Camera Work: A Photographic Quarterly (1907 (Heft 18))

“There exists,” says M. Demachy, " a much thicker layer in England
than in France between the quite upper strata and the lowest. It seems to
me that amongst French pictorialists those who have failed to attract the
enthusiastic attention they expected at the National or foreign salons have
dropped photography altogether; it has been a case of everything or nothing
for them. This would explain the absence in our country of the good and
honest work—not very original, perhaps, because it is founded on correct
composition more than on personal interpretation—that comes after the work
of the English leaders, and fills up in your exhibitions the gap that we
notice in ours. This peculiar state of affairs is more than elsewhere felt in
the arduous recruiting of illustrations for first-class photographic magazines.
These are extremely rare in France; I may even say that, outside of a
portfolio publication or two, there is only one good illustrated periodical
of the sort in the whole country."
British landscape work comes in for praise at the hands of M. Demachy,
who points out that, after the best workers have been put on one side, there
still remain many landscapes which show undeniable qualities of composition,
and, in their authors, positive appreciation of Nature and its different moods.
" But I must say,” he goes on to observe, " that, in that class of work, the
level of the studies or pictures dealing with figures is very much lower than
in landscape—as bad as with French workers of the same order. For it is
evident that amongst photographers there are many who are capable
of recognizing and making use of good composition—ready-made—in
Nature, and yet who can not mold stuffs, folds, and human limbs into a
correspondingly harmonious ensemble.
“Now, I do not exactly know what is the degree of temperature of the
English pictorialist's enthusiasm in his own work and process. I think it
must be higher than Frenchmen's, if I take into account the superior amount
of work brought out in England, and the greater number of able workers.
Here we do not ' take ourselves seriously,' and are heavily handicapped by
this fact alone. Look at the beautiful enthusiasm of American workers —
violently attacked by half the photographic community, and raised to the
skies by the other half—that is quite invigorating! Here we politely
compliment our leaders once a year on their interesting work, in just about
the same tone as we would take to thank them for the delightful evening we
have passed in their company, and we say the same thing, or nearly so, to
the man whose work we do not like in the least—because we feel that, after
all, there is no use in getting ourselves excited—à quoi bon? This is certainly
not productive of emulation. Then there is the influence of artistic Paris
—the constant comparison between our small work and the work in the
numberless private and public exhibitions in oils, pastels, water-color and
what not—by first-rate artists, whose names will perhaps never be known
out of their own set. There is the camaraderie with the leaders of both the
Salons de Peinture, their frank avowal of discontent at their own superb
work, and of their inefficient striving after other and more complete
expression. All this may turn a self-proud photographer into a more

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