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

EXHIBITION NOTES.
THE THIRD SALON IN CHICAGO
THE THIRD Chicago Salon was held at the Art Institute from
December 16, 1902, to January 4, 1903, under the joint
auspices of the Institute management and the Chicago Society
of Amateur Photographers.
ONE hundred and ninety prints were hung out of fourteen
hundred submitted. The jury was composed wholly of painters. Two had
done photographic work, but they were chosen because they were painters,
and not because they were photographers. The prints which they accepted
were therefore presumed to reflect the painters' conception of what makes a
pictorial photograph. The result may have been quite as satisfactory as it
would have been had the jury consisted wholly, or in part, of photogra-
phers; but the limitations and the possibilities of the pictorial photograph can
be fully understood only by the experienced worker in that medium. It is
significant that the development of pictorial photography in recent years has
made the photographer a peculiarly competent critic of his own medium and
work—as well as not infrequently of some other mediums in which he does
not work. The observation may be ventured that a competent jury of selec-
tion, coöperating with a discriminating jury on hanging, both composed of
photographers—or of painters and photographers—of taste and discernment,
would have combined a peculiar skill in judging with a happy arrangement
of prints. What the judgment of such a jury would have been upon the merits
of the prints submitted may not be discussed; but an observing comparison
between the exhibit of the Chicago Arts and Crafts Society, held in the ad-
joining rooms, and the photographic exhibit suggested the conclusion that
the hanging committee got through with as little ceremony as possible—and
a good many nice frames were sadly defaced by having the large catalogue
numbers pasted upon them, instead of upon the walls.
REMARKS on juries and on hanging may seem less pertinent than a crit-
icism of the prints; but a poor setting will mar a good play; cheap
typography and binding a good book; inexperienced performers an artistic
musical composition. Pictorial photography may well claim a place among
fine arts; but dignity and sanity are needed in its every relation if it is to
attract the approval and recognition of people of taste and cultivation.
THE Third Salon contained some very good work. Many of the prints,
particularly in the portrait class—which had the largest representation—were
well conceived and handled. The aim of most of the contributors, however,
was evidently to reach safe results along well-beaten paths. The inventive-
ness and originality of conception that mark progress in any line of endeavor
was only now and then to be observed. There were, indeed, few striking
examples of that distinctive workmanship and skill to which the most serious
and advanced workers have attained during the past three or four years.
In this respect the exhibit may be said to have been somewhat analogous to
the usual annual exhibitions of paintings, in which the painters have for the most
part done over again, with variations, what had been done many times before.

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