1861 ART JOURNAL, n.s. vol. VII
ver: Aug. 29, 2008
START:
NOTES:
--Italics have been retained from publications, which use them for both titles as well as emphasis. To more easily locate image titles, I have continued this italicization when titles have been rendered in all capitols or put in quotes, however italics have NOT been used when the general subject of an image is mentioned.
--Image numbers listed in articles can be either an entry number in an exhibition, or the photographer’s own image number as found on labels.
--All names have been bolded for easy location. Numbers frequently refer to the photographer’s image number, but can also refer to a number in a catalog for a show. Decide whether to bold or not if can tell.
--It is not always possible in lists of photographers to know when two separate photographers are partners or not, e.g., in a list, “Smith and Jones” sometimes alludes to two separate photographers and sometimes to one photographic company. Both names will be highlighted and indexed but a partnership may be wrongly assumed. Any information to the contrary would be appreciated.
-- Brackets [ ] are used to indicate supplied comments by the transcriber; parenthesis
( ) are used in the original sources. If the original source has used brackets, they have been transcribed as parenthesis to avoid confusion.
--“illus” means that I have the view mentioned and should be scanned and included.
--Articles by photographers about technical matters – when transcribed, only names and titles have been listed. If other names are associated with the paper they are listed as well.
--Meetings of Societies – Names of officers, members attending or referenced, dates and locations of meetings have been given. If the reports are very short or discuss photographs, then the articles have been copied; if administrative or technical in nature, they have not.
--“[Selection]” = This has been used when not all portions of a feature are copied, such as The Photographic News’ “Talk In The Studio”. If the word does not appear, then the entire feature was transcribed.
-- Some journals, e.g., The Art-Journal, cover both photographer and painting/drawing. As they frequently refer to the production of both the photographer and the painter as “pictures” it is not always possible to tell when photography is indicated. If there is doubt, it will be included but a note will be added stating that the names listed may in fact not be photographers.
--Mostly articles totally discussing technical aspects of photography, products, etc. are not transcribed unless they are part of a larger article covering photographs. When technical descriptions are too lengthy to transcribe that is noted.
--Cultural sensitivity – these are direct transcriptions of texts written in the 19th-century and reflect social comments being made at that time. Allowances must be made when reading some texts, particularly those dealing with other cultures.
1861: Art Journal, Jan. 1, n.s. vol. VII, no #, p. 30:
Minor Topics of the Month:
Stereoscopic Views of the Royal Palaces.
--Messrs. Murray and Heath have also very recently prepared a set of stereographs upon glass, of peculiar interest, and in the highest perfection. They represent both the exteriors and the interiors of the royal residences of Windsor, Buckingham House, Balmoral, and Osborne; and with these are associated some delightful views of the new Palace of Westminster. These truly magical works have been executed by M. Soulier, in his hitherto unrivalled manner; and, we may add, that the artist has visited England for the express purpose of devoting to them his attention, in compliance with the desire of Her Majesty the Queen. Never could Aladdin himself have contemplated such gorgeous visions as thus arise at the bidding of a cunning servant of that oldest and brightest of lamps—the sun. The stereoscope, with these positives on glass, brings before the observer the veritable images of the homes of English royalty with a vivid impressiveness that altogether defies description. We have sincere pleasure in congratulating the publishers upon the manner in which they have been enabled to obey the commands of the Queen, in bringing the palaces of England into the stereoscope. The stereoscopes of Messrs. Murray & Heath claim from us a distinct recognition of their singular excellence—a quality, indeed, which characterises all the photographic apparatus that is produced at their establishment.
1861: Art Journal, Feb. 1, n.s. vol. VII, no #, p. 47-48:
Exhibition of the Photographic Society.
The eighth exhibition of pictures by the members of the Photographic Society is now open, at the Gallery of the Society of Painters in Water Colours, Pall Mall East. There is a large collection of these sun-painted pictures; sufficiently large, indeed, to persuade the observer, that 1860 was not the year of gloom that most persons imagine it to have been. Although luminous and calorific rays may have been absorbed by the vapoury clouds which hung over our islands, it is quite evident that a fair proportion of the actinic radiations must have reached the rain-soddened earth. There can be no lack of enthusiasm amongst photographers. Notwithstanding the uncertainty of the past season, we perceive that the camera-obscura has penetrated the wildest moors, the most iron-bound coasts, the bleakest hills, and the recesses of the flooded valleys. The love of the art has carried the photographer onward through rains and storms. Indeed, we are disposed to believe that many of the most striking effects observable in the pictures exhibited, are due to that beautiful transparency of the atmosphere which follows a period of drenching rain.
Our catalogue informs us that 622 pictures are exhibited; but there are more than this number of frames, and many frames contain four and six photographs. This is a proof of industry amongst the members of the society; but, when we ask ourselves if there is any distinguishable advance in the art, we are compelled to pause. For several years we have seen photographs which have possessed all the qualities that mark the best of these chemical pictures, in an eminent degree. Minuteness of detail, sharpness of outline, aerial perspective, freedom from the convergence of perpendicular lines, are merits with which we are familiar. The pictures which Mr. Roger Fenton exhibits this year—many of them very beautiful—are in no respect superior to photographs exhibited by that gentleman four or five years since. The Cheddar Cliffs and the views at Lynmouth are very charming,--perhaps Mr. Francis Bedford never produced more perfect works—but we do not think them superior to many of the productions which Mr. Llewellyn, Mr. Sutton, and others have shown us. We were especially attracted by Mr. Bedford’s interiors. The views of parts of Canterbury Cathedral, of chosen bits of the Cathedrals of Wells and Exeter, together with portions of St. Mary Redcliffe Church, are all of them valuable studies to the artist, the architect, and the archæologist; but we have now before us views of the interior of St. Mary Redcliffe, taken full ten years since by Mr. Owen of Bristol, which are in no respect inferior to them. So we might proceed from one class of subjects to another, showing, and we believe correctly, that there has not been any real advance in the photographic art for many years.
The facilities for producing pictures, under all circumstances, are far greater than they were. Every mechanical arrangement has received, it would appear, the utmost amount of attention. The physical appliances have been improved, and the chemistry of the art, producing extreme sensibility to the solar influences, has been carefully studied. Yet we have not obtained pictures superior to those which marked the productions of the earlier exhibitions of the society. We cannot explain this. Has photography arrived at its maximum power? Can it not, by the aid of physical science—by the optician’s skill,--or the chemist’s experiments—be advanced higher? We believe much may yet be done; and we hope the society will interest itself in lighting the art beyond that dull level of excellence which ahs marked the exhibitions for several years.
It is not possible for us, even were it desirable, to go through the long list of productions, so much like each other, and so nearly resembling the photographs which we have seen in former years. Fenton is good in his landscapes, but we venture to ask him if he has been quite so careful as usual; Bedford deserves praise; Cundall and Downes are in no respects behind; Caldesi has many beautiful studies; Maxwell Lyte has proved what can be done with metagelatine; Vernon Heath has wandered with advantage amidst the woods of Devonshire.; James Mudd exhibits many pictures—all of them excellent--many of them may be classed with the best photographs ever produced. Maull and Polyblank require no advertisement for their portraits, nor do the London Stereoscopic Society. There are some successful attempts, not so ambitious as many which Lake Price and others have exhibited, in the direction of subject pictures. ‘The Holiday in the Wood’ [by Robinson], is the most successful of these, but the grouping indicates a deficiency of artistic feeling. Some of the small and so-called instantaneous pictures are good, but, with the extreme sensibility of the collodion process, when employed under the best possible conditions, we certainly fancy that better results are to be obtained.
The Photographic Society directed especial attention some few years since to the fixing of photographs. This is a most important matter, demanding still the care of the society. We have now before us photographs which have been executed more than twelve years, in which there is not the slightest symptom of decay. We have others which have been produced within twelve months, which are fading rapidly. We have frequently expressed our opinion that there is no reason why a photograph should not be rendered as permanent as a water-colour drawing. These pictures need not necessarily fade. The experienced eye can almost always certainly tell whether a photograph is fixed or not. We do not intend to say that a man so judging may not be sometimes deceived, although within our experience this is rarely the case. It is to the interest especially of the seller of a photograph, that it proves permanent. If his picture fade it shows carelessness, and he loses his customers. If the buyer of those chemical pictures finds, by and by, that he has a portfolio of “vanishing scenes” or of “fleeting images,” he will weary of collecting them, and return to less truthful, but to more enduring productions. Is it not possible for the society to give some guarantee, or to insist upon some guarantee, that the necessary amount of care has been taken in washing the pictures sold from its walls?
We advise our readers to pay this exhibition a visit, they will be much gratified; there is a great variety of subjects, and many very beautiful works.
The solar rays have produced pictures which must ever strike the reflecting mind with wonder. A power has been generated millions of miles beyond this earth, which flows, and gives life and beauty to it. That agency which combines and maintains a living organism, paints, by its occult power, a magic picture. Every picture now hanging on the walls of the Photographic Exhibition, the result of chemical change in the hands of the photographer, is directly due to a physical change occurring in the far distant Sun.
1861: Art Journal, Feb. 1, n.s. vol. VII, no #, p. 48:
Photography, as Employed for the Illustration of Books.
It will be seen, upon referring to the numerous papers which have, from time to time, appeared in the Art-Journal, on Photography, that we were amongst the first to urge the application of the solar pencil to the general purposes of book illustration. “The Pencil of Nature,” by Mr. H. Fox Talbot, was, we think, the first attempt; and “Sunshine in the Country,” is, we believe, the last attempt made to secure beautiful and truthful illustrations of nature by photography for book illustration. Between the issue of these works we have had Professor Piozzi [sic; “Piazzi”] Smyth’s work on Teneriffe, the “Ramble in Brittany,” the “Stereoscopic Magazine,” and some few other productions which have been so illustrated. We have not mentioned several works from the Parisian presses, of a similar character, because we only desire to draw attention to some of the numerous advantages belonging to this peculiar method of illustrating.
The delightful truthfulness of a good photographic picture, gives it a value which cannot be possessed by any merely artistic production. The traveller, therefore, who properly—that is fully—avails himself of the art, gives to the reader of his travels a realization of those scenes which he deems of sufficient interest, which cannot by any other method be obtained. The photographs in the work on Teneriffe, and those in the book on Brittany, were not of a very high character; yet how perfectly did they tell the story of the astronomer’s difficulties in placing his great equatorial above the clouds, and of the peculiarities of living Brittany in contrast with the charming remains of the ancient country! The peculiar characteristics of every stone near the top of that strange mountain, on which Professor Smyth had resolved to make his survey of the heavens, were preserved so completely as to enable the geologist to distinguish the nice shades of difference existing between the rocks.
In the other work quoted, the antiquarian, the architect, the historian, and the philosopher, will find much matter given for reflection, which could not be conveyed in any other way; since no human hand could copy the works of nature, and the stores of Art, in so perfect a manner, or, by any effort, secure that feeling of entire truth which marks the photographic picture. In books of this class, or in such as would represent any of the phenomena of nature, there is a value arising from the truthfulness of the sun-delineated picture which is peculiarly its own. To such productions as the “Sunshine in the Country,” we have photography introduced as much for its beauty as for its truth. This book is very amply illustrated by photographs taken by the late Mr. Grundy, of Sutton Coldfield, near Birmingham; and they show how perfectly, in the hands of an artist, the most delightful aspects of nature, with all the variations due to the influence of light and shadow, may be caught and preserved. The quiet of the first picture, with its group of lazy cows, its languid stream and its unshaken trees, tells us how true Cooper painted similar scenes; while another picture, ‘The Summer Day,’ is no less beautifully warm and clear:
“The herds have settled to their pastures green.”
“The Trout Fisher,” the “Angler’s Song,” and Mary Howitt’s charming “Little Streams,” secure for us photographs which represent, it may be, one of the most picturesque of the many streams which flow through fertile Devonshire, from Dartmoor to the sea—one of those little bits of quiet river scenery which distinguishes the Thames, the Kennet, and the Avon, and one of those rocky knolls with rushing waters—
“Up in mountain hollows wild,
Fretting like a peevish child,”
Which mark the scenery of North Wales. There are numerous other equally beautiful photographs in this work, in illustration of the poets, who have endeavoured to catch “the still wild music” of nature, in her own retreats. In this book, the poet leads you, by the charm of his melodious utterance, and the photograph wins you to loiter on your way in contemplation of the truth which the sunshine shows you belongs to the thoughts of those who can find—
“Tongues in trees, books in the running brooks,
Sermons in stones, and good in every thing.”
1861: Art Journal, June 1, n.s. vol. VII, no #, p. 191:
Minor Topics of the Month:
The Interior of the Houses of Parliament is the subject of a series of twelve stereoscopic views, just published by Mr. F. Jones, of Oxford Street. The rich decorations and delicate architectural work of this noble edifice are well brought out in these photographs; we would especially notice—‘St. Stephen’s Hall,’ ‘General View of the Throne in the House of Lords,’ ‘The Statue of the Queen,’ with its accompanying figures in the Prince’s Chamber, ‘Upper Cloisters, House of Commons,’ and the ‘Canopy of the Throne.’
1861: Art Journal, Nov. 1, n.s. vol. VII, no #, p. 351: [NOTE: Transcribed by hand directly from Journal at Br. Lib.]
Negretti and Zambra’s Stereoscopic Views and Stereoscopes, &c.
Views photographed for the stereoscope rank amongst the most delightful productions of this Art-loving age. Whatever is most lovely or most strange in nature, and whatever man may combine with nature to render in any way or in any degree attractive, that the sun is ever ready to depict with unerring fidelity and the most exquisite artistic gracefulness; while science has produced the means for both obtaining the sun-pictures from every locality, and sending them in every direction, and then realizes them in the stereoscope. The position that these wonderful instruments with their “slides” now hold in the business of Art places them amongst the most important of popular industries; and, accordingly, the attention of men of enterprise and energy, who have abundant capital at their disposal, has been attracted to stereoscopic photography. At the head of the many establishments that London contains, devoted especially to works of their class are those of Negretti and Zambra, who have just completed what we may entitle a stereoscopic cordon in and about London. This collection, in addition to the productions of other publishers, contains amongst the publications of Negretti and Zambra themselves, their extraordinary stereographs, one hundred and eight in number, from China and Japan, and a still more recent series of forty-six examples from Java. All these views have been obtained at great cost, and with no little exertion of enterprise, and bring before our eyes here at home in our far-off England all the characteristic features of those strange lands of the East which recent events have invested with a two-fold interest. The Java views are most curious as well as exquisitely beautiful, and they seem either to take us to Java or to bring Java to us in a manner that is absolutely startling. We may add, as another curious illustration of the fresh associations that are continually growing up between ourselves and the East, that Messrs. Negretti and Zambra have a collection of stereoscopes, which have been made expressly for them in Japan, by Japanese workmen, and the decorations of which are in careful keeping with Japanese [t]raditions. They are excellent instruments, as well as fine exponants of the Art—manufacturers of Japan, as they may be influenced by European Science. The slides also, which accompany the stereoscopes, are sold in characteristic envelopes of Japanese construction, with their titles and the name of the proprietors, very legibly printed upon them in Japanese. These quaint envelopes are fastened by portions of paper string in use in Japan—and at 122, Regent Street.