DOI Artikel:
Hinton, A. Horsley: Pictorial photography in Austria and Germany
DOI Seite / Zitierlink: https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.27086#0126
AUSTRIA AND GERMANY
as that which inspired the former when compared with the aims of
the average photography of its own age.
Still earlier was the work of David Octavius Hill and of Adam
Salomon ; and again the wonderful portraits by Mrs. Julia Margaret
Cameron : but these were, so far as one can gather, cases of indi-
viduals practising photography in their own way, without conscious
effort to give the process any definite artistic standing. Perhaps it
is the very self-consciousness of the modern work which is its least
satisfactory trait. The ease with which by modern photographic
means something can be produced which, to the less observant,
bears a superficial resemblance to genuine art work, has made every
photographic tyro in England an aspirant to recognition as a mono-
chrome artist. He points to the manner in which he has suppressed
definition as a proof of his artistic perception. He styles himself
“ impressionist,” and would have his confused forms and heavy
shadows accredited with mystery. One turns with relief to the
contemporary work of those who in other countries and under
different influences are striving for the same goal, and it is doubtless
all to the advantage of this work as a whole that it is seen from afar.
Mediocrity from a distance can be ignored, if indeed one is conscious
of its existence at all ; and only that which is great or whose real
merit has secured its survival claims our attention.
Probably the average artistic merit of photography is higher in
Great Britain than in any country in the world, but it is more
generally practised and the very best is lost in the great concourse of
the quite estimable though second rate. As regards Germany and
Austria, the outcome of the ever increasing photographic activity
which serves to maintain huge photographic industries never reaches
us in England, and hence we are apt to form a judgment from those
pictures by the few prominent leaders whose achievements are
thought worthy of special invitation. But if one is tempted to draw
comparison between the most esteemed photographs of different
countries, it will be necessary to bear in mind that the art side of
photography, like a foundling which its parents the Artistic Instinct
and Pure Photography have both disowned, has responded to the
treatment meted out to it by those to whose adoption in different
countries it owes its present status ; and, to continue the simile, if it
owes its form and substance to Photography, it betrays its dual
origin by a certain distinguishing likeness to the contemporary art
of its own land.
Nowhere is this more noticeable than in Austria and Germany, for
obviously from the point of view of art criticism or art geography
G 2
as that which inspired the former when compared with the aims of
the average photography of its own age.
Still earlier was the work of David Octavius Hill and of Adam
Salomon ; and again the wonderful portraits by Mrs. Julia Margaret
Cameron : but these were, so far as one can gather, cases of indi-
viduals practising photography in their own way, without conscious
effort to give the process any definite artistic standing. Perhaps it
is the very self-consciousness of the modern work which is its least
satisfactory trait. The ease with which by modern photographic
means something can be produced which, to the less observant,
bears a superficial resemblance to genuine art work, has made every
photographic tyro in England an aspirant to recognition as a mono-
chrome artist. He points to the manner in which he has suppressed
definition as a proof of his artistic perception. He styles himself
“ impressionist,” and would have his confused forms and heavy
shadows accredited with mystery. One turns with relief to the
contemporary work of those who in other countries and under
different influences are striving for the same goal, and it is doubtless
all to the advantage of this work as a whole that it is seen from afar.
Mediocrity from a distance can be ignored, if indeed one is conscious
of its existence at all ; and only that which is great or whose real
merit has secured its survival claims our attention.
Probably the average artistic merit of photography is higher in
Great Britain than in any country in the world, but it is more
generally practised and the very best is lost in the great concourse of
the quite estimable though second rate. As regards Germany and
Austria, the outcome of the ever increasing photographic activity
which serves to maintain huge photographic industries never reaches
us in England, and hence we are apt to form a judgment from those
pictures by the few prominent leaders whose achievements are
thought worthy of special invitation. But if one is tempted to draw
comparison between the most esteemed photographs of different
countries, it will be necessary to bear in mind that the art side of
photography, like a foundling which its parents the Artistic Instinct
and Pure Photography have both disowned, has responded to the
treatment meted out to it by those to whose adoption in different
countries it owes its present status ; and, to continue the simile, if it
owes its form and substance to Photography, it betrays its dual
origin by a certain distinguishing likeness to the contemporary art
of its own land.
Nowhere is this more noticeable than in Austria and Germany, for
obviously from the point of view of art criticism or art geography
G 2