The Evolution of Photography

PHOTOGRAPHY IN THE NORTH

On a recent journey northwards, I was tempted to stop at York, take a look at the Exhibition there, and see if there were anything worth notice in the Photographic Department. That part of the Exhibition is exceedingly scanty, but the best Yorkshire photographers are well represented, both in landscape and portraiture. Among the contributors are the names of Sarony, Glaisby, Holroyd, Gowland, and other well-known names. Mr. Sarony exhibits a couple of frames containing several “new photo-crayons,” cartes-de-visite vignettes, which are very sketchy and effective, exhibiting those free and “dashy lines” and “hatchings” so characteristic of the “softening off” of artistic crayon drawings. This effect may be produced by a process of double printing, but it is more likely to have been obtained direct in the camera from a screen, having the edges of the aperture “softened off” with some free touches, the screen, in all probability, being placed between the lens and the sitter. Mr. Sarony also exhibits some large photographs very beautifully finished in colours. Messrs. Gowland exhibit, in a revolving case, a very unique collection of medallions and vignettes, both plain and coloured, mounted on tinted grounds, which give the pictures a very chaste and delicate appearance. The photographs themselves are exquisite bits of artistic pose and careful manipulation. They also exhibit a charming vignette of twenty-nine young ladies, all cleverly arranged, each figure sharp and distinct, and evidently recognisable portraits. This picture reminds one of Watteau, for the figures are in the woods, only, instead of semi-nude nymphs, the sitters are all properly and fashionably dressed young ladies. Messrs. Holroyd contribute some very excellent cartes-de-visite and enlargements. Mr. E. C. Walker, of Liverpool, exhibits some very beautiful opalotypes, or “photographs on enamelled glass.” Mr. Swan, Charing Cross, London, also sends specimens of his crystal cube portraits. Mr. A. H. Clarke, a deaf and dumb photographer, exhibits some very good groups of the Princess of Wales, Lady Wharncliffe, Lady Maud Lascelles, Countess Granville, and the Hon. Mrs. Hardinge, taken in the conservatory, when the Princess and suite were on a visit to Studley Royal, Yorkshire.

Amongst the landscape photographs are to be found some of Bedford’s finest views of Egypt and Jerusalem, Devonshire and Warwickshire, the beauties of which are so well-known to everyone interested in photography. Some of the local views by local artists are very fine; W. P. Glaisby’s views of York Minster are capital, especially the interiors. Messrs. Jackson Brothers, of Oldham, exhibit some very fine views, and show what atmospheric effects the camera is capable of rendering. That view of “Birstall Church” is a perfect master-piece of photo-aerial perspective. There are also a considerable number of photographic productions from the South Kensington Museum. Mr. Gregson, of Halifax, exhibits some excellent photographs of machinery. In apparatus there is nothing novel or striking, there being but one case of cameras, &c., exhibited by a London maker. There is a “water agitator” in the machinery “annexe,” for washing photographic prints, but the invention is more ingenious than effective, for the water is not agitated sufficiently, except in the immediate neighbourhood of the fan or “agitator,” which moves backwards and forwards in the water, in a manner somewhat similar to the motion of the pendulum of a clock, and so laves the water to and fro; but the force is not sufficient to prevent the prints from lying close together at the extremities of the trough, and imperfect washing is sure to be the result. The motion is given to the “agitator” by the water falling on a small wheel, something like “Williams’s revolving print washing machine.”

To describe the Exhibition itself: It is rather like a “compound mixture” of the church, the shop, and the show. The “Great Hall” is something like the nave of a wooden cathedral, with galleries running all round, and a grand organ at the end, peeling forth, at intervals, solemn strains of long measure. Over the organ, in white letters on a red ground, is the quotation, “He hath made all things beautiful in his time.”

The show cases on the floor of the Grand Hall are arranged as indiscriminately as the shops in Oxford Street. In one case there are exhibited samples of Colman’s mustard, in that next to it samples of “Elkington and Co.’s plated goods,” and in another close by are samples of saddlery, which give the place more the business aspect of a bazaar than the desirable and advantageous classification of an exhibition. Then you are reminded of the show by the frequent ringing of a loud bell, and cries of “This way to the fairy fountain, just going to begin, only twopence.” Such things jar on the ears and nerves of quiet visitors, and are only expected in such a place as the Polytechnic in London.

The great features of the York Exhibition are the picture galleries; and here a better order of things prevails. The collections are classified; one gallery, or part of it, being devoted to the works of the old masters, another to the modern, and another to the water-colours. Among the old masters are some fine portraits by Velasquez, Tintoretto, Rembrandt, Vandyke, Sir Joshua Reynolds, Gainsborough, Sir Peter Lely, and others. And some of those grand old landscapes by Salvator Rosa, Rubens, Claude, Wilson, the English Claude, and George Morland, such pictures as are rarely seen out of private collections. The modern masters are abundantly represented by Wilkie, Etty, Frith, Westall, Faed, Cope, E. Nicol, Stanfield, Linnell, and a host of others. Amongst the water-colours are many fine examples of the works of Turner, the Richardsons (father and sons), Birket Foster, &c., &c.

Sculpture is very faintly represented, but there is a charming little Canova, Dirce, exhibited by Lord Wenlock; an antique bust of Julius Cæsar, which seems to have been found in fragments and carefully joined together. This bust is exhibited by the Hon. P. Downay, and was found in Rome amongst some rubbish, while some excavations were being made. There is also an interesting series of marble busts of the Twelve Cæsars, exhibited by Lord Londesborough. The Exhibition is open in the evening, and brilliantly lighted with gas till ten o‘clock; and, taking it “all in all,” it is a very creditable effort in the right direction, and does honour to York and Yorkshiremen.

Further north still, at Newcastle-on-Tyne, there is another exhibition of “Arts and Manufactures,” the chief photographic feature of which is a considerable display of “Swan’s Carbon Prints,” from several well-known negatives by Bedford and Robinson. The promise of this process is very great, and its commercial advantages were singularly demonstrated to me when visiting the printing establishment of Mr. Swan, which I happened to do on a dark and unfavourable day—one totally unfit for silver printing; and yet I saw several very beautiful carbon prints that had been produced that day, the rate of production being about eight to one over silver printing. As a proof of the certainty and commercial application to which Mr. Swan has reduced his beautiful process, I need only mention that he has undertaken the printing of two thousand copies of the celebrated picture of “The First General Assembly of the Church of Scotland,” painted by D. O. Hill. This historical picture contains four hundred and fifty portraits: the negatives were taken from the original painting by Mr. Annan, photographer, Glasgow, and are 32 by 14 inches, and 24 by 9 inches; and Mr. Swan has to turn off one thousand copies of each within a given time. The publishers of the work give a guarantee to their subscribers that every print shall be of a high standard, for each one has to pass the examination of two competent judges. They also very justly pride themselves on being the very first to translate and multiply such noble works of art by a process “so beautiful, and, at the same time, imperishable.” I saw several of the prints, both in process of development and complete; and anything more like rich, soft, and brilliant impressions of a fine mezzotint engraving I never saw, by any process of photography.

Mr. Swan’s arrangements for conducting the various parts of his process are very extensive and complete; and his mode of “developing and transferring” seems to be the very acme of perfection. But, as Mr. Swan is about to publish a work containing a full description of the process, with a beautiful specimen print as frontispiece, I will not anticipate him, or mar his own comprehensive account of the details of a process which he has brought to such a state of beauty and perfection, by an amount of patient perseverance and thoughtful application rarely exhibited or possessed by one individual.

I also visited the photographic establishment of Messrs. Downey in Newcastle, and there saw some cabinet pictures of the Princess of Wales, taken recently at Abergeldie Castle. Messrs. Downey have just returned from Balmoral with upwards of two hundred negatives, including whole-plate, half-plate, and cabinet size, which will be published in one or all those sizes, as soon as the orders of Her Majesty have been executed. From the well-known reputation of the Messrs. Downey as photographers, it is, in all probability, a treat in store for the lovers of photography, to get a sight of their latest works at Balmoral and Abergeldie.

Mr. Parry, another excellent photographer in Newcastle, was also making arrangements to introduce the new cabinet size picture in a style that will insure its success.

Altogether, the movements of the best photographers in the North are highly commendable, and, with their notoriously practical minds, there is little doubt of their undertakings becoming a success. Let us hope that the same elements of energy and “push” will speedily impregnate the minds of all photographers, and create a combination that will develop a new form of popular beauty, and result in forming a salt that will savour their labours, produce deposits of gold, and create innumerable orders of merit.

ERRORS IN PICTORIAL BACKGROUNDS

We have recently had a few papers on the necessity of art culture and art knowledge in relation to photography, but they have chiefly been of a theoretical and speculative character, few, if any, assuming a practical form. “Apply the rod to teach the child” is an old saying, and our artist-friends and teachers have applied the rod and belaboured photography most unmercifully, but they have not taught the child. They have contented themselves with abusing photographers for not doing what was right, instead of teaching them how to avoid what was wrong.

It will be my endeavour to point out, in this paper, some errors that have crept into photographers’ and artists’ studios, and I hope to be able to suggest a remedy that will lessen these evils, and elevate photography in the scale of art. The faults in pictorial backgrounds that I invite your attention to, arise from the neglect of the principles of linear and aerial perspective. I do not speak of the errors in perspective that may exist in the backgrounds themselves, viewing them as pictures; but I refer to the manifest fault of depicting the sitter—the principal object—according to one condition of perspective, and the background that is placed behind him according to another. An unpardonable error in any work of art, whether photograph or painting, is to represent a natural object in an unnatural position. By this I do not mean an awkward and constrained attitude, but a false position of the principal subject in relation to the other objects by which it is surrounded. We frequently see portraits, both full-length and three-quarter size, with landscape backgrounds—or a bit of landscape to be seen through a painted or actual window—of the most unnatural proportions in relation to the figure itself. The head of the subject is stuck high in the heavens—sometimes so high that, in relation to the painted landscape, nothing shorter than a church steeple could attain such an altitude. The trees and castles of the pretty landscape, supposed to be behind the sitter, are like children’s toys; the mountains are like footballs in size, and the “horizon” is not so much in relation to the figure as the width of a fishpond is to a man standing on one side of it. It must be admitted that artists themselves have set this bad example of departing from truth to give increased importance to their subjects by placing their figures against diminutive backgrounds; but that is a liberty taken with nature which photographers should neither imitate nor allow. Photography is, in all other respects, so rigidly truthful that it cannot consistently sanction such a violation of natural laws.

Pictorial backgrounds have usually been painted on the same principle as a landscape picture, and one of the earliest things the painter has to determine is, where he shall represent that line where the sky and earth appear to meet—technically, the horizontal line. This settled, all the lines, not vertical or horizontal in the picture, below this are made to appear to rise up to it, and those above descend, and if all these are in due proportion the perspective is correct, no matter whether this governing line is assumed to be in the upper, lower, or middle part of the picture. A painter can suppose this imaginary line to be at any height he pleases in his picture, and paint accordingly. In photography it is invariable, and is always on a level with the lens of the camera. To illustrate the relation of the horizontal line to the human figure, when a pictorial background is to be introduced, let us imagine that we are taking a portrait out-of-doors, with a free and open country behind the person standing for his carte-de-visite. The camera and the model are, as a matter of course, on the same level. Now focus the subject and observe the linear construction of the landscape background of nature. See how all the lines of the objects below the level of the lens run up to it, and the lines of the objects above run down to it. Right across the lens is the horizontal line, and the centre is the point of sight, where all the lines will appear to converge. Suppose the lens to be on a level with the face of the subject, the horizontal line of the picture produced on the ground glass will be as near as possible as high as the eyes of the subject. Trees and hills in the distance will be above, and the whole picture will be in harmony. This applies to interior views as well, but the ocular demonstration is not so conclusive, for the converging lines will be cut or stopped by the perpendicular wall forming the background. Nevertheless, all the converging lines that are visible will be seen to be on their way to the point of sight. Whether a natural background consisted of an interior, or comprised both—such as a portion of the wall of a room and a peep through a window on one side of the figure—the conditions would be exactly the same. All the lines above the lens must come down, and all that are below must go up. The following diagrams will illustrate this principle still more clearly.

Fig. 1.

Fig. 2.

Fig. 1 is a section of the linear construction of a picture, and will show how the lines converge from the point of observation to the point of sight. Artists, in constructing a landscape of an ordinary form, allot to the sky generally about twice the space between the base and horizontal lines. But for portraits and groups, where the figures are of the greatest importance and nearer to the eye, the proportion of sky and earth is reversed, so as to give increased value to the principal figures, by making them apparently larger, and still preserving the proper relation between them and the horizontal line (see fig. 2). This diagram represents the conditions of a full-length carte portrait, where the governing horizontal line is on a level with the camera. If a pictorial background, painted in the usual way, with the horizontal line low in the picture, is now placed behind the sitter, the resulting photograph will be incongruous and offensive. It will be seen, on referring to fig. 2, that all the lines below the horizon must of necessity run up to it, no matter how high the horizontal line may be, for it is impossible to have two horizons in one picture; that is, a visible horizon in the landscape background, and an imaginary one for the figure, with the horizontal line of the background far below the head of the figure, and the head far up in the sky. The head of a human figure can only be seen so far above the horizontal line under certain conditions; such as being elevated above the observer by being mounted on horseback, standing on higher ground, or otherwise placed considerably above the base line, none of which conditions are present in a studio. Whenever the observed and observer are on the same level, as must be the case when a photographer is taking the portrait of a sitter in his studio, the head of the subject could not possibly be seen so high in the sky, if the lens included a natural background instead of a painted one. As, for convenience, the painted background is intended to take the place of a natural one, care should be taken that the linear and aerial perspectives should be as true to nature as possible, and in perfect harmony with the size of the figures. The lens registers, on the prepared plate, the relative proportions of natural objects as faithfully as the retina receives them through the eye, and if we wish to carry out the illusion of pictorial backgrounds correctly, we must have the linear construction of the picture, which is intended to represent nature, as true in every respect as nature is herself.

Aerial perspective has not been sufficiently attended to by the painters of pictorial backgrounds. There are many other subjects in connection with art and photography that might be discussed with advantage—such as composition, arrangement of accessories, size, form, character, and fitness of the things employed; but I leave all these for another opportunity, or to someone more able to handle the subjects. For the present, I am content to point out those errors that arise from neglecting true perspective, and while showing the cause, distinctively supply a remedy.

It is not the fault of perspective in the background where the lines are not in harmony with each other—these too frequently occur, and are easily detected—but it is the error of painting a pictorial background as if it were an independent picture, without reference to the conditions under which it is to be used. The conditions of perspective are determined by the situation of the lens and the sitter. If the actual objects existed behind the sitter, and were photographed simultaneously with the sitter, the same laws of perspective would govern the two. What I urge is, that if, instead of the objects, a representation of them be put behind the sitter, that representation be also a correct one. The laws of perspective teach how it may be made correctly, and the starting point is the position of the lens in relation to the sitter.

Some may say that these conditions of painting a background cannot be complied with, as the lens and sitter are never twice exactly in the same relation to each other. There is less force in this objection than at first appears. Each photographer uses the same lens for all his carte portraits—and pictorial backgrounds are very frequently used for these—and the height of his camera, as well as the distance from his sitter, are so nearly constant, that the small amount of errors thus caused need not be recognized. If the errors that exist were not far more grave, there would be no necessity for this paper. Exceptional pictures should have corresponding backgrounds.

When a “sitter” is photographed standing in front of a pictorial background, the photograph will represent him either standing in a natural scene, or before a badly-painted picture. Nobody should wittingly punish his sitter by doing the latter when he could do the former, and the first step to form the desirable illusion is pictorial truth. There is no reason why the backgrounds should not be painted truthfully and according to correct principles, for the one is as easy as the other. I daresay the reason is that artists have not intentionally done wrong—it would be too bad to suppose that—but they have treated the backgrounds as independent pictures, and it is for photographers to make what use of them they think proper. The real principles are, however, now stated, by which they can be painted so as to be more photographically useful, and artists and photographers have alike the key to pictorial truth.

In conclusion, I would suggest to photographers the necessity of studying nature more carefully—to observe her in their walks abroad, to notice the gradual decrease of objects both in size and distinctness, to remember that their lens is to their camera what their eye is to themselves, to give as faithful a transcript of nature as they possibly can, to watch the flow of nature’s lines, as well as natural light and shade, and, by a constant study and exhibition of truth and beauty in their works, make photography eventually the teacher of art, instead of art, as is now the case, being the reviler of photography.