DOI article:
Hinton, A. Horsley: Pictorial photography in Austria and Germany
DOI Page / Citation link:https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.27086#0131
AUSTRIA AND GERMANY
unique possession are sacrificed ? Here we are met with a problem
common to all graphic arts which, if understood and admitted as
possibly applicable to photography, may enable us to sympathise
with the really zealous photographer, even if we are unwilling to
grant to him all that he claims.
It needs not demonstration that in the faithful delineation of physical
facts photography as a method is paramount, but that the purpose
of the more aspiring photographer is not to thus record Nature
must be obvious. He would appear to have at least learnt the
principle that Nature and Art are distinct, and that whilst the mere
subject of a picture may be of some interest, it is secondary in
importance to what that picture is and the personal impression
which it expresses. It is here that the photographer’s chief difficulty
arises. The painter or draughtsman seizes upon certain salient
features, nor deigns to set down more than is essential for commu-
nicating the idea that has moved him, but the photographer needs
to suppress the too exhaustive completeness of the lens-image,
and find a means of imparting emphasis to its indiscriminating
inclusiveness. Something, but not much, may be done to secure
focus of attention by selective lens focus and the differentiation of
definition through the various planes ; but unless actual manipulation
of the negative be resorted to, so rendering the subsequent printing a
purely mechanical function, it seems that some direct personal
control over the print is necessary if its blind mechanicalism is to be
overcome.
There are photographers who are technical purists and yet still talk
of Art in Photography, apparently ignorant of the fact that art must
be personal, whereas photography unrestrained is entirely impersonal.
Their ambition is a perfect specimen of photography which, being
true to Nature, fulfils what they suppose to be the mission of graphic
art. But if the control of or interference with the automatic
formation of the print is to be admitted, it is well to clearly
distinguish between the print which is “touched up,” that is, which
has something added to it, and the print which is restrained in the
making. There is surely an essential difference between painting
or pencilling on a photographic print by which lights may be
depressed, shadows deepened, and the tone generally lowered, and
treating a print as it is the custom to treat a gum bichromate print
in which the consummation of the unessential is circumvented. To
say that such a print is hand-worked or faked is to imply something
very different, nor is it reasonable to insist that the photographer
in his endeavours to use his process for an artistic end shall only use
g 7
unique possession are sacrificed ? Here we are met with a problem
common to all graphic arts which, if understood and admitted as
possibly applicable to photography, may enable us to sympathise
with the really zealous photographer, even if we are unwilling to
grant to him all that he claims.
It needs not demonstration that in the faithful delineation of physical
facts photography as a method is paramount, but that the purpose
of the more aspiring photographer is not to thus record Nature
must be obvious. He would appear to have at least learnt the
principle that Nature and Art are distinct, and that whilst the mere
subject of a picture may be of some interest, it is secondary in
importance to what that picture is and the personal impression
which it expresses. It is here that the photographer’s chief difficulty
arises. The painter or draughtsman seizes upon certain salient
features, nor deigns to set down more than is essential for commu-
nicating the idea that has moved him, but the photographer needs
to suppress the too exhaustive completeness of the lens-image,
and find a means of imparting emphasis to its indiscriminating
inclusiveness. Something, but not much, may be done to secure
focus of attention by selective lens focus and the differentiation of
definition through the various planes ; but unless actual manipulation
of the negative be resorted to, so rendering the subsequent printing a
purely mechanical function, it seems that some direct personal
control over the print is necessary if its blind mechanicalism is to be
overcome.
There are photographers who are technical purists and yet still talk
of Art in Photography, apparently ignorant of the fact that art must
be personal, whereas photography unrestrained is entirely impersonal.
Their ambition is a perfect specimen of photography which, being
true to Nature, fulfils what they suppose to be the mission of graphic
art. But if the control of or interference with the automatic
formation of the print is to be admitted, it is well to clearly
distinguish between the print which is “touched up,” that is, which
has something added to it, and the print which is restrained in the
making. There is surely an essential difference between painting
or pencilling on a photographic print by which lights may be
depressed, shadows deepened, and the tone generally lowered, and
treating a print as it is the custom to treat a gum bichromate print
in which the consummation of the unessential is circumvented. To
say that such a print is hand-worked or faked is to imply something
very different, nor is it reasonable to insist that the photographer
in his endeavours to use his process for an artistic end shall only use
g 7