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ART PHOTOGRAPHY 
 IN SHORT CHAPTERS. 
 
 H. P. ROBINSON, 
 
 AUTHOR OF "picture MAKING BY PHOTOGRAPHY," ETC., ETC. 
 
 Little sticks kindle the fire ; great ones put it out.''— Old saying 
 
 THIRD EDITION. 
 
 LONDON : 
 
 ' HAZELL, WATSON, & VINEY, Limited, 
 
 I, CREED LANE, LUDGATE HILL, E.C. 
 1899. 
 
PRrNTEn BY 
 bAZF.LL, WATSON, AND VINEY, LD., 
 LONDON AND AVLESBURY. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER L 
 
 FAGS 
 
 Introductory 1 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 Nature a.kd Art * • • • 6 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 The Application of Composition. • , * * . 10 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 Terms used in Art • • . • 14 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 Terms used in Art {continued) .«••»• 18 
 
 CHAPTER VL 
 
 Forms of Composition 25 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 The Sky 82 
 
iv 
 
 Contents. 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 Figures in Landscape . . . , 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 In Action 
 
 CIIArTER X. 
 Combination' Printino : Theory . 
 
 CIIAITKR XI. 
 CoMiJiNATioN Printing: Practice 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 WnvT IS Truth? Limitations , 
 
ART PHOTOGRAPHY. 
 
 CHAPTEK I.— INTRODUCTORY. 
 
 In our seelimg after truth, and endeavour never to he unreal or 
 affected, it must not he forgotten that this endeavour after truth 
 is to be made with materials altogether iinreal and diff'erent from 
 the ohject to he imitated ; nothing in a picture is real. Though 
 art must he founded on nature, art and nature are distinctly 
 different thi7igs:'—Q. ¥. Watts, R.A. 
 
 S the science of photography has its formulse, 
 so has the art of picture-making, in whatever 
 material, its rules. It is not enough to know 
 that a scene is beautiful : the question for the 
 artist is — Will it make a picture ? To see this 
 requires a special training. Acute and instant 
 sensitiveness to its points" is necessary. 
 It has been objected that when art is re- 
 duced to words, truth evaporates. I admit that analysis 
 abohshes sentiment, but these chapters are only intended 
 to teach how to erect the scaffolding by means of which 
 pictorial sentiment is built up ; and how is it possible to 
 teach without some settled rules or formulse? Rules are 
 only intended as a sort of shorthand to arrangement, and 
 are made to be broken when necessary. 
 
 It is sometimes said that I never go beyond the structure 
 of a picture in my endeavours to teach art : in fact, that I 
 do not teach art at all. This is quite true, notwithstanding 
 the title of these chapters. I endeavour only to teach the 
 means by which art is produced. It would be presumption 
 in me to try to go further. I have never felt that the 
 poetry of art could be taught, and if it could, there seems 
 to be a sort of desecration in analysing the feeling for the 
 beautiful. It is easy to talk of awe-inspiring mysteries ; 
 
2 
 
 Amateur PJiotoriraphers Library^ No. 4. 
 
 it would not be difficult to write volumes of rapturous 
 language, — it is done every day ; but what do they mean ? 
 I know that, beyond composition and chiar'-oscuro, which 
 can be taught, there is much which cannot be conveyed in 
 words. That is what an old friend, snapping his fingers, 
 used to call " that." " That " is too seldom seen in a 
 photograph, or, indeed, in a painting. That " is the 
 poetry, the thought, the feeling, the sentiment, the some- 
 thing that sends a thrill of pleasure through you — the touch 
 of art, the indescribable es.^ence. " That " is something 
 that can be seen and felt, but which evaporates at the 
 approach of the descriptive word. ^'That" it is which must 
 be hovw in a man, or come to him, for it cannot be taught. 
 ^' That " can be cultivated and improved, but not created. 
 
 The artist who wishes to produce pictures by the aid of 
 a camera is governed by the same laws that guide those 
 who use paint and pencil, with, liowever, this dillerenco : 
 the photographer linds his materials less plastic than those 
 of the painter, his scope more limited. His aim, therefore, 
 should correspond with his possibilities. For, like every 
 other occupation, be it art, science, or mystery, wo must 
 admit that photograpliy, as applied to art, has its inherent 
 limitations, to overstep which is to pass the bounds of what 
 is sometimes called good taste. Wonderful as the science 
 is, far-reacliing as is its scope, there are things it cannot do ; 
 it can penetrate the abyss of the sky and reach a star 
 beyond touch of the telescope, but it cannot produce a his- 
 torical picture. For portraiture it is perfect, for it gives 
 the facts of the man ; for landscape it is adequate, as far 
 as black and white is sufficient ; and to genre it can, to say 
 the least, be adapted — but there are regions of the imagina- 
 tion to which it cannot soar. 
 
 To recognise that he cannot do the impossible will clear 
 away many difficulties for the photographer ; to discover 
 that it is well to avoid any approach to the impossible, and 
 judicious to keep clear of the doubtful, will help his artistic 
 progress, while to make the great discovery which man only 
 arrives at after painful experience, that simplicity is more 
 beautiful tli;\n complication, will help to complete his educa- 
 tion. He should take care also to avoid any chance of 
 bathos. Attempts at the pathetic, or the sham senti- 
 
Art Photcgra2)hi/. 
 
 3 
 
 mental, fail more ignommiously in pliotography than in any 
 other art. A photographer who attempts this kind of sub- 
 ject has the choice of the two horns of a dilemma ; either he 
 must get his picture with models, and would be guilty of 
 unreal mockery of a solemn thing, or he must photograph 
 real sufferers, on whose misery it would be indecent to in- 
 trude. I have been guilty of the former of th^e offences, 
 but it was thirty years ago, in the innocent age of the art, 
 before we had learnt to know right from wrong. 
 
 It has become an affectation with some young artists of 
 late years to despise rules, and they pretend to rely, some of 
 them on genius, some on eccentricity, and others, more 
 modestly, on good taste." Now, good taste can only be 
 the outcome of knowledge ; there is no such thing as innate 
 good taste. Some may be more receptive of the knowledge 
 from which good taste springs than others, just as one person 
 can learn a foreign language better than another ; but taste 
 is not born in them, and must be the result of what has been 
 learnt, perhaps unconsciously. There is, however, every reason 
 to hope that all this wild talk and contempt for rules is but 
 " from the teeth outwards " — a temporary fad. It is curious 
 that those who preach the abandonment of all rules in their 
 hot artistic youth, in their more mature practice, whether 
 they acknowledge it or not, make use of the laws they pre- 
 tend to abjure. I have seen a picture by Degas, the 
 shining light of the French impressionists, which obeyed 
 the acknowledged rules of composition perhaps too strictly, 
 except the one that tells us the art should conceal the art, 
 but it was, I must confess, distinguished by one of the 
 greatest beauties of naturalistic work, the complete absence 
 of imagination. It has been well said that this kind of 
 art is an excuse for imperfect vision and incomplete ac- 
 complishment." It is also satisfactory and amusing to find 
 that the one or two English photographers who have tried 
 to distort this phase of the art of painting to the practice 
 of their own art compose their pictures with the precision 
 and formality of Dutchmen. We have no colour to help 
 us, we must get our effects by the aid of light and shade and 
 form. If we give up arrangement, as the new lights appear 
 to do, we are lost, and become mere mechanics or record- 
 ing machines, They have, however, of late begun to 
 
4 Amateur Photographer^ s Lihrary, No. 4. 
 
 recognLse the necessity and legitimacy of composition and 
 art principles, but object still to the words law " and 
 rule." 
 
 Colourles-^, in one sense, as our art is, there is plenty of 
 beauty and enjoyment left in it. If we cannot let our 
 imaginations run wild, we can indulge in pleasant fancies 
 and embody them. We must keep to the truth of nature, 
 but that truth need not always consist of hard facts. 
 
 Mr. Walter Pater, in an admirable essay on ^' Style " in 
 literature, has a very line observation on truth and fact 
 which is as applicable to photography as any other art. 
 
 "Truth I there can be no merit, no craft at all, without 
 that. And further, all beauty is in the long run only fine- 
 ness of truth — expression — the liner accommodation of 
 speech to that vision within. The transcript of his sense 
 of fact, rather than the fact, as being pi eferable, pleasanter, 
 more beautiful to him. Jn literature, as in every other 
 product of human skill, in the moulding of a bell or a 
 platter, for instance, whenever this sense asserts itself, 
 whenever the producer so modifies his work as, over and 
 above its primary use or intention, to make it pleasing (to 
 himself, of course, in the lir^t instance), there 'tine,' as 
 opposed to merely serviceable, art exists. Literary art, that 
 is, like all art which is in any way imitative or reproductive 
 of fact — form, or colour, or incident, is the representation 
 of such fact as connected with .soul, of a specific person- 
 ality, in its preferences, its volition, and power." 
 
 The transcript of the sense of fact rather than the fact, 
 that is where the tiue asthetic pleasure comes in. It is 
 not the mere copying of nature that gives artij^tic delight, 
 so much as the intellectual pleasine to be derived from 
 getting the best eilect out of any given materials, or adding 
 a beauty to that which is alieady beautiful. Jt is the 
 sense of creation which gives pleasure, and without this, or 
 something to thLs eftect, photography is not art. In short, 
 "art is interpretation by means of a creative idea." 
 
 In concluding this first chapter I wish to give the student 
 a bit of advice which may save him thetroubleof following 
 me further. It is this. If you feel the inexorable prompt- 
 
Art Photography. 
 
 5 
 
 ings of genius within you insisting tbat you bhall go your 
 own original way, I counsel you to throw all teachings to 
 the winds, for what is the accumulated wisdom of your 
 forerunners to you ? But don't make the fearful blunder of 
 mistaking the will-o'-the wisp of eccentricity for the 
 miracle-working impulse of genius. 
 
6 
 
 Amateur Photographer s Library^ No. 4. 
 
 CHAPTER II.— NATURE AND ART. 
 
 Nature is ?wt at variance 7vifh art, 7wr art ivitJi i\ai\ire. Art is the 
 perfection of nature. Were the n-orld iwir as it 7i'as the sixth 
 (Jay, there were yet a chaos. Xature hath 7nade one rvorld, 
 and art another. Allthinys are artificial for iiature is the art 
 of 6W."— Sir Thomas 1^i:owne. 
 
 HE question may bo askcil, Wliat is the use 
 of composition ; why not go direct to nature, 
 Mnd humbly learn what she has to teach ? 
 There is a great deal of nonsense talked about 
 nature by those who know very little about it 
 in relation to art, or, indeed, in any way. 
 There is no word in the language which has so 
 many meanings, and which has been so used 
 and abused, ns nature, *'Jt is a holy thing," said ^Ir. 
 Stjucers, " to be in a state of nature." Jt is a cult " just 
 now to worship nature, or to pretend to, as it used to be 
 the fashion to worship the lily, and it is done about as 
 sincerely. All but the most ardent *' naturalists " will now 
 allow selection. They found their first ideas on this subject 
 to bo too liasty, and from selection to composition is but a 
 step. Selection would single out a portion of nature that 
 composed well, while cf)niposition would alt^r details so as 
 to make an arrangement of lines and light and shade which 
 experience tells us is most pleasing to the eye. 
 
 The use of composition to art is analogous to that of 
 grammar to language. Those who would think nature is 
 everything and art nothing, would prefer the babbling of 
 an infant to tiie stately measure of the finest literature. 
 Like the immortal teller of !Mark Twain's blue jay story, 
 it is the "sickening grammar" that annoys them; they 
 must be free from all academical restraints, or die. The 
 practical man said of " Paradise Lost," " What does it 
 
Art Photography. 
 
 7 
 
 prove ? " If It proved nothing else, it proved that Milton 
 had learnt the A, B, C of his art before he wrote the poem, 
 and knew something of spondees and iambics ; dactyls and 
 anapaests; hexameters and pentameters; heroic, elegiac 
 and lyric measures. In other words, he knew his compo- 
 sition. It is my contention that one of the tirst things an 
 artist should learn is the construction of a picture. He 
 should learn how to express himself before he begins to 
 deliver his soul. Dogberry expressed naturalistic ideas 
 when he said that reading and writing come }»y nature ; 
 we of the old school don't think so. Composition enables 
 the artist to express himself intelligibly; it helps him to 
 think, and to put his thoughts before others clearly; it 
 aids in seeing quickly what will make a picture when the 
 subject is before him. Instinct, possibly, may lead him 
 right, but a knowledge of composition makes him more 
 assured ; it teaches him where to find the weak parts of 
 his subject and how to strengthen them. 
 
 I hope it will not be inferred from what I have said that 
 I have no respect for nature, and treat her contemptuously, 
 for nature has been the study of my life. It is only by 
 loving nature, and going to her for everything, that good 
 work can be done ; but then we must look to her for the 
 materials for pictures, not for pictures themselves. It is 
 nature filtered through the mind and fingers of the artist 
 that produces art, and the quality of the picture depends 
 on the fineness cf the filter. 
 
 I have said that all but the most ardent " naturalists 
 will now allow selection. It is certain that the early im- 
 pressionist painters were loud in their expression of con- 
 tempt for anything approaching selection or arrangement ; 
 this is quite evident in their works, and I have heard some 
 of them preach the doctrine that all there was in art was the 
 way in which the impression of nature was expressed, and 
 in a pamphlet on Naturalistic Painting,'' by Mr. Francis 
 Bate, published two years ago, we read of " some miserable 
 law of composition, * symmetry,' * balance,' ' arrangement of 
 line,' * filling of space,' as though nature does not do all 
 that ten thousand times better in her own pretty way." 
 That composition was not considered part of their art by 
 the uaturalistic painters is implied in the following sentence 
 
8 
 
 Amateur Photorjraphe/s Lihrary^ No. 4. 
 
 from an article in the Mafjazine of Art on Bastien Lepage, 
 a painter of whom Dr. Emerson once wrote that he was 
 the greatest painter that ever lived," but whose work he 
 confesses in his new book on Naturalistic Photography" 
 to have judged before seeing a specimen of Lis painting. The 
 passage to which I allude reads as follows : — " The result 
 of logically eschewing all * picture-making ' is inevitably the 
 loss of pictorial qualities, and it is for their pictorial quali- 
 t'4*» — their composition of line, light, and colour, their rela- 
 tion of masses to detail, in a word, their design — that we 
 have acquired the habit of caring for pictures. That is to 
 Bay, our feeling towards a work of art, as distinct from thft 
 nature which is its material, is exactly proportioned to tho 
 amount of man, of mind, of design, that it contains plus its 
 natural material." 
 
 This is the view of art that I have always held, and I am 
 glad to find that the naturalists are coming round to my 
 way of thinking. Kew departines in art, as in other things, 
 often begin in a wild and lawless manner, and, after more 
 or less fluttering, gradually calm down and ccnfoim to the 
 wisdom of the majority, not without I am willing to say, 
 adding some good to the stock of general experience. 
 
 It is satisfactory to lind that, after heitjg ignored for years, 
 composition has become part of the naturalistic creed. For 
 this we have the authority of Dr. Emerson himself. After 
 paying that " these so called laws are mere arbitrary rules 
 deduced by one man from the works of many artists and 
 writers, and they are no more laws in the true sense than 
 are the laws of phrenology and astrology" (no one has ever 
 said they were), he comes to the conclusion that the 
 student had better study these much-abused rules, and says, 
 ^'Composition is really selection, and is one of the most — if 
 not the most — vital matters in all art, certainly the most 
 vital in the art of photography." It seems to have been the 
 words " law " and rule " to which naturalists have objected, 
 and they make the distinction without a dillerence of calh 
 ing them principles." Dr. Emerson goes on to say, But 
 the writer maintains there are no laws of selection. Each 
 picture requires a special composition, and every artist 
 treats each picture originally; his method of treatment, 
 however, often becomes a law for lesser lights." That 
 
Art Photography. 
 
 9 
 
 every artist treats his picture originally, is open to doubt, 
 but it is certain he ought to do so, and I am glad that Dr. 
 Emerson has so far modified his opinions as to agree with 
 the rest of the artistic world, and believes in composition. 
 This would give us hope that he would further modify his 
 other extreme opinions on art, if he did not, however, before 
 he got much further, denounce such teachings as nonsense, 
 and Burnet's treatises on Art, from which much of our 
 knowledge is obtained, as "illogical, unscientific, and in- 
 artistic, and has not a leg to stand on." But, on the other 
 hand, again, he gives a rule for composition with which the 
 greatest upholder of the experience of the great artists as it 
 has come down to us would thoroughly agree, — The 
 objects must be arranged so that the thing expressed is told 
 clearly and directly ; in short, the student should try to 
 express his subject as it has never been expressed before ; 
 all things not connected with the subject should be removed, 
 and all but the chief thing to be expressed should be care- 
 fully subdued. The interest must not be divided, but all 
 must go to help the expression of the motif of the picture. 
 Thus a white patch of the size of a threepenny piece may 
 ruin a 12 x 10 plate, as many a time a hat, basket, or 
 other small article has done ; just as a false line may ruin 
 an otherwise fine stanza. Bo careful how you introduce a 
 detail ; it may either make or mar your picture." 
 
 I have gone into the question as to whether the natural- 
 istic school admitted composition, because I should like to 
 prove that all art depends more or less on selection and 
 arrangement, which I take the word to mean. I think we 
 may claim Dr. Emerson as one who admits composition, but 
 he so " lets I dare not, wait upon I would," in his chapter 
 on the subject, that I cannot be sure. 
 
10 Amateur Photographer a Library ^ Xo, 4. 
 
 CHAPTER 111 — THE APPLICATION OF 
 COMPOSITION. 
 
 •* Connection is a prniciph alrvays present to the painter's mind^ 
 and hy the gnidavce of nJiich he considers all sets of ohjccts, 
 whatever may lie their character or boiuidarics, from tlie most 
 extensive prospect to the most confined wood scene ; neither 
 referring everything to the narrojv limits of his canva^^ nor 
 despising what wili not suit it, vnless, indeed, the limits of his 
 mind he equal' y narrow and contracted ; for when I speak of a 
 painter 1 mean an artist^ not a mechanic^" 
 
 UvEDALE Price. 
 
 EFOPiE going further, it may perhaps be well to 
 give a couple of illustrations of the u.^es of com- 
 jiQsition in picture making. One shall be the 
 work of a painter, the other that of a photo- 
 grapher. The latter will be one of my own, 
 and J may here take the opportunity of saying, 
 once for all, that in giving illustrations from my 
 own pictures, I do not otrer them as perfect 
 compositions, but as examples of the use a knowledge of 
 composition m'.\y bo to a photographer. Ruskin has been 
 accused of finding more in Turner's pictures than the 
 artist meant, an accusatioa I shall escape when using my 
 own works. Both of the examples are of the most ordinary 
 form of composition. 
 
 The first illustmtion is from Turner's vignette of " Loch 
 Achray." The scene in itself is fine, but the j^^cture is made 
 by the minute spots of black in the foreground, which are 
 60 small that they serve to show how very little will make 
 all the difference between art and nature. If the finger is 
 placed over these spots, the scene will be found to become 
 
Art Photograjyhy, 11 
 
 grey and loose in efi'ect. Nevertheless it is full of tone 
 (Turner has taken care of this by artificially darkening 
 some of the masses), but the distant mountain does not 
 retire. Turner's knowledge of composition taught him that 
 some spots of extreme dark in the foreground would act 
 
 Loch Ac h ray. 
 
 a keynote to the forms, and would put the masses into 
 tone, therefore he introduced the cattle and the foreground 
 trees. These spots of black form a continuous curved line con- 
 trasting the contours of the mountain and the hills in the 
 middle distance. Although they are dark spots, there is 
 gradation in them ; the nearest trees are lighter than the 
 animals, there is atmosphere between them ; the trees in 
 
12 
 
 Amateur Photographer s Library, No. 4. 
 
 the next plane are still lighter, and those still farther off, 
 although used as distinct points of composition, are mucli 
 diminished in intensity of shade : these retiring masses 
 carry the eye into the picture. There is a gi^eat deal 
 more in these few inches of real pictuie, but I only want 
 to give the points useful to the photographer, without 
 troubling him with the extreme subtleties of the science 
 of composition — pausing, however, to point out that the 
 animals in the water may be cattle or they may be 
 deer — they are too small to distinguish. It did not 
 matter to Turner; he was no naturalist, and I don't 
 suppose ho knew the difference between a cow and a 
 heifer, and probably never heard either of them called 
 a stirk ; he only wanted the spots of black to aid his 
 com[X)sition. 
 
 The frontispiece to this Ijook is from a photograph ; the 
 title, " Wayside Gossip." The scene of this picture is, in 
 itself, not worth a quarter- plate, and is only made into a 
 picture by the choice of light and shade and the figures. 
 The screen of trees is certainly pretty in form, but there are 
 awkward lines in the lower half of the subject. The lights 
 were scattered and dazzling, each of them points of 
 attraction, and each one equal to its neighbour. There 
 were, tliCrefore, two principal ditliculties to contend with 
 in this subject — awkward lines and scattered lights. Now, 
 there is one sovereign remedy for the latter dilhculty. It 
 is this : When the lights are so scattered over a picture as 
 to distract the eye, biing them into a focus. To do this, add 
 to the foreground some object that consists of a darker 
 black and a brighter white than is to be found in any 
 other part. InstaLtly all the little touches of white in the 
 water and the trees lose their aggressiveness, and are sub- 
 dued by the superior attraction ; subordination is established, 
 and the distance becomes atmospheric. Then there were the 
 awkward lines to combat. In this I feel 1 did not completely 
 succeed. I tried first with the two figures, relying on the 
 bunch of nettles in the left-hand corner for balance; but 
 before I took out the slide I felt the parallel paths must be 
 broken up at any cost, and tried again, introducing the 
 third figure, This was better, but a shawl or any rather 
 dark object placed across the water dam, a little way from 
 
Art Photography* 
 
 the two figures, would have broken the line still more and 
 been a great improvement. 
 
 I have given these examples of composition early in these 
 chapters, that the student may see that a picture has not 
 only to be found, but made. In a properly composed pic- 
 ture the effect to the uninitiated should be that it happened 
 in nature just as it appears in the finished result. It should 
 look like a happy chance. The effect to those who know 
 nothing of art should be pictorial and pleasing, but the 
 artist will find an added pleasure in tracing the means by 
 which success is attained. It is a well-known canon of art 
 that the art should conceal the art — which means that the 
 art should be so good that to the ordinary observer there is 
 no effect of effort ; this can only be achieved by a thorough 
 knowledge of what will produce certain effects. Yet even 
 this artful concealment of art should not be carried too far, 
 for on the one hand the object of art is not deception, and 
 on the other an ostentatious display of knowledge defeats 
 itself. When the student has mastered the few simple rules 
 of picture-making he may make use of them as he likes, and 
 he will be surprised to find what a great help they will be to 
 him. He will find in them a wonderful solution of the doubt 
 that troubles the young beginner in the selection of his sub- 
 ject, and the still greater difficulty, what to do with his figures. 
 He will, I hope, be able to do better than take the advice of 
 one of our best writers in photography, to shirk the difficulty, 
 and leave them out altogether — advice most admirable to 
 those who, from deficient art-knowledge, always contrive to 
 put them in the wrong places, and spoil their pictures. 
 
 I will conclude with a sentence from Buskin, which 
 sums up the whole question : — 
 
 *' The great object of composition being always to secure 
 unity — that is, to make of many things one whole — the first 
 mode in which this can be effected is by determining that 
 one feature shall be more important than all the rest, and 
 that the others shall group with it in subordinate positions," 
 
 2 
 
H Amateur Photographers Librari/, Hfo* 4* 
 
 CHAPTER IV.— TERMS USED IN ART. 
 
 " Every art, from reasoning to riding arul ro?cing, is learned hy 
 assiduous practice ; and if principles do any good, it is propor- 
 tioned to the readiness with which they can be converted into 
 rules, and the patient constancy with which they are applied in 
 all our attempts at excellence.'' 
 
 TnoAirsoNs •* Outlinks or the Laws of Thought." 
 
 DO not propose in these chapters to do 
 more tlian allude incidentally to tlie rules of 
 composition. 1 have already in a little 
 l)')ok of mine* gone into the subject as far 
 as I thought it would be useful to photo- 
 gra[)hers, and an American reprint of 
 RiH-net's once scarce book on Composition and 
 Light and Shade" is now to l>e easily obtaine<l, 
 but there are certain technical terms used in art 
 wliich it may he useful to explain before we go 
 further. 
 
 Compositioii is to art what grammar is to literature, and 
 h;irmony to music. A badly-composed picture is to the 
 artist what a *'nice derangement of epitaphs" would bo to 
 the literary man, or " sweet bells jangling out of tune" to 
 the musician. The object of composition is to so set forth 
 the subject of your picture that it should have the most 
 Mgreeable appearance without any sacrifice of the truth of 
 nature. This is done by as proper a distribution of lines 
 and masses as the subject will admit. ]t has been recently 
 stated that composition is a modern idea, or sort of alter- 
 t bought of art, but it can be proved that all artists from 
 the time of the Ancient l^gyptians based their work on 
 some fixed system. 
 
 Chiaroscuro refers to the management of light and shade 
 
 ♦ ••Pictorial EfTeot in Photography." Piper and Carter, 
 
Art Photography, 
 
 15 
 
 in a picture. It may be said that a landscape photographer 
 has no power of altering the light and shade on his subject. 
 This I admit, but he can select his time of day, and the 
 knowledge of what arrangement of masses of light and 
 shade will produce the most brilliant and striking pictorial 
 effect will be found to be of the greatest use, and will 
 enable him to obtain not only the best the subject will 
 give, but novel effects which would be lost on the ordinary 
 photographer, who only cares for an enumeration of the 
 features of nature. It may be worth while to give an 
 illustration of what I mean. Photographers so run, or 
 rather stagnate, in grooves that, until the last few years, 
 they would not willingly take a view that was not lighted 
 in the orthodox manner with the light coming from behind 
 the camera, or to the right or left of it, so that all possible 
 detail might be brought out. Until I took " Wayside 
 Gossip" (of which theieis a cut in the last chapter) in 1882, 
 I do not remember seeing a landscape in which, by de- 
 liberate choice, the sun was allowed to be in front of the 
 lens ; yet this picture is made, with the help of the figures, 
 by this choice of light and shade. There is a good deal in 
 nature which, for the purpose of picture-making, had better 
 be done without, and the photographer often has the choice 
 of suppressing or subduing the surplusages of nature by 
 watching his opportunity and getting the parts to be sub- 
 dued in shadow. A clever essayist sajs, " Surplusage ! in 
 truth, all art does but consist in the removal of surplusage, 
 from the last finish of the gem engraver blowing away 
 the last particle of invisible dust, back to the earliest divi- 
 nation of the finished work to be, lying somewhere, accord- 
 ing to Michael Angelo's fancy, in the rough-hewn block of 
 stone." 
 
 Chiaroscuro is sometimes sufficient without any, or with 
 very little, detail to make a picture, even in our mechanical 
 art. The illustration on page 17, from a beautiful little photo- 
 graph by Mr.C. L, Coppard, has no detail whatever, except a 
 little in the most important place — the clouds round the dying 
 sun — but the picture, as a poetical representation of the time 
 when all that is left of day is a glow in the west, is per- 
 fect. I am quite aware that it happens that a photo - 
 ;2raph is often beautiful with " unpremeditated art," but J 
 
16 
 
 A/natmr PlintOf/mphers Lihrar}/, Xo. 4. 
 
 know that tliis little picture was done by the deliberate 
 choice of a skilful artist. 
 
 The objects of chiaroscuro are, first, to give a pleasing 
 general ellect by dividing the space into masses of light and 
 shade, giving breadth of ellect, and preventing that confu- 
 sion and perplexity incident to the eye being attracted by 
 numerous parts of equal importance. Secondly, to so 
 arrange and light the principal object that the eye may see 
 it first and be gradually and insensibly led over the whole 
 
 Sunset. 
 
 picture; to keep parts in ob?;cnrity and to relieve others, 
 according to their pictorial value. And, thirdly, to aid the 
 sentiment and expression of the picture. 
 
 Unity. — The result of a proper employing of the resources 
 of composition and chiaroscuro should be a harmonious 
 whole. There should be unity of eflect, and nothing should 
 appear to outrage nature or common sense ; above all, there 
 should be no interference with the sentiment of the picture. 
 It has been argued that everything that could possibly 
 happen in nature would be right in a picture, but there are 
 many things that jar on the eye in nature and are without 
 interest. I have given an illustration in Pictorial Eflect" 
 of how a young man in modern dress — in top hat, frock 
 
Art Photographij. 
 
 17 
 
 coat, and stick, " a Waterloo House young man — disagrees 
 with the sentiment of a country lane ; this has been gravely 
 objected to by the reader of a paper on Art " at one of the 
 provincial societies, for the reason that " modern-dressed 
 people are frequently to be seen in country lanes." That it 
 is possible for them to be there, is no reason whatever why 
 they should be in harmony with the scene. The question is, 
 do they aid the picture? An incident may be natural 
 and yet incongruous. The writer even says, rather inconse- 
 quently, that ^* this idea is a relic of those times when it 
 was considered the correct thing by critics to represent all 
 figure-subjects in classical costume, no matter what date the 
 event may have taken place." It is not very evident how this 
 applies, and if it did, it is not worthy of serious refutation. 
 
 There can be very little satisfaction in a picture which 
 is devoid of unity. No perfect feeling of pleasure will be 
 conveyed to the mind if the lights are scattered, if breadth 
 of light and shade be not preserved, or if two or more 
 episodes, unconnected with each other, appear in the same 
 scene. Unity is opposed to scattered ideas, scattered lines, 
 scattered lights. However much variety there may be in a 
 picture, there must be unity of purpose ; there must be a 
 fit connection of all parts to the whole. One leading idea 
 must be maintained, there must be no confusion. In most 
 landscapes there will be found some object of more im- 
 portance than the rest ; the photographer will, in many 
 instances, have by choice of position the opportunity of 
 increasing this effect so as to make the most of it. It 
 often happens that unity is utterly destroyed by ill-chosen 
 or ill-placed figures. Without unity there can be no repose. 
 
 Repose may be described shortly as the absence of that 
 agitation which is induced by glaring colour or the scatter- 
 ing and division of a subject into too many unconnected 
 part?, or the frittering away of the effect by too many lights. 
 The eye is perplexed from not knowing where to rest, or 
 where to find the important points of the subject. Even 
 when a picture is full of action, a thing not quite desirable 
 n a photograph, it is better if there is repose somewhere. 
 
18 Amateur Photographer s Library^ No. 4. 
 
 CnAPTEP. Y.— TEPv^ilS USED IX ART {continue^. 
 
 ''Divested rf desUjii, art becomes a mere toy, a jnechaidcal hanhlf, 
 vnconnected n it/t cither the head or the heart, nniiiterestijig to 
 the n-ise and good, unprofdaUc to al , and amusing only to the 
 fvcah and id.e,'' * Laiiry. 
 
 •^^'^^ Ealanci- and Contrast. 
 
 F all tliat can be taught of art or that can be 
 adapted to photography, nothing could be of 
 more use to tlio pliotographcr than a good 
 knowledge of balance and contrast in their 
 various forms. Thev, with chiaroscuro, are 
 the most essential elements of compositif)n in 
 bl.'ick and white, and it will bo convenient to 
 take them together. Few things are capable 
 of accurate definition ; and simple things, such as those on 
 which I am now writing, defy analysis, from the dilllculty 
 of finding terms more simple and intelligible than tlie thing 
 defined, and are the least manageable. 
 
 All leading lines and masses j-hould be balanced or 
 compensated. Several lines running in one direction, thus 
 / lilt ^vould give a sense of falling if they were not 
 balanced by other lines running in another] direction 
 opposing them, thus //\ ; or if lines run diagonally down 
 
 a picture thus ^ compensation for the longer lines 
 
 is found in the shorter, more upright line, or a mass of dark 
 may be substituted. The application of this rule in various 
 forms will be found useful in nearly every scene in nature. 
 For example, in taking a view looking up the beach of a 
 fishing village, the buildings will be generally foun i to pile 
 
Art Photography. 
 
 19 
 
 up to the right or left, and the composition runs off to nothing 
 towards the sea ; the effecb is weak and unsatisfactory. 
 But if a boat or other object is introduced in the weak spot, it 
 will balance the lines of the buildings, throw back the 
 distance, and make a picture of what was otherwise merely 
 a weak view. In a landscape^ also, a poor subject may be 
 made into a good one by the introduction of sheep or cattle 
 or figures into the weak place, to balance the stronger masses. 
 A knowledge of the principle of balance will enable the 
 student to find the weak place and what to do with it, 
 
 Nearly allied to balance of lines is contrast, which may 
 be described as the opposing of things of different aspect to 
 each other, so as to bring out the fullest and best effect of 
 each, such as the position and variety of heads, youth and 
 age, light and shade, etc. It would require a large number 
 of illustrations and more space than I can afford, to show 
 the great variety that balance and contrast can assume, 
 but if the studt nt can get hold of the leading idea he will 
 soon find how to apply it. 
 
 Tone. 
 
 Ruskin defines tone as " the exact relief and relation of 
 objects against and to each other in substance and dark- 
 ness, as they are nearer and more distant, and the perfect 
 relation of the shades of all of them to the chief light of 
 the picture, whether that be sky, water, or anything eke." 
 And he goes on to say, ^'The word tone is liable to be con- 
 founded with what is commonly called * aerial perspective.* 
 But aerial perspective is the expression of space by any 
 means whatsoever, sharpness of edge, vividness of colour, 
 etc., assisted by greater pitch of shadow, and requires only 
 that objects should be detached from each other, by 
 degrees of intensity in projyortion to their distance, without 
 requiring that tha difference between the farthest and 
 nearest should be in positive quantity the same that nature 
 has put.'' No art has the same range of tones as nature. Her 
 brightest light is the sun, her deepest dark is vacuity from 
 which no light is reflected. Our light is white paper, our 
 dark is only a dark from which light is reflected, and 
 which against nature's gloom would tell as distinct light. 
 All then that the photographer can do, beyond selection 
 
20 Amatmr Photographer^ a Library, No. 4, 
 
 of subject and the introduction of figures dark or light, to 
 give tone, is to so accurately balance his exposure and 
 development as to give the nearest approach to the truth 
 of nature. 
 
 A beautiful example of balance, both of lines and tones, 
 as well as of expression, is to be found in Mr. Gale's charm- 
 ing picture (of which I am pleased to give an illustration) 
 to which he has given the very appropriate title, Sleepy 
 Hollow." Mr. Gale, in his little pictures, always contrives 
 to show how much art can be packed into a small space. 
 
 I will leave the student to find out for himself how 
 beautiful are the lines of the composition, merely suggesting 
 that he should try to imagine any part of the composition 
 left out, even to the stone and post in the water, and the 
 dark arch under the bridge, and he will immediately feel 
 the want of it. As to the tone, let him take away the 
 man and horses, and what becomas of the rest? It is a 
 pretty scene, but without tlie li^^aires would have no parti- 
 cular interest. The black of the hoi^ses by contrast puts 
 atmosphere into the whole of the picture, and makes every 
 bit of it valuable. 
 
 Variety. 
 
 It has been said by Dr. Johnson that the great source of 
 all pleasure is variety. This sentiment was written in re- 
 ference to the pleasure to be derived from literature, but Ls 
 applicable to all our enjoyments, especially those derived 
 from art. Uniformity, even of excellence, must tire at last ; 
 we cannot always bo eating sugar, a touch of vinegar is a 
 welcome change sometimes, " linked sweetness " may be too 
 long drawn out. Notwithstanding that variety is so 
 necessary, it is not to be obtained without difficulty and 
 study. Perhaps to a writer on one small section of a many- 
 branched art like photography, the most irksome kind of 
 variety is that which is necessary to enable him to say any- 
 thing new, or apparently new. It is especially difficult in 
 this and the previous chapter, but when truths are wanted 
 it is batter to reiterate than be dumb, more yar icularly 
 when it is evident by their works that many photographers, 
 if they have read the same old tale before, have not suffi- 
 ciently applied its teaching. 
 
Sleepy Hollow. 
 
Art Photography. 
 
 53 
 
 Without variety of line and liglit and shade, no composi- 
 tion can be complete. V ariety of forms should alwayri be 
 secured. No tree, however firmly grown and vigorous, is 
 so picturesque as others, inferior though they may be 
 in size, presenting variety of outline and intricacy of 
 detail. A group of figures with the faces turned in one 
 direction, all with the same expression, would be monotonous 
 and not interesting as a picture. But in seekin g variety 
 simplicity must not be forgotten or lost. The nature of 
 
 Wagon and Horses. 
 
 photography itself supplies much intricacy and detail. No 
 amount of ingenuity in varying positions and aspects of 
 figures will compensate for loss of simplicity and repose. 
 
 Subordination. 
 By what he omits show me the master of style," says 
 Schiller. Subordination means the sacrifice of parts to the 
 improvement of the whole. A conscientious painter will 
 often sacrifice w^ork that has taken him weeks to paint if 
 he finds that it is obtrusive and detracts from the effect of 
 the principal object. A photographer should not hesitate 
 to sun down, or otherwise get rid of, 'glittering lights, 
 
24 Amateur Photographer^ a Library, No, 4. 
 
 awkward forms, multitudinous niggliug detail-^, or any- 
 thing that interferes with the breadtii and simplicity of the 
 effect. 
 
 Breadth. 
 
 Without breadth no picture can really please as a picture, 
 however perfect it may be in its separate parts. It may 
 please by its j-ubject, by its drawing, by its colour, but if it 
 has not breadth of effect, there will be no perfect 
 satisfaction for the eye. All lights and shades which are 
 interrupted and scattered are more irritating to the eye 
 tlian those which are broad and continuous. This does 
 not mean that tluu-e should be no extreme contnist in the 
 light and shade of picture, for contrast, properly employed, 
 is one of the most important elements of pictorial effect. 
 The illustration on the previous page, from a photograph by 
 Mr. Cop[ard, is an excellent example of breadth of effect. 
 
 The dark mass of the waggon and horses, slightly re- 
 lieved by half-tones, and emphasised in places by lighter but 
 not obtrusive touches, rises boldly against the broad h'ght of 
 the stormy sky, giving breadth and brilliancy, and a poetical 
 feeling which is more easily felt than analysed. 
 
Art Photography. 
 
 25 
 
 CHAPTER YI.— FORMS OF COMPOSITION. 
 
 " TTie axiom that the most perfect art is that in which the art is 
 most concealed is directed^ I apprehend, against an ostejitatious diS' 
 p^ay of the means hy which the end is accomplished, and does not imply 
 that we are to he cheated into a helief of the artist having effected hig 
 purpose by a happy chance, or ly such extraordinary gifts as have 
 rendered study and pains unnecessary y Leslie. 
 
 OMPOSITION, in the elementary form in which 
 only it can be of use to photographers, is not the 
 seriously formal and pedantic matter that some 
 people seem to suppose. Its simple idea is to 
 obtain picturesque variety, and to get this there 
 must be some system, and system has been 
 deduced from the experience of artists of all 
 
 times. All artists must compose. The most advanced 
 " naturalistic " would not think, for instance, of making 
 a picture of, say, half-a-dozen figures of the same height 
 standing side by side with their heads all in a row. It 
 must be conceded that such an arrangement would not 
 make an agreeable result in the hands of the greatest 
 artist, be he painter or otherwise. If he had any sense 
 of the picturesque he would so alter the constituents 
 of the group that no two heads were of equal height, nor 
 appeared one immediately above or below another. He, 
 perhaps, would not admit he was composing, but " just 
 varying them a little." All the same, he would be arrang- 
 ing his material into pyramidal forms, a conclusion from 
 which, under the circumstances, there is no escape, as a littlft 
 experimenting would easily show. 
 
26 Amateur Photographers Library^ Xo. 4. 
 
 Again, the veriest tyro will see that many things look 
 better in one aspect than another. If a view of a street 
 were desired, he would not take the houses horizontally 
 from the opposite side of the way. ]n however small a 
 degree he had an eye for the beautiful, he would take the 
 view from a point whore the houses ran from him in per- 
 spective, thus unconsciously getting a diagonal line which is 
 part of a pyramidal form. Then if he were endowed with 
 a little greater appreciation of the picturesque, he would not 
 plant his camera in the middle of the street. lie would, 
 perhaps, not be able to explain why, but he would see that 
 
 a view with two equal sides did not look ^^e^," and would 
 alter his position a little to right or left, by which he would 
 get the long diagonal line on one side the street, balanced 
 by the shorter side, and secure, without knowing it, good 
 composition. 
 
 But if he had studied some of the simple rules of composi- 
 tion lH3fore he set up his camera, what an advantage it 
 would have been to him I He would have gone to his 
 subject with greater confidence in himself, and he would be 
 more certain of the minor details of the arrani^ement. For 
 instance, if there were moving figures he would know at 
 
Art Photograj^hy, 
 
 27 
 
 once when they were in the right place without having to 
 stop to think until too late. 
 
 It is, of course, not possible for the photographer to force 
 his subject into any arbitrary arrangement he pleases, but 
 if he knows the forms of composition that have obtained 
 most favour with painters it will be some guide to him, at 
 all events, in the selection, and at times in the disposition 
 of his materials. 
 
 One of the objects of composition being to obtain variety, 
 it has been found that the greatest amount is to be secured 
 by forms following the diagonal line. It does not require 
 
 a demonstration that square forms would not be effective 
 inside the frame of a right-angled picture, or that dividing 
 the space into equal parts would be most ineffective. These 
 difficulties are avoided by the diagonal line, Burnet give 3 
 an example of this, after Cuyp, which he calls angular 
 composition," It is reproduced here. Having myself written 
 a good deai on this subject elsewhere, it is a relief and satis- 
 faction to show what another writer has to say in the same 
 connection. Burnet says, " Cuyp, in adopting this mode 
 of composition in most of his pictures (which are generally 
 sunset or sunrise), places the focus of light at tl e bottom of 
 
28 
 
 Amateur Photographer s TAhrary, No. 4. 
 
 the sky, thereby enabling the distant part of the landscape 
 to melt into it by the most natural means; while the 
 strongest part of his sky, being at the opposite angle, pro- 
 duces the greatest expanse, and mixes and harmonises with 
 the dark side of the picture. Thus the eye is carried round 
 the composition until the two extremes are brought in con- 
 tact, the most prominent with the most retiring." 
 
 In compositions constructed on this principle (particu- 
 larly where the landscape occupies a large portion) many 
 artists carry the lines of the clouds in a contrary direction, 
 to counteract the appeal ance of all the lines running to 
 
 one point. Thus using the daiks of the clouds, etc., to 
 antaijonise, as it is termed, may apparently produce a better 
 equipoise, but sacrifices many advantages ; for we observe 
 in many of the pictures of Cuyp, Kubens, and Teniers, 
 where the figures, landscape, and sky are all on the same 
 side of the composition, that a rich and soft efifect is pro- 
 duced ; the strong light and dark touches of the figures 
 telling with great force against a background of houses, 
 trees, etc., which are prevented from being harsh and 
 cutting by mixing the^r edges with the clouds, or dark blue 
 of the pky. Those wlio imagine that, by thus throwing 
 
A rt Ph otogra2')hi/» 
 
 29 
 
 tlie whole composition on one side, a want of union will be 
 produced, will be convinced of their error by perceiving how 
 small an object {the boat) restores the balance ; since, by 
 its being detached and opposed to the most distant part, it 
 receives a tenfold consequence." 
 
 That the student should see that the same principle is 
 capable of great variation, I give two other illustrations from 
 Burnet, subjects that may be often met with. These little 
 etchings will also serve as illustrations of balance and con- 
 trast referred to in the last chapter. 
 
 In this sketch the cow forms the balancing point ; in 
 
 the following illustration the contrastnig lines are in the 
 tree. 
 
 The next illustration shows the application of the same 
 form of composition to one of Claude's classical landscapes, 
 and the last sketch shows the application of the same 
 principle, by Ostade, to an interior. 
 
 Another anci more complicated method of composition 
 onsists in an arransemen t of pyramidal forms, built upon 
 and combined with one another ; not, however, regular 
 pyramids, which would be too formal, but of irregular form 
 and differing in size. This method is very suitable to single 
 
 3 
 
30 
 
 Amatfinr Photographer'' s Lihrarijy Xo. 4. 
 
 figures and groups, jintl a knowledge of it will be found 
 useful in landscape photography, especially when figures 
 are introduced. 1 do not mean to go into the subject here. 
 To deal with it properly would require many illustrations 
 and more space than can be aflbrded in these short chap- 
 ters ; but it would be a valuable lesson to the student to 
 trace out the meaniog and masses of the great masters, 
 ancient or modern, and he would find it an interesting study 
 
 to make notes and diagrams of the composition oF great 
 pictures. 
 
 There are other forms of composition used by artists, but 
 none of them would be of any value to the photographer. 
 There are also infinite subtleties into which it is not worth 
 while to enter, for they could not be followed in our limited 
 tnt, and we must never forget our limits. Goethe says 
 
Art Photography, 
 
 31 
 
 somewhere, " Tt is working within limits that the master 
 reveals himself/' And I must warn the student that com- 
 position is not art, but only the means to an artistic end, 
 just as the teaching of art-schools is only intended to teach 
 the working of the machinery by which art is made. 
 
32 
 
 Amateur Photographer a Librari^y Xo. 4, 
 
 CHAPTER YII.— THE SKY. 
 
 ** It is ofien said, study nature; but nature does not compose: 
 her beautiful arrangements are aciiidental combinatiojis, and none 
 but an educated eye can discover ?i hy they are to. Nature does, and 
 ought to, supply the materials for fne jnctures ; but to select arid 
 reject, to adopt the individual parts to the production of a perfect 
 whole, is the work of the artist, and this it is that stamps the ema- 
 nations of genius,'' — Burnet. 
 
 LANDSCAPE photograph, ^vitha mass of white 
 paprr to represent the sky, is altogetlier un- 
 natural, is not true, and lacks beauty. In nature 
 every space is false Nvhich represents nothing. 
 
 The sky should i>e a harmonious and sympa- 
 thetic background to the land.'-caiit?, or there are 
 Hubjects in which the sky plays the leading 
 pait. The lo.tter is a vein in the picture mine 
 which has been very little worked, which is 
 to be observed better by Feeing one of them than by a large 
 demonstration of words," as Jsaak Walton eays when he is 
 trying to describe some fatal lure for the fish. In this 
 kind of picture the sky should occupy three-fourths, or at 
 least two-third^», of the space, and some little incident should 
 bo introduced into the strip of foreground to supply a title, 
 if the clouds themselves are not suiiiciently impressive or 
 suggestive to give a name to the picture. An illustration 
 of this kind of picture is given in Feeding the Calves." 
 
 In many subjects, such as sea views and distant expanses 
 of country, it is easily possible to secure the sky on the 
 same plate with the landscai)e, but it is not always that 
 the best pictorial results can be produced by this means. 
 All skies that appear in nature are to some extent suitable 
 
Art PhotO(jraj)hy, 
 
 33 
 
 to the views of which they are the background, but it does 
 not. follow that they are always the most picturesque, or 
 conducive to pictorial effect ; therefore all I have to say to 
 obtaining the clouds on the same negative as the fore- 
 ground is, get them if you can, and if the sky and fore- 
 ground make an agreeable whole, be thankful, and exhibit 
 the picture, but if it is not a pictorial success, stop out the 
 Fky with black varnish on the negative and print a suitable 
 one in its place. The sky changes incessantly, and it does 
 not follow that the one you happen to find when you take 
 the view is the best. Besides, if you rely upon chance you 
 no longer depend upon art, and if a photographer throws 
 away that, he loses his best support, and had better give up 
 the idea of making original pictures in which he can show 
 his own taste and feeling. 
 
 There was a time when it was necessary to apologise for, 
 or to argue the legitimacy of, adding a sky to a landscape 
 from a separate negative. This was in the bad old times 
 when it was considered fraudulent to improve your picture 
 in any way ; when the fine old-crusted purists w^ould prefer 
 to have a photographed face peppered over with black spots 
 caused by freckles almost invisible in nature, or a blank 
 white sky also untrue to fact, rather than have the sacred 
 virginity of the negative tampered with. We know better 
 now. So that the modesty of nature is not overstepped 
 (which, however, happens daily, more is the pity, by some re- 
 touchers), anything is allowed to be legitimate, and so that 
 their skies are not glaringly wrong, photographers are 
 allowed to get them as they please, either with the land- 
 scape, if they can or the accident of nature allows, or 
 separately, which latter method enables the artist to succeed 
 by art instead of chance. In art, it goes without saying, it 
 is better that all should be true ; but I don't mind confessing 
 that I would prefer a beautiful untruth, so that it was not 
 too glaring, to an ugly fact. Nature is utterly indifferent 
 as to the beauty of the sky she sends us, and, with equal 
 truth, there are variations in beauty. It is the practice of 
 the scientist to be satisfied with anything so that it is true, 
 it is the function of the artist to search for and select the 
 beautiful. Art must be true to nature, but it is not neces- 
 sary for art to " hold the mirror up to nature/' Mr. Oscar 
 
34 Amateur Photographer s Library, Xo. 4. 
 
 Wilde, in one of the most amusing essays on art* ever 
 written, denies that this unfortunate aphorism represents 
 Shakspeare's real view of art, but was only a dramatic 
 utterance deliberately put into Hamlet's mouth to convince 
 the bystanders of his absolute ignorance of art matters. 
 I have heard a young painter argue that as skies taken at 
 a different time from the landscape left the selection open 
 to the judfiment of the photographer it must therefore bo 
 wrong. When it was retorted on him that he himself, like 
 other painters, was guilty, not only of selecting his sky, but 
 also of altt-ring it to suit his comjiosition, he seemed sur- 
 prised that anyone should think an '* artist" (from which 
 class he exchulod photographers because they are guilty of 
 using difleront materials to do the same things as himself) 
 was not infallible. Yet I think i would as soon trust the 
 judgment of a photographer who has studied nature all his 
 life — Mr. Gale, for example — to select a suitable sky, as I 
 would any II. A. of the immortal forty. 
 
 Nevertheless photographers, unfortunately, exhibit an 
 amazing ignorance of the sky. It is one of the strangest 
 facts in modern iMiLrlish education that the one form of 
 ignorance which is not considered more or less disgraceful 
 is a total ignorance of natural laws and natural pheno- 
 mena. Every boy knows all about the immoralities of 
 mythology, but of the sights and scenes which occur again 
 and again, day after day, and year after year, he is expected 
 to know nothing. Even eniinent novelists make the new 
 moon rise in the evening, and water run upwards, and it 
 would possibly puzzle my gentle reader to say how clouds 
 were formed, or why the sun shines A photographer 
 ignorant of the place occupied in the heavens by a parti- 
 cular form of cloud will point his camera to the zenith 
 and print the result low down on the horizon ; indeed, I 
 have seen the cirrus made to descend behind the sea line, 
 and then the critics abuse the art because one of it^ 
 followers displays his ignorance of natural laws. A painter 
 who knew no better would make the same mistake, but 
 we must concede that the painter has a better oppor- 
 tunity of study. He has the facts of nature more inti- 
 
 " The Decay of Lying," Xiiictccnth Century, January 18S9. 
 
I 
 
A7*t Photography, 
 
 mately before him, and takes longer to study them than 
 does the average photographer. The one sees and copies, 
 the other, as a rule, sees and exposes and forgets. The 
 photographer should make up for this by more diligent 
 study. It is a good plan to walk abroad with a friend of 
 kindred disposition to study the sky ellects and other aspects 
 of this beautiful world, and talk them over on the spot, 
 pointing out the effects and arguing over their causes. The 
 solitary observer may see as much but is not so likely to 
 have it impressed on his memory. 
 
 As an example of the kind of phenomena to notice, let 
 the observer, when at the seaside, mark the effect of clouds 
 as they recede to the horizon. He will probably observe 
 that no forms of clouds ever go quite down to the horizon. 
 They become fainter as tbey recede, but, as far as I have 
 observed, they never go behind, there is always a thin line 
 of plain sky. This is caused by the mist, which is always on 
 the sea, more or less, in our latitudes. 
 
 Although I have said I should prefer a beautiful untruth 
 to an ugly fact, I cannot deny that more truth, within its 
 limits, is expected of photography than of any other method 
 of representation, and we must give all the truth we 
 possibly can. If we cannot give the truth, the whole truth, 
 and nothing but the truth, then we must lie like truth, 
 which after all is perhaps as good a definition of ait as we 
 have. 
 
 There are some conditions in adding skies to landscapes 
 which must be observed as strictly as the laws of the Medes 
 and Persians. The sky must be lighted from the same 
 direction as the landscape. Painters, being chartered 
 libertines, sometimes light their landscapes from two sources, 
 but it is suicide to the photographer. I think also they 
 should both be taken at approximately the same time of 
 year. I have heard it gravely argued that a sky taken 
 on the 30bh of April was not suitable to a landscape taken 
 upon May-day, but then scientists will say anything to 
 puzzle the photographer. 
 
 Then again there is a bit of common sense which is contin- 
 ually evaded by photographers. No sky should be used for 
 a second picture. It is ludicrous to see the same sky doing 
 duty through a series of photographs, especially when they 
 
38 Amateur Photographer s Library, Xo. 4. 
 
 are exhibited in the same frame. Years ago I was one of 
 the judges at the exliibltion of the Photographic Society of 
 Great Britain, and we gave a medal to a certain picture 
 containing; a certain sky ; I have noticed tliis sky, tacked 
 on to a (lillerent hindscape, in every succeeding exhibition, 
 and in the last it appeared in three pictures, two of them 
 liung side by side. There is a rule that no picture shall be 
 exhibited a second time, but I suppose this does not apply 
 to parts of pictures. 
 
 A word ought to be said on the subject of obtaining the 
 s]:y negativei. T/ie most suitable negative is one in which 
 the darkest parts of the clouds are represented by bare, or 
 nearly bare, gl iss. They print eflectively and quickly, and 
 it is easier to see how to place them when nearly trans- 
 parent. This quality was, in my hands, less dillicult to get 
 in the wet process than the dry, but the former is, of 
 course, quite out of the question now. I have found the 
 quickest plates useless and succeed best witii slow ones. 
 The best skies I have got were taken on chloride plates 
 exposed by hand, not shutter. 
 
 It is generally supp3sed that only tho^e clouds whicli 
 give very (h-iinite and strongly contrasted ellects of liglit 
 and shade are suitable for photographing; but this is a 
 delusion. All skies can be photographed, hwi the more 
 delicate ones require more care and skill. 
 
 The method of adding a sky to a landscape will be given 
 iu a future chapter. 
 
Art FholO(/mp/ii/. 
 
 8d 
 
 CHAPTER VIII.— FIGURES IN LANDSCAPES. 
 
 "•^ Full of forvis, figures^ shapes^ objects, ideas, hut the gift is 
 good ill those i?i whom it is acute^ and I am tUanhful for it^ — 
 Shakespeare. 
 
 OK many years I have advocated the more artistic 
 introduction of appropriate figures into land- 
 scapes, and I am glad to find that amateurs are 
 taking up a branch of the art that has been too 
 much neglected by professional photographers. 
 During the first thirty or forty years of photo- 
 graphy themostgrotesque absurdities were perpe- 
 trated, and it was very rare to see a landscape in a 
 photographic exhibition in which anything like an attempt 
 was made to introduce figures which had any pretensions to 
 belong to the scene, still less to toll anything like a story 
 by means of figures, or to add poetical effect by the help of 
 added skies or choice of light and shade ; the one aim was to 
 get a " sharp " picture of a scene so lighted as to bring out 
 all the detail. Professional photographers bad an excuse 
 for this beyond the reach of amateurs. It was found that 
 such pictures " did not pay " so well as the ordinary eternal 
 round of portraiture. The market for them was limited. 
 It was only a photographer here and there, such as lie j lander, 
 who cared to put him elf out of the way towards advancing 
 photography as an art. Gradually better things have been 
 attempted, if not in all cases with complete success ; and in 
 the later exhibitions this class of picture has been very pro- 
 minent, the measure of success ranging from the complete 
 down to failure. But however signally some have failed, 
 it is very satisfactory to see so many attempts which, if 
 
id Amateur Photographer s Libmrt/y Xo. \. 
 
 not perfect at present, promise success in the future. The 
 class of pictures to which I allude have never had the encou- 
 ragement of a medal set apart for them in any exhibition. 
 Much as the managers of exhibitions have strained their 
 ingenuity to find classes of pictures for which to ofler medals, 
 they never seem to have thought of landscapes and figures 
 combined to form a subjt^cb. I mean the kind of picture with 
 which the Royal Academy is half filled every year — pictures 
 in which figures are sometimes dominant and sometimes 
 subordinate, but always important. 
 
 There are, it must be confessed, some scones in nature 
 which are better without life; there are others that will do 
 without it ; but nearly all scenes are enriched, beautified, 
 and made more interesting by a touch of life ; the lov^eliest 
 BCdnes within the reach of photography make no appeals to 
 our intellects or our hearts unless there is some hallowing 
 touch of human association. Tliis extends to literature as 
 well as to art. An instance of failure in a great writer for 
 the want of human interest in his work is in the memory 
 of us all. No writer ever approached Richard Jefieries, 
 the author of ^* The Gamekeeper at Home," in his descrip- 
 tion of nature. His iusight, his close observation, his 
 minute, exact, and loving description, his brilliant photo- 
 graphs in words, have never been equalled by any previous 
 attempt in the same direction. He made a great reputation 
 by his first books, but the interest soon fell oil', and readers 
 got tired of artistically faultless work which contained little 
 or no human interest. It is not enough to catalogue nature. 
 A fsculptor may ex:ictly imitate a bit of lace in marble, a 
 painter may sit down baforo a scene and copy it inch by 
 inch, or a photographer may fill his plate with minute defi- 
 nition, but it takes more than this to make a picture. 
 Ru>kin gives a homely illustration, which seems to hit the 
 situation exactly : *Mf we see an old woman," he .«5ays, 
 *' spiuning at the fireside, and distributing her threads dex- 
 terouslj from the distafi, wo respect her for her mau'pula- 
 tion ; if we ask her how much she expects to make in a 
 year, and she answers quickly, we respect her for her calcu- 
 lation ; if she is watching at the same time that none of her 
 grandchildren fall into the fire, we respect her for her 
 observation; yet for all this she may still be a ron^monplace 
 
Ai't Photography, 
 
 41 
 
 old woman enough. But if she is all the time telling her 
 grandchildren a fairy tale out of her head, we praise her 
 imagination, and say she must be rather a remarkable old 
 woman.'' 
 
 The application is almost too clear to need pointing out. 
 The photographer may be perfect in his manipulation, his 
 use of exposure tables may ba precise and mathematical, 
 he may be skilful in selecting subjects, all three most 
 respectable departments of the art, but the attainment of 
 great skill does not, now-a-days, rise above the common- 
 place. If he wants to rise above the level he must 
 tell us fairy tales out of his own head, he must add some- 
 thing to his pictures which is not to be found in ordi- 
 nary photographs ; in short, he must add his own personality 
 to it, and that personality should have a poem in it, be it 
 ever so small and weak. 
 
 If we want further evidence. Miss Lucy Crane, in her 
 admirable lectures on art, says, " A photograph is a closer 
 following of nature than any picture can be, and the photo- 
 graphic view or portrait contains the elements, the material 
 of a picture ; but for want of selection, combination, com- 
 position, and, above all, for want of a human mind and soul 
 acting on the materials, it is not a picture.'' 
 
 It has been too much the custom for writers on art to 
 dssume that art by means of photography is impossible 
 under any circumstances, that the camera cannot think, and, 
 therefore, cannot produce the results of thought forgetting 
 that it is not the brush that thinks, but the painter who 
 uses it. That thei-e writers are entirely mistaken is shown 
 in every exhibition. A photographer who knows some- 
 thing of art may not be able to give us great works of 
 genius, but if he cannot " fling a poem out," if he has learnt 
 the grammar of his art, he may be able to tell us a story in 
 fairly readable prose. 
 
 The incidents of country and seaside life are inexhaus 
 tible, and full of pictures adapted to the use of the photo- 
 grapher. A glance at the titles in a Rojal Academy 
 catalogue will show this, and should be full of suggestions. 
 It is a question how much of his subject one attifct may take 
 from another. It is admitted that nothing can be abso- 
 lutely original. It is allowed that one may borrow a hint 
 
42 
 
 Amafcnr P/io(Of/raphers Library, Xo. 1. 
 
 from another, but what may be the limit to the extent ot 
 the hint ? I confess that I am always on the look out for 
 something to appropriate, or, to put it more mildly, to 
 adapt, but someh jw or other, the materials of one art never 
 seem to suit anotlicr, and, as far as my practice is concerned, 
 subjects arise more naturally out of the incidents one meets 
 with than out of books or exhibitions. It is not often that 
 direct imitations of paintings are seen in pliotography ; I 
 remember only one or two. In one case a really line subject 
 was exhibited, and got a medal, which was afterwards 
 found to be a repr()duction of the motive and poses in 
 modern dress of a Watteau subject engraved in the Art 
 Journal ; and I once saw an imitation ot one of my own 
 pictures by a Northumberland miner, who had taken to 
 photography, and used pit girls for models. In the origioal 
 I had tried to produce a variety of laughs from a subtle 
 smile to a noisy scream, and the interest of the subject 
 depended on the ex[)res?ions, but the miner's models had 
 evidently made it a serious busincs-; to copy the poses and 
 forget the expressions altc\gether. I intended my picture to 
 produce a smile, but the pitman's picture beat mine in this 
 respect by a distance; it was infinitely more comic. 
 
 The moral is that when you steal an idea you had better 
 serve it as the gip.-ies are said to do the stolen children, and 
 disguise it beyond recognition, or give up this kind of intel- 
 lectual larceny. 
 
 Further, 1 don't know that it is quite honest to take a 
 title that has been appropriated by another, except, of 
 course, such as is ordinary and commonplace, even if the 
 subject is made to look difleront by re-arrangement. Only 
 recently, on looking over a catalogue, at a first glance 
 1 thought somebody had been contributing a few of my old 
 pictures, for there were the titles, but a second glan.e dis- 
 closed another man's name to them. 
 
Art Photography, 
 
 43 
 
 CHAPTER IX.— IN ACTION. 
 
 Nothing h more strange in art than the way that chance ani\ 
 materials seem to favour you^ when once you have thoroughly con- 
 quered them. Make yourself quite independent of chance ^ get yom 
 result in spite of it^ and from that day forward all things rvill some* 
 horv fall as you would have them." — RusKiN. 
 
 E have theorised through several chapters ; let 
 us get into the open and have a little prac- 
 tice, ft)r the spring is at hand, and we ara 
 already beginning to feel premonition of that 
 landscape fever " from which every good 
 photographer must suffer at this time of 
 year.* 
 
 With the rising of the sap comes the 
 desire in the photographer to bring forth 
 his camera and prepare for the summer campaign. He has 
 probably not been idle during the winter. There have 
 been effects of hoar frost and snow, curious, wonderful, 
 fairy-like — not that fairies loved the cold weather. But it 
 is to spring and summer, when the year is alive, that he 
 must look for beauty. 
 
 We will assume that the amateur knows all that can be 
 learnt in technical photography, and that the knowledge 
 does not confuse his brain and incapacitate him from taking 
 a negative. The one thing that I would impress on his 
 mind is that perfect technical negatives are good as means, 
 but the gain is loss when they become ends. 
 
 We will also assume that our object is to make pictures, 
 not to take local views and diagrams of nature. 
 
 ♦ Written early in the year, 
 
41 Amateur Photograj^her s Library, No. 4. 
 
 Sii1»jects for landscape are, as a rule, better when they 
 are, like the voice of conscience, still and small." To my 
 mind there is no place like Enorland for beautiful subjects 
 suitable for the photographer. The scenes in other countries 
 may be lar^i^pr, vaster, and more varied, but somehow these 
 subjects do not suit the camera. In a photograph the Alps 
 l:)ecome dwarfed, the grand pine forcs^s black patches full 
 of points, and the vineyards seem to be impossible, for I 
 have never seen a pliotograph of one that pretended to pic- 
 turesquencss. Our land is smaller and more possible, and 
 contains sach pictures as Mrs. Browning gives expression to 
 in the following lines : — 
 
 *' A lipplc of land : snob little l^ilI^^, tlie sky 
 Can stoop to tenderly, and the wheat tields climb. 
 iSuch nooks of valleys lined by orchises. 
 Fed full of noises by i'lvisihle streams ; 
 And open pastures where you scarcely tell 
 White daisies from white dew - at interval.^ 
 Tiie njylhic oaks and chn-trecs standing out 
 Self-paised upon their prodigy of shade." 
 
 It is a rule with me which I seldom break, never to go 
 out with tlie camera without some definite purpose. Tlie 
 scene :to be pliotograpbed has been already selected and 
 every detail though': out and arranged in a sketch — a 
 sketch so slight, however, that it has no nearer re.^emblance 
 to a picture than short! land has to writing. The one ex- 
 ception to shorthand sketches is w^Len a picture has to be 
 produced by combination printing. It is then better to 
 make a full-sized and elaborate drawing. 
 
 But to-day w^e will go on the chance of what we may 
 pick up — roving, as they say in archery. 
 
 We shall not be at a loss for subjects. The country 
 round about is beautiful, and if it were not, there should be 
 no lack of materials ; all that is wanted is the eye to see, 
 and this is strengthened by practice. Tliere is so much 
 more open to us now than tliere w\as in the earlier days. Wo 
 have not to carry a dark-room and its contents about with 
 us. We have scarcely, when out, to think of our process 
 at all. Then the subjects ! Nearly all attempts to make 
 pictures were defeated by the length of exposure. The 
 twenty seconds exposure, once necessary, has now collap.sed 
 to one or two, and set free for photographers a world of 
 
Art Photography, 
 
 45 
 
 beauty. Figures can be introduced without fear of the 
 negative being spoilt by movement : cattle, sheep, and other 
 animals may be permitted to adorn foregrounds; and the sea- 
 shore has become a happy hunting-ground. It is not now 
 absohitely necessary to wait for a breathless day ; and what 
 is, perhaps, as important as an3^hing else, every variety of 
 light and shade may be attempted with a fair hope of success. 
 
 " Yet, I like a still day — a day when the stir there^ is 
 comes in gentle breezes with many waits between ; I like 
 also the hum of insects, the chirp of birds, the gentle noises 
 of nature and sunshine. They all help towards the doing 
 of good work. 
 
 In going out for what you can find, you should be as 
 ready for a chance shot as a sportsman is for a rocketing 
 pheasant. Look out ! here is a picture before us. It is a 
 group of cows in a meadow with a picturesque screen of 
 trees for a middle distance. If those two white cows that 
 are nearer to us than the others go away before you are 
 ready, your picture is lost. Something wrong ; you cannot 
 see the picture on the ground glass 1 Why, you have got 
 an orthochromatic yellow screen in the place of the stop. 
 Take it out at once ; don't let it flurry you ; keep your head 
 level. No hurry-flurry, and the least possible amount of 
 excitement. Expose by hand as long as experience teaches 
 you will be necessary to bring out the shadows. Lose 
 your picture if you must, but do not have an under- 
 exposed one. Too many photographs are under-exposed, 
 and nothing is so melancholy as the might have beens." 
 You have got your picture just in time, for the cows are off. 
 Now, where would you have been if you had used those 
 exposure tables which you are still so reluctant to give up 
 — the delight of the faddist, to the worker a hindrance ? 
 When you come to subjects of this sort, go straight away 
 and get them done at once. You must not stop to consider ; 
 
 ** The flighty-purpose never is o'ertook, 
 Unless the deed go with it." 
 
 A knowledge of the rules of art we have been considering 
 in previous chapters had another use here than to help you 
 to compose your picture. It saved time, which was — not 
 money, buo a picture in this case ; for you saw at once what 
 
 4 
 
Amateur P/iotof/rapher s Library ^ N'o, i. 
 
 to do, and had not to lief^itate, and think, and worry until 
 th'^ cows walked cff and left you pictureless. 
 
 We now come to a subject over which we can take more 
 time. It is a group of trees on the opposite bank of a 
 narrow stream opening out into a pool, after rippling down 
 a slight decline among moss-grown rocks and boulders. The 
 upper parts of the trees are in shadow, for the sun is nearly 
 behind them to the right, and the sunlight glints through 
 the trunks and along the meadow, which, with the bank, 
 reflects in the pool. Two little girls with baskets have just 
 come up on their way to the mill, and are much interested 
 in cur operations. We must have them for models, to 
 which they shyly agree, for there is nothing so shy as your 
 juvOLile rustic. It would be courting failure to try an ela- 
 borate subject with fresh-caught models, so we will try 
 something simple. There is a sloping bank of broken earth, 
 partly covered with large leaved plants and wild flowers in 
 the fore ground. This bank is in bright sunshine, and flnely 
 contrasts the dai k mass of trees and under- wood. We will 
 place the figures on it. The sunlight and light dresses will 
 mnko tliem "tell" strongly against the dark overgrown 
 part of the stream, and make a fine balancing point lo the 
 whole. See liow well that bit of light, so precious in its 
 place, come.-<, intensified by the black basket which touches 
 the white pinafore. This brilliant speck is broadened out 
 by the lesser lightness of the sunlit bank, is echoed by the 
 reflec tions in the water, and is can-ied through the picture. 
 But note that the figures, though small, are the key-note of 
 the picture. They form the strongest liglit and the 
 strongest dark, to which every other light and dark, however 
 large, is subordinate, because they are not of the same 
 intensity. 
 
 So much for the composition ; now for the models. It is 
 most important that they shall not look conscious and 
 stupid, and there is nothing a new model is so clever at as 
 looking stupid. Hero is an opportunity for guile. You 
 must become a second Ananias, and tell them anything but 
 the truth. Photographers, doctors, and dentists have 
 licenses to practise deception for the good of their patients. 
 Don't let them stare at the camera, or stand stiffly upright 
 upon both legs with both hands at their sides. This they will 
 
Ai't Photorjraj)lvj. 
 
 4? 
 
 almost certainly try to do ; it is their notion of a respectful 
 and proper positit)n, and is the awful result of Board- school 
 drill iDg, which is transsforming English childhood into atti- 
 tudinising prigs. Give a last look round, pull the bolt, let 
 the platform fall, and we will hope that the completed result 
 will be well hung. 
 
ii Aiiiiiteuv riiologra2)hers Libranj, No. 4, 
 
 CHArTEPv X.— COMBINATION PRINTING: 
 THEOKY. 
 
 * Pictures are not fo he judged by the strict larv of optics ; they ar( 
 nlfogrther cn?iv^ntio7ial. Iji Aatiire ne cannot look at the diitance 
 and the forcrjround n^ithout imperceptibly altering the focus of the eye^ 
 'neither can we look at t?vo portions of a picture at the sauie moment^ 
 with attention^ without altering the direction of the eye.'' 
 
 G. Babnabd. 
 
 YKRY photograplicr must at times feel the utter 
 " " ^ inadequacy of liis moans to represent the 
 scene before liim ; and this not from the 
 absence of colour, wliich is so often deplored, 
 or the diiliculty of getting the lines of buildings 
 upright, or the distance to look large enough, 
 because, however skilfully he may use the 
 swing back of his camera, ho cannot, with some 
 subjects, get the distance and foreground into focus at the 
 same time. Ho looks at nature with his eyes and finds no 
 trouble in getting all the pianos in focus at apparently the 
 same time, but ho cannot get the same eflect on his ground- 
 glass screen. If ho wishes to take a landscape with a group 
 of figures rather large in the foreground — a very frequent 
 class of subject with painters, and one becoming increasingly 
 popular with photographers — he finds that if his figures are 
 in focus his middle distance and distance are lost in blurr. 
 This defect has been even advocated as a good quality by 
 some authorities, and I myself have no objection, in special 
 cases, to parts being a little out of focus; but we ought to 
 draw the hne at blurring, and especially that kind of out-of- 
 focusness which, with rapid rectilinear lenses, turns every 
 little spot of light into a circle of meaningless distortion. 
 
Art Photography, 
 
 49 
 
 It may be worth while here to inquire what the 
 eye does see when it is turned to a landscape. In a letter 
 to the Amateur Photographer of January 13th, 1888, Dr. 
 Emerson says — "The human eye never yet saw all the objects 
 in the different planes sharp at once, and though the optician's 
 lens does this in a greater degree than the human eye, yet 
 that * photographic lens sharpness ' I consider fatal to all 
 artistic work." 
 
 The statement that the eye never sees the different 
 planes in focus at the same time is a scientific fact, but as a 
 matter of practical vision it seems to be based on imperfect 
 observation ; while to say that the lens covers more depth 
 than the eye is not the general experience. Some lenses 
 take in more planes than others, depending partly on the 
 aperture of the diaphragm ; but none of them have the power 
 to instantaneously and unconsciously adapt themselves to 
 the different planes as the eye does. In Lee's Handbook on 
 L'ght," I find a paragraph on the accommodation of the eye 
 which exactly explains the difference between the action of 
 a lens and human vision, — 
 
 " A distinct picture of an object by a lens is only obtained 
 when the lens is properly adjusted in reference to the object 
 and screen. If, whilst the lens and screen are kept in posi- 
 tion, the object be placed nearer or farther away, the image 
 becomes indistinct. Now, in the case of the eye, experience 
 teaches us that objects are seen well enough, though their 
 distances may vary considerably. It follows, therefore, 
 that the eye must have the power of accommodating itself to 
 the distance at which an object may be situated. This 
 accommodation is effected by the movements of the crystal- 
 line lens — the suspensory ligaments are such as to cause a 
 slight movement of the lens either forwards or backwards, 
 according to the distance of the object looked at, whilst at 
 the same time, from its elasticity, its curvature is also, 
 changed, the anterior surface especially being affected." 
 
 This proves, what I think we all ought to have known, 
 that the eye sees more than the object photographed added 
 to a background of confusion. 
 
 If some prefer chaos to order, I can only reply that it is 
 a sentiment, that is all. There is no court of appeal. We 
 have only the general verdictof human beings that they can 
 
60 Amateur PhotograpJier^s Lihrary^ No, 4. 
 
 Perhaps it does not matter when we get our image out of 
 focus whether we call it fuzziness, so easy to obtain and so 
 foreign to photography, or atmosphere, one of its greatest 
 beauties. It may be called, indefinitely, a question of taste. 
 There are photographers who mistake fuzziness for tone, and 
 who, in putting their pictures out of focus, think they have 
 achieved a due appreciation of ** vahies," and the word seems 
 to please them. And it does happen sometimes perhaps, by a 
 kind of gracious accident, that they do get a beautiful result 
 by misusing tlieir lenses (as when a bad shot hits a woodcock 
 — ** tbey xciil fly into it sometiuies.") Not a photographic 
 result, however, but something quite alien to its geniu?, as 
 though it had foresworn its birtiiright; and, unfortunately, 
 the general results are enough to sadden the soul of a sand- 
 boy. 
 
 There is another consideration in this connection which 
 the out-of-focus school seem to forgot. If wo are only to 
 include in our pictures as much as the fixed eye sees, we 
 must leave dut a good deal laterally, for the eye 
 does not include more than four or live degrees in focus at 
 the same time. Something, also, must be allowed for the 
 size of a picture. The eye would see at once the whole of a 
 small picture, includir.;:: a wide angle, an angle so wide that 
 the (lillerent parts of it could not be steii in nature without 
 turning the liead. 
 
 It was a maxim with the Spartans that if your sword was 
 short you should add a step to it. It being, I think, suffi- 
 ciently proved that our present optical resources do not 
 enable us to roproFcnt properly some of the simplest scenes 
 around us which we ought, as artists, to reasonably expect 
 to be able to obtain, we must try some other way that will 
 help us to succeed. Tlie obvious step that we must add to 
 our short sword, until something better is invented, is com- 
 bination printing. I have now had more than thirty years' 
 experience of this method, and still think it not only the 
 best, but the only way of getting many subjects which 
 should not be lost to our art. It is of all others the process 
 for the amateur ; it will enable him to spend many pleasant 
 hours, and haply achieve distinction. The method takes 
 time and patience, no doubt, but you ** get your ow^n out of 
 it" 
 
A7't Photoyraphy, 
 
 51 
 
 Yet it must not be forgotten that just as combination 
 printing allows greater liberty to the photographer, so also 
 does it open out possibilities of abu^e. The opponents of 
 any particular method of procedure are apt to attack the 
 '^veakest points, and combination printing — because, perhaps, 
 it affords such infinite possibilities of failure as we'l as 
 success — has been unmercifully attacked. Some of the 
 reasons for objection are sufficiently curious. I remember, 
 years ago, a photographic editor saying, ^' Oh 1 it is of no use 
 writing it up and recommending it to our readers ; it is much 
 too difficult for the ordinary blundering photographer." It 
 is true the method was difficult at that time, for it had not 
 been simplified and reduced to a S3^stem. It is not very 
 difficult now, and the invention of register marks puts it 
 within the reach of the amateur for simplicity and the pro- 
 fessional for ease of production in quantity. I mean, of 
 course, as a technical matter only, for the use of it necessi- 
 tates a much wider knowledge of nature and art than is 
 required by the one-plate photographer. This is compen- 
 sated for by the pleasure which comes from wider know- 
 ledge. " We should have little pleasure were we never to 
 flatter ourselves," says a quaint old writer, and I take plea- 
 sure in thinking that I have added to the pleasures of 
 photography by my persist eat advocacy of this method, 
 and I think I see the time coming when it will be used much 
 more extensively. Its use is already nearly universal in a 
 minor way, the printing-in of skies. More ambitious efforts 
 are coming in ** single spies;" as the intelligence and experi 
 ence of amateurs increase, they will come in battalions.*' 
 
 There is fun also to be get out of double printing. It is 
 amusing to see the joins pointed out in your pictures where 
 they don't exist, and to read elaborate articles, illustrated 
 by reference to some of your smgle plate photographs, show- 
 ing what a pernicious thing this same combination printing 
 is. Some kind people often overlook the real meaning of a 
 picture, and having no mind to dete ?t the artist's mind behind 
 the exposure and the developer, ar*^, nevertheless, wonder- 
 fully sharp and pleased to detect joins which do not exist. 
 
 In the next chapter I hope to give such clear and simple 
 directions for combination printing as shall oe easily followed 
 by all who read. 
 
52 
 
 Amateur Photographer's Library^ Xo. 4. 
 
 CHAPTER XI.— COMBI^^ATION PRINTINO: 
 PRACTICE. 
 
 **This laborious invrsfigatioji, I avi afvarf, luuit appear svper- 
 fiuous to those who think that firry thing is to be done by felicity and 
 the power nf native ycniusy — liEYNOLUS. 
 
 ^HE simplest operation in Combination Print- 
 ing is that by which a sky is added to a 
 landscape. I have spoken of the precautions 
 necessary to ])0 taken, and tlio mistakes to 
 avoid, in th.o (hapter on the Sky, wliicli 
 chapter should bo read befcre the negative to 
 1)0 used is selected. It will not be necef-.sary, 
 therefore, to go over the same ground again, 
 but I shall refer only to the practical details 
 of the operation. 
 
 The landscape negative should have a donse sky, and it 
 se'dom happens that the sky of a properly exposed and de- 
 veloped landscape has sulliciont density. If it be weak, or 
 have any defects, it must be stopped out. This is best done 
 with black varnish, and if the space is large it would be 
 well to cover over the greater part of it with orange paper, 
 to obviate the annoyance of the varni>h breaking up, as it 
 is apt to do when applied to a large surface. For land- 
 scapes it is better to apply the varnish at the back of the 
 plate; by this means a softer edge is produced in printing 
 than if painted on the film. It may be used clo^e up to 
 objects with definite edges, but should be used more lightly 
 round the eCges of trees, especially round those in which 
 the branches are loosely formed, admitting light between 
 
Art Photography. 
 
 53 
 
 them, so as to vignette into them. It will not always be 
 necessary to stop out small lights between branches, as they 
 usually develop more densely than broad spaces. With some 
 subjects, such as chose which have tolerably level horizons, it 
 will be sufficient to cover over part of the sky while printing, 
 leaving that part near the horizon gradated from the horizon 
 into white. 
 
 In applying black varnish to the back of a negative, 
 occasions will often occur where a softened or vignetted 
 edge is required for joining; this may be done by dabbing 
 the edge slightly, while wet, with the finger, or if a broader 
 or more delicately gradated edge be required, a dabber made 
 with wash-leather may be applied. If it is found that the 
 varnish dries too quickly, it is a good plan to mix a little 
 turpentine with it. 
 
 When a print is taken, the place where the sky ought to 
 be will, of course, be represented by plain white paper. 
 Now take a suitable cloud negative, place it in the printing 
 frame, and adjust the print on it so that the sky shall print 
 in the proper place. This is easily done if the negative is a 
 good one. It should be sufficienily thin for its position to 
 be easily seen. When exposed to the light the landscape 
 part should ba covered with black velvet or other suitable 
 mask. This mask should be gently moved at short intervals 
 during the printing, so as to vignette the sky slightly into 
 the landscape. This will not be found a tedious process, 
 for if the negative is of the right quality the whole process 
 ought nob to occupy five minutes. 
 
 Care should be taken that the sky is not printed so dark 
 as to appear to come in front of the landscape — a common 
 fault. If it is found necessary to print the sky over trees 
 or other tall objects, take care to select a sky w^hit h will 
 not be so dark as to partly obliterate them, or show the 
 forms of the clouds in front of them, and above all, 
 avoid leaving a white line round the edges of objects. 
 
 If large numbers are required, it would facilitate the 
 printing to use register marks, as described further on. 
 
 Portraits to which natural landscape backgrounds are 
 added are very effective, and well within the reach of the 
 amateur. I will not take space to describe the method, as it 
 will be easily urderstood after reading the following. 
 
AjYcateur Photographer's Library^ No. 4. 
 
 I now propose to describe and illustrate the method of 
 joining a distance sky and middle distance to a foreground. 
 When the amateur masters thi? properly, he will be able 
 to employ combination printing to any extent he may 
 desire. 
 
 Our prob](Dm f^hall be to make a picture of the following 
 materials: iioats on a pebbly beach, with a figure; the 
 figure to be of importance, but not large — say '6k inches 
 in a 15 by 12 plate, and in focus. A stormy sea, and sky, 
 which shall be in focus, and yet be atmospheric. 1 do not 
 hesitate to say this subject is impossible at the present 
 time on a single plate, and that the lens to accomplish such 
 a feat will never be made. There is another dilliculty 
 besides tiiat of focus, which I admit may be overcome in the 
 future. The exposure tor the foreground requires perhaps 
 one hundred times longer than the sea. The diireience in 
 the example I am about to give was much greater than 
 this. 
 
 I give this example with some reluctance, for the picture 
 has been popular, and the most ellicaciuus way of knocking 
 a picture or a sentiment endways is to put it undt-r the 
 microscope and analyse it to death. 
 
 For this picture we have two negatives. The one con- 
 tains the foreground, exposure 2 seconds ; the other the 
 sea, exposed with a rather slow drop shutter, to as to give 
 the feeling of movement to the waves. 
 
 The object now is to stop out all of the foreground nega- 
 tive that will not be re(iuired. This should be done as 
 much as possible on the back of the negative, so that the 
 edge may print soft. Stopping on the him side is apt to 
 produce very hard, sharp lines, but there are places where 
 it is impossible to avoid doing so. In this picture the stopping 
 round the boat and part of the figr.re was done on the film, 
 the other parts on the back. It will be sulHcient to use the 
 black varnish for the breadth of an inch, and paste orange 
 paper over the rest of the space. It is sometimes possible 
 to vignette two edges well into one another. The easiest 
 joins are when a light comes against a dark ; the most difli- 
 cult when two equal half-tones come together, as they do in 
 the bow of the principal boat and the sea. 
 
 At the top ot the plate, just outside the margin of the 
 
Art Photography, 
 
 65 
 
 picture, two registeriog corners should be made, as sLown 
 in the illustration. This may be done by cutting; into the 
 orange paper with a knife, and, if necessary, removing the 
 film outside the marks. 
 
 The invention of these register marks, I may mention, 
 has rendered combination printing remarkably easy, and 
 fitted it for carbon, platinotype, or any of the invisible pro- 
 cesses. Formerly 'every princ had to be fitted by sight ; the 
 loss of time, trouble, and material was enormous, and the 
 results inferior. 
 
 A print should now be taken on plain matt paper (the 
 curling of albumenised paper makes it difficult to use). The 
 result will be as in the first illustration. 
 
 The next part of the process is to stop out all of the sea 
 negative that is not required. Take the unfixed print of 
 the foreground negative, and very carefully with a p-^ir of 
 scissors, in a dull hght, or with a sharp knife on glass, cut 
 out the printed portion. Lay this as a mask on the .^ea nega- 
 tive, and gum it at the corners. It may be more effectually 
 secured when all is found to be right. Now take the white 
 part of the print, and cut out the i egister marks very accu- 
 rately. That is, the parts marked black in the illustration. 
 Lay the print on the negative so that it accurately fits the 
 mask, lay a weight on it, and with strips of gummed 
 paper mark where the registering falls. See the second 
 illustration. 
 
 At this point, if a print were taken of No. 1 negative, the 
 corners cut and laid to the register marks on No. 2 negative, 
 and printed, the two would be found to fit, but the joins 
 would be hard and cutting. This must ba corrected. 
 
 Lay the sea negative on a transparent desk, or other con- 
 venient support, and let black varnish on the back, whenever 
 there are sharp lines, take the place of the papsr mask on 
 the film side. A great deal may be done now in vignetting 
 and overlapping parts; this must be left to the judgment of 
 the operator. Of course, it must not be forgotten to cut 
 away the mask where black varnish has been substituted. 
 
 3f the operation has been properly performed, the next 
 print will be somethiiig like illustration No. 3. 
 
 To work out a large group it is only necessary to play 
 variations on what I have already described. As many 
 
53 
 
 Amateur Pliotograplier s Lihrary, Ko. 4. 
 
 figures as possible should be taken on each negative, and 
 the position of the joins so contrived that they shall be 
 least noticed. 
 
 In concluding this subject I must caution the student 
 against the vagaries of albumenised paper. It has a habit 
 of expanding when damp that up?ets all calculations and 
 register marks, if precautions are not taken to guard against 
 it. This dilFiculty is not felt in platinotypo, and for e^se 
 and certainty I prefer the latter process for combination 
 printing. 
 
Art rhoiotjrapliy^ 
 
 57 
 
 CHAPTER XII.— WHAT IS TRUTH? LIMITATIONS. 
 
 •* The arts theinselv6is, as n)eU as their varieiieit ave clostly related 
 to each other, and have a tendency to unite, ''and even lose them- 
 selves in each other; hid herein lies the duty the merit, the dig- 
 nity of the true artist, that he hiom how to separate thai 
 department in which he labours from the others^ and, so far as 
 may be, isolates i^.'*— Goethe. 
 
 FEW words on truth, and what it means, may 
 not be out of place in concluding this series of 
 chapters on Art-photography. What is truth ? 
 is as difficult to answer now as it was in 
 Pilate's time. It is quite certain that art truth 
 does not mean mirror-like similitude. In the 
 first place, if it could be done, it would be only 
 mechanical reproduction; in the second it is 
 impossible. The most dazzling brightness we can attain to is 
 a sheet of white paper — many times short of the brightness 
 of the sun. We play many octaves below the key of nature, 
 therefore our lack of means denies us the possibility of simi- 
 litude, even were it desirable. 
 
 Truth in art has been defined as the faithful statement, 
 either to the mind or senses, of any fact in nature. But 
 what is faithfulness ? Every man sees nature differently. 
 Among painters we may have the best fact about a man to 
 be told by a Hoi I ; a grey and yellow dream of a 
 Boughton ; the direct statement of a Moore ; the wax- 
 work of a Sant, or the raw crudity of a McWhirter. Yet 
 they all claim to be true. Then there are many varieties of 
 photographers. There are two kinds, both of which I hold 
 to be wrong, and to miss the truth. There is the Mr, 
 
53 
 
 Amateur rhotographers Library, Xo, 4, 
 
 Bounderby of photography, who must have facts and 
 nothing but faces, and taere is the misty man who per- 
 suades liimseli: that his pictures are artistic because they 
 are out of focus. It seems to me that the place to seek 
 truth is somewhere between these extremes. The man of 
 strict fait ignores beauty; the man wiio dwells in mist 
 substitutes a dream for reality, and of all arts photogr.\phy 
 deals moit with the real ; besides, it smacks a little of in- 
 consistency to preach nature and produce blurr. Atmo- 
 sphere LS quite possible without any sacriQco of natural 
 definition. I have seen photographs over which the eye 
 could raugo for miles, and lose itself in the infinite sky 
 beyond, that were (juito as sharp all over as the lens and double 
 printing would allow. It is quito a delusion to suppose, 
 because the distmce is foggy and out of focus, that it is 
 atmospheric. This sort of thing is more likely to remind 
 us of bad manipulation than grand art. 
 
 I hope I shall not be misunderstood in what I have just 
 said, and that my readers will not think I am advocating 
 excessive definition, i am objecting only to the works ot 
 those who insist, to speak vulgirly, on going the ^^hole hog 
 or none — of those who get their pictures ostentatiously out 
 of focus, and say, Tnis is art, no others are in it." On 
 the contrary, 1 am inclined to think that if there is any- 
 thing worse than the kind of out-of-focus eflect I mean, it 
 is the brilliant, cruel, pitiless definition to be seen in some 
 photographs. 
 
 It is a common spying, " Cannot we see what nature is 
 with our own eyes, and find out what is like her?" The 
 remark is also often made, It is a photograph, therefore 
 must be true." It is possible for all intelligent and obser- 
 vant people to judg3 of fact, but it requires cultivation to 
 judge of what is truth. It is a great mistake to think you 
 can see a thing because it is before your eyes. A child may 
 recognise a rough sketch or even a caricature of its father, 
 which, when analysL^d by eyes taught to see, may not be 
 true in any particular, except in tha general resemblance. 
 A very black and white photograph of a scene may be 
 recognizably like, but, with the proper gradations of light 
 and shade omitted, would not be true. Then there are 
 pictures which may look true, or superficially true, with^ 
 
Art Photograph]/. 
 
 out being fact, such as the so-called moonlight views, made 
 by over-printing negatives taken in sunlight. 
 
 It is sometimes said in commendation of a print, It 
 does not look at all photographic." This is not only com- 
 plimentary to an untruth, but it is not flattering to an art. 
 Why should we try to make our pictures look lika the 
 results of other arts, except in the general sense which 
 applies to all art ? Is it praise to say a water colour draw- 
 ing looks like an oil painting, or the reverse ? It is said 
 that every man should have the courage of his opinions, 
 and a photographer should not be ashamed of his produc- 
 tions looking like photographs. It is as bad taste as being 
 pleased with graining that looks like real wood. Then, 
 again, there are those who are never satisfied unless they 
 are overstating the truth, and giving us — 
 
 " Forms more real than living man." 
 
 Among these are the retouchers, who, not content with 
 correcting the little blemishes of nature, substitute an arti- 
 ficial product of their own for the art that nature makes." 
 
 Mr. Bartlett, an excellent American writer and photo- 
 grapher, seems to hit the truth when he says, " The object 
 of art is not to change nature, but to interpret her aright ; 
 to render a scene or an incident so that it shall give delight 
 to the beholder, not by the novelty of unrealness, but by 
 the originality of unexpectedness. This originality is not 
 denied to photography any more than to painting, and when 
 the photographer achieves it, is he not entitled to the name 
 of artist?" 
 
 Whaib the photographer has to do is to make pictures 
 with the means at his disposal, and to present them as 
 haying been done with those means and no other, or in 
 imitation of no other ; to take advantage of the pecu- 
 liarities of his process, and to hide its shortcomings, or find 
 compensations for them. He will be wise to admit that his 
 art has its limits, and not attempt to do more than they 
 will allovv. 
 
 At present, the limitations of photography, as an art, 
 have not been definitely fixed. I do not think we are 
 justified at present in representing any strong emotion, 
 or selecting such objects as those which seem to delight 
 
Amateur PhotograplLers Library y Xo. 4. 
 
 Holl and Israels, full of the wail of suflering humanity. 
 Yet the time may come when these subjects shall be 
 retdered so supiemely that we shall forget the means, 
 forget that the murder, the funeral, or the burglary was 
 present before the lens, or that the dead sailor or the 
 bereaved widow acted as models for the photographer. 
 Photographs of what it is evident to our senses cannot 
 exist and be brought before the len?>, should not be 
 attempted. Canute should not comnnand the waves, nor the 
 dead body of Harold be buried on our plates. Cherubs and 
 angels, with or without bodies, should not be represented 
 floating in the air; no ghost should walk — anyway, in a 
 serious picture — it may bo allowed, porhap-^, in a scientific 
 toy. A photograph must represent truth as we know it, 
 not as we may guo<s it. There must bo no clap-trap, no 
 straining after forced ellccts. An over-printed sunset must 
 not bo allowed to do duty as a moonrise. On the other 
 hand, it would be dilhcult to point out all that may make 
 legitimate photographic pictures. The English photographer 
 is fortunate in living in the most beautiful country in the 
 world for landscape suited to his art, while the suitability 
 of the subjects arising from scenes and incidents of English 
 cjuntry li:e cann' t be surpassed elsewhere. 
 
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