Camera Work: A Photographic Quarterly (1903 (Heft 1))

LIGHT, tone and texture, the qualities preëminently within the range of
FOR, in concluding a brief appreciation, I would insist upon this quality of
Charles H. Caffin.
This is the choice for us each day,
Dallett Fuguet.
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picture; giving quality to the scheme of light and shade, to the tone and to
the textures; permeating the whole composition and making a generously
artistic ensemble.
LIGHT, tone and texture, the qualities preeminently within the range of
the photographer, Mrs. Kasebier introduces with a deliberateness of intention
and resourcefulness of means, that fill one fairly with enjoyment. At one
time it is with a masculine breadth of effect, at another with indescribable
delicacy ; now imposingly rich in masses, now intricate and subtle; full
and organlike, or again vibrating like a flute. Two of her subject-
pictures come to my recollection as I write — an old man filling baskets with
apples and a Madonna in the stable. How far apart they are in treatment,
though akin to each other in their gentle intimacy of feeling! In one there
are the glow and opulence of autumn; velvet pasture and firm gleam of
apples; nature’s abundant vigor contrasted with stooping, aged humanity;
in the other figures of touching refinement in rude surroundings, irradiated
with a soft flood of light that fills the place with heaven and surrounds the
figures with divinity. Prints, like these, prove how abundantly Mrs.
Kasebier possesses the picture-making faculty, and it is this possession which
gives such marked distinction to her portraits.
FOR, in concluding a brief appreciation, I would insist upon this quality of
distinction. I do not mean the entire absence of the commonplace, flashy, or
cheap in her work, which, however, would of itself serve to distinguish her
from a great number of soi-disant artistic photographers; but that finer
quality of difference that is based on sound artistic knowledge and a very
sensitive temperament. These give to her pictures, on the one hand, a
satisfactoriness and on the other a stimulus of suggestion. There is nothing
tentative, as in so much photographic work; the means are sound, well
considered and convincing and3 in addition, there is always a touch of
something outside of and above mere soundness of method, the imprint of
an actively original feeling, spontaneously tasteful and inventive. When we
remember that this freshness of fancy has stood the wear and tear of
professional requirements, we shall accord it all the greater admiration.
Charles H. Caffin.

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TO plague our souls for the ideal,
Or stupify them with the real —
This is the choice for us each day,
Each to decide in his own way.
Dallett Fuguet.

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