Page 25 - Studio International - July August 1975

t'ousand leaves and dere you have a painters and critics, tacit if not stated, photographers representing the
tree.' Lying beneath the veneer of that even if photography hadn't thrown opposing schools were to be seen, while
sarcasm is the same concern with the the continued existence of painting into in the pages of the flourishing
mimetic function of painting which had doubt, it had raised serious questions as photographic journals and amongst
earlier misled Ruskin when faced with to its future development. themselves, photographers began
the sharp detail of a daguerreotype, a However, some champions of discussing the essential nature of their
process quite capable of producing an photography were quite prepared to back medium, its true role, its potential, and—
accurate rendering of 'one hundred Delaroche's more extreme view. The most persistently and usually most
t'ousand leaves', provided that the air most eloquent of them was George fruitlessly—whether or not photography
was still. Ruskin had compared Bernard Shaw. 'If you cannot see at a could make claims to being 'an art'.
Canaletto's accuracy unfavourably with glance,' he wrote in The Amateur It was the almost embarrassing ability
that of the camera and had produced the Photographer, 'that the old game is up, of photography to produce what seemed
equation one inch of daguerreotype that the camera has hopelessly beaten the an infinite amount of minute detail which
equals three feet of a Canaletto painting. pencil and paint-brush as an instrument led to an unfair assessment of the new
This rule of thumb is as unreasonable as of artistic representation, then you will medium by some painters, and was the
Samuel Morse's description of a never make a true critic." Shaw's article reason why much of the argument about
daguerreotype in 1839—`Rembrandt was published in 1901 at a time when `photographic art' at the turn of the
perfected.' Many of these early reactions photography was going through a soul- century centred on problems of definition.
to photography carry within them the searching reappraisal of its role. There is By the late nineteenth century, definition
belief that photography is the same as no doubt that throughout the nineteenth in painting was no longer considered a
painting, and the assumption that one century a few sensitive photographers virtue outside academic circles.' As
will take over the function of the other. who were not blinded by a vision of painters adopted methods which
Probably the most famous of these Great Art or blinkered by convention allowed them more freedom of personal
shocked over-reactions is that of the were exploring the possibilities of what expression in their work, they took to
painter Paul Delaroche, whose we might usefully call 'camera vision' in directing kicks at the photographers,
pessimism was displayed in his banner- their work. But it was in the years whose work had been one of the main
headline pronouncement 'From today around the turn of the century that influences in bringing about this
painting is dead!' Of course, it wasn't. photographers became locked in public fundamental change. From their new
But subsequent discussion, argument and debate on the nature of photography. ground they poured scorn on the
reassessment produced a general Then it was that on the walls of the photographers, condemned forever to
agreement among the more progressive `Royal' and the 'Salon' works by produce mere facsimiles of the real
world : 'The imitator is a poor kind of
creature. If the man who paints only the
tree or flower or other surface he sees
before him were an artist, the king of
artists would be the photographer. It is
for the artist to do something beyond
this. The reaction of those photographers
concerned with 'art' in their work to
comments such as this (by Whistler) was
predictable. If photography could only
achieve a position as an art form by
adopting the methods and devices
developed by painters, then they would
do just that, and abandon sharp detail for
artistic effect.
In 1901 Steichen was in Paris studying
painting—although his talents as a
photographer were already evident and
he had vowed to Alfred Stieglitz before
leaving New York never to give up
photography. After a brief period
attending the Academie Julian he began
a course of self-instruction and spent a
good deal of time studying at the
Louvre : 'After the first overwhelming
impact, I began studying the individual
pictures and schools more closely and
found myself wondering repeatedly
whether such and such a painting could
also be done by photography. One
Titian particularly intrigued me, Man
with a Glove. It had been painted with
great precision, but it also had style and
an allure that I found hard to explain...
One day, I dressed up in one of [F.
Holland] Day's stocks, draped his
mantle around my shoulders, picked up a
palette and brush, and posed in the
mirror for what I thought was going to be
photography's answer to Man with a
Glove. I experimented with prints from
the negative, first with the original gum-
print process, then with other colloids,
glues, and gelatins, sometimes in
combination, sometimes separately. I
worked out several formulas that gave
interesting results and considerable
Edward Steichen
Self-Portrait with Brush and Palette 1901 leeway in controlling the results. It took
Pigment print me almost a year to master the technique
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