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

styles is prejudicial rather than advantageous, since the necessary impartiality
of ideas is almost impossible, inasmuch as the influence of study and the
knowledge of pre-existent methods must inevitably, although perhaps unde-
signedly, influence new creations and ideas. All natural objects have some
sort of purpose. And the photographer should strive primarily for the expres-
sion of the purpose. Each object (like the free verse of Whitman) should
make its own composition. Its forms and structure, lines and planes should
determine its position in the particular space alloted to the picture. More than
ever must the artist be gifted with a happy appreciation of beautiful propor-
tions, which often are sufficient to bestow a noble expression on a pictorial
representation.
Much will depend on the amateur who by sheer necessity will work uncon-
sciously in the right direction. His knowledge will increase and his ambitions
soar higher. And as he grows in esthetic perception it will react upon the artist
and urge him to attain a new and more varied, subtle and modern (though not
necessarily more perfect) state of development.
S. H.

THE AWAKENING
The man held talk with death; with burning eyes
He pierced the veil of life; then did he cry:
“Complacent rabble, now at last I know!
Ye want no signs of new-tide verities;
But flatteries, for workers of shallow thought;
And for such facile doers of daily nothings,
Again the furbishing of trite ideals! ”—
Then they who stood around said, “How he raves!”—
And so he died.
Dallett Fuguet.

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