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

War is still in progress. Yet, notwithstanding, the war of the Union, whether
of North and South, or of Photography and other mediums of the fine arts,
is really and truly finished, the fact may not be even now admitted in
New York, but assuredly is in some scarcely less considerable centers of
culture, such as Paris, London, Venice, Dresden and Vienna. For my own
part—and in the conflict I have borne my little part, making myself ridicu-
lous or of timely service, according as you choose to regard it—the question
is no longer, whether Saul also is among the prophets, but whether paint-
ing is not in certain aspects of itself, as photographic as photography;
whether indeed, to cite specific instances, Mr. Kenyon Cox is not as rudi-
mentally a photographer as Mr. Herzog; or Corot or Velasquez as Clarence
H. White or Mrs. Gertrude Kasebier.
Since writing the above I have read Steichen's copy in advance, and
will, therefore, pursue the tenor of my own thought, without encroaching
upon his. He, as the readers of the previous number of Camera Work will
remember, makes the point that all artists who set out to represent the world
as it is have the eye photographic. Whether or not they see and render as
much as the lens of the camera is capable of recording, is but a question of
degree. Their point of view corresponds to that of the camera. They may
have the microscopic vision of a Holbein or Meissonier; or the generaliza-
tion of Giotto or Puvis de Chavannes; or, again, the synthesis plus senti-
ment of Corot; or the objective analysis of Velasquez and Monet—these
are but subdivisions of a field, well nigh inexhaustible in its varieties of differ-
ence. But the single center to which all these innumerable radii converge is
that the point of view of all painters who affect truth to nature is photo-
graphic and has always been so.
What, further, is impressionism but a more natural way of seeing and
rendering; in other words, a point of view more scientifically photographic?
The impressionists may have been influenced by Velasquez and the Japan-
ese in seeking to record an impression of the momentary aspect of a scene;
but for the knowledge of how to render it they have been chiefly indebted
to photography. Ever since the appearance of Edward Muybridge's prints
of horses in movement, attracted the attention of painters, the latter have
been more scientific in their application of the principles of photography.
They have become still more scientific and literally photographic since
they have given increased attention to the phenomena of light. Luminarists,
in their analysis of the qualities and conditions of light, and in their efforts to
make lighted atmosphere the basis of harmony and of expression in their
compositions, are but emulating the action of the camera. They are making
a great effort to do what the camera cannot help doing and in many cases
does, not only more readily, but also more effectually and expressively than
is possible for a painter to do
Similarly even the methods of the painter, so far as he represents nature,
approximate to the photographer's. If he views it microscopically, as Meis-
sonier did, he emulates the detailed results of the camera; if he aims at syn-

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