Camera Work: A Photographic Quarterly (1904 (Heft 7))

the
the means employed proves the artist; and if I may again preach, it is still
true that cc by their fruits shaJl ye know them.,,
the means employedprovestheartist;andifImayagainpreach,itisstill
true that "bytheirfruitsshallyeknowthem."
confusion of means with end, this degradation of the inner powers in com-
parison with the means of expression, is so common a thought and statement
and is so continually administered as a death-blow to the pretensions of
pictorial photographers, especially when we are more than usually successful
that its refutation by a simple statement seems useful.
When all this is thus baldly stated, Mr. Pennell’s dictum seems so
obviously false and empty as to be unworthy of any examination ; but this
confusion of means with end, this degradation of the inner powers in com-
parison with the means of expression, is so common a thought and statement
and is so continually administered as a death-blow to the pretensions of
pictorial photographers, especially when we are more than usually successful ,
that its refutation by a simple statement seems useful.
craftsmen, in fact. The enjoyer, the appreciator, has no name, and yet when
he is to be described or spoken of it is in the only possible terms that so-and-
so's taste, knowledge and sympathy, etc., make him ccquite an artist.” Surely
it should be obvious that no new term is really needed, but that the ccartist”
is the appreciator, the enjoyer, the appraiser. The producer is the painter,
the etcher, the draughtsman, the lithographer, according to the branch of art
he is engaged in; and he is also an cc artist,” but only by virtue of his suc-
cess therein. I can not but think that Nietzsche is right in the admirable
sentence I have quoted above, for otherwise there is no term to differentiate
the non-producing cultured few, who share with the great producing artist
that atmosphere of appreciation which makes them of one kin, from the
ignorant crowd who have no real art sympathy, art knowledge, art discrimi-
nation and who achieve and admire the banalities, the monstrosities that
make up the great bulk of work done in drawing, in painting and in
photography.
The only point of sympathy one can have with the opposition is that
some term seems to be needed to differentiate the producer from the appre-
ciator. And I would here use the word " appreciate ” in its truest meaning
and application, that of"setting a just value upon ” ; and not in the usual
but wrong sense of mere “admiration” or in the narrow limiting sense of the
opposite of " depreciate.” At present the term " artist ” is held by writers on
As the case now stands, the man who can draw or paint, however
mediocre his work may be and however contented he be to have it remain
so, is dubbed an artist, while the man who is bored and hurt by these pro-
ductions and who can critically assign them and their badnesses to the right
origin is not an artist because he can not or does not physically so express
himself.
worthy of the real art-student.
For myself I take it that to be an artist one must be so enveloped by