DOI Artikel:
Holland, Clive: Artistic photography in Great Britain
DOI Seite / Zitierlink: https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.27086#0013
ARTISTIC PHOTOGRAPHY IN
GREAT BRITAIN.
. «j\V
'** •<
EN years or so ago we remember reading in
a leading magazine a statement that Photo-
graphy threatened to become a fashionable
hobby. The passage of the years since then
has shown that it was destined to become
much more. With scores of workers it has
long ago passed from out the hobby stage,
and in their hands has become endowed with
the semblance of an art.
In no “school” has the advance towards the art side of photographic
knowledge and practice been more marked than in the British. And
the band of earnest and successful students and workers who to-day
produce pictures in the place of what are sometimes contemptuously
referred to as “ mere photographs ” occupies a position second to
none in the world which is interested in the advance of photography
as an art.
To many of the leaders of the British school, whose work has been
reproduced in the present publication, photography is a serious as
well as an engaging pursuit. One which, whilst revealing almost
daily some new phase or development of beauty, is yet so elusive
that the worker, fascinated, is still led on to attempt further discoveries
and further attainments.
Photography is one of the most popular methods of art because it is
capable of answering so exactly to the sentiments and attainments of
the individual worker. Recent years, too, have added much to its
charm by opening up new possibilities to those who pursue it as
something more than a mere hobby or method, or as a means of
roughly recording fleeting scenes or impressions. To many even of
those who have neither the natural gifts nor sentiment necessary
to great artistic achievement, it proves a golden key, unlocking for
them interests in nature and art which hitherto had been
unknown and perhaps even unsuspected. And when all has been
said by those who are inclined to oppose its claim to rank as one of
the arts, the indisputable fact remains that it is one of the most
educative and cultivating of those pursuits which are so near the
borderline which divides art from mere craftsmanship that it is
difficult to assign to them an exact position.
From time to time attempts have been made to “place” Photo-
G B i
GREAT BRITAIN.
. «j\V
'** •<
EN years or so ago we remember reading in
a leading magazine a statement that Photo-
graphy threatened to become a fashionable
hobby. The passage of the years since then
has shown that it was destined to become
much more. With scores of workers it has
long ago passed from out the hobby stage,
and in their hands has become endowed with
the semblance of an art.
In no “school” has the advance towards the art side of photographic
knowledge and practice been more marked than in the British. And
the band of earnest and successful students and workers who to-day
produce pictures in the place of what are sometimes contemptuously
referred to as “ mere photographs ” occupies a position second to
none in the world which is interested in the advance of photography
as an art.
To many of the leaders of the British school, whose work has been
reproduced in the present publication, photography is a serious as
well as an engaging pursuit. One which, whilst revealing almost
daily some new phase or development of beauty, is yet so elusive
that the worker, fascinated, is still led on to attempt further discoveries
and further attainments.
Photography is one of the most popular methods of art because it is
capable of answering so exactly to the sentiments and attainments of
the individual worker. Recent years, too, have added much to its
charm by opening up new possibilities to those who pursue it as
something more than a mere hobby or method, or as a means of
roughly recording fleeting scenes or impressions. To many even of
those who have neither the natural gifts nor sentiment necessary
to great artistic achievement, it proves a golden key, unlocking for
them interests in nature and art which hitherto had been
unknown and perhaps even unsuspected. And when all has been
said by those who are inclined to oppose its claim to rank as one of
the arts, the indisputable fact remains that it is one of the most
educative and cultivating of those pursuits which are so near the
borderline which divides art from mere craftsmanship that it is
difficult to assign to them an exact position.
From time to time attempts have been made to “place” Photo-
G B i