful master, opportunities which, alas! will be rare enough, who
was a naturalistic painter of the first quality. [Sidenote: Swiss art.]
Turning to Switzerland, we find no name worth mentioning; and here we
would ask those who trace the effects of sublime mountain scenery on the
character of men, why there has been no Swiss art worth mentioning? Of
course the explanation is simple—because art has nothing whatever to do
with sublime scenery. The best art has always been done with the
simplest material.
In Spain and Portugal at this time was being felt the influence of the
naturalism of the Van Eycks. In France the Fontainebleau School was
struggling towards nature, but no genius arose. [Sidenote: Da Vinci.]
But in Italy there arose a giant, Leonardo Da Vinci. Never has there
been such an instance of the combination of scientific knowledge and
artistic capacity in one man. In the Louvre is his best work, the
portrait of Monna Lisa, a master-piece, but in our opinion a
master-piece eclipsed by other master-pieces. Of this great man we are
told that “he constantly had recourse to the direct lessons of nature,
saying that such teaching at second hand made the artist, not the child,
but the grandchild of nature!” Again we read that “Leonardo was wholly
in love with nature, and to know her through science and to mirror her
by art were the aims and end of his life.” [Sidenote: M. Angelo.]
Michael Angelo is the next great name we come to. Woltmann and Woermann
say that “the mightiest artist soul that has lived and worked throughout
Christian ages is Michael Angelo Buonarroti.” Now this is a literary
dogma to which we are totally opposed, and so we are to all the pedantic
criticism which follows, about “strong and lofty subjectivity,”
“purified ideal,” and what not. It is such writing as this that misleads
people. Let Michael Angelo be compared with the standard—nature—by any
student of nature, and Michael Angelo will fall immediately. Woltmann
and Woermann tell us, “he studied man alone, and for his own sake,” the
structure being to him everything. This is what we always felt to be the
_fault_ of Michael Angelo, _i.e._ that he was rather an anatomist, and
often a lover of pathological specimens, than an artist, although he was
a great sculptor. The action of the muscles in his figures may not go
beyond the verge of the possible when taken _separately_, and as one
would test them with an electric current, but we do insist that when
taken as a harmonious whole, the spasmodic action of some muscles as
expressed by him would have prevented the exaggerated actions of others
by antagonizing their effect. Michael Angelo’s work has always given us
the feeling that he had a model, on which, with an electric current, he
tested the action of each muscle separately, and then modelled each one
separately whilst the circuit was joined; in fact that his works are
amateur scientific studies and not works of art; and herein is his
weakness, he passes the bounds of nature. Woltmann and Woermann say
first of all he does go beyond the bounds of nature, and that therein
lies his greatness, and then they flatly contradict themselves, and say
an anatomist has informed them that he does not go beyond the bounds of
nature, and they quote this as a merit. Our opinion, also that of a
student of anatomy, is that he goes beyond the bounds of nature, and
exaggerates nature, and so spoils his work completely. He is far below
the Greeks. His influence, too, has been hurtful, for he has kept all
but very independent and powerful intellects within his traditions.
[Sidenote: Raphael and Correggio.]
Raphael[5] and Correggio we will quickly dismiss, though we are fully
aware of the £70,000 reputation of the one, and the literary reputation
of the other. Raphael does not appeal to us, with his sickly
sentimentality, his puerile composition, his poor technique, and his
lack of observation of nature. Many of the figures in his pictures,
standing some feet behind the foremost, are taller and larger than those
in front. We feel sure he had no independence of mind. He was a
religious youth, with no great power of thought, and time will give him
his true place. But as a taxpayer we must enter a mild protest against
the ineptitude of authorities who pay such heavy prices for pictures
such as the Raphael referred to. There was a small picture of a head—the
head of a doctor—by an unknown hand, hanging near the Raphael, which, as
a work of art, is infinitely its superior, but it was done by _an
unknown hand_. (These pictures have since been re-hung.) For that
£70,000 what a splendid collection of good work by men of the present
day could have been purchased, a collection every single picture of
which might easily be superior to all the Raphaels in the world as works
of art!
-----
Footnote 5:
M. Charcot has recently shown that Raphael’s demoniacs are all false
and untrue.
-----
[Sidenote: Del Sarto.]
To the same period belongs Andrea del Sarto, a naturalistic painter of
great power. He had more feeling for nature than most of the men of his
time, and his breadth of treatment and truthfulness of colouring are
admirable. Of course he painted religious pictures, but from the
naturalistic point of view they are wonderful. The student must study
the portrait in the National Gallery painted by him.
[Sidenote: Titian.]
The next and last great master of this period is Titian, another of the
few entitled to the name of genius. His portraits are his best works.
Michael Angelo is reputed to have said, “This man might have been as
eminent in design as he is true to nature and masterly in counterfeiting
the life, and then nothing could be desired better or more perfect.”
Titian’s works show that he had much more love for nature than Michael
Angelo ever showed, and we think it a pity for Michael Angelo’s sake
that he did not take a leaf from Titian’s book instead of criticizing
his power of design. His landscape backgrounds show a feeling for nature
far above anything painted up to that time. After his day art in Italy
fell into evil ways, and no Italian name stands out even to this day.
The study of nature was neglected, illogical traditions slipped in, and
though some writers on painting talk of “Naturalists,” in the period of
decadence, citing Caravaggio and others, we would fain know what they
mean by the term “Naturalists,” for the painters they cite were no
students of nature, as is shown by their works, which are more realistic
than naturalistic, they being as much students of nature as are the
“professional” photographers of to-day, whose ideas of nature are
sharpness and wealth of detail. [Sidenote: The camera obscura.]
Canaletto’s pictures look like bad photographs, and that he used a
camera obscura is well known, for Count Algarotti has told us as much.
He includes Ribera and other Tramontane masters in the list of those who
used the camera obscura. [Sidenote: Ribera.] Ribera however, is no small
painter, although he is not a great master. The passages in some of his
works are masterful, as in the dead Christ at the National Gallery.
FROM THE RENASCENCE TO MODERN TIMES.
[Sidenote: Preamble.]
We shall now glance over the works of the great artists throughout
Europe from the time of the Renascence period downwards, and see how and
what influence Naturalism had on them, and we shall inquire whether the
loving truthfulness to and study of nature and adhesion to the subjects
of every-day life was not the secret of the success of all who stand out
as pre-eminent during this period. The simplest method will be to take
separately the countries where art has flourished.
[Sidenote: Spain.]
Beginning with Spain, we find at the outset from history that there was
but little hope for art. Religion enchained art, and that terrible stain
on ignorant Spain, the Inquisition, gave rise to the office of
“Inspector of Sacred Pictures.” This office was no sinecure, for it
controlled all the artists' movements, even prescribing how much of the
virgin’s naked foot should be shown. Comments are needless, for how
could art flourish under such circumstances? One name, however, comes at
last to break through all rule, and in 1599, at Seville, was born
Velasquez. [Sidenote: Velasquez.] Velasquez, though moving from his
youth up in the most refined society of his native town, had the might
of genius to see that the falsely sentimental work of his predecessors
was not the true stuff, and he, like all great workers, made Nature his
watchword. He is reputed to have said he “would rather be the first of
vulgar painters than the second of refined ones,” and though he began by
painting still life straight from nature, he finally became in his
portraits one of the most refined, truthful, and greatest of painters
the world has ever seen. Though greatly influenced by the religious
tendencies of the time, we find him often painting the life around him,
and we have from his brush water-carriers, and even drunkards; but he
finally reached his greatest heights and the exercise of his full powers
in portraiture. All who have a chance, and all who have not should try
and create one, should go to the National Gallery and study the
remarkable portrait of Philip of Spain. Barely has portraiture attained
such a level as in this example, and what was the oath this painter
took? “Never to do anything without nature before him.” [Sidenote:
Murillo.] The next name, great in some ways, but not to be compared with
Velasquez, is Murillo; and when was he great? Was it in his sickly
sentimental religious pictures? No, certainly not. It was in such
pictures as the Spanish peasant boys, such as can be seen in the Dulwich
Gallery. [Sidenote: Dulwich Gallery.] This gallery is open to the
public, and quite easy of access, and should not be neglected.
[Sidenote: Fortuny.] The last Spanish name of note is that of Fortuny, a
Catalonian, who is often mistaken for a Frenchman, since he lived in
Paris some years ago. Fortuny is deserving of much praise as having been
the first to shake off the slavery of “geometrical perspective.” His
best pictures were homely and festal scenes, chiefly interiors, which he
painted as he saw them without any preconceived ideas of perspective.
For this new departure, and on account of his work, Fortuny deserves all
praise. Since his death, in 1874, no Spanish painter of note has come to
the fore, but art in that country languishes in prettiness, false
sentimentality, and works done for popularity; the _ephemeridæ_ of art.
GERMANY.
Germany seems to have neglected the lessons taught her by Durer and
Holbein, and the mystics seize her and carry her away from nature, and,
therefore, from art. Since the days of Holbein no really great man has
arisen. [Sidenote: Kaulbach.] Kaulbach, who has been well described as
“all literature,” is praised by some, but he does not seem to have had
even poetic ideas. Nature to him was nothing, but the petty doings of
_erring_ man were everything. [Sidenote: Makart.] [Sidenote: Heffner.]
Makart was meretricious and small, and Heffner’s pictures are like bad
photographs in colour, just the class of photography we are now writing
against. Had he been a photographer, he would never have risen above the
topographical, as he has never risen [Sidenote: Munkacsy.] above the
topographical in painting. Greater is the Hungarian, Munkacsy; but is he
an immortal? We doubt it.
[Sidenote: Verestchagin.]
In Russia, Verestchagin is the only name that has made any stir, but he,
like Heffner, sees Nature topographically, and the only emotion caused
by his “show” was called up by the oriental rugs.
FLEMISH ART.
[Sidenote: Rubens and Van Dyck.]
Rubens and Van Dyck we mention only to show we have not overlooked them.
The work of both shows more regard for “getting on” and the “ancients”
than for nature: it is lacking in feeling and in truth. Van Dyck is
often wood itself. [Sidenote: Teniers and Van Ostade.] Teniers the
younger as an artist is a long way ahead of either of these men, and in
some ways he goes very far. Van Ostade is often good also. His portrait
of a man lighting his pipe, a small picture to be seen at the Dulwich
Gallery, is a masterpiece of painting, and as fine as anything of the
kind done up to this period. This little gem is the work of a lover of
nature and an artist. It is quite a small canvas, about 10 × 6, with no
“subject,” nothing but a man lighting his pipe; yet it is perfect, and
far surpasses all the sentimentalities of Raphael, or the _tours de
force_ of Rubens. The student must see this picture without fail.
ENGLISH ART.
[Sidenote: Hogarth.]
The English painters of note begin with Hogarth, though the bad work of
Lely and Kneller is cited as English, because executed in England, yet
neither of these two men was English, and no lover of art would be proud
of them if they were. Hogarth, then, was the father of English painting,
and he began on good healthy lines, for he was a naturalist to the
backbone, choosing his subjects from his own time; and though he
affected to point a moral in his pictures, still there is the grip of
reality and insight into essentials in his work which mark him as a
great painter. The reader will probably have seen his work at the
National Gallery; if not, he should do so at once.
[Sidenote: Wilson.]
We pass over Wilson, for in his work is not apparent any love of nature,
but only a feeling for classicism. [Sidenote: Reynolds.] The next name
is that of Joshua Reynolds. He was a mannerist, and, though successful
in his own time, is very mortal. [Sidenote: Gainsborough.] Close on his
knightly heels came one of the true immortals, Thomas Gainsborough, one
of the best portrait-painters the world has ever seen. His landscapes,
though better than any up to his time, are not good, and his reputation
rests chiefly on his power in portraiture, in which he was certainly a
master. Naturalism breathes from his canvas; he has seized the very
essence of his sitters' being, and portrayed them full of life and
beauty. See his portrait of Mrs. Tickell and Mrs. Sheridan in the
Dulwich Gallery; you will never forget the charm and the beauty of the
ladies, wherever you go afterwards. Mrs. Siddons, in the National
Gallery, too, is wonderful. Study well these two, and then go and gaze
on a portrait by Reynolds, and we doubt not you will have learnt
something of the gulf that separated the two painters. Gainsborough was,
to our mind, the first immortal in English art, and fit to rank with Van
Eyck, Holbein, Da Vinci, Titian, and Velasquez. [Sidenote: Kauffman and
Fuseli.] Leaving “the Kauffman” and Fuseli to those who can admire them,
we pass on to poor George Morland, a genius in his own branch of art.
[Sidenote: Morland.] This man studied and painted from life, and his
pictures bear testimony that he did so, and notwithstanding the
drawbacks caused by his unfortunate temperament, his name lives and
grows more respected every day, for his study was nature, and so his
work will always be interesting.
[Sidenote: Bewick.]
We now come to a great and deservedly well-known name—that of Thomas
Bewick, the engraver on wood. Here we have a man working in a humble
way, humble that is as compared with painting or sculpture, yet loving
and studying nature in every detail, and following her in all her
mystery and charm, only daring now and then to add some quiet fancy of
his own, and yet he lives and his name grows greater every day. A true
naturalist and a real artist was he, and his fame will be lasting. When
Wilson is archaic, Bewick will be held up for admiration, so powerful is
the effect of the honest study of nature in his work. His birds and
quadrupeds we all know; but if any reader should not know them, he
should at once get a copy and study the cuts in it. Mr. Quaritch has, we
believe, recently issued a reprint of the book.
[Sidenote: Wood-engraving.]
Wood-cutting has degenerated. Men of little training and no artistic
feeling took it up, and slowly but surely the art decayed until it
became purely mechanical, and so it has remained in England. Now it bids
fair to be superseded by photo-mechanical processes, as it will
undoubtedly be entirely superseded directly a really artistic process of
reproduction is discovered for printing with the type. In the United
States, however, wood-engraving took a fresh start, and brought
photography to its aid, and our opinion is that the effect obtained in
photographs printed on albumenized paper became the effect which the
wood-cutters aimed for, and the result is a print of wonderful detail
and beauty, but for our taste it is too polished and neat, the effect of
overlaying is far too visible, and, in short, it does not render nature
truly, and though far surpassing anything of the kind done in England,
it is, as a work of art, altogether eclipsed by Bewick’s work, the
reason being that Bewick only took wood-engraving as a medium for the
expression of the beauties of nature, every line in his blocks being
full of meaning. But the hydra head of commercialism showed itself, and
wood-engravers with little or no feeling for or knowledge of nature set
to work turning out blocks like machines. Photography will keep these
artisans from falling utterly away from nature, yet such work is harmful
and of no artistic good to us, though it may please the public. Had
there been no constant returns to nature (as there must always be in
some measure when a photograph is used) decay would be sharp and speedy,
but photography bolsters up the dying art. Lately several woodblocks
have been produced cut from photographs, wherein all the beauty of the
photographs has been utterly lost by the engraver, and the results are
bastard slips of trade; but we shall have more to say on this point
later on. One thing at any rate photography can claim: that is so long
as it can be practised, art can never slip back to the crude work done
in some eras of its decadence. Photography has helped many of these
feeble wood-cutters immensely, and the _épicier_-critic calls these
works “precious.” It is extraordinary how men will deceive themselves.
[Sidenote: Water-colours.]
Now we come to a branch of art which is essentially English, namely,
painting in water-colours. It is not meant by this that water-colour is
a new medium, or that the English water-colourists were the first to use
the medium, for the tempera paintings were but water-colours, and Albert
Durer and others used it considerably; but what is implied is that the
English were the first to adopt it largely and develop it, though it was
reserved for the modern Dutchmen and Frenchmen to show its full
capabilities. The painter in water-colour has not, of course, the same
control over his medium as he has in using oils, and the work when
finished even by the best artists, has an artificial look that belies
nature. But to see really true water-colours the reader must not look
for them in English galleries. No Englishman ever came so near to
nature—to the subtleties of nature—in water-colour as do the modern
Dutch and French painters. The reader would do well to go to Goupil’s
exhibitions of modern Dutch and French painters, which are held from
time to time, and keep a look-out for water-colours, and he should
carefully study them at the Paris _Salon_. Prophecy is always risky and
of little count, but we would like to venture a prophecy that
water-colours will never take a very prominent place in art, because no
great genius will ever be content with the medium. Of the bulk of
English water-colours of to-day there is not one word of praise to be
said, and the student in art matters will do well to avoid all
exhibitions of this work until he has carefully studied the best work in
art, and until he has a greater insight into nature; and then let him go
to the various water-colour exhibitions, and if he does not receive a
mental shock, we shall be greatly surprised. There is but little nature
in them, indeed but little anything except pounds, shillings, and pence.
The best of them are nauseous imitations of Turner, and the whole of
them show an entire ignorance of the simplest phenomena of nature, which
would be startling did we not remember that most of them are painted
from “notes” and “memory.” These remarks do not of course apply to such
work as is done by a few modern painters, such as Mr. Whistler, but
these paint in oils first and water-colour afterwards. [Sidenote:
Girtin.] The first man worth considering in this branch of art is
Girtin, who was naturalistic as far as he could be, and had he not died
at such an early age (under thirty) the probability is that Turner would
have been eclipsed by him. Of Turner we shall speak later on. [Sidenote:
D. Cox.] The name of David Cox rises above the men of his time; but,
after all, his is not the name of an immortal. He aimed well, however,
for he tried to paint the life and landscape of his time. [Sidenote: De
Wint.] Much has been written about De Wint; but if we go to the basement
of the National Gallery and study De Wint, and then go to Norfolk and
study the landscape there, we shall find Mr. De Wint is but a sorry
painter. One thing, however, may be said in his praise. He painted out
of doors—not in his studio—and was no doubt a lover of nature. His
peasants are not the fearful travesties of Hill, Barret, and Collins.
Lewis and Cotman and Vincent have, however, done some better things than
De Wint.
Returning to oil painting, we must pass over the long list of names,
including Presidents of the Royal Academy, whose names are now all but
if not quite forgotten, for their peasantry of the Opera Bouffe, their
landscapes after Claude, their works of the imagination can now interest
no one, and never did interest any but the painters themselves and an
uneducated public.
[Sidenote: Turner.]
Then we come to Turner, that competitor in painting. To use a
colloquialism—“There is a great man gone wrong.” Had he but lived
to-day, he might have been an immortal; but he does not live, and his
lease of fame is not for so long a time as is generally imagined. It has
had an artificial afflatus through the writings of a “splendidly false”
critic, and, curiously enough, the critic, like the artist, has had
insight enough to see the true purpose of art, namely, that the artist
should be true to nature, and should be an interpreter of the life and
landscape of his own time; and, curiously enough, the critic, like the
artist, does not know what nature is. The critic has taken Turner as
nature unalloyed, and hence the whole of that gigantic work of his is
built on sand. The critic never had much, if any, weight with the best
artists. Even Turner himself was amused with the reasonings of his
eulogistic logic! and gave it out as much as a man can give out about
his eulogist, that all the tall talk about his pictures was rubbish. But
Turner was sincere according to his lights. To say of his earlier
pictures that he painted in _rivalry_ or imitation, if you like, of
Wilson, Poussin, and Claude, is to say they are bad, as they undoubtedly
are. This spirit of rivalry never seems to have deserted Turner, for in
his will he left directions bequeathing one of his pictures to the
Academy, on condition it should be hung side by side with a Claude. The
spirit of this is, of course, patent. He thinks he has beaten Claude,
and that is enough. No great genius would have descended to that. Art
was to him an unending competition, and the result was that nature was
neglected; and though he revelled in the life and landscape of his own
times, yet the small spirit of competition was his ruin. Had he humbly,
like Constable, had faith in his tenets, and lovingly and modestly clung
to nature, his fame might have been immense and everlasting. His later
pictures are, of course, the eccentricities of senility, and the false
colourings seen by a diseased eye, as has been lately shown, and are as
unlike nature as one could expect such work to be. But let us take his
“Frosty Morning” at the National Gallery. Look well at it, and what do
you find? Falsity everywhere, and most of the essence and poetry of a
frosty morning completely missed. The truest picture by Turner that we
know is a little aquarelle at South Kensington—“A View on the Thames.”
Here, then, when we get Turner true to the truth which he felt in
himself, and not competing (that we know of), what do we find? We find
him immensely behind De Hooghe in a truthful and poetic expression of
nature, as is well possible for so great a man. The Liber Studiorum
should also be carefully studied, noting the falsities; trees drawn by
rule, figures not drawn at all, the total disregard of the phenomena of
nature, sometimes even the evidence of several suns in one picture.
There is no truth of tone; no atmosphere; the values are all wrong; all
the charm and subtlety of nature completely missed. [Sidenote: De Hooghe
and Clays.] Go to De Hooghe or Clays after this, and what a difference!
Here are no meretricious adornments, but more nature and less of erring,
feeble man and his mannerisms. Turner is not the man to study, and if
you cannot “understand him” well and good. Many artists cannot and do
not wish to, for there is nothing to understand, and many French
painters of great ability jeer at his very name. [Sidenote: Constable
and Crome.] With what relief we turn from Turner to Constable and Crome.
These two East Anglians are giants in the history of English painting.
All should study Constable’s works at the National Gallery and South
Kensington; and his life by Leslie is well worth reading, as showing how
much of a naturalist in theory he was. The best example of his work that
we know is a little river scene, with some willows, which we saw at
South Kensington Museum. His work is not, however, perfect. You feel
that there is no atmosphere in his pictures. This is due to their being
out of tone. He had not the knowledge of nature that characterized De
Hooghe, and was not always faithful to his creed: hence his failings.
For though we read in his life such passages as these:—“In such an age
as this, painting should be _understood_, not looked on with blind
wonder, nor considered only as poetic inspiration, but as a
pursuit—_legitimate_, _scientific_, and _mechanical_.”... “The old
rubbish of art, the musty, commonplace, wretched pictures which
gentlemen collect, hang up, and display to their friends, may be
compared to Shakspeare’s ‘Beggarly Account of Empty Boxes.’ Nature is
anything but this, either in poetry, painting, or in the fields.”...
“Observe that thy best director, thy perfect guide is nature. Copy from
her. In her paths is thy triumphal arch. She is above all other
teachers.”... “Is it not folly, said Mr. Northcote to me in the
Exhibition, as we were standing before ——’s picture, for a man to paint
what he can never see? Is it not sufficiently difficult to paint what he
does see? This delightful lesson leads me to ask, what is painting but
an imitative art—an art that is to _realize_, not to _feign_. Then some
dream that every man who will not submit to long toil in the imitation
of nature, flies up, becomes a phantom, and produces dreams of nonsense
and abortions. He thinks to save himself under a fine imagination, which
is generally, and almost always in young men, the scapegoat of folly and
idleness.”... “There has never been a lay painter, nor can there be. The
art requires a long apprenticeship, being _mechanical_, as well as
intellectual.”... “My pictures will never be popular,” he said, “for
they have no _handling_. But I see no _handling_ in nature.”... Blake
once, on looking through Constable’s sketch-books, said of a drawing of
fir-trees, “Why, this is not drawing, but _inspiration_!” and Constable
replied, “I never knew it before; I meant it for drawing.”... “If the
mannerists had never existed, painting would have been easily
understood.”... “I hope to show that ours is a regularly taught
profession; that it is _scientific_, as well as poetic; that imagination
alone never did, and never can, produce works that are to stand a
comparison with _realities_.”... “The deterioration of art has
everywhere proceeded from similar causes, the imitation of preceding
styles, with little reference to nature.”... “It appears to me that
pictures have been overvalued, held up by a blind admiration as ideal
things, and almost as standards by which nature is to be judged, rather
than the reverse.”... “The young painter, who, regardless of present
popularity, would leave a name behind him, must become the patient pupil
of Nature”—yet Constable was not always true to himself.
[Sidenote: Crome.]
Crome, who was, in our opinion, a better painter than Constable, was
like him a naturalist, and true to his faith. There is an amusing scene
in his life, which we will quote. “A brother of the art met Crome in a
remote spot of healthy verdure, with a troop of young persons. Not
knowing the particular object of the assembly, he ventured to address
the Norwich painter thus: ‘Why, I thought I had left you in the city
engaged in your school.’ ‘I am in my school,’ replied Crome, ‘and
teaching my scholars from the only true examples. Do you think,’
pointing to a lovely distance, ‘either you or I can do better than
that?’”
Crome has expressed his view of art in the following remarks, which we
read in his life:—“The man who would place an animal where the animal
would not place itself, would do the same with a tree, a bank, a human
figure—with any object, in fact, that might occur in Nature; and
therefore such a man may be a good colourist or a good draughtsman, but
he is no artist.” At the National Gallery is to be seen a very good
specimen of his work, and one well worth studying. Vincent, another East
Anglian, did some wonderful work, quite equal to Van der Veldes'.
[Sidenote: Callcott, Nasmyth, Müller, and Maclise.]
We now pass over the names of Callcott, Nasmyth, Müller, and Maclise,
none masters, though they have been called “great colourists,” whatever
that may mean. A great colourist should be a true colourist, and Müller
is almost chromographic in originality in this respect.
[Sidenote: Creswell, Linnell, and Cooke.]
Creswell, Linnell, and Cooke, are names that stand out at this period,
and the greatest of them is Cooke; his painting of “Lobster Pots,” at
South Kensington, being wonderfully fresh and true; but none are poets;
they have but little insight into nature, though Linnell at times shows
the true feeling. A long list of well-known names follows, such as
Hilton, Haydon, Etty, and Eastlake, but none are masters, and we only
mention them to caution against them. [Sidenote: Wilkie, Stansfield,
Mulready, Leslie, Landseer, and Mason.] Of considerable power were
Wilkie, Stansfield, Mulready, Leslie, Landseer, and Mason, but none of
them was really good, although much has been written and said in praise
of their works. They are all false in sentiment, and all lack insight
into the poetry of nature. [Sidenote: Wilkie and Landseer.] In technique
Wilkie and Landseer are often strong, and they will always appeal to a
certain class of people. [Sidenote: Mason.] Mason’s work is a fine
example of the folly of introducing the so-called “imaginative” into
landscape. Take his “Harvest Moon,” when and where did ever men exist
with such limbs? the whole picture smacks of the model and of the “stage
idealism;” there is no nature there, but a laughable parody of it.
[Sidenote: F. Walker.] The next really great name in English art is that
of Frederick Walker, a naturalist, and above all an artist who had a
great grip of and insight into nature. But in his work the traditions of
the idyllic peasants of the golden age lingers, and we find his
ploughman merrily running along with a plough as though it were a toy
cart; and what a ploughman! he never saw a field in his life. This is a
grave fault, and takes away from the greatness of Walker, yet
notwithstanding this his name will always be a landmark in English art.
The reader will be able to study one of his works in the National
Gallery. The date of Walker’s death brings us down to the actual
present. Regarding living English painters we will remain discreetly
silent. It must be remembered that English art is young, beginning as it
practically does in the eighteenth century, for the miniature-painters
cannot count for much, and we must therefore not expect too much. Great
men, especially great artists, are rare as Koh-i-noors. England can
boast of a few, such as Gainsborough, and Constable and Crome.
[Sidenote: American Art.] Of American art there is but little to say.
[Sidenote: Whistler.] No name stands out worthy of record till J. M.
Whistler appears, and he, though an American by birth, can hardly be
called an American painter, for the life and landscape of his own
country he neglects, as also do[Sidenote: Sargent and Harrison.] Sargent
and Harrison, two strong painters, both French by education. Whistler’s
name rises far above any artist living in England, his portrait of his
mother and those of Carlyle and Sarasate are works good for all time and
worthy to be ranked with the best. Mr. Whistler’s influence, too, has
been great and good. As a pioneer he led the revolt against ignorant
criticism by his attack on Ruskin. Vide “Art and Art Criticism, Whistler
_v._ Ruskin.” His life in England has been a long battle for art, and
though many do not approve of all his methods, and still less of his
brilliant but illogical “Ten o'Clock,” his work and influence have been
for good. Another great step in advance, introduced by Mr. Whistler, has
been the reform in hanging pictures; though he has not been allowed to
carry out his plans thoroughly, yet he has managed his exhibitions much
more artistically than any others in the country. In landscape his
night-scene at Valparaiso is marvellous, and we doubt whether paint ever
more successfully expressed so difficult a subject. But even as Homer
nods, so does at times Mr. Whistler, and sometimes “impressions” in oil,
water-colour, and etching appear with his name, an honour of which they
are unworthy. Yet so long as art lives will Mr. Whistler live in his
Carlyle, his portrait of his mother, Lady Campbell, and some smaller
works. [Sidenote: Sargent.] Mr. Sargent’s Carnations and Lilies must be
fresh in our readers' minds. We will only say of it that we never saw
the actual physical facts of nature so truthfully and subtly rendered.
It is indeed a picture whose title to admiration will be lasting, and if
the reader has not already seen it or, having seen it, has listened to
ignorant critics, and passed it over as being “ugly,” let him go to
South Kensington and view it again, for the nation is its fortunate
possessor. Let him look well at it, and consider what it is. It
represents a garden at the time of day when the sunlight is fading but
has not quite gone—crepuscule in fact, and with the dying light of day
is represented the artificial light of Chinese lanterns. This is indeed
a masterpiece. [Sidenote: Harrison.] Mr. Harrison’s “In Arcady” is
wonderful in its effect of sunshine through trees, though the picture is
marred by the low type of the models introduced and by the painting of
the figures. Had it but been pure landscape it would have been a
wonderful piece of work. Never have we seen the effect of noontide heat
so well rendered. This, then, brings us to the end of American art, and
it is to be hoped that men strong as these will go back to their own
country and paint the life of their own land and time. [Sidenote: Hunt.]
William Hunt is a man much thought of in America, but we have never seen
any of his paintings, though his book shows him to be a naturalist to
the heart, and the reader will do well to read it.
Here, then, we must leave England and America, only remarking that
things look bad for the education of the American public when the best
Americans stay away, and when rich sausage-makers buy Herbert’s works
with which to educate themselves, and when catalogue compilers take over
boat-loads of English water-colours with which still further to lead
them wrong. America wants no such education as can be given by Herbert’s
senilities or English water-colours. She wants a band of earnest young
men, who, having learned their technique in the best schools in the
world, namely those of Paris, shall return to America and paint the
scenes of their own country, and therein only lies the hope for American
art.
DUTCH ART.
[Sidenote: Rembrandt.]
The first mighty name of the modern period is that of Rembrandt Van Ryn.
Holland, by her bravery, had thrown off the Spanish yoke, and with it
the crushing yoke of Catholicism, and stood free to follow her own bent.
As a result of this freedom a body of Naturalists arose who did more for
modern art than any body of painters in the world. Rembrandt, though a
giant and fit for the company of the immortals, Van Eyck, Velasquez,
&c., was not perfect, for sometimes the power of tradition lurks in his
work, and he forces his portraits by warm colours in the background, an
artifice which was not at all necessary, and which Mr. Whistler has done
without. There are a number of his works in the National Gallery, and a
good one in the Dulwich Gallery, where is also a great Velasquez, so
that the reader should not fail to go there. Rembrandt was inspired by
the simple life around him, portraits and interiors satisfied him. It is
a significant fact that the greatest painters, Durer, Da Vinci,
Velasquez, and Rembrandt have been content to paint the life of their
own times and not to draw upon their imagination. The learned painter,
it cannot be too often repeated, is he who is learned in all the
resources of his art, and we question very much whether one great reason
why so few great painters have arisen is not that artists as a rule are
so poorly and narrowly educated. At any rate, the opposite holds good,
that the most highly and soundly educated artists, men who moved and
held their own in the best intellectual societies of their time, were
naturalists. But to return to Rembrandt. Perhaps his mastery, his grip
of nature, show forth as much in his etchings as in his paintings.
[Sidenote: Etchings.] He, like all great etchers, and there are few
enough, used etching only within its legitimate limits, that is, as a
method of expression by line, in a simple, direct and brief manner. An
etching by a master may be looked upon in the same light as an
epigram,[6] sonnet or ode by a poet. Many of Rembrandt’s etchings can be
seen in the British Museum, and should be thoroughly well studied; after
which study, pick up some of the unmeaning work of Seymour Haden or any
other modern etcher, except Mr. Whistler and Rajon,[7] and you will,
without doubt, distinguish the difference. Most modern works are good
examples of how _not_ to etch. Line after line is put in without any
meaning at all; there is no evidence of the study of nature in the work
and the subjects are trivial and commonplace. One of the greatest evils
commercialism has done to art is to ruin modern etching, by having
pictures of the old masters copied slavishly by the etcher, and
elaborated and worked up, so that one wearies of them. Such work can
scarcely be said to rise to the dignity of fine art at all, and
Rembrandt, we think, would rise in horror from his grave, if he could
see his paintings reproduced by etchers. _Any_ reproduction of a picture
is unsatisfactory and does not become fine art at all, but is only
useful to publish reflections of the mind whose work it is intended to
represent, and for our part we think a good photo-etching does this
better, because more faithfully, than any other process. It is difficult
to imagine the mind that can set itself to work for months, even years,
at an engraving or etching from another man’s work when the world is so
full of pathos and poetry, and subjects abound on all sides. No great
man was ever found in this category.
-----
Footnote 6:
Epigram here being used in the old Greek sense.
Footnote 7:
Now dead.
-----
Durer and Rembrandt etched, and Mr. Whistler etches from Nature direct,
not impertinently—there is no other word for it—tampering with other
men’s work. But the public will buy these reproductions, and an
artificial value is thus given to them, and the dealers will of course
encourage whatever pays. [Sidenote: Print-sellers.] One etching by
Rembrandt himself is worth all these reproductions of pictures by
engraving, etching, mezzo-tint, or photo-etching, because it is an
original work of art, the outcome of the loving study of nature. Not
long ago a letter appeared in one of the literary “weeklies,”
complaining of the stamping of photogravures by the Print-sellers'
Association. The obvious answer to this print-seller’s letter is, of
course, that with the works of living painters, the style of
reproduction rests with the painter, and if the artist is satisfied with
photo-etching, what has any one else to say—painters are the best judges
of these things. Very few painters we know would entrust the
reproduction of their pictures to etchers or engravers, or would
countenance the _publication of another man’s view of their work_. We
have seen photographs of Whistler’s Sarasate, but never engravings of
it. With bad paintings on the other hand, the engraving of them has
often made the painter’s name as well as the engraver’s. We could cite
an example of a living painter who owes his reputation chiefly to the
engravings of his works, and poor things they are even when embellished
by the process. At the time this discussion was raging amongst the
philistines, it was gravely asserted that “engravings always rose in
price,” and this was given as a reason for buying them. Have the
engravings of Mr. Landseer’s pictures risen in price! Ask the poor
subscribers to the first copies. Will the engravings of Doré’s works
rise in price? _Quien sabe?_ If the reader is under any such erroneous
idea, let him attend a few sales of engravings in London, and he will
see proofs of etchings and engravings knocked down for a few shillings.
[Sidenote: Van Ostade.]
Leaving with regret the great Rembrandt, we pass over several smaller
but often-quoted names, the most influential name we come to is Van
Ostade, another naturalist of great power, of whom we have already
spoken. [Sidenote: De Hooghe.] Next we come to De Hooghe. This is the
man who first really gripped thoroughly and expressed truly on canvas
the mystery and poetry of the open air. There are two specimens
(courtyards) of this wonderful painter’s work at the National Gallery.
They are an education in themselves, and are well worth long and careful
study for hours, indeed there are few pictures more worthy of study.
There they hang, fresh as nature and beautiful as paint can express,
good, valuable for all time—why? Because the painter has known how to
give the sentiment of _plein air_. There they hang true and lovely,
pictures of Dutch life in the seventeenth century. No history can come
up to them in historic value, none can be so true.
[Sidenote: Cuyp.]
Cuyp we will pass over with few words. A great second-rate man he
undoubtedly was, but his hot colouring smacks of the imagination rather
than of nature. Paul Potter and Ruysdael also are men with unduly great
reputations; they are both false in sentiment, and they handled nature
with impertinence. Any careful observer can see that Ruysdael played
with the lighting of landscapes as did Turner, and of course it is well
known that he was not particular as to painting his landscapes on the
spot. There is no nature in him, it is all Ruysdael, Ruysdael, Ruysdael,
eternally Ruysdael.
[Sidenote: Hobbema.]
Hobbema at times verged near the truth and greatness, as for instance in
the painting of a road with trees, in the National Gallery, which our
readers will do well to study; but he is insincere and untrue all
through and was not a naturalist. [Sidenote: Van der Velde.] In sea
painting, Van der Velde the younger is wonderful in his truth and love
of nature. Good specimens of his work can be seen in the National
Gallery.
[Sidenote: Israels.]
Coming down to our own times, the elder Israels stands out as a giant, a
distinguished master. We have only been able to see a few of his
pictures, but those show us the master. Hopeful, indeed, is the art of
Holland and Belgium with such men as Artz, Mauve,[8] Maas M. Maris,
Mesdag, Boosboom, and others. The reader will often have opportunities
of seeing works by these men at the French Gallery, the Hanover Gallery,
and Goupil’s, and he should take every opportunity of studying their
works most carefully.
-----
Footnote 8:
Now dead.
-----
FRANCE.
And now, lastly, we come to France—France where art has in modern times
reached its highest level. France has in modern times always been the
leader of civilization in Europe, and even now she is in the van of
modern progress, our intellectual mother. We may have a finer literature
to show, in Germany science may be more profound, but in all that is
greater than literature or science, that is in solving the problem of
being and throwing off the yoke of religious and political despotism,
France has become the leader. Practical, energetic, and thrifty, the
French with all their faults, still remain in many ways the first nation
of the world. France and the French have more of the Ancient Greek’s
_esprit_ than any other nation has or ever has had. In all the
humanizing influences that distinguish brute man from civilized man, the
French are to the fore, but in histrionic, glyptic and pictorial art,
she is unapproachable, and still reigns Queen of the Arts, in these
branches.
[Sidenote: Poussin and Le Brun.]
Passing over Nicolas Poussin, Le Brun and other lesser names, whose
works are not those of masters, [Sidenote: Claude Lorraine.] we arrive
at Claude Lorraine, who may claim to have an inkling of the truth and
whose work shows a distinct advance on Poussin, but who after all is no
master because not loyal to nature, and therefore his already doubtful
reputation will go on diminishing. [Sidenote: Watteau.] The first name
that really stands forth as great in French art is that of Watteau.
Watteau, however, cannot be ranked among the Immortals, for though his
technique was marvellous, and his power of drawing unsurpassed, he like
all his contemporaries, artists and otherwise, neglected nature, living
as they did in the artificial times of Louis XIV. There is a picture in
the National Gallery which well explains what we mean. Then name after
name is handed down to us, but in vain do we look for a master among
them. [Sidenote: Boucher and Greuze.] Boucher and Greuze still have
admirers, but they are not great painters, because they did not study
nature or at least did not succeed in painting her, as it is very easy
to see from their works. [Sidenote: Delacroix.] Delacroix strove to rise
from the artificial influence of the time, but he was not strong enough
to become a master. [Sidenote: Ingres.] It was reserved for Ingres to
make a real advance. He, though imbued to some extent with the old
spirit of classicism, was a deep lover of nature, and the story of the
struggle for the mastery between those two opposing tendencies is the
story of his art and life. Though he rises above all previous painters
of his country, he cannot be ranked with the masters. With Ary Scheffer
there was a retrogression which in its turn was counteracted by
Delaroche. [Sidenote: Delaroche.] It was Delaroche who afterwards said
an artist would one day have to use photography. Still, in vain do we
look for a genius, and until Constable’s pictures exhibited in 1824 in
Paris, aroused the French as to the real aims of art, no really great
master appears. But when practical France saw, she immediately took up
naturalism. [Sidenote: Descamps.] Then we have first Descamps, who took
up the newly revived ideas, but failed, and Rousseau made the real
departure—the poetry and mystery of nature roused in him an ardent
sympathy, and all honour to him for struggling on at Barbizon, in the
face of the neglect and contumacy of the _Salon_.[Sidenote: Rousseau.]
But Rousseau, hero though he was, never rose to be a mighty painter, and
his works fall far behind those of the best painters of to-day, but as a
pioneer his name will always be remembered, and though he failed, he at
least took Nature as his watchword. [Sidenote: Corot.] After Rousseau
came Corot, a master good for all time. His early works show signs of
the classical spirit, from which he had not yet shaken himself free,
thus we sometimes see in his early works, peasants strangely habited and
reminding one of the seventeenth century or ancient Greece, which is of
course ridiculous; but his later work is true and great. Full of breadth
and feeling for the subtleties and poetry of nature, he has never been
surpassed. Examples of his work in England can sometimes be seen in the
French Gallery, the Hanover Gallery and at Goupil’s, but it must be
remembered that great as Corot is, there is much of his work that is
bad. [Sidenote: Daubigny.] Another great painter is Daubigny, a
contemporary of Corot’s, and though not such a subtle observer as Corot,
still he is a painter whose work has had great influence and will live
though it has been surpassed by younger men. [Sidenote: Troyon.] Troyon
was another who like Corot loved and studied and painted from nature,
but he lacked the insight into nature that Corot had, and his work is
not as true as that of his contemporary.
[Sidenote: Millet.]
At length, however, we arrive at an Immortal name, that of Jean François
Millet. This great man must not be confounded with two Jean François
Millets who lived years before, and who were not artists at all though
painters. Everything about J. F. Millet the Great, is worthy of study.
Let the student seize every chance of studying his works, chances which
will, alas! be rare enough as many of his best pictures are in America
and most of the others in France. His pastels and water-colours are not
very good, but his etchings which (reproduced) can be seen in the
British Museum, are valuable for strength and power. Here is a
directness of expression never surpassed. Before leaving him we will
quote a few passages from his letters:—
[Sidenote: J. F. Millet.]
“I therefore concede that the beautiful is the suitable.... Understand
that I do not speak of absolute beauty, for I do not know what it is,
and it seems to me only a tremendous joke. I think people who think and
talk about it do so because they have no eyes for natural objects; they
are stultified by ‘finished art,’ and think nature not rich enough to
furnish all needs. Good people, they poetize instead of being poets.
Characterize! that is the object.
“When Poussin sent to M. de Chantelon his picture of the ‘Manna,’ he did
not say, ‘Look, what fine _pâte_! Isn’t it swell? Isn’t it tip-top?’ or
any of this kind of thing which so many painters seem to consider of
such value, though I cannot see why they should. He says: ‘If you
remember the first letter which I wrote to you about the movement of the
figures which I promised you to put in, and if you look at the whole
picture I think you will easily understand which are those who languish,
which are filled with admiration, those who pity, those who act from
charity, from great necessity, from desire, from the wish to satiate
themselves, and others—for the first seven figures on the left hand will
tell you all that is written above, and all the rest is of the same
kind!’
“Very few painters are sufficiently careful as to the effect of a
picture seen at a distance great enough to see all at once, and as a
whole. Even if a picture comes together as it should, you hear people
say, ‘Yes, but when you come near it is not finished!’ Then of another,
which does not look like anything at the distance from which it should
be seen, ‘But look at it near by; see how it is finished!’ Nothing
counts except the fundamental. If a tailor tries on a coat, he stands
off at a distance enough to see the fit. If he likes the general look,
it is time enough then to examine the details; but if he should be
satisfied with making fine button-holes and other accessories, even if
they were _chefs-d'œuvre_, on a badly-cut coat, he will none the less
have made a bad job. Is not this true of a piece of architecture, or of
anything else? It is the manner of conception of a work which should
strike us first, and nothing ought to go outside of that. It is an
atmosphere beyond which nothing can exist. There should be a _milieu_ of
one kind or another, but that which is adopted should rule.
“As confirmation to the proposition that details are only the complement
of the fundamental construction, Poussin says, ‘Being fluted (pilasters)
and rich in themselves, we should be careful not to spoil their beauty
by the confusion of ornament, for such accessories and incidental
subordinate parts are not adapted to works whose principal features are
already beautiful, unless with great prudence and judgment, in order
that this may give grace and elegance, for ornaments were only invented
to modify a certain severity which constitutes pure architecture.’
“We should accustom ourselves to receive from nature all our
impressions, whatever they may be, and whatever temperament we may have.
We should be saturated and impregnated with her, and think what she
wishes to make us think. Truly, she is rich enough to supply us all. And
whence, should we draw, if not from the fountain-head? Why for ever
urge, as a supreme aim to be reached, that which the great minds have
already discovered in her, because they have ruined her with constancy
and labour, as Palissy says? But nevertheless, they have no right to
dictate for mankind one example for ever. By that means the productions
of one man would become the type and the aim of all the productions of
the future.
“Men of genius are gifted with a sort of divining-rod; some discover in
nature this, others that, according to their kind of scent. Their
productions assure you that he who finds is formed to find; but it is
funny to see how, when the treasure is unearthed, people come for ages
to scratch at that one hole. The point is to know where to find
truffles. A dog who has not scent will be but a poor hunter if he can
only run at sight of another who scents the game, and who, of course,
must always be the first. And if we only hunt through imitativeness, we
cannot run with much spirit, for it is impossible to be enthusiastic
about nothing. Finally, men of genius have the mission to show, out of
the riches of nature, only that which they are permitted to take away,
and to show them to those who would not have suspected their presence,
nor ever found them, as they have not the necessary faculties. They
serve as translators and interpreters to those who cannot understand her
language. They can say, like Palissy, ‘You see these things in my
cabinet.’ They, too, may say, ‘If you give yourself up to nature, as we
have done, she will let you take away of these treasures according to
your powers. You only need intelligence and good will.’
“It must be an enormous vanity or an enormous folly that makes certain
men believe that they can rectify the pretended lack of taste or the
errors of Nature. On what authority do they lean? With them who do not
love her, and who do not trust her, she does not let herself be
understood, and retires into her shell. She must be constrained and
reserved with them. And, of course, they say, ‘The grapes are green.
Since we cannot reach them, let us speak ill of them.’ We might here
apply the words of the prophet, ‘God resisteth the proud, and giveth
grace to the humble.’
“Nature gives herself to those who take the trouble to court her, but
she wishes to be loved exclusively. We love certain works only because
they proceed from her. Every other work is pedantic and empty.
“We can start from any point and arrive at the sublime, and all is
proper to be expressed, provided our aim is high enough. Then what you
love with the greatest passion and power becomes a beauty of your own,
which imposes itself upon others. Let each bring his own. An impression
demands expression, and especially requires that which is capable of
showing it most clearly and strongly. The whole arsenal of nature has
ever been at the command of strong men, and their genius has made them
take, not the things which are conventionally called the most beautiful,
but those which suited best their places. In its own time and place, has
not everything its part to play? Who shall dare to say that a potato is
inferior to a pomegranate?
“Decadence set in when people began to believe that art, which she
(Nature) had made, was the supreme end; when such and such an artist was
taken as a model and aim without remembering that he had his eyes fixed
on infinity.
“They still spoke of Nature, but meant thereby only the life-model which
they used, but from whom they got nothing but conventionalities. If, for
instance, they had to paint a figure out of doors, they still copied,
for the purpose, a model lighted by a studio light, without appearing to
dream that it had no relation to the luminous diffusion of light out of
doors—a proof that they were not moved by a very deep emotion, which
would have prevented artists from being satisfied with so little. For,
as the spiritual can only be expressed by the observation of objects in
their truest aspect, this physical untruth annihilated all others. There
is no isolated truth.
“The moment that a man could do something masterly in painting, it was
called good. If he had great anatomical knowledge, he made that
pre-eminent, and was greatly praised for it, without thinking that these
fine acquirements ought to serve, as indeed all others should, to
express the thoughts of the mind. Then, instead of thoughts, he would
have a programme. A subject would be sought which would give him a
chance to exhibit certain things which came easiest to his hand.
Finally, instead of making one’s knowledge the humble servant of one’s
thought, on the contrary, the thought was suffocated under the display
of a noisy cleverness. Each eyed his neighbour, and was full of
enthusiasm for a manner.”
[Sidenote: Bastien-Lepage.]
Bastien-Lepage we had judged from reproductions, but we find lately, on
seeing some of his work, that we had all along misjudged him, thinking
him a much greater painter than he really is. This study of
Bastien-Lepage has been a revelation to us of the quite misleading and
dangerous power of reproductions of a painter’s work in black and white.
All the black and white reproductions that we have seen of this
painter’s work give the impression of much greater work than the
originals really are, and we would caution all our readers against
judging of any painter’s or sculptor’s work by a reproduction by any
method, from etching to cheap wood-cutting, for they may be woefully
misled. We feel sure these reproductions—no matter of what kind—will
have a very harmful effect on art, and will give quite wrong opinions of
work; and they are, no matter of what kind, whether etching, engraving,
photo-etching, woodcut, or photograph, to be strongly condemned.
Bastien-Lepage is not even always strong in drawing, and his sentiment
is often false, untrue, and brutal, and not nearly so fine as Courbet’s
sentiment, yet Courbet’s preceded him; he was but a follower, where
Courbet was a leader.
[Sidenote: Breton and Lhermitte.]
Of the older living painters, Jules Breton and Lhermitte stand out as
strong men; but Breton has long ago been passed, and Lhermitte is not
the man he was, but some of Lhermitte’s work will live always. There is
a remarkably fine Lhermitte in the Luxembourg, which every one should
try and see. Both are naturalistic painters. Of other living painters
much might be written, for they, in our opinion, represent the acme of
painting and its highest development. We feel that we never saw painting
done to perfection until we saw the Paris _Salon_, and we strongly
recommend all readers of this book, after they have studied the pictures
and sculptures here referred to, and have some insight into nature, to
make without fail a yearly pilgrimage to the French _Salon_, where they
will see painting at its highest development, though of course there is
much bad work in the _Salon_, as at other exhibitions.
The marvellous pastel work, aquarelles, and charcoal drawings will all
show them how immeasurably behind France, England is in all the
pictorial arts. Englishmen do not know what drawing is—therein lies the
cause of their failure. This very year we went to the Academy the day
after seeing the Salon, and what a fall was there!
Of living French painters the work the student should carefully study is
that of Meissonier,[9] Cabanel, Carolus Duran, Pelouse, Protais,
Detaille, Perrandeau, Doucet, Petitjean, Busson, Landelle, Appian,
Cazin, Harpignies, La Touche, Lansyer, Le Roux, C.M.G., Abraham,
Anthonissen, Moreau de Tours, Nys, Nobillet, Marinier, Michel M. Japy,
Carne, Vallois, Jan-Monchablon, Joubert, Boucher, J. F., Cabrit, Durot,
Poithevin, Beauvais, Denant, Dufour, and many others whose names we
forget for the moment, but, be it said, all naturalistic painters to a
marvellous degree.
-----
Footnote 9:
Now dead.
-----
This brings us to the end, so we will leave painting with France in the
van and Holland and Belgium closely following and America and England
floundering in the rear of these three, for we are no believers in the
tall talk of the greatness of the immediate future of English painting,
though there is good hope since an earnest and sincere band of young
artists has arisen in England whose watchword is “Naturalism.”
SCULPTURE.
With sculpture the same old story greets us that we meet with in the
history of painting. After the masterpieces of Greece come the puerile
conventionalities of the Early Christians. [Sidenote: Niccola Pisano.]
But as we have hitherto done so shall we continue—that is, we shall
discuss the masters only, and the first we come to is Niccola Pisano.
Though his work shows that he was still imbued with the spirit of
classicism, yet he struggled to throw off the paralyzing conventionality
of servile imitation, and tried hard to get back to nature, and some of
his sculptures in Pisa are wonderful for expression. He was the pioneer
where followed the great Donatello. Pisano’s son worked in the same
direction as his father, and has left some wonderful architectural
monuments and sculptures, but his fame rests chiefly on his
architectural works, with which we are not here concerned. [Sidenote:
Andrea and Nino Pisano.] Andrea and Nino Pisano made great strides
towards truth and naturalness, and so paved the way for the great man to
come. [Sidenote: Ghiberti.] They were immediately followed by Ghiberti,
who spent many years of his life in working at the well-known mighty
doors of the baptistery at Pisa. These great gates, however, show no
subtlety of the sculptor’s art. Tonality there is none; the whole is
rather a kind of emblematic picture-writing than sculpture, but Ghiberti
says he spent his time in “studying nature and investigating her methods
of work,” so that even though he did not succeed, nature was his
watchword. [Sidenote: Donatello.] But all these sink into insignificance
before the mighty name of Donatello. Like all true and great artists,
Donatello appreciated the limits of his art, made naturalism his
watchword, and followed his principles with sincerity. Whilst we are now
writing, the wonderful low relief of St. Cecilia, which is on view at
Burlington House, is fresh in our mind. There is the work in dark
marble, looking as fresh, beautiful, lifelike, and artistic, as it did
the day it left the artist’s hand. What simplicity, what truth of
impression, and what subtle tonality is there seen! Those who remember
this masterpiece may have noticed the way in which the outline of the
neck is raised, and how untrue it looked close to; but at a distance the
impression was perfect, and the suggestion of shadow most beautifully
rendered. That the modelling of the mouth is feeble is obvious, but
where is perfection? Casts of this work can be had for a mere trifle
from Bruciani, Covent Garden, and we strongly recommend those who have
not seen the original to get one, for a suggestion of such work is
better than a gallery of trash. There is another fine specimen of
Donatello’s work in low relief at South Kensington, but in that there is
the mark of the allegorical, and it just misses the distinguished and
simple character of the St. Cecilia. We do not care for his Judith and
Holofernes, though it is one of the most noted of his works, and owes
its renown more to its historical association than to its artistic
qualities. Where Donatello relied on nature, however, his work is
unsurpassed for truth and subtlety. It was natural that such a great man
should have many followers, but, like most imitators of genius, they
copied his bad points and none of his good ones, for these they could
not attain to, not being geniuses themselves. [Sidenote: Vittore
Pisano.] The wonderful medals of Vittore Pisano or Pisanello must not be
forgotten, as they are well worthy of study. The student can get casts
of most of these for a trifling sum, and we strongly recommend him to
buy a few casts of Pisanello’s medals.
[Sidenote: Della Robbia.]
The work of the Della Robbia family is so well known that we must touch
upon it, although for most of it we care little or nothing, the medium,
a glazed terracotta, being unnatural. Lucca, the greatest of the family,
worked, however, at first in marble. Here and there in his work one
meets with a beautiful face, and often with fine expressions, but the
whole lacks simplicity and fineness. He was more a decorative artist
than a sculptor.
[Sidenote: M. Angelo.
Cellini.
Canova.]
Of Michael Angelo we have spoken. Benvenuto Cellini, a name well known,
was a master in gold-working, but hardly a sculptor. Many lesser names
follow, but no immortal is again seen in Italy; for though Canova made a
name of some sort, he was no master. After Michael Angelo came imitation
and decline. Neglect of nature, together with patronage, killed the
spark of art, and so thoroughly killed it that even writers on art who
had no art-training were listened to, as Winckelmann and Lessing,
[Sidenote: Thorwaldsen.] but their work only produced an artificial
afflatus, as Canova and Thorwaldsen proved, for both were small men,
false in sentiment, and with little or no insight into nature. We say
this advisedly, after seeing much of Canova’s work and nearly all that
of Thorwaldsen. There is no nature in their works, but in addition to a
classical sentiment a puerile realism which is still in vogue in Italy
to-day in such work as a Pears delights in, “You Dirty Boy” and other
trivialities. England, Spain, Holland, and America seem, up to the
present, not to have produced a single sculptor, but, in our humble
opinion, the young sculptors of England will lead the way in the
twentieth century, and the world may look for the advent of an immortal
master and for work which will surpass the Greeks. [Sidenote: Modern
French sculptors.] At present France leads the way, and has some strong
men in Jouffrey, Aubé, Falguière, Rodin; but there, too, the tendency
seems to be towards a fumbling realism and petty _motif_. There is much
talk of French sculpture being in advance of French painting. [Sidenote:
Future of English sculpture.] We do not believe it, and we feel that
England is at present the only country where there is any distinct and
original school of sculpture, with such modellers as Gilbert and Onslow
Ford, and with such a sculptor as Havard Thomas, to say nothing of
younger men, the outlook is very bright indeed.
[Sidenote: Final advice.]
And now we must end the chapter with the final advice to the student to
study deeply all good examples of the great artists whose work we have
noted, and to leave all others alone. By and by the student will find
that he is in a position to compare the good with the bad, then will it
be time enough for him to look at the second-rate work, much of which
contains fine passages here and there and special merits of its own; but
these cannot be appreciated until the student has considerable
knowledge, and that is only to be obtained by a serious study of nature
and of the work of the best masters here cited.
[Sidenote: Barometer of naturalism.]
Finally, we think we have shown that “Naturalism” has been the watchword
of all the best artists, and that, after all, there are but few artists
in any age. Many painters and modellers and sculptors there be, but
artists are few indeed. One point which has impressed us in the inquiry
into naturalistic art is the curious regularity with which so-called
“imaginative” painters have appeared and made reputations for themselves
in the after-glow, so to speak, of the setting sun of naturalism. It
would appear that painters who have lived in an age of strong men have
got fairly staggered by the good naturalistic work of their age, and
have instinctively felt that, being no match for the great masters on
their own lines, that their only way to fame and fortune is by
eccentricity, and in _assuming_ a superior tone of culture by the
production of allegorical or classical inanities. The uneducated of
their own generation, thoroughly tired of a naturalism whose aim they
have never understood, hail with delight any novelty or new departure,
and they praise puerility and falseness of colour as colour, false
drawing as idealizing, conventional composition as original, the
conventional and modern treatment of draperies beneath which no anatomy
is discernible as an idealized and poetic treatment of drapery, and
finally, in the subject of the picture they often mistake sentimentality
for sentiment and sentiment for poetry. Thus these weaker men rise to
fame, and many follow where they lead. But the generation which gave
them fame dies, and a new generation, which has forgotten the triumph of
the naturalistic masters of the past generation, wearies of them, and
naturalistic work is again appreciated. The story of art seems to us
like the mercury in a barometer, ever oscillating upwards and downwards,
ever up towards the acme of naturalism, and ever down towards the abyss
of conventionality and classicism. If we mentally map out the readings
of this barometer on a chart, we shall find naturalism triumphant as the
apex of each curve, whilst in the ascending curve will be found the
strugglers towards naturalism, and in the descending curve the fallers
away from naturalism. [Sidenote: The masters.] On the apices of these
curves will be found triumphant the masters, such as the sculptors of
the Egyptian lions, the sculptors of the Assyrian lion-hunts, Pheidias,
Van Eyck, Durer, Holbein, Da Vinci, Titian, Velasquez, Donatello,
Rembrandt, De Hooghe, Corot, Millet, Gainsborough, and Whistler.
CHAPTER III.
PHENOMENA OF SIGHT, AND ART PRINCIPLES DEDUCED
THEREFROM.
[Sidenote: Introduction.]
Having thus demonstrated that the best artists have always tried to
interpret nature, and express by their art an impression of nature as
nearly as possible similar to that made on the retina of the human eye,
it will be well to inquire on scientific grounds what the normal human
eye really does see.
[Sidenote: The argument.]
Our contention is that a picture should be a translation of a scene as
seen by the normal human eye. That the impression will vary with
individuals, there is no doubt, for the artist will see subtleties never
dreamed of by the commonplace or uneducated eye, and his aim will, of
course, be to portray those subtleties in his picture, and hence one
source of individuality in a work, another being in the way in which it
is done. Our task now shall be to examine into the physical,
physiological and psychological properties of sight, and to arrive at a
conclusion, in so far as science allows us, as to how the normal eye
does see things. The student will do well to read Chapter II. of Book
III. of Dr. Michael Foster’s “Text Book of Physiology,” as well as the
matter on the eye in Ganot’s Physics, before going any further in this
chapter, for we do not wish to go over ground which has been occupied
previously, our aim being to give a view from the artistic standpoint of
the physical, physiological, and psychological properties of eyesight.
We will, then, proceed to consider how well we see external nature, that
is, within what limits, for we never see her exactly as she is, as we
shall show.
[Sidenote: Optic nerves.]
To begin with, then, the retinal nerves are strictly reserved to respond
to the vibrations of ether—called light. If the student has ever had a
blow on his eye, he has probably _seen_ “stars,” because every stimulus
to this pair of nerves makes us see things, and not feel them. Now each
sense has certain limits between which it can detect subtle vibrations,
but beyond which all is blank. The more refined the organization of the
person, the greater will be the number of vibrations he can distinguish.
Thus 399,000,000,000 vibrations in a second produce in us the sensation
of light, above this the vibrations appear as spectral colours until the
number 831,000,000,000,000 is reached; to an increase in the number of
vibrations above that number the optic nerve does not respond. Now the
eye is an optical apparatus fixed between the brain and the ether, not
that we may perceive light, for we could do that without the eye, but
that we may distinguish objects. The glyptic and pictorial arts are
founded entirely on the sense of sight as music is founded on the sense
of hearing. In the pictorial arts, then, we must clearly distinguish
between the physical, physiological, and psychological properties of
sight.
[Sidenote: Le Conte’s division.]
Le Conte divides the scientific, i.e. physical and physiological data,
into: A. Light; B. Direction of Light; C. Intensity; D. Colour; and the
psychological data into Binocular vision, size, solidity, and depth.
Following up Le Conte’s scheme, let us begin, then, to discuss briefly
the scientific data, that is, considering the apparatus purely from the
standpoint of physics and physiology.
A. LIGHT.
[Sidenote: Light.]
I. Physical characters of the eye as an optical instrument.
If a ray of light passes through a small hole into a darkened room
(pin-hole camera), an image is formed of the object or objects without.
The condition of a good definition of the image is that “all the rays
from each point on the object must be carried to its own point on the
image.” If this hole be enlarged, this condition is impossible, and the
light spreads over certain areas called diffusion areas or diffusion
circles. In other words, widely divergent rays and contiguous rays
become mixed. To admit more light a lens is used in the eye, and by the
photographer, for although it is possible (by pin-hole camera) to take
pictures without a lens, the light so admitted is necessarily so limited
that the exposure needed is too long. The lens, however, helps us by
admitting more light, and at the same time giving better definition, but
it also introduces many disadvantages and sources of error. Now a
_theoretically_ perfect physical image has been described by physicists
as being both bright and sharp in definition, but the theoretically
perfect image does not exist; for, apart from other considerations, the
lens which we use to get microscopic sharpness, cuts off light, and the
sharper the image is rendered by stops, the less brightness do we get.
Thus we see the lens introduces scores of errors as well as desirable
qualities.
In the human and photographic lenses the chief faults are:—
[Sidenote: Dispersion.]
Dispersion. All refraction or bending of light by a lens is accompanied
by dispersion. This error is corrected in opticians' lenses to a great
extent. In the human eye, however, this fault is in some degree present,
as can be proved by looking at a lighted street lamp through a violet
glass, when a red flame will be seen surrounded by a bluish-violet halo.
What, then, is the effect of dispersion on our theoretically perfect
image? It is slight blurring of the sharpness of outline, since the size
and position of the optical images thrown by the differently bent rays
is not the same.
[Sidenote: Spherical aberration.]
A lens having a spherical surface bends the rays so that they do not all
come to a focus at the same point. What is the effect of this on our
theoretically perfect image? Again it is slight blurring of the
sharpness of outline. It is said the spherical aberration in a perfectly
corrected optician’s lens _is less than that in the lens of the human
eye_. This must be remembered in connection with our later remarks. In
the lower animals, spherical aberration is nearly absent. Their vision
therefore is more periscopic, and therefore more like that of an
optician’s lens.
[Sidenote: Astigmatism.]
This defect can be avoided in the optician’s lens, but it exists in, and
is a serious fault of, the human eye.
Helmholtz considers the amount of spherical aberration unimportant as
compared with this defect. Astigmatism is the result of imperfect
symmetrical curvature of the cornea and of imperfect centering of the
cornea and lens. This defect is found in most human eyes.
Astigmatism prevents the eye seeing vertical and horizontal lines at the
same distance perfectly clearly at once. The defect in centering also
causes irregular radiation, so that, as Helmholtz says, “The images of
an illuminated point as the human eye brings them to focus, are
inaccurate.” What is the effect of those defects on the “perfect image”?
Dimness of outline and detail in the textures of objects seen.
[Sidenote: Turbidity.]
The optician’s lens is made of pure glass, the media of the human eye
are not clear, but slightly turbid, so that Helmholtz says, “The
obscurity of dark objects when seen near very bright ones depends
essentially on this defect. This defect is most apparent in the blue and
violet rays of the solar spectrum; for then comes in the phenomena of
fluorescence to increase it.” [Sidenote: Fluorescence.] By fluorescence
is meant the property which certain minutely divided substances possess
of becoming faintly luminous, so long as they receive violet and blue
light. The bottles filled with solution containing quinine, which look
blue in the chemists' windows, owe their colour to this fact, as also
does the blueness of “London” milk. These defects, combined with
entoptic impurities which are constantly floating about in the humours,
all help to detract from the brightness and sharpness of the “perfect
image.”
[Sidenote: Blind spot.]
This is a portion of the retinal field with no cones or rods, and
therefore insensitive to light. This causes a gap in the field of
vision. “This blind spot is so large that it might prevent our seeing
eleven full moons if placed side by side, or a man’s face at a distance
of only six or seven feet,” says Helmholtz. In addition to this, there
are lesser gaps in the retinal field, due to the cutting off of light by
the shadows thrown by the blood vessels. Any one who has examined the
retinal field with an ophthalmoscope knows what this means.
[Sidenote: Macula lutea.]
In addition to this the _macula lutea_ is less sensitive to weak light
than other parts of the retina. The effect of all these imperfections is
to blur and dull the perfect image. The serious defects due to the blind
spot are not noticed, according to Helmholtz, because “we are
continually moving the eye, and also that the imperfections _almost
always affect those parts of the field to which we are not at the moment
directing our attention_.” The italics are ours. Here, then, is another
great difference between the eye and the optician’s lens.
[Sidenote: Focussing.]
The focus of the eye in a passive state is adjusted to the most distant
objects. It focusses for nearer objects by contracting the ciliary
muscle which pulls tight the zonule of Zinn and so curves the
crystalline lens. It can focus thus up to within five inches of itself,
but the changes of focus are almost imperceptible to the eye beyond
twenty feet. Now a theoretically perfect eye might form perfect images
of objects at infinite distances when there were no intervening objects.
But as has already been shown, the eye is very imperfect, and its images
are not therefore perfect, and it could not form theoretically perfect
images, even if the atmosphere were pure ether and nothing else, for
there are other facts in nature which prevent this; thus we cannot see a
sharp image of the sun with the naked eye on account of its dazzling
brightness.
[Sidenote: Fovea centralis.]
This central spot is a most important factor in the study of sight and
art. For though the field of vision of the two eyes is more than 180°
laterally, and 120° vertically, yet the field of distinct vision is but
a fraction of this field, as we can all prove for ourselves. Now the
field of distinct vision depends on the central spots for the reason
that the central spot differs anatomically from the rest of the retina
by the absence of certain layers which we need not specify here. The
absence of these layers exposes the retinal bacillary layer to the
direct action of light. Helmholtz says “all other parts of the retinal
image beyond that which falls on the central spot are imperfectly seen,”
so that the image which we receive by the eye is like a picture minutely
and elaborately finished in the centre, but only roughly sketched in at
the borders. But although at each instant we only see a very small part
of the field of vision accurately, “_we see this in combination with
what surrounds it, and enough of this outer and larger part of the
field, to notice any striking object, and particularly any change that
takes place in it_.” If the objects are small, they cannot be discerned
with the rest of the retina, thus, to see a lark in the sky, Helmholtz
says it must be focussed on the central spot. Finally he says,
[Sidenote: Direct and indirect vision.] “To _look_ at anything means to
place the eye in such a position that the image of the object falls on
the small region of perfectly clear vision. This we may call _direct_
vision, applying the term _indirect_ to that exercised with the lateral
parts of the retina, indeed with all except the central spot.” Again, he
says, “Whatever we want to see we look at and see it accurately; what we
do not look at, we do not as a rule care for at the moment, and so do
not notice how imperfectly we see it.” Now all this is most important in
connection with art, as we shall show later, we must beg the student
therefore to hold it fast.
It will be seen from all this that a perfect periscopic image is never
seen by the eye of man, though in some of the lower animals the matter
may be different.
B. DIRECTION OF LIGHT.
[Sidenote: Law of projection.]
Le Conte says, “The retinal image impresses the retina in a definite
way; this impression is then conveyed by the optic nerve to the brain,
and determines changes there, definite in proportion to the distinctness
of the retinal image, and then the brain or the mind refers or projects
this impression outward into space as an _external image, the sign and
facsimile of an object_ which produces it.” Not only does this hold good
of external images, but in certain diseases retinal impressions arising
from within are projected outwards, thus ghosts are _seen_.
[Sidenote: Corresponding points, &c.]
“From Müller’s law,” Le Conte further says, “it is evident that each
point—every rod or cone—in the retina has its invariable correspondent
in the visual field, and _vice versâ_.”
[Sidenote: Law of visible direction.]
Le Conte’s law of visible direction states that, “Where the rays from
any radiant strike the retina the impression is referred back along the
ray line (the central ray of the pencil) into space, and therefore to
its proper place.”
From these laws we understand why we see things in the relative
positions which they occupy in space.
All the previous remarks are applicable to monocular vision.
C. INTENSITY.
[Sidenote: Intensity.]
A quotation from Helmholtz will best illustrate this point. He says, “If
the artist is to imitate exactly the impression which the object
produces on our eye, he ought to be able to dispose of brightness and
darkness equal to that which nature offers. But of this there can be no
idea. Let me give a case in point. Let there be in a picture-gallery a
desert scene, in which a procession of Bedouins, shrouded in white, and
of dark negroes, marches under the burning sunshine; close to it a
bluish moonlight scene, where the moon is reflected in the water, and
groups of trees, and human forms, are seen to be faintly indicated in
the darkness. You know from experience that both pictures, if they are
well done, can produce with surprising vividness the representation of
their objects; and yet in both pictures the brightest parts are produced
with the same white lead, which is but slightly altered by admixtures;
while the darkest parts are produced with black. Both being hung on the
same wall, share the same light, and the brightest as well as the
darkest parts of the two scarcely differ as concerns the degree of their
brightness.
How is it, however, with the actual degrees of brightness represented.
The relation between the lightness of the sun’s light, and that of the
moon, was measured by Wollaston, who compared their intensities with
that of the light of candles of the same material. He thus found that
the luminosity of the sun is 800,000 times that of the brightest light
of a full moon.
An opaque body, which is lighted from any source whatever, can, even in
the most favourable case, only emit as much light as falls upon it. Yet,
from Lambert’s observations, even the whitest bodies only reflect about
two-fifths of the incident light. The sun’s rays, which proceed parallel
from the sun, whose diameter is 85,000 miles, when they reach us, are
distributed uniformly over a sphere of 195 millions of miles in
diameter. Its density and illuminating power is here only
one-forty-thousandth of that with which it left the sun’s surface; and
Lambert’s number leads to the conclusion that even the brightest white
surface on which the sun’s rays fall vertically, has only the
one-hundred-thousandth part of the brightness of the sun’s disk. The
moon, however, is a grey body, whose mean brightness is only about
one-fifth that of the purest white.
And when the moon irradiates a body of the purest white on the earth,
its brightness is only the hundred-thousandth part of the brightness of
the moon itself; hence the sun’s disk is 80,000 million times brighter
than a white which is irradiated by the full moon.
Now, pictures which hang in a room are not lighted by the direct light
of the sun, but by that which is reflected from the sky and clouds. I do
not know of any direct measurements of the ordinary brightness of the
light in a picture-gallery; but estimates may be made from known data.
With strong upper light, and bright light from the clouds, the purest
white on a picture has probably 1-20th of the brightness of white
directly lighted by the sun; it will generally be only 1-40th, or even
less.
Hence the painter of the desert, even if he gives up the representation
of the sun’s disk, which is always very imperfect, will have to
represent the glaringly lighted garments of his Bedouins with a white
which, in the most favourable case, shows only the 1-20th part of the
brightness which corresponds to actual fact. If he could bring it, with
its lighting unchanged, into the desert near the white there, it would
seem like a dark grey. I found, in fact, by an experiment, that
lamp-black, lighted by the sun, is not less than half as bright as
shaded white in the brighter part of a room.
On the picture of the moon the same white which has been used for
depicting the Bedouins' garments must be used for representing the
moon’s disk, and its reflection in the water; although the real moon has
only one-fifth of this brightness, and its reflection in water still
less. Hence white garments in moonlight, or marble surfaces, even when
the artist gives them a grey shade, will always be ten to twenty times
as bright in his picture as they are in reality.
On the other hand, the darkest black which the artist could apply would
be scarcely sufficient to represent the real illumination of a white
object on which the moon shone. For even the deadest black coatings of
lamp-black and black velvet, when powerfully lighted, appear grey, as we
often enough know to our cost, when we wish to shut off superfluous
light. I investigated a coating of lamp-black, and found its brightness
to be about one-hundredth that of white paper. The brightest colours of
a painter are only about one hundred times as bright as his darkest
shades.
The statements I have made may appear exaggerated. But they depend upon
measurements, and you can control them by well-known observations.
According to Wollaston, the light of the full moon is equal to that of a
candle burning at a distance of twelve feet. Now, assume that you
suddenly go from a room in daylight to a vault perfectly dark, with the
exception of the light of a single candle. You would at first think you
were in absolute darkness, and at most you would only recognize the
candle itself. In any case, you would not recognize the slightest trace
of any objects at a distance of thirteen feet from the candle. These,
however, are the objects whose illumination is the same as that which
the moonlight gives. You would only become accustomed to the darkness
after some time, and you would then find your way about without
difficulty.
If now, you return to the daylight, which before was perfectly
comfortable, it will appear so dazzling that you will, perhaps, have to
close your eyes, and only be able to gaze round with a painful glare.
You see thus that we are concerned here not with minute, but with
colossal, differences. How now is it possible that, under such
circumstances, we can imagine there is any similarity between the
picture and reality?
Our discussion of what we did not see at first, but could afterwards see
in the vault, points to the most important element in the solution; it
is the varying extent to which our senses are deadened by light; a
process to which we can attach the same name, fatigue, as that for the
corresponding one in the muscle. Any activity of our nervous system
diminishes its power for the time being. The muscle is tired by work,
the brain is tired by thinking, and by mental operations; the eye is
tired by light, and the more so the more powerful the light. Fatigue
makes it dull and insensitive to new impressions, so that it appreciates
strong ones only moderately, and weak ones not at all.
But now you see how different is the aim of the artist when these
circumstances are taken into account. The eye of the traveller in the
desert, who is looking at the caravan, has been dulled to the last
degree by the dazzling sunshine; while that of the wanderer by moonlight
has been raised to the extreme of sensitiveness. The condition of one
who is looking at a picture differs from both the above cases, by
possessing a certain mean degree of sensitiveness. Accordingly, the
painter must endeavour to produce by his colours, on the moderately
sensitive eye of the spectator, the same impression as that which the
desert, on the one hand, produces on the deadened, and the moonlight, on
the other hand, creates on the untired eye of its observer. Hence, along
with the actual luminous phenomena of the outer world, the different
physiological conditions of the eye play a most important part in the
work of the artist. What he has to give is not a mere transcript of the
object, but a translation of his impression into another scale of
sensitiveness, which belongs to a different degree of impressibility of
the observing eye, in which the organ speaks a very different dialect in
responding to the impressions of the outer world.
[Sidenote: Fechner’s law.]
In order to understand to what conclusions this leads, I must first
explain the law which Fechner discovered for the scale of sensitiveness
of the eye, which is a particular case of the more general
_psycho-physical law_ of the relations of the various sensuous
impressions to the irritations which produce them. This law may be
expressed as follows:—_Within very wide limits of brightness,
differences in the strength of light are equally distinct, or appear
equal in sensation, if they form an equal fraction of the total quantity
of light compared._
Thus, for instance, differences in intensity of one-hundredth of the
total amount can be recognized without great trouble, with very
different strengths of light, without exhibiting material differences in
the certainty and facility of the estimate, whether the brightest
daylight, or the light of a good candle be used.”
Herein, then, are contained the limits with which we can work, and the
physiological reasons why we can render a fairly true impression of a
scene in nature.
The only constant factor, then, is the _ratio of luminous
intensities_,—that is, the picture must be as true as possible in
relative tones or values. Obviously a picture of bright sunlight should
look brighter in a moderately lighted room than the surrounding room,
that is, its first impression on the observer should be as if he were
looking at a landscape beyond the walls, through the frame.
From these remarks it will be seen how utterly impossible it is to
render truly a bright sunlight scene, for if the values be true,
starting from the top of the scale, the highest light, when you get to
the middle tints, they are too black already, and the picture is out of
tone and false. Obviously the right way is to start from the lower end
of the scale, the _darks_, and get them as true as possible, and let the
lights take care of themselves; but more of this anon.
D. COLOUR.
[Sidenote: Colour.]
As photographers, the matter of colour exercises us but indirectly,
still the subject should be understood, on account of its bearing on
painting. “Colour perception” says Le Conte, “is a single perception,
and irresolvable with any other. It must, therefore, have its basis in
retinal structure.”
Helmholtz divides the vibrations of ether known as light into three
degrees. He says the longest and shortest rays do not essentially differ
in any other physical property, except that we distinguish them from the
intermediate waves.” Thus the ear can receive at once many waves of
sound or notes, and they remain distinct, but notes of colour do not
keep distinct in the same way, “so that the eye is capable of
recognizing few differences in quality of light,” says Helmholtz, and
can only perceive the elementary sensation of colour by artificial
preparation. He also says, the only bond between the objective and
subjective phenomena of colour may be stated as a law thus, “Similar
light produces under like conditions a like sensation of colour. Light,
which under like conditions, excites unlike sensations of colour is
dissimilar;” what we want in art, then, is the _appearance_ of the
phenomena. The illumination of the sun’s rays cannot be weakened without
at the same time weakening their heating and chemical action; this is a
point to be remembered in exposure.
Colour is, of course, excited by the length of the waves and their
frequency, red being the longest and slowest, and they diminish in
length and increase in frequency in the order of the spectrum through
orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, to the shortest waves, which
produce the effect of violet, the whole combined forming white. Now
Hering has shown that there are only four primary colour sensations,
though he at one time included black and white, thus making six. The
four are red, yellow, green, and blue, which are reduced by him to two
complementary colours, red and green, and yellow and blue. In our
present state of knowledge the Young-Helmholtz theory of three primary
colour sensations for red, green, and blue seems preferable as a working
hypothesis, though it seems incompatible with anatomical and
physiological facts.
[Sidenote: Difference of colour.]
All objective differences between colours, according to Helmholtz, may
be reduced to differences of tone, difference of fulness (saturation),
and difference of brightness. These are the three colour constants.
By tone, or hue, he means in fact difference of colour as in the
spectral colours. He here refers to the vibration on a tonic scale.
Fulness or purity is greatest in the pure tints of the spectrum, and
becomes less in proportion as they are mixed with white light. All
compound colours are less full than the simple hues of the spectrum.
Brightness or luminosity is strength of light, or amount of
illumination. It is measured by the total amount of light reflected to
the eye.
In nature black and white must be included among the primary colours
when _quality_ is spoken of, as light acts on black and white.
All differences of tone, therefore, are the result of combinations in
different proportions of the four primary colours.
Among the defects of the eye in seeing colour, Helmholtz says, “All are
red blind at the innermost portion of the field of vision, all red
colours appear darker when viewed indirectly.”
The furthest limit of visible field is a narrow zone, in which all
distribution of colour ceases, and there only remain differences of
brightness. Probably those nervous fibres which convey impressions of
green light are alone present in this part of the retina. The yellow
spot makes all blue light appear somewhat darker in the centre of the
field.
All these inequalities are known and more or less rectified by constant
movement. As the eye becomes fatigued by bright light, so that it cannot
at first answer to delicate stimulus, so it can become partially
fatigued for certain colours.
Fatigue weakens the apparent illumination of the entire field of vision.
The colour of illumination of a picture, too, varies greatly by effect
of local colour.
What is constant in the colour of an object is not the brightness and
colour of the light which it reflects, _but the relation between the
intensity of the different-coloured constituents of this light, on the
one hand, and that of the corresponding constituents of the light which
illuminates it on the other_. For example, white paper in full moonlight
is darker than black satin in daylight, or a dark object with the sun
shining on it reflects light of exactly the same colour, and perhaps the
same brightness, as a white object in shadow. Grey in shadow looks like
white.
Brightness of local colour diminishes with the illumination or as the
fatigue of the retina is increased. In sunshine, local colours of
moderate brightness approach the brightest, whereas in moonlight they
approach the darkest. Pictures to be seen in daylight do not admit of
difference of brightness between sun and moon. As colours increase in
brightness, red and yellow become apparently stronger than blue.
Painters make yellow tints predominate when representing landscape in
full sunshine, while moonlight scenes are blued. Helmholtz
says:—“Differences of colour which are actually before our eyes are more
easily apprehended than those which we only keep in memory, and contrast
between objects which are close to one another in the field of vision
are more easily recognized than when they are at a distance. All this
contributes to the effect. Indeed, there are a number of subordinate
circumstances affecting the result which it would be very interesting to
follow out in detail, for they throw great light upon the way in which
we judge of local colour; but we must not pursue the inquiry further
here. I will only remark that all these effects of contrast are not less
interesting for the scientific painter than for the physiologist, since
he must often exaggerate the natural phenomenon of contrast in order to
produce the impression of greater varieties of light and greater fulness
of colour than can be actually produced by artificial pigments.”
Again, when turbidity is composed of fine particles its appearance is
blue, as the mists seen in autumn hanging round coverts, but it is
whiter than the aërial blue because of the colour of the covert behind.
When this turbidity is absent the colours are brighter, hence the fierce
blue on bright sunshiny days with easterly winds. This matter of
turbidity must not be forgotten in portrait work; it is this which helps
to give relief, hence the absurdity of all photographers' devices, the
object of which is to minimize this turbidity. In addition to these is
the ever-changing effect of atmosphere on colour, that subtle medium
with which the enchantress Nature produces ever-changing effects, and
its chief effect on colour is to lower it in brightness. _Atmosphere
greys all things_, hence on a misty day all the colours are greyed—we
have, in fact, a “grey day.”
Another point which must not be forgotten is that with bright
illumination bright objects become more like the brightest, and with
feeble illumination dark objects become more like the darkest. This is a
very important matter, for it means that in bright sunshine the lightest
greys are lost in white, whilst in dull weather the darkest greys are
lost in black, hence the falsity of having deep blacks in
brightly-lighted landscapes, and as has been shown, these are untrue,
and the result of ignorance and of faulty manipulation. As Helmholtz has
it, “The difference of brightness and not absolute brightness; and that
the differences in them in this latter respect can be shown without
perceptible incongruity if only their graduations are imitated with
expression.”
E. BINOCULAR VISION—PSYCHOLOGICAL DATA.
_Single Image._
[Sidenote: Binocular Vision.]
The remarks already made would apply equally well to man if he were a
one-eyed animal, but we find there are other considerations to take into
account since man is two-eyed. Now the phenomena of binocular vision
cannot be treated of with such accuracy as the physical and
physiological facts already discussed. In this subject we shall follow
Le Conte. It is obvious there is a common binocular field of view for
the two eyes. Now Dr. Le Conte shows us that we see all objects double,
except under certain conditions. When we look directly at anything, then
we see it clearly, but all things nearer to us than the object looked at
and beyond it, are seen double, or blurred and indistinct. This is the
case in life, as can be proved.
He goes on to tell us that we see things singly when the two images of
that thing are projected outward to the same spot in space, and are
therefore superimposed and coincide. Objects are seen single when their
retinal images fall on corresponding points—that is, objects lying in a
horizontal circle passing through the point of sight and the central
spots are seen single. Now “all objects at the same or nearly the same
distance, but a little to the right or left, or above or below, are also
either seen single, or else the doubling, if any, is usually
imperceptible.” This surface of single vision is called the _horopter_.
There are, then, two adjustments, the focal and the axial, the one an
adjustment for distant vision, the other for single vision, and
connected with these is the adjustment of the pupil, which contracts and
expands, not only to light, but also to distance and nearness of the
object. Therefore, three adjustments take place when we look at
anything. Connected with these laws are the laws of direction and
corresponding points. Thus we see our perfect image can only exist in
one place at once, that all between the eye and the object and beyond
the object is indistinct, and that the further off an object is the more
luminous does it appear. Two objects, too, may be seen as one.
F. PERSPECTIVE.
_Depth, Size, and Solidity._
[Sidenote: Perspective.]
The next question is, “To what is due the appearance of solidity and
depth?”
Depth, or relative distance, is judged of by a combination of four kinds
of perspective.
1. _Focal or monocular perspective._—Objects at the point of sight are
sharp, but all objects beyond or within this distance are dim. Distance
is judged partly by the act of focussing the eye by acting, as we have
said, on the lens. As this power only acts within twenty feet, it is
evident that things can only be in focus in one plane.
2. _Mathematical Perspective._—Objects become smaller in appearance and
nearer together as they recede. This is another aid to the judging of
distance. The true rendering of this perspective in photography depends
on the correct use of the lens, as will be explained.
3. _Aërial Perspective_ is the perspective due to the scattering of
light by aërial turbidity, for the atmosphere always contains floating
particles of matter. As the objects recede this curtain of turbidity
becomes thicker and the distant objects grow dimmer and bluer. This is
another aid to the judging of distance, but any one not accustomed to
count on this effect may easily misjudge, as we have done before now to
our cost in Switzerland, where a peak miles away has, at times, seemed
to be in the next valley.
4. _Binocular Perspective_ is due to the convergence of the optic axes
and formation of a single image. Le Conte says, “The perspective of
depth or relative distance, whether in a single object or in a scene, is
the result of the successive combinations of the different parts of the
two dissimilar images of the object on the scene.” Binocular
perspective, too, gathers together the imperfect retinal impressions
when the eye sweeps over the field of view. This only acts within a few
hundred yards.
Thus, then, in taking a photograph we must remember that theoretically
speaking, up to twenty feet the picture can be made sharper all over
than beyond that distance; for the eye has all these perspectives acting
within that distance.
[Sidenote: Size.]
By size we estimate distance.
[Sidenote: Solidity.]
Solidity is judged by binocular vision and lighting.
When to all these difficulties are added those dependent on the
subtleties of light reflected into shadow, and the thousand-and-one
changes of colour due to the numerous shadows cast by objects in nature,
we get a complexity which forces upon us how impossible it is for man to
_copy_ nature. A “mere transcript of nature,” which is so glibly talked
of, is, humanly speaking, an impossibility. No man ever painted a “mere
transcript” of nature, or a truthful copy, any more than a man can make
plants or animals in a laboratory; but he can, by a picture, give a
truthful impression of nature.
On these data and within these limits, then, must we work, and here we
append a few general principles deduced from these data, which must
guide us in our work. We have followed them ourselves, and they form the
scientific part of our creed of “Naturalistic Photography.” We have said
little upon the drawing of photographic lenses, as that is discussed in
another chapter; but of course Naturalistic Photography claims as of
vital importance that lenses be used so as to give the drawing of
objects as they are seen by the eye—in other words, as they would be
drawn by a good draughtsman.
ART PRINCIPLES DEDUCTED FROM THE DATA CITED.
[Sidenote: Art Principles.]
We have shown why the human eye does not see nature exactly as she is,
but sees instead a number of signs which represent nature, signs which
the eye grows accustomed to, and which from habit we call nature
herself. We shall now discuss the relation of pictorial art to nature,
and shall show the fallacy of calling the most scientifically perfect
images obtained with photographic lenses artistically true. They are not
correct, as we have shown, and shall again show, but what is
artistically true is really what we have all along advocated; that is
that the photographer must so use his technique as to render a true
impression of the scene. The great heresy of ‘sharpness’ has lived so
long in photographic circles because firstly the art has been practised
by scientists, and secondly by unphilosophical scientists, for all
through the lens has been considered purely from the physical point of
view, the far more important physiological and psychological standpoints
being entirely ignored, so that but one-third of the truth has been
hitherto stated.
[Sidenote: What a picture is.]
To begin with, it must be remembered that a picture is a representation
on a plane surface of limited area of certain physical facts in the
world around us, for abstract ideas cannot be expressed by painting. In
all the works in the world the painter, if he has tried to express the
unseen or the supernatural, has expressed the unnatural. If he paints a
dragon, you find it is a distorted picture of some animal already
existing; if he paints a deity, it is but a kind of man after all. No
brain can conjure up and set down on paper a monster such as has never
existed, or in which there are no parts homologous with some parts of a
living or fossil creature. We defy any man to draw a devil, for example,
that is totally unlike anything in existence. All so-called imaginative
works fall then within the category of the real, for they are in certain
parts real because they are all based on realities, even though they may
be utterly false to the appearance of reality. By this we mean that an
ideal dragon may be based on existing animals; his form may be a mixture
of a Cobra, Saurian, and a reptile, as is often the case; so far it may
be real, but then the way in which it is painted may be utterly false,
for the natural effect of light and atmosphere on the dragon may and
probably will be ignored, for there is no such animal to study from. The
modern pre-Raphaelites are good examples of painters who painted in this
way; they painted details, they imitated the local colour and texture of
objects, but for all that their pictures are as false as false can be,
for they neglected those subtleties of light and colour and atmosphere
which pervade all nature, and which are as important as form. Children
and savages make this same error, they imitate the local colour, not the
true colour as modified by light, adjacent colour, and atmosphere. But
what the most advanced thinkers of art in all ages have sought for is
the rendering of the true impression of nature.
Proceed we now to discuss the component parts of this impression.
[Sidenote: Tone and Atmosphere.]
When we open our eyes in the morning the first thing we see is light,
the result of those all-pervading vibrations of ether. The effects of
light on all the objects of nature and on sight have been dealt with in
the beginning of this chapter, it only remains, therefore, to deduce our
limits from these facts. In the first place, from what has been said in
that section it is evident we cannot compete with painting, for we are
unable to pitch our pictures in so high a key as the painter does, and
how limited is his scale has been shown, but by the aid of pigments he
can go higher than we can. It has been shown, too, that it is impossible
to have the values correct _throughout_ a picture, for that would make
the picture too black and untrue in many parts. This fact shows how
wrong are those photographers who maintain that every photograph should
have a patch of pure white and a patch of pure black, and that all the
lighting should be nicely gradated between these two extremes. This idea
arose, no doubt, from comparing photography with other incomplete
methods of translation, such as line-engraving.
The real point is that the darks of the picture shall be in true
relation, and the high lights must take care of themselves. By this
means a truer tone is obtained throughout. Now to have these tones in
true relation it is of course implied that the local colours must be
truly rendered, yellow must not come out black, or blue as white,
therefore it is evident that colour-corrected plates are necessary. But
such plates are useless when the quantity of silver in the film is
little, for the subtleties of delicate tonality are lost, which are not
compensated for by gain in local colour, and this is a point the makers
of orthochromatic plates must take into consideration. It will be seen
now why photographs on uncorrected plates (even when the greatest care
and knowledge in using them is exercised) are not, as a rule, perfectly
successful, and why the ordinary silver printing-paper is undesirable,
for it exaggerates the darkness of the shadows, a fatal error. False
tonality destroys the sense of atmosphere, in fact, for the true
rendering of atmosphere, a photograph must be relatively true in tone;
in other words the relative tones, in shadow and half shadow, must be
true. If a picture is of a bright, sunlit subject, brilliancy is of
course a necessary quality, and by brilliancy is _not_ meant that
“sparkle” which so delights the craftsman. Of course the start of tone
is naturally made from less deep shadows, when the picture is brightly
lighted, for the black itself reflects light, and all the shadows are
filled with reflected light. It will be seen, therefore, that it is of
paramount importance that the shadows shall not be too black, that in
them shall be light as there always is in nature—more of course in
bright pictures, less in low-toned pictures—that therefore the rule of
“detail in the shadows” is in a way a good rough-and-ready photographic
rule. Yet photographers often stop down their lens and cut off the
light, at the same time sharpening the shadows and darkening them, and
throwing the picture out of tone. It cannot be too strongly insisted
upon that “strength” in a photograph is not to be judged by its
so-called “pluck” or “sparkle,” but by its subtlety of tone, its
truthful relative values in shadow and middle shadow, and its true
textures. Photographers have been advised by mistaken craftsmen to spot
out the “dotty high lights” of an ill-chosen or badly-rendered subject
to give it “breadth.” Such a proceeding of course only increases the
falsity of the picture, for the high lights, as we have shown, are never
high enough in any picture, and if a man is so unwise as to take a
picture with “spotty lights,” he is only increasing his display of
ignorance by lowering the high lights, which are already not high
enough. This does not of course apply to the case where a single spot of
objectionable white fixes the eye and destroys harmony, but to the
general habit of lowering the high lights in a “spotty” photograph.
Spotty pictures in art as well as in nature are abominations to a
trained eye, and it is for that very reason that such subjects are more
common among photographers who are untrained in art matters than in the
works of even third-rate painters. The effect of the brightest sunlight
in nature, for reasons explained, is to _lessen_ contrast, the effect of
a sharply-focussed, stopped-down photograph is to _increase_ contrast in
the subject and thus falsify the impression. As the tendency of
“atmosphere” is to grey all the colours in nature more or less, and of a
mist to render all things grey, it follows that “atmosphere” in all
cases helps to give breadth by lessening contrast, as it also helps to
determine the distance of objects. As shown in the previous chapter,
this aërial “turbidity,” by which is meant atmosphere, takes off from
the sharpness of outline and detail of the image, and the farther off
the object is, the thicker being the intervening layer of atmosphere,
the greater is the turbidity _cæteris paribus_, therefore from this fact
alone objects in different planes are not and should not be represented
equally sharp and well-defined. This is most important to seize—as the
prevalent idea among photographers seems to be that all the objects in
all the planes _should be sharp at once_, an idea which no artist could
or ever did entertain, and which nature at once proves to be untenable.
The atmosphere in the main rules the general appearance of things, for
if this turbidity be little, objects look close together, and under
certain other conditions are poor in quality.
[Sidenote: Drawing and Lighting.]
In addition to tone and atmosphere, the diminished drawing of objects as
they recede from us (mathematical perspective) helps to give an idea of
distance, but by choosing a suitable lens, which does our drawing
correctly, we need not regard this matter of drawing. A minor aid to
rendering depth is the illumination of the object, a lateral
illumination giving the greatest idea of relief, but the photographer
should be guided by no so-called “schemes of lighting,” because, for
more important reasons, it maybe advisable to choose a subject lighted
directly by the sun, or silhouetted against the sun. All depends on what
is desired to be expressed. For example, an artist may wish to express
the sentiment and poetry of a sunset behind a row of trees. Is he to
consider the minor matter that there will be little relief, and it is
not a good “scheme of lighting”? No, certainly not, otherwise he must
forgo the subject. Nature ignores all such laws. The only law is that
the lighting must give a relatively true translation of the subject
expressed, and that a landscape must not be lighted by two or more suns.
In portrait work, even, it must be remembered that the aërial lighting
must stand out against the background, for in all rooms there is a
certain amount of turbidity between us and distant objects.
[Sidenote: On the Impression.]
The reason we prefer pictures which are not too bright lies in the
fact that the eye cannot look long at very bright paintings without
tiring. As a physical fact, too, the most delicate modelling and
tonality is to be obtained in a medium light. From what has been
previously said, it will now be understood that a picture should not
be quite sharply focussed in any part, for then it becomes false; it
should be made just _as sharp as the eye sees it and no sharper_, for
it must be remembered the eye does not see things as sharply as the
photographic lens, for the eye has the faults due to dispersion,
spherical aberration, astigmatism, aërial turbidity, blind spot, and
beyond twenty feet it does not adjust perfectly for the different
planes. All these slight imperfections make the eye’s visions more
imperfect than that of the optician’s lens, even when objects in one
plane only are sharply focussed, therefore, except in very rare cases,
which will be touched upon elsewhere, the chief point of interest
should be slightly—very slightly—out of focus, while all things, out
of the plane of the principal object, it is perfectly obvious, from
what has been said, should also be slightly out of focus, not to the
extent of producing _destruction of structure_ or fuzziness, but
sufficiently to keep them back and in place. For, as we have been
told, “to look at anything means to place the eye in such a position
that the image of the object falls on the small region of perfectly
clear vision, ... and ... whatever we want to see, we look at, and see
it accurately; what we do not look at, we do not, as a rule, care for
at the moment, and so do not notice how imperfectly we see it.” Such
is the case, as has been shown, for when we fix our sight on the
principal object or _motif_ of a picture, binocular vision represents
clearly by direct vision only the parts of the picture delineated on
the points of sight. [Sidenote: Rule for focussing.] The rule in
focussing, therefore, should be, focus for the principal object of the
picture, but all else must not be sharp; and even that principal
object must not be as perfectly sharp as the optical lens will make
it. It will be said, but in nature the eye wanders up and down the
landscape, and so gathers up the impressions, and all the landscape in
turn appears sharp. But a picture is not “all the landscape,” it
should be seen at a certain distance—the focal length of the lens
used, as a rule, and the observer, to look at it thoughtfully, _if it
be a picture_, will settle on a principal object, and dwell upon it,
and when he tires of this, he will want to gather up _suggestions_ of
the rest of the picture. If it be a commonplace photograph taken with
a wide-angle lens, say, of a stretch of scenery of equal value, as are
most photographic landscapes, of course the eye will have nothing to
settle thoughtfully upon, and will wander about, and finally go away
dissatisfied. But such a photograph is no work of art, and not worthy
of discussion here. Hence it is obvious that panoramic effects are not
suitable for art, and the angle of view included in a picture should
never be large. [Sidenote: The Pseudo-Impressionists.] It might be
argued from this, that Pseudo-Impressionists who paint the horse’s
head and top of a hansom cab are correct, since the eye can only see
clearly a very small portion of the field of view at once. We assert,
no, for if we look in a casual way at a hansom cab in the streets, we
only see _directly_ the head of the horse and the top of the cab, yet,
indirectly, that is, in the retinal circle around the _fovea
centralis_ we have far more suggestion and feeling of horse’s legs
than the eccentricities of the Pseudo-Impressionist school give us,
for in that part of the retinal field indirect vision aids us. The
field of indirect vision must be _suggested_ in a picture, but
subordinated. But we shall go into this matter later on, here we only
wish to establish our principles on a scientific basis. Afterwards, in
treating of art questions, we shall simply give our advice, presuming
the student has already studied the scientific data on which that
advice is based. All good art has its scientific basis. [Sidenote: Sir
T. Lawrence.] Sir Thomas Lawrence said, “Painting is a science, and
should be pursued as an inquiry into the laws of nature. Why, then,
may not landscape painting be considered as a branch of natural
philosophy, of which pictures are but experiments?”
[Sidenote: Fuzziness.]
Some writers who have never taken the trouble to understand even these
points, have held that we admitted fuzziness in photography. Such
persons are labouring under a great misconception; we have nothing
whatever to do with any “fuzzy school.” Fuzziness, to us, means
_destruction of structure_. We do advocate broad suggestions of organic
structure, which is a very different thing from destruction, although,
there may at times be occasions in which patches of “fuzziness” will
help the picture, yet these are rare indeed, and it would be very
difficult for any one to show us many such patches in our published
plates. We have, then nothing to do with “fuzziness,” unless by the term
is meant that broad and ample generalization of detail, so necessary to
artistic work. We would remind these writers that it is always fairer to
read an author’s writings than to read the stupid constructions put upon
them by untrained persons.
BOOK II.
TECHNIQUE AND PRACTICE.
“Artists are supposed to pass their lives in earnest endeavour to
express through the medium of paint or pencil, thoughts, feelings, or
impressions which they cannot help expressing, and which cannot
possibly be expressed by any other means. They make use of material
means in order to arrive at this end. They tell their story—the story
of a day, an impression of a character, a recollection of a moment, or
whatever, more or less clearly or well, as they are more or less
capable of doing. They expose their work to the public, not for the
sake of praise, but with a feeling and a hope that some human being
may see in it the feeling that has passed through their own mind in
their poor and necessarily crippled statement. The endeavour is honest
and earnest, if almost always with a result weakened by
over-conscientiousness or endeavour to be understood.... Your work is
exhibited not with the intention of injuring any of the human race. It
is a dumb, noiseless, silent story, told, as best it may be, by the
author to those whom it may concern. And it does tell its story, not
to _everybody_, but to _somebody_.”
WILLIAM HUNT.
CHAPTER I.
THE CAMERA AND TRIPOD.
[Sidenote: The camera.]
The camera as used to-day is a modified form of the Camera Obscura
adapted to the special end of taking photographs. It is essentially
nothing but a light-tight box, to one end of which a lens can be
adjusted, and to the other end of which the slide containing the
sensitive plate can be applied and exposed, so that it receives no
light, save that passing through the lens. [Sidenote: Choice of
camera.]There are many patterns and many minor differences in the
construction of these boxes, some few of real value, but the majority
the work of ingenious and speculating manufacturers, who hope by some
novelty to increase the sale of their new patents. In all apparatus the
student should choose the simplest and strongest, for in artistic work
lightness _per se_ is no object, nay, it may be harmful, as leading to
over-production. In fact nothing should stand in the way of getting the
best results, and though many of the cameras on the market are light and
fitted with numerous devices which are said to simplify operations and
help the worker, yet such is not really the case, and these
thousand-and-one aids to work are apt to become deranged, and finally to
embarrass the worker at some critical moment.
In choosing a camera, then, for landscape work, choose a square one,
with a reversing frame, a double swing-back, and good leather bellows.
Let the flange of the lens be fitted to a square front which can be
easily removed and replaced, and let there be a rising front. It is
advisable to have the camera brass-bound for the sake of its
preservation, and if for use in tropical climates the bellows should be
made of Russian leather, as the oil of birch with which the leather is
cured is most distasteful to insects. [Sidenote: Special considerations
in choosing a camera.] In ordering a camera there are a few points which
experience has led us to consider essential to comfort. [Sidenote:
Base-board.] One is that the part of the base-board of the camera which
rests on the tripod head should be strengthened or made of much stouter
material than is usually used. [Sidenote: Thumb-screw.] Another is that
the thumb-screw should be of much larger diameter than is usually the
case, and this should be borne in mind, even in the making of the
smaller cameras, for on a windy day when the camera has a heavy lens on
one end and a loaded double dark slide on the other, the vibration is
often ruinous to the picture during exposure, while sudden gusts of wind
may even crack the wood round the screw hole. It seems to us a
thumb-screw at least half an inch in diameter should be used, unless the
camera be made to fit into the tripod head, a method often adopted of
recent years, and of course the best way of all. On more than one
occasion we have nearly lost the camera altogether in the water when
trying to screw it to the tripod when working from a boat on a tideway,
but by having a part of the base-board made to fit into a wooden tripod
head, this at times most difficult operation is rendered easy and
certain.
The camera should always extend and close by means of a tail-screw,
those opening by means of a rack and pinion are much more liable to get
out of order. Of course this remark is not applicable to the
smallest-sized cameras. [Sidenote: Spirit levels.] Two small
spirit-levels sunk into the tail-piece of the camera are invaluable; one
will do if made of the right shape. [Sidenote: Size of camera.] In
ordering a camera the two vital points to be considered are the size
including the length of the bellows. The size of plate you intend
working with determines the size of the camera. We have worked with all
sized cameras, from quarter-plate up to one taking twenty-four by
twenty-two inch plates, and it is only after long experience and much
consideration that we venture to offer an opinion on the size to be
chosen. For ordinary work, then, we recommend the half-plate size as the
minimum, and the ten by eight inch size as the maximum. Perhaps a
whole-plate camera (8½ × 6½ inches) is on the whole as useful as any.
The strength required to do a day’s work with a twelve by ten inch
camera is beyond any but a strong man. It is assumed, of course, that
the pictures of the sizes cited are for albums, portfolios, or book
illustrations. It must be remembered, however, that the size of a
picture has nothing to do with its artistic value, an artistic
quarter-plate picture is worth a hundred commonplace pictures forty by
thirty inches in size. For producing large pictures for the wall,
however, we consider the camera should be between fifteen by twelve
inches and twenty-four by twenty-two inches; we cannot imagine anything
larger than twenty-four by twenty-two inches for out-door work, and our
memory goes back to a marsh road in Norfolk where we and two peasants
had all we could do to carry a twenty-four by twenty-two inch camera
when set up, from one marsh to another.
[Sidenote: Square cameras.]
The student will of course remember that his camera must be square in
order to have a reversing frame fitted, but that makes no difference to
the dark slides. [Sidenote: Length.] Having then fixed on the size of
his camera, a question requiring the greatest thought, he must next tell
the maker the length of bellows he requires, which is usually measured
from front to back when the camera is racked out to its full length. As
we recommend the use of long-focus lenses only, as will be seen in the
chapter on lenses, and as no definite law can be laid down for this
length, it is advisable to order a camera four or five inches longer
than the focal length of the lens which is advertised to cover the next
larger-sized plate to that which your dark slide holds.
[Sidenote: Size of plate.]
And now for a caution against a fallacy still current in photographic
circles, which is that one size of plate is more suitable for pictorial
purposes than another. Let no such nonsense influence you, the size of
the plate has nothing whatever to do with success or beauty. Every
composition will demand its own particular size and shape, and though
you work with a ten by eight inch camera or any other size, you will
find you will often take a nine by four inch or a ten by three inch
plate or a dozen other sizes and cut off all the rest. All fanciful
rules for fixing on the size of a plate for pictorial reasons cannot be
too strongly condemned. Such things must be left to the individuality of
each artist, and every picture-gallery in Europe gives the lie to all
rules for a choice of size. The artist, must of course, suit his canvas
or plate to his subject, not his subject to his canvas or plate.
[Sidenote: Studio cameras.]
For studio, or indoor work, the camera may of course be heavier for
obvious reasons, and a different form of support is necessary, the one
usually adopted being very convenient for lowering or raising the lens
so that the best point of sight is obtained according to the position of
the model. It seems to us, however, that these studio cameras and stands
are made a great deal too heavy and cumbersome. [Sidenote: Hood.] For
this kind of work a very necessary part of the apparatus is a hood of
some dark material fixed on to the front of the camera and extending
above and beyond the lens, in order to obviate the effect of the
numerous reflections always present in a glass studio. Out of doors this
is only necessary when the sun is shining into the lens; otherwise it is
never needed, for we have tried it, and have proved that its use has in
no way improved either the truth or the artistic quality of the
negative. In cases where the sun shines into the lens a hat, a piece of
cardboard, a folded newspaper, or anything of the kind, will answer the
purpose equally well.
[Sidenote: Tripod head.]
The tripod head should be preferably of tough wood covered with felt. A
metal tripod head is apt to endanger the woodwork of the camera, even
when covered with leather. [Sidenote: Tripods.] The legs should be
simple and firm, the best we know of being made of two pieces of ash or
oak hinged at the bottom, the points shod with iron, and the legs being
stiffened, when in position by a bar of iron which is secured by a
hinge. Every one should have two pairs of legs at least; one pair, so
that when the camera is set up the lens may be on a level with the eye
of a man of average height, and one pair shorter, so that the lens is
only three feet from the ground. [Sidenote: Supplementary poles.] In
addition to these we always have handy three tough poles eight feet long
and about the diameter of a broomstick; these are shod with iron heels,
and have notches cut at the unshod ends. These are most useful to lash
to the long legs when using them in water-ways. [Sidenote:
Double-backs.] It is as well to have six double-backs, for by filling
them all at one operation the student empties a box of plates, and so
avoids a chance of mixing exposed and unexposed plates. [Sidenote:
Bags.] The most convenient method of carrying the plates in all cases up
to and including the ten by eight size, is to have a bag made which will
take the camera, three double-backs and the focussing cloth, and a
separate bag for the other three double-backs which can be left or taken
out at pleasure.
[Sidenote: Clamp.]
A very useful piece of apparatus is a clamp which can be screwed on
anywhere, but especially to a boat’s gunwale, the taffrail of a steamer,
a fence, and numerous other places whence good pictures can often be
secured. Such a clamp can be purchased at most of the dealers' shops.
[Sidenote: Setting up the camera.]
Having decided on these matters, we will suppose the novice is now
provided with camera and tripod. Now for a few details about starting.
In setting up the camera on its tripod, one leg should be placed either
between the photographer’s legs or exactly opposite to him, he will then
find he can command the camera easily and alter its position with a
touch. If, on the contrary, the legs are put up by chance, he will soon
find his lens playing all sorts of gymnastic tricks, one moment looking
up as if threatening the stars, the next studying with the deepest
interest the ground at its foot.
[Sidenote: Rising front.]
The manipulation of the rising front is a power needing considerable
study, for, by moving it, you can regulate the amount of foreground you
wish to include in your picture. The limit of rise of the front is
determined by the manufacturer, and the limit beyond which the student
must not go is determined by the covering power of the lens he is using,
for he will remember that every lens only covers a certain circle, the
area of the circle depending on the construction of the lens. The usual
method of describing the covering power of a lens is to give the
measurements of the greatest parallelogram that can be inscribed in this
circle. It will be easily seen that if the lens we use only just covers
the plate, that when the front is raised, the lower corners will have no
image exposed on them, and the higher the lens is carried, the more of
the lower part of the picture will be cut off. As the image is upside
down, the blank corners will appear in the sky of the negative. It is
then obvious that if the covering capacity of the lens is greater than
needed for the plate used, the rising front may be used to a much
greater extent than if you only use a lens advertised to cover the plate
you are exposing. It must always be remembered that if the optical axis
of the lens be raised above the centre of the plate the illumination may
be unequal.
[Sidenote: Swing-backs.]
The effect of the horizontal and vertical swing-back is identical, as is
obvious if the camera be placed on its side, for the horizontal swing
becomes vertical, and _vice versâ_. If the camera be set up plumb, the
effect of using the vertical swing-back to its extreme limits (which are
determined by the mechanical construction of the camera) is to lengthen
objects in the direction of their obliquity and to sharpen them. What
does this mean from an art point of view? It means that as a rule it
throws the whole picture out of drawing, the relative positions of the
planes are altered, the relative definition in the planes is altered and
therefore the relative values, and therefore as a rule the picture, is
artistically injured. This rule-of-thumb use of the swing-back arose, no
doubt, from the practice of those craftsmen, untrained in art, whose aim
was the production of “sharp” pictures. The only legitimate extensive
use of the swing-back is when the camera is tilted before an
architectural subject, when it is quite correct to have the ground-glass
plumb, although for our part we deem the tilting of the camera to be
undesirable. The swing-backs can, however, be used, with the greatest
caution, in artistic work, and their value can scarcely be overrated,
but it requires great knowledge to use them appropriately. The subtle
changes in the drawing and composition of a picture which can be
obtained by an intelligent use of the two swing-backs, make them, to
those who know how to use them, most valuable tools. But if the beginner
will take our advice, he will keep his ground-glass plumb, and his
horizontal swing-back square, and never venture to alter either until he
has thoroughly mastered his _technique_, and has some insight into the
principles of art. The use of these swing-backs seems so easy, as of
course it is, when “sharpness” is all the desideratum and embodiment of
the operator’s knowledge of art, but in reality none but artists know
their real value. By their means, the _impression_ of the whole scene
can often be more truly rendered, and things can be subdued and kept
back in the most wonderful manner; and since we wish to get a true
_impression_ of the scene we are interested in, not a realistic wealth
of detail, it can be easily understood how invaluable are the
swing-backs when used cautiously. [Sidenote: On impression and fact.]
Muybridge’s galloping horses are in all of their movements true, but
many of these are never seen by the eye, so quick are they. On the other
hand, the student, if he goes to the British Museum, can see in the
Parthenon Frieze that the sculptors in some cases carved the legs of the
farthest off of three horses in higher relief than those of the nearer
horses, but if he goes off a few paces and _views the carving in its
entirety_, he will see the true impression is gained; the nearest legs
look the farthest off, and so the work is true in impression, though not
true in absolute fact. And though the use of the swing-back makes the
drawing a little false, yet if the lens we shall describe hereafter be
used, the falsity is so very slight as to be hardly noticeable, while it
is _far more correct than any human hand guided alone by a human eye_
can render it. With art as with science, nothing is absolutely correct,
the personal equation and errors of experiment must be allowed for, but
the results are true enough for working purposes.
[Sidenote: Pin-hole photography.]
By perforating a thin metal plate with a minute hole, large enough only
to admit a pin’s point, and fitting it to the front of the camera in
place of the lens, an image will be thrown on the focussing screen, as
the piece of ground glass at the opposite end of the camera is called.
If the image be received on to a sensitized plate, it will be impressed
on the plate, and can be developed in the ordinary way. Were it not for
the great length of time required for exposure, it would be a great
question whether any lens at all need be used in photography, but since
the exposures required to produce pictures without lenses vary roughly
from one to thirty minutes, this method cannot be seriously considered
here, for, as we shall show, within certain limits, the quicker the
exposure the better; nevertheless, the drawing of pictures taken in such
way would obviously be correct. In cases where the length of exposure is
immaterial, this method would be a worthy field for experiment.
[Sidenote: Accidents to the camera.]
The student must be careful to see that the inside of the camera is a
dead black, and that it keeps so. At times the camera may leak or get
out of register, that is, the plate does not exactly take the place of
the ground glass, in which case he should at once send it to the maker.
[Sidenote: Test for register.] Should the student wish at any time to
test the register of his camera, he has only to pin up a printed card
and focus it as sharply as possible, using a magnifying glass, if one is
at hand. Then load the dark-slide with a plate of ground-glass, and
after sliding it into position, open the slide (if a double-back) when
the image will be seen on the ground-glass plate, and its sharpness can
be noted. If perfectly sharp, the camera is in register.
[Sidenote: Hand cameras.]
A good form of small camera to be carried in the hand is a great
desideratum for artistic studies. Exquisite studies of figures, birds,
and all sorts of animal life could be made with such a contrivance,
studies admirably suitable for tail-pieces or illustrations to go in
with the text. That there are dozens of patterns of hand cameras
commonly called “detective cameras,” we are well aware, and we have
tried some of the best, but we have found none satisfactory for artistic
purposes, and can therefore recommend none. We may here remark that the
name “detective camera” is, in our opinion, undesirable, photographers
ought not to have it even suggested to them that they are doing mean,
spying work with their cameras, whereas the term “hand camera” meets
every requirement. Of course the smaller cameras advertised to be worn
on the person are nothing but toys. The camera we should like to see
introduced would be a very light collapsible camera, which could be
easily carried in the pocket when not in use. It should be able to take
pictures not larger than four and a half by three and a half inches, and
should be fitted with the Eastman spools, so that any number of
exposures could be made. The lens should be Dallmeyer’s long focus
rectilinear landscape lens, fitted with a good shutter. There should be
a light view meter attached to the top. There is no necessity for a
ground-glass screen, for on the tail-board could be registered various
distances, at which the film is in focus; and since for artistic
purposes most of the studies would be of objects near at hand, this
arrangement would be effectual.
[Sidenote: View finder.]
Many hand cameras are fitted with a camera obscura. The handiest view
finder for quick exposure work is to fit a double convex lens of the
same focal length as the working lens to the front of the camera, and
turn up the focussing screen at right angles to the plane of the top of
the camera, when it may be secured by a small brass catch fitted for the
purpose. When the focussing cloth is thrown over the lens and screen a
temporary double camera is made, and the moving objects can be watched
on the ground glass. With experience it is possible to judge by simply
looking over the top of the camera.