DOI article:
Caffin, Charles Henry, The Camera Point of View in Painting and Photography
DOI Page / Citation link:https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.31043#0034
A manually made transcription or edition is also available for this page. Please change to the tab "transrciption" or "edition."
at the expense of the sitter. And there you have it! The chief value of the
Sargent portrait is its display of brush-work, with which, as Steichen admits,
photography cannot compete. If you are in love with brush-strokes, you
must seek them in painting; but, if, on the other hand, your preference is
for a memorial of the sitter's personality, full at once of character and artistry,
the camera in the hands of an artist is more reliable than brush-work. It
will generally produce a more truthful likeness; and can produce a composi-
tion that is decorative, as well as expressional, in form, color, and tonal rela-
tions. The only thing, indeed, in which the camera falls short of the possi-
bilities of brush-work, in the case of a portrait that aims, as do most modern
ones, simply at truthful representation, is its lack of brush-work virtuosity.
And surely, as Steichen pertinently says, we have not reached the barren
ground of regarding virtuosity as the sole test of a work of art!
A little while ago another limitation affected the camera; it could not
reproduce the colors of nature. But this, since the invention of autochrome
color-plates, is in process of being removed. It is well to state the matter
thus moderately; for these plates are but a step in the direction of enormous
possibilities, at present undeveloped. Yet, in view of the progress of black
and white photography during only sixty years, who shall say to what and
how soon this new discovery will lead ? Already, in a few examples, such as
the portrait of Dr. Raab, by Alfred Stieglitz, and that of Moncure D. Conway,
by Steichen, results of natural truth have been reached, that it would be impos-
sible for the painter with his brush to equal. Again, Steichen has produced
a few plates, which despite more or less imperfections, demonstrate how
the process may be controlled by an artist. It will lend itself, as ordinary
photography and painting do, to all degrees and varieties of the common-
place ; but on the other hand can, by those who have the real feeling of the
colorist, be made to yield color-harmonies of extraordinary beauty.
At this time, it is to be repeated, we have been considering the artist,
whether painter or photographer, as occupied with representing the actual
appearances of nature. To do so, whether with brush or camera is to have
the photographic vision and to render the subject photographically. There
is, however, that other field of art which is occupied, not with facts of sight,
but with ideas of the imagination. This is outside the range of the photo-
graphic point of view. The camera is as powerless to explore it as is the
photographic method of painting. Its problems and their solution are alike
evolved from the imaginative consciousness of the artist. The photo-
graphic method, neither with camera nor palette, can produce a “Mona Lisa,"
or a Boecklin’s “Isle of the Dead." These had no objective existence; they
were creations of conceptions existing only in the inner vision; and the
means of rendering them had to be invented by the artist. It is because he
recognizes this that Steichen lays aside the camera at times, and experiments
with the palette; returning, however, to the camera, when objective facts are
to be recorded.
Charles H. Caffin.
Sargent portrait is its display of brush-work, with which, as Steichen admits,
photography cannot compete. If you are in love with brush-strokes, you
must seek them in painting; but, if, on the other hand, your preference is
for a memorial of the sitter's personality, full at once of character and artistry,
the camera in the hands of an artist is more reliable than brush-work. It
will generally produce a more truthful likeness; and can produce a composi-
tion that is decorative, as well as expressional, in form, color, and tonal rela-
tions. The only thing, indeed, in which the camera falls short of the possi-
bilities of brush-work, in the case of a portrait that aims, as do most modern
ones, simply at truthful representation, is its lack of brush-work virtuosity.
And surely, as Steichen pertinently says, we have not reached the barren
ground of regarding virtuosity as the sole test of a work of art!
A little while ago another limitation affected the camera; it could not
reproduce the colors of nature. But this, since the invention of autochrome
color-plates, is in process of being removed. It is well to state the matter
thus moderately; for these plates are but a step in the direction of enormous
possibilities, at present undeveloped. Yet, in view of the progress of black
and white photography during only sixty years, who shall say to what and
how soon this new discovery will lead ? Already, in a few examples, such as
the portrait of Dr. Raab, by Alfred Stieglitz, and that of Moncure D. Conway,
by Steichen, results of natural truth have been reached, that it would be impos-
sible for the painter with his brush to equal. Again, Steichen has produced
a few plates, which despite more or less imperfections, demonstrate how
the process may be controlled by an artist. It will lend itself, as ordinary
photography and painting do, to all degrees and varieties of the common-
place ; but on the other hand can, by those who have the real feeling of the
colorist, be made to yield color-harmonies of extraordinary beauty.
At this time, it is to be repeated, we have been considering the artist,
whether painter or photographer, as occupied with representing the actual
appearances of nature. To do so, whether with brush or camera is to have
the photographic vision and to render the subject photographically. There
is, however, that other field of art which is occupied, not with facts of sight,
but with ideas of the imagination. This is outside the range of the photo-
graphic point of view. The camera is as powerless to explore it as is the
photographic method of painting. Its problems and their solution are alike
evolved from the imaginative consciousness of the artist. The photo-
graphic method, neither with camera nor palette, can produce a “Mona Lisa,"
or a Boecklin’s “Isle of the Dead." These had no objective existence; they
were creations of conceptions existing only in the inner vision; and the
means of rendering them had to be invented by the artist. It is because he
recognizes this that Steichen lays aside the camera at times, and experiments
with the palette; returning, however, to the camera, when objective facts are
to be recorded.
Charles H. Caffin.
