Camera Work: A Photographic Quarterly (1903 (Heft 2))

indulged in any scheme as long as it was practical and specially adapted to
the print for which it was planned. Every frame was made to order;
they ransacked the frame-maker’s workshops for new ideas and revo-
lutionized the whole trade. The result was much that was bizarre and
overfastidious (some photographers apparently mistook their packing
paper mounts for sample-books of paper warehouses), but also a fair
average of sterling quality was produced. The mounting and framing
of the leading artistic photographers of America are simple, tasteful, and
to the point; they go far ahead in this respect of all other black-and-
white artists, and can proudly claim that they are the best mounters and
frame-makers of the world.
THEIR style is largely built up on Japanese principles. The Japanese
never use solid elevated " boundary lines” to isolate their pictures, but on
the contrary try to make the picture merely a note of superior interest in
perfect harmony with the rest of the kake monos, which again is in perfect
harmony with the wall on which it is placed. The Japanese artist simply
uses strips of beautifully patterned cloth to set off the picture, and endeavors
to accentuate its lines and color-notes by the mounting and the momentary
environments, which is easy enough, as the mounting is generally so artis-
tically done that it fits in anywhere. (I refer, of course, only to Japanese
homes.) Pictures in Japan are merely regarded as bits of interior decora-
tion. The Japanese art-patron does not understand our way of hanging
pictures in inadequate surroundings; he does not disregard the technical
merits of a picture (which is to us always the most important point); on
the contrary, he is very sensitive to them; but he always subordinates
them to his inherent ideas of harmony. He would never hang a picture
if it did not harmonize with the color of his screens, the form of his
lacquer cabinets, etc.
THE artistic photographers try to be like the Japanese in this respect. They
endeavor to make their prints bits of interior decoration. A Käsebier print,
a dark silhouette on green wall-paper in a greenish frame, or a Steichen print
mounted in cool browns and grays, can not be hung on any ordinary wall.
They are too individual; the rest of the average room would jar with their
subtle color-notes. They need special wall-paper and special furniture to
reveal their true significance.
THAT is where the esthetic value of the photographic print comes in. It
will exercise a most palpable influence on the interior decoration of the
future. People will learn to see that a room need not be overcrowded
like a museum in order to make an artistic impression, that the true elegance
lies in simplicity, and that a wall fitted out in green and gray burlap, with a
few etchings or photographs, after Botticelli or other old masters, in dark
frames is as beautiful and more dignified than yards of imitation gobelins or
repoussé leather tapestry hung from ceiling to floor with paintings in heavy
golden frames.
WE have outgrown the bourgeois beauty of Rogers statuettes, and are tired
of seeing Romney backgrounds in our portraits and photographs.

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