[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.
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.