DOI Artikel:
Caffin, Charles Henry: The Development of Photography in the United States
DOI Seite / Zitierlink: https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.27086#0069
UNITED STATES
photography for a living, some pursue the occupation of picture
making independently; but, whether compelled or not to consider
the commercial necessities of the situation, one and all have
approached their work from the standpoint of the artist with the
intention of making it a vehicle of personal expression. To the
painters, as a body, this has seemed a foolish and ignorant pretension,
toward which they have adopted an attitude of amused indifference.
Now and then, in a spasm of condescension, they have discovered in
certain prints qualities similar to those of water-color or crayon
mediums; but whether the photographic medium itself may have
some independent possibilities they have been too indifferent to
consider.
On the contrary, it is a belief in these independent possibilities that
has guided the photographers themselves. In the early days of the
glycerine and gum-bichromate processes, one or two were tem-
porarily infatuated by the ease with which they could reproduce the
effects of other mediums; but a spirit at once more scientific and
more artistic has prevailed; and to-day those photographers who
have gone furthest in the pictorial direction are the most jealous
supporters of the integrity and independence of their craft. Some
of them, on the one hand, like Edward Steichen and Frank Eugene,
being painters as well as photographers, use one or the other medium,
according as it seems! better fitted for expressing the particular
conception that they have in mind. This is a practical test of
experience. On the other hand is the scientific conviction of the
integrity and independence of the photographic medium, main-
tained by Alfred Stieglitz.
Not to the European students of photography, any more than to
those in the United States, does this gentleman need to be introduced.
Since 1882, when he first experimented with the craft in his
student days at the University of Berlin, varying his studies of
mechanical engineering by assisting Professor Vogel in developing
his invention of ortho-chromatic plates, he has been intimately
identified with every phase of the photographic movement. While
in Europe his influence has been considerable, it has naturally been
most directly and powerfully exerted in the United States. Here he
has been honoured by a vast amount of misrepresentation and
opposition, as well as by spontaneous and by grudging respect; for
his position has been unique. Devoting his activities to a branch of
pictorial expression which had no traditions, and in which men and
women have been feeling their way step by step towards higher
results, he has been drawn by circumstances into a position of
u s 2
photography for a living, some pursue the occupation of picture
making independently; but, whether compelled or not to consider
the commercial necessities of the situation, one and all have
approached their work from the standpoint of the artist with the
intention of making it a vehicle of personal expression. To the
painters, as a body, this has seemed a foolish and ignorant pretension,
toward which they have adopted an attitude of amused indifference.
Now and then, in a spasm of condescension, they have discovered in
certain prints qualities similar to those of water-color or crayon
mediums; but whether the photographic medium itself may have
some independent possibilities they have been too indifferent to
consider.
On the contrary, it is a belief in these independent possibilities that
has guided the photographers themselves. In the early days of the
glycerine and gum-bichromate processes, one or two were tem-
porarily infatuated by the ease with which they could reproduce the
effects of other mediums; but a spirit at once more scientific and
more artistic has prevailed; and to-day those photographers who
have gone furthest in the pictorial direction are the most jealous
supporters of the integrity and independence of their craft. Some
of them, on the one hand, like Edward Steichen and Frank Eugene,
being painters as well as photographers, use one or the other medium,
according as it seems! better fitted for expressing the particular
conception that they have in mind. This is a practical test of
experience. On the other hand is the scientific conviction of the
integrity and independence of the photographic medium, main-
tained by Alfred Stieglitz.
Not to the European students of photography, any more than to
those in the United States, does this gentleman need to be introduced.
Since 1882, when he first experimented with the craft in his
student days at the University of Berlin, varying his studies of
mechanical engineering by assisting Professor Vogel in developing
his invention of ortho-chromatic plates, he has been intimately
identified with every phase of the photographic movement. While
in Europe his influence has been considerable, it has naturally been
most directly and powerfully exerted in the United States. Here he
has been honoured by a vast amount of misrepresentation and
opposition, as well as by spontaneous and by grudging respect; for
his position has been unique. Devoting his activities to a branch of
pictorial expression which had no traditions, and in which men and
women have been feeling their way step by step towards higher
results, he has been drawn by circumstances into a position of
u s 2