CHAPTER XI - THE PLACE OF PHOTOGRAPHY IN FINE ART
Since the time that photography laid its claim to be reckoned among the fine arts the attention of artists has been attracted first by the claim and thereafter, with acknowledgments, to the performance.
The art cry of the newly baptized had the vehement ring of faith and determination. Like the prophecy of the embryo premier it sounded: “My lords, you will hear me yet.”
The sustained interest of the “Photographic Salon” and the utterance of its exhibitors in the language of art, has long since obtained concession to the claim for associate membership. To make this relationship complete became the effort of many writers of the photographic circle. “The whole point then,” writes Prof. P. H. Emerson, B. A., M. D., of England, “is that what the painter strives to do is to render, by any means in his power, as true an impression of any picture which he wishes to express as possible. A photographic artist strives for the same end and in two points only does he fall short of the painter—in color and in the ability to render so accurately the relative values, although this is to a great extent compensated by the tone of the picture. How then is photography superior to etching, wood-cutting, charcoal drawing? The [pg 178] drawing of the lens is not to be equalled by any man. There is ample room for selection, judgment and posing, and, in a word, in capable hands a finished photograph is a work of art. Thus we see that the art has at last found a scientific basis and can be rationally discussed, and I think I am right in saying that I was the first to base the claims of photography as a fine art on these grounds and I venture to predict that the day will come when photographs will be admitted to hang on the walls of the Royal Academy.”
Since the appearance of the above which comes as close to the real reason in question as its logic might intimate, but which is worth quoting from the prophecy which it contained, there have been many expressions of opinions by photographers. None, however, are more to the point than the following from the pen of Mr. F. H. Wilson: “When, fifty years ago, the new baby, photography, was born, Science and Art stood together over her cradle questioning what they might expect of her, wondering what place she would take among their other children. Science soon found that she had come with her hands full of gifts and her bounty to astronomy, microscopy and chemistry made her name blessed among these, her elder sisters. Art, always more conservative, hung back. But slowly jealous Art who first frowned and called the rest of her brood around her, away from the parvenue, has let her come near, has taken her hand, and is looking her over with questioning eyes. Soon, [pg 179] without doubt, she will have her on her lap with the rest.”
“Why has she been kept out so long? Almost from the beginning she claimed a place in the house beautiful of art. In spite of rebuffs she knocked at its doors, though the portrait painter and the critic flung stones at her from the house-top, and the law itself stood at the threshold denying her entrance. Those early efforts were not untinctured with a fear that if she should get in she would run the establishment, but the law long since owned her right, and instead of the crashing boulders of artistic dislike and critical indignation the volleys they drop at her feet now are mere mossy pebbles flung by similarly mossy critics or artist-bigots. Still, the world at large hears them rattle and does not give her the place and estimation she has won.”
“Art began with the first touch of man to shape things toward his ideal, be that ideal an agreeable composition, or the loftiest conception of genius. The higher it is the more it is art. Art is head-and-hand work and a creation deserves the name of art according to the quality and quantity of this expended on it. Simply sit down squarely before a thing and imitate it as an ox would if an ox could draw, with no thought or intention save imitation and the result will cry from every line, ‘I am not art but machine work,’ though its technique be perfection. Toil over arrangement and meditate over view-point and light, and though the result be the rudest, it will bear [pg 180] the impress of thought and of art. I tell you art begins when man with thought, forming a standard of beauty, commences to shape the raw material toward it. In pure landscape, where modification is limited, it begins when the artist takes one standpoint in preference to another. In figure composition, where modification is infinite, it begins with the first touch to bring the model into pose. When he bends a twig or turns a fold of drapery the spirit of art has come and is stirring within him. What matters the process! Surely it is time that this artistic bigotry was ended.”
The kernel lies in the sentence “when he bends a twig,” etc., “the spirit of art has come.” In other words when he exhibits choice and preference, when, in short, he composes.