Camera Work: A Photographic Quarterly (1907 (Heft 17))

the aspect of the landscape, discovered that the rendering of light was a
potent means of emotional expression. For the grand generalization of old-
fashioned chiaroscuro, the artist, working in the modern spirit, has substi-
tuted a delicate analysis of light. Moreover, in studying the effect of light
on the local colors of objects, he has discovered new subtleties of tone. In
a word, quality, as represented in the “ values,” or degrees of light, and in
“ tone,” or the relation of lighted surfaces to one another, is now both
the motive of his craftsmanship and his medium of expression.
Herzog, however, regards this quality as being purely a trick of crafts-
manship, attainable in its perfection by any one with a reasonable knowledge
of and skill in photographic processes. If it is so simple a matter, how
surprising that so few attain it! His own failure to secure this quality he
explains by saying that he does not consider it of sufficient importance !
It is precisely in this respect that he proves himself to be out of touch
with his time and with the modern aims of painting and photography.
Though he is handling a new medium, which is peculiarly responsive to the
new technical motive, he puts it to the service of a motive that is belated.
He affects to belittle it, forgetting that it is by the use of this technical
“trick,” as he styles it, that Whistler expressed the beauty of his conceptions,
and that the modern landscape picture has been brought to its present
efficiency; that, in a word, it is to the use of this “trick,” that the majority
of what is best in modern pictorial art is to be ascribed. Meanwhile, he
himself locks step with the painters of Her Ancient Ladyship, as she
masquerades in the gewgaws of her youth.
But there is another aspect of quality. It is not only a matter of tech-
nique, but a medium of expression. Of this, however, it would seem that
Herzog is completely unconscious. Yet he must admit, I suppose, that even
in manipulating the technical “trick,” the result is considerably determined
by the operator's own personality. He can not prevent the print from
becoming an expression of either the depth or the shallowness of his artistic
intentions. Herzog’s own prints, for example, betray the limitation of his
purpose. They show him to be mainly occupied with the abstract beauty of
line and mass, with the unindividual expression of form—the academic ideal
of expression. Meanwhile, the tendency of the modern world has been
toward individuality, and the modern artist has extended his conception of
beauty in order to include Rembrandt, for example, as well as Bouguereau.
So far as it can be put into one word, the new ideal is character—both
expression of character and character of expression. The modern artist
seeks to discover the individuality existing both in himself and in his subject;
and, not in the manner of sweeping generalizations, but of searching and
exact analysis. He is conscious of a complexity of sensations in himself
and of suggestions in the world about him, and seeks to interpret their
subtlety. He has found the means in this new idea of technique. It is to
him an instrument of wide range and sensitive possibilities, responsive to the
variations of his own moods, and suggestive to the imagination of others;
and, as the musician, not satisfied with brilliant finger-work, demands quality