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

thesis, he corrects his excessive capacity of eyesight, as a photographer cor-
rects that of his camera. He flattens the forms, reduces them to masses, and
brings the latter into relations of color and light values. He does it with
a brush on canvas; the photographer either by regulating the exposure or by
controlling the printing; or, through both. In the gum-process the photo-
grapher can so completely exercise control over the result that he practically
paints the print. He has been blamed for this, as if to paint were a disgrace,
and told by painters that he should confine himself to his own medium.
Painters, on the other hand, have decried the painter-like method of the
photographer, because he was trying to do something that could be much
better accomplished in painting.
Well, there’s the question! Some painting having become more than
ever photograhic in its point of view and in the character of its methods, and
some photography having approached closer and closer to the qualities of
painting, where are we to draw the line between them? No satisfactory an-
swer was possible until there should arrive some one man, proficient in both
mediums. Steichen fills that requisite. It cannot be said of him that he
photographs because he cannot paint. Some people may not care for his
paintings, that is beside the point. Also it may be true that he has not
shown much capacity to paint the figure. But, in a moment, I will suggest
why. Meanwhile there is no gainsaying the fact that he is an artist; with
an originality, subtlety, and range of artistic feeling that are quite uncommon.
When, therefore, he not only says, but demonstrates by his practice, that
some subjects suggest to him the camera, others the palette, as the more
natural and ready means of realizing his conception, we are bound to respect
his conclusion. We cannot disproved; we are notin a position even to
doubt it, unless we also happen to be a photographer and a painter in one.
We observe that Steichen’s figure-subjects in paint have been inconsid-
erable. There is no reason, however, to suppose that if he had given as
much study to this branch of painting as he has to landscapes, the results
would not have been as satisfactory. But, as a matter of fact, the figure-
subject that has chiefly interested him is portraiture; and for the purpose of
obtaining a truthful representation, suggestive of the character of the subject,
he has used photography as at once the more spontaneous and more readily
expressive medium. Time and again he has justified the choice. The Rodin
portrait, for example, with the head forming a dark mass against the white
mass of the marble of the Victor Hugo, is far and away the most significant
portrait of the master one has seen, and it involves a union of qualities—
stability allied to spontaneity, and force combined with luminosity—that,
only an unusual master of painting could rival. That it also involves a high
degree of imagination in the way of seeing and representing the tacts, is a part
of its maker’s personality; yet the result shows what photography can
accomplish when thus inspired. Or take Steichen’s portrait of William M.
Chase. It presents a more sincere and dignified rendering of the subject
than does Sargent’s. The latter has exploited his own virtuosity, somewhat

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