ON THE CORRECTNESS OF PHOTOGRAPHS. 715 



Nevertheless, it is this very circumstance that throws such immense 

 difficulties in the way of taking good photographic portraits. Many 

 persons by no means wish that their characters should be correctly 

 given. The rascal wishes to appear an honorable man in his picture; 

 tottering old men desire to appear young, foppish, and lively ; the 

 maid-servant plays the fine lady in the atelier ; the tradesman's 

 daughter would be a court lady, the street-sweeper a gentleman. 

 Thus the picture serves them only as a means of flattering their per- 

 sonal vanity ; and, in order that these people may appear very noble 

 and distinguished, they put on a Sunday's dress, often borrowed and 

 a very bad fit. They practise at home, moreover, before their look- 

 ing-glass, in the presence of papa, mamma, wife, or lover, impossible 

 attitudes in an artistic point of view. Even cultivated persons are 

 not exempt from these absurdities. Thorwaldsen relates of Byron, 

 who gave him a seance, " He sat down opposite to me, but assumed, 

 immediately I commenced, a perfectly diflerent expression. I called 

 his attention to this. ' That is the true expression of my face,' re- 

 plied Byron. ' Indeed,' I rejoined, and then made his portrait exactly 

 as I wished. All persons declared my bust to be an excellent likeness. 

 But Lord Byron exclaimed, ' The bust does not resemble me ; I look 

 much more unhappy.' The fact was, that at that time he wished to 

 look intensely miserable," adds Thorwaldsen. The photographer is 

 even in a worse case. If Byron had come to a photographer, and had 

 presented his face of misery to the camera, what could the photog- 

 rapher have done ? He is unfortunately dependent on the model, 

 and many models leave him in the lurch at the critical moment, often 

 not intentionally, but from nervousness or inadvertence. Much de- 

 pends here on the influence of the photographer, who must know how 

 to control his sitters with courtesy ; but many portraits fail without 

 any fault on his part. The author has often witnessed how persons 

 of his acquaintance, at the moment of being taken, assume quite a 

 strange expression without being in the least aware of it. 



There are still more characteristic cases of photographic inaccuracy 

 which cannot be attributed to the models. Let us suppose that a 

 photographer, stimulated by the beautiful pictures of Claude, Schirmer, 

 and Hildebrandt, wished to photograph a sunset. He evidently can 

 only expose his plate for a moment to the dazzling bright sun. What 

 sort of a picture is the result ? A round white blotch and some shining 

 clouds around it. That is all that appears clearly. All objects in the 

 landscape trees, houses, and men have had too short an exposure, 

 and form a black mass. There, where the eye clearly distinguishes road, 

 village, forest, and meadow, it sees in the photograph nothing but a 

 dark patch without any outline. Is such a picture true ? Even the 

 most fanatical enthusiast of photography will not dare maintain this. 



Such cases, where violent contrasts of light and shade make the 

 production of a correct picture quite impossible, are countless in 



