Studio: international art (2.1894)

Photographic Portraiture

girls, bearing for the most part historic names,
and with faces that recalled the old tag Non Angli
sed Angeli, Mr. Cameron pointed out in succession
to me.

" Are not boys troublesome sitters ? "

" No, I always find them very easy to manage."
And the result proved that Mr. Cameron did not
exaggerate his diplomacy, for more dainty speci-
mens of portraiture never left the easel of Greuze
or Millais ; in each the natural child was depicted
in a way that somehow suggested a study by a
past-master of the art, one of those few who have
caught the exquisite moment of adolescence, and,
like a second Joshua, fixed its golden sunshine,
not, however, for a few hours only, but for
centuries.

" May I take some of them to show (in the
paraphrase which photo-engraving alone offers) to
readers of The Studio, a proof that the praise I
mean to set down is based on solid facts ? "

" Certainly ! any you like," said Mr. Cameron ;
and then greed met with its own punishment, for
who could choose adequately from such a treasure-
house ? And in spite of all care in selection and
reproduction, their elusive charm is not quite
captured here.

" By the way," said my host, "a volume Mr.
Fisher Unwin is issuing would, I believe, inte-
rest you: it is to be called ' Tennyson and his
Friends.' It will contain about two dozen of those
men who were foremost in the group that sur-
rounded him."

" Not including Hallam ; I fear he died before
photograph)' became an art, did he not ? "

"Yes, I think the bust by Chantrey is the only
likeness we can include of the hero of ' In
Memoriam,'" said Mr. Cameron ; " but as you will
see by this list, the group is a notable one, and the
text being personal reminiscences by Mrs.
Thackeray-Ritchie will add greatly to the interest
of the volume. Here is a proof of one of the
plates, ' Tennyson,'taken by my mother in 1866.
As you see it compares favourably with the ordinary
permanent print, yet it is not more permanent,
since both are unchangeable, but the public seem
to prefer a photogravure."

"Twenty-six for six guineas, with an essay by
Mrs. Thackeray-Ritchie, would certainly be some
excuse for their preference," I suggested; but Mr.
Cameron was not to be tempted into exalting the
photogravure above the print, and he was clearly
right to decline to do so; still, when placed side by
side, the difference was so subtle that only careful
comparison revealed any changes. Future pos-

sessors of the book will obtain the cream of Mrs
Cameron's life's work within its covers.

Before leaving I dallied for a final look at the
latest of Mr. Cameron's portrait studies.

" You believe in a plain background, I see ? "

" Yes, I always endeavour to make the sitter the
sole attraction, and to bring out the personality of
the subject without losing the 'composition' which
is so essential. In this the tall thin figure naturally
suggested the arrangement of the drapery."

I was about to ask Mr. Cameron the secret of
his posing, the reason that led him to choose in
each case what was obviously the right position for
his model; but I reflected that if any one studying
the results could not discover it for himself, no
words would help him to do so. Afttr all there
are only two ways to do anything, the right and the
wrong, and a hair perchance divides the false and
true. The hair's-breadth, when you have passed it,
seems nothing, and while such artists as Mr.
Cameron and a few others it would be invidious
to name here, throw their energies into photo-
graphy, the disputed question whether it be an art
has settled itself before the argument can be
started. -• G. W.

In our notice of the Photographic Salon at the
Dudley Gallery, some important pictures were
crowded out. Three of these, by Mr. Rowland
Briant, Mr. T. Craig Annan, and Mr. Henry
Davis, will be found on pages 102 and 103.

Some new studies by Count Von Gloeden, of
Taonnina, Sicily, deserve especial praise, as,
although professedly subject pictures, they are each
printed from one negative, taken for the most part
in the open air. The selection of models displays
genius; the Socrates and Young Nero, each in
classic surroundings, might delude a person with
an incurable ignorance of history into belief that
they were photographs of the actual persons. A
Young Monk is also noteworthy. Several nude
studies (similar to those reproduced in the June
Studio), some of which have been on view lately at
the Photographic Societies' Exhibitions, are pecu-
liarly good. In more than one instance the superb
landscape of Sicily and its noble ruins are brought
into the picture with a resulting whole that does
not suggest unclothed models with appropriate
backgrounds, so much as faithful presentations of
those old days when the nude figure was revealed
with no sense of shame to the observer or the
observed. Of course this is the only possible
nudity admissible in art, and when it is so depicted
the only valid objection vanishes.