DOI article:
Frederick H. [Henry] Evans, The London Photographic Salon for 1905
DOI Page / Citation link:https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.30578#0057
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fit to go on the same gallery-wall as the other works (named above) by this
genuine artist. No. 182 and No. 185 are also poor things, possibly inter-
esting for the home-portfolio, but for public exhibition I say certainly not.
Mr. Yarnall Abbott's color-pictures are his best things; especiaily so
is No. 124, The Alhambra, though I must confess to being unable to
discover anything recognizable in the building. The blue sky and sunlit
wall make a glowing and effective picture on the wall; but why is it called
moonlight, surely it is the plainest and most usual of daylight.
Perhaps the most wonderful picture in the whole American collection,
if one considers the difficulties and the all-around success, is No. 139, The
Tale of Isolde, by Benedict Herzog; certainly its price of five hundred
dollars is the most wonderful ever attached to a photograph. The whole
seems a hugely clever and successful composite photograph; the very lovely
model is evidently the same for all three figures—there could not be three
such lovely beings in one family. [This is only one of the instances in
which Mr. Evans’s conclusions are all wrong. There is no shortage of hand-
some women in America.— Editors.] But the posing of the heads and
hands — if one excepts, perhaps, the rather wooden forearm of the reading
figure — is quite unexceptionable; the drapery is amazingly good and painter-
like, though one would like to be more convinced that it is all due to the
unaided camera. The same artist’s Selimay No. 143, is also rich in color
and fine in posing. The spotty background worries and distracts, the dots
are so evident, and look as though meant decoratively, but are not on the
closer examination they tempt one to. I would also have liked the model
to have paid a visit first to the dentist, and had that overobtrusive incisor
removed; it spoils a wonderfully fine and expressive mouth, and forces
attention away from the grand head and its fine posing. No. 174, Portrait;
by Miss Rives, is very welcome as proving my praise of last year to have
had a sound basis. It is rich in color-sense, finely lit and modeled, and
exceptionally good in its printing. It owes a good deal to the example set
by Mrs. Käsebier, but that is only the greater compliment to the younger
worker, as it is only the quality that is derivative; there is no sort of imitation.
Dr. Spitzer has two wonderful portraits in Nos.10 and 16; exceedingly
characteristic heads, virile in the extreme, and most sound and true in work
in every respect; very great triumphs for the camera and its user. Herr
Kühn has a quite marvelous picture in No. 32, Zu der Düne, one of the
most arresting things I have ever seen in photography. Three peasants,
with white mob caps, are walking up a sand-hill road, and the " go,” the
effort, the sense of rapid progress up the acclivity, are all so acutely true
and picturesque as to keep one looking at it till one almost gets tired, as
though sharing the toil of the pedestrians. The working-out is naturally,
coming from so accomplished an artist, of the most thorough kind; it is
complete in every sense, and no more compelling picture has been shown in
a photographic gallery.
The French section was this year selected by MM. Demachy and Puyo,
and this has resulted in their modestly limiting themselves to three pictures
49
genuine artist. No. 182 and No. 185 are also poor things, possibly inter-
esting for the home-portfolio, but for public exhibition I say certainly not.
Mr. Yarnall Abbott's color-pictures are his best things; especiaily so
is No. 124, The Alhambra, though I must confess to being unable to
discover anything recognizable in the building. The blue sky and sunlit
wall make a glowing and effective picture on the wall; but why is it called
moonlight, surely it is the plainest and most usual of daylight.
Perhaps the most wonderful picture in the whole American collection,
if one considers the difficulties and the all-around success, is No. 139, The
Tale of Isolde, by Benedict Herzog; certainly its price of five hundred
dollars is the most wonderful ever attached to a photograph. The whole
seems a hugely clever and successful composite photograph; the very lovely
model is evidently the same for all three figures—there could not be three
such lovely beings in one family. [This is only one of the instances in
which Mr. Evans’s conclusions are all wrong. There is no shortage of hand-
some women in America.— Editors.] But the posing of the heads and
hands — if one excepts, perhaps, the rather wooden forearm of the reading
figure — is quite unexceptionable; the drapery is amazingly good and painter-
like, though one would like to be more convinced that it is all due to the
unaided camera. The same artist’s Selimay No. 143, is also rich in color
and fine in posing. The spotty background worries and distracts, the dots
are so evident, and look as though meant decoratively, but are not on the
closer examination they tempt one to. I would also have liked the model
to have paid a visit first to the dentist, and had that overobtrusive incisor
removed; it spoils a wonderfully fine and expressive mouth, and forces
attention away from the grand head and its fine posing. No. 174, Portrait;
by Miss Rives, is very welcome as proving my praise of last year to have
had a sound basis. It is rich in color-sense, finely lit and modeled, and
exceptionally good in its printing. It owes a good deal to the example set
by Mrs. Käsebier, but that is only the greater compliment to the younger
worker, as it is only the quality that is derivative; there is no sort of imitation.
Dr. Spitzer has two wonderful portraits in Nos.10 and 16; exceedingly
characteristic heads, virile in the extreme, and most sound and true in work
in every respect; very great triumphs for the camera and its user. Herr
Kühn has a quite marvelous picture in No. 32, Zu der Düne, one of the
most arresting things I have ever seen in photography. Three peasants,
with white mob caps, are walking up a sand-hill road, and the " go,” the
effort, the sense of rapid progress up the acclivity, are all so acutely true
and picturesque as to keep one looking at it till one almost gets tired, as
though sharing the toil of the pedestrians. The working-out is naturally,
coming from so accomplished an artist, of the most thorough kind; it is
complete in every sense, and no more compelling picture has been shown in
a photographic gallery.
The French section was this year selected by MM. Demachy and Puyo,
and this has resulted in their modestly limiting themselves to three pictures
49
