ARTISTIC LANDSCAPE PHOTOGRAPHY. Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2014 https://archive.org/details/artisticlandscapOOwall ARTISTIC LANDSCAPE PHOTOGRAPHY A SERIES OF CHAPTERS ON THE PRACTICAL AND THEORETICAL PRINCIPLES OF PICTORIAL COMPOSITION. Author of "Stray Chapters on Art," "The Technology of Art,'' " Harmonious Colouring," etc. Formerly Editor of "The Art Student," and "The Illustrated Photographer." BY A. H. WALL. PERCY LUND & CO., LTD., The Country Press, Bradford; and Memorial Hall, Lonlon, E.C. PERCY LUND AND CO., LTD PRINTERS AND PUBLISHERS HE COUNTRY PRESS, BRADFORD AND LONDON 5 CONTENTS. CHAPTER I. Preliminary . . . . . . • • • • • • • • • • 9 CHAPTER II. On Thought and Observation as the Foundations of Success in Art .. .. .. .. .. ..21 CHAPTER III. On the Imagination and its Cultivation .. .. .. 29 CHAPTER IV. About Truthfulness in Art .. .. .. . . 39 CHAPTER V. On the Expression of Space .. .. .. .. -.51 CHAPTER VI. On Skies, Clouds, Aerial Perspective and Atmospheric Effects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61 CHAPTER VII. On Water as an Element of Pictorial Effect . . . . 93 CHAPTER VIII. Of Sentiment and Feeling, Contrasts and Variety, Subordination, Domination and Harmony . . 105 CHAPTER IX. Pictorial Composition .. .. .. .. .. ..115 6 ARTISTIC LANDSCAPE PHOTOGRAPHY. CHAPTER X. The Composition of Outlines, and the Points of View 127 CHAPTER XI. Perspective, Photographical and Pictorial . . . . 137 CHAPTER XII. Breadth of Effect .. .. .. .. .. .. 151 CHAPTER XIII. Figures and Foregrounds .. .. .. .. .. 163 CHAPTER XIV. Good Hints from Good Authorities Old and New 169 7 PREFACE. 7THE art possibilities of photography, although fairly demonstrated, are not yet fairly recognised, or sought after. How to use the camera and chemicals is not all the knowledge required by a photographer to make him an artist, any more than knowing how to use pigments and brushes is all a painter requires to produce pictures. To "take" a mere ordinary photograph is a simple easy task, to produce by photography a genuine picture is quite another thing. In the following chapters I address beginners in art, who, although they may be accomplished photographers, are not artistic, and if to certain sections of my readers I appear too didactic I trust they will remember that I am addressing not only advanced students but also the young in art, including the veriest tyros. Some of the chapters included in this volume have already appeared in The Practical Photographer and The Amateur Photographer, but each has been carefully re- vised, added to, and for the most part re-written. A. H. W. Stratford-on- A von, 1896. 9 CHAPTER I. PRELIMINARY. " He who does not ascertain what a pi&ure is before he attempts to produce it is like one who runs a race without knowing either the course or the goal." — The Art Student. ^pHERE is a steadily widening field for photographic work of the better kind, and a very promising field of study for those who desire to elevate its artistic pretensions. But, unfortunately, it is so easy for anyone to carry a camera, expose a plate and either develop or get it developed, that a vast quantity of the poorest productions at once lowers the dignity and importance of it as art-work, and makes the pretensions of most photographers to take rank with artists, simply ludicrous. But photography is not the only calling that exhibits high and low class work, that has in its ranks practitioners of talent and intellect, and others who lack both plentifully. Artists of eminence have frankly admitted the possibility of producing photographic pictures (but only when the photographer is also the artist) because they have taken trouble to understand the possibilities of the camera and seen them illustrated. Other artists, as eminent but less reasonable, still continue to deny all photographers the power of producing pictures, refusing to listen to argument or see what they don't want to see. Then there are photographers of the old school in IO ARTISTIC LANDSCAPE PHOTOGRAPHY. whose eyes any photograph that is " sharp," full of microscopically minute detail and free from distortion, however uninteresting and commonplace its subject and inartistic its treatment, is superior to all other pictures. And so it is with press critics who do not understand either the principles of art or the power and capabilities of photography. Again there are those who understand art but not photography. An amusing illustration will be found in that exceedingly valuable and interesting work, the late Mr. Hammerton's Painter s Tour in the Highlands, in which faults due to common blunders of manipulation and judgment are seriously advanced as arguments conclusively demonstrating the necessarily inartistic character of all photographs. It would have been as just to deny the ability of Sir Joshua Reynolds to produce a picture because such miserable daubs were painted by cheap portraitists, using the brushes and the oil colours with which he produced his pictures. Another way of regarding our subject is seen in the rapidly increasing number of professional photographers who can only support themselves by lowering prices. Art culture and practice are of course out of the question in their case. These mechanical, cheap operators, with their ignoble self-content, neither read nor think, they stagnate. But worst of all they drive out of the calling men who would love, honour and ennoble it, students of refined and elevated taste, acquainted with both science and art. The fact that a large number of the best pictorial photographs are "taken" by amateurs, who have ambition, learning and leisure, is a very hopeful sign. Where they lead others will follow ; and where they enter into competition with professional operators on the walls of our exhibitions, the standard is sure to rise year PRELIMINARY. I I by year, and photography to rise with it in public estimation. Hopeful signs for the future of pictorial photo- graphy exist in new fields of activity. Nearly all the illustrated papers and magazines now use photographs for automatic engraving processes. We have a new Art Society's Exhibition of works judged only as pictures, separating purely photographic art study from its apparatus and materials and its more purely scientific and mechanical applications, just as the study of painting, sculpture, architecture and music are separated from the chemistry and manufacture of pigments and pencils, the making of brushes and easels, and the manufacturing of fiddles, etc. And, side by side with these wholesome changes, we have that growing demand for more thoroughly systematic art instruction to which the following chapters owe their existence. In what form this can be best and most usefully given is now the question, a reply to which is suggested by the success which has attended the delivery and publication of lectures at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts ever since it was founded ; in the reading of papers written by artists for artists at the meetings of photographic societies ; and the fact that these lectures and papers have always been most permanently useful when printed and published. But it must not be concluded that our photographic method of producing pictures is, however, on all fours with the painter's. The rules by which the painter works will not suffice for the photographer's guidance, because their preliminary training is necessarily not the same. In the painter's education, drawing, anatomy, perspective and the principles of pictorial composition, train his eye and hand, inform his mind and establish principles before he attempts to master the more 12 ARTISTIC LANDSCAPE PHOTOGRAPHY. mechanical elements of composition, as otherwise he would find them misleading and confusing. Moreover, as an old artist and fellow student of mine (Scarlet F. Potter, art critic, sculptor and poet) once said: — " All of us, considered as men, are doubtless improved by having the imagination cultured, the mind refined, and the moral principles raised and strengthened ; but all are not by such means better fitted for the discharge of their professional duties. It is a hard necessity of civilized life that the man must be subordinated to the part he fills in the great social machine. But we, as artists, have fortunately one advantage over our fellows, for the more fully we can develop the individual man, the more likely are we to excel in art." In the nineteenth century we recognise the truth of this ; but in the eighteenth, as James Barry, R.A., says: — " A great number of works of very limited merit were produced, in which all academical rules of composition, drawing and chiaro oscuvo were strictly observed, which, notwithstanding, appear only as well-executed exercises, and leave the spectator cold, because they are wanting in the first and most indispen- sable attributes of works of art, namely, the expressions of the vivid individual feeling of the artist, which show the real soul of a work of art." All the fervour which means power, all the thought which creates ambition and fully develops the perceptive faculties, come from intellectual as distinct from technical and mechanical studies. Because the artists of Greece were highly cultured, intellectual men (says the great artist above quoted, in his academy lecture on "Design"), and because they were "familiarised to the most subtle and refined philosophy, and appear to have considered the whole of created nature " as elements of study ; we have " all those masterly works of poetry, painting, and sculpture " which have for thousands of years " filled PRELIMINARY. 13 the mind with astonishment, instruction and pleasure, and which will ever remain unequalled by those who do not draw their materials from the same source." Again he emphatically repeats, " the superiority of the ancient Greeks over the moderns arose entirely from moral causes, and principally from the advantages of their education." These remarks are not more applicable to the highest forms of fine art than they are to the humblest. They are those of a practised artist who said what he felt and knew to be true. His words are as applicable to photography as they are to painting, sculpture and architecture. True art-work is not the producing of mere dumb, lifeless outer- seem ings, "which are indeed but seeming!" imitations of hired models, studio accessories and imperfect presentments of nature's soulful loveliness," or those "front elevations" of men and women which we call portraits, or those sunless, airless, uninspiring, uninteresting landscapes we wrongfully call pictures. These are all, whether photographs or paintings, mechanical productions. Many photographers deny this, and half of them do so as an excuse for working without thinking, with the hands instead of the mind. There was a time, how well I remember it, when, apart from a few photographers who had commenced their careers as painters, any attempt to apply to photography even the simplest principles and rules of art was received with incredulous smiles, or proudly scorned by those who thought it was the mission of photography to do away with art and artists altogether. We know better now, have gone far in advance of that obstinate ignorance and conceit, happily. Most photographers will now, I suppose, acknowledge that at least perspective, composition, and the relative values of tones in light and shade are studies ARTISTIC LANDSCAPE PHOTOGRAPHY. as necessary in photographing as in painting. Barry said of the eighteenth century artists what may be said of certain artist-photographers of to-day, " who leave the spectators cold because they are wanting " in what truly is " the real soul of a work of art," the expression of individual sentiment and feeling. And here it will not, I think, be uninteresting or useless to glance back and see how art and photography were from the first associated, how art progress in photography was first advocated, how it was retarded and misunderstood, and in what way it began to come once more to the front, until now, when preparations really ought to be made for a fresh attack upon the enemies of artistic photography all along the line. In very ancient times Science, Poetry, and Art were one. All the great inventions and discoveries of our day had their foreshadowing suggestions in the minds and imaginations of men who died thousands of years ago. But in the comparatively recent days of Lord Bacon, poets, artists and philosophers began to drift apart. The result is that our man of science is, as a rule, no longer imaginative. His bent is materialistic, he deals in solid, square, practical facts, and scorns all " mere " conjectures and deductive reasonings. Every- thing doubtful he tests by the physical senses, everything that awakens fervid feeling or prompts the play of fancy he regards suspiciously. The poet and artist, although parted, still sympathise with each other as nigh akin, and do so proudly. But the modern man of science generally repudiates the connection more or less scorn- fully, while those who profess to be scientific without having fairly won their spurs in its glorious domain of strife and conquest, are in this way usually the most aggressively and offensively demonstrative. PRELIMINARY. 15 Centuries before photography became the practical art-science it now is, poets dreamed of it and philo- sophers philosophised over it. The first camera-obscura was invented for artists, and the first real photograph ever taken was that of a scientific artist who sought means for realizing the poetical and artistic dream of a long past age. Chemists and opticians, for the most part, first came into the field as inventors and improvers of photographic tools and materials, after the French painter Daguerre had perfected his invention, and made it that practical reality which France so nobly and generously purchased as a gift for the world, and for which practitioners in England immediately began to take out and squabble over patents. About the middle of the present century when a large number of trained artists were practising photo- graphy they sought the aid of opticians and chemists to improve its pictorial results, and when these new workers took up the process with enthusiasm as fervid as their own, and began to experimentalise and investi- gate, a bond of union was sought, at first by meeting at each other's studios and private houses, then in con- nection with the Society of Arts, and lastly, in 1853, by originating "The Photographic Society of Great Britain for the promotion of the Art and Science of Photography, by the interchange of Thought and Experience," a title curiously suggestive of the sixteenth century Art and Science Society founded by the inventor of the camera,. Baptista Porta, of Padua. We owe men of science our grateful thanks for the invaluable assistance they rendered photography in all its sections and departments, and in like way we owe them our best thanks for what they have since done. But when so many of them on the strength of such i6 ARTISTIC LANDSCAPE PHOTOGRAPHY. services assumed a right of dominance in the photo- graphic societies and journals, as they very soon did, they began to be aggressive and mischievous. It was then only too apparent that they neither understood nor appreciated pictorial art, that they regarded sentiment, feeling and imagination as matters with which photography had nothing whatever to do, and artists as mischievous meddlers, and mere impracticable, visionary dreamers. Yet the first President of the first Photographic Society was Sir Charles Eastlake, who was also President of the Royal Academy of Fine Arts." He accepted office with the idea that students of photo- graphy would also be art students ; that the training of a camera student in picture photographing and that of a student of picture painting would differ mainly in technical matters and the resulting effects, but that forming a taste for art excellence and teaching its principles would be as legitimately the work of the Photographic Society as it was that of the Royal Academy. Unluckily this idea found no supporters amongst scientific photographers — they laughed it to scorn — and, consequently, Sir Charles Eastlake, Sir William Newton, Roger Fenton (its first secretary), and artists generally soon lost interest in their proceedings. Sir William Newton was one of photography's earliest practitioners and experimentalists, and the. first Photographic Society's first Vice-President. He had *Mf. John Leighton, F.S.A., who was one of the founders of this society and read one of the first of its papers, contrasting nature and art in the productions of both painters and photo- graphers, of which only a brief extract was printed, writing recently to the editor of The Practical Photographer, said, " In those days the Photographic Society was artistic. Roger Fenton, the secretary, being in the first place a painter, and in the second a photo- grapher," adding, "as artists we were at that period greatly interested in pictorial effect and binocular photography." PRELIMINARY. 1/ played a prominent part in the meetings which originated it, and was famous as a miniature painter. His was the first paper read before the first ordinary meeting. It was " Upon Photography in an Artistic View, and its Relation to the Arts." In it he urged that photographs should be ranked and criticised as pictures, and be, not only optically and chemically wonderful, but artistically beautiful. "The camera," said he, "is itself by no means calculated to teach the principles of art, although to those who are already well informed in this respect, it may be made the means of considerable advancement." He then very courteously and carefully pointed out certain shortcomings in perspective and pictorial effect in ordinary photographs, which he called upon all present to unite in attacking, as destructive alike to truthful representation and pictorial beauty. He referred with regret to views held by some scientific gentlemen then present, who asserted that "a photograph should always remain as it was in the camera," without any attempt being made to test its truthfulness or give it artistic merit. Their argument — as afterwards openly stated by one of their number, an amateur photographer, chemical experimentalist and microscopist, who for some years edited The British Journal of Photography — was that photography was superior to all art in both its truthfulness and its beauty. " The scientific man," said he, "does not accept art for art, but art for science ; he does not like to have the representation of a natural object made so perfectly beautiful that no one would recognise it."* And most of the scientists present endorsed his words. * This idea of beauty being artificial, and natural objects not beautiful, is a very curious, wide-spread, vulgar blunder, which writers and thinkers of the highest rank have often endeavoured to expose. B l8 ARTISTIC LANDSCAPE PHOTOGRAPHY. Since these remarks were foolishly spoken, great changes have been wrought. The question, Should photography be practised artistically ? has been dis- cussed over and over again, from all points of view, and the test of a photograph is now almost invariably the pictorial one. As long ago as i860 I wrote — " Photography should stand as high in the domain of art as it does in that of science ; and its professors should consider the principles and theories of learned painters, as legitimate a branch of study as either optics or chemistry."* Looked at in an impartial way, and from a common sense point of view, all work takes rank as high or low, mental or mechanical, not by virtue of its tools, materials and pro- cess, but by virtue of elements which the worker puts into it. Work that never rises to the intellectual standard is not, and never can be fine art work. Shakespeare himself could not put into the making of a chair or table what he put into his poems and plays. But work which affords scope and finds exercise for superior knowledge, taste and intellectual power, which appeals to the heart and makes it feel, or to the mind and creates thought and imagination, is fine art whether it be produced through the agency of pigments and brushes, or cameras, chemicals and lenses. But the truest test of photography as an art process is not theoretical ; it is practical. In every succeeding annual exhibition of the Photographic Societies the number of works having genuine artistic merit and pictorial beauty has of late increased, and is still slowly increasing, although for years the dead level of sameness and mediocrity, so characteristic of stagnation, was invariably present. * " Harmonious Colouring," by A. H. Wall. PRELIMINARY. 19 During all the years of dominant scientific govern- ment in the societies and journals, when opticians saw in photographs the means of demonstrating optical prin- ciples and the perfection of their lenses only, and chemists, merely the results of their chemical experiments and theories, artists could only speak for themselves at the exhibitions. But gradually, very gradually, the original idea of the inventors of the camera and the daguerreotype, and that of the artist section of the founders of the first photographic society, has been reasserting itself. Its growth is, however, not yet free and unimpeded. Weeds still check its full elevation and wholesome development. But the soil is being gradually cleared and made ready for the reception of the good seed, and the sowers are not wanting. Sentiment, feeling, and methods of expressing, including pictorial composi- tion, perspective, and the practical association of the imaginative with the actual, are all receiving attention. Nothing but artistic and poetic good can come of such studies, and so we turn from this backward glance to look forward, full of hopefulness and ambitious aspirations. It is some time since G. A. Story, A.R.A., wrote : — " It appears that there is a sort of rivalry between photographers and artists, that they, as it were, stand opposite to each other like two armies in battle array. They have thrown down the gauntlet, and will soon be rushing together, but I see no reason why it should not be to shake hands, for I feel sure they are mutually of the greatest services to each other. Photography could not trace the footprints of the beautiful if art did not leave those footprints in her track, neither could it make its own pictures so perfect but for the lessons of art, and the artistic feelings that point the camera." 21 CHAPTER II. ON THOUGHT AND OBSERVATION AS THE FOUNDATIONS OF SUCCESS IN ART. XIGHT and shade being the means whereby we depict surfaces and forms in a photograph, any carelessness in the exposure of a plate, any differences in the tones of a print as compared with those of nature, indicate, in one way or another, untruthfulness. If the intermediate tones are not true, neither are the shapes or surfaces, the light or the shade, or the atmosphere. In many negatives the highest light is always as intense as it can be, and the deepest shadow always as nearly as possible black, whether the illuminating con- ditions were those of brilliant sunlight, soft grey day- light, a semi-misty sunrise or the solemn glory of a gorgeous sunset. In each such case the scale of tones and the gradations of light and shade are false. Again, in how many photographs do we see the highest light in a foreground represented by pure white, and the highest light of some object which should have half-a-mile of atmosphere between it and us quite as white. Can this be true in tone or perspective ? Is it not a discord in the harmony of natural beauty ? Does not the mere fact of such a blunder being possible in itself demonstrate the necessity for photographers to acquire accurate observation and artistic culture ? How often, again, do we see the white sunlit sail of a boat on a lake and the flash of sunlight on the water both rendered in a photograph by patches of pure empty 22 ARTISTIC LANDSCAPE PHOTOGRAPHY. white, as if the whiteness of the one and that of the other had no difference in intensity. Such is mechanical work, and if you put art "to a mechanical use," says John Ruskin, " you destroy it at once." It is with the mind that we see, hear and feel, and by cultivating it we develop and give new power to the senses with which it is so mysteriously associated. If it were not so, animals with organs of vision and hearing far superior to ours, such as we find in the very lowest forms of creation, would be our intellectual superiors, knowing more because they can see and hear with greater accuracy and perfection. It is here, as elsewhere, not the tools, but the superior skill and knowledge of the tool maker and the tool user that give the best results. In making a departure from the ordinary course of teaching, I here want to impress upon you that although good materials and perfect apparatus are very important, the arts of using them are at least no less. For with even the best of all mechanism, we cannot afford to let reason rust idly within that other impenetrable mystery named brain, which, to speak sooth, has apparently about as much to do with thinking as the eye has with perceiving. "Vision," says a popular art teacher, "like any other faculty, requires cultivation. We must see clearly and perceive truly to depict forcibly and justly. For want of this cultivation of eye and mind, thousands pass through life without knowing that they seldom see a superficies, and never a solid, except a globe, with its true form. It is not, therefore, because our eyes are open, that we see, the mind requires to be furnished with some means from the exercise of which the eye is enabled to judge accurately of form," etc. But between the complicated sensation we call seeing, and that of obtaining what we call optical or THOUGHT AND OBSERVATION. 23 Composition of Wood and Water. From a Photograph by Prince Bara Thakoor, THOUGHT AND OBSERVATION. 25 camera images there is indeed very slight relationship, and this we desire to impress upon students at this early stage of our progress, that they may have more justly appreciative, more definite and accurate ideas of the mission and purposes of pictorial art. Mr. George Wall, in his very able and deeply interesting book, " The Natural History of Thought," says, " External objects being perceived by means of impressions on the sensorium depend upon the pro- ficiency acquired in the use of the organs of sense, and in the power of the perceptive faculty itself. Hence the baby's first ideas of external objects must be of uncertain character and very weak. For this reason many repeti- tions and much tentative effort must be required before it can attain any clear definite ideas. It is doubtful," he adds, " whether objects are even recognised as external until memory and reflection aid the perception," and again, as he says, "even the simplest images of vision are associated with ideas of distance, dimension and other relations of a purely intellectual diameter." The image-conveying lens differs from the idea- conveying sense in other ways. What a madman sees, or his nearest kin, a drunkard in the awful grip of D.T., may have little or no connection with external objects, but even if a lens has had a glass too much its conse- quent distortions are altogether dependent upon external objects. With these thoughts in view I think beginners in art studies will perceive that the cultivation of their perceptive faculties should be their first business, whether they are disciples of the palette or the camera. Put aside then the false notion that the productions of photography are of necessity truthful and beautiful. Remember, then, that as drawing is to the painter the grammar of his art, so accurate perception is to the photographer the test of his art. 26 ARTISTIC LANDSCAPE PHOTOGRAPHY. It cannot be too frequently or too emphatically stated that whatever process it comes from, a work of art is good or bad, high or low, in exact, proportion to the amount of perceptive and intellectual work with which it is associated. The combined operations of the optician, chemist, maker of apparatus and manipulator should in every way possible be subordinated to the purpose of the artist. The photographer who sets up his camera directed by no properly developed perceptive powers, will not, except at long intervals and by some lucky chance which he does not appreciate or recognise, produce a picture. He know s nothing of originality in conception, selection or execution. Nothing — except it be that vanity which is begotten by ignorance — inspires his ambition or warms him into fervour, and his produc- tions are just such dull, poor, commonplace things as Tom, Jack and Harry are producing in countless thousands all over the country, and selling at prices which barely suffice to feed and clothe their wives and families and keep a roof above their heads. Paintings and photographs are alike in this. They are artistic when mental culture and a knowledge of art principles govern their creation, they are inartistic when produced without mental effort or artistic knowledge. I have quoted Sir William Newton's remarks on the art status of photography in 1853, from an article on this subject in a " Quarterly Review " of 1865. Allow me now to show that what he said, because he spoke truly, is still in harmonious accordance with what another able thinker, Sir Howard Grubb, recently said at Dublin. "In the early days of photography," said he, "a photographer never thought it worth his while to point his camera to any object that had not some particular interest connected with it. It might be a building having historical interest, or architectural THOUGHT AND OBSERVATION. 2 7 beauty, or it might be a well-known and favoured land- scape celebrated far and wide for its beauty ; the aim, in fact, of the photographer at that time was to produce a representation, or we might say, a portrait of some particular object which had a special interest in itself; but what photographer of that time would have thought of wasting his plates — as it would have been considered — in pointing his camera to those little bits of moor or fen, or some nameless brook, out of which the modern photographer has produced his most exquisite pictures. I say pictures advisedly, because that is just the differ- ence between the photographs of the present day and the photographs of the past. The superiority of the later efforts of photographers depended much more on the fact that, whereas in former time the photographer's aim was to produce a representation or a portrait of a par- ticular scene, that of the modern photographer is to produce a picture." This is so fully illustrated in recent photographic exhibitions that it is difficult to understand why the literature of photography should not march with the times, and progress in both theory and practice with the rapidly increasing number of artist practitioners and the thousands who, being desirous of doing genuine artistic work, are now asking for the aid of capable instructors. It cannot be too frequently or emphatically stated that in all its best qualities, and however it is produced, a real picture is the outcome, not of a mechanical process but of intellectual study. The photographer who sets up a camera directed by no appreciation of the picturesque and poetical, who is governed by no knowledge of pictorial arts and its scientific principles, is no more an artist than the painter is who, with thought unawakened, imagination unaffected, and heart untouched, in a like way puts up his easel, although each may be truly 28 ARTISTIC LANDSCAPE PHOTOGRAPHY. clever and display great technical knowledge and manual dexterity. In saying so much we are saying nothing new, only something that should be better known or appreciated amongst those whose words and works betray either their entire ignorance of such matters ; or a careless dis- regard. We want you to see those principles which are the foundation stones of art in all its noblest and loftiest aims, to build upon them in your practice, to recognise what you have to avoid, and what you must acquire before you can produce pictorial photographs which will do honour to yourself and your art. Ruskin says that in training young artists we should " take care that their minds receive such training that they shall see and feel the noblest things," and adds, " of all parts of an artist's education this is the most neglected." Thought and observation are indeed the foundation of success in art, and these must be developed and cultivated systematically and carefully by self-education; but apart from this, which is true in a general sense, there are other things of special value which we shall proceed to speak of separately. 2 9 CHAPTER III. ON THE IMAGINATION AND ITS CULTIVATION. The world is full of poetry — the air Is living with its spirit ; and the waves Dance to the music of its melodies, And sparkle in its brightness. Earth is veiled And mantled with its beauty. — Percival. " *ft5Y the culture of imagination," says Henry Reed (a former professor in the University of Pennsylvania), " I mean not such a faculty of the mind as gives birth to common works of fiction, not even such as is represented in the inadequate analysis that is met with in the usual systems of metaphysics, but that creative power which, whether it bear the name of imagination or no, is an element of every great mind. I mean that inventive wisdom which brings the truth to life by the help of its own creative energy in the souls of mighty artists, whether their art be poetry, or painting or sculpture." " Cultivate the imagination," says G. J. Goschen, "to introduce you to wider and nobler fields of thought." And another writer on the same subject, who was living in 1831, says, " The imagination is nothing more than the mental education by which, and by thought and reading, every student is enabled to exercise some species of talent, and without which an artist will never rise beyond the mechanic who does a thing as he is taught to do it, and who only knows the one way of doing it, and by one particular process. Such men are not artists, though they bear the name." ARTISTIC LANDSCAPE PHOTOGRAPHY. I am somewhat given to quoting men of acknowledged ability, and sometimes take great pains to ascertain their opinions, as my readers well know ; and when their endorsement strengthens my argument or illustrates my meaning, I do not see why I should not quote them. The purpose of this chapter may strike some of my readers as far-fetched and fantastic, for people commonly regard imagined things as unreal, and therefore altogether outside the domain of photography. But let us briefly examine a few positive facts, and follow them up to their legitimate logical deductions, and the result may be a change of opinion. " Of all mysteries," says an author I have already quoted, Mr. George Wall, " none except the supreme mystery, God himself, is greater or more inscrutable, or at any time more real and influential than the faculty of thinking And of all our mental faculties, imagination is one of the most mysterious. By its aid we see without eyes, hear without ears, feel without the mechanism of touch. It stirs our feelings, creates our thoughts, gives our ideas force, reality and vitality. To appeal to it successfully is the work of our greatest thinkers, our most eloquent speakers, our most accomplished artists." Dr. Johnson in his famous Dictionary says imagination means " The power of forming ideal pictures, the power of representing absent things to ourselves and others." Well, that is just what both painting, poetry and photography do. The definition is, however, hardly comprehensive enough. A faculty which in its opera- tion links together the writings of historians, travellers, poets, dramatists, novelists, etc., etc. (for they all present to the mental eye things invisible to the outer eye), in like way links together the painter, sculptor, actor and photographer, because each in his respective way also realizes absent things. THE IMAGINATION AND ITS CULTIVATION. 31 Mr. G. J. Goschen (M.P.), in his admirable and useful little book called the " Cultivation and Use of Imagination," says, "Its development by suitable studies enables us to live, move and think in a world different from the narrow world surrounding us, to have the heart as well as the intellect stirred, to have our sympathies expanded, our source of happiness enlarged, our means of enjoyment increased in number, our moral characters improved." If, therefore, photography can appeal to, and develop imagination, it is doing noble work. If its pictorial productions can be seen without feeling, or without awakening interest forcible enough to act upon the imagination, it is doing ignoble work. Your solid, dull, coldly unsympathetic, unemotional man or woman will neither respond to any appeal made to their imaginations, or make any appeal to the imaginations of other people. More than half the joys of living are lost to them. How many of them are now taking photographs in every way like themselves. The man, Peter, whom Wordsworth depicted as untouched by nature's beauty, incapable of recognising poetical or other associations, to whom a primrose by the river's brim " A yellow primrose was to him, And it was nothing more," merely a word, a name, and therefore exceedingly unin- teresting. Yet Peter would probably have taken a very decent photograph if some one had but shown him how to use a camera. But because he could neither see nor appreciate beauty, because Nature's loveliness "did never melt into his heart," and because " He never felt the witchery of the soft blue sky," his photograph would be simply a photograph, certainly not a picture. 3 2 ARTISTIC LANDSCAPE PHOTOGRAPHY. Where does the painter of landscapes differ most from the mechanical landscape photographer ? Is it not in choice, selection and treatment of subject ? The ordinary camera man sees what he wants almost at a glance, and straightway plants his tripod at the usual height, elevates his camera and looks to its levelling, focusses to secure equal sharpness of detail on every plane, near or distant, and in every object, whether of dominant or subordinate interest; regulates his exposure Uses of Foreground Figures. and development with ideas in no way suggested by pictorial intentions, imaginative conceptions, or poetical sentiments. He is in every way the slave of his tools. Even the shape and size of his picture is not suggested by him or its character, but by the size of his plate and the opening of his mounting cards. And as he seeks a subject, so he exposes his plate, with his heart untouched, his thinking powers inactive ; and, closing the shutter, he packs his traps and marches away, perfectly THE IMAGINATION AND ITS CULTIVATION. 33 happy and contented, proud to think that he can " take a picture" and call himself "an artist." But the artistic or imaginative man, the thinker, the man of feeling, acts very differently. He sees the selected view at various times, under differing conditions of light and atmosphere, carefully determines what shape and size will be best for it in connection with the means he has to work with, and all he desires to include in the view, and also what he desires to exclude. He Foreground Figures. tries various points of view : now higher, now lower ; now to this side, now to that ; sometimes backward, sometimes forward ; his thought all the time busy with the principles of harmony, variety, contrasts; considering the value of tones in connection with the coming exposure and development, and anxious about obtaining truthfully the expression of air and space, etc. He is on the alert for bits of intense dark and bits of brilliant light to give dominance and prominence to the leading feature, "the Prince of Denmark" in his "Hamlet." c 34 ARTISTIC LANDSCAPE PHOTOGRAPHY. He is, in short, on the alert to secure everything which his active imagination and artistic knowledge teaches him to value, everything that will help him to convey desirable ideas forcibly, to awaken in minds and imaginations associated ideas, perceptions and memories, which will deepen the spectator's interest in his work, and make it more nobly and usefully attractive. When the inartistic operator wants a figure, his assistant or some accidental passer-by serves his purpose, and is asked just to stand here or there, and the thing is done. One figure in one place is as good to him as one in another place, for to him a figure is merely a figure, as to Peter the primrose was but an idealess word. When the artist has the same want, he lets his mind and imagination go to work. He asks himself what kind of figure would be most appropriately suggestive, how it could be made to tell some kind of story, or best help one already decided upon, or how in what other way it will help the composition, strengthen the governing sentiment, or appeal to the imagination of spectators. He anxiously asks himself whether it should be in light or in shadow ; placed here, near the foreground, or there, in the middle distance. If he is a painter, he tries experiments before deciding these questions : puts in and rubs out, tries this way, that way, and the other way, just as the artist photographer would by moving the actual figure and examining effects on his focussing screen. An admirable example of suit- able figures suitably used may be seen in a copy from Mr. H. P. Robinson's photograph on the opposite page. Ruskin, the greatest art teacher of our generation, in his famous "Modern Painters" says, "Only the commonest general truths of nature impress common observers," the people who exercise their perceptive THE IMAGINATION AND ITS CULTIVATION. 37 powers without previously obtained knowledge or active intellectual power. The casual glance of a careless looker-on conveys to his mind the fewest possible ideas, impresses his memory weakly, and awakens neither his imagination nor sympathetic feelings. He has none of the artist's deeper insights and more thoughtful observings, to impress it forcibly upon his mind. There is an amusing way of discovering how different seeing is from observing. Ask half-a-dozen ordinary people to describe something which each has Original Drawing, Showing Figure Taking the Eye into the Picture. seen and each believes he knows perfectly well. They will be sure to disagree, and in some cases probably to a very ludicrous, laughter-provoking extent. This arises from defective or untrained perceptive powers. We take care that our boys shall have the muscles of their bodies carefully developed and exercised, and boys delight in sports which achieve that development. But the systematic development of our intellectual faculties is not regarded as what it actually is : something of far more serious importance, and 38 ARTISTIC LANDSCAPE PHOTOGRAPHY. equally delightful. If drawing was understood in its full significance as a necessary branch of education, it would be universally regarded as of no less importance than reading and writing. In every phase and stage of our lives, in all our occupations and amusements, what is more important than that power of observing accurately, which gives us so many new pleasures and saves us from committing so many serious blunders? If everybody looked at what they saw as artists do — with the mind's as well as the physical eye — we should have much less self-deception and much more genuine imaginative power. Therefore, to begin with, I say to every photographer who would be an artist, "Cultivate your perceptive powers and the imagination ; try to observe carefully and thoughtfully everything you see, for by so doing you develop and strengthen ' the power of forming ideal pictures,' ' the power of representing absent things ' to yourselves and to others, feelingly, truthfully and beautifully." " If the imagination of the artist be deficient in vigour, and unable to embody a creation that shall satisfy his understanding and feeling," says the author of " Dogmas in Art," " or if his reasoning be not sound and clear, and his feeling deep and sustained, he will assuredly not satisfy the demands of an authorised critic." In the power of realizing in Nature outward expressions which appeal most strongly to the imagina- tion through feelings, the photographer will find his opportunities. If his own feelings are untouched by them, his perceptive and imaginative powers are weak, and his chance of success in awakening sympathetic and creative ideas in the minds and hearts of others is very remote and slight. 39 CHAPER IV. ABOUT TRUTHFULNESS IN ART. " True art can only be learned in one school, and that school is kept by Nature." — Hogarth. " Go, wiser thou ! and in thy scale of sense Weigh thy opinion against Providence, Call imperfection what thou fanciest such ; Say here God gives too little, there too much." — Pope. Q T will now be as well, perhaps, to say something \J practical about what so many regard as the imagination's direct opponent, truthfulness. And here again a quotation from Mr. Goschen's " Cultivation and Use of the Imagination " may help us. He says of certain wildly fanciful and perfectly unreal works of fiction by modern dreamers that they are " lacking in imagination. The constructive faculty has been archi- tectural, not pittovial . . . these novelists have eliminated, discarded, dropped too much;" in other words they distort rather than truthfully represent the real. Several art-critics, have of late — as already stated — been vigorously active against the graphic claims of photography, because as they affirm it is " too true to nature," and consequently devoid of imaginative power. Thus, "A. U." writing in a London newspaper about one of last year's photographic exhibitions (the Dudley Gallery), speaking of its founders, says: "One of their objects, they announce boldly, is to strengthen and advance the position that photography is making for itself among graphic arts. There could be no greater 4 o ARTISTIC LANDSCAPE PHOTOGRAPHY. absurdity ; photography may advance and develop and progress ; it may have in store for us surprises and inventions innumerable ; but it can never be ranked with the graphic arts. I have more than once pointed out the distinction between photography, a mechanical contrivance, and art. But if the men who exhibit here, rest their claims to critical and public interest upon their artistic pretensions, they make it impossible to notice their work and not ignore their ambition to be what they are not. To talk of the drawing made by the sun on the prepared plate is a sad confusion of terms ; to vaunt fidelity to Nature as proof of the artistic possibilities of the camera is to misunderstand at the outset the very meaning of art. ' Nature is usually wrong,' Whistler says somewhere ; is it for the camera to set her right ? A photographer like Mr. George Davison may display much feeling and discrimination in his selection of views to be photographed ; but how can he, dependent as he is upon a machine and not upon himself, develop that genius for selection which is exactly what makes the Japanese artist so great ? Count Gloeden's photographs of the nude are admirable in every way, but who — save, perhaps, the ' Pictorial Photographer ' — would want to class them with the studies of Degas ? And if Mr. Hollyer's portraits, as now exemplified by one of Mr. Walter Crane, are admirable, for that reason are they to be placed in the same category as an etching by Rembrandt ?" But is every painter a Rembrandt ? And is every painter who is not a Rembrandt, no artist ? Answer these questions and the illogical nature of "A. U.'s " argument will at once be visible. If Nature is wrong is it for the easel to set her right ? One might imagine in reading such nonsensical statements that only art could make nature beautiful. This curious outcry for the TRUTHFULNESS IN ART. 4 1 painter to set Nature right, reminds one of the New Hollander's barbarous custom of improving Nature by cutting off the top joint of a finger. It is in vain for " A. U." to tell us that he has " more than once pointed out the distinction between photography, a mechanical science, and art," when he has only asserted the existence of that distinction. Assertions will never prove that the picture or photograph is of necessity the result of tools. Who dreams of tracing bad colouring, false drawing, vulgar treatment and gross ignorance of per- spective and anatomy to the use of pigments and brushes? Who will assert that a photograph while expressing faithfully, sympathetically and poetically, Nature's appeal to hearts and minds is not a work of art, because the worker used a camera and chemicals instead of paints and pencils? The mere fact that photographs of the same scene under the same conditions can be produced with strikingly dissimilar results shows how little tools have to do with the matter. Are we to believe that Shakespeare, Milton, Pope, Akenside, Thompson, Wordsworth, Tennyson, and many scores of great poets, who have found in nature perfect loveliness, may be mis- taken, and Mr. Whistler may be right in asserting that " Nature is usually wrong." Is he inevitably right ? It may be true that the photographer is more dependent upon his tools than the painter is, but it has never yet been said of a landscape photograph that the Hanging Committee of any exhibition were unable to decide which was its top and which was its bottom. To admire art as something independent of Nature, and denounce photography as purely mechanical because it does not improve Nature, is indeed going back to the crude, raw beginning of the clumsiest criticism. Is there then no poetry, no romance, nothing that is picture-like in Nature ? Is there no loveliness in woman, no dignity 42 ARTISTIC LANDSCAPE PHOTOGRAPHY. in man, no charm in hill and dale, forest and river, cloud and sky, until they appear upon the painter's canvas ? Has the flower we pluck from the garden no beauty compared with its interpretation in paint ? Is it indeed " so good " to conclude that photography is, as " A. U." says, merely " a mechanical contrivance," and the photograph ditto ? Are the tools, and the produc- tions made with them, on the same ignoble level ? Is " fidelity to Nature " no proof of the artistic possibilities of the camera, or the art ability of the painter ? Does "A. U.'s" "scathing criticism" reduce us to the deplorable necessity of putting the camera's fidelity on a level with that of nearly all the best artists the world has known ? Ruskin says, " Landscape art, should be a witness to the omnipotence of God," not " an exhibi- tion of the dexterity of man " ; and he says yet again, " every alteration of the features of Nature has its origin in powerless indolence or blind audacity." And again, " the picture that is painted as a substitute for Nature had better be burned." Our greatest painters, poets and philosophers have all agreed with him in say- ing ition of light and shade which is then alone visible in them, never assumes a disagreeably scattered or disjointed aspect, but preserves a grace and balance, a vastness and harmony, in its vague shapes, which attract the eye even in the absence of any definite object that it can observe. In those cases where his pictures are not within reach, any of the prints from " The Fisherman's Departure," "Rustic Hospitality," " Fetch- ing the Doctor," " The Stray Kitten," or " Feeding the Rabbits," will be found to produce, although in an inferior degree, the same result. As regards the value of this test of the correctness and feeling of an artist's chiavo oscuvo, its propriety must be apparent to any one who has observed the remarkable coherence and harmony of light and shade on natural objects, when they are fading in the twilight, and who consider that all art is excellent or faulty, in proportion as it gains or loses on being referred directly to nature." And this reminds us of the great power an artist- photographer has in the printing process, of toning down too prominent lights, and lightening too prominent darks, deepening a little here by prolonged exposure, or giving a desirable retiring quality there by shortening it, none of which he would dare to do if preliminary study had not shown him when, where and how to do this, that or the other. Chiavo oscuvo is in itself a subject so complicated and so intimately associated with diversities of forms and methods of expression that I shall not attempt to deal with it more fully than I have already done, but its literature is very comprehensive, and in very few works of a practical character on painting will it be found not to be fairly, if in none of them exhaustively treated. BREADTH OF EFFECT. 155 There is a danger to which it is desirable to call attention in seeking breadth. The subordination of parts to the whole must not be carried so far as to destroy all sense of variety, a quality of which I have spoken as desirable. To preserve the one without sacrificing the other is indeed one of the artist's difficulties in seeking breadth. Another rule which associates itself with our present subject: has also been dealt with separately. If the masses of parts are so equal as to produce monotony, that monotony will dominantly assert itself and be destructive of breadth. The famous painter, James Barry, addressing the Royal Academy students on this subject said, " With respect to the conduct necessary to be pursued in obtaining this advantageous distribution of lights and darks in a picture, it has been observed, with good discernment, that the constant maxim of those great artists (Giorgione, Titian, Correggio, Rubens and others, great successors of Da Vinci) was to dispose all their light and dark objects after such a manner as would best contribute to their 156 ARTISTIC LANDSCAPE PHOTOGRAPHY. being seen with the greatest possible advantage and ease; that to attain this end they arranged them in groups and masses of lights, half lights, darks and half darks and reflexes. Of these lights and darks one was principal, the rest subordinate, and all generally co- operated to produce a totality and entireness in the work. The principal light was generally so disposed as to give the greatest lustre to that part where the action and the personages were of the greatest consequence, and where, accordingly, it was most proper to arrest the attention of the spectator. How far this light should extend depended upon the previous arrangement of the objects, and the discreet and sentimental accom- modation of it to the nature of the subject ; but it is observable that by extending it too far, its comparative value is proportionately lessened. . . This principal light should as it were occupy only its own sphere, and not be repeated, yet not be without its satellites or dependants. Revivifications and echoes of it, subordinate in magnitude or force or both, should notwithstanding, by an artful concatenation, be disturbed to the circum- stances of secondary importance in the other parts." The principles here advocated may be variously applied, although Barry's definitions are those of a figure painter. He goes on to point out great works illustrative of such rules by figure painters amongst the old masters, but all he says bears upon landscape also. Dwelling by the way upon the great care a painter should devote to the intermediate tones and shades. " It is," he says, " principally owing to the judicious and happy management of the middle tints that these fierce opposite extremes of light and dark are brought to co-operate and harmonise," and judiciously adds, " It is not necessary that the middle tints should always intervene between every light and dark ; on the contrary, BREADTH OF EFFECT. 157 the eclat, spirit and propriety of certain parts absolutely require their being detached boldly from the light by the sole and immediate opposition of vigorous shadows or other dark tints." This is but another enforcement of my idea of always governing the application of rules by the science of principles. In other words, of never working without thinking. Turn to another R. A. lecturer on pictorial art, John Opie, who writing of Correggio, says, " Of chiaro oscuro on the grandest scale, as it extends to the regulation of the whole of a work, he was certainly the inventor. Antecedently to him no painter had attempted, or even imagined, the magic effect of this principle [breadth] , which is strikingly predominant in all that remains of Correggio, from his widely extended cupolas to the smallest of his oil paintings ; its sway was uncontrollable ; parts were lightened, extended, curtailed, obscured or buried in the deepest shade, in compliance with its dictates ; and whatever interfered (even correctness of form, propriety of action, and i 5 8 ARTISTIC LANDSCAPE PHOTOGRAPHY. characteristic attitude) was occasionally sacrificed. . . . Entranced, overcome by pleasing sensation, the spectator is often compelled to forget incorrectness of drawing and deficiency of expression and character." Opie wrote before we had pictures taken by photo- graphy, and at a time when the importance of truthful and perfect accuracy was not properly appreciated, as I tried to show in a former chapter. The lesson con- veyed by Correggio's sacrificing so much for attaining breadth is not the less useful here, because it shows that even so philosophical a thinker and so accomplished a painter regarded breadth as the crowning excellence of his works. Opie and most of his best known contem- poraries often sacrificed to rules qualities by no means inconsistent with the principles such rules were invented to enforce, as Constable practically demonstrated. I might easily refer to Fuzeli, Sir Joshua Reynolds and many other great artists, ancient and modern, who have written on this subject, and show how each con- tributes to our knowledge of breadth, explaining its power ;md expansiveness as a principle, and the diversity of conclusions which have been arrived at without any real contradictions or inconsistencies, but 1 have perhaps already said enough to impress my pupils with a sense of its importance, and must now prepare to say good-bye. The three examples which illustrate this chapter blend figures, architecture, sky and water into one harmonious whole very charmingly and serve well to show how the best effects in this way are obtained when accidental combinations exclude both very light and very dark extremes. In nature such happy results are not uncommon, but the exaggerations of vulgar photo- graphs too often destroy them through under-exposure or insufficient development, the operator believing that this bold exaggeration, which is destructive of both variety BREADTH OF EFFECT. 159 and breadth, gives what he calls "brilliancy," that is, a staring out of violently contrasting patches. A point of light as focus rendered prominent by the close proximity of the focus of strongest dark is something altogether unlike this. In the one we have separated prominent patches, in the other we have gradations and unity, one part leading up to another for producing some general effect. In the one the effect is natural and harmonious and beautiful, in the other it is discordant, artificial and ugly. There are numerous ways in which landscape painters achieve this result, but they are all ways in which nature herself acts. For instance, clouds will often, by the way in which they overshadow the entire field of view, cause all violent contrasts to at once disappear ; often a little patient waiting and watching will be all that is required to catch some stray gleam of light that falls behind, say a group of trees, or cattle or cottages in deep shadow, and so create a focus which at once secures breadth and effect. Again, other always- changing cast shadows may create this desirable quality, that of a mountain for instance, or that of a forest on the slope of a hill, or that of some tall rocky sandstone cliff toning down into quiet and simple unity, the rugged projections, holes and crevices, the isolated bushes and weeds, and broken piled-up fragments, etc., each of which might otherwise assert itself too strongly for the entire combination, confusing the sight and destroying breadth of effecl. Your inartistic photographer never recognises the value of subordination or breadth, his chief aim being that of rendering every object and all their details equally conspicuous, or as he says " sharp." Of course, all this thought and care means the expenditure of time and effort. But what is even the longest time a photographer is likely to occupy in l6o ARTISTIC LANDSCAPE PHOTOGRAPHY. producing his picture compared with that which a painter requires ! G. Barnard says whilst he was yet a tyro he was engaged in company with Stanfield and other artists in taking a sketch of the East Cliff at Hastings. He had completed his study in three hours, but Stanfield's occupied seven hours. And this sketch was in itself but a preliminary study for a finished work. Moreover, every study conducted earnestly, in a true artistic spirit, with due appreciation of both art and nature, leaves you the better and stronger for your next effort, whereas work unduly hurried is sure to be more or less slovenly work. There is also another advantage. Armitage, in one of his lectures on painting, delivered before the students of the Royal Academy, said art progress depended not upon the efforts of individual teachers, but upon the individual exertion of every member of the profession from the president down to the probationer. "Let us all," said he, " do our best to produce careful, honest, and original work and I have no doubt of the result." Echoing these words, which are as applicable to photo- graphy and photographers as they were to the R.A. president and probationers, I too believe we need " have no doubt of the result" that follows "careful, honest and original work." Still, from the first, with steady pace pursue The winding maze of art by Nature's clue ; For all her toils, antique or modern, tend But as a means to Nature, art's true end. Nature ! the obje6t of your search alone In paintings prize, and estimate in stone. Led by her light alone, in elder time Immortal Genius ran his course sublime From Glory's summit snatch'd the brightest crown, And rifled all the regions of renown. Sir Martin Archer Shee, AM. L i6 3 CHAPTER XIII. FIGURES AND FOREGROUNDS. ^HE power a photographer has in the introducing of figures of men and beasts or other movable objects into his landscape, may be exercised in a vast variety of ways and with many purposes: for example, to blot out some undesirable feature ; break up a mass or line which is antagonistic to the general effect ; supply Example of Figures judiciously used in aid of the Composition. From an Engraving. here a focus of dark, or there one of light ; carry the observer's eye into the picture to express space ; lead it to the chief point of interest ; tell some particular story which lends itself to the picture's chief purpose — give some human interest to a village street or a town view, or some suggestion of wild life in a wild spot; make a foreground where otherwise no foreground could be secured ; introduce some aspect of domestic doing to emphasize cottage life, or the life of a country gentle- man's old manor-house, castle or mansion ; to secure breadth, contrast, harmony, etc., etc. The illustrations given with this chapter are all suggestive of work to Examples of Figures judiciously used in aid of the Composition. From Engravings. FIGURES AND FOREGROUNDS. Examples of Figures judiciously used in aid of the Composition. From Engravings. l66 ARTISTIC LANDSCAPE PHOTOGRAPHY. be done of this kind, as are, indeed, most of those already given in which figures are seen. It may sometimes be found desirable to fill up a spot which is too staiingly conspicuous, and without other kind of importance to justify its being so prominent, and this can be done perhaps easily enough by moving a bush, the trunk of a felled tree, some broken or displaced boughs, transplanted weeds, a pile Examples of Figures judiciously used in aid of the Composition. From Engravings. of fragments from rocks and boulders thrown together in some naturally suggestive way, and so on and so on. The ingenuity of the artist will readily help him in such matters, and these mere hints will suffice. FIGURES AND FOREGROUNDS. I A Simple Effective Foreground. A Foreground Effe6t. From a Lithograph. 169 CHAPTER XIV. GOOD HINTS FROM GOOD AUTHORITIES OLD AND NEW. " In all picfure compositions the thought should take the first place, and all else be regarded as the language which is to give it expression." — 0. G. Rcjlandev, Artist and Photographer. " Tell your story, describe your scene, express your sentiments, or display your learning in words, but do not attempt to do so in a language with which you have made yourself imperfectly acquainted/' — C. R. Leslie, R.A. " Nature can only suggest what stimulates the poet to the conception of a whole; and the poet must have the capacity to be so stimulated." — Joseph Skipsey, the Miner -Poet. " It is not at all surprising that the success of eminent artists should tempt many who are altogether unqualified to practise art — if it only tempted them to its study it would be well for them." — Dogmas on Art. " Things more excellent than every image are expressed through images." — Jamblichus. " Upon the choice of a proper and judicious distance — meaning the distance intervening between the spectator's position and that point on the ground I70 ARTISTIC LANDSCAPE PHOTOGRAPHY. directly ii\ front of him, where the picture that he is about to take ought properly to commence — the beauty of the artist's work will in a great measure depend. — Thomas Rowbotham, Landscape Painter. " The young student should in the first place acquire a knowledge of perspective to enable him to give every object its proper dimensions, after which it is requisite that he be under the care of an able master. Next he must study nature in order to confirm and fix in his mind the reason of those precepts which he has learnt."— Leonardo da Vinci. "With a short focus lens it is impossible to obtain any true foreshortening, and every photographer gets so accustomed to this false perspective that he accepts without a thought of objection effects that would drive an artist wild. . . . The man who studies art after learning the science of photography is handicapped, he is apt to be misled by scientific and optical limitation, and to accept the result of those limitations as truths." — G. Hanmer Croughton, Photographer. "Ought not sound criticism to look to results only, and to disregard the means employed, and the precise amount of difficulty overcome in producing them ? I think that a careful study of the work of painters, so far as composition is concerned, will show that pictorially the photographer may justly claim far more latitude in the choice of subject, and the way of representing it than many fancy themselves entitled to, and a result of realizing this fact, and acting upon it, would introduce a greater variety in the work produced by camera and lens — a result to be devoutly wished." — Rev. T. Perkins, in the Amateur Photographer. GOOD HINTS. 171 "Sky effects of some sort or another, the photo- graphic beginner must have in his pictures if he is to represent, in ever so poor a degree, anything of the spirit of a scene." — Rev. A. H. Blake, M.A., Photographer. " Place any number of artists or amateurs before a given subject, and the sketch or painting or photograph of each will not show so much what the limitation of material was, as it will be an expression of the perception of each." — Horace Markley, Photographer, in the Art Interchange. " Not a few photographers have the idea that the laws of composition are formulae whereby pictures can be made. This is no more the case than the laws of syntax and prosody are receipts for making poetry. If pictures were made like puddings, by receipt, there would be no art required."— The Amateur Photographer. " The student may at first feel disheartened at his ill success in the imitation of nature, but whatever he does in obedience to her precepts will be infinitely superior to anything which he himself could conceive. . . . All standard rules are useless without constant study in the school of nature." — /. W. Carmichael, Marine Painter. A Selection from the Publications of Percy Lund &> Co., Ltd. Burton's Manual of Photography. By W. K. Burton, C.E. A practical handbook for all who are taking up photography. An explicit guide to all ordinary photo- graphic manipulations. The latest information. With examples of the author's own work. Contents : The Dark Room — Filling the Dark Slides— The Camera in the Field — Portraits — Groups — Flash- light Photography — Instantaneous Photography — Developing, Fixing, Intensifying and Reducing Plates — Over and Under- exposure — Tentative Development — Various kinds of Developers — Defects and Remedies — Printing on Gelatino-Chloride Paper — On Ready Sensitized Albumenized Paper — By the Platinotype Process — By the Kallitype Process and the Carbon Process — and on Bromide Paper — Varnishing Negatives— Trimming and Mounting Prints — Vignetting — Printing-in Skies — Soft Prints from Ordinary Negatives — Orthochromatic or Isochromatic Plates — Trans- parencies or Diapositives — Lantern Slides. 184 pages, well illustrated. Paper covers, 1/0 net. " From Mr. W. K. Burton's pen we naturally expedt to get nothing but good work." Practical Essays on Art. By John Burnet. I. — Practical Hints on Composition. Contents: — Composition — Angular Composition— Circular Composition. II. — Practical Hints on Light and Shade. Seven full-page plates, with descriptive letterpress, given in this essay. III. — The Education of the Eye. Contents : Measurement — Form — Perspective — Lines — Diminution— Angles — Circles — Aerial Perspective. 130 illustrations, including examples by Cuyp, Rubens, Potter, Ostade, Claude, Metzu, P. de Laer, Wouvermans, Raffaelle, Dominichino, Rembrandt, Gerard Douw, Correggio, Michael Angelo, and other eminent masters. Crown 4to. Red cloth, 132 pages, 2/6 net ; post-free, 2/10^. The Elements of a Pictorial Photograph. By H. P. Robinson. Demy 8vo, half bound, with 37 pictures in the text and frontispiece, " Storm Clearing Off." 3/6 net. Dedicated to the Brothers of the Linked Ring, whose efforts have done much towards saving the art of photography from extinction. Synopsis of Chapters : Introduction — Imitation — The Study of Nature — The Use of Nature — Some Points of a Picture — Selection and Suppression — Composition — Expression in Landscape — Idealism, Realism and Impressionism — Limitations. The Nude — False Purity — The Question of Focus — Models — -Foregrounds — The Sky — The Sea — Rural Subjects — Lessons from Birket Foster — Winter Photography — Individuality — Conclusion. PERCY LUND & CO., LTD., The Country Press, Bradford; and Memorial Hall, Ludgate Circus, E.C. The Lund Library of Photography. In Two-Shilling Volumes, net. Cloth bound. A series of text-books devoted to the branches and applications of photography. Plain wording and explicit teaching is aimed at as far as possible. The Stereoscope and Stereoscopic Photography. Translated from the French of F. Drouin by Matthew Surface. Principal Contents : Binocular Vision — The Perception of Relief — Various Forms of Stereoscopes— Applications of Stereo- scope — Stereoscopic Photography — Stereoscopic Negatives — Stereoscopic Prints, etc. 180 pages. More than 100 illustrations. "The information given as to the various forms of stereoscopes is very complete. The book is well illustrated by numerous diagrams and process blocks." — Amateur Photographer. Photographic Lenses: How to Choose and How to Use. By John A. Hodges. An elementary and Practical Guide to the selection and use of Photographic Objectives. Contents : Optical Principles — Definition of Terms — Various Defects in Lenses — The Diaphragm or Stop, and its Functions — Single Lenses — Upon the Properties and Use of Single Lenses — The Rapid Rectilinear, or Non-Distorting Doublet — Other Forms of the Doublet, including Wide-Angle Lenses — Portrait and Universal Lenses — New Types of Lenses, Constructed of Jena Glass — On certain Obsolete Lenses — Upon the Choice of a Lens — The Care of Lenses — Upon Focus- sing — Upon Angle of View — Distortion : and its avoidance by the Use of the Swing Back — Combination Lenses, Casket Lenses, and the Use of Back Combinations — How to Test a Lens — Lenses of Foreign Construction — On Purchasing Second-hand Lenses — Dallmeyer's Tele-photographic Lenses. 148 pages and 36 original illustrations, including eight half-tone engravings. Photography for Artists. By Hector Maclean. Contents : The Extent to which Photography is used by Artists— Concerning Various Kinds of Artists' Studies — The Right to Copy Artists' Studies— Photographic Reproductions of Works of Art — Some Photographic Falsities — The Photographic Misrepresentation of Tones — Falsifications in Photographic Printing — Some Reasons why Artists should Use a Camera — The Choice and Use of Apparatus, etc., suitable for Artists — Indoor Photography; Models, Sitters, Copying Pictures — On the Reproduction of Pictures — Illustrations for Photographic Repro- duction — Condensed List of Photographs for Artists — List of Refer- ence Books. 152 pages, with an appendix consisting of 16 pages illustrations, besides 19 diagrams and illustrations in the text. " A temperately written, useful little manual this." — The Studio. " It should be a book of real practical value to all those who look upon photography not jealously as a rival, but as an honourable ally, in whom artists of all sorts may find a trustworthy and helpful friend."— The Studio. The Lund Library of Photography . — Continued. The Half-Tone Process. By Julius Verfasser. A Practical Manual of Photo- Engraving in Half-Pone on Zinc and Copper. Second edition : revised and in great part re-written. Contents: What is Half-Pone ? — Phe Studio and its Fittings — Phe Camera — Phe Screen — Phe Dark-room — Phe Printing-room — Phe Etching-Room — Phe Mounting Room — Negative Making — Failures and Remedies in Negative Making — Printing from the Negative — Phe Etching — Mounting and Proving. 172 pages and 75 illustrations, with four supplement illustrations in half-tone by the author. " This clear and concise demonstration of half-tone process, as evolved by Mr. Verfasser, is sufficient, in our opinion, to give any ordinary intelligent person a very good notion of the general principle involved. — Invention. Half-Tone on the American Basis. From the personal experience of Wilhelm Cronenberg. Pranslated by William Gamble. Chapters on Photo-Engraving in America — Apparatus for Negative Making — Phe Negative — Stripping and Reversing the Negative — Phe Printing Process — Etching — Finishing Work — Engraving — Vignettes. 56 illustrations in the text, and twelve supplementary on art paper at end of book. 164 pages. "The work strikes us as being especially valuable on account of the fulness with which it treats of the apparatus employed in which respecT: it has the advantage of other books on Half-Tone that we have read." — British Journal of Photography. Plates and Papers : How Made and Used. By Dr. H. C. Stiefel Giving instructions how to make Albumen, Gelatine, Collodion, Platinum, Carbon and other Papers, and how to Print, Pone, Develop and Fix the Pictures upon them, based upon practical experience in the factory and studio. Contents : Phe Dark Room — Dry Plates — Developing Dry Plates Paramidophenol, Rodinal, Metol, Eikonogen, Amidol, etc. — Fixing — Orthochromatic Dry Plates — Phe "Gelatine" Hardness— Paper — Albumen —Albumen Paper — Sensitizing Albumen Paper — Collo- dion — Sensitized Collodion Emulsion — Preparing Collodion Paper — Coating Collodion Paper by Machinery — Printing, Poning and Fixing — Gelatine — Gelatine Sensitized Paper — Coating Paper with Gelatine Emulsion — Coating Gelatine Paper by Machinery — Printing and Poning Gelatine Papers — Combined Baths — Develop- ing Prints upon Printing-out Paper — Mounting — Plain Matt Surface Paper — Matt Surface Collodion and Gelatine Papers — Blue Prints (Cyanotype) — Platinum Paper — Kallitype Paper — Bromide Paper Developing Bromide Paper— Diazotype, or Primuline Process — Bichromate of Potassium Printing Process — Chromatype Process — Carbon Pissue. 200 pages, with several illustrations. PERCY LUND & CO., LTD., The Country Press, Bradford; and Memorial Hall, Ludgate Circus, E.C. Devoted to Photography, Artistic and Scientific. Price Threepence. Devoted to the subjects of photography, artistic and scientific, photographic processes, and the utility of photography in connection with other arts and sciences. The latest discoveries and advances are recorded in its pages. The leading writers of our times contribute to its columns, and the past few numbers have contained articles by the following : — Col Stewart. Julius Verfasser. H. P. Robinson. H. J. L. J. Masse. Geo. E. Thompson. Arthur Burchett. A. H. Wall. E. Macdowel Cosgrave, Gambier Bolton. M.D. Andrew Young. Geo. G. Rockwood. Hector Maclean. Harold Baker. Rev. T. Perkins. Sir W. M. Conway. Etc., etc. Descriptive Biographies. A series of Descriptive Biographies of some of our leading photographers has been continued at frequent intervals for some time past. Among others the following have been interviewed and their work described : — Arthur Reston. F. Boissonnas. Adam Diston. Drinkwater Butt. J. Craig Annan. W. Parry. H. P. Robinson. J. Pattison Gibson. Alfred Werner. Geo. E. Thompson. Andrew Young. John and Robert Terra The Notes are a prominent feature, and comprise various items of interest coming under the heads of Under the Sun, Editorial Focus, Practical Work, Novelties and Business Items, Literature, Photographs of the Month, etc. From a pi&orial point of view The Practical Photographer takes a high position. There are varied Frontispieces or Supplement Illustrations every month, in half-tone, or other processes, besides many pictures in the text. In this line, indeed, the magazine leaves behind many higher-priced publi- cations. It is largely supported by professional and scientific photographers in all parts of the world, and many practical men are regular contributors to its columns. PERCY LUND &> CO., LTD., The Country Press, Bradford ; and Memorial Hall, Ludgate Circus, E.C. GETTY CENTER LIBRARY 3 3125 00885 9445