40 



JOUENAL OF THE PLYMOUTH INSTITUTION. 



results of which were valuable to physiological optics, and in the 

 construction of explanatory geometrical figures. 



In discussing the art portion of the subject, it was found neces- 

 sary to define to some extent what was understood by the term art. 

 In a great artist imagination, taste, and technical knowledge must 

 combine; and Mr. Ruskin observes that means are nothing; the 

 thing expressed, by whatever means, is everything." Painting, 

 then, is a language, with all its technicalities and difficulties, in- 

 valuable as a vehicle of thought, but by itself nothing. Dryden 

 observes that the most important thing in art is to know what is 

 most beautiful." All ideas of beauty are borrowed from nature. 

 I^'ature is not only intellectual, but is endowed with a soul, and 

 she appeals to our sympathies, because we also are creatures of 

 emotion and impulse. The mind reads nature through kindred 

 sympathy of spirit ; and although it has within its finite sphere an 

 originating power, it cannot create out of nothing, wholly inde- 

 pendent of existing elements ; it must gather the primal elements 

 from actual experience, and construct from the known, not create 

 from the unknown. 



The main fallacy into which art critics fall is in the assumption 

 that, because the photographic camera has no soul, the photo- 

 grapher's work must therefore lack the impress of soul. The error 

 is obvious — "they mistake the tool for the workman." The art 

 faculty is in the producer, not in the materials or the method of 

 working them. This is the whole position for which we contend. 

 It depends upon the man whether the results of his labour shall 

 be a work of art or not. Photography, without doubt, was one of 

 the fine arts, but it cannot compete aesthetically with painting. No 

 one has ever claimed for it the capability of competing with high 

 or ideal art. But is there no fine art but ideal art ? If so, what 

 are the works of Landseer, Prith, Creswick, and others whose 

 especial charm is truth in the delineation of nature. In glancing 

 at photography as applied to portraiture, one of the common forms 

 of depreciation was that of complaining that photography had no 

 power to idealize. The notion that the artist should invest his 

 sitters with a grace or a nobleness not their own seems never to 

 have been doubted. 



In Paris, in 1867, in this branch of photography we were utterly 

 beaten ; and to what conclusion were we forced by this salutary 

 lesson ? — that in those countries where art had been most fostered 

 were the best photographs produced. 



