Naturalistic Photography for Students of the Art.

by P. H. Emerson

Sentiment.

Artists speak of the “sentiment of nature” as a highly desirable quality in a picture. This means that naturalism should have been the leading idea which has governed the general conception and execution of the work. Thus the sentiment of nature is a healthful and highly desirable quality in a picture. Thus “true in sentiment” is a term of high praise. “Sentiment” is really normal sympathetic “feeling.”

Sentimentality.

As opposed to sentiment, is a highly undesirable quality, and a quality to be seen in all bad work. It is an affectation of sentiment, and relies by artificiality and mawkishness upon appealing to the morbid and uncultured. It is the bane of English art. The one is normal, the other morbid.

Soul.

Soul = Vis medicatrix = Plastic force = Vital force = Vital principle = O. The word is, however, used by some of the most advanced thinkers in art, and when asked to explain it they say they mean by it “the fundamental.” From what we can gather, the word “soul” is the formula by which they express the sum total of qualities which make up the life of the individual. Thus a man when he has got the “soul” into a statue, has not only rendered the organic structure of the model, but also all the model’s subtleties of harmony, of movement and expression, and thought, which are due to the physical fact of his being a living organism. This “life” is of course the fundamental thing, and first thing to obtain in any work of art. In this way, then, we can understand the use of the word “soul” as synonymous with the “life” of the model. The “soul” or life is always found in nature, in the model, and the artist seizes upon it first, and subdues all things to it. “Soul,” then, to us is a term for the expression of the epitome of the characteristics of a living thing. The Egyptians expressed the “soul” or life of a lion, Landseer did not.

Technique.

By technique is meant, in photography, a knowledge of optics and chemistry, and of the preparation and employment of the photographic materials by the means of which pictures are secured. It does in no way refer to the manner of using these materials, that is the “practice.”

Tone.

To begin with, as this book is for photographers, we must tell them they invariably use the word tone in a wrong sense. What photographers call “tone” should properly be colour or tint, thus: a brown tint, a purple tint, or colour.