DOI Artikel:
Caffin, Charles Henry: The Development of Photography in the United States
DOI Seite / Zitierlink: https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.27086#0068
THE DEVELOPMENT of PHOTO-
GRAPHY in the UNITED STATES
HE growth of artistic photography in the
United States has corresponded in point of
time with a remarkable development ot
American painting, and in no slight measure
has been influenced by it.
It was not until the Centennial Exhibition of
1876, in Philadelphia, that the painters and
public of America had the opportunity to form
a considerable acquaintance with European art.
That of France particularly attracted notice ; and, whereas Rome
and Munich had previously been the goal of a few, Paris became
the Mecca of a constantly increasing stream of students. Whether
they sought academical instructors or were influenced by the
Barbizon artists, they exhibited in a remarkable way the national
aptitude for receiving and assimilating. Particularly were they
interested in the tectonics of painting. While older men had been
preoccupied with subject, these younger ones, returning home, began
to preach technique, and many of them became the most outspoken
advocates of the art-for-art’s-sake doctrine. This, as a battle-cry,
has long since dropped into disuse ; as much as anything because the
point at issue has been won, the importance ot technique generally
acknowledged. But there was another reason. In recent years a
great number of pictures of the Barbizon artists, and later those of
Cazin, have been imported, and have inspired in painters and the
public alike a fondness for the poetic landscape. The result of these
two strains of influence is that painting in America to-day is
characterised by a keen relish for technical problems, an unusually
high average of skill in brushwork, and a marked degree of personal
and poetic expression.
Side by side with the latter phases of this development has grown
up the pursuit of artistic photography, influenced at every stage of
its progression by the example of the painters. To the photo-
graphers also it has been the possibilities of their medium and the
desire to find personal expression in their work, rather than a fancy
for subject, that have pointed the way. At least, to those men and
women who, being serious students of the pictorial resources of
photography, have been gradually bringing their craft within the
sphere of artistic consideration. Some of them are engaged in
u s 1
GRAPHY in the UNITED STATES
HE growth of artistic photography in the
United States has corresponded in point of
time with a remarkable development ot
American painting, and in no slight measure
has been influenced by it.
It was not until the Centennial Exhibition of
1876, in Philadelphia, that the painters and
public of America had the opportunity to form
a considerable acquaintance with European art.
That of France particularly attracted notice ; and, whereas Rome
and Munich had previously been the goal of a few, Paris became
the Mecca of a constantly increasing stream of students. Whether
they sought academical instructors or were influenced by the
Barbizon artists, they exhibited in a remarkable way the national
aptitude for receiving and assimilating. Particularly were they
interested in the tectonics of painting. While older men had been
preoccupied with subject, these younger ones, returning home, began
to preach technique, and many of them became the most outspoken
advocates of the art-for-art’s-sake doctrine. This, as a battle-cry,
has long since dropped into disuse ; as much as anything because the
point at issue has been won, the importance ot technique generally
acknowledged. But there was another reason. In recent years a
great number of pictures of the Barbizon artists, and later those of
Cazin, have been imported, and have inspired in painters and the
public alike a fondness for the poetic landscape. The result of these
two strains of influence is that painting in America to-day is
characterised by a keen relish for technical problems, an unusually
high average of skill in brushwork, and a marked degree of personal
and poetic expression.
Side by side with the latter phases of this development has grown
up the pursuit of artistic photography, influenced at every stage of
its progression by the example of the painters. To the photo-
graphers also it has been the possibilities of their medium and the
desire to find personal expression in their work, rather than a fancy
for subject, that have pointed the way. At least, to those men and
women who, being serious students of the pictorial resources of
photography, have been gradually bringing their craft within the
sphere of artistic consideration. Some of them are engaged in
u s 1