DOI article:
Joseph T. [Turner] Keiley, The Buffalo Exhibition
DOI Page / Citation link:https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.31226#0043
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The pursuit of pure beauty is the aim of the soul of the world. There
are few lives in which it does not play some part, from the greatest master in
music or painting to the dirty little vagrant children of the slums who beg for
a flower of the pedestrian who chances to pass amongst them with a bunch
thereof, or who on a summer night find strange joy in dancing shadow dances
under an electric light to the music of a hand-organ.
To open up a new way to give expression to the individual feeling for
the beautiful adds a new avenue to the common goal, and hence to the re-
sources of the race. Twenty-five years ago photography was not generally
regarded as a possible medium of original pictorial expression. The real
artist who welcomed any medium that would aid him in his quest for the
beautiful appreciated at once the value and possibilities of photography,
and used it to give expression to his ideals without further question. Of
such was Hill, the Scotch painter and sculptor, whose work, done half a
century ago and exhibited in the Buffalo collection, formed one of the finest
groups in the exhibition. The general public as well as “artists,” however,
for long scoffed at the idea that an exhibition of photographic pictures could
be shown in an art gallery such as the Philadelphia Academy, the Carnegie
Gallery in Pittsburg, and others, for their beauty and originality as pictures.
Nevertheless, there were those who grasped the real possibilities of photog-
raphy as a means of original expression, and who set to themselves the task
of overcoming conventional prejudice and opening the eyes of the world to
the possibilities of this new medium of giving expression to the beautiful.
Largely to one man does the success of the Buffalo Exhibition, with all
that that implies, belong. Over twenty-five years ago he recognized the
possibilities of photography. He realized that there were many persons who,
if they came to regard photography seriously as a possible means of original
pictorial expression, would give to the world individual conceptions of the
beautiful that could be produced through no other medium and for which
the race would be richer; and that through a medium with which the general
public was more intimately familiar than with any other, the public taste
could through understanding be trained to a keener and truer and more
catholic perception of beauty in all fields of artistic expression; and, further-
more, through such education of artistic perception to emphasize the principle
that a large class of paintings—many of which are even housed in art galleries—
will be superseded by works produced more beautifully and less mechanically
through the medium of photography. This was the germination of the Seces-
sionistic idea. Through writings and exhibitions the battle was begun and
tirelessly waged with this end in view; and so it has gone on tirelessly for a
quarter of a century, to be finally crowned with this splendid achievement—
the Buffalo Exhibition.
The attendance at the art gallery shows quite convincingly that the
general public of today has begun to understand what Hill and a few others
knew to be the fact years ago.
As I have already stated, the impression made by the exhibition is so
subtle as to be not at first felt. Only on revisitation and after close analytic
25
are few lives in which it does not play some part, from the greatest master in
music or painting to the dirty little vagrant children of the slums who beg for
a flower of the pedestrian who chances to pass amongst them with a bunch
thereof, or who on a summer night find strange joy in dancing shadow dances
under an electric light to the music of a hand-organ.
To open up a new way to give expression to the individual feeling for
the beautiful adds a new avenue to the common goal, and hence to the re-
sources of the race. Twenty-five years ago photography was not generally
regarded as a possible medium of original pictorial expression. The real
artist who welcomed any medium that would aid him in his quest for the
beautiful appreciated at once the value and possibilities of photography,
and used it to give expression to his ideals without further question. Of
such was Hill, the Scotch painter and sculptor, whose work, done half a
century ago and exhibited in the Buffalo collection, formed one of the finest
groups in the exhibition. The general public as well as “artists,” however,
for long scoffed at the idea that an exhibition of photographic pictures could
be shown in an art gallery such as the Philadelphia Academy, the Carnegie
Gallery in Pittsburg, and others, for their beauty and originality as pictures.
Nevertheless, there were those who grasped the real possibilities of photog-
raphy as a means of original expression, and who set to themselves the task
of overcoming conventional prejudice and opening the eyes of the world to
the possibilities of this new medium of giving expression to the beautiful.
Largely to one man does the success of the Buffalo Exhibition, with all
that that implies, belong. Over twenty-five years ago he recognized the
possibilities of photography. He realized that there were many persons who,
if they came to regard photography seriously as a possible means of original
pictorial expression, would give to the world individual conceptions of the
beautiful that could be produced through no other medium and for which
the race would be richer; and that through a medium with which the general
public was more intimately familiar than with any other, the public taste
could through understanding be trained to a keener and truer and more
catholic perception of beauty in all fields of artistic expression; and, further-
more, through such education of artistic perception to emphasize the principle
that a large class of paintings—many of which are even housed in art galleries—
will be superseded by works produced more beautifully and less mechanically
through the medium of photography. This was the germination of the Seces-
sionistic idea. Through writings and exhibitions the battle was begun and
tirelessly waged with this end in view; and so it has gone on tirelessly for a
quarter of a century, to be finally crowned with this splendid achievement—
the Buffalo Exhibition.
The attendance at the art gallery shows quite convincingly that the
general public of today has begun to understand what Hill and a few others
knew to be the fact years ago.
As I have already stated, the impression made by the exhibition is so
subtle as to be not at first felt. Only on revisitation and after close analytic
25
