them. And then, for the first time, I saw the rooms. There are three, and they are small. I
had not observed how small; my mind had been in the big spaces created by the pictures on the
walls — and they are decorated in grays, in a few notes chosen with the very best taste, a few notes
so arranged as to make you forget them unless you purposely look. I walked through the rooms
again, and then realized that for the first time in my life I was in the presence of a series of
photographs in which the photographic had been eliminated ; for the first time I was beholding
what the enthusiastic advocates of photography have always claimed for it, namely, a proof positive
that photography could be made one of the means of personal expression. This, I must say, I had
never doubted. I knew of individual examples which were complete works of art; but I had
never seen, and I think very few others have, a whole collection (100) in which I felt that the
medium and means to the end were no longer visible, in which the end, art, was an achieved
fact.
Of course, there are some examples in which this has not been accomplished. The
exhibition was open to every member of the Secession who chose to send, and, naturally, some fall
slightly short; but what is so delightful is that you will never notice these unless you especially
look. I had to in my capacity of critic. The only fault I have to find is that Alfred Stieglitz, or
those who hung his frames, have so scattered his exhibit in various places that it does not quite
produce the effect it might if it had a separate space to itself, as do the Whites, Käsebiers,
Steichens, and many others. Certainly, no one can complain now that the “Dictator” is not
willing to sink his personality in the cause of art.
Before closing there are a few words I wish to say about Steichen. For a long time I have
withheld passing any judgment upon Steichen’s work, for, although I have greatly admired it, yet
I always felt that there was something unphotographic about it, and have again and again tried to
find what it was, but have always been foiled; and, as I know that there are many others who
are perplexed by the same doubts, I offer the following solution, which, however, I would stake
heavily is the right one. It is exceedingly simple. Steichen is “ unphotographic,” you are quite
right, but he uses pure photography to accomplish these unphotographic results. “What do
you mean by this sophistry ? " I hear you ask. It is not sophistry at all, but pure logic; it is your
sophistry that prevents you seeing the truth. I will explain. When we see a chromolithograph
we instantly recognize it by its material conditions, or what is vulgarly termed technique. We
expect a chromo to look like a chromo, and should be very much surprised to find it looking like
anything else ; yet I once ran across a lot of chromolithographic reproductions after the paintings
by Turner, and for a long time thought they were water-colors, and this merely because they had
been produced with such thought and care as to eliminate the appearance of machine-production ;
yet they were chromos, machine-made, and nothing else. An oil-painting is produced with
oil-pigments ; it is through the mechanical combination of canvas and oil-pigments that it is made
and in the majority of examples of oil-paintings we can feel the pigment and canvas, and when we
do so instantly call them amateurish. We only call an oil-painting a picture when the materials
have been handled in such a way as to make us forget them. And in this we are right, for ages of
artists have taught us that true art can not be attained until we are made to forget the materials
through which it has been brought into existence. And just so it is in photography. Only the
art is so new, and we have such an exceedingly small number of photographs in which the lens
and paper, etc., are not felt the moment we look at them, that we always expect to find them ;
and when we see such work as Steichen’s, where none of the machinery is visible, we unconsciously
conclude that it can not be a photograph, that it must be something, anything else. But this is
wrong, and it is not Steichen’sphotographs which are not photographs; they are photographs;
they are drawn by light. But it is the ordinary every-day photographs which are not photographs,
and should properly be called cameragraphs or machinographs.
And Steichen’s works in this little show are certainly wonderful. I have never seen a more
beautiful wall of black and white than he covers. I went back twice to see if they were, in truth,
as they had appeared to me that first night. And they were ! They haunt me to this day as a
strange and lovely dream.
The “Little Galleries,, are free to the public on presentation of visiting-card, from 10 to 12
a.m. and 2 to 6 p.m. The present exhibition will be on view this month, followed by foreign
work in January.

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