DOI article:
Caffin, Charles Henry: The Development of Photography in the United States
DOI Page / Citation link:https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.27086#0072
UNITED STATES
American prints, it will be among the latter that we shall find
the most surprising revelations of the possibilities of photography.
Possibly also the most exasperating specimens of whimsicality ;
since the disinclination to go on doing what has been done and
the zeal for experimenting lead not infrequently to extravagance.
The latter is also fostered by the extraordinary lengths to which
partizanship seems bound to run in this country. The winning of
a boatrace or football game is regarded by the competitors and
their adherents as almost a matter of life and death ; and so also
the existence of a certain group of men and women, eagerly intent
on extracting the highest possible results from photography, brings
down upon them the violent antipathy of outsiders, and puts them
in the unwholesome position of being martyrs to a cause. They
have to live up to this artificially created role and be original at
any cost ; and some, whether or not they happen to be grounded
in the fundamental principles of picture-making, are apt to main-
tain their position in the glare of public curiosity with various
kinds of extravagant empiricism. They rejoice in incomprehensi-
bility ; in vagueness of conception and in mysterious blurriness
of technique. This, however, is but a phase of conduct, incident
to the youth of the art ; comparable to a young man’s growing
consciousness of individuality as it betrays itself in extravagant
designs of neckwear and waistcoats ; a phase that is but a passage
towards more mature ideals. Equally we may dismiss, without
too serious misgiving, the shortcomings and the vagaries that are
here and there conspicuous in American pictorial photographs,
for the two reasons already mentioned. To repeat, these are, first,
the present propriety and future gain of preserving the tireless spirit
of experimenting ; and, secondly, because of the importance of the
qualities which it is the chief aim of the American photographer
to secure in his prints. For, while composition and form and
the technical qualities cannot be ignored or slurred over with
impunity, one may feel very sure that the highest technical quality
to aim at, the one in which photography will ultimately manifest
its most individual and characteristic possibilities, is just that one
which chiefly occupies the American picture-maker—Light. It is
from Rembrandt and Velasquez and from Whistler, interpreting the
latter, that the photographers are seeking and will discover their
best inspiration. In the direction of breadth and simplification,
such as displayed by Hals, or of elegant sumptuousness, as exhibited
by Van Dyck, or in the direction of a union of the two, such as
Sargent has accomplished, the camera must yield to the brush ;
u s 5
American prints, it will be among the latter that we shall find
the most surprising revelations of the possibilities of photography.
Possibly also the most exasperating specimens of whimsicality ;
since the disinclination to go on doing what has been done and
the zeal for experimenting lead not infrequently to extravagance.
The latter is also fostered by the extraordinary lengths to which
partizanship seems bound to run in this country. The winning of
a boatrace or football game is regarded by the competitors and
their adherents as almost a matter of life and death ; and so also
the existence of a certain group of men and women, eagerly intent
on extracting the highest possible results from photography, brings
down upon them the violent antipathy of outsiders, and puts them
in the unwholesome position of being martyrs to a cause. They
have to live up to this artificially created role and be original at
any cost ; and some, whether or not they happen to be grounded
in the fundamental principles of picture-making, are apt to main-
tain their position in the glare of public curiosity with various
kinds of extravagant empiricism. They rejoice in incomprehensi-
bility ; in vagueness of conception and in mysterious blurriness
of technique. This, however, is but a phase of conduct, incident
to the youth of the art ; comparable to a young man’s growing
consciousness of individuality as it betrays itself in extravagant
designs of neckwear and waistcoats ; a phase that is but a passage
towards more mature ideals. Equally we may dismiss, without
too serious misgiving, the shortcomings and the vagaries that are
here and there conspicuous in American pictorial photographs,
for the two reasons already mentioned. To repeat, these are, first,
the present propriety and future gain of preserving the tireless spirit
of experimenting ; and, secondly, because of the importance of the
qualities which it is the chief aim of the American photographer
to secure in his prints. For, while composition and form and
the technical qualities cannot be ignored or slurred over with
impunity, one may feel very sure that the highest technical quality
to aim at, the one in which photography will ultimately manifest
its most individual and characteristic possibilities, is just that one
which chiefly occupies the American picture-maker—Light. It is
from Rembrandt and Velasquez and from Whistler, interpreting the
latter, that the photographers are seeking and will discover their
best inspiration. In the direction of breadth and simplification,
such as displayed by Hals, or of elegant sumptuousness, as exhibited
by Van Dyck, or in the direction of a union of the two, such as
Sargent has accomplished, the camera must yield to the brush ;
u s 5