Naturalistic Photography for Students of the Art.

by P. H. Emerson

The student will see it constantly advocated that every detail of a picture should be impartially rendered with a biting accuracy, and this in all cases. This biting sharpness being, as Mr. T. F. Goodall, the landscape-painter, says, “Quite fatal from the artistic standpoint.” If the rendering were always given sharply, the work would belong to the category of topography or the knowledge of places, that is Science. To continue, the student will find directions for producing an unvarying quality in his negatives. He will be told how negatives of low-toned effects may be made to give prints like negatives taken in bright sunshine; in short, he will find that these writers have a scientific ideal, a sort of standard negative by which to gauge all others. And if these writers are questioned, the student will find the standard negative is one in which all detail is rendered with microscopic sharpness, and one taken evidently in the brightest sunshine. We once heard it seriously proposed that there should be some sort of standard lantern-slide. My allotted time is too brief to give further examples. Suffice it to say, that this unvarying standard negative would be admirable if Nature were unvarying in her moods; until that comes to pass there must be as much variety in negatives as there are in different moods in Nature.

It is, we think, because of the confusion of the aims of Science and Art that the majority of photographs fail either as scientific records or works of art. It would be easy to point out how the majority are false scientifically, and easier still to show how they are simply devoid of all artistic qualities. They serve, however, as many have served, as topographical records of faces, buildings, and landscapes, but often incorrect records at that. It is curious and interesting to observe that such work always requires a name. It is a photograph of Mr. Jones, of Mont Blanc, or of the Houses of Parliament. On the other hand, a work of Art really requires no name,—it speaks for itself. It has no burning desire to be christened, for its aim is to give the beholder æsthetic pleasure, and not to add to his knowledge or the Science of places, i.e. geography. The work of Art, it cannot too often be repeated, appeals to man’s emotional side; it has no wish to add to his knowledge—to his Science. On the other hand, topographical works appeal to his intellectual side; they refresh his memory of absent persons or landscapes, or they add to his knowledge. To anticipate criticism, I should like to say that of course in all mental processes the intellectual and emotional factors are inseparable, yet the one is always subordinated to the other. The emotional is subordinate when we are solving a mathematical problem, the intellectual is decidedly subordinate when we are making love. Psychologists have analyzed to a remarkable extent the intellectual phenomena, but the knowledge of the components of the sentiments or the emotional phenomena is, as Mr. Herbert Spencer says, “altogether vague in its outlines, and has a structure which continues indistinct even under the most patient introspection. Dim traces of different components may be discerned; but the limitations both of the whole and of its parts are so faintly marked, and at the same time so entangled, that none but very general results can be reached.”

The chief thing, then, that I would impress upon all beginners is the necessity for beginning work with a clear distinction between the aims and ends of Science and Art. When the art-student has acquired enough knowledge—that is, Science—to express what he wishes, let him, with jealous care, keep the scientific mental attitude, if I may so express it, far away. On the other hand, if the student’s aim is scientific, let him cultivate rigidly scientific methods, and not weaken himself by attempting a compromise with Art. We in the photographic world should be either scientists or artists; we should be aiming either to increase knowledge,—that is, science,—or to produce works whose aim and end is to give æsthetic pleasure. I do not imply any comparison between Science and Art to the advantage of either one. They are both of the highest worth, and I admire all sincere, honest, and capable workers in either branch with impartiality. But I do not wish to see the aims and ends of the two confused, the workers weakened thereby, and, above all, the progress of both Science and Art hindered and delayed.

III.

Next I shall discuss briefly the ill-effects of a too sedulous study of Science upon an Art student.

The first and, perhaps, the greatest of these ill-effects is the positive mental attitude that Science fosters. A scientist is only concerned with stating a fact clearly and simply; he must tell the truth, and the whole truth. Now, a scientific study of photography, if pushed too far, leads, as a rule, to that state of mind which delights in a wealth of clearly-cut detail. The scientific photographer wishes to see the veins in a lily-leaf and the scales on a butterfly’s wing. He looks, in fact, so closely, so microscopically, at the butterfly’s wing, that he never sees the poetry of the life of the butterfly itself, as with buoyant wheelings it disappears in marriage flight over the lush grass and pink cuckoo-flowers of May.

I feel sure that this general delight in detail, brilliant sun-shiny effect, glossy prints, &c., is chiefly due to the evolution of photography: these tastes have been developed with the art, from the silver plate of Daguerre to the double-albumenized paper of to-day. But, as the art develops, we find the love for gloss and detail giving way before platinotype prints and photo-etchings.

The second great artistic evil engendered by Science, is the careless manner in which things are expressed. The scientist seeks for truth, and is often indifferent to its method of expression. To him, “Can you not wait upon the lunatic?” is as the late Matthew Arnold said, as good as, “Canst thou not minister to a mind diseased?” To the literary artist, on the other hand, these sentences are as the poles asunder,—the one in bald truth, the other literature. They both mean the same thing; yet what æsthetic pleasure we get from the one, and what a dull fact is, “Can you not wait upon the lunatic?” There are photographs and photographs; the one giving as much pleasure as the literary sentence, the other being as dull as the matter-of-fact question. The student with understanding will see the fundamental and vital distinction between Science and Art as shown even in these two short sentences.

And now, ladies and gentlemen, I do not think I can do better than finish this section by quoting another passage from the writings of the late Matthew Arnold.

“Deficit una mihi symmetria prisca.—‘The antique symmetry was the one thing wanting to me,’ said Leonardo da Vinci, and he was an Italian. I will not presume to speak for the American, but I am sure that, in the Englishman, the want of this admirable symmetry of the Greeks is a thousand times more great and crying in’[in’] any Italian. The results of the want show themselves most glaringly, perhaps, in our architecture, but they show themselves also in our art. Fit details strictly combined, in view of a large general result nobly conceived: that is just the beautiful symmetria prisca of the Greeks, and it is just where we English fail, where all our art fails. Striking ideas we have, and well-executed details we have; but that high symmetry which, with satisfying delightful effect, contains them, we seldom or never have. The glorious beauty of the Acropolis at Athens did not arise from single fine things stuck about on that hill, a statue here, a gateway there. No, it arose from all things being perfectly combined for a supreme total effect.”