Camera Work: A Photographic Quarterly (1912 (Heft 38))

de Meyer of London we have presented to us one of the most interesting coliections of photo-
graphs that have been seen in these little galleries in a long time. From time to time the New
York public has had occasional glimpses of single examples of the art of this gifted and sensitive
photographer, and three years ago his remarkable series of still-life studies in the new Lumiere
autochrome process astonished and delighted the most blase frequenter of the Photo-Secession
exhibitions, but the present collection afFords the first opportunity of adequately studying his
prints together. It comprises some thirty of his most representative figure and still-life studies,
ranging from the beautiful and now well-known “Waterlilies,” to the delicately modulated
portrait of “Mrs. Brown-Potter,” which is the finest print in the exhibition. Between these
two swing the pendulum of his art. In the “Waterlilies” we have the De Meyer of a few years
ago, when he surprised the photographic world as a newcomer who had “arrived” even the
moment that he appeared. Nothing better of its kind has been done by anyone, nor has he
himself surpassed the work of this period, which established his particular quality. To be sure,
he has varied his practice and made many interesting experiments since then as is amply indi-
cated by the delightfully arranged Dresden figurines in “Glass and Porcelain” and in “The
Dresden China Fan,” in which a quaint and subtle humor is discernible. These are treated
with a skill and taste that is unique in contemporary photography. No one has presented still
life through the medium of photography with quite the same revivifying touch.
His various experiments in lighting would seem to have reached their end in the abso-
lutely flat effect achieved in the delicate gray print called “Glass and Shadows.” It is a
remarkable example of the only half-suspected resources of photography. Among his portraits
the standing figure of a lady in “The Silver Skirt” is by far the most brilliant technicaily as
well as pictorially, while the fascinating head of the “Marchesa Casati,” whose strong hands
look as though they could throttle as well as caress, is the most unforgettable. Several studies
of Chelsea and Belgravia “types” stand out conspicuously among the elite of West End and
point the way in which his work is tending. It is the new world that lies awaiting him.
To go from the above to the Montross Gallery where Willard L. Metcalf is showing his
most recent output of pictures is to be strongly impressed with the superiority of photography
over certain kinds of art. In these fourteen canvases there is little or nothing that Kuhn, Henne-
berg, Steichen or Stieglitz could not have done as well or better with the camera and some
autochrome plates. The point of view in all of these pictures is frankly photographic. There
has been very little elimination and very little composition other than a judicious selection of
a particular viewpoint which is exactly what the discerning photographer does in the presence
of nature. Metcalf has planted his easel in front of his subject much the same as the photog-
rapher would plant his tripod, and with great care and considerable skill he has produced a
topographical likeness of the place depicted which may arouse the sentimental interest of
locality, but fails of stirring the finer sensibilities aroused only by the message of great art.
It is well made, uninspired work, that lacks the fine passion of great landscape painting, and
as such it fills a niche.
Something of this passion for nature finds untrammeled expression in the work of Ernest
Lawson, now on view in the Madison Art Galiery. This, too, is what may be termed topo-
graphical art, but with this difference: it is topographical art plus a very decided personality
that enkindles and gives life to what it touches. He is neither overawed nor confused by
reality, and he discovers beauty in all sorts of unexpected places. His strong color sense and
his feeling for the simple, powerful design inherent in commonplace subjects lift them out of
the ordinary and give artistic validity to the most unpromising matter. His “Harlem River,”
seen in the green light of early morning, with its melancholy stretch of flats broken by low,
scraggly shrubbery and the tortuous intertwining freight tracks, is painted as only he can who
is on the watch at all hours of the day and night. In it he has captured some of the sombre
poetry of reality which Whitman celebrated and Whistler glorified and you do not think of
photography nor of Lawson—you think only of the beauty and the majesty of ugly things
when their true character has been revealed. “St. John’s Cathedral” seen in the fading light
of evening is in this same category.
In mood and treatment it is almost a pendant for the “Harlem River,” while the boys
bathing on a “Gray Day” in summer has a lyrical quality whose note is repeated in the festive
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