Studio: international art (78.1919)

SOME WORKS1- OF MR. E. O. HOPPE

graphy an esthetic sense cultivated and
developed by study of other kinds of art,
and by the actual handling of materials used
in pictorial expression. He approaches
photography from the standpoint of the
painter with a knowledge of design and an
appreciation of decorative principles ac-
quired, not by learning mere theories, but
by practising forms of art in which both
design and an understanding of decorative
principles are necessary. 000
In this he sets a significant example to
other photographers, most of whom unfor-
tunately do not take the trouble to go
outside the stock conventions of their pro-
fession. Really, the photographer who
wishes to qualify for the higher branches
of photographic art ought to have an art
school training as thorough and compre-
hensive as' that required by the students
who intend to become painters of pictures,
and if he has not had this training at the

outset he ought to labour throughout his
life to overcome the deficiencies in his
education. Composition he must under-
stand, and the proper arrangement of lines
and masses by which a picture is made
coherent and correctly balanced ; to rela-
tions of tone and the intelligent adjustment
of light and shade he must be acutely
sensitive, and he must know how variations
in the colour of the objects he is represent-
ing will affect the qualities and character
of his tone. The laws of decoration he
must master, because upon the way in
which he can apply them will depend the
interest of his photographs and the extent
of their value as designs—whether they are
but bald and commonplace statements of
fact or things with some pictorial spirit and
some touch of imagination. If he can
make himself a good draughtsman, so much
the better ; the power to draw and to see
form rightly will save him from error in

104

“ SAINTS.” FROM A PHOTO-
GRAPH BY E. 0. HOPPls