Studio: international art (1.1893)

Is the Camera the Friend or Foe of Art f

greater resemblance to Nature may or may not have
been influenced by photography. Certain it is,
that even in a child's toy-book to-day the elephant
is far more like the actual quadruped than in
earlier delineations. In portraiture the influence
is, oddly enough, less obvious : there, where it
might be expected to be most patent, it is subtly
hidden. In an exhibition of portraits such as that
now on view at the Grafton Gallery, one might
hazard more than a suspicion of its influence; yet
it is not so demonstrative as in ordinary figure-
pictures. The very large influence of the camera
on black and white work needs no consideration—
it may be granted at once; and the fact that many
artists of repute openly acknowledge the sendee it
has rendered redeems the charge of any offence.
So far as concerns colour, the camera must needs
be absolved of pernicious or indeed of any direct
influence, yet its sufficiency without that final word
of art must indirectly assist in the neglect of the
wider palette. There can be no doubt that
modern civilisation, thanks to illustrated journal-
ism, engravings, and photography, has learned to be
content with artificial convention of monochrome
to a surprising degree. It is quite possible that
were coloured reproductions of masterpieces, abso-
lutely perfect fac-similes, easily obtainable, that
nevertheless the taste which permits an etching or
even a platinotype photograph would exclude any
but " hand-painted " pictures, and feel the nobility
of its renunciation. At present, indeed, one may
be glad that the chromo and oleograph are without
the pale, but if the joy in colour dies of its banish-
ment from the pictures of the middle classes, we shall
regret that the gaiety of Japanese woodcuts had
not urged Western natives to splendid rivalry, and
that the austerity of black and white in photograph
or engraving has led to the disuse of colour in popu-
lar prints? Possibly this scarcely suspected evil may
be the most lasting result of the camera in our midst.
Whether the public has learned to ask for other
qualities since the popularity of the photograph has
given them another standard of reference than
their own vision is also a question whereof the
reply to a great extent is a foregone conclusion.
For it must not be forgotten that to the populace
the voice of the camera is the voice of infallible
truth. The sun cannot lie, they say. Not theirs
to trouble about perspective or altered tones. They
do indeed realise that yellow is apt to appear
darker, and blues lighter, in an ordinary photo-
graph ; that hands and feet, unless • carefully
disposed, become caricatures; but that such
obvious discrepancies are but signs of less apparent
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but equally vital distortions of truth they know not
nor care to know. The photograph gives them the
superabundance of worthless detail which they love.
With the microscope they can see more of the
beauties of a butterfly's wings—with a powerful
magnifier they see more of the detail of a photo-
graph; therefore, they argue, the photograph is
nearer the perfection of Nature, and the painter
who can be inspected by a lens is the greatest.
Consequently Meissonier and some masters of the
Dutch school are prized and bought, not, it is
to be feared, for their larger merits and broad excel-
lence, despite their minute accuracy of imitation,
but because of it. Besides this elaborate detail the
public has learned to demand accuracy in topo-
graphy, fidelity almost verging on caricature in
portraiture, and for breaking waves, the foliage of
trees, architectural details, and other objects, that
it once was able to enjoy in the most crude pre-
sentment, it requires what it calls photographic
accuracy. The phrase that has become a stock ex-
pression sums up the case. The masses now prize
statistics, measurements, and textures more than
abstract beauty, colour harmonies, or decorative
composition, and to satisfy their desires for the
former the camera is always ready and capable.

Lastly, has the photograph in itself the possi-
bilities of art ? This seems to depend upon what
you demand from it. So far its triumphs have
been in fields where the hand of the artist could at
least equal its highest efforts. The most successful
naturalistic photograph, with its shadows trans-
parent and full of light, and its atmospheric
gradation subtle and beautiful, cannot even by
the most active partisan be placed above a draw-
ing by a great artist. The mass of composed
pictures, wrought from many negatives, need no
consideration here. On their own level they may
or may not rival the average picture of an ordinary
gallery. It were hard to accept either as works of
art in the highest sense. For a record of tones, a
picture of technical beauty, appealing to the artist
by its knowledge, truth, and science, abjuring
anecdote and concerned with the beauty of nature
effects, the photograph may yet produce works of
genuine artistic value. Its rapid summary of facts,
its pleasant texture and surface in the hands of its
masters, and its power to depict certain subjects
which are by accidental circumstances impossible
to a painter—such, for instance, as the storm-tossed
mid-ocean, the frozen arctic reaches, or certain
rapid effects of Nature—may possibly some day be
selected by the art of the wielder of the camera;
with his instinct and knowledge forming so large