Page 29 - Studio International - July August 1975

9tlbert de Belleroche
Reverie
Monochrome lithograph
3ritish Museum

Robert Demachy
Buste prints by Hiroshige; she is wearing a
Oil transfer print
kimono and scarf which fall to the floor Alphonse Mucha
wrote: 'It happens that the gum process in a similar way to those of the Demachy Poster Design 1901
is much more controllable in the wrong sitter.29 The Whistler painting Monochrome lithograph
direction than the platinotype process, reproduced here — Symphony in White
and that the fascination of the No. III, dated 1867 — contains several
masterpieces of the great painters and of the superficial elements which
draughtsmen is so great that it is very photographers took from his work. The
hard to refrain from imitating them down use of figures to create pattern, the
to their very handwritings if it is at all Japanese influences which lead to
possible to do it'. 27 Certainly on modifications in the treatment of the
occasion Demachy seems to have been illusion of depth in the painting and —
happy to copy the work of other artists. once again — the girls who appear both
His Buste, dating from some time after dreaming and at the same time as if in a
1904, would seem to be based on a dream. The figure on the left seems to
monochrome lithograph Alphonse have provided Julia Margaret Cameron
Mucha produced for a poster design in with a pose used in a portrait of May
1901. Prinsep from about 1870, and Whistler-
The other Demachy print reproduced like girls drifting by in their long, flowing
here, which has no title, exemplifies the gowns are often to be found in the work
best points of his use of of the American photographers of the
manipulative processes to produce a Photo-Secession, such as Clarence
striking photographic image. The entire White and George Seeley.
surface of the print is worked over except In 1922 Paul Strand wrote in
(as usual) for the face, hands and the exasperation: 'Without the slightest
drapery of the Japanese kimono. The realization that in this machine, the
hand-working attempts to convey a camera, a new and unique instrument had
sense of depth to the print whilst been placed in their hands,
paradoxically emphasizing its flatness, photographers have, in almost every
and eliminates detail in order to throw instance, been trying to use it as a short
attention on to the sharply defined cut to an accepted medium, painting .. 27
features of the girl who looks out at us. We find all through the work done in
There is evidence in this print of the very Germany, France and Italy, in England Robert Demachy
strong influence, which I have only and much in America, the supreme altar Untitled
space to touch on here, exerted by of the new God, a singular lack of Gum print
Whistler on photographers in the late perception and respect for the basic Royal Photographic Society
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Victorian period. If there is reference to nature of the photographic machine'.30
a specific Whistler painting, it is perhaps America was indeed to become 'the
to his Caprice in Purple and Gold. No. 2 : supreme altar of the new God' —
The Golden Screen, which dates from photography — but in the process of
1864. In this work a girl is looking at achieving this distinction, American

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