DOI Kapitel:
Colour photography
DOI Seite / Zitierlink:https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.47958#0034
COLOUR PHOTOGRAPHY
And it is here, it seems to me, that the aesthetic possibilities oi
autochrome are chiefly to be found ; it is certainly to this province,
at all events, that the most successful and most satisfying auto-
chromes in this book (I will name them in a moment), without
exception, belong. At the same time, one is compelled to confess
that the difficulties, even here, are enormous. Ransacking the
magnificent clutter and waste-heap of Nature for that fine fragment,
that odd, unrealised trifle, whose beauty would seem non-natural
and new in isolation, the monochromist has always to bear in mind,
not only the need for novelty but also the necessity for beauty—
for beauty of line, mass, tone, disposition, curve ; and the necessity
for seeing these things in relation to the ultimate little niche for
which he designs it—in relation to the boundary lines of his print
and in the especial terms of his process—is, as we have seen, one
of the main difficulties of his task. But in the case of the colour-
worker this vast difficulty is multiplied to positively nightmare
proportions by the simultaneous need for discovering, coincident
with this beauty of mass, line, distribution, and so forth, that much
rarer and more perishable thing, a perfect melody of colour. Very
often, ot course, in the midst of the lavish out-of-door design, you
do find neglected colour-harmonies of quite exquisite perfection.
The painter knows these things, seeks them out, studies them
diligently, learns all their secrets, and then uses them for his private
ends. But he nourishes no hope of finding them coincident with
the harmonies of mass and line. He nurses no mad expectation
of discovering Nature singing a duet. He is content to find his
lineal melody in one place, his chromatic melody in another, and
then, by dint of his own craft, to blend and interweave them
artfully, so that they ring out from his canvas perfectly braided
and attuned.
No such trick or combination, as we have seen, is in any wise
possible to the autochromist ; and he, accordingly, must idealisti-
cally fix his hopes upon the presumptive existence, somewhere in
the labyrinth, of that wonderful coincidence, that miraculous and
abnormal duet. He must search landscape after landscape, and
pierce deep into the dense jungle of reality, upheld by nothing
more tangible than the faint theoretical hope, that, somewhere in
nature, since there is a Law of Average, those two voices will be
heard rising up in faultless and exquisite accord. It is not a quest
one wholly envies him ; but in common fairness one admits the
possibility of a successful issue ; and one earnestly wishes him
success.
And it is here, it seems to me, that the aesthetic possibilities oi
autochrome are chiefly to be found ; it is certainly to this province,
at all events, that the most successful and most satisfying auto-
chromes in this book (I will name them in a moment), without
exception, belong. At the same time, one is compelled to confess
that the difficulties, even here, are enormous. Ransacking the
magnificent clutter and waste-heap of Nature for that fine fragment,
that odd, unrealised trifle, whose beauty would seem non-natural
and new in isolation, the monochromist has always to bear in mind,
not only the need for novelty but also the necessity for beauty—
for beauty of line, mass, tone, disposition, curve ; and the necessity
for seeing these things in relation to the ultimate little niche for
which he designs it—in relation to the boundary lines of his print
and in the especial terms of his process—is, as we have seen, one
of the main difficulties of his task. But in the case of the colour-
worker this vast difficulty is multiplied to positively nightmare
proportions by the simultaneous need for discovering, coincident
with this beauty of mass, line, distribution, and so forth, that much
rarer and more perishable thing, a perfect melody of colour. Very
often, ot course, in the midst of the lavish out-of-door design, you
do find neglected colour-harmonies of quite exquisite perfection.
The painter knows these things, seeks them out, studies them
diligently, learns all their secrets, and then uses them for his private
ends. But he nourishes no hope of finding them coincident with
the harmonies of mass and line. He nurses no mad expectation
of discovering Nature singing a duet. He is content to find his
lineal melody in one place, his chromatic melody in another, and
then, by dint of his own craft, to blend and interweave them
artfully, so that they ring out from his canvas perfectly braided
and attuned.
No such trick or combination, as we have seen, is in any wise
possible to the autochromist ; and he, accordingly, must idealisti-
cally fix his hopes upon the presumptive existence, somewhere in
the labyrinth, of that wonderful coincidence, that miraculous and
abnormal duet. He must search landscape after landscape, and
pierce deep into the dense jungle of reality, upheld by nothing
more tangible than the faint theoretical hope, that, somewhere in
nature, since there is a Law of Average, those two voices will be
heard rising up in faultless and exquisite accord. It is not a quest
one wholly envies him ; but in common fairness one admits the
possibility of a successful issue ; and one earnestly wishes him
success.