DOI Heft:
No. 5 (August, 1893)
DOI Artikel:Hartley, Alfred: Sketching from nature
DOI Seite / Zitierlink:https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.17188#0192
Sketching from Nature
observing closely the more beautiful manifestations amongst them, but the view which they take is
of Nature, are content to believe that the lens of nevertheless a photographic view, and is directly
the camera and the lens of the eye are very closely traceable to the influence I speak of, and but for
allied indeed. They have never in their lives photography the eye would never naturally have
troubled to recognise the vast difference which been brought to see Nature as these painters see it.
exists in the appearance of things as seen by the Until the student can arrive at the power of
one and the other. giving to objects that beautiful relative position
One would have supposed that the instantaneous which they hold to each other in Nature, the just
DUTCH BOAT, LOWESTOFT. FROM A PENCIL SKETCH BY HENRY MOORE, R.A.
photograph would have dispelled this notion at
once, and that the results obtained by it would
have been convincing evidence enough for ordinary
minds. Apparently it is not so.
To return to the ordinary photograph : we find
here an absence of that delightful suggestiveness
which characterises the surroundings of the object
on which the eye is focussed; and it is this
suggestiveness, this consciousness of things felt to
be existent but not wholly seen until the eye is
turned to behold them, which places objects in
such beautiful relation one to another, and gives
to the scene on which we look a poetic charm
which the camera is powerless as yet to reach.
It is the dwelling on detail, the insistence on
the trivial to the exclusion of the larger side of
things, which makes the camera so dangerous a
companion to the artist. I have myself no doubt
whatever that the very existence of a certain school
of modern painters is due to the influence of
photography ; there may possibly not be a camera
appreciation of which can alone satisfy the demands
of Art, he is a mere recorder of things and not
of the appearance of things, and has no claim to
our attention from the purely artistic standpoint.
It is the greatest mistake to suppose that
because he can record facts faithfully and well he
is of necessity an artist, or that Art will be a whit
wealthier for all his labour, or the world—at least
that small and discriminating portion of it that
counts—any the happier.
As a recorder of hard dry facts the hand and
eye are nowhere beside the camera; and that
so many painters should have set themselves to
enter upon a profitless competition with it is little
short of amazing.
The eye learns to see what it is trained to see,
whether it be the subtler, more exquisite side of
things or the material side; some few have seen
things beautified in a measure beyond the powers
of ordinary vision; these men were accounted
mad in their day ; others by much effort and rare
observing closely the more beautiful manifestations amongst them, but the view which they take is
of Nature, are content to believe that the lens of nevertheless a photographic view, and is directly
the camera and the lens of the eye are very closely traceable to the influence I speak of, and but for
allied indeed. They have never in their lives photography the eye would never naturally have
troubled to recognise the vast difference which been brought to see Nature as these painters see it.
exists in the appearance of things as seen by the Until the student can arrive at the power of
one and the other. giving to objects that beautiful relative position
One would have supposed that the instantaneous which they hold to each other in Nature, the just
DUTCH BOAT, LOWESTOFT. FROM A PENCIL SKETCH BY HENRY MOORE, R.A.
photograph would have dispelled this notion at
once, and that the results obtained by it would
have been convincing evidence enough for ordinary
minds. Apparently it is not so.
To return to the ordinary photograph : we find
here an absence of that delightful suggestiveness
which characterises the surroundings of the object
on which the eye is focussed; and it is this
suggestiveness, this consciousness of things felt to
be existent but not wholly seen until the eye is
turned to behold them, which places objects in
such beautiful relation one to another, and gives
to the scene on which we look a poetic charm
which the camera is powerless as yet to reach.
It is the dwelling on detail, the insistence on
the trivial to the exclusion of the larger side of
things, which makes the camera so dangerous a
companion to the artist. I have myself no doubt
whatever that the very existence of a certain school
of modern painters is due to the influence of
photography ; there may possibly not be a camera
appreciation of which can alone satisfy the demands
of Art, he is a mere recorder of things and not
of the appearance of things, and has no claim to
our attention from the purely artistic standpoint.
It is the greatest mistake to suppose that
because he can record facts faithfully and well he
is of necessity an artist, or that Art will be a whit
wealthier for all his labour, or the world—at least
that small and discriminating portion of it that
counts—any the happier.
As a recorder of hard dry facts the hand and
eye are nowhere beside the camera; and that
so many painters should have set themselves to
enter upon a profitless competition with it is little
short of amazing.
The eye learns to see what it is trained to see,
whether it be the subtler, more exquisite side of
things or the material side; some few have seen
things beautified in a measure beyond the powers
of ordinary vision; these men were accounted
mad in their day ; others by much effort and rare