Page:Once a Week Volume 8.djvu/158

150  the efforts of the best photographer will be of no avail.

As regards the merits of photography itself versus the pencil, it cannot be gainsaid that, although the sun is a better draughtsman than any human hand, yet there are certain drawbacks connected with it which are of moment. And, first of all, it rarely reproduces the best expression of the highest kind of beauty; in this respect it is certainly inferior to the old miniature. The reason is this. The highest kind of beauty consists in expression—it is the play of features which charms, not the mere beauty of the human mask, unimpassioned by the soul beneath. And this expression is just the thing that photography misses. When a man or woman, and especially when a woman sits to the sun for her portrait, the first thing she does is to make up a face—she can’t help it, my good reader—let the muscles of your mouth play naturally, whilst your friend is daring you to do so, if you can. The consequence is, that the likeness taken of you has either an affected simper, as unlike a natural smile as German silver is like the real argent; or, it is a set and rigid effigy cast in iron. The old portrait-painter proceeded about his business leisurely—no pistolgrams for him. If the sitter should have happened to have made up a face, it relaxed before the artist’s colours were mixed; but the grim camera staring you in the face, and the operator demanding that you “stop as you are,” to say nothing of having your head placed in a vice, put to flight the rippling lines about the mouth, and set the eyes into a stony stare. By making a great many photographs of the same person, the unnatural rigidity of the features, it is true, relaxes; but we fear that the plain photograph never will reproduce a charming face, in which the chief beauty lies in expression. When the beauty, however, depends upon form merely, the photograph is perfect; hence classical faces should seek the sun as the most effective artist.

But art is capable of correcting, to a very large degree, the photographic shortcomings we have spoken of. We have seen many coloured photographs which, taken as a whole, neither Thorburn, Ross, nor Wells could have equalled. The mass of coloured photographs we see about are, we confess, beneath contempt; but the manner in which the artists have worked is alone accountable for their failure. The real excellence of a coloured photograph results from the artist following only the outlines which photography has given him on the paper; but the bungling dauber proceeds to destroy this beautiful drawing by painting with solid colour, which effectually hides all the wonderful delicacy of the sun’s pencil’s touch beneath. We were charmed with nothing at the International Exhibition more than with the coloured photographs of Messrs. Lock and Whitfield, of Regent Street. The transparency and delicacy of touch left nothing to be desired. It is obvious that the artist has obtained his admirable results by the use of the most transparent water-colours alone; hence all the wonderful drawing remains intact, and gives the perfect likeness, which even the most consummate artist of old was apt to miss. From these portraits it is evident that the most pearly greys and the most transparent shadows can be rendered on photographic drawing with perfect truth; and the beauty, too, is there. Mr. Lock evidently can catch the fleeting expression, and fix it for ever with his brush—at least all the hardness so usual in the plain photograph vanishes under his hand; and if a foreigner would like to see what the better class of young English women are like, we should recommend him to look at the glorious faces which he may see in the studio of this firm.

But will these coloured photographs last? asks the reader. Time, we reply, is the only test. We have seen photographs ten years old, and these are as good as the first day they were taken. We see no reason that the chemicals should change to a greater degree than the ivory on which miniature painters were wont to work, and the colours are of course identical in both cases. A new art has arisen, however, in connection with photography, which will possibly satisfy those who are doubtful as to the permanency of photographs produced in the ordinary way. Photographs are now taken on porcelain, plain or coloured, with tints prepared with a vitreous medium, and then burnt in, like an ordinary enamel. These are of course indestructible, as far as fading goes, and they look like the rarest works of Boucher; but they are proportionately expensive, and we do not think they are likely to supersede the method now employed.

We must not omit to mention a very charming compromise between the water-colour art and photography, which Messrs. Lock and Whitfield have brought into fashion. In order to give the likeness and correct drawing, the face and bust and hands of portraits are taken by the lens, and then enlarged to the size of an ordinary water-colour sketch, which the artist colours and finishes off in the form of a vignette portrait, by a few free washes of the brush. It is almost impossible to tell these exquisite works of art from an ordinary water-colour, but that the drawing of the face and hands is beyond the human draughtsman’s power.

To some of the many uses to which the art of photography has been lately applied, we shall allude in another paper. A. W.

“ has e’er been at Paris must needs know the Morgue,” so sings dear Mat Prior in the “easy jingle,” so welcome to the heart of Cowper. Who has e’er been at Richmond in Surrey must needs know—guess gentle reader? The Star and Garter? No! The Castle? No! “Thy hill, delightful Shene?” No! The Park and the Stone Lodge? Neither! The house of the Poet of “the Seasons?” No! Edmund Kean’s grave? Still wrong! Earl Russell’s house? Still off the scent! Now, then, I have it! “Who has e’er been to Richmond must needs know the shop” where Mr. Billett and Mrs. Billett dispense wholesale and retail a peculiar pastry known far and wide as “Maids of Honour,”—known to school-boys and school-girls—known to dignitaries of the church and law—to chiefs out of war, and statesmen out of place—to all who are willing to