Camera Work: A Photographic Quarterly (1909 (Heft 25))

MRS. ANNIE W. BRIGMAN—A COMMENT

ITH the advent of Annie W. Brigman a new note is
introduced into modern pictorial photography. Living amidst
the wonderful natural beauties of California, far from the noise
and wrangle of cliques, she has quietly evolved an art that is
expressive and thoroughly individual. It harks back neither to this nor
that man though in spirit and in the large and simple way of seeing things
her work is kin to the ancient saga lore. Certain of her prints are
fraught with that same brooding, elemental feeling that distinguish the
speech and gestures of those old viking heroes. While this is the dominant,
prevailing characteristic of her work, there are not wanting touches of idyllic,
almost lyrical beauty as is shown by the prints presented here; but always
there is mystery and a sense of aloofness in her figures which have the added
virtue of never seeming out of place in their setting. In Mrs. Brigman’s
work, the human is not an alien, has not yet become divorced by sophistica-
tion from the elemental grandeur of nature; rather it serves as a sort of
climactic point, wherein all that nature holds of sheer beauty, of terror or
mystery achieves its fitting crescendo.
J. Nilsen Laurvik.


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