Page 4 - Is the Camera the Friend or Foe of Art - The Studio - June 1893

Is the Camera the Friend or Foe of A rt

greater resemblance to Nature may or may not have but equally vital distortions of truth they know not
been influenced by photography. Certain it is, nor care to know. The photograph gives them the
that even in a child's toy-book to-day the elephant superabundance of worthless detail which they love.
is far more like the actual quadruped than in With the microscope they can see more of the
earlier delineations. In portraiture the influence beauties of a butterfly's wings—with a powerful
is, oddly enough, less obvious : there, where it magnifier they see more of the detail of a photo-
might be expected to be most patent, it is subtly graph ; therefore, they argue, the photograph is
hidden. In an exhibition of portraits such as that nearer the perfection of Nature, and the painter
now on view at the Grafton Gallery, one might who can be inspected by a lens is the greatest.
hazard more than a suspicion of its influence ; yet Consequently Meissonier and some masters of the
it is not so demonstrative as in ordinary figure- Dutch school are prized and bought, not, it is
pictures. The very large influence of the camera to be feared, for their larger merits and broad excel-
on black and white work needs no consideration-- lence, despite their minute accuracy of imitation,
it may be granted at once ; and the fact that many but because of it. Besides this elaborate detail the
artists of repute openly acknowledge the service it public has learned to demand accuracy in topo-
has rendered redeems the charge of any offence. graphy, fidelity almost verging on caricature in
So far as concerns colour, the camera must needs portraiture, and for breaking waves, the foliage of
be absolved of pernicious or indeed of any direct trees, architectural details, and other objects, that
influence, yet its sufficiency without that final word it once was able to enjoy in the most crude pre-
of art must indirectly assist in the neglect of the sentment, it requires what it calls photographic
wider palette. There can be no doubt that accuracy. The phrase that has become a stock ex-
modern civilisation, thanks to illustrated journal- pression sums up the case. The masses now prize
ism, engravings, and photography, has learned to be statistics, measurements, and textures more than
content with artificial convention of monochrome abstract beauty, colour harmonies, or decorative
to a surprising degree. It is quite possible that composition, and to satisfy their desires for the
were coloured reproductions of masterpieces, abso- former the camera is always ready and capable.
lutely perfect fac-similes, easily obtainable, that Lastly, has the photograph in itself the possi-
nevertheless the taste which permits an etching or bilities of art ? This seems to depend upon what
even a platinotype photograph would exclude any you demand from it. So far its triumphs have
but " hand-painted " pictures, and feel the nobility been in fields where the hand of the artist could at
of its renunciation. At present, indeed, one may least equal its highest efforts. The most successful
be glad that the chromo and oleograph are without naturalistic photograph, with its shadows trans-
the pale, but if the joy in colour dies of its banish- parent and full of light, and its atmospheric
ment from the pictures of the middle classes, we shall gradation subtle and beautiful, cannot even by
regret that the gaiety of Japanese woodcuts had the most active partisan be placed above a draw-
not urged Western natives to splendid rivalry, and ing by a great artist. The mass of composed
that the austerity of black and white in photograph pictures, wrought from many negatives, need no
or engraving has led to the disuse of colour in popu- consideration here. On their own level they may
lar prints? Possibly this scarcely suspected evil may or may not rival the average picture of an ordinary
be the most lasting result of the camera in our midst. gallery. It were hard to accept either as works of
Whether the public has learned to ask for other art in the highest sense. For a record of tones,' a
qualities since the popularity of the photograph has picture of technical beauty, appealing to the artist
given them another standard of reference than by its knowledge, truth, and science, abjuring
their own vision is also a question whereof the anecdote and concerned with the beauty of nature
reply to a great extent is a foregone conclusion. effects, the photograph may yet produce works of
For it must not be forgotten that to the populace genuine artistic value. Its rapid summary of facts,
the voice of the camera is the voice of infallible its pleasant texture and surface in the hands of its
truth. The sun cannot lie, they say. Not theirs masters, and its power to depict certain subjects
to trouble about perspective or altered tones. They which are by accidental circumstances impossible
do indeed realise that yellow is apt to appear to a painter—such, for instance, as the storm-tossed
darker, and blues lighter, in an ordinary photo- mid-ocean, the frozen arctic reaches, or certain
graph; that hands and feet, unless carefully rapid effects of Nature—may possibly some day be
disposed, become caricatures ; but that such selected by the art of the wielder of the camera ;
obvious discrepancies are but signs of less apparent with his instinct and knowledge forming so large
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