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

The Black Mirror, that brilliant, iconoclastic, anonymously published
and edited little art-pamphlet, printed the following in No. VI:
On November 24 of last year there was opened at 291 Fifth Avenue, in the gallery of the
Photo-Secession, an exhibition of the work of members of that body.
The “principal influence observable,” to quote the usual critical phrase, was that of good
taste, second only to the Whistler exhibition in Boston.
While taste is considered a somewhat superfluous detail — by those who have it not — even
that amount displayed at the Photo-Secession room will be to the wanderer in our artistic desert a
most delightful oasis, while the photographs shown will in the most part, from their refinement,
prove restful, provided one be not a professional portrait-painter, in which case they would be as a
slap in the face. The same remark might apply to the professional landscape-painter as well.
As a provoker of remark the exhibition was a success, as every critic has had his fling about
the subject, from that A. Hoeber to Mr. Fitzgerald, who seemingly feeds upon the flesh of
Gargoyle, raw.
Regarding the eternal debate as to whether photography is lost, strayed, or stolen, let us
paraphrase that statement by Mr. Eddy:
There are photographs;
There are photographs which are also pictures;
There are pictures which are also photographs;
There are pictures.
I think it is scarcely worth while to discuss the subject further.
In regard to the limitations of photography, it may naturally possess them — like men; but as
a camera is merely a thing of wood, paper, glass, and metal, its feelings can not be hurt by the
remark.
The whole matter is surprisingly interesting and could be made entertaining for both old and
young as a sort of puzzle.
People could go to an exhibition at the Photo-Secession, then the annual exhibition of, say the
National Academy, and turn around three times while standing on one leg. The puzzle would be:
Which were the artists?
Under the heading “The Photo-Secession — A Protest Against the
Ordinary,” Henry R. Poore, the well-known landscape-painter and author
of “ Pictorial Composition,” wrote in the January issue of The Camera as
follows :
A correspondent writes: “Will you not make a little more clear your recommendation for
‘originality within the compass of art-principles?’ ”
One of several distinctions between the fine arts and business or science or religion is that it is
the mission of the former to please. For that single reason the art we affect puts us under bonds.
Business, science, and religion are founded on truth, and when they remove themselves from it
they fail.
Art is likewise founded on truth, but, its first mission being to please, truth is forced to become
elastic, to be turned, twisted, manipulated, cajoled, threatened, outraged: all this merely that man
may keep on being pleased.
But man is no such tyrant that for the sake of a holiday he could wish truth murdered. No,
she always escapes, or, if not, man finds that together with her he has killed his art also.
If man were not of this sort and his mental processes merely reasonable and mechanical one
form of graphic presentation would suit him for all time and the key of “C” would contain for
all necessary harmony.
But man will pass on. From the cradle up he has been outgrowing his toys. This demand
for change must therefore be recognized in his pleasures. In art he is constantly craving it.
The artist who gratifies him, however, need only be himself if so be his cast of mind is
differential, different from the majority; but if he finds he is molded out of the majority’s common
clay, then he must assume by appropriation or through education that originality which his public
demands.

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