Camera Work: A Photographic Quarterly (1904 (Heft 8))

technique. Others are not endowed with so great thought and feeling
apparently, and yet what they do have to say they make welcome to man by
their exquisite style of expression. Technique is the grammar of art; and
those who know their grammar best, put to the best advantage what they do
have to present.
If the world does not understand—or at least can not think that it does
understand — the work of an artist, it is apt to declare that the maker has
been obscure, perhaps wilfully, or unconscientiously careless, or perversely
harsh—in fact, that he has failed in the effort to which his life has been de-
voted. And in truth, by his inability to influence his day and generation,
he has partially failed. And is it his fault or his misfortune if he has
expected the public to meet him a good half-way—that half-way on the side
of the public that is so difflcult and like a gulf to be bridged? Probably he
has lacked merely some shade of that critical nicety which enables the artist
to fashion for himself a technique that fits his individuality and yet accords
with the highest canons of his art as well as with the taste and tendencies of
his time. That is enough to separate him and the public, to the great loss
of both, unless in spite of his shortcomings he have a manifest touch of that
rarest quality, true genius, to enable him to win in spite of obstacles placed
by himself as well as by a doubtful world. For in the long run, master-
minds do carry off the honors even when they have chosen to work through
what seem unfortunate or poor forms of expression; such is the distinction
given by " conception — the fundamental brain-work ," to quote Rossetti's
phrase.
Some critics of painting have held that the subject of a picture is not of
material importance; but that the way it is done is what makes a work of art
worthy. To most, however, a subject with a beautiful idea behind it seems
worthiest of fine treatment. They see nothing to be gained for art by the
assertion of a technical hobby that, when carried out, results in absurdities ;
rather they say of art as Browning's Rabbi Ben Ezra of life:
" As the bird wings and sings,
Let us cry ' All good things
Are ours, nor soul helps flesh more now than flesh helps soul! ’ ”
Nevertheless, it is true that many works excel because of superlative
accomplishments that are more than half merely technical. I put it this way
because the verdict in many cases will depend on the bias of the one judging.
For instance, as to how much Corot'srefined and intellectually synthetic
representations of dusk and the afterglow are more than evidences of technical
dexterity reduced to the last word. Where body ends and soul begins, who
shall say authoritatively ? Dogmatism is antiquated and long out of style
among thinkers; and the only ones hardy enough to try to lay down the law
are the semi-scientific realists, the analysts of dead matter, who necessarily
destroy traces of all else by their brutal dissections. But true artists, perhaps
in amends for the feeling of noble dissatisfaction with which they regard their
own accomplishments, are rewarded by the pleasure that comes from reading

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