Camera Work: A Photographic Quarterly (1910 (Heft 30))

delineations in the round, with the application of life and shade, perspective,
environment, which demand a more delicate knowledge of appearances.
Photographic illustration has become a new kind of writing, and it would
be strange if this evolution in our sight perception had not been accompanied
by some changes in composition. Composition, tersely expressed, is the com-
plete unity of parts. If we wish to emphasize any one part of the representa-
tion it cannot be done without subordinating the other elements. Only in
this way will we succeed in concentrating the attention upon the principal figure
without any embarrassment to the rest. The more pronounced our intention
is, in conveying a certain idea, the more careful must we be in balancing the
other parts. This general principle will be true for all time. The symmetrical
art of the Occident based on geometrical forms, and the unsymmetrical arrange-
ment of Oriental art based on rhythm, are guided by the same idea.
A new spirit of composition, however, may arise in periods of increased
esthetic activity. The relation between artists and the world at large is recip-
rocal. New laws cannot be elaborated by the mere will of a single individual.
The composition of the Old Masters, used for centuries, has passed through
its first decadence and by constant application has degraded into convention-
alism. It grew more and more stereotyped, until Impressionist composition—
which explores obscure corners of modern life, which delights in strangeness
of observation and novel view points (strongly influenced by Japanese art and
snapshot photography)—gave it a new stimulant. In photography, pictorial
expression has become infinitely vast and varied, popular, vulgar, common and
yet unforeseen, it is crowded with lawlessness, imperfection and failure, but
at the same time offers a singular richness in startling individual observation
and sentiments of many kinds. In ordinary record-photography the difficulty
of summarizing expression confronts us. The painter composes by an effort
of imagination. The photographer interprets by spontaneity of judgment.
He practices composition by the eye. And this very lack of facility of changing
and augmenting the original composition drives the photographer into experi-
ments.
Referring to the average kind of photographic delineation we perceive
how composition may exist without certain elements which are usually asso-
ciated with it. A haphazard snapshot at a stretch of woodland, without any
attention to harmony, can only accidentally result in a good composition. The
main thoroughfare of a large city at night, near the amusement center, with
its bewildering illumination of electrical signs, must produce something to which
the accepted laws of composition can be applied only with difficulty. Scenes
of traffic, or crowds in a street, in a public building, or on the seashore, dock
and canal, bridge and tunnel, steam engine and trolley, will throw up new
problems. At present the amateur has reached merely the primitive stage.
The most ignorant person will attempt a view or a portrait group out-of-doors.
Even children will strive for accidental results. The amateur has not yet
acquired calligraphic expression. Like the sign painter who takes care to see
that his lettering is sufficiently plain to be understood at one glance, the amateur
only cares to make statements of fact. As we examine amateur photographs

24