DOI article:
Sadakichi Hartmann, The Esthetic Significance of the Motion Picture
DOI Page / Citation link:https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.31215#0037
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sentation of mere incidents, a rider galloping along a mountain path, a hand-
some woman with hair and skirts fluttering in the wind, the rushing water
of a stream, the struggle of two desperate men in some twilight atmosphere.
These fragmentary bits of life, or merely of scenery, with the animating
spirit of motion as main attraction, contain all the elements of pure esthetic
pleasure, although we still hesitate to acknowledge it. But the motion
picture will steadily gain in recognition, for it has come to stay. No doubt
it will undergo many transformations. It will be in color and accompanied
by phonographic speech. It may become like the piano-player, a home
amusement, and also enter the domain of home portraiture. And the reels
will be free of all blemishes that will obscure the image on the screen. All
this, however, will not make it more artistic.
More artistic it will become solely by more artistic handling, and there
is no reason why some genius like Henry Irving, Gordon Craig, or Steichen
should not invade the realm of motion picture making and more fully reveal
its esthetic possibilities. As long as dramatic action, story telling or records
of events will constitute the principal aim, it will remain imitative of the
stage. Only when poetic and pictorial expression become the main object
will it develop in esthetic lines. Some literary theme will always be necessary
to support the action, but it could be the theme of a painter that is stage-
managed by a poet or vice versa.
Imagine Bocklin’s Villa at the Sea as a motion picture:—Old Roman
architecture, with waving pinions, and the approach of a coming storm.
The waves would caress the shore, the leaves would be carried away by the
wind, and into this scene of melancholy and solitude would enter a dark
draped figure who in a few superb gestures would express the essence of
grief. Many paintings of Leighton could be rendered in such a poetic fashion.
And also themes of more realistic painters, like Breton, Cottet and Lieber-
mann, would be available. Short episodes in which all the laws of composi-
tion, color and chiaroscuro are obeyed, just as in a painting, only with the
difference that there would come to our vision, like a series of paintings, one
perfect picture after the other, linked together by action.
Would this not be an art equally as beautiful as the painting of to-day-
while more intricate, and more in harmony with our present life’s philosophy!
Sadakichi Hartmann.
some woman with hair and skirts fluttering in the wind, the rushing water
of a stream, the struggle of two desperate men in some twilight atmosphere.
These fragmentary bits of life, or merely of scenery, with the animating
spirit of motion as main attraction, contain all the elements of pure esthetic
pleasure, although we still hesitate to acknowledge it. But the motion
picture will steadily gain in recognition, for it has come to stay. No doubt
it will undergo many transformations. It will be in color and accompanied
by phonographic speech. It may become like the piano-player, a home
amusement, and also enter the domain of home portraiture. And the reels
will be free of all blemishes that will obscure the image on the screen. All
this, however, will not make it more artistic.
More artistic it will become solely by more artistic handling, and there
is no reason why some genius like Henry Irving, Gordon Craig, or Steichen
should not invade the realm of motion picture making and more fully reveal
its esthetic possibilities. As long as dramatic action, story telling or records
of events will constitute the principal aim, it will remain imitative of the
stage. Only when poetic and pictorial expression become the main object
will it develop in esthetic lines. Some literary theme will always be necessary
to support the action, but it could be the theme of a painter that is stage-
managed by a poet or vice versa.
Imagine Bocklin’s Villa at the Sea as a motion picture:—Old Roman
architecture, with waving pinions, and the approach of a coming storm.
The waves would caress the shore, the leaves would be carried away by the
wind, and into this scene of melancholy and solitude would enter a dark
draped figure who in a few superb gestures would express the essence of
grief. Many paintings of Leighton could be rendered in such a poetic fashion.
And also themes of more realistic painters, like Breton, Cottet and Lieber-
mann, would be available. Short episodes in which all the laws of composi-
tion, color and chiaroscuro are obeyed, just as in a painting, only with the
difference that there would come to our vision, like a series of paintings, one
perfect picture after the other, linked together by action.
Would this not be an art equally as beautiful as the painting of to-day-
while more intricate, and more in harmony with our present life’s philosophy!
Sadakichi Hartmann.
