THE WOMBAT. 47 



from the difficulties which would attend the previous prepar- 

 ation and subsequent development of the plates. These 

 operations are now conducted in what is termed a dark room, 

 dark only in a photographic sense, being illuminated by- 

 means of a colored light which, whilst it enables the operator 

 easily to watch the progress of the work, produces no 

 injurious effect upon the sensitive surfaces." Painting — for 

 in speaking of Art I refer to painting — is an emotional and 

 intellectual interpretation of nature. Its powers of imitation 

 are extremely limited, but the painter can represent colour, 

 and in that respect he can produce truer work. Now let us 

 compare the vast compass of light nature can command to 

 anything we can possibly put on paper. Let one million 

 represent the sun, the brightest thing in nature, and the unit 

 represent the blackest thing we know. The lightest thing we 

 can produce on paper is a thousand times darker than nature's 

 light, and the darkest pigment is five hundred times lighter 

 than nature's dark, and so we are crippled, but here our 

 paintings are wiser than our photographs. The former 

 husbands her resources, puts light where nature puts it but 

 in a smaller degree, to suit her limited compass, while the 

 latter spends degree for degree with nature, and is very soon 

 exhausted, 



Photography is a most useful invention, but we must not 

 ask for too much, it will represent truthfully a little at a time, 

 and so be of much use to the artist as memoranda. One of the 

 best photographs I can think of representing the sea explains 

 this. The negative has been exposed a very short time to pre- 

 serve the light on the clouds, and the glitter of the sunshine on 

 the water, consequently these two truths are obtained, but the 

 shade upon the clouds appear dark brown, and the pier and 

 people on it are devoid of all detail. In comparison my mind 

 wanders to a painting of the sea, by a great artist certainly ; 

 here the light on the clouds and the sunshine on the water 

 are as true as the photograph, but there is the hazy distance, 

 a little green meadow in the foreground, and figures, each 

 one a portrait. As I before mentioned, art is often assisted 

 by photography, something to remind the artist of a certain 

 position of the ever restless wave ; but photographs never 

 should be copied, and I will endeavour to show why. The 



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