Having explained the only true method of taking binocular portraits which will appear in correct relief when placed in the stereoscope, we shall proceed in this chapter to point out the application of the stereoscope to the art of painting in all its branches. In doing this we must not forget how much the stereoscope owes to photography, and how much the arts of design might reasonably expect from the solar pencil, when rightly guided, even if the stereoscope had never been invented.

When the processes of the Daguerreotype and Talbotype, the sister arts of Photography, were first given to the world, it was the expectation of some, and the dread of others, that the excellence and correctness of their delineations would cast into the shade the less truthful representations of the portrait and the landscape painter. An invention which supersedes animal power, or even the professional labour of man, might have been justly hailed as a social blessing, but an art which should supersede the efforts of genius, and interfere with the exercise of those creative powers which represent to us what is beautiful and sublime in nature, would, if such a thing were possible, be a social evil.

The arts of painting, sculpture, and architecture have in every age, and in every region of civilisation, called into exercise the loftiest genius and the deepest reason of man. Consecrated by piety, and hallowed by affection, the choicest productions of the pencil and the chisel have been preserved by the liberality of individuals and the munificence of princes, while the palaces of sovereigns, the edifices of social life, the temples of religion, the watch-towers of war, the obelisks of fame, and the mausolea of domestic grief, stand under the azure cupola of heaven, to attest by their living beauty, or their ruined grandeur, the genius and liberality which gave them birth. To the cultivation and patronage of such noble arts, the vanity, the hopes, and the holiest affections of man stand irrevocably pledged; and we should deplore any invention or discovery, or any tide in the nation’s taste, which should paralyse the artist’s pencil, or break the sculptor’s chisel, or divert into new channels the genius which wields them. But instead of superseding the arts of design, photography will but supply them with new materials,—with collections of costume,—with studies of drapery and of forms, and with scenes in life, and facts in nature, which, if they possess at all, they possess imperfectly, and without which art must be stationary, if she does not languish and decline.

Sentiments analogous to these have been more professionally expressed by M. Delaroche, a distinguished French artist,—by Sir Charles Eastlake, whose taste and knowledge of art is unrivalled,—and by Mr. Ruskin, who has already given laws to art, and whose genius is destined to elevate and to reform it. M. Delaroche considers photography “as carrying to such perfection certain of the essential principles of art, that they must become subjects of study and observation, even to the most accomplished artist.”... “The finish of inconceivable minuteness,” he says, “disturbs in no respect the repose of the masses, nor impairs in any way the general effect.... The correctness of the lines, the precision of the forms in the designs of M. Daguerre, are as perfect as it is possible they can be, and yet, at the same time, we discover in them a broad and energetic manner, and a whole equally rich in hue and in effect. The painter will obtain by this process a quick method of making collections of studies, which he could not otherwise procure without much time and labour, and in a style very far inferior, whatever might be his talents in other respects.” In the same spirit, Mr. Ruskin[58] considers “the art of photography as enabling us to obtain as many memoranda of the facts of nature as we need;” and long before Mr. Talbot taught us to fix upon paper the pictures of the camera obscura, the Rev. John Thomson, one of the most distinguished of our Scottish landscape painters, studied, in one of these instruments, the forms and colours of the scenes which he was to represent. Other artists, both in portrait and in landscape, now avail themselves of photography, both as an auxiliary and a guide in their profession; but there are certain difficulties and imperfections in the art itself, and so many precautions required in its right application, whether we use its pictures single, as representations on a plane, or take them binocularly, to be raised into relief by the stereoscope, that we must draw from the principles of optics the only rules which can be of real services to the arts of design.

In painting a landscape, a building, a figure, or a group of figures, the object of the artist is to represent it on his canvas just as he sees it, having previously selected the best point of view, and marked for omission or improvement what is not beautiful, or what would interfere with the effect of his picture as a work of high art. His first step, therefore, is to fix upon the size of his canvas, or the distance at which the picture is to be seen, which determines its size. His own eye is a camera obscura, and the relation between the picture or image on its retina is such, that if we could view it from the centre of curvature of the retina, (the centre of visible direction,) a distance of half an inch, it would have precisely the same apparent magnitude as the object of which it is the image. Let us now suppose that the artist wishes to avail himself of the picture in the camera obscura as received either on paper or ground-glass, or of a photograph of the scene he is to paint. He must make use of a camera whose focal length is equal to the distance at which his picture is to be seen, and when the picture thus taken is viewed at this distance (suppose two feet) it will, as a whole, and in all its parts, have the same apparent magnitude as the original object. This will be understood from Fig. 47, in which we may suppose H to be the lens of the camera, RB the object, and Hy′ the distance at which it is to be viewed. The size of the picture taken with a lens at H, whose focal length is Hy′, will be b′r′, and an eye placed at H will see the picture b′r′ under an angle b′Hr′, equal to the angle RHB, under which the real object RB was seen by the artist from H. In like manner, a larger picture, byr, taken by a camera the focal distance of whose lens at H is Hy, will be an accurate representation of the object RB, when viewed from H, and of the same apparent magnitude. If either of these pictures, b′r′ or br, are viewed from greater or less distances than Hy′, or Hy, they will not be correct representations of the object RB, either in apparent magnitude or form. That they will be of a different apparent magnitude, greater when viewed at less distances than Hy′, Hy, and less when viewed at greater distances, is too obvious to require any illustration. That they will differ in form, or in the relative apparent size of their parts, has, so far as I know, not been conjectured. In order to shew this, let us suppose a man six feet high to occupy the foreground, and another of the same size to be placed in the middle distance, the distance of the two from the artist being ten and twenty feet. The apparent magnitudes of these two men on the photograph will be as two to one; and if we look at it at any distance greater or less than the focal length Hy′ of the lens, the same proportion of two to one will be preserved, whereas if we look at the original figures at a greater or less distance from them than the place of the artist, the ratio of their apparent magnitudes will be altered. If the artist, for example, advances five feet, the nearest man will be five feet distant and the other fifteen feet, so that their apparent magnitude will now be as three to one.

The same observations apply to a portrait of the human face. In looking at a human profile let us suppose the breadth of the nose to be one inch, that of the ear one inch, and that we view this profile at the distance of three feet from the ear, which is two inches nearer the observer than the nose. The apparent magnitude of the ear and nose will be as thirty-eight to thirty-six inches, whereas if we view the profile from the distance of one foot the ratio will be as fourteen to twelve, that is, the ear will be increased in apparent size more than the nose. Hence it follows that all pictures should be viewed under the same angle of apparent magnitude under which they were seen by the artist as taken photographically, for if we view them at a greater or less angle than this we do not see the same picture as when we looked at the original landscape or portrait, under the same angle of apparent magnitude.

From the observations made in the preceding Chapter on photographic and stereoscopic portraiture, the reader must have already drawn the inference that the same landscape or building, seen at different distances, varies essentially in its character,—beauties disclosing themselves and defects disappearing as we approach or recede from them. The picture in the camera, therefore, as used by Mr. Thomson, or, what is still better, with the exception of colour, the photograph obtained by the same instrument, will supply the artist with all the general materials for his picture. The photograph will differ considerably from any sketch which the artist may have himself made, owing to certain optical illusions to which his eye is subject. The hills and other vertical lines in the distance will be lower in the photograph than in his sketch.[59] The vertical lines of buildings will converge upwards in the photograph, as they ought to do, in receding from the eye; and in the same picture there will be a confusion, as we shall afterwards shew, in the delineation of near and minute objects in the foreground, increasing with the size of the lens which he has employed.

In his admirable chapter “On Finish,” Mr. Ruskin has established, beyond a doubt, the most important principle in the art of painting. “The finishing of nature,” he states, “consists not in the smoothing of surface, but the filling of space, and the multiplication of life and thought;” and hence he draws the conclusion, that “finishing means, in art, simply telling more truth.” Titian, Tintoret, Bellini, and Veronese have, as he has shewn, wrought upon this principle, delineating vein by vein in the leaf of the vine, petal by petal in the borage-blossoms, the very snail-shells on the ground, the stripe of black bark in the birch-tree, and the clusters of the ivy-leaved toad-flax in the rents of their walls; and we have seen that a modern artist, Delaroche, considers a finish of inconceivable minuteness as neither disturbing the repose of the masses, nor interfering with the general effect in a picture.

The Pre-Raphaelites, therefore, may appeal to high authority for the cardinal doctrine of their creed; and whatever be their errors in judgment or in taste, they have inaugurated a revolution which will release art from its fetters, and give it a freer and a nobler aim. Nature is too grand in her minuteness, and too beautiful in her humility, to be overlooked in the poetry of art. If her tenderest and most delicate forms are worthy of admiration, she will demand from the artist his highest powers of design. If the living organizations of the teeming earth, upon which we hourly tread, are matchless in structure, and fascinating in colour, the palette of the painter must surrender to them its choicest tints. In the foreground of the highest art, the snail-shell may inoffensively creep from beneath the withered leaf or the living blade; the harebell and the violet may claim a place in the sylvan dell; the moss may display its tiny frond, the gnarled oak or the twisted pine may demand the recognition of the botanist, while the castle wall rises in grandeur behind them, and the gigantic cliffs or the lofty mountain range terminate the scene.

If these views are sound, the man of taste will no longer endure slovenliness in art. He will demand truth as well as beauty in the landscape; and that painter may change his profession who cannot impress geology upon his rocks, and botany upon his plants and trees, or who refuses to display, upon his summer or his autumn tablet, the green crop as well as the growing and the gathered harvest. Thus enlarged in its powers and elevated in its purposes, the art of painting will be invested with a new character, demanding from its votaries higher skill and more extended knowledge. In former times, the minute and accurate delineation of nature was a task almost impossible, requiring an amount of toil which could hardly be repaid even when slightly performed; but science has now furnished art with the most perfect means of arresting, in their most delicate forms, every object, however minute, that can enter into the composition of a picture. These means are the arts of photography and stereoscopic re-combination, when rightly directed, and it is the object of the present chapter to shew how the artist may best avail himself of their valuable and indispensable aid.

Every country and district, and even different parts of the same district, have a Flora and Geology peculiar to themselves; and the artist who undertakes to represent its beauties owes to truth the same obligations as the botanist who is to describe its plants, or the mineralogist its rocks and stones. The critic could not, in former times, expect more details from his unaided pencil than it has generally furnished; but with the means now at his command, he must collect, like the naturalist, all the materials for his subject. After the camera has given him the great features of his landscape, he must appeal to it for accurate delineations of its minuter parts,—the trunks, and stems, and leafage of his trees—the dipping strata of its sandstone beds—the contortions of its kneaded gneiss, or the ruder features of its trap and its granite. For the most important of these details he will find the camera, as at present constructed, of little service. It is fitted only to copy surfaces; and therefore, when directed to solid bodies, such as living beings, statues, &c., it gives false and hideous representations of them, as I have shewn in a preceding chapter. It is peculiarly defective when applied to parts of bodies at different distances from it, and of a less diameter than the lens. The photograph of a cube taken by a lens of a greater diameter, will display five of its sides in a position, when its true perspective representation is simply a single square of its surface. When applied to trees, and shrubs, and flowers, its pictures are still more unsatisfactory. Every stem and leaf smaller than the lens, though absolutely opaque, is transparent, and leaves and stems behind and beyond are seen like ghosts through the photographic image.

This will be understood from Fig. 48, in which LL is the lens of the camera, AB the breadth of the trunk or stem of a tree less than LL in width. Draw LA, LB, touching AB in the points A, B, and crossing at C. Objects behind AB, and placed within the angle ACB, will not have any images of them formed by the lens LL, because none of the rays which proceed from them can fall upon the lens, but objects placed within the angle ECF, however remote be their distance, will have images of them formed by the lens. If D, for example, be a leaf or a fruit, or a portion of a branch, the rays which it emits will fall upon the portions Lm, Ln of the lens, determined by drawing Dm, Dn touching AB, and an image of it will be formed in the centre of the photographic image of AB, as if AB were transparent. This image will be formed by all the portions of the surface of the lens on which the shadow of AB, formed by rays emanating from D, would not fall. If the object D is more remote, the shadow of AB will diminish in size, and the image of the object will be formed by a greater portion of the lens. If the sun were to be in the direction MN, his image would appear in the centre of the trunk or stem, corresponding to AB, Fig. 49.

If the stem occupies any other position, ab, Fig. 48, in the landscape, objects, such as d, within the angle ecf, will have images of them formed within the corresponding portion of the trunk or stem. Hence, if AB, Fig. 49, represents the shadow of the stem across the lens LL, the image of any object, which if luminous would give this shadow, will be formed within the photographic image of the stem, and as every part of it may have branches, or leaves, or fruit behind it, its photographs will be filled with their pictures, which will have the same distinctness as other equidistant parts of the landscape.

These observations are applicable to the limbs and slender parts of animate and inanimate figures, when they are of a less size than the lens with which their photograph is taken. They will be transparent to all objects behind them, and their true forms and shades cannot be taken with the cameras now in use.[60]

In order, therefore, to collect from nature the materials of his profession, the artist must use a camera with a lens not much larger than the pupil of his eye, and with such an instrument he will obtain the most correct drawings of the trunks and stems of trees, of the texture and markings of their bark, of the form of their leaves, and of all those peculiarities of structure and of leafage by which alone the trees of the forest can be distinguished. In like manner, he will obtain the most correct representations of the rocks and precipices, and the individual stones[61] which may enter into his picture,—of the plants which spring from their crevices or grow at their base, and of those flowers in their native grace and beauty, which hitherto he has either drawn from recollection, or copied from the formal representations of the botanist.

In addition to their correctness as true representations of natural forms, photographs have a peculiar value, for which no labour or skill on the part of the artist can compensate. In drawing the sketch of a landscape, or delineating the trees, rocks, and foliage which are near him, or the objects in the middle or remote distance, several hours must be spent. During this period, the landscape and its individual parts are undergoing no inconsiderable change. A breeze may disturb the masses of his foliage, and bend his tree stems, and ruffle his verdure, and throw new reflected lights upon the waving crops, while every direct light is changing in intensity and direction during the culmination or descent of the sun. What he has delineated in the morning will hardly correspond with what he draws at noon, and the distances which at one time are finely marked in aerial perspective, will disappear, or even suffer inversion by variations in the intensity and position of the haze. If cottages, or castles, or buildings of any kind, enter into the picture, the shadows of their projections, and the lights upon their walls and roofs will, in sunshine, undergo still greater variations, and the artist will be perplexed with the anachronisms and inconsistencies of his choicest materials. The landscape thus composed in patches will, in its photograph, have a very different aspect, as much in its forms as in its lights and shadows. The truths of nature are fixed at one instant of time; the self-delineated landscape is embalmed amid the co-existing events of the physical and social world. If the sun shines, his rays throw their gilding on the picture. If the rain-shower falls, the earth and the trees glisten with its reflexions. If the wind blows, the partially obliterated foliage will display the extent of its agitation. The objects of still life, too, give reality and animation to the scene. The streets display their stationary chariots, the esplanade its military array, and the market-place its colloquial groups, while the fields are studded with the forms and attitudes of animal life. The incidents of time and the forms of space are thus simultaneously recorded, and every picture from the sober palette of the sun becomes an authentic chapter in the history of the world.[62]

But, however valuable photography has become to the artist, science has recently given him another important auxiliary. In order to make this available, he must employ a small pocket binocular camera, to take double pictures to be united in the stereoscope. His trees will thus exhibit the roundness of their trunks and stems, the leaves and branches will place themselves at their proper distance, and he will discover the reason of peculiar effects which in the plane photograph he has been unable to understand. Seeing that his own picture is to be upon a plane surface, I can hardly expect to convince the artist that he will obtain more information by reproducing the original in relief. It is a fact, however, beyond dispute, that effects are produced by the stereoscopic union of two plane photographs which are invisible in the single picture. These effects, which are chiefly those of lustre and shade, are peculiarly remarkable in Daguerreotype, and it is by no means easy to explain the cause. In a Daguerreotype, for example, of two figures in black bronze, with a high metallic lustre, it is impossible, by looking at the single picture, to tell the material of which they are made; but the moment they are united into stereoscopic relief their true character is instantly seen. In a Daguerreotype of Alexander and Bucephalus, portions of the figure seem as if shaded with China ink of a nearly uniform tint, but when seen in relief the peculiar shade entirely disappears. The stereoscopic combination of two surfaces of different intensities, though of the same colour, produces effects which have not yet been sufficiently studied. But, independently of these peculiarities, the artist will certainly derive more aid from his landscape in relief, and from the study of its individual parts, in their roundness and relative distances, than when he examines them in their plane representations. The shadows which the branches of leaves cast upon the trunks and stems of his trees he will be able to trace to the causes which produce them. Effects in outline, as well as in light and shadow, which may perplex him, will find an explanation in the relative distances and differences of apparent magnitude of individual parts; and, after becoming familiar with his landscape in relief, as it exists in Nature, he cannot fail to acquire new principles and methods of manipulation. Nature flattened upon paper or metal, and Nature round and plump, as if fresh from the chisel of the Divine sculptor, must teach very different lessons to the aspiring artist.

The historical painter, or the more humble artist who delineates the scenes of common or domestic life, will derive from the photographic camera and the stereoscope advantages of equal importance. The hero, the sage, and the martyr, drawn from living originals, may be placed in the scenes where they suffered, or in the localities which they hallowed. The lawgiver of Egypt, though he exists only in the painter’s eye, may take his place beside the giant flanks of Horeb or the awe-inspiring summit of Mount Sinai; and He whom we may not name may challenge our love and admiration amid the sun-painted scenes of his youth, of his miracles, and of his humiliation. The fragments of ancient grandeur which time and war have spared, the relics of bygone ages which have resisted the destructive elements, will, as the materials of art, give reality and truth to the pictorial history of times past, while the painter of modern events can command the most accurate representations not only of the costume, but of the very persons of the great men whose deeds he is called upon to immortalize. The heroes of the Crimean war, whether friends or foes, will be descried in the trenches in which they fought, amid the ranks which they led to victory, or among the wrecks of the fatal encounter in which they fell. The sun will thus become the historiographer of the future, and in the fidelity of his pencil and the accuracy of his chronicle, truth itself will be embalmed and history cease to be fabulous.

But even in the narrower, though not less hallowed sphere of domestic life, where the magic names of kindred and home are inscribed, the realities of stereoscopic photography will excite the most thrilling interest. In the transition forms of his offspring, which link infancy with manhood, the parent will recognise the progress of his mortal career, and in the successive phases which mark the sunset of life, the stripling in his turn will read the lesson that his pilgrimage too has a term which must close. Nor are such delineations interesting only as works of art, or as incentives to virtue; they are instinct with associations vivid and endearing. The picture is connected with its original by sensibilities peculiarly tender. It was the very light which radiated from her brow,—the identical gleam which lighted up her eye,—the hectic flush or the pallid hue that hung upon her cheek, which pencilled the cherished image, and fixed themselves for ever there.