Theoretically, retouching may be considered admissible, that is if the impression can be made more true by it. There are, perhaps, half a dozen painters in the world who could do this, but no one else. Nature is far too subtle to be meddled with in this manner. We have discussed the question with many artists, and their verdict is the same as ours. It is the common plea of photographers that photography exaggerates the shadows, but we think it has been shown that if photography is properly practised, no such exaggeration of shadows takes place, and if it did, retouching would only add to the falsity in another way. This retouching and painting over a photograph by incapable hands, by whom it is always done, is much to be deprecated. The result is but a hybrid, and is intolerable to any artist. One fatal fact in all painted photographs, and one which for ever keeps them without the realm of art, is that the shadows, being photographic, are black and not filled with reflected colour as in nature and as in good oil painting. The same remark applies to mechanically-coloured photographs. Such abominations, from an art point of view may, however, be useful in the trades, for pattern plates and such things. Consider for a moment the habit of working up in crayon, monochrome, water-colour and oils. What does it mean? and how is it done? In some establishments the practice is for a clerk to note down certain of the sitter’s characteristics, such as “hair light, eyes blue, necktie black;” these remarks are sent with a photograph, generally an enlargement, to the artist! He, in a conventional and crude manner, makes necessarily a travesty of the portrait, and for these abominations the customer pays from 5l. to 20l. Consider the utter sham and childishness of the whole proceeding, and remember that a portrait painter of the greatest ability can only paint with the model actually before him, yet these workers-up, who are not artists at all, can paint from memoranda made by a clerk. It is astonishing to think there are people in the world foolish enough to pay for such trash. Even the very best oil painting done in such a way is but trash, and if the photographic base is so destroyed or covered over that none of it shows, it must then be judged on the grounds of monochrome drawing or painting as the case may be, and a sad thing it is when judged on these grounds. |Posthumous portraits and busts.| It may be said, “But painters paint posthumous portraits.” Yes, they do, confiding public, but they paint them as sculptors model posthumous busts, but they do not call them works of art. We know several artists who are compelled by necessity and the vanity of human nature to execute these posthumous portraits, and we know, too, how they value such work. But it must not be forgotten what a gulf separates able artists from the third-rate “workers-up” for photographers. Moreover, true artists never attempt posthumous portraits on the top of a photograph, but simply use the photograph as a guide for modelling, light and shade, &c., a quite legitimate use, both for painter and sculptor. |Phot. Soc. Great Britain.| The Photographic Society of Great Britain is to be congratulated on the stand it has made in the matter by not hanging any of these abominations on their walls, and it is to be hoped they will stand firm and never admit coloured photographs of any kind until the great problem of photography in natural colours be solved.
We have amongst photographers to-day persons who pride themselves on their skill in taking out of a photograph double chins, wrinkles, freckles, and all the character of a face, and who call themselves, we believe, “high art photographers,” mere flatterers of mankind’s weaknesses are they, not even honest craftsmen. And not only do they thus mutilate portraits, but with their Chinese white and Indian ink will they, with all the confidence of the uneducated, touch up a landscape or a face with no model before them. Of tonality of course they never heard, and Nature they never knew. It was once our lot to judge the pictures at a Cambridge photographic exhibition, and we were not a little staggered by the audacity with which one noted “London firm” had touched up and worked upon an opal enlargement of Niagara Falls. The picture was very true and beautiful before those vandals had got hold of it, but, great Cæsar! what a sight it was afterwards, with its impasto of Chinese white, and its shiny gum polished, India ink deepened shadows! In short, a more meretricious production it has seldom been our lot to inspect, and this thing was exhibited by an University undergraduate! If such is the taste of an educated man, what can one expect from the rest of the world! Let, then, the student avoid all these meretricious productions as he would all vulgarities, such as eating his peas with his knife. No first-rate artist will allow his prints to be retouched; he would never be able to bear the look of them afterwards. That the idea of retouching springs from a wrong theory is evident, the improper use of lenses gave false drawing, and people were in artistically and sharply photographed, so that wrinkles, warts, freckles, and even the pores of the skin showed, and then arose the demand for a retoucher to correct all that, and one error led to another, although, without doubt, the false work of a retoucher is much truer than the false work of an uneducated operator. Certainly people do not see, at the distance a photograph is taken from, the wrinkles, spots, and other small blemishes, and they are too uneducated to see the falseness of tone which retouching engenders. Of all the photographers who talk glibly of art, we warrant scarcely one is able to distinguish between a bust carved by a stone-mason, one carved by a mediocre sculptor, and one carved by a master, in fact we have proved this, and yet they talk, talk, write, and lecture on art; while to an artist the difference between each of those three busts is as great as the difference between a mountain, a hillock, and a marsh. The public see the warts and spots and call them false, the greater falsity of tone and retouching they cannot distinguish. An etcher once remarked to us, “How is it photographers seem to do everything to make photographs anything but photographs?” And such is the case; the matchless beauty of a pure and artistic photograph does not satisfy their vulgar minds, and yet such is the only kind of photograph at which artists will look.
It is now fifty years since Daguerre publicly announced Niepce’s discoveries, and on the scientific and industrial side, photography has results to show nothing short of marvellous, but what has it to show on the artistic side? Of the thousands who have practised photography since 1839, and who are now dead, how many names stand out as having done work of any artistic value? Only three. One a master, who was at the same time a sculptor, namely, Adam Salomon; one a trained painter, but without first-rate artistic ability, Rejlander; and one, an amateur,—Mrs. Cameron. Beside these three there is no name among the numerous dead photographers worth a mention. And have matters improved? Well may it be asked by those who have the good of photography at heart, whether it will always be thus. We hope not; but if it is to be otherwise, some radical change must be made, and the blind no longer lead the blind. We have said, then, that of all the thousands of craftsmen who have practised photography and are dead, three names only stand out as having produced works to which we can apply the title artistic. Now let us see what those three have to say to the matter of retouching.
Mr. Adam Salomon, though he strengthened certain parts of his negatives by artificial means, which in the hands of an accomplished artist like himself, was admissible, condemned retouching altogether. He says, “Eschewing retouching with brush or pencil on the film, risking the further deterioration of the negative, I make light finish the task it has, from want of time, or bad quality, insufficiently done, and in such a manner that no hand can hope to rival its delicacy and precision, and this is the only plan that a lover of his calling can justifiably pursue.” So we see that a highly-trained sculptor, like Adam Salomon, dared not retouch, but only sunned down violent contrasts at first, and then printed in all the picture, so that it could not be detected; yet Adam Salomon, in our opinion, could have quite legitimately worked on his negatives, being as he was a highly-trained artist.
Rejlander, not being a painter of great ability, but having a painter’s training, tried all methods until he arrived at the legitimate scope of photography, then he came to the conclusion that retouching was inadmissible, and it must be remembered that Rejlander was more capable of retouching truthfully than any retoucher has been since, and yet he says, “I think the practice of retouching the negative a sad thing for photography. It is impossible, for even very capable artists, to rival or improve the delicate, almost mysterious gradations of the photograph. Magnify the photographic rendering of, say, the human eye, with a strong lens, and it is found to be almost startling in its marvellous truth. Magnify the retouched image, and it will look like coarse deformity. It ceases to be true. I have sometimes seen a touched photograph which looked very nice, but it possessed no interest for me; I knew it could not be trusted. I have been charged with sophisticating photographs because I combined and masked and sunned prints. But there is a great distinction between suppressing and adding; I never added. I stopped-out portions of the negatives which I did not require to form my picture; I sunned down that which was obtrusive, and where one negative would not serve, I used two or more, joining them with at much truth as I could. But I never attempted to improve negatives. I never believed that I could draw better or more truly than Nature. I consider a touched photograph spoiled for every purpose.” This, then, was Rejlander’s verdict, and though from this we gather he had not yet thrown off the fallacy of combination-printing, yet he subsequently abjured that also. Even when he did use combination-printing, he practised it in a manner never equalled by his imitators, for like all imitators they have copied the bad qualities and left all the genius behind.
Mrs. Cameron, the last and least of the three, had knowledge and feeling enough also to eschew retouching, none of her work is retouched, just as she had knowledge enough to use a rapid rectilinear lens, although working in the wet-collodion days, for she evidently saw what escaped so many other workers, that the drawing was truer with that lens than with the quicker portrait lenses.
When it comes, by the means of retouching, to straightening noses, removing double chins, eliminating squints, fattening cheeks, and smoothing skins, we descend to an abyss of charlatanism and jugglery, which we will not stop to discuss. That such things pay and please vain and stupid people, no one denies, but so do contortionists please a certain public, so do jugglers and tight-rope dancers, and such like, but all that is not art.
There are various practices of doctoring the negative by using paint and other mediums on the backs, or by grinding the backs of the negatives. These are, in our opinion, all unnecessary and harmful, the remarks on retouching apply equally well here. Such artifices may easily deceive and even please the uneducated, but the artist only sees them to despise and condemn them. The technique of photography is perfect, no such botchy aids are necessary, they take the place of the putty of the bad carpenter.
Of course, spotting does not come under the head of retouching. The spotter does not attempt to modify structure or tone, but merely to render an unavoidable and accidental “blemish” less patent. All spots should be filled with red paint mixed with a little gum and water, but care must be exercised in this operation, to put on only just enough paint to fill the hole.
Our parting injunction, then, to the photographer who would be an artist, is, avoid retouching in all its forms; it destroys texture and tone, and therefore the truth of the picture.
Having his negative, the next thing our student will want to do is to print from it; but before doing so, it will be necessary to decide upon the process he will use.
This is a question of great moment, and one which will here be considered on purely artistic grounds. |Silver prints.| When first we began photography, we printed in all sorts of ways; but silver printing, on account chiefly of its unpleasant glaze, was soon discarded. |Platinotype.| Then we prepared some ordinary drawing paper, and printed on that, till one day we saw an album of views printed in platinotype. Their beauty acted like a charm, and straightway we took to platinotype. Still we felt that for portraiture, a red colour gave a truer impression. |Carbon.| So we tried carbon, and practised it when necessary. Even now, when we look back on those days, we remember the intense pleasure carbon printing gave us. |Platinotypes.| In the year 1882, when we first exhibited at Pall Mall, we sent four platinotype prints, and two silver prints. At that exhibition there were only three other exhibits in platinotype. Immediately after that exhibition we determined to give up all methods of printing except platinotype, and we have since steadily by example and precept advocated that process. When we were brought into contact with artists, and learned something of art, we knew the reason of what we had instinctively felt to be true. And now, after much experience and careful examination, in many cases in company with able artists, of all the printing papers and processes to-day employed, we emphatically assert that the platinotype process is facile princeps. We should maintain this, even if platinotypes were no more permanent than silver prints, but here again, as in all good things, simplicity of manipulation goes with excellency, for there is no doubt that platinotypes are permanent, they will last in good condition as long as the paper on which they are printed. This fact alone would finally place the process at the head of the list. Since the introduction of the platinotype process various papers have been introduced into the market, with unglazed surfaces, for which the quality of permanency has been claimed. Several of these are old methods re-dressed, as the gelatino-bromide and chloride papers. But are these papers permanent? At any rate they do not give any truer tonality than silver prints, and this is a fatal drawback. We have examined hundreds of prints on gelatino-bromide and chloride paper, and they all give false tonality as compared with platinotype. |Fading of prints.| The gelatino-bromide paper like all silver prints, whether matt or glazed, is false in tonality, the blacks are too black, and the whole picture lowered in tone. Then, again, as to the question of permanency, it is of course incontestable that silver prints fade, and as regards the gelatino-bromide paper, experiment has not proved it to be permanent. |Mr. Spiller on gelatino-bromide prints.| This is what a chemist, Mr. A. Spiller, says in the Year Book of Photography and Photographic News for 1888; writing on “Bromide versus albumenized paper,” he says, “From the above considerations it may fairly be conceded that under the same conditions a bromide print will most likely remain intact longer than an albumenized paper print; but more than this, I am afraid, with the evidence at present at hand, we are not in a position to state. In offering this, it must be understood, that only under equally favourable circumstances is the bromide process likely to yield results more permanent than that on albumenized paper, for just as a gelatine plate or silver print fades when the ‘hypo’ fixer has been imperfectly removed, so again in the bromide process, if insufficient washing after fixing be resorted to, the resulting photograph cannot be expected to last long.”
Such was the opinion of every photographer who had thought the matter out, but we give Mr. Spiller’s opinion since it is that of a specialist in chemistry. In conjunction with a noted landscape-painter we went carefully into this question of the different printing processes, for a book we were conjointly engaged upon was to be illustrated by photographs from our negatives. We soon determined, on artistic grounds, that there was nothing that could compete with platinotype. Before deciding, however, we wrote to a leading producer of gelatino-bromide papers, asking him if he could guarantee the permanency of prints on this paper. When the answer came it was evasive and unaccompanied by any guarantee. These gelatino-bromide papers are to be met with under different names, and though for certain trade or industrial purposes they may be invaluable, for artistic purposes they are inferior to platinotype. Carbon, though superior to silver printing, is still inferior to platinotype, for even when the glaze is got rid of, the method of the formation of the image, being sculpturesque, gives a falsity of appearance and an unnatural running together (like melted wax) of portions of the detail.
There is, then, in our opinion, for the art student, but one process in which to print, and that is the platinotype process discovered by Mr. Willis. Every photographer who has the good and advancement of photography at heart, should feel indebted to Mr. Willis for placing within his power a process by which he is able to produce work comparable, on artistic grounds, with any other black and white process. We have no hesitation in saying that the discovery and subsequent practice of this process has had an incalculable amount of influence in raising the standard of photography. No artist could rest content to practise photography alone as an art, so long as such inartistic printing methods as the pre-platinotype processes were in vogue. If the photo-etching process and the platinotype process were to become lost arts, we, for our part, should never take another photograph.
But here it is necessary to warn the student against the remarks of the platinotype company and many of their admirers, who maintain that for good prints “plucky” negatives are necessary; and then follows the old story about “fire,” “snap,” “sparkle,” and Co. As we have already despatched that gang, we will spend no more time over their funeral. For low-toned effects, and for grey-day landscapes, the platinotype process is unequalled, but the “fire,” “snap,” “sparkle” company think such effects bad, weak, muddy, and what not. Of course, the student will listen to nothing of this, but try for himself, and when he wants advice, let him ask it of good artists. We once showed a grey-day effect to a clerk at the Platinotype Company’s Office, having previously had the opinion of some first-rate painters upon it; the clerk looked at it critically and said, “Yes, very nice; but look at this,” and he took us to a frame hanging in the same room and pointed to a commonplace view, taken with a small stop in bright sunlight—a view, we believe, of a church or something of that kind; there was his ideal of what a platinotype should be. The print in question was about fit for a house-agent’s window. No! Platinotype printers do not seem to know what a good thing they have. Their paper is as suitable and as beautiful for soft grey-day effects as for brilliant sunshiny effects, and it is to be hoped they will soon have their eyes opened to this fact, and cease to encourage the false notion that good, ergo plucky, sparkling, snappy negatives are those required for the use of the paper. The process, however, is not perfect, the only perfect printing process being photo-etching, as we shall show presently; but of all the processes for printing from the negative it is the best; of all the typographic processes it is the best; and it is better than many of the copperplate processes.
Since writing this chapter, Mr. Willis has introduced a great improvement in his process, by which the print can be developed with a cold solution; but what is far more important, artistically speaking, the development can be controlled, for the developer can be applied with a brush, so that parts can be intensified or kept back at will, and “sinking-in” is avoided. This is a great and distinct advance.
The Ferro-Prussiate printing process, of course, does not concern us, blue prints are only for plans, not for art.
Our printing process, then, is to be platinotype and platinotype only, and as there is no use in swelling this work with facts already published, we advise every student to get full directions from the Platinotype Company, 29, Southampton Row, High Holborn, London, and to study them carefully. It is advisable to arrange the printing so that you are not compelled to keep the paper any time; get it fresh when required, therefore, and only as much as you require for immediate use. Before putting it in the box, drive all the moisture out of the calcium-chloride by heating it on a shovel, or old tray, over the fire, and dry the box thoroughly before the fire. Dry also all the printing frames thoroughly before a fire, also the rubbers, the use of which must not be neglected. Be sure you mix the baths and developer with pure boiled distilled water only, or else you will be apt to find a fine powder on the prints.
Be very careful not to place the prints in water between the washings. Above all, never use your dishes for any other purpose. Some photographers, living in the country, complain that they cannot get up heat to boil a large enough quantity of developer for 12 × 10 prints. |Lamps.| We found an excellent heating apparatus in the tin spirit lamps with treble wicks, supplied by Allen of Marylebone Lane, with his portable Turkish baths. With two of these lamps we had no difficulty in heating a developer for 24 × 22 prints. The dish can be supported by blocks of wood at the four corners, and raised to the height required by other blocks, or a tripod. The prints when taken from the washing water should be dried on a clean sheet, and are finally improved by pressing with a warm iron. |Spotting.| For spotting, India ink is the most suitable medium. This, it is said, is permanent, and any shade can be got, but good India ink, like many other articles of trade, is a rare thing.
There are different kinds of paper sold by the Platinotype Company for printing, and the printer will of course choose the texture of paper that suits his subject. Delicate landscapes and small portraits should be printed on the smooth papers, while for strong effects, large figure subjects, and large portraits full of character, the rough papers are more suitable. |Colour.| The charcoal grey tint of ordinary platinotypes is apt to become monotonous in book illustration, and it is as well to vary it occasionally by using the sepia tints; these are quite suitable for landscapes and certain figure subjects. Directions are given by the company for producing this colour. A great desideratum is a red colour for portraiture, and it is to be hoped that Mr. Willis will see his way to producing a paper on which prints in what is called “Bartolozzi red” can be obtained. Red, though it does not give such true tonality, gives a truer impression of flesh and texture, just as sepia often gives a truer impression of certain kinds of landscape. But of course these tints must be used with judgment, and no one but a vandal would print a landscape in red, or in cyanotype. Having now disposed of the question of the printing process to be used, we must discuss some of the details incidental to printing.
Whoever introduced the practice of vignetting was no artist, and the “dodge” was evolved from a misconception of the aims of art, or for commercial purposes. Its origin is obvious, the idea was taken from one of the incomplete methods of artistic expression, such as chalk drawing. In such methods the artist has a perfect right to leave the background untinted, or only to shade round the head so as to give it relief, but with a perfect technique like photography, vignetting is useless, nay inartistic and false, as it destroys all tonality. We get by this method a softly delicately lighted head, against a sparkling background, the two are incompatible, and not only that, but the photographer who vignettes is deliberately throwing away a most effective aid to perfect impression, namely, the relief effected by the reflected light from his background, and when you add to this the conventional shape of the vignetted head and shadows, the result is feeble in the extreme. Here, then, is another false god which has for years held sway. We ask the student, did he ever see a vignette painted by Da Vinci, Rembrandt, Holbein, Velasquez, Gainsborough, or Frank Hals? Such men knew too well the value of a background to throw it away; they could not have painted a vignetted head. Look at their chalk drawings, and the case is very different; there they were dealing with an incomplete method, and kept rigidly within their bounds. In our early photographic days, we learned printing from an industrial photographer, who did an extensive business in vignetted heads, and it was a source of great amusement to us to watch the mechanical application of the vignettes by the “head” printer. This is of course another source of the mechanical appearance of ordinary photographs; for by vignetting fifty different heads a certain uniformity must result, as in a regiment dressed in uniform, with of course the fatal result, the loss of all individuality, character, and of course art. The few photographic portraits that we have seen worth studying were certainly not vignetted. Mrs. Cameron did not vignette, she knew better. That people demand vignettes and pay for them is nothing to us, let photographers sell them as they do scraps and chromographs, and other fancy articles, if it please the childish and vulgar, but let them not be called works of art, for on the contrary they are certain indices of bad taste. Vignetting might be admissible in certain decorative cases in book illustration, as when a landscape decorates an initial letter, but in pictures for framing, never.
The simplest application of this method is the printing of a cloud into a landscape from a different negative. Though it is far preferable to obtain the clouds on the same negative, and this is quite easy in ortho-chromatic photography, it is, if you use great judgment, admissible to print in clouds from a separate negative, but this requires an intimate knowledge of out-door effects, and the clouds must be taken in a particular way. Printing in clouds is admissible because, if well done, a truer impression of the scene is rendered. |Cloud negatives.| But the ordinary way of taking cloud negatives is much to be condemned. The practice is to point the camera to the zenith if need be, to focus sharply, to to use the smallest stop, develop and select for final use according to the lighting, indeed, not always being very particular on that point. But, by elevating the camera a point of sight is taken different from that employed in taking the landscape; by focussing sharply, often using a lens drawing falsely, the clouds are rendered false in tone and false in drawing. All this an artist detects in a moment, a craftsman, never. The first necessity, then, in taking cloud negatives is that the point of sight shall be the same as that chosen for the landscapes; the second that the clouds shall be so focussed and developed that their tonality shall remain true; and the third and most important point, that the cloud form shall be harmonious with the landscape. The very simplest truths of nature are daily ignored by photographers in the works they exhibit. There are often three, or even four suns in one landscape, or at least the evidence of them; mighty cumuli float over lakes where there is no ripple, and yet there is no reflection; or, as we have seen, reflections of clouds have been printed in where there are ripple marks; or heavy nimbi lighted from one direction are placed over cirro-cumuli lighted from another direction; or, again, a setting sun sinks to rest over wave-broken water that reflects glints of light from exactly the opposite direction.
The best way, then, if a cloud negative is wanted, is to take it at the same time as the landscape and from the same point of view, getting as much as possible the same impression as seen in nature. The exposure must of course be by a shutter set quickly. |To print in clouds.| We think the best way of printing in clouds so obtained, is to take a piece of damp tissue paper the size of the negative, gum it round the edges to the back of the negative, then with some blacklead and a stump blacken the sky out when the paper is dry, carefully following the contours of those objects which stand in relief against the sky with a lead pencil. In this way you can with marvellous accuracy stop out the sky, and the work being on the back of the negative and in plumbago, the contours still show the mingled decision and indecision of nature. The print is then taken, and afterwards the cloud negative is arranged as desired, the sky-line being covered with cotton-wool and the rest of the exposed landscape by a black cloth. No special printing frames are required for this purpose, only one a size or two larger than the negative you are printing from. Cloud printing, as we have said, is the simplest form of combination printing, and the only one admissible when we are considering artistic work. |Combination printing.| Rejlander, however, in the early days of photography, tried to make pictures by combination printing. This process is really what many of us practised in the nursery; that is cutting out figures and pasting them into white spaces left for that purpose in a picture-book. With all the care in the world, the very best artist living could not do this satisfactorily. Nature is so subtle that it is impossible to do this sort of patchwork and represent her. Even if the greater truths be registered, the lesser truths, still important, cannot be obtained, and the softness of outline is entirely lost. The relation of the figure to the landscape can never be truly represented in this manner, for all subtle modelling of the contours of the figure are lost. Such things are easy enough to do, and when we first began photography we did a few, but soon gave it up, convinced of its futility. |Rejlander.| Rejlander, though he tried it, soon saw the folly of such play, and he is the only artist we know of who used it. Mrs. Cameron and Adam Salomon never indulged in such things that we know of. Some writers have honoured this method of printing by calling it the highest form of photographic work. Heaven help them! The subject is hardly worth as many words, for though such “work” may produce sensational effects in photographic galleries, it is but the art of the opera bouffe.
In printing, variously shaped masks are used. There is no objection to them, but in our opinion they do not in any way improve the subject, although they do not necessarily spoil it like vignetting.
Besides all these “dodges,” there are machines for producing imitation enamel portraits in basso-relievo and cavi-relievo, but all such ideas are false in theory, and the results inartistic hybrids unworthy of any serious consideration.
Here, then, we come to an end of the subject of printing, and in our opinion the student should consider himself fortunate indeed in having so beautiful a method as the platinotype process with which to work.
The best enlargements made for the trade are made from very sharply-focussed negatives. In fact, some of the best enlargers take up the negative from which the enlargement is to be made, and examine it with a small magnifying-glass, and if any of the outlines are woolly they will not promise a good enlargement. This, then, shows that a small negative must be taken very sharply if it is to produce a good enlargement; that is, it must be taken purely from that point of view, all artistic considerations being thrown aside. It is obvious, then, from what we have already said, that this is undesirable, for every negative should be suited to the subject.
Enlarging, too, of course increases all falseness in drawing; if the drawing in the different planes is wrong in the small negative, it will be still worse in the large negative or print.
But, it will be argued, and justly, that sometimes an enlargement is more artistic than the small picture from which it was produced. This is sometimes, but rarely, the case; and when such is the case, it is the result of chance. You would never be able to take a negative in a particular way so that you know for certain it will be improved by enlarging so many diameters, and therein lies the inherent defect which unfits this process for artistic work.
The actual process of enlarging is very simple, either by artificial light or daylight; but it is in our opinion a needless and undesirable proceeding.
We have made many experiments in this direction, but we have never yet been able to get an enlargement as fine in quality as the direct photograph. All the little subtleties which give quality to the work are either lost or are only obtained accidentally. Not long ago we saw a beautiful portrait—an enlargement, the print from the small negative of which was very poor, and no one was more surprised at the improvement in the enlargement than the photographer himself, but he could never make sure of doing the same thing again. Therefore eschew enlargements. A picture of fine quality, quarter-plate size, is worth a dozen enlargements 24 × 22.
It is only in certain very limited effects that the tonality will be true after enlargement, and that of course constitutes another fatal objection.
For industrial and educational purposes transparencies of all kinds are valuable, and we shall touch upon them elsewhere. |Lantern slides.| With lantern slides our art-student has nothing to do. A lantern picture is an optical illusion, and lantern slides are toys when they do not serve lecture purposes. For lecture purposes they are of course invaluable, but they have no place in art, neither have stereoscopic slides. They all rank with the camera obscura, the diorama, and the panorama.
We say all this because a beginner must be cautioned against paying any serious attention to these subjects if his aim be to become an artist. Art is much too serious for her devotees to trifle with any other subject, and besides the making of lantern and stereoscopic slides is apt to have a bad effect on the beginner. His attention becomes centered on the production of pretty things—a neat, small, superficial prettiness pervading most of the work of good lantern-slide workers. Conventional compositions and Birket-Foster prettiness are the lantern-slide maker’s beau-ideals. Of course these qualities are very admirable for lantern slides, for without them they would have but little attraction; but they are quite distinct from, and very, very far removed from, having any connection with fine art.
We know many artists who photograph and value photography per se, but we have yet to meet that one who deigns to make lantern slides except for the purpose of making enlargements from which to draw. It has been said that the appearance of stereoscopic pictures is wonderfully true; this is not the case. There is a lustre, false tonality, and apparent illusion, which to an artist makes them anything but true. In short, until photographers do away with much of the “play” of their art, and look at it seriously, they cannot hope that highly-trained artists will join in with them.
For scientific lectures of course lantern slides are invaluable, as we have already said, and for this purpose they should be untouched; but we cannot help smiling when we hear of producers of slides claiming for their work the title of “artistic,” because they are untouched and true. Absolute truth is not necessarily art, as we have often pointed out, and as Muybridge’s photographs prove.
Let our student, then, avoid these snares, unless he wishes to cultivate what Professor Herkomer has aptly called “Handkerchief-box art.”
From our earliest photographic days we always felt that all “ordinary” printing methods, however good in themselves, would finally have to give way to photo-mechanical methods, as all processes are called by which the negative is reproduced. All the photo-mechanical printing processes may be divided into two great classes:—
A. Processes in which the aim is to produce diagrams.
B. Processes in which the aim is to produce pictures.
For the first purpose any of the methods are useful: that is, typographic processes, where the block is set up with the type in the printing-press; the collotype process, where the prints are subsequently mounted on paper, or interleaved in a book; and the photo-etching process, where the plates are introduced between the leaves of a book.
|Diagrammatic plates.|
It is obvious that when the aim is diagrammatic, brilliancy, sharpness, correct drawing, and the truthful rendering of texture are the requisites, as in the reproductions of negatives from nature to illustrate scientific works, books of travel, &c. In such cases these are the main points to be considered; and when to these considerations is added the question of cost of production, it is evident nearly all the processes worth mentioning which are now in existence will serve one or other, or all such purposes. But when the question comes to be considered from an artistic point of view, the matter is totally different, for it is a sine quâ non in this case that all the artistic quality of the original photograph be preserved. |Art blocks.| Cost must not be considered. From the art point of view alone, then, we shall briefly discuss these processes. |Platinotypes.| As we said in a former chapter, of ordinary printing papers the platinotype is alone worth considering for this purpose, but for book illustration a serious objection to its use is its monotony. For, although there are two colours, the charcoal grey and the sepia, the gamut of colour is very limited; a serious matter this, for our experience leads us to believe that there is a particular colour and tint especially suitable to each subject. Another objection to all ordinary printing papers is the want of relief in the gelatine film of an ordinary negative, a want which gives a certain flatness in the resulting print, when compared with a print from a copperplate where the cavi-relievo is deeper. Relief in the block undoubtedly has a great influence on all results, and in all the photo-mechanical processes “depth” is an essential, and the best processes are those in which the printing-plates have the deepest surfaces. Another fact which renders platinotype less valuable than photogravure is that there is always a certain amount of “sinking in” of the image, as there is with a painting on canvas; but a painting can be brought up by varnish, a platinotype cannot.[13]
13. This “sinking-in” is now scarcely appreciable with, the new cold-bath process.
Let us, then, examine the various processes, and see which will serve our purpose.
For artistic reasons we are of the opinion that Collotypes, Woodburytypes, and all such methods, are undesirable; and this we say deliberately, after long study of the subject, for in supervising and choosing illustrations for the books which we have illustrated we carefully examined specimens of nearly all the photo-mechanical processes extant. We say this, although one writer on the subject of photo-mechanical processes has given out the opinion that the ideal process is one in which the resulting print should be a facsimile of a “silver print;” but of course such a remark is artistically wrong, and is in keeping with the rest of the compilation in which the statement appears.
For the benefit of the student, then, we say there are but two processes to be considered for artistic book illustration—a typographic block to be printed with the text, and an intaglio copperplate. The typographic block has the whites lowered like a woodblock; and as it is printed in the ordinary way, with the type, there is no extra trouble or cost in the printing. With a copperplate, on the other hand, the plate must be carefully inked and wiped, and each print separately pulled by hand, the difference in time taken by this process, and consequently the cost, is therefore greatly increased.
After a careful examination of all the typographic processes we have no hesitation in saying that there is not one satisfactory in the market. When the original picture is not travestied and cheapened by mechanical-looking crenellations and stipplings, it is marred by obvious hand-work and by falsity of tonal translation. Any photo-mechanical process, to be perfect, must, as we have all along maintained, require no retouching of any kind. All the typographic blocks, too, are too shallow; hence in the rough working and pressure of the printing-press all tonal subtleties are lost in smudges, as the block becomes clogged with ink. Many of these blocks serve remarkably well for rough diagrammatic purposes, but for artistic purposes there is not one we can recommend when the object is to reproduce pictures taken from nature. For facsimile work they serve the purpose. |A great desideratum.| A first-rate photo-mechanical block to print with the text in the ordinary printing-press, which is entirely the result of a chemical process, is a great desideratum, and it is a problem which experimenters in this direction will do well to study. Not only is it that there is no typographic block adequate, but in addition, when the present process is employed for diagrammatic purposes, or to satisfy the pictorial standards of the untrained in art, they are terribly marred by crude retouchings and daubings with Chinese white, until such travesties of nature appear that are only to be equalled by some of the “finishing artists” of the photographic studio. Yet, bad as these block processes are, they are infinitely better than the second-rate woodcuts made from photographs. Day after day, books appear illustrated with woodcuts done from photographs, in which the woodcutter has effectually ruined all the beauty of the photograph. If the student, then, should ever be in the position of having to choose between the facsimile woodcuts of English woodcutters find photo-mechanical block-work, let him choose the latter as the lesser evil; it is better than any except the American school of facsimile woodcutters. And here it may be well to note a dishonest practice which is daily becoming more common with writers of books of travel who buy photographs abroad, and unscrupulously have their books illustrated with them. We know of certain such illustrations which are advertised as being prints from woodblocks done from sketches by the author. Quite recently a book of travel appeared illustrated with third-rate woodcuts purporting to be done from sketches by the author, which were really done from photographs purchased in the shops abroad. We know of one case where this was done in England, the photographs pirated being English photographs. Should such a thing ever happen to the student, he must, as a duty to the photographic world, prosecute without compunction, and exact the utmost penalty of the law. Such dishonesty is one of the most despicable forms of thieving.