Naturalistic Photography for Students of the Art.

by P. H. Emerson

In ending this subject, we would impress upon the photographer that it is his solemn duty to exact the utmost rigour of the law, should he ever have his work pirated.

CHAPTER XV.
EXHIBITIONS.

Exhibitions.

Exhibiting a work of art is publishing it, and the student will, when he obtains suitable works, very naturally begin to think about exhibiting them. The subject of photographic exhibitions is one upon which we have written many times in the photographic press. Photographic exhibitions are in a most unsatisfactory condition all over the world.

At present, a society, or a corporation, or a private firm, for ends of their own, advertise an exhibition, often on purely financial grounds; they hope it will pay them, sometimes it does pay and sometimes it does not. The method of organizing these exhibitions is to get a list of patrons, generally a few of the “classes,” a few photographers who are known, but whose fame more often than not is based on nothing solid, and is ephemeral, and finally perhaps the names of a few artists may be used to conjure with. Numbers of medals are advertised and all works have to be sent carriage paid. The judges are then chosen, and in nearly all cases they are utterly incompetent. No one can judge a work of art unless he be an artist. The combined assurance and ignorance of those who accept what should be considered a serious office, is laughable and lamentable. Is our exhibiting student then going to submit his work to men untrained in art? If he does, he will find it either unhung, skied, or passed over in the awards, to make room for the pretty nothings and false renderings of the craftsmen’s ideal. The whole judging business is such a blatant farce that the method of awards at photographic exhibitions is a stock joke among artists. We have repeatedly been to exhibitions with artists, and on nearly every occasion their opinion was that many of the most worthy pictures were passed over. Such a state of things is appalling, and when with that is coupled the notorious unfairness with which certain exhibitions are directed, as recent disclosures have proved, it is indeed lamentable. The tendency of all exhibitions as at present conducted is to degrade photography as an art; that is our deliberate opinion, after having for several years watched the system of making awards and having served on several juries of awards. A fatal error very common among photographers is to suppose that, because a man is an eminent scientist or a great authority on lenses, he is therefore a fit and proper person to judge pictures. The truth is he is one of the most unfit, for he is prejudiced, and his scientific knowledge has a bad influence on his judgment.

Abolition of medals.

In our opinion all medals should be done away with, all distinctions between “amateur” and “professional” removed; all pictures should be hung on the line, the hanging committee should be selected from those photographers who have proved themselves by their works to know most about art; and all pictures should be exhibited in separate frames. If medals must be awarded in order to attract exhibitors, let the awards be made by artists of recognized position only. You have only to look at the medals awarded, to know what to expect; there is, with one or two exceptions, not the feeblest suggestion of art in them, they belong to the class of medals awarded to patent ice-cream machines, best refined arrow-root and dog-biscuits. |Medals as works of art.| If medals are awarded, each one should be a work of art, the original having been modelled by a good sculptor. The student, as a rule then, should pay no regard whatever to the awards made at exhibitions by photographers, the only real test of value is when the awards are made by trained artists, but it is rarely that even one artist serves on a jury of awards.

If our student must exhibit, we advise him to mark his work “Not for Competition.” |Gambling for medals.| Gambling for medals has lately assumed alarming proportions, as the recent comments in the Photographic News prove. It is enough to disgust all artists, who will of course keep aloof from photographic circles, as they already do, as long as things continue as they are. |Queer judges.| Can the folly of human nature go further than when we hear of Mr. Guncotton, noted for his studies in collodion, or Mr. Chromatic, noted for his patent lens, or Mr. Gelatine noted for his emulsion process, assembling in solemn conclave to award medals for pictures, to judge which, needs years of careful and special study and wide artistic experience. The student, curious on these matters, has only to note how different are the awards when artists give the prizes. Many of our best workers, we know, will not exhibit, so long as the craftsman’s ideal is set up as the standard, and the judges are not artists. |Early days of the Photographic Society.| In the early days of photography, when Sir Charles Eastlake, formerly president of the Royal Academy, was also president of the Royal Photographic Society, and when Sir W. J. Newton, the eminent miniature painter was one of the vice-presidents, there seemed some chance for photography, and all might have gone well, had not these artists, as we are informed, been harried and worried by the ignorant wranglings of their brother “photographic artist” (?) judges. Those who were thus responsible for the resignation of those artists, deserve to be pilloried to the end of time in photographic literature, and such, we are sure, is the feeling of all who earnestly wish for the good and advancement of photography.

J. Constable.

This is a painful subject, but we conceive it to be our solemn duty to warn the student who is anxious to follow photography as an art, against all these traps. Let him set out with the determination to work for the approval of artists, and let him despise the approval or disapproval of all ignorant of art. As John Constable said long ago, “the self-taught artist has a very ignorant master!”