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قراءة كتاب Pictorial Photography in America 1922
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Pictorial Photography in America 1922
id="pgepubid00002">SINCERITY
Art that endures is sincere. It is universal in its appeal though it may have been produced in a remote corner of the world by one who was unacquainted with the work of artists.
I remember going with a friend into a picture gallery in Chicago, where an artist—I think his name was Bradford—was showing some sketches he had brought back from the arctic regions. “How true these are” I exclaimed. “How do you know?” said my companion, “you have never been to the North Pole.” “That is not necessary” I rejoined. “These studies have the truth written in every inch of them.” The work proclaimed the sincerity of its maker.
He who reverently observes life and wrests from its verities those elements which are in tune with his “ego”—transposes these into some concrete form without the damning desire for self aggrandizement, pretense, or mere seeking for originality—is building on good foundations. It is from an over-weening desire for originality that most of the affectations of so called “Modern Art” proceed.
Natural individuality—the sincere personal vision of the artist—is an inherited asset. His work is the acquiring of a technique, the constant patient practice and experiment in his particular craft. This unending exercise gives the artist power to state his message clearly—in the simplest way.
The graphic artist is concerned with “pictorial” ideas. These are necessarily limited; they must be ideas possible of expression by light and shade, by line, by form, by color. The artist's vision includes his point of view. He receives an impression and simultaneously determines how he will express it. He has, as it were, analyzed his subject and decided at once on the form of its presentation—in the clay, on the canvas, in the drawing or photograph.
Given the most favorable mechanical contrivances which science places today at the disposal of the painter or photographer, the latter may proceed in his work under the same maxims, the same theories, that guide the painter. His design may be as interesting, his key as aptly chosen, his black and white (values) as colorful, his composition in the space as distinguished.
[pg 8] If over and above his technical skill the photographer starts with a “vital idea,” he may like the painter convey with his photograph “the moving thrill” which is the final test of any work of art.
Then perchance, working patiently along the lines here barely indicated, the artist may one day unconsciously achieve that coveted note of true originality which marks a forward step to be hailed and recorded in the great tradition.
THE YEAR'S PROGRESS
We cannot claim for our art any outstanding phenomenon like the interest in the radio that has swept the country this year, or any remarkable development in the science of photography like the invention a few years ago of the Lumière plate. The day may come when our exhibitions will show masses of color on their walls which will make the water-colorists and the miniaturists green with envy, but that day is not yet. And I for one would be sorry to see it come. There is to me a charm about good monotone photography that is all its own and that puts it on a plane with etching, engraving, lithography, and other monotone processes. Of course some artists, strictly so called, object to regarding photography as anything but a mechanical process, but the number of those who would make art a close corporation is happily diminishing.
In fact, the recognition that photography is receiving from accredited representatives of the fine arts makes its position no longer a doubtful one. Any of the arts may be used for commercial purposes, but that fact does not take away from them their rightful place when they are used by competent hands for aesthetic purposes. The increasing number of museums that are opening their exhibition halls to good photography is an evidence that is obvious to all observers. Caustic critics like Joseph Pennell may decry photography, but many able artists and critics, attending exhibitions of photography that are being held in many of our centers of art, are having their eyes opened to the beauty of lens work in the hands of men and women who use the camera with feeling and insight. Then, too, we must not forget the fact that some well-known artists, beginning with D. O. Hill and continuing with Mrs. Kasebier, Frank Eugene, Steichen, and others, have found in the practice of photography a more lasting fame than in any other line of their effort.
Among notable exhibitions of the past year several should be mentioned. Of course there are what might be called the historic exhibitions that have won an established place, like the London Salon, the Royal Photographic Exhibition, the Pittsburgh Salon, the Los Angeles Salon, the Portland Exhibition, and others. [pg 10] More recently established exhibitions that are to be noted are those of the San Francisco Pictorialists, the Oakland Salon, the Canadian National at Toronto, the Buffalo Salon, and that of the Pictorial Photographers of America at the opening of the Art Center in New York City. At many of these exhibitions pictures from the same exhibitors were hung, and as the judges at practically all of them were different men (and women), including professional artists, it is evident that there was a consensus among the competent critics that these exhibitors at least are doing worthy work. But in that fact there is no cause for discouragement to the novice, for new names are to be found in the catalogues of all the exhibitions, and there is no league to keep out any individual's pictures anywhere. That is one of the triumphs of our art—that, while judges may sometimes err and exclude a good picture or select a poor one, there is a general open-mindedness in recognizing merit wherever it exists. A well-known worker is pretty sure to have his photographs declined by the judges in most of the photographic exhibitions if he falls below his standard, and, on the other hand, a gifted beginner will quickly get a place in the seats of the mighty if he can produce the photographs that entitle him to distinction.
Some notable one-man exhibitions have been held