Camera Work: A Photographic Quarterly (1906 (Heft 14))

THE PHOTO-SECESSION GALLERIES
AND THE PRESS.


R. CHARLES FITZGERALD, that keen and witty art-
critic of the New York Evening Sun, wrote as follows in the
issue of December second and December ninth, 1905,
under the heading, The Pictorial Photographers:

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The fourfold purpose of the Photo-Secession, as set forth in the prospectus, is: “To hold
together those Americans devoted to pictorial photography; to uphold and strengthen the position
of pictorial photography; to exhibit the best that has been accomplished by its members or
other photogaphers, and, above all, to dignify that profession until recently looked upon as a
trade. ”
In 1902 the members of this bodv, including most of the ablest exponents of pictorial
photography in America, held their first exhibition at the National Arts Club. It was shortly after
the publication of Mr. Caffin’s elaborate work on “ Photography as a Fine Art” (Doubleday,
Page & Co.), a work which had been criticised at some length in these columns; and the occasion
seemed convenient for a fuller examination of Mr. Caffin’s claims on behalf of the photographers,
the more so since several of the examples shown were precisely those chosen by him in illustration
of his arguments. Now, Mr. Caffin is one of the most uncompromising enthusiasts of the
camera, and can discover no real distinction between the photographer and painter, except that the
former employs a “dark-box with a lens in front of it,” whereas the latter prefers “a brush or
knife or his own thumb.” In short, according to his argument, “the most important difference
between the painter and the photographer is in their respective tools.” There are other differences,
however; and to some of us the substitution of a sensitized film for a brain seems, in the absence of
a psychologic lens, to separate the photographer from the painter by a wider gulf than Mr. Caffin
allows in his plausible statement. The exhibition of the Photo-Secession was used, therefore, in
illustration of this, the fundamental distinction between the two; but no attempt was made to prove
that photography and art are incompatible; on the contrary, it was explicitly pointed out how
“the photographer may show himself an artist whenever he selects, whether in taking a photograph
or in developing or printing it.”
It is a little discouraging, under these circumstances, to find oneself described in Camera Work,
by the director of the Photo-Secession, as a critic who “has in the past strenuously denied the claims
of photography as a possible means of art-expression.” Why, it is not only a possibility, but a
certainty, beyond all controversy. The exhibition at present open at No. 291 Fifth Avenue is simply
reeking with “art” down to the very catalogue with its eccentric lettering, its pretty little gold
seal, and its ragged edges. There is surely nothing wanting in the way of refinements; if there is
a question, it is whether all these excrescences are traceable to a foundation as solid as the
photographers would have us believe. They suggest, not the struggles of exploration. but the easy
satisfaction of established convention, not to say the refinement of decay.
It is one of the chief arguments of the photographers that their art is still in its infancy; that
they are but pioneers feeling their way and striving for expression in a medium which has barely
begun to reveal its vast possibilities. Yet, with all their modesty, they are exceedingly jealous of
their claims, make a great mystery of their calling, and throw the words Master and Masterpiece at
each other with a prodigality that would astonish most painters. It is amazing to find Miss Alice
Boughton, one of the ablest of them, speaking as she does in the December issue of the Scrip of
“Photography, a Medium of Expression.” For a sound and sober review of the pictorial
photographer’s aims this is almost unparalleled in the current literature of the subject, and it makes
a welcome and pleasant contrast to the wild hysterics to which the professionals have accus-
tomed us.
In a future article Miss Boughton’s exposition of the photographer’s ideal will be considered
in its relation to the work of the Photo-Secession.

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