DOI article:
Robert Demachy, On the Straight Print
DOI Page / Citation link: https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.30587#0036
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qualities of a work of art? A work of art must be a transcription, not a
copy, of nature. The beauty of the motive in nature has nothing to do with
the quality that makes a work of art. This special quality is given by the
artist's way of expressing himself. In other words, there is not a particle of
art in the most beautiful scene of nature. The art is man’s alone, it is sub-
jective not objective. If a man slavishly copies nature, no matter if it is
with hand and pencil or through a photographic lens, he may be a supreme
artist all the while, but that particular work of his can not be called a work
of art.
I have so often heard the terms “artistic” and " beautiful” employed
as if they were synonymous that I believe it is necessary to insist on the
radical difference between their meanings. Quite lately I have read in the
course of an interesting article on American pictorial photography the fol-
lowing paragraph: " In nature there is the beautiful, the commonplace and
the ugly, and he who has the insight to recognize the one from the other and
the cunning to separate and transfix only the beautiful, is the artist.” This
would induce us to believe that when Rembrandt painted the Lesson in
Anatomy he proved himself no artist. Is there anything uglier in nature than
a greenish, half-disemboweled corpse; or anything more commonplace than
a score of men dressed in black standing round a table ? Nevertheless, the
result of this combination of the ugly and the commonplace is one of the
greatest masterpieces in painting. Because the artist intervened.
If Rembrandt had painted that scene exactly as he saw it in nature he
would have given us exactly the same impression that he would have felt in
front of the actual scene, a sensation of disgust—mingled perhaps with a vivid
admiration for the manual and visual skill of the copyist, but without a
shadow of any art sensation.
Let us change the circumstances and take as example a beautiful motive
such as a sunset. Do you think that Turner’s sunsets existed in nature such
as he painted them ? Do you think that if he had painted them as they were,
and not as he felt them, he would have left a name as an artist ? Why, if the
choice of a beautiful motive was sufficient to make a work of art ninety per
cent of the graphic works in the world, paintings, drawings, photographs and
chromos would be works of art, a few of them only are distinctly ugly and
not as many commonplace.
Choose the man whom you consider the very first landscape artist
photographer in the world; suppose he has, thanks to his artistic nature and
visual training, chosen the hour and spot, of all others. Imagine him
shadowed by some atrocious photographic bounder furnished with the same
plates and lens as the master. Imagine this plagiarist setting his tripod in
the actual dents left by the artist’s machine and taking the same picture with
the same exposure. Now, suppose that both are straight printers ? Who will
be able later on to tell which is the artist's and which is the other one’s
picture? But figure to yourself the artist printing his negative, selectively,by
the gum bichromate or the oil process, or developing his platinotype print
with glycerine. Even if the other man has used the same printing method
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copy, of nature. The beauty of the motive in nature has nothing to do with
the quality that makes a work of art. This special quality is given by the
artist's way of expressing himself. In other words, there is not a particle of
art in the most beautiful scene of nature. The art is man’s alone, it is sub-
jective not objective. If a man slavishly copies nature, no matter if it is
with hand and pencil or through a photographic lens, he may be a supreme
artist all the while, but that particular work of his can not be called a work
of art.
I have so often heard the terms “artistic” and " beautiful” employed
as if they were synonymous that I believe it is necessary to insist on the
radical difference between their meanings. Quite lately I have read in the
course of an interesting article on American pictorial photography the fol-
lowing paragraph: " In nature there is the beautiful, the commonplace and
the ugly, and he who has the insight to recognize the one from the other and
the cunning to separate and transfix only the beautiful, is the artist.” This
would induce us to believe that when Rembrandt painted the Lesson in
Anatomy he proved himself no artist. Is there anything uglier in nature than
a greenish, half-disemboweled corpse; or anything more commonplace than
a score of men dressed in black standing round a table ? Nevertheless, the
result of this combination of the ugly and the commonplace is one of the
greatest masterpieces in painting. Because the artist intervened.
If Rembrandt had painted that scene exactly as he saw it in nature he
would have given us exactly the same impression that he would have felt in
front of the actual scene, a sensation of disgust—mingled perhaps with a vivid
admiration for the manual and visual skill of the copyist, but without a
shadow of any art sensation.
Let us change the circumstances and take as example a beautiful motive
such as a sunset. Do you think that Turner’s sunsets existed in nature such
as he painted them ? Do you think that if he had painted them as they were,
and not as he felt them, he would have left a name as an artist ? Why, if the
choice of a beautiful motive was sufficient to make a work of art ninety per
cent of the graphic works in the world, paintings, drawings, photographs and
chromos would be works of art, a few of them only are distinctly ugly and
not as many commonplace.
Choose the man whom you consider the very first landscape artist
photographer in the world; suppose he has, thanks to his artistic nature and
visual training, chosen the hour and spot, of all others. Imagine him
shadowed by some atrocious photographic bounder furnished with the same
plates and lens as the master. Imagine this plagiarist setting his tripod in
the actual dents left by the artist’s machine and taking the same picture with
the same exposure. Now, suppose that both are straight printers ? Who will
be able later on to tell which is the artist's and which is the other one’s
picture? But figure to yourself the artist printing his negative, selectively,by
the gum bichromate or the oil process, or developing his platinotype print
with glycerine. Even if the other man has used the same printing method
22
