38 



JOURNAL OF THE PLYMOUTH INSTITUTION. 



THE 



ART AND SCIENCE CLAIMS OF PHOTOGRAPHY. 



ABSTRACT OF A PAPER BY MR. T. W. COFFIN. 



The lecturer commenced by observing that photography claims an 

 equal recognition, as steam and electricity, as one of the features 

 which draw the line of demarcation between the nineteenth 

 century and the grand epochs of the civilization of antiquity; 

 whilst its art progress had been fully commensurate, if it had not 

 surpassed the expectations formed in advance. 



Photography, as we now practise it, is exclusively an English 

 invention. By a strange coincidence, experiments were carried on 

 simultaneously in France and England, with the same end, but by 

 essentially different means. Mr. Fox Talbot read a paper on the 

 subject before the Royal Society on 31st January, 1839, six 

 months earlier than the publication of the Daguerreotype process. 



The present depression felt by those who practise the art is, in 

 a manner, caused by the fact that photographers as a body have 

 not set up their standard of excellence sufficiently high. This 

 may arise from two causes; first, from the fact that ''a miscel- 

 laneous audience is best conciliated by that sort of talent which 

 reflects the average mind;" and in the second place, in most cases 

 the professional photographer has taken up photography as a pro- 

 fession, and so long as it pays he is content. The remedy, to a 

 certain extent, is in the hands of the public, who, by demanding 

 more art in the picture and more style in the composition, could 

 materially assist those who were striving to uphold for photography 

 the high position to which it is eminently entitled. 



Compared to painting, its range is necessarily limited, and no 

 extravagant claims are advanced ; but if it were purely a mechani- 

 cal operation, then mechanics could work at it with success, and 

 not fail so lamentably as they do. Anyone can, by practice and 

 attention, produce perfect chemical results ; but it requires a real 

 love of true art, and a just appreciation of the beautiful, to obtain 

 a picture. 



Science is simply knowledge, but is generally understood to 

 mean systematized knowledge, — facts verified and arranged, their 

 relations ascertained, their laws deduced, their principles and im- 



