Photography and fine art
by Henry Turner Bailey
1918
TO EVERYBODY
WHO ENJOYS A CAMERA AND LIKES PHOTOGRAPHS, AND WHO IN SECRET WISHES THAT HE KNEW MORE ABOUT HOW TO PRODUCE BEAUTIFUL PICTURES, THIS BOOK IS DEDICATED, BY ONE TO WHOM THAT STATE OF MIND IS LIKE A FAMILIAR FRIEND.
PREFACE
THIS book is a revision of a series of illustrated articles first published in the School Arts Magazine. The articles were written in the hope that they might promote a more intelligent and extensive use of the camera in the public schools as an aid to knowledge and taste. They are now reprinted in book form in the hope that they may be useful to amateur photographers everywhere, who have had a taste of the golden apples in the garden of Hesperides, and who hunger and thirst for fuller satisfaction.
The aim of the book is aesthetic. Nothing will be found in it about the mechanical or chemical technique of photography. Those who desire help in that direction must look elsewhere. I have endeavored to state clearly and to illustrate adequately those principles of composition, those elements of beauty, which in my own experience, and in the close observation of the work of others, I have found to be illuminating and dynamic.
While knowledge of principles and familiarity with the elements of beauty will never alone enable a person to produce a beautiful thing in any realm of art, the informed person is likely to make fewer ridiculous attempts than the ignorant person, who excuses himself and justifies himself by saying, "I know nothing about art, but I know what I like."
The genius does seem to have intuitive knowledge, and to do the successful thing without apparent effort. But the successful thing is never the lawless thing. As Lanier has so well said
"The poet, mad with heavenly fires, Flings men his song white-hot, then back retires, Cools heart, broods o'er the song again, inquires, Why did I this, why that? and slowly draws From Art's unconscious act Art's conscious laws."
And those laws become the guiding principles of the less gifted, enabling them, when faithfully respected, to produce work that is at least "not too bad."
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There is, however, another reason for studying composition aiid searching for the elements of beauty. "The greater the knowledge, the greater the love/' Leonardo da Vinci used to say. No one can observe and analyze beautiful things in nature or works of art without increasing his capacity to appreciate and therefore to enjoy the best.
Photography has led thousands upon thousands of people into the magic world of pictorial art, where the masters of painting freely offer radiant companionship and perennial joy to the openminded lover of beauty. That this book may prove helpful in shortening the journey of the lusty and hopeful photographer from the Land of Longing to the Land of Heart's Desire, is my hope.
To the many friends who have helped in the making of this book, by furnishing photographs for reproduction, whose names are usually mentioned in the text, though not always, for obvious reasons! I wish to express here my sincere thanks. Without their help the book could not have been made.. They may not agree with all I say about their pictures, but they must solace themselves with the thought, that "a man is not responsible for the conclusions people draw from his remarks" how much less from his pictures!
And now, joy to you! O Reader. You will like my friends' pictures, whatever you may think of my text.
HENRY TURNER BAILEY
TRUSTWORTH
NORTH SCITUATE, MASS.
SUMMER OF 1918
TABLE OF CONTENTS
CHAPTER I. WHERE WE ALL BEGIN 17-
The personal reminiscent point of view. Its significance.
CHAPTER II. OUR COMMON SECOND STEP 23
Interest in technique. The scientific point of view. Its importance. The value of photographic records of historic data, wild flowers, etc.
CHAPTER III. THE SLOUGH OF "HIGH ART" 33
The dangerous lure of the whimsical, the startling, and the unique. The importance of simple mounting and thoughtful spacing.
CHAPTER IV. THE PARTING OF THE WAYS 43
The three kinds of photographic subject: The View, the Pictorial Decoration, the Picture.
CHAPTER V. THE DISCOVERY OF PICTORIAL MATERIAL 51
The chief rule of composition. The importance of definite aim; of selection and arrangement.
CHAPTER VI. THE SUBJECT ONLY 59
The most obvious method of giving distinction to the subject. Isolation; its advantages and its limitations.
CHAPTER VII. THE SUBJECT IN PLACE 66
The importance of environment and of orderly emphasis or accent in the definition of details.
CHAPTER VIII. THE SUBJECT ENHANCED 75
The supreme moment. Proper adjustment of attractions: Mass, Line, Sequence, Contrast. The supreme importance of Unity.
CHAPTER IX. RHYTHM 89
Orderly variety. The importance of rhythm in nature and in art. The secret of the picturesque. The limit of variety.
CHAPTER X. BALANCE 99
The adjustment of attractions. The three centers in pictorial art. The aim of composition. The photographic artist's chief concern.
12 PHOTOGRAPHY AND FINE ART
CHAPTER XI. THE SIRENS 107
Four seductive ideals: Nudity, Antiquity, Illustration, Expression. Why these are illusory, and dangerous to the beginner.
CHAPTER XII. HARMONY 116
The interrelation of elements. A pervading common quality. The importance of Mood, Character, Consistency.
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
ST. PETER'S DOME. A pencil sketch by H. T. Bailey . . . Frontispiece
I MY HOME. H. T. Bailey 17
II GOVERNMENT ISLAND, Cohasset, Mass 18
III A WEDDING CANOPY 19
IV PLAYING INDIAN 20
V BACK YARD, Mrs. Coonley Ward's House, Chicago 22
VI MILES WARD HOUSE, Salem, Mass. Frank Cousens 24
VII LONE STAR MILL SITE, Franklin, Mass. 0. T. Mason ...... 25
VIII CANOPY BED, Page House, Danvers, Mass 26
IX COLONIAL PULPIT, Unitarian Church, Cohasset, Mass. W. P. Gannett . 26
X MODERN BREAKFAST ROOM 27
XI ART SCHOOL ENTRANCE, John Herron Art Institute, Indianapolis, Ind. . 28
XII COLONIAL ENTRANCE, St.Paul's Rectory, Baltimore, Md. Frank Cousens . 29
XIII JACK-IN-THE-PULPIT. J. Horace McFarland 30
XIV YOUNG HAWKS. Herman W. Nash 30
XV FLOWERING DOGWOOD. J. Horace McFarland 31
XVI PUBLIC SCHOOL ENTRANCE, John D. Runkle School, Brookline, Mass. . . 32
XVII ART-PHOTOGRAPHIC STUDIO WALLS 33
XVIII FREAK MOUNTS 34
XIX FREAK SUBJECTS 35
XX UNFORTUNATE MOUNTINGS 37
XXI AMID THE SAND DUNES. H. C. Mann 38
XXII MOUNTING IN REFERENCE TO SUBJECT . 39
XXIII MARGINS. An illustrative diagram 40
XXIV LOADING STRAWBERRIES. A View 42
XXV WHERE HORSES ARE REFRESHED. A View 44
XXVI ON COLUMBIA'S CAMPUS. A pictorial decoration. Helen R. Webster . . 45
XXVII VIOLIN Music. A pictorial decoration. A. E. Mergenthaler .... 46
XXVIII THE TIRED WOMAN. A picture. A. E. Mergenthaler 47
XXIX THE SEA. A view containing three good pictures 48
XXX COURT OF ABUNDANCE, Panama-Pacific Exposition, San Francisco . . 48
XXXI BATTLEFIELD OF THE ELEMENTS. H. C. Mann 46
XXXII WHERE SEA-MARSH AND UPLAND MEET, Scituate, Mass. H. T. Bailey . 52
XXXIII KENT STREET, Scituate, Mass. 53
XXXIV OLD SCITUATE 54
XXXV NEW ENGLAND ROADSIDE 54
XXXVI UNCLE NAT TURNER'S FENCE 55
XXXVII ONE OF THE " LOVED SCENES WHICH MY INFANCY KNEW" .... 55
XXXVIII Six PICTURES FROM ONE VIEW 57
XXXIX THE LITTLE MOTHER IN HER HOME 60
XL THE LITTLE MOTHER HERSELF 61
XLI MADONNA GRANDUCA. Raphael 61
XLII MOTHER AND THREE CHILDREN. Dinturf 62
XLIII PORTRAIT OF A LAWYER. Helen R. Webster 62
XLIV SHOOT OF HELLEBORE. Walter Sargent 64
CHRYSANTHEMUMS. A. E. Mergenthaler 64
XLV THE MOWER. Millet 66
XLVI PENELOPE BOOTHBY. Sir Joshua Reynolds 67
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PHOTOGRAPHY AND FINE ART
XLVII MOTHER AND CHILD. J. W. Alexander . 68
XLVIII VIBURNAM FLOWERS. A. E. Mergenthaler 69
XLIX HOLLYHOCKS. H. C. Mann .... 70
L FAIRY DWELLING. W. C. Baker 71
LI THE BRIDE. R. W. Johnston .... 72
LII RUNNING UP THE DORY. N. L. Berry 73
LIII UNITARIAN CHURCH, Scituate, Mass. W. P. Atwood 75
LIV THE LAST LOAD. Jane Dudley ....... . . 76
LV DEAD TREES, Norfolk, Va. H. C. Mann ... 77
LVI BOOTH HILL PINES. Walter Sargent .... 78
LVII THREE BROTHERS. W. P. Atwood . . . 79
LVIII WILLOWS IN THE MIST . -. 80
LIX ATTRACTIONS. Illustrative Diagrams 83
LX THE OLD HOME 84
LXI UNITARIAN CHURCH, Cohasset, Mass 85
LXII SNOWED IN , 85
LXIII THE SAND DUNE COUNTRY. H. C. Mann 86
LXIV MOONLIGHT. H. C. Mann 87
LXV OLD TURNER HOUSE, Scituate, Mass. A pen sketch. H. T. Bailey . . 89
LXVI THE PARTHENON. Illustrative diagrams 90
LXVII DISCOBOLUS. Myron . . . 90
MOSES. Michelangelo 90
LXVIII MOONLIGHT IN MONTREUIL. Everett Warner ... 91
LXIX LEAVES. Illustrative diagrams. Muerer . 92
LXX MY HAND. Illustrative diagram. Ronald F. Davis 92
LXXI HISTORIC SCULPTURED FOLIAGE. Muerer 93
LXXII MODERN GERMAN DOORWAY 94
COLONIAL DOORWAY, Philadelphia. Frank Cousens 94
LXXIII MASTERLY COMPOSITIONS. Diagramatic tracings from six famous pictures 95
LXXIV HOUSE OF SEVEN GABLES. Frank Cousens 96
LXXV THE LARK. Ernst Liebermann ... 98
LXXVI A WELL BALANCED COMPOSITION. Ernst Liebermann 100
LXXVII AN UNBALANCED COMPOSITION 100
LXXVIII A FRIEND OF COROT'S. Charles Wellington Furlong 100
LXXIX MOURNING VICTORY. Daniel Chester French 101
LXXX KINDLY POPLARS. A. E. Mergenthaler 102
LXXXI OLD GRANARY BURYING GROUND, Boston. Jessie Tarbox Beals . . . 105
LXXXII WINTER EVENING, Louishurg Square, Boston. Jessie Tarbox Beals . . 105
LXXXIII NUDE CHILD REACHING 107
LXXXIV BABY STUART. A poem and its parody 109
LXXXV THE WITCH . 110
LXXXVI NYDIA, Bodenhausen. And a photographic imitation Ill
LXXXVII MAGDALENE, Guido Reni. And two photographic imitations .... 112
LXXXVIII MATER DOLOROSA. Herbert G. French . . . 113
LXXXIX GRIEF. Martinique Sander . . 114
XC CHILD ADORING. W. Chauncy Langdon . . 115
XCI SUMMER MORNING. Rudolph Eickemeyer 118
XCII WINTER NIGHT. Jessie Tarbox Beals 119
XCIII SNOW, STEAM, AND SMOKE. Carl E. Semon 120
XCIV PORTRAIT. Jessie Tarbox Beals 121
XCV THE READERS. Clarence H. White . . 122
XCVI THE WIDOW. Gertrude Kasebier 123
He dipped his brush and tried to fix a line, And then came peace, and gentle beauty came, Turning his spirit's water into wine, Lightening his darkness with a
touch of flame.
Oj joy of trying for beauty, ever the same, You never fail, your comforts never end; 0, balm of this world's way; 0, perfect
rifend !
MASEFIELD.
Photography and Fine Art
CHAPTER I
Where We All Begin
HERE is the first picture I ever made with the camera, a picture of my own house, of course! Everybody begins the same way. Pleased with his first camera, impatient to see his own first print, the amateur shoots at the first thing that strikes his fancy.
PLATE I. A TYPICAL FIRST PHOTOGRAPH WRONGLY EXPOSED, CRUDELY DEVELOPED, BADLY COMPOSED, AND UNTRIMMED.
That first thing is almost invariably something that he calls his own. He likes to be able to say to his friends, "This is my house; my wife; my dog; my summer camp; the view from my front door." Pride of achievement is always in evidence when the first prints are shown. The budding solar artist has the I-did-it-with-my-littlehatchet manner.
Unless one has actually used a camera he can hardly appreciate the tang of such an experience. For the first time, it may be, this
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PHOTOGKAPHY AND FINE ART
boy who has always liked to look at pictures, has had a sip of the intoxicating joy of the artist, the joy of creating a picture. As Elihu Vedder once said, " Creation of any sort is the greatest fun in the world. At the moment the thing is conceived, you are crazy with delight. To be sure you are to have no end of trouble with it afterwards, to make it presentable; but for the -moment you are in an ecstasy that you wish would last forevermore. " This elation
PLATE II. ANOTHER EXAMPLE OF THE KIND OF PLATE THE AMATEUR ALWAYS PRODUCES, FULL OF BLEMISHES.
of spirit is the will-o-the-wisp that dances and beckons and lures the amateur photographer onward o'er moor and fen, through spoiled plates and bad prints, until he comes at last, if he survives, to a genuine appreciation of the finest pictorial art of the world.
At the outset, however, his delight is not predominantly an esthetic delight. It is too intensely personal; the i in the midst of that delight is a capital I. Looking over his collection of prints his thoughts caress the subject, the occasion, the incident, that each print recalls; they do not focus on the print itself as a well composed picture.
WHERE WE ALL BEGIN
19
In a word the amateur photographer, in common with almost everybody else who begins to look at pictures, is in the reminiscent stage of appreciation. To such people a picture has value chiefly as it recalls something definite in their own personal experience.
Jones prizes Plate n because Jones took it himself during his summer vacation. It is the beach where he saw his first sand collar. "It was the most beautiful of August afternoons/' he will tell you, "and we were paddling right along there in a canoe. The water was still and clear, just as you see it in the photograph, and looking over, where the water was shallow, there we found the sand collar. Queerest animal I ever saw! Ever seen one?" That the picture is badly composed and skewed on the plate, that it is not a picture of a sand collar, that it does not even suggest an August afternoon, makes no difference to Jones. He made it. He remembers all about it.
Brown prizes Plate in. Brown took it. It is also prized by Brown because he built that booth for his sister's wedding. Brown's sister likes the picture because it shows where she was married. Brown's new brother-in-law, in fact all the members of both families of the high contracting parties like the picture. They do not object to the bisymmetrical composition, to the numbers on the pews, to the confused detail, to the fact that it is really a picture of a big Bible, because to them it is merely a souvenir of a very pleasant occasion when for once they all held the center of the stage. To them the picture is therefore an excellent work of Art.
Smith's favorite picture is Plate iv. He made it. It is a picture of his little girl, playing Indian in a suit he bought for her; she was creeping around the corner of his own house, and didn't know she was being photographed. That underpinning was his own design, he informs you; it was made of the rough stone found on his place. You will see that the little girl's face is beautiful if you will but
PLATE III. AN AMATEUR PLATE OF INTEREST
TO NOBODY BUT THE PHOTOGRAPHER AND HIS
IMMEDIATE FRIENDS
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PHOTOGRAPHY AND FINE ART
examine it carefully. But that beauty, and in fact the entire head, is overpowered by the feathered headdress and that brutal wall behind it. Smith doesn't see that, because in the picture he sees chiefly a happy moment in his own life.
For Jones, Brown, Smith & Company, these pictures are pictures indeed. What are such vague things as an " Effect " by Monet, or some "Paysage" by Corot, or an "Arrangement/ 7 by Whistler, compared with these solid realities "all of which I saw and a part of which I was"?
People in the reminiscent stage of appreciation bring home from Europe not fine photographs of the immortal masterpieces of painting, but colored post cards of the places they have visited. A young friend of mine prized most a card in her collection showing the Belfry of Brughes. Why? Not because of the impressive architectural character of the Belfry; not because of its historic significance; not because of Longfellow's
contribution to its fame; but because, forsooth, as she was fond of repeating: "You can see by looking at the picture that the hands of the clock point to quarter past ten, the very moment I stepped into the square and looked at that Belfry for the first time. " That fact alone lifted the post card above the level of the Belfry itself and made it, for Mary Ann, an adorable work of fine art.
This personal interest in pictures associated with one's own experience is inevitable. It is also significant. Suppose, for example, that cameras should be placed in the hands of school children, at the beginning of their study of geography. Suppose the children were asked to make photographs from the brook they know, from the people of different nationalities in their own village, from the productions of their own town, from their local means of trans-
PLATE IV. A QUITE CHARMING SUBJECT OVERPOWERED BY ITS ENVIRONMENT.
WHERE WE ALL BEGIN 21
portation. What an intense interest the pictures would arouse. How observation would be quickened. Objects would acquire a new meaning. A thing once photographed would become fixed in mind. The transition from Home Brook to the Amazon, from Lew the Laundryman to the Chinese, from local apples to Cuba's oranges, and from "Our" railroad to the Trans-Siberian Railway, by means of pictures, would be an easy and assured transition. The foreign picture would be correctly interpreted on the basis of the local picture so highly prized and so thoroughly understood. After all, the photograph of a domestic cat walking in my hay field is not so very different from the photograph of a Bengal tiger stalking in a jungle. From the known to the related unknown by way of pictures one of which you yourself have made is an excursion that yields nothing but delight.
The first pictures of the amateur are always educational. Be he child or man, they open his eyes to his environment and sharpen his sight. He sees every familiar object from a different angle, under a new light, in a novel web of relationship. The staid old things of his daily round spring surprises upon him at every turn. How frequently he catches himself saying: "I never thought it looked like that!" or "I never saw it that way before!" Moreover, all other pictures begin to take on fresh values. When he buys an illustrated magazine he gets more for his money.
For thousands of minds the camera has been the initiator of that all-important process by which the three-dimensioned world of the common man is reduced to the two-dimensioned world of the artist, only that it may become the limitless world of the spirit. A great picture is but a gateway through which the enfranchised may pass to perennial satisfactions.
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PHOTOGRAPHY AND FINE ART
PLATE V. THE BACK-YARD WALL OF MRS. COONLEY-WARD S HOUSE, CHICAGO. A PHOTOGRAPH WHICH, FROM THE SCIENTIFIC POINT OF VIEW, LEAVES NOTHING TO BE DESIRED. AS A RECORD OF FACTS IT IS BEYOND CRITICISM.
CHAPTER II
Our Common Second Step
THE growing photographic artist next falls in love with technique. He begins to talk learnedly about negatives and papers, ray filters and iris diaphrams, eichonogen and tank developers. His admiration for a print like that reproduced in Plate v is boundless. "What definition! 77 he exclaims; "Look at the detail! From the grass blades in the foreground to the mortar lines of the brickwork, from the ivy leaves to their shadows, even to the reflections in the windows, everything is perfect. Look at the wrought iron railings! Notice the light and shade even upon the smallest detail. How well timed was the exposure, and the developing, and the printing! See the detail in the shadows! That is what I call an ideal photograph. "
It is indeed. It leaves nothing to be desired from the point of view of the man who made it, and from the point of view of the chemist. It is ideal also from another point of view, that of the statistician. As a record of facts it is beyond criticism. When Mrs. Coonley-Ward, in her country estate in New York, wishes to prove to her guests how beautiful a back yard in a city can be, this photograph, from her Chicago home, is absolutely convincing.
A photographer must remain forever a bungler unless he passes through this experience with technical detail. It is a veritable developing bath for his brain. He comes to know his tools, and to be master of them, if he was born to be a photographer. Without such knowledge and such skill, nothing fine can ever be produced except by occasional accident and then the amateur, usually, does not know enough to recognize his good luck.
During this period, that may for convenience be called the scientific stage of appreciation a stage from which some people never emerge, certain types of subjects in every locality not only offer themselves but actually cry out for recognition.
(1) Of these the most obvious are the old landmarks. In every settlement, village, town, and city are things that the next generation will want to know about. That Lone Pine which located .the first store, for example; that bute, visible for miles across the prairie, that placed the town; those first miners' cabins; the oldest frame house in the city; the first meetinghouse; the natural feature
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PHOTOGRAPHY AND FINE ART
that suggested the city's name, reliable pictures of such things become of increasing value every year. What wouldn't the world give for a photograph of the Palace of Charlemagne, the Judgment Hall of Pilate, or the Home of Ulysses! There are some it may be who would give more for a photograph of the main street of the town
PLATE VII. THE MILES WARD HOUSE, SALEM, MADE FAMOUS THROUGH ASSOCIATION WITH NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE.
where they themselves were born. But all normal human beings have some measure of interest in history. They "want to know," as the primitive Yankee used to say, and pictures help. As time runs on curiosity as to the past increases. Archaeology has become a profession. Our children will be more curious about their ancestors and their doings than we are. Every record we can leave will be appreciated.
Everywhere in our rapidly growing country the old landmarks are fast disappearing. The photographic recording of them is everywhere a duty. Such records should be as perfect as possible in the scientific sense; as literal as sun, plate, pan, paper, and patience can make them. The best obtainable prints of such subjects should be kept on file at the public library, or local museum, for ready reference.
OUR COMMON SECOND STEP
25
The Miles Ward house (Plate vn), Salem, Mass., where Hawthorne visited and in the garden of which, behind the board fence at the left, he did some of his writing, is good illustration of pictures of this kind. Such a photograph is valuable not only for
PLATE VI. A HISTORIC MILL SITE.
PLATE VIII. SOME HISTORIC FURNITURE.
its contribution to our information concerning a famous American author, but also to our knowledge of Colonial ideals in domestic architecture for towns. The large house, close to the street to save snow-shoveling and to allow for a garden in the back yard; the gambrel roof to provide additional sleeping rooms in the attic; the porches, built out to save room within the house and to give double doors to shut out the cold; the honest construction in wood, so temperately ornamented because it all had to be done by hand ; the enclosed orchard, for security and privacy; the guardian trees at the entrance; all are significant and most welcome facts. A strong local interest is always responsive to photographs like that reproduced as Plate vi, the remains of the Lone Star Mill, Franklin, taken by Mr. 0. T. Mason, Medway, Massachusetts.
(2) Very old or notably successful new household furnishing constitutes another important field. Plate vm, for example, shows a canopy bedstead or "four poster, " that stood in the south chamber of the old Page House, Danvers, Massachusetts. For such subjects
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PHOTOGRAPHY AND FINE ART
PLATE IX. PULPIT, UNITARIAN CHURCH, COHASSET, MASS.
BUILT 1747.
the sharper the definition the better, that none of the detail may be lost. Pictures of colonial furniture and implements; of fine woodwork, like that shown in Plate ix, the pulpit of the Unitarian Church, Coha^set, Massachusetts, built in 1747; of old wrought iron; of woven spreads, and hand wrought dress goods, samplers, etc., will all be valuable to succeeding generations of craftsmen. So also will be photographs of such successful modern work as that shown in Plate x. We are prone to forget that we are constantly making history. Our work today in a hundred years if it lasts so long-
OUR COMMON SECOND STEP
27
PLATE X. A CONSISTENT MODERN INTERIOR
will be as historical to the people of that day as the old ship Constitution is to us.
(3) In almost every town are notable examples of historic architectural detail. School children who hear about Greek and Roman temples, members of Women's Clubs studying Gothic Art or the Renaissance, and people in general who wish to be reckoned as fairly intelligent, should be familiar with such illustrations of the history of architecture as their own town may afford. It would be difficult to find a town on the Atlantic seaboard, or a city anywhere in
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PHOTOGRAPHY AND FINE ART
the United States, that could not show, if asked by a keen-eyed photographer to stand and deliver, a Doric, Ionic, Corinthian, Tuscan, and Gothic capital, a Greek fret, a Roman echinus molding, a Gothic finial, a Renaissance pediment, and a Colonial doorway. A collection of the clearest possible photographs of such things should
PLATE XI. A CLASSIC ENTRANCE IN INDIANAPOLIS, IND.
be available for reference in every town. Plate xi shows, for example, a classic bit from Indianapolis, Indiana, the Tuscan entrance to the Art School of the John Herron Art Institute. Plate xn shows another example of photographs of this class, the Colonial entrance to St. Paul's Rectory, Baltimore, Maryland, photographed by Frank Cousens of Salem, Massachusetts.
(4) But perhaps the most urgently important work to be done by amateur photographers, especially in large towns and cities, is the making of records from wildflowers, for use in schools. These are needed, not primarily for classes in botany, but for use in nature study, for freehand drawing, to furnish help in design, and for training the eye to perceive beauty. A glance at such examples of work in this field, as Plates xm and xv exhibit, is enough to convince anybody of the value of photographic material of this kind.
OUR COMMON SECOND STEP
29
The prints from which these plates were made came from the J. Horace McFarland Company, of Harrisburg, Pa.
An additional incentive to such work is furnished by the unfortunate fact that in many places nature study in the public schools is exterminating the rarer kinds of wild flowers. In their enthusiasm children are thoughtless. The plants are torn up by the roots. As the population in any district increases, the demand for specimens increases and the devastation proceeds with appalling speed. Hunting wild flowers with the camera is as fascinating as hunting wild animals that way, and quite as important from the point of view of conservation.
The schools need also for study good photographs of typical trees, that the children may come to know them, and use them intelligently in landscape and decorative design. Such photographs are better than the originals. It is often inconvenient to take the children to see such trees, and obviously impossible to bring the trees into the schoolroom. Moreover, trees are so large, and so interesting in their growth and movement that it is often difficult for a child to focus his attention on the mass. The photograph enables him to do this easily. The comparison of the shapes of trees, so important a factor in sharpening the mental image and in memorizing, can be made with photographic prints more easily than by any other means.
(5) Photographic records of all sorts of things are valuable: from those illustrating the life history of insects, birds, and animals, of which Plate xiv will serve as an example, to those illustrating events in local history, as exemplified in Plate xvi. The young rough-legged hawks were photographed by Herman W. Nash of Pueblo, Colorado. The alluring entrance is the work of a school
PLATE XII. A COLONIAL ENTRANCE, BALTIMORE.
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PHOTOGRAPHY AND FINE ART
PLATE XIII. JACK-IN-THE-PULPIT. BY J. HORACE MCFARLAND.
janitor who loves beauty, and can produce it. The fortunate beneficiary of his talents is the town of Brookline, Massachusetts. Records of fires, wash-outs, wrecks, and the results of accidents, are often valuable, not only for immediate use in the newspapers, but for the history yet to be written.
PLATE XIV. YOUNG HAWKS, NASH. PUEBLO.
OUR COMMON SECOND STEP
31
PLATE XV. THE PETAL-LIKE APPENDAGES FROM THE HEADS OF BLOSSOMS DISPLAYED BY THE CORNUS FLORIDA OR FLOWERING DOGWOOD. BY J. HORACE MCFARLAND.
An almost unlimited opportunity for service thus presents itself to the scientifically obsessed picture maker. Every local subject worthy of record on account of its historic associations, its beauty as a piece of handicraft, its relation to the history of art and
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PHOTOGRAPHY AND FINE ART
craft, and its usefulness in teaching, whether in the realm of art or nature, is valuable and will acquire increasing values with the passing years, provided such records are permanent. To insure permanent prints the photographer must know his business.
PLATE XVI. A CHARMING RECORD OF THE LOVING WORK OF A SCHOOL JANITOR, BROOKLINE, MASS.
CHAPTER III
The Slough of "High Art"
DAZZLED by his success with the tools and processes of his craft, the aspiring photographer is liable to stumble next into the slough of "High Art/' as it is called by the newly-come. Its more appropriate designation is simply Aht, or more truthfully, Ah! For to those who flounder in that slough the desirable thing
PLATE XVII. A FLOCK OF "HIGH ART" PRODUCTS LIT HAPHAZARD ON THE WALL OF AN U ART PHOTOGRAPHER'S STUDIO."
seems to be something to surprise people, something rare, original, unique, astonishing, something provoking exclamations without end.
Plate xvn reproduces one corner in the " sales studio" of an "Art Photographer" in an American city. It shows a flock of "high art" camera pictures, just as it happened to light on the walls. What an arrangement! Look at the frames. Mostly "hand carved." Almost every picture presents an unusual element, an odd pose, an enormous hat, startling light and shade, erratic composition within the frame, a frame, often in color, more attractive than the thing framed.
Of course the average amateur cannot afford such expensive settings for his "gems." He has to be content with such modest vagaries as those exhibited in Plate xvm. Mounts with elliptical openings and with printed ornaments; mounts of rough paper
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PHOTOGRAPHY AND FINE ART
PLATE XVIII. FRAMES MORE ATTRACTIVE THAN THE THING FRAMED.
stamped with an artificial grain and cut into an odd shape, with an imitation deckle; mounts made up of several sheets varying in size, color, value, texture, and character of edge; mounts on which the print is placed eccentrically; mounts with hand-painted ornament
35
PLATE XIX. SIX WARNINGS THE AMATEUR PHOTOGRAPHER SHOULD HEED! (1) ODD SHAPED PICTURES. (2) HUMOROUS INTRUSIONS OF THE HUMAN FIGURE. (3) CURIOUS AND AMAZING SUBJECTS. (4) OUT-OF-FOCUS PICTURES. (5) GROUPS UNRELATED IN MASS TO THE SHAPE OF MOUNT, AND (6) FREEHAND " ARTISTIC " BACKGROUNDS COMBINED WITH STRAIGHT PHOTOGRAPHY FROM NATURE.
and nondescript lettering; all such things are bad because they are too attractive to the eye. They rob the picture of the attention it alone should command.
Another group of warnings has been gathered into Plate xix. The photographer who wishes to excel in producing beautiful pictures
36 PHOTOGRAPHY AND FINE ART
is not likely to exhibit odd-shaped boundaries, an ellipse, for example; stunt subjects, like an undressed girl in the woods, or a boy swimming; surprising effects, like the snow-patched trees beside the skeleton-caterpillar tree, with the human bust emerging from shrubbery; blurrs from out-of-focus negatives with no apparent reason for being out of focus; hand-drawn and eraser-mottled backgrounds freehand settings for mechanically rendered subjects; backgrounds unrelated to the mass of the picture; or lastly, obtrusive, illegible, up-hill or down-dale signatures of studied whimsicality. All such features are defects. In a fine picture the subject holds first place in the attention of the observer; nothing is allowed to call or to pull the attention away from that subject. When a freak contour, a curious detail, an obtrusive technique, or a vain autograph, obtrudes itself, the attention is divided, the subject is robbed and forced to take second place.
Behind all these diverse activities of would-be artists, will be found, in the last analysis, either pure ignorance or a veiled egotism. Usually the performer's aim is not the beauty that is its own excuse for being, but the beauty that shall reflect glory on the discoverer and promoter thereof. His ambition seems to be to achieve something that will provoke not an inarticulate thanksgiving that so much of loveliness can exist in so small a space, but rather the outspoken query, "Who was so clever as to produce this unique marvel of art? "
The road to fine art does not lie in that direction.
A work of fine art always makes its appeal first as a whole. It comes into consciousness as a single undivided vision of delight provoking an involuntary expression of satisfaction; lovely! charming! exquisite! fine! beautiful! splendid! superb! or some other single exclamation. It has to endure next the inevitable mental process of analysis. The eye proceeds to investigate its parts. If through that excursion the mind discovers peculiar fitness, orderly relationship, happy free co-operation throughout all its parts, and returns with keener appreciation and renewed delight to the contemplation of the whole, that whole is assuredly a work of fine art. Therefore, any element in a picture 'which blows its own horn, which bids for attention against that specific beauty for the sake of which the picture exists, is an upstart. Such an element is nihilistic. It is positively fatal to fine art. It must be severely dealt with, banished
THE SLOUGH OF " HIGH ART' 37
altogether or suppressed into obedience to the law of proper subordination. A work of art is apiarian; it can have but one queen bee. In photography, the mounted print is the unit. Mount and print must co-operate to produce this whole, giving an impression of ordered excellence, of quiet beauty.
PLATE XX. IN THE^FIRST THE WHITE MOUNT KILLS ALL LIGHTS IN THE PICTURE. IT SOLICITS THE EYE MORE STRONGLY THAN THE PRINT. IN THE SECOND THE BLACK MOUNT MAKES EVEN THE STRONGEST DARKS IN THE PICTURE LOOK GRAY. IT OBTRUDES ITSELF UPON THE ATTENTION OF THE OBSERVER. BOTH MOUNTS ARE THEREFORE UNSATISFACTORY.
"Of course/' exclaims the self-righteous amateur. "I never use such claptrap as you have described. I always mount my prints on plain white cards" or plain gray, or plain black, or whatever the whim may have pitched upon. But there again he is likely to go wrong. A plain black mount or a plain white mount may be more compelling than the print itself, especially when the picture is framed, as Plate xx shows. Moreover, the white mount takes the light from the picture. The whole print looks gloomy. The black mount vies with the darks of the picture and makes the whole print appear grayer than it should.* Both detract from the beauty of the print.
*It is almost impossible to believe that the two prints here exhibited were printed from the same negative and as near alike as possible. Unmounted, the ordinary eye would hardly distinguish between them. Here, because of the optical effect called by Chevreul "simultaneous contrast," one print appears to have been very much darker than the other.
38 PHOTOGRAPHY AND FINE ART
Plate xxi shows an acceptable mounting. The tone of the mount is darker than the lights of the picture, and lighter than the darks of the picture; hence both the lights and the darks tell as accents, as the artist intended they should,
Notice also the width of the mount. Too wide a mount becomes
PLATE XXI. A FJNE PHOTOGRAPH BY H. C. MANN, NORFOLK, VIRGINIA, WELL MOUNTED TO ENHANCE ITS EFFECTIVENESS.
an attraction, and too narrow a mount becomes an attraction for the eye, and therefore detracts from the picture. The correct width can be determined in any case only by experiment. The mount must appear adequate. When just right, it is least in evidence. It presents the picture at its best, and is itself content with a modest second place.
While no hard and fast rules can be laid down governing the size and proportions of the mount, in a general way, it may be said that the farther away the print is supposed to be seen the wider the mount should be. A print full of minute detail demanding a close
39
view, requires a comparatively narrow mount. The reason for this is that one function of the mount is "to surround the picture with a space of silence" as Ruskin said; or in other words to blot out all details in the immediate environment of the picture which would otherwise constitute its background. The eye is conscious of a larger area of the surroundings of a distant object than of an object seen at close range, hence a picture like Alexander's Pot of Basil requires a broad mount while such a picture as Leonardo's Last Supper, requires almost no mount at all.
The width of mount is frequently influenced by the size of the subject in relation to the whole area of the print. On this page, for example, the print
PRINT SHOULD NOT BE FRAMED CLOSE.
framed close up, makes the subject look cramped, caught in a trap. The mount, as shown in Plate xxn, extends the area between the subject and the frame, and produces a feeling of more space and greater freedom for the subject.
The margins between the print and the edges of the mount should vary with the proportions of the print. When a print requires little space about it, when it may be framed close, the widths of the four margins need not be varied, as shown in the small square Plate xxin, where the white indicates the frame. When the print requires more space about it, the
PLATE XXII. A MOUNT OF THE RIGHT TONE
WILL GIVE THE EFFECT OF MORE AMPLE SPACE.
40
PHOTOGRAPHY AND FINE ART
PLATE XXIII. SHOWING MARGINS WELL ADJUSTED TO THE SHAPES AND THRUSTS OF PRINTED AREAS.
THE SLOUGH OF " HIGH ART" 41
lower margin should always be wider than the upper margin, and the side margins should be alike.
The relation in widths between the horizontal pair of margins and the vertical pair, depends upon the " thrust 7 ' of the lines of the print. All lines induce in the eye a strong tendency to move in their direction; and as a movement once initiated tends to continue in that direction, the marginal spaces become the shock absorbers, the arresters of the moving eye. The longer the line the greater its thrust. The greater the thrust the wider the margin required.
Equal thrust, as in the lines of a square, would justify equal margins, were it not for the fact that when the lower margin is exactly like the upper, the lower margin seems the narrower. This has to be counteracted by increasing slightly its width.
The amount of thrust in the long sides of an oblong depends in some subtle way not on the actual length of these sides but on their length in relation to the short sides. It depends also on the position of the oblong. Vertical lines have a greater thrust than horizontal lines of the same length. Moreover, the thrust of either pair of edges is increased or diminished by re-enforcing thrusts of prominent lines within the picture itself. Hence, in the last analysis, a trained eye must be the final judge as to margins.
A collection of cards of different tones of gray from white to black, and of different hues of gray, upon which to try each print for best effect; together with a pair of L's, of card board, large size, to determine the right size of mount and best widths of margin, will enable any thoughtful person to become keen-eyed through intelligent practice.
Lastly, the mount should, as a rule, have " something at least/' to quote the happy phrase of Dr. Ross of Harvard, something at least in common with the picture. Its color should echo some color in the picture; its value, some value in the picture. In the case of the Sand Dune, by H. C. Mann of Norfolk, Va., Plate xxi, the gray of the mount echoes the gray of the grass, and the black line, enclosing the print, echoes the darkest darks of the trees. Furthermore, the line enriches the mount a little, makes it a mount for this picture only, and softens the transition for the eye in passing from the print to the mount. In other words the enclosing line helps to tie print and mount together and to make them one. See also the figure subject, Plate xxn. If lights predominate in the print the enclosing
42
PHOTOGRAPHY AND FINE ART
lines may need to be lighter than the mount. When a frame is added it should tone-in with the mounted print, and be somewhat darker than the mount. The frame is merely an extension of the mount for protection. It should never strive for first place. As color always attracts the eye more strongly than gray, a colored frame for a gray photograph is dangerous. The frame must be less attractive than the thing framed.
Fine art means fine adjustment of part to part and of parts to the whole. It means " Nothing too much," as the Greeks said. It means "the purgation of superfluities" as Michelangelo affirmed. It means the securing of a whole where " Nothing can be added and nothing removed to improve the effect," as the French say. It means for the photographer the creation by means of a print and a mount, of a thing which will give perennial pleasure to a person whose esthetic judgment has been so trained as to enable him to recognize beauty at sight.
PLATE XXIV. A VIEW. "LOADING STRAWBERRIES IN REFRIGERATOR CARS."
CHAPTER IV
The Parting of the Ways
HAVING escaped the "Slough of Aht" (Some amateurs burdened as they are ^j** u scape) the jdeter-
mined photographe again, and upon
the broad road thad ighlands of fine
art. He is now fu] Jt have a certain
quality in and of it? 1 fine. He takes
the vow of the artis beg for bread. "
With a free stride
The man with mout discovering
that the road forks . Later another
diverges to Pictori goes straight on
to the Picture. E fectly legitimate
and well defined goj
44
PHOTOGRAPHY AND FINE ART
PLATE XXV. A VIEW. "WHERE THE HORSES ARE REFRESHED.
Plate xxv forces the eye to perform a similar gymnastic. The eye finds a mystery in the carriage. The man is Missing! Where is he? The eye explores the dark of the bridge, runs up the road, stops at the house, comes back to the carriage, looks in the water, runs up the other road to the left, climbs the pine trees, leaps to the maple trees, like a flying squirrel, slides to the ground, and again goes to the house to inquire.
In a view there is no evident organization of the parts for the purpose of controlling the eye, of directing it to the supreme center of interest. There is no center of interest. The excursions of the eye, during the mental process of analysis, are not pre-determined by the composition, that the eye may return to a central feature refreshed and better satisfied, as is the case in a masterpiece of pictorial art.
(2) THE PICTORIAL DECORATION. In a decoration the surface decorated, the area within the rectangle, the pattern of dark and light made by the parts, is the primary subject and aim. The decoration may have secondary aims. It may make use of the Signing of the Compact in the cabin of the Mayflower, or the Founding of the City of Chicago, as theme; but its real purpose is to adequately decorate a given area, so to distribute darks, lights, lines, masses,
THE PARTING OF THE WAYS
45
PLATE XXVI. A PICTORIAL DECORATION BY MISS HELEN R. WEBSTER, CHICAGO. MOTIVE FOUND AT COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY, NEW YORK CITY.
46
PHOTOGRAPHY AND FINE ART
colors, that the whole surface becomes interesting and gives pleasure to the trained eye.
Take Plate xxvi as an example. The basis of this pattern happens to have been a view within the grounds of Columbia University, New York, discovered by Miss Helen K. Webster of Chicago,
but that is of entirely secondary importance. The charm of the thing is its design, its dapple, a sort of freehand plaid pattern made of architectural masses and trees. Its rhythmic measures, defined by free vertical and horizontal lines, are positively fascinating. The thing is agreeably spotted. Its soft contours, darks melting into lights and lights spilling over into darks, are as fascinating as moving leaf shadows on a forest floor.
Plate xxvn is another example. In this case the name of the girl was withheld by the photographer, Mr. A. E. Mergenthaler of Fostoria, Ohio. Perhaps the girl herself did not care to have it known. Whistler was provoked with the public, you remember, because it wanted to know whether his " Arrangement in Gray and Black" were not his own mother. Why should that impertinent question be asked? That his mother posed for the arrangement had naturally, a certain personal interest for him, Whistler admitted, but why should it be of interest to the public? The public's business was to admire his art, his decorative arrangement. So here. Plate xxvn is not primarily a photograph of any particular girl; it is a design, and the subject is Violin Music. The sunflowers were included to balance the attractions of the hand and of the nearer curve of the violin. The lines of the violin and of the bow were adjusted to balance one another within the rectangle, not to show how to hold a bow properly. The light and shade were reduced, so far as possible, to mere light and dark, and that was arranged to "spot"
PLATE XXVII. A PICTORIAL DECORATION.
"VIOLIN MUSIC." BY A. E. MERGENTHALER.
THE PARTING OF THE WAYS
47
in a pleasing way. In other words, the aim was a decorative effect, not a view, nor a picture.
(3) THE PICTURE. The aim of all pictorial art is praise, to quote Ruskin's word, "a man's praise of God's work." The function of the picture is to present a subject in the best light; to tell a story, to embody a mood, to transmit an idea; to record a vision, to create an atmosphere, to display a beautiful object as never before. The picture is to define, exalt, glorify a subject, in a never-to-be-forgotten way a way never-to-be-forgotten because of the pleasure it gives at the moment and in retrospect.
In a picture there are no irrelevant details. Every last line and dot helps to create the harmonious whole. Hear Millet: " Things should not look as if they were brought together by accident and for the moment, but should have an innate and necessary connection. I want the people I paint to look as if they were dedicated to their station as if it would be impossible for them to ever think of being anything but what they are. A work of art should be all of a piece and people and things should be there for an end. I wish to put all that is necessary, strongly and fully, indeed, I think things had better not be said at all than said weakly, because weakly said they are, in a manner, deflowered and spoiled; but I profess the greatest horror of uselessness, however brilliant, and filling up. Such things can have no result but to distract the attention and weaken the whole. One can say that everything is beautiful in its own time and place, and on the other hand, that nothing misplaced is beautiful. "
Now look at Plate xxvin, " The Tired Woman, " by Mr. Mergenthaler. In the light of Millet's philosophy of picture making is she not beautiful? "The free and adequate embodiment of the idea, " as Hegel expresses it? Her face is the supreme feature of the picture, of course; but how everything else helps! the wilted pose,
PLATE XXVIII. A PICTURE, THE TIRED WOMAN." BY MR. MERGENTHALER.
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PHOTOGRAPHY AND FINE ART
PLATE XXIX. A VIEW CONTAINING THREE GOOD PICTURES NOT ONE OF WHICH WAS SEEN BY THE PHOTOGRAPHER.
PLATE XXX. VIEW ACROSS THE COURT OF ABUNDANCE TOWARD THE TOWER OF JEWELS. A VIEW WHICH DOES NOT BREAK UP INTO SEPARATE PICTURES.
the worn dress, the nerveless arms, the gloom of twilight. It is a masterpiece of photography a picture of a tired woman.
THE PARTING OF THE WAYS
49
PLATE XXXI. A PICTURE. THE BATTLEFIELD OF THE ELEMENTS. BY MR. H. C. MANN, PROFESSIONAL PHOTOGRAPHER, NORFOLK, VIRGINIA. AN UNUSUAL SUBJECT AT ITS SUPREME MOMENT.
50 PHOTOGRAPHY AND FINE ART
The photographer who does not recognize a picture when he sees it is unfortunate, to say the least. Plate xxix, a view at the seashore, contains three good pictures, as the drawn lines indicate. The man who made the negative seems to have seen none of these. The picture at the left might be used as an illustration for Longfellow's "Wreck of the Hesperus," it shows admirably
The trampling of the surf On the rocks and the hard sea sand.
The picture in the center shows a "Sunglade, " or, properly mounted to change its apparent values, "The moon walking in brightness on the tossing waves." The picture at the right shows an ocean liner putting out to sea regardless of the night and the storm coming on. Each is a picture admirably composed within its rectangle.
Plate xxx shows a view which cannot be so. easily cut up into pictures for the simple reason that it is in itself a pictorial decoration rather than a picture. There is no commanding center of interest. Happily spaced verticals and horizontals determine the positions of all the principal details, and the whole has a dapple of dark and light, less indefinite than that in Miss Webster's decorative arrangement, page 29, but no less well distributed.
Now look at Plate xxxi. This is a picture of the Battlefield of the Elements. Here, just here, at this particular point as nowhere else, light and darkness, sea and land, life and death, may be seen in conflict. The whole drama centers in a fallen tree. Here is a pictorial masterpiece. It is by H. C. Mann of Norfolk, Virginia.
The Picture is the delight at the end of the King's Highway in Camera Land.
CHAPTER V
The Discovery of Pictorial Material
ONE of my art school experiences brought me such weariness that it has become a fadeless memory. We were sent out one morning, my chum and I, to make a water color sketch from nature. We walked to the wharves of the South Cove, searched every vista from Hospital Pier to the South Terminal, took a train to Neponset and tramped back to South Boston, looking everywhere for a good subject to sketch, and found none! In sheer desperation we made a drawing at last from a pumping station two miles distant in a salt marsh. Neither of us liked it as a subject, but we had to bring back something. Why were we sent out blind? We were in our third year in a reputable art school. Ought we not to have been taught, inside of three years, what constitutes a pictorial subject? Perhaps we had been taught. I have no memory of it. Certainly we had not apprehended the lesson. We must have passed that day several thousand good subjects. The old South Cove district was quite as picturesque then as now. The environs of Boston are famous for their beauty. Our way to the Neponset River, as pretty a low-lying stream as ever threaded a sea-side marsh, took us past the South Boston Iron Works, rusty old sheds with towering chimney stacks; past the famous Dorchester Heights, where the red houses climb tier above tier to the wooded summit; past the Savin Hills district, where cottages cling to the gray ledges and the tall sharp cedars stand guard everywhere; past the rounded drumlins of the harbor, green topped, with slashes of yellow gravel where the sea or the hand of man has cut them away; past groups of century old buildings with glimpses of the blue Bay between their dark walls. As I learned from Emerson's essays later, we were immersed in beauty, but our eyes had no clear vision. Why? Because we did not know what to look for. We did not know the A B C of pictures. Oh, of course " artists are born, not made" and "a real artist recognizes a picture at sight. " I realize that to confess to having been helped by anybody to see pictures anywhere, except in gold frames, is to admit my lack of genius. And yet I am confessing in the hope that I may help some other hopeful person looking for pictorial material to find it. Ruskin and William T. Harris taught me to recognize a picture, and I believe most people have to learn from somebody how to use their eyes as finders.
52
PHOTOGRAPHY AND FINE ART
Let us consider a typical out-door subject. Here, is a photograph I once took to illustrate an article on Scituate as a summer resort. It is a view on Kent Street, laid out by the "Men of Kent, " from that county in England, sometime before 1628. As a view, an inventory of things offered by the old town to those who visit it, the photograph is not too bad. But is it a satisfactory picture?
PLATE XXXII. WHERE THE UPLAND AND THE SALT MARSH MEET IN NEW ENGLAND.
In that helpful book of his on Landscape Painting, Birge Harrison says that his years of study and practice in landscape composition have led him to be dead sure of but one rule: "Thou shalt not paint but one picture on one canvas." As I tried to point out in the last chapter, a picture says one thing, has one supreme center of interest to which everything else inside the frame is subordinate. Within the limits "of a picture all the various elements counterbalance one another in such a way that the whole is static, at rest, complete, every part happily contributing to present vividly the subject of the picture. The aim of the picture is to praise, to exalt, to glorify that one subject. The subject may be anything, a
THE DISCOVERY OF PICTORIAL MATERIAL 53
single object, a group, a comprehensive movement of line, an orderly sequence in color, a striking bit of space division, a pretty dapple of dark and light, an atmospheric effect, a gleam, a glint, a reflection, a surprising combination of elements that creates a mood. The range is limited only by the artist himself. While such a variety cannot be illustrated from a single view, with this particular view we can make a beginning.
PLATE XXXIII. KENT STREET, SCITUATE, MASS. SETTLED BY THE MEN OF KENT BEFORE 1628
In this View, Plate xxxn, there are at least a dozen good subjects for a picture. I have isolated eleven of them, which constitute as good pictures as the plate would yield without retouching, as good as nature will yield without modification at the hands of an artist.
(1) KENT STREET. Suppose I select the old road itself, a single movement of line, as the subject of my picture. The road must then be given first place. In the View, Plate xxxn, the dark mass of grass and foliage at the left, the light rigid fence making strong contrasts with it, and above all the luminous sky, are too much for the road. They overpower it. It cannot hold first place in our -attention. If the road is to be the subject of the picture these must
54
PHOTOGRAPHY AND FINE ART
be eliminated. Plate xxxm is the result. I found by experiment that even that minute spot of dark, the last wharfhouse, and the masts of the schooner in the distance had to be eliminated, before the eye would be content with the road, and the picture would balance.
PLATE XXXIV. OLD SCITUATE, "THE LITTLE SEAPORT TOWN" OF BLISS CARMAN'S POEMS.
(2) OLD SCITUATE. But suppose I wish to make the distant village the subject of the picture. Now the road must go, and the top of that beautiful old wild cherry, and much else beside. Plate xxxiv is the result. It is merely
an enlargement of that part of the original View (Plate xxxn) which serves my purpose.* The wharfhouse and schooner are now absolutely essential to balance the composition.
(3) A NEW ENGLAND ROADSIDE. The trees and shrubbery, through which the telegraph poles march along, are of sufficient
variety and charm to constitute a picture themselves. That picture appears in Plate xxxv. In such a picture the space division is perhaps the most important factor in the composition. The secret of pleasing space division is a pleasing variety, not out of harmony with the character of the subject. In this instance a large and dark foliage mass (the nearer tree) is echoed by a smaller and grayer mass. This establishes a rhythm heavy, light, as in march time. The division of the picture vertically by the horizon, gives a long
"The spot of foliage in the middle of the extreme left edge of the picture is too dark, but to cut it off would have brought the old cherry too near the end.
PLATE XXXV. A NEW ENGLAND ROADSIDE.
THE DISCOVERY OF PICTORIAL MATERIAL
55
measure for the sky and a short measure for the earth. The division horizontally by the telegraph pole gives a corresponding long measure at the right and a short one to the left.
(4) UNCLE NAT TURNER'S FENCE. In that portion of the View first discarded is a charming subject for an artist like Ross Turner (who by the way was of the same stock as " Uncle Nat"). The dapple of dark and light, in the picture, Plate xxxvi, is charming as it appears, and would be irresistible as Ross Turner might have rendered it in water color. The darks break into the lights
PLATE XXXVII. ONE OF THE " LOVED SCENES WHICH MY INFANCY KNEW," TO USE THE PHRASE OF SAMUEL WOODWORTH, THE SCITUATE POET WHO WROTE U THE OLD OAKEN BUCKET."
PLATE XXXVI. UNCLE NAT TURNER S FENCE.
and the lights break into the darks in the most orthodox fashion, giving all the parts " something at least" in common.
(5) "PAYSAGE." An artist like Corot might see in our View such a picture as that shown as Plate xxxvn, a bit of country as beautiful as anything in Barbizon.
(6) But the whole of that old wild cherry tree is a good subject. In painting we might eliminate the impudent telegraph pole; but in photography we have to let it stand and do the best we can with it. Here is a poetic group, Fig. 1, Plate xxxvin. " The old resident and the latest arrival/' "A mechanical and a freehand harp of the winds/' "The Gossips/' "Dead and Alive," "GOOD NEIGH-
56 PHOTOGRAPHY AND FINE ART
BORS!" Oh, this pair is endlessly suggestive, the living one that has accommodated itself gracefully to its hard coast life for a hundred years, and this uncompromisingly upright one, dead long ago, but still useful if not beautiful.
(7) Then, we might have been after a picture of ELLA CURTIS' HOUSE. If so we could not possibly have included more of the environment than that shown in Fig. 2.
(8) If we were painting the SATUIT MARSHES we might select the section of the View shown in Fig. 3.
(9) WELCH'S WHARF is the subject of the picture shown as Fig. 4.
(10) THE NEW BARN, appears as the unmistakable subject in Fig. 5.
(11) THE FISH HOUSES, alone, constitute a picture, as shown in Fig. 6.
There are others, as anybody with a- seeing eye will see; but these will suffice to illustrate the three fundamental rules of picture making:
1, Grasp the subject.
2, Free it from encumbrances.
3, Exalt it, by making everything else in the picture acknowledge its supremacy and contribute to its glory.
That is what I tried to do in the sketch reproduced as Frontispiece. I was in Rome nearly two weeks, with the thought of a sketch of St. Peter's constantly in mind, as I walked and drove about the city, before deciding upon my point of view. As everybody knows, the huge bulk of the building cuts off the lower part of the dome, as seen from the Piazza, and dwarfs it. At last I discovered a view in which all the things in the foreground, instead of hindering, actually helped to exalt my subject, to make it more vast and glorious than I had ever seen it represented. That view I found by walking around the church and up the long tiresome ascent to the entrance of the Vatican Galleries. Sitting on the stone threshold of a doorway to what was then the Pope's Carriage House, I laughed aloud with delight as I began to draw. How the successive roofs made a grand staircase for the eye upward from the garden wall! How that towering stone pine with its ragged trunk and gloomy head furnished just the contrast needed to bring out the exquisite curves and tints of that masterpiece of Michelangelo's,
THE DISCOVERY OF PICTORIAL MATERIAL
57
PLATE XXXVIII. SIX GOOD PICTORIAL COMPOSITIONS ALL INCLUDED WITHIN THE VIEW
REPRODUCED ON PAGE 52. EACH IS AN ENLARGEMENT OF A CERTAIN PORTION OF THE ORIGINAL NEGATIVE.
58 PHOTOGRAPHY AND FINE ART
away up there, serene against the blue! I worked two hours and a quarter (but they were to me as nothing) upon the lantern and the great ribbed roof. The rest was easy. Thirty minutes the next morning sufficed for everything below the cornice of the drum, and for the washes of color to keep the pencil from crocking. Of the many carriages coming and going, I put in one, at that particular point in the sketch, to give scale. Notice that from the back of the carriage there is practically an unbroken line upward pilaster, corner of building, side of window, columns, buttress, rib, a great curve of force, leaping from the pavement to the dome's crown, four hundred feet above.*
The intelligent photographer like an intelligent artist knows his aim. He takes a view, he designs a decoration, or he makes a picture. He does not bewitch himself with the fancy that he can compass all three at the same time, or that he can achieve real success in any one by mere luck. Art that is fine art is ART. Cameras, chemicals, and printing presses can do much, but in the last analysis just how much is determined by the man who uses them. Insight, patience, and persistence in holding one's self to a high standard of excellence are after all the chief factors in determining the quality of the result.
*The reproduction is the exact size of the original drawing a leaf from a sketch book. Moreover, Gatchel& Manning have reproduced it so faithfully that it is " better than the original." I could scarcely believe my own eyes when I saw that the delicate light-blue tones of the sky had been held as well as the most delicate touches of a 6H pencil.
CHAPTER VI
The Subject Only
THE photographer, now sufficiently well informed to know whether, when he bends his bow, he aspires to shoot a crow or the cat in the window, in other words whether he intends to make a picture or to design a decoration, proceeds, let us assume, to make a picture.
He is fully persuaded that Birge Harrison is right when he says: "Thou shalt not paint but one picture on a canvas. " He agrees with Ruskin, that the aim of pictorial art is praise. That the function of the picture is to set forth, present, celebrate, honor, exalt, glorify, some one subject. That the artist's function is to make others see that subject through his eyes, to see it as only the illumined eye of genius can first see it, to see it crowned with immortal beauty.
Bien! He sees a child playing with her dolls. She is in a corner of the kitchen where her mother is washing dishes. The little girl sits on the floor with her doll things scattered about her. She is not yet ready for school. Her hair is caught up into a loose knot behind. She wears her nightgown; from beneath a fold of it, pink toes are peeping. The light falling through the back window weaves the fragment of a halo about her head. " Beautiful!" exclaims the photographer. "What a picture! How suggestive! All of Motherhood itself is reflected here as in a silver mirror. I will make an exhibition picture out of that, and win a prize. "
His wife is willing. But if her daughter is to appear in an exhibition in Philadelphia Dear me ! Just think, what that means ! And between them, these ambitious, self-respecting, and well intentioned people proceed to create the horror reproduced as Plate xxxix. They scrub the child and do up her hair with a big white bow. They black her shoes, and put on her best white dress. They take her into the best room, and arrange everything to show what a fine home this good little girl has. Everything possible is done to "set forth, present, celebrate, honor, exalt, glorify " -What?
Look at the picture. The doll is lost in whiteness. The shining shoes are more in evidence than the skilful fingers. The wall paper overpowers the pretty face. That great badly-framed picture on the wall, with its burden of dried autumn leaves and
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PHOTOGRAPHY AND FINE ART
PLATE xxxix. "THE LITTLE MOTHER." A MOST UNFORTUNATE PRESENTATION.
seeded clematis, is more impudently obtrusive than anything else in the whole show. The Little Mother is overpowered. This view bears not the remotest resemblance to the original picture made by the little child happily at play, wholly unconscious of her own charming suggestiveness.
THE SUBJECT ONLY
61
The alert photographer and his painstaking wife had a zeal for art, but alas, that little knowledge which is a dangerous thing. They ought to have acquired at least one more scrap of information before attempting "The Little Mother" namely, that the simplest way to present a subject is to isolate it. If they had been content to photograph even such an expurgated edition of their " Little Mother," as appears in Plate XL, it would have been vastly better.
Isolation is, then, one method, and that the simplest, of presenting a subject pictorially. This
PLATE XL.
THE LITTLE MOTHER HERSELF.
PLATE XLI. MADONNA GRANDUCA RAPHAEL.
method was frequently practiced by the master painters, especially the portrait painters, of the Renaissance; and is the method recommended for beginners in portraiture in the art schools of today. With only the subject itself to look at it must, of course, hold first place. A single well known picture by Raphael, the Madonna Granduca, Uffizi Gallery, Florence, Plate XLI, will be sufficient to exemplify this method.
It is the method today not only of many of our best portrait painters but of the leading portrait photographers. After the thunderous skies of the previous generation of camera operators,
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-
PLATE XLII. A GROUP WHEREIN THE PEOPLE THEMSELVES HOLD FIRST PLACE. BY DINTURF OF SYRACUSE, N. Y.
after the classic balustrades, after the wicker rocking chairs and Empire tables, after the Italian pedestals and scenic backgrounds that were common from about the time of the Centennial to "within the memory of those now living," such a photograph as that reproduced as Plate XLII by Dinturf of Syracuse, N. Y., is as refreshing as a drink of spring water. The mother with her three children have a fair field. Only a hint of the back of a chair is introduced
THE SUBJECT ONLY
63
to account for the grouping. If the observer does not care for these people he need not give the picture a second glance. It certainly offers nothing else to hold his attention. In the admirable portrait of a lawyer, Plate XLIII, by Helen R. Webster of Chicago, the same method is exemplified, but with the background dark, like Raphael's. As a result the man himself appears substantial, upright, keen, with a strongly defined personality --a typical lawyer of the best class. By what evil genius the photographers of the seventies were guided when they chose as models the second rate portraits of the eighteenth century, with their dramatic backgrounds, is not commonly known. They must have had, equally available, such masterpieces of portraiture as Titian's "Man with the Glove/' Velasquez's "Innocent X," Rembrandt's "Elizabeth Bas, " and Franz Hal's "Laughing Cavalier," to mention only a few of the immortal company. Why did they not turn to these for inspiration? Well, the work of those pioneer photographers is amusing, to say the least. That their successors are now turning to the highest in a teachable spirit, is a matter for congratulation to all concerned.
The method of Isolation always yields good results in photographing still life objects and flowers, provided the photographer knows what particular kind of beauty he is after. To bring out the glowing loveliness of color, the soft dapple of dark-in-light in the
PLATE XLIII. THE MAN HIMSELF. A PORTRAIT BY HELEN R. WEBSTER OF CHICAGO.
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PLATE XLIV. TWO EFFECTIVE PRESENTATIONS OF THE BEAUTIES OF PLANT FORM. THE FIRST,
BEAUTY OF LIGHT AND SHADE. BY MERGENTHALER OF FOSTORIA, OHIO. THE SECOND, BEAUTY
OF LINE. BY WALTER SARGENT OF CHICAGO UNIVERSITY.
blossoms, and of light-in-dark in the leaves of the chrysanthemum, Plate XLIV, the artist, Mr. Mergenthaler of Fostoria, Ohio, chose a very dark background. The effect desired could hardly have been secured in any other way. To bring out the fine proportions and exquisite curved contours of the shoot of hellebore, at the right, Plate XLIV, the artist, Professor Walter Sargent of Chicago University, chose a background of light gray.
Such a treatment leaves nothing for the mind to contemplate but the subject itself. The subject becomes therefore of supreme importance. The observer must see that or nothing.
Not all subjects, however, will stand so exacting a presentation. Total isolation gives a spot-light distinction, that is sometimes embarrassing. Either the subject itself has not sufficient character,
THE SUBJECT ONLY 65
or the artist lacks the skill to present the subject effectively without accessories.
Raphael's well known portrait of Pope Leo X is a good illustration of the first of these conditions. There was nothing in the face of the man to suggest qualities characteristic of a prince of the church, a great Pope. The deficiencies in the man were, therefore, cleverly obscured by his trappings. He is represented with the insignia of his office; he is accompanied by two men of ecclesiastical importance, but his subordinates; he has before him rare manuscript books and precious jewels; he holds the magnifying glass of the connoisseur.
Any exhibition of portraits by modern painters will furnish an illustration of the second of these conditions. The "'Portrait of Mrs. X" proves to be a picture of the studio wall draped for the occasion, of an expensive cloak, and of a big bouquet, with the illpainted lady in the middle of things.
But nevertheless a subject often needs to be seen in relation to its environment. To be fully appreciated it must be seen, like a mother, in an appropriate sitting, in an environment that gives to it the larger significance. Such a presentation deserves a chapter of its own.
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PLATE XLV. THE MOWER. A SKETCH BY MILLET^
CHAPTER VII
The Subject in Place
IN the Louvre, Paris, may be found the original drawing by Millet, reproduced herewith, Plate XLV, from an Alinari photograph. It is so powerful a representation of a man mowing, that field, grass, and even scythe, are unnecessary. The artist must have thought so, for he did not see fit to draw them. The pose of the figure is so suggestive, the action is so convincing,that the observer is satisfied at once. He does not need to be told about unimportant details. Scythe or no scythe, grass or no grass, that man is mowing.
Such an achievement is beyond the power of a photographer. Nature is too much for him. His camera is too willing: its glass eye sees everything, and its gelatin brain re- PLATE XLVI - PENELOPE BOOTHBY.
BY SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS.
members everything,
with disconcerting impartiality. But nevertheless if the photographer is to produce fine art he must outwit Nature, somehow, and attempt the impossible so brilliantly achieved by Millet. The subject must explain itself, must tell its own complete story to the entire satisfaction of the observer, without waste of words.
Sometimes, as we have seen, all the accessories, all the environment of the subject, may be cut out, eliminated, by means of a solid black or white background. But usually, some of the accessories are essential to the subject itself. Even Millet's mower needed his scythe snath and his whetstone. When Sir Joshua painted Penelope Boothby, Plate XLVI, " Waiting to go to ride," as the children always
68 PHOTOGRAPHY AND FINE ART
assure us, he gave her an outdoor background. It helps to tell us how eager she is. She could not wait behind closed doors. She must be out where she could climb in, the moment the carriage
PLATE XLVII. MOTHER AND CHILD. BY J. W. ALEXANDER.
arrived.* When Alexander painted "The Mother and Child" (Plate XLVII) he wanted us to think of them as at home. Therefore he represented them indoors. But notice how little these
*The children now assure their teachers that Penelope is waiting for an automobile.
THE SUBJECT IN PLACE
69
artists tell us beyond the two main facts, outdoors and indoors. We cannot determine the kind of trees in one picture, nor the pattern of wall paper in the other. Only so much of the surrounding detail has been utilized as the artist thinks necessary to give the idea. The background is there, it has not been eliminated, it contains details which are essential to an understanding of the subject, but it has been subordinated. Its details have been so treated that they do not get in the way. Subordination of accessories is, therefore, the second method by which the photographer may insure for his subject first place in the picture. But subordination of accessories is easier said than done. Under conditions that can be controlled at will, however, as for example in indoor effects, success is within reach of any thoughtful and patient photographer. Consider such a fine piece of work as that reproduced in Plate XLVIII, a bouquet of wild flowers by Mr. Mergenthaler. A dull-colored, rough-surfaced jar of adequate size and pleasing shape, holds the well-arranged branches. The jar stands on a table whose surface is somewhat broken up by the natural grain of the wood. On the table a few leaves and flowers have fallen, adding another bond of sympathy between the subject and its environment. " Wild Flowers Indoors, " the picture might be called.
Now look at Mr. Mann's picture of Hollyhocks outdoors, Plate XLIX. What a splendid vigor of life it exhibits! The supreme
PLATE XLVIII. VIBURNUM FLOWERS. BY A. E. MERGENTHALER.
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center of interest is that cluster of perfect blossoms, central, near the top. The casing of the French window " happens" to accent still further this part of the picture; but its geometric surfaces, so free
PLATE XLIX. HOLLYHOCKS. BY H. C. MANN.
from detail, in no wise rival the charming flowers near by, in fact they make the exquisite forms and colors of those flowers more evident by contrast. Were this clump of hollyhocks isolated, had the background of dwelling house been removed, the picture would have lacked half its charm. This queenly flower has always been associated with happy homes, and always should be.
The management of outdoor subjects to secure a proper subordination of accessories is the more difficult problem.
The best plan of attack is "watchful waiting." Passing cloud shadows, rain, fog, and twilight, are often good helpers. They sometimes "lay in the background" with astonishing skill. I recall an experience I once had with a young holly tree that stood in a
THE SUBJECT IN PLACE
71
clearing in a New England wood. It was loaded with bright red berries, which ought, I knew, to come out dark and snappy in the print. I tried it over and over again, always with the same disappointing result. The tree would not come away from its back-
PLATE L. THE FAIRY DWELLING." BY W. C. BAKER.
ground of other trees. At last, one densely foggy morning it occurred to me to try once more. The fog did the trick. The woods appeared as a soft gray background against which the sparkling holly stood out bravely.
Plate L, the " Fairy Dwelling," from a photograph by Mr. W. C. Baker of Ithaca, New York, shows that the snow may be the chief factor in subordinating obtrusive detail and creating the contrast necessary at the center of interest to command the attention. This plate suggests also that the focusing and the amount of " stoping-out " by means of the diaphragm have much to do with achieving success. Look at Plates XLVI and XLVII again and at Plates LI and LII. Notice how indistinct the detail is near the edges of the picture, and how well defined it all is at the center of interest. Notice how slight are the contrasts of dark and light near the edges, and how
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PHOTOGRAPHY AND FINE ART
PLATE LI. "THE BRIDE." BY R. w. JOHNSTON.
much sharper they are at the center of interest. A similar centering of accents may be observed in Plate L. Without this the picture would have been a failure.
The view-taker may demand a plate "focussed all over," but the maker of pictures knows that an "old fashioned lens" may be
THE SUBJECT IN PLACE 73
best, after all, for securing that subordination of accessories which may be absolutely essential to the success of his work of art. A better illustration of this could hardly be found than "The Bride,"
PLATE LII. "RUNNING UP THE DORY. BY NAT. L. BERRY.
Plate LI, a photograph by Mr. R. W. Johnston of Pittsburgh, Pa. Many a bride has secured a picture of her wedding gown, or of her bouquet, or of her Mood Descending the Staircase; but few indeed have been so fortunate as this sweet girl, in securing a picture of herself of almost unrivalled beauty. Every inch a bride, her face is of first importance; and where every feature is lovely, her eyes are supreme. The photographer, by skilfully subordinating the accessories, forces the observer to follow Emerson's advice to the one searching for Love himself:
"Leave his weeds and heed his eyes."
The eyes of a bride are more eloquent to her lover than all possible spoken words. They are the center of interest in this portrait a veritable masterpiece of fine photographic art.
Plate LII is from a remarkably fine photograph by Mr. N. L. Berry of Concord, Massachusetts. Mr. Berry is an artist who finds the camera of assistance in painting. "It faithfully preserves source-material for use in composition/' he says. In his hands the camera often does much more than that. Here is a pretty good
74 PHOTOGRAPHY AND FINE ART
picture: " Running up the Dory." Test it by comparison with "Penelope Boothby," and the "Mother and Child." Around the edges no sharp contrasts appear, no obtrusive details. At the center are clean-cut drawing, brilliant contrasts, and significant action. The sun happened to be in the right place. Happened? Yes; pictures are always happening that way before the seeing eye. The successful picture-maker carries with him always an informed eye, an eye that knows what it seeks, and recognizes instantly the advent of that orderly dance of circumstance, that melodious singing together of things that we call the Beautiful.
The Preacher said in the book of Ecclesiastes, "He hath made everything beautiful in his time." The artist watches for that supreme moment. Do you recall Whistler's word about that in his "Ten o'clock"?
"To say to the painter, that Nature is to be taken as she is, is to say to the player, that he may sit on the piano. . . Nature is usually wrong: that is to say the condition of things that shall bring about the perfection of harmony worthy a picture is rare, and not common at all. ... The sun blares, the wind blows from the east, the sky is bereft of cloud, and without, all is of iron. The windows of the Crystal Palace are seen from all points of London. The holiday maker rejoices in the glorious day and the painter turns aside to shut his eyes. But when the evening mist clothes the riverside with poetry, as with a veil, and the poor buildings lose themselves in the dim sky, and the tall chimneys become campanili, and the warehouses are palaces in the night, and the whole city hangs in the heavens, and fairy-land is before us, then the wayfarer hastens home; the working man and the cultured one, the wise man and the one of pleasure, cease to understand, as they have ceased to see, and Nature, who, for once, has sung in tune, sings her exquisite song to the artist alone, her son and her master her son in that he loves her, her master in that he knows her. "
In pictorial beauty there is always a soloist. Sometimes that soloist sings alone, but more often he is accompanied by those who hum-in a background of harmony, sustaining, re-enforcing, interpreting the melodious theme. Sometimes, however, the theme is the leading part in a chorus. But that is another story, demanding another chapter.
CHAPTER VIII
The Subject Enhanced
THAT experience with the holly tree and the fog, referred to in the last chapter, is typical. A photographer who thinks for himself is sure to discover sooner or later that while, as Emerson said, "The final stroke of grace in any work of art is Nature's,"
PLATE LIII. A CHARMING PICTURE FROM MOST UNPROMISING MATERIAL.
in his particular field he must be alert to recognize that stroke of grace the instant it appears for it is often but a momentary grace, as fleeting as a dream and capture it if he can. He must watch his subject for its supreme moment, the moment when all things conspire to enhance its beauty.
Take Plate LIII, for example, "At the End of the Day," by William P. Atwood. I happen to know that particular place, Beaver Dam Road in Old Scituate, Massachusetts. Under the noonday sun nothing could be less attractive than that long straight highway, with scrub oaks and bushes and clumps of commonplace trees along its sides. But at evening, when in the dim light all the confusing details of the wild shrubbery are lost, and the tree-shapes are massed into lace-like silhouettes; when the meeting house, ugly
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PHOTOGRAPHY AND FINE ART
under ordinary conditions, takes its proper place in the gray distance, adding a gentle suggestion of peace and prayer; when the fierce brilliance of the long summer day has gone, leaving its faint afterglow in the quiet sky, until the night comes down and buries all, then the view takes on, for those who see and feel such beauty, the qualities of a work of fine art.
PLATE LIV. A COMMONPLACE SUBJECT EXALTED BY MEANS OF TWILIGHT.
The twilight has been persuaded to give the final stroke of grace also to the subject presented in Plate LIV, "The Last Load/' by Miss Jane Dudley, of Whitinsville, Mass.* The selected point of view brings the figures on the load against the sky and emphasizes the center of interest, while the hour guarantees the suppression of unimportant detail, and that simple breadth of effect which mirrors the broad satisfaction that comes from work well done. No other time of day would have contributed so much to this particular subject. The gloaming is the chief element in creating in the observer the sympathetic mood which the title, "The Last Load," demands.
The supreme moment for the poor old trees, Plate LV, done to death by slow torture of wind and sand, arrived one stormy after-
*The negative is owned by the Taber Prang Art Co. of Springfield, Mass., by whose kind permission the picture is here produced.
THE SUBJECT ENHANCED 77
noon when a fortunate series of rifts in the dark, driving clouds, happened to occur behind them, echoing in light their erratic forms, and keeping in step with them, in their movement upward to the left. Mr. H. C. Mann of Norfolk, Va., was there, by great good luck, with a seeing eye and a well trained camera. The result is a masterpiece.
PLATE LV. THE SUPREME MOMENT FOR THE POOR OLD TREES.
The supreme moment in Booth Hill Wood was certainly discovered and caught by Walter Sargent of Chicago University, in Plate LVI, "A Winter Afternoon. " The snow simplifies the forest floor and prepares it to receive the cold bent shadows and to reflect the wan light of the low sun. The rhythm of sizes in the gaunt tree trunks, and the rhythm of values in the sky, culminate at the same point in the picture, and toward that point converge the lines of the principal limbs and shadows.
A similar subject but less promising, has been forced to yield a picture, Plate LVII, by William P. Atwood of Lowell, Mass. Through studiously selecting his point of view, over-exposing, and under-developing the plate, and painting-in with great care the spot of light, a plate made by day has been persuaded to yield the effect of moonlight. The hollow of the field and the crown of the road bring enough gloom into the lower part of the picture to force the snow-covered earth down to a value that makes the sky glow with
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PHOTOGRAPHY AND FINE ART
light merely by contrast. Again the lines of composition, in the shadows and principal limbs, lead the eye towards the center of interest, the half-hidden moon, thus contributing to the unity of the
PLATE LVI. THE RESULT WHEN AN ARTIST LIES IN WAIT FOR THE SUPREME MOMENT.
picture. Seldom if ever has a photographer been more successful in achieving a moonlight effect by day.
A careful review of these five pictures will reveal the fact that they are all alike in this: They all have a supreme center of interest, and that center of interest is supreme because the other elements in the picture conspire to make it so. In other words, all five pictures are well composed. In each case every element in the picture contributes its share to the theme; every element helps to give significance and prominence to the center of interest; every element
THE SUBJECT ENHANCED
79
PLATE LVII. A PICTURE PRODUCED BY A COMBINATION OF INSIGHT AND SKILL.
AN AFTERNOON LIGHT FORCED TO YIELD THE EFFECT OF MOONLIGHT.
BY WILLIAM P. ATWOOD.
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PHOTOGRAPHY AND FINE ART
is content to take its own proper place in the picture without rivalry; every element says to the picture as a whole, "Not unto us, but unto thy Name be the glory. "
PLATE LVIII. SUCH A SUBJECT AS COROT WOULD HAVE ENJOYED.
In composing a picture the artist deals with elements which have attractive power for the eye. Let us take Plate LVIII, for example; and consider these elements in order:
1. Mass. That big mass of trees is an attraction for the eyeit is the first thing the eye sees; but almost instantly the eye is attracted by that perfectly blank sky, uniform in its lightness. That mass is another attraction. The plate appears about halfand-half dark and light one attraction counterbalances the other. The result is a divided interest. In a good picture some one mass is predominant.
2. Line. The eye is super-sensitive to lines which induce movement. While all lines suggest movement, in a picture not all lines force the eye to follow them, because frequently there are so many related in such a way that one offsets the other, and the confused eye goes nowhere. /The upper part of Plate LVII furnishes
THE SUBJECT ENHANCED 81
an illustration of this. It is therefore the principal lines of the picture that command the eye. In Plate LVIII the first line that commands the eye is that of the slanting tree at the left. This, reenforced by the line of the foliage, F to E, pulls the eye upward to the left and shoots it against the margin of the picture at E. Here the eye encounters another curve, unrelated to the first, caused by the limb of another tree, an outsider, having no legitimate connection with the subject in hand. This interloper, A, starts the eye on another chase, and it slides over the tree-tops, landing flat on the ground at D. The line of the horizon now induces the eye to follow it to the other side of the picture where it finds nothing of special interest. Having hastily explored the tree-lines, the eye is next attracted by the light spot in the foreground, bounded by oblique parallel lines, G and H, leading nowhere in particular. If that light spot had been a horizontal one, located at J, and if the field at the right had presented any sort of irregularity of color, a quarter of an inch inside the margin, the eye, following the big curve A B C D, would have gone right on to the attraction J, only to be slid gently to the left by the horizontal lines of the meadow, to the foot of the slanting tree, in a position to make its not unpleasing journey again. As it stands, the line-movement in the composition, because it does not lead to a center of interest, is decorative rather than pictorial. But even so it is unsatisfactory because in that movement the whole upper right corner of the area is ignored. If the print had been trimmed to the square form, indicated by the light lines, it would have been better as a pictorial decoration. In that case the linemovements would have been reduced in potency, the corner attraction K would have been balanced by a similar attraction at J (light against light), while the attraction at L, would have been counterbalanced by a complementary attraction at M (light against dark), and the whole surface would have presented a pleasing dapple of dark and light, the dark being predominant. In other words the decoration would have been in dark dappled with light. In a picture, the line movement must lead to the center of interest or in some way conserve the unity of the whole by keeping the eye within the limits of the picture. Suppose now this print had been trimmed to the rectangular form bounded by the heavy lines. The eye, following the tree-line upward to the left, would have been arrested, before it reached the margin, by the soft lights in the dark foliage, and by
82 PHOTOGRAPHY AND FINE ART
them turned gently to the right, over and downward, by a graceful reversed curve, to the other trunks where they leave the ground. Instantly the eye perceives that these principal trunks radiate from a point near the lower edge of the picture, as though they formed a bouquet held in a giant hand. The unity of the picture is thus enhanced; it is a dark toned picture the trees are predominant; and the real subject of the picture is Willow Lace.*
3. Sequence. An orderly succession of elements is always an attraction for the eye. The mere repetition of units, as in a border, A, Plate LIX, induces the eye to follow in that direction as indicated by the arrow, because we habitually read that way. The compelling power of succession is greatly enhanced when the elements present an ordered variety in themselves. The movement of the eye in B is therefore in the opposite direction. In C it may be either way, according to circumstances, but it is inevitably one way or the other. In D it goes to the right. In E and F the sequence may read either way. Once started, the eye is sure to follow it to its logical conclusion. The eye sensitive to sequence takes peculiar pleasure in a disarranged sequence such as G, H, I, or J, where sequence is at once evident, but the order is not too obvious. Such sequences have a pleasing element of freedom not found in the more mechanical arrangements. These are the sequences which appear universally in pictorial art. Returning to Plate LVIII, it will seen that a sequence of both size and value, yes, and of distinctness or definition as well, re-enforces the line-movement A B C D, and forces the eye to give special attention to the far distant elm tree, small and ghostly though it be and entirely unrelated to the real subject of the picture.
These three kinds of attractions, namely, of mass, line, and sequence, present themselves under various disguises in almost infinite variety, and are supplemented by what may be called the attraction of Contrast.
4. Contrast. The thing that is different, the exception, the unexpected, the unforeseen, the thing that is expected and then does not appear, all these constitute irresistible attractions for the sensitive eye. In sequences like K and L, opposite, the interruption, whatever it is, becomes an attraction. In a dark area, M,
*The foreground is somewhat monotonous. If a soft light such as that at G could have been made to appear just inside the margin at the left of G, to echo the lights of the sky above in the earth below, and to perfect the balance of the picture, the plate would rival a composition by Corot.
THE SUBJECT ENHANCED
83
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PLATE LIX. DIAGRAMS ILLUSTRATING VARIOUS ELEMENTS WHICH AN ARTIST HAS TO CONSIDER IN COMPOSING HIS PICTURE.
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PHOTOGRAPHY AND FINE ART
PLATE LX. "THE OLD HOME" PICTURE WITHIN THE VIEW OF THE OLD HOME.
a light catches the eye, in a light area N, a dark gets it. In the most attractive thing is the empty space ! In P the incomplete corner gets more attention than the complete one in Q just because it presents the unexpected. Lines which come together as at R do not claim so much attention as those which intersect as at S, partly because the eye is more accustomed to the right angle. The circle in T the eye accepts without a second thought it is in its logical place. In U the circle attracts more attention, and in V, most of all; for in V the corner containing it has a unique and curious distinction to which the converging lines of the top and side contribute their full share. The shortest line in the group W is hardly noticeable at first sight, but no eye can overlook that line in the group Y.
The problem of the artist is to so control all these attractions of mass, of line, of sequence, and of contrast,* that they serve to lead the eye to the center of interest, to give to that center first place, to add to its significance, to enhance its beauty, and to contribute to the perfection of the whole.
Now when the photographic artist finds a good subject, discovers some object or group at its supreme moment, he is almost
*In painting the problem is further complicated by color, an element of transcendent importance.
THE SUBJECT ENHANCED
85
PLATE LXI. A VIEW ON COHASSET COMMON CONTAINING A PICTURE OF A SPIRE.
PLATE LXII. A "SNOW SCENE" WITH A GOOD SNOW PICTURE WITHIN.
THE SUBJECT ENHANCED
87
PLATE LXIV. A MOONLIGHT VIEW WHICH CONTAINS A PICTORIAL MASTERPIECE.
sure to be harassed by elements which will not take their proper place in the composition. They insist on themselves, they push themselves forward, they refuse to knuckle down to the subject, they set up competing attractions and destroy the unity of the picture. The painter can do as he pleases with these obstreperous elements. He can force them to behave by changing their position, size, color, shape, value, definition, as he will, or by eliminating them altogether. The powers of the photographer are more circumscribed. His lens and his plate are in league with the refractory element, and too often the allies are too much for him. They make a pictorial victory impossible. After the photographer has used up all his judgment, all his patience, all his skill, in dealing with the irrepressibles, his most effective weapon is the knife.
The next four plates will serve to prove that statement.
Plate LX is a view of "The Old Home." As it stands the old barn holds first place. Its open doors are the most compelling attractions; its end, at the right, is the most charming dapple of
88 PHOTOGRAPHY AND FINE ART
light and dark in the entire print. The white sky is a distraction because there is so much of it. The leading lines of the paths are divergent. One path takes the eye to the barn door, another to the house door, and two others lead away somewhere else toward the left. The picture is inside the black lines. There the open door is the chief attraction, and masses, lines, sequences, and contrasts are as near right as possible.
In Plate LXI the subject is the beautiful spire of an old Colonial meetinghouse. The vista B is too attractive. The details above A and D are too sharp; they rival those in the spire. The foliage masses E and F are too dark; they detract from the force of the darks in the belfry. The corner C presents too much confusing detail. The spire is essentially a vertical thing, it demands a vertical picture. The picture is inside the black lines. The same is true in Plate LXI. Cut two L's of dark cardboard to make a movable frame and fit them over the print to hide everything outside the black lines. "The Mantle of Snow" then appears at its best.
There are three superb pictures in Plate LXIII, as indicated by the full lines. The entire plate is a pictorial decoration, somewhat empty in places. A better pictorial decoration, indeed a magnificent one, such as few mural decorators have equalled, appears within the dotted rectangle.
Use the L's on Plate LXIV to get the wonderful picture within the white lines. As the view stands the line movements horizontally and vertically are contradictory and distracting, while the moon and its reflection make two competing centers of interest. Cut out the moon, leaving only a hint of its presence, and make the shape of the picture a vertical oblong in harmony with the mass of the reflection, and the result is brilliant and charming.
In a successful composition the various attractions are managed not only so that they enhance the subject itself, but so that the picture as a whole presents to the eye a rhythmic and balanced unity.
CHAPTER IX
Rhythm
NAT Berry and I were out for a sketch in Old Scituate. The day was perfect. We had hired a horse such as artists like. The owner had said as we were about to start, " There's one thing about this animal I think I ought to tell you. He's slow. He'll bring you home all right, but you'll have to start a little early."
PLATE LXV. OLD TURNER HOUSE, SCITUATE, MASS. NOTICE THE ORDERLY VARIETY IN GABLES,
CHIMNEYS, TREES AND WINDOWS.
We had started early, and had jogged along, mile after mile, too happy to stop to paint anything. Suddenly, Mr. Berry exclaimed, "Hold up; here's the bulliest sketch I've seen today; let's tackle it." I have made a pen drawing of what he saw as Plate LXV. What is there about this subject that suddenly moved Berry to action?
An analysis of this composition reveals an element which, more frequently, perhaps, than any other is to be found at the heart of what is commonly known as the picturesque. That element has been called variety, and rhythm, and sequence, and repetition, and several other things. Perhaps no one word is adequate to define
PHOTOGRAPHY AND FINE ART
PLATE LXVI. (a) A FACADE OF THE PARTHENON AS DESIGNED.
(6) THE FACADE WITH COLUMNS EQUALLY SPACED.
it. I call it sometimes repetition with accent, or rhythmic grouping, or variety within unity. However named it is a fundamental quality in all fine art, whether architecture, sculpture, painting, decoration, poetry, or music.
PLATE LXVII.
(1) THE DISCOBOLUS OF MYRON.
(2) THE MOSES OF MICHELANGELO.]
One reason the front of the Parthenon is fine is because it presents a rhythmic series of spaces between its columns as shown at a, Plate LXVI. The colonnade is "phrased" like a passage in music; it presents a varied emphasis, like a line of poetry:
"I come TO BURY CAESAR, not to praise him."
It is not like B, a monotonous repetition, that might be continued indefinitely, like a modern colonnade.
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91
Look at the Discobolus of Myron, Plate LXVII, 1. See how the curve of the head is repeated in the curve of the discus, and in the great sweeping curve of the whole figure from the knuckles of his right hand to the heel of his left foot. Look at the Moses of Michelangelo, Plate LXVII, 2. Think of the lines of a seated figure, side view. Now see how those lines are echoed in front view, in the line from the nose, down the beard and by its principal mass across to the right hand, then downward by the forearm and tablets; and again, larger, from the left shoulder downward, across by the forearm and on downward by the drapery to the left of the exposed right leg.
See the " Moonlight in Montreuil," by Charles Everett Warner, Plate LXVIII. Think of its triple rhythms, orderly sequences of measure. Here are eight of them, the widest or largest or darkest member of the group being named first:
(1) Houses, sky, foreground.
(2) Roofs, sky, light portion of wall.
(3) Dark street, dark portion of wall, sidewalk.
(4) Wide house wall, medium house wall, narrow house wall.
(5) Highest house (at the right), medium height (at the left), lowest (in the middle) .
(6) Biggest mass on roof (the gable at the left), medium (the gable on middle house), smallest (the chimney on top the right hand house).
(7) Three pairs of openings in walls: (largest in middle house), medium (in house at left), smallest (in house at right).
(8) Three arrangements of openings: Equal but different, side by side; unequal, side by side; unequal, one above another.
There are other orderly sequences in this picture, but these are the most obvious.
PLATE LXVIII. AN ETCHING, MOONLIGHT, BY EVERETT WARNER. UNUSUALLY RICH IN RHYTHMIC SEQUENCES.
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PHOTOGRAPHY AND FINE ART
PLATE LXIX. SOME LEAVES BY MUERER SHOWING NATURAL RHYTHMS OF MEASURE.
Similar sequences, orderly varieties of measure, of character, of values, of colors, occur in every beautiful object in nature. Look at the common leaves. Plate LXIX. Notice the sequence of size in the lobes; in the spaces between the lobes, as clearly defined by the mechanical enclosing lines ; of the lengths and thicknesses of the veins; of the areas enclosed by the veins.
The rhythms in leaves account for similar rhythms in the decorative foliage of every style of ornament. Look at Plate LXXI. Greek, Roman, Byzantine, Romanesque, and Gothic forms, all
PLATE LXX. THREE OF THE MANY RHYTHMS DISPLAYED BY THE HAND.
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93
PLATE LXXI. HISTORIC FOLIAGE ILLUSTRATING ORDERLY SEQUENCES OF VARIOUS ELEMENTS.
derived from the acanthus, exhibit consistent rhythms of sequences of shape, size, position, deflection, notan, and light and shadeLook at your own hand, or in this particular case, at the hand of someone else, Plate LXX. The numerals in line A indicate the sequence in lengths of digits; in line B, the sequence in the normal widths of spaces between the digits; in line C, the sequence in the thickness of the digits. In every hand there are other orderly sequences of measure in the lengths of parts between joints, in the wrinkled areas at the knuckles, in the sizes and shapes of the nails, never anywhere two alike.
The same Rhythmic law appears in every living object in Nature. Look at any beetle, crab, lobster, spider, butterfly. The orderly sequences of measure in the subdivisions of parts, in the disposition of structural and ornamental detail, are admirable beyond the power of words to express. Make a critical study of the wing of any bird, noting its sequential measures in sizes of feathers, lengths, widths, spacings, markings; and how the relationships ebb and flow perpetually as the wing is spread in action, and you will come to agree with John Burroughs when he says " Knock at any door in the universe and the Infinite comes to answer/'
The same rhythmic measures appear in all the best handicraft and architecture that man has produced.
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An orderly variety within unity, is the rule everywhere. But when the variety becomes so great that it destroys the obvious unity of the whole, as in the modern new-art doorway, Plate LXXII, the thing ceases to be fine. Compare it with the Colonial doorway from an old house on 7th Street, Philadelphia, shown in the same
PLATE LXXII. A CONTRAST BETWEEN A MODERN GERMAN DOORWAY AND AN OLD PHILADELPHIAN
DOORWAY. IN THE FIRST VARIETY HAS TRIUMPHED OVER UNITY. IN THE SECOND THE UNITY OF
THE WHOLE IS EVIDENT WHILE VARIETY ADDS CHARM AND DISTINCTION.
Plate. In the first the dozen or more kinds of elements get in the way the trees prevent one's seeing the forest! This variety is made wearisome through a strange monotony of measure, a "vain repetition as the heathen do/ 7 without any good reason. In the Colonial doorway, all the parts seem to be rational and happy in a relationship that gives pleasure to a cultivated eye.
A knowledge of this fundamental characteristic of beautiful things will help one in selecting and arranging material for photographic purposes. Look for and secure a rhythmic series of similar
RHYTHM
95
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PLATE LXXIII. (I) The Mill. By Claude Loraine. Masses of foliage, trunks of trees, parts of the mill, areas of water, contours of mountains, groups of people, plains of foreground, and boats in the distance are all triple.
(2) Winter. By Puvis De Chayannes. Each series (tree trunks, distant figures, foreground figures, logs, horizontal markings in the landscape) presents a natural orderly rhythm from smallest to largest.
(3) The Village of Becquingy. By Rosseau. One rhythmic sequence is to be seen in the trees, another in the gables of the cottages, a third in the clumps of foliage dotting the foreground, a fourth in the people.
(4) Twilight at Valparaiso. By Whistler. The two principal sequences are in the ships and in the clouds.
(5) Spring. By Corot. This picture shows everything in pairs, a large mass and its echo.
(6) Dido Building Carthage. By Turner. The rectangular masses of architecture constitute one series, the rounded masses of foliage constitute another.
elements, which the eye can take in as a whole. Eight typical groups of this kind are shown in outline in Plate LXXIII, all traced from well known landscapes by acknowledged masters.
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Everybody who sees the " House of Seven Gables," Salem, exclaims, "What a picturesque old house! " Yes it is. And why? Because, among other reasons, it is so rhythmical. Take the view of it shown in Plate LXXIV. The gables may be numbered in order of size or sharpness: 1, narrowest, at the extreme left; 2, under the simple chimney; 3, under the complex chimney; 4, at the right; 5, largest, next the first one. The apparent widths of vertical walls, numbered from left to right would be; 1, 7, 3, 4, 5, 6. The apparent heights of gables numbered in the same way would be: 4, 5, 1, 2, 3. Then notice the rhythmic sequence in the windows from the ground floor upward. Nothing does so much to cheapen and make ugly the modern house as windows of uniform size throughout. The importance of variety within unity, as an element of beauty, receives still further emphasis in the windows of this famous old house. Which is more interesting, the attic window in the largest gable, or the chamber window, partly open, at the extreme right? Or, again, the window nearest the center of the picture, or the one at the right of the door under the sign board?
Everywhere and always, in form, in no tan, in color, that object is most beautiful which exhibits the greatest consistent variety within an obvious unity. In the case of a single object, a tumbler, standing, within a rectangular enclosing line, for example, the aim is to establish a similar rhythmic sequence among all the elementsrectangle of tumbler, of enclosing lines, of foreground, of background areas to right and left. "Space relations" are rhythmic sequences in areas.
The amateur must achieve unity in form though he have to work on squared paper to be sure of it. Michelangelo can retain unity in form even when he decorates a Sistine ceiling. The amateur must achieve unity in color though he have to hold to a monochromatic harmony to be sure of it. Tintoretto can retain unity in color even when he paints a Miracle of St. Mark.
If your work, whatever it be, possesses unity, you are an artist. Your greatness as an artist is measured largely by the amount of variety you can put into your work without destroying its unity.
Looking intelligently for consistent rhythms and manipulating material to secure them will help the photographic artist to achieve beauty in the realm of pictorial art.
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PLATE LXXV. AN UNUSUAL AND EFFECTIVE DECORATIVE PICTURE, BY ERNST LIEBERMANN, IN WHICH A SIMPLE LITTLE BIRD, THE CENTER OF INTEREST, IS SO PLACED AND ACCENTED AS TO BALANCE A LANDSCAPE OF EXTRAORDINARY ATTRACTIVE POWER.
CHAPTER X
Balance
A MASTERPIECE of pictorial art is complete in itself. Within its frame lines the observer sees a finished creation, and behold it is very good. The exploring eye has no desire to peep outside the limits set by the artist. Where that road comes from (Plate LXXX) matters not; where it goes to is of no consequence; this present portion of it is enough; here is a veritable land of the Lotus Eaters; we share the sigh of Dr. Watts:
My soul would ever stay In such a frame as this; And sit and sing itself away To everlasting bliss.
This mood, induced by a work of art, is curiously complex. It is a blend of activity and passivity. We are at once excited and soothed by the beauty before us. We are moved to investigate every nook and corner of the picture while we accept without question whatever the artist has ordained. Our imagination takes wings, the picture becomes a point of departure, we have new thoughts and fresh dreams; but somehow we never get away from the picture itself. It enslaves us. As Emerson put it: "New born, we are melting into nature again/'
The work of art like Longfellow's Lady Wentworth, is a a vision, a delight and a desire," but a desire which instantly fades into a fresh delight and that in turn into a more satisfying vision. We might salute the work of art as Emerson saluted Beauty herself:
I drank at thy fountain False waters of thirst, Thou intimate stranger Thou latest and first.
This sense of completeness, finality, detachment, self-sufficiency, which a work of fine art first and last conveys is attributable in part, at least, to what is commonly called Balance.
Balance means such an adjustment of part to part, of attraction to attraction, that the picture appears to be in stable equilibrium. In a balanced picture every element seems to be in exactly its own proper place, and content to stay there forever. There is no apparent
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PHOTOGRAPHY AND FINE ART
PLATE LXXVI, A BALANCED, AND PLATE LXXVII, AN UNBALANCED COMPOSITION. THE FIRST BY ERNST LIEBERMANN. THE SECOND BY A PHOTOGRAPHER WHO SHALL BE ANONYMOUS.
I '
WELL BALANCED COMPOSITION BY CHARLES WELLINGTON FURLONG.
BALANCE
ioi
crowding, no apparent pushing or pulling, no rivalry; everything shares in the universal content that reigns eternally within that little quadrangular universe.
Balance has often been described as an equalization of opposing weights. Equal weights balance at equal distances from the point of support, as in the primitive scales; and unequal weights inversely at unequal distances, as in the steelyard; but this is a crude illustration when the elements of a picture are concerned. In a picture it is never balance of mere mass that has to be considered.
By reference to Plate LIX, page 83, it will be seen that not only size and contrast constitute attractions for the eye, but movement, sequence, angle, complexity, isolation, proximity, logical position, and the unexpected. All these terms interpreted concretely, as in Plate LXXV, mean that the white horizon and the lines of surf, the succession of headlands, and the road in the corner, the crags that
nT~i "fViP VIPQ rll QTI rl in "f~ViP "mirl PLATE LXXIX.
" MELVIN MEMORIAL, SLEEPY HOLLOW CEMETERY,
distance, the bird all alone C A N N C R -^ S A S ND %%?%%%.
against the white Of the great cloud, BALANCED COMPOSITION.
the white castle so near the frame,
the wave breaking against the headland, and again that surprising bird, are all attractions for the eye. But furthermore the empty spaces are in themselves attractive by contrast with the spaces filled with detail. The suggested distance lures the eye. The exquisite detail in the bird gives him still further importance. Indefinable psychological elements enter in to complicate the conditions. Balance
THE MOURNING VICTORY OF THE
die
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PHOTOGRAPHY AND FINE ART
PLATE LXXX. THE KINDLY POPLARS. BY A. E. MERGENTHALER.
BALANCE
103
PLATE LXXXI. PARK STREET SPIRE FROM THE OLD GRANARY
BURYING GROUND, BOSTON. BY JESSIE TARBOX BEALS.
THE ARTIST'S CHOICE OF SEASON, BOTH IN THIS PICTURE
AND IN THAT OPPOSITE, IS SUPREMELY IMPORTANT.
104 PHOTOGRAPHY AND FINE ART
can never be fully established in a picture by rule of thumb, or by the higher mathematics. It must be felt. But the final result of all adjustments is a composition which fully satisfies the trained eye and the sensitive spirit. The center of interest in the picture the supreme attraction, may be in one corner as at A, above the willow, Plate LXXVI, but the point about which all attractions of every kind are balanced, B, is invariably on the vertical center line of the area, and usually somewhat above its geometric center, C.
The photographer who produced the headland in Plate LXXVI disregarded all this. His center of interest is divided, A and A; his center of Balance is somewhere near B, perhaps it is even lower on account of the immense pull of the ripples in the lower left corner. It certainly is not above the geometric center C. But look at Plate LXXIX. Daniel Chester French, in his epoch-making Melvin Memorial, Sleepy Hollow Cemetery, Concord, has balanced a whole figure with a sparkling spray of laurel. And notice how high the center of balance is, almost as high as the center of interest. Charles Wellington Furlong who made the negative "for Plate LXXVIII, adjusted the jugs on the seat that they might add the greatest possible weight to the attraction of the pan on the wall, and then cut the pan in two with his margin line to give it additional attraction for the eye, in order to bring the whole composition into balance. Mr. Mergenthaler, in Plate LXXX, has balanced the mass and dapple of his Poplar Trees with an auto supplementing a most alluring vista. The pull of that long road is immense. Hide the right third of the picture with a card and observe the unbalanced effect of the left two-thirds.
Plate LXXXI, Park Street Spire from Old Granary Burying Ground, Boston, a photograph by Jessie Tarbox Beals of New York, is dim, but it is the center of interest. The rows of dark gravestones force the eye to the tree trunk at the right. Here it proceeds upward, boosted by the vertical line of the stones below. The oblique line of the first dark limb switches the eye toward the spire. The monument and the vertical trees near it help the eye upward, and the limbs against the sky around the spire all aid in directing the eye to its goal. All this activity of elements in the right half of the picture is well balanced by the checkered masses in the left halfOf course a painter would have emphasized the upper branches of the lefthand tree which diverge towards the right, that the tree
BALANCE 105
as a whole might shoot the eye into the picture instead of out of it. But the photographer cannot take such liberties with nature. That is one of his limitations, fortunately, or unfortunately, according to the point of view.
PLATE LXXXII. WINTER EVENING, LOUISBURG SQUARE, BOSTON. BY JESSIE TARBOX BEALS.
It would be difficult to produce a more pleasing example of balance than the "Louisburg Square" composition, Plate LXXXII, by Jessie Tarbox Beals. The pull of the mysterious darks at the left is balanced by the pull of the subtly varied lights at the right. The lure of the opening around the fence at the right is sufficient to counterbalance the tug of the old limbs against the sky. Cover the right quarter of the picture and see how unsatisfactory the remaining
106 PHOTOGRAPHY AND FINE ART
three-quarters instantly becomes. The composition as it stands is admirable from every point of view. It is charmingly decorative in its space divisions, and quite as charmingly pictorial in its rhythm of dark and light. Technically it approximates perfection.
If " conduct is three-fourths of our life and its largest concern'' as Matthew Arnold affirmed, then Composition is three-fourths of pictorial art and the largest concern of the photographer.
CHAPTER XI
The Sirens
WHEN the photographic artist feels sure of himself, when he can calculate in advance just what he can get out of a given subject, then he is wide open to the wiles of some of the Sirens who watch for the soul of photographers.
There are at least four of these sisters who have seduced many a good man, injured his reputation, and reduced his bank account. Their names are Nudity, Antiquity, Illustration, and Expression.
Nudity would persuade the photographer that clothing is a foe to fine art. At her suggestion he begins by stripping his own children and making pictures of them in various unusual attitudes. Plate LXXXIII is an example. Having followed the Siren thus far, her next suggestion is not unwelcome. If a young woman can only be persuaded to remove her clothing and allow herself thus to be photographed, the result will startle the public and win the applause of the artists.
Now the simple fact is that the naked is never the beautiful. The famous works of art in the realm of the nude, such, for example, as the Aphrodite of Praxiteles, the Reclining Venus by Titian, The Source by Lefebvre, are not literal transcripts from nature. In every case the forms have been purged from all accessories which would detract from the enjoyment of those beauties of proportion, of contour, and of lustre, which approximate most closely their
PLATE LXXXIII. A NUDE WITH UNFORTUNATE ACCENTS.
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supreme manifestation in the body of a young woman. The artist, perceiving these exquisite qualities, proceeds to reveal them. He ignores this disfiguring wrinkle of flesh, that blemish of color, this distracting physiological mark, that accidental variation from a cherished ideal, and puts into his marble or upon his canvas, only that which might be called a concrete example of abstract beauty.
The camera, however, uses no judgment. Look at the nude boy. The most attractive spot, his black hair, is of the least importance. The strongest accents in the body made by the creases of flesh are exactly where they should not be for esthetic effect. The wrinkles at the ankles caused by the pose, detract from the beauty of the sturdy legs. This is not art; this is an inventory!
Moreover, nakedness in our day is not happy in its connotations. The ordinary clean minded person suddenly confronted with nudity is somewhat embarrassed, for the moment. It is like surprising a person in a bath tub, or when changing his underclothing. The degree of this embarrassment is in direct proportion to the literalness of the delineation. The photograph is, therefore, the most objectionable expression of the nude.
Some of the more sensitive photographers, perceiving this fact, have placed their nude model within the calculated gloom of the studio, or in the dim light of a pine forest, or in the hazy atmosphere of the twilight or
