Camera Work: A Photographic Quarterly (1908 (Heft 24))

so that one does not see the mixture nor be conscious of it. One must
keep the drawing of the lens, the special qualities of modelling that light
creates on the gelatine, without being stopped suddenly by a scratching which
destroys the line or by a simplification with the brush which becomes a dis-
turbing spot.
Having been produced on these lines, a photograph may turn out or
value or not. If it moves us the author is an artist. I own that certain of
the prints interpreted to the extreme are pleasantly effective, but after all our
admiration is incomplete. We would like to see photography remain abso-
lutely itself with all its characteristics.,,
MATISSE
A modern, a revolutionary, undoubtedly the most gifted of a group of
modern painters who, with him, give themselves up to audacious attempts of
style and of a new expression of light. He has painted—pushing to the
extreme some discoveries of Gauguin, Cezanne and Van Gogh—curious
paintings in still-life and other subjects, the works of a very brilliant colorist.
“ Photography can provide the most precious documents existing and
no one can contest its value from that point of view. If it is practiced by a
man of taste, the photograph will have an appearance of art. But I believe
that it is not of any importance in what style they have been produced;
photographs will always be impressive because they show us nature, and
all artists will find in them a world of sensations. The photographer must
therefore intervene as little as possible, so as not to cause photography to
lose the objective charm which it naturally possesses, notwithstanding its
defects. By trying to add to it he may give the result the appearance of an
echo of a different process. Photography should register and give us docu-
ments.”
CONCLUSION
An examination of these opinions allows us easily to form a resume of
the opinions of the artists we have consulted.
On the first point, “ Can photography produce a work of art?” there is,
I believe, a decided unanimity for the affirmative and this first question is
readily condensed in the sentence of M. Francis Jourdain, “There is art
wherever there is an artist.”
As to the second question, more complex, relating to the intervention
of the photographer, to transform his print in order to interpret it according
to his intention, there is, if not unanimity, at least an important majority in
favor of permitting such interpretations. Indeed, except M. M. Cottet,
Matisse and Bartholom6, and especially the two latter, most of the other
artists declare:
“Intervene as you like, transform according to your fancy, only the
results are of importance;” but it is nearly with the same unison they add:

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