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Daguerre and the French Academy.

At a meeting of the French Academy of Sciences, held in Paris on the 19th day of August, 1839, Louis Jacques Mandé Daguerre, in the presence of the flower of Parisian art, literature and science, gave a demonstration of his new discovery—the Daguerreotype. The success of the séance was complete, and the gathering of illustrious men was intoxicated with enthusiasm in favour of the Daguerreotype. It is, then, almost fifty years ago that the result of the work of the father of photography, Joseph Nicéphore de Niepce, who had died six years previously, and of the partner of his latter days—Daguerre—was given to the French public, for though Arago declared that “France had adopted the discovery and was proud to hand it as a present to the whole world,” Daguerre, sharp business man that he was, took out a patent for his process in England on the 15th of July, 1839.

It may be said, then, that for fifty years the influence of photography has been working amongst the people for better for worse; but a short half-century has photography had to develop, and we naturally feel a little curious to know what it has been doing all that time. Has the art been lying idle and stagnating, or has it been developing and extending its roots into all the industrial, scientific and artistic fields of enterprise? Let us see what this cool young goddess, born of art and science, who generally comes to stay and finally to oust the old goddesses from their temples, has been doing these fifty years.

Retrospect of progress of photography in astronomy.

In the fields of science she has been most busy. She has been giving us photographs of the moon, the stars, and even of the nebulæ. She has recorded eclipses and a transit of Venus for us. She has drawn too the Sun’s corona, and registered those great volcanic explosions which playfully take place there periodically. She has shown us that there are stars which no telescope can find, and she has in another form registered for us the composition of the sun and of many of the stars; and now she is busy mapping out the heavens. Like an all-powerful goddess, she plays with the planets and records on our plates, with delicate taps, the stars. She runs through the vast space of the kosmos doing our biddings with a precision and delicacy never equalled—in short she is fast becoming the right hand of the astronomer.

Microscopy.

Not content with her vast triumphs in space over the infinitely great, she dives down to the infinitely small, and stores up for us portraits of the disease-bearing generation of Schizomycetes, the stiff-necked bacteria, and the wriggling vibrio, the rolling microccus, and the fungoid actinomycosis—with deadly tresses; these she pictures for us, so that we may either keep them on small plates, or else she throws them on large screens so that we are enabled to study their structure. On these screens too we can gaze on the structure of the Proteus-like white blood corpuscle, and we are able to study the very cells of our tongues, our eyes, our bones, our teeth, our hairs, and to keep drawings of them such as man never had before. So the kindly bright goddess stints us in nothing, for wherever the microscope leads there will she be found at our bidding. With the greatness of an all-seeing mind, it matters not to her whether she draws the protococcus or the blood-cells of an elephant, whether she depicts the eroding cancer cell or the golden scale on the butterfly’s wing—anything that we ask of her she does; if we will but be patient.

Chemistry.

But the little goddess, the light-bearer, is not content with these sciences but she must needs go and woo chemistry and register the belted zones of the spectrum and tell us the mysterious secrets of the composition of matter.

Meteorology.

Meteorology, too, has claimed her, and she draws for the meteorologist the frowning nimbus and the bright rolling cumulus. She scratches quickly on his plate the lightning’s flash, and even measures the risings and fallings of the mercuries in his long glass barometers and thin-stemmed thermometers, so that the meteorologist can go and rest in the sun; and good-naturedly, too, she hints to him that his registerings are but fumblings after her precise and delicate work. |Surveying.| This versatile little goddess, too, is playing with and hinting to the surveyors how she will not be coy if they will but woo her, for, says she, “have I not already shown you how to measure the altitude of mountains, and how to project maps by my aid?”

Geography.

The geographer, too, is another lover well favoured by the dainty goddess, he always takes her on his travels now-a-days, and brings us back her inimitable drawings of skulls, savages, weapons, waterfalls, geological strata, fossils, animals, birds, trees, landscapes, and men, and we believe him when we know the light-bearer was with him, and soon in all his geographies, in all his botanies, in all his zoologies, in all his geologies, his entomologies, and all the rest of his valuable “ologies,” we shall find the crisp and inimitable drawings of his dainty companion.

Engineering.

The horny-handed engineer, too, is wooing her; he makes love to her away down in dark caissons half-buried in river beds; whilst above-ground she scatters his plans far and wide. He uses her to show how his works are growing beneath the strong arms of his horny-handed gangs, and he even uses her to determine the temperature of the depths of the sea, and the direction of oceanic currents; yes, she does the work for him and he loves her. |Medicine and Biology.| The earnest doctor and the curious biologist are amongst her lowers, and the dainty one does not disdain their work, for she knows it to be good; for though she is fickle, she is kind at heart. For them she goes into the mysterious globe of the eye; down into the hollow larynx; and into the internal ear; and drags forth drawings. The tumour-deformed leg, the tossing epileptic, the deformed leprous body, the ulcerous scalp, the unsightly skin disease, the dead brain, the delicate dissection, the galloping horse, the flying gull, and erring man does she with quick and dainty strokes draw and give her lovers the physician and biologist.

Military and naval services.

Then like the Valkyria she too delights in dire war. For her heroes she writes so finely that her letters are carried in a quill beneath a pigeon’s wing into and out of beleaguered cities. She draws hasty notes of the country for the leaders of an invading army; she preserves a record of the killed and she gives truthful drawings of the fields of battle and of the poor torn and jaded men after a battle; whilst in times of peace she draws for the officer the effects of the explosion of a shell, the path of a bullet through the air, or the water thrown on high, like a geyser, by a hidden torpedo. |Forensic medicine.| She is the warder’s friend too, for she draws the skulking thief, the greedy forger, and the cruel murderer; she draws, too, the knife that stabbed in the dark, and the dress all blood-besmirched; she detects the forged bank note, and draws without quibble the position of the overturned and splintered railway car; and she shows the scorched and gutted ruins of the burnt house for the insurance agent. |Libraries.| She has her fun, too, for she twits the librarians with the ever increasing deluge of books, and hints laughingly they must one day come to her, for she will show them how to keep a library in a tea-caddy. |Industrial arts.| The haggling tradesman she does not disdain, she will draw portraits of his fabrics to be circulated all over the world, she will copy the bad paintings and drawings done for him as advertisements by the pariahs of art. She reproduces trade-marks and signatures, and oh, naughty goddess! she even, on the sly, copies on old yellow paper old etchings and engravings so that the connoisseur does not know the new from the old. She helps in all kinds of advertising, reproducing the scenery by railways for the railway companies, sketching topographically for tourists, drawing mothers and fathers and children for the world, so that the loved ones can go across the seas and leave themselves behind in form and feature. And so that the dead may not be forgotten she soothes the living with their dear faces done in her pretty way. Nay, she even goes so far as to allow her works to be burnt on porcelain and sold in brooches, on plates and other ware.

Art.

Nor do the children love you in vain, pretty goddess, for you give them magic-lanterns, and invisible pictures of yourself; to be made visible by a little secret you tell them. You give them magic cigar-holders and stereoscopes, all this out of your bountiful lap do you scatter; but, pretty dainty light-bearer, have you no love dearer to you than all these, is there none amongst your wooers that you prefer? Yes, blush not, oh, dainty one, it is the artist who sees in you a subtler, finer aid than his sorry hand, so monkey-like in its fumblings. To him you give your delicate drawings on zinc to illustrate his books, or on copper to fill his portfolios, to him you give poems of the winds whispering amongst the reed-beds, of the waves roaring in the grey gloaming, of the laughing, bright-eyed mortal sisters of yours. To him, your favoured one, your chief love, you give the subtlety of drawing of the wind-shorn and leaf-bare oak, the spirit of the wild colts on the flowery marsh, the ripple of the river and the glancing flight of the sea-fowl. Together you and he spend days and nights, mid the streams and the woods, culling the silvery flowers of nature. Oh! bright generous little goddess, who has stolen the light from the sun for mortals, and brought it to them not in a narthex reed as did Prometheus bring his living spark, but in silvery drops to be moulded to your lover’s wish, be he star-gazer, light-breaker, wonder-seeker, sea-fighter or land-fighter, earth-roamer, seller-of-goods, judger-of-crimes, lover-of-toys, builder-of-bridges, curer-of-ills, or lover of the woods and streams.

The influence of photography on the sister arts of sculpture, painting, engraving, etching and wood-cutting during these fifty years has been tremendous, as have they influenced in turn photography. Sculpture has been, perhaps, least influenced, although without photography thousands of posthumous statues which now grace the streets and the squares of the world could not have been modelled at all, or could only have been very conventionally and unsatisfactorily modelled. As it is, they are often excellent portraits. The effect of sculpture on photography has been to induce experimentalists to attempt a production of models in clay by means of an instrument called a pantograph. It is reported that these methods succeeded, but we never saw any of the productions and have little faith in the methods.

The influence of photography on painting, on the other hand, has been nothing short of marvellous, as can be seen in the great general improvement in the drawing of movement. It is a common practice for painters to take photographs of their models and throw enlargements of these on to a screen when the outlines are boldly sketched in. Again, it is a practice for painters to study the delicate tonality of photography, which is of course quite legitimate. Another influence of photography on painting is that the painter often tries to emulate the detail of the photograph. But this was more noticeable in the early days of photography, and it had a bad effect on painting, for the painter did not know enough of photography to know that what he was striving to imitate was due to an ignorant use of the art. He thought, as many people think now-a-days, that there is an absolute and unvarying quality in all photographs. The effect on miniature painting was disastrous; it has been all but killed by photography, and we think rightly. And it must be remembered that photography killed it notwithstanding the fact that many of the best miniature painters adopted the new art as soon as they could. Newton was a photographer. Photography also killed the itinerant portrait painter who used to stump the country and paint hideous portraits for a few shillings, or a night’s lodging. Photography too, has, unfortunately, been the cause of a vast production of weak and feeble water-colours, oil-paintings and etchings. Second and third rate practitioners of these arts have simply copied photographs and supplied the colouring from their imagination, and thousands of feeble productions has been the result; this is a dishonest use of photography, but one by no means uncommon. We often have food for reflection on the gullibility of man, when we see poor paintings and etchings exhibited at “one man” exhibitions and elsewhere, which are nothing but ruined photographs; the very drawing shows that, and the time in which such a collection of paintings is painted also hints at the method. All the drawing has been done by the photographic lens, and transferred to the panel or canvas. These are the very men who decry photography. Such work is only admissible if confessed, but of course such people as this keep their method quite secret. The etchings done in this way are simply impudent. The influence of painting on photography has been great and good as a factor in the cultivation of the æsthetic faculty, but its conventionality has often been harmful.

As we have said, by the aid of photography feeble painters and etchers are able to produce fairly passable work, where otherwise their work would have been disgraceful. Wood-cutters and line engravers too gain much help from us, but they find photography a rival that will surely kill them both. We have gone into this vexed question in detail in the body of this work. One of the best and most noted wood engravers since Bewick’s time has given it as his opinion that there is no need for wood engraving now that the “processes” can so truly reproduce pictures, for, as he says, no great original genius in wood-cutting will ever be kept back by “process work,” and it is a good thing that all others should be killed.

The chief thing which at present oppresses photography is “the trade.” Print sellers have accumulated stocks of engravings and etchings and as they may not come down in price, they therefore give photogravures and photographs the cold shoulder. A print seller who would confine himself to the sale and publication of photo-etchings and photographs is sorely needed.

Such, briefly, are the effects of photography on her sister arts and of them on her.

Incredible indeed seems the all-pervading power of this light-bearing goddess. Next to printing, photography is the greatest weapon given to mankind for his intellectual advancement. The mind is lost in wonderment at the gigantic strides made by this art in its first fifty years of development, and we feel sure if any one will take the trouble to inquire briefly what photography has done and is doing in every department of life he will be astonished by the results of his inquiries.

Branches of photography.

From what has been said it is very evident that the practice of photography must be very different in the different branches of human knowledge to which it is applied.

Aim of Naturalistic photography.

The application of its practice and principles has been most ably treated in some of these branches, especially the scientific branches, but hitherto there has been no book which gives only just sufficient science for art-students and at the same time treats of the art side.

We propose in this book to treat photography from the artistic standpoint. We shall give enough science to lead to a comprehension of the principles which we adduce for our arguments for naturalistic photography, and we shall give such little instruction in art as is possible by written matter, for art we hold is to be learned by practice alone. That, then, is our aim, and no one knows better than ourselves how far short of our ideal we have fallen, but we trust the task as attempted may do a little good and lead some earnest wandering workers into the right path. We know that we have not accomplished our task without errors, all we plead is that we have endeavoured to reduce the number to a minimum, and where we have failed we trust those who detect our failures will kindly, not carpingly, communicate them to us, so that if we ever reach a second edition we may therein be regenerated.

Contents of book.

The photographic student, whose aim is to make pictures, will find in this book all directions, such as the choosing of apparatus, the science which must be learned, the pictures and sculpture which must be studied, the art canons which are to be avoided, the technique to be learned, including all manipulations; the fundamental principles of art, and a critical résumé of conventional art canons, including much other advice.

In addition to this the book is an argument for the Naturalistic school of photography, of which we preached the first gospel in an address delivered before the members of the Camera Club in London in March, 1886.^[1]

1. Vide Photographic News for March 19, 1886.

The necessity of this book may not be patent to artists who do not know the photographic world, but if they will consider for a moment the present position of a student of photography, whose aim is to produce artistic work, they will see the necessity for some such work. The position of the photographic world at present is this: nearly all the text-books teach how to cultivate the scientific side of photography, and they are so diffuse that we find photo-micrography, spectrum analysis and art all mixed up together. And when we assure the artistic reader that the few books and articles published with a view to teaching art, contain résumés of Burnet’s teachings, as set forth in his well-known “Treatise on Painting;” that the widest read of these books lays down laws for the sizes of pictures as advocated by that “eminent painter Norman Macbeth;” cautions the student not to take pictures on grey days; and contains various other erroneous ideas; we say when artists know this, and in addition that there is no book in which “tone” is properly defined, they will perhaps understand the necessity for some such book as this one. Lastly, the artist must remember that photographers are very loath to listen to any one but photographers on any subject connected with their art.

To give the student a clear insight into the first principles of art is of course, as we have said, the chief aim of the book, but besides that it is an attempt to start a departure from the scientific side of photography. This departure must be made, and the time is now ripe. It should be clearly and definitely understood, that although a preliminary scientific education is necessary for all photographers, after that preliminary education the paths and aims of the scientist, industrial photographer and artist, lie widely apart. This matter should be kept constantly in view, and specialists in one branch should not meddle with other branches. The art has so extended its fields for work that there is scope, even in a sub-branch of the scientific division to occupy the full energies and attention of the most able men. At exhibitions, too, the three great divisions into which photography falls should be kept rigidly separated. The writer sees in all these branches equal good and equal use, but he sees also the necessity of keeping their aims and methods separate. That this differentiation is now possible and necessary is, from the evolutionary standpoint, the greatest sign of development. The author feels convinced that if any student is going to succeed in any one branch he must not scatter his energies, but devote himself with singlemindedness to that particular branch. Directly the aims and methods of the separate branches of the art are fully recognized there will no longer be ignorance and misunderstandings of first principles. We shall not hear a first-rate lantern slide described as artistic, because it is untouched, and we shall not hear of a “high-art” photographer criticizing photo-micrographs of bacteria, matters that none but a medical microscopist can criticize. And above all, we shall not have the hack-writer talking of our “art-science.”

We have drawn up a rough table of classification to illustrate our meaning, but of course it must be remembered that this division is arbitrary, but it would, we think, be a good working classification.