Naturalistic Photography for Students of the Art.

by P. H. Emerson

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.

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.

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.

Low art.

See high art.

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 |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. |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. |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.