WhenNaturalistic Photographyis carefully mined for its key points, focus is but
one of a number of elements. A summary of his key points is listed below; many do not address focus or issues that will lead on to the soft-focus lens but form the basis for ‘naturalism’ to smoothly transition into ‘pictorialism.’ Even a cursory examination of the 1895-1910 period will demonstrate how many of the major figures adhered to at least some salient points of Emerson’s dictums —and point to his influence for two decades after his first edition was printed.
All of these together form Emerson’s ‘naturalistic’ philosophy and none was meant to be taken by itself or without the many layers of further expansion in the text. The first edition is cited unless the third edition states the issue more clearly or Emerson has modified his views.
1. The entire purpose is to “give the student a clear insight into the first principles of art” which taken together form ‘naturalism.’ (1st, p. 9)
2. “…work can always be referred to a standard - Nature.” (1st, p. 22)
3. Some painting, sculpture, woodblock, etching & engraving is worth
studying.
4. The best artists have created “an impression of nature as nearly as possible similar to that made on the retina of the human eye.” (1st, p. 97)
5. Therefore, focus “should be made justas sharp as the eye sees it and no
sharper…” (3rd, p. 72)
6. All prints are made by contact, not enlargement.
7. Low tones, that is, the grays and black, are preferable to a full tonal range with bright whites (3rd, p. 136)
8. Platinum paper is far superior to silver-based papers for low toned
subjects. (3rd, p. 136)
9. Use of only long focal length lenses, at least twice the length of the long side of the negative (3rd, p. 33)
10. Any size of negative can produce art; cropping is allowed. (3rd, p. 8-9)
11. Prints may be toned, especially red and sepia. (1st, p. 195)
.It is exceedingly difficult to reconcile these dictums with Nancy Newhall’s assertion that the Group f.64 were “’Purists’ - photographers pure to the bone and true to Emerson's teachings in everything but focus.”66
Emerson was the first high profile advocate of the relatively new platinotype. The “ordinary silver printing-paper is undesirable, for it exaggerates the darkness of the shadows, a fatal error.”67In reality, both silver-based papers and platinum shared the
characteristic of poor black tone separation; the silver paper achieved a blacker tone, however.68This dictum of Emerson’s may relate to his calling for the use of ‘thin’
negatives, meaning there is little detail in the shadows to be printed. Normally a photographer will add exposure to the negative in order to provide adequate shadow detail. His working methods “meant printing the shadows light, and it also must have meant being careful not to overdevelop the negative. Emerson's prints thus tend to be flat, the shadows showing comparatively little separation of tones.”69Further, the platinotype
paper was a dead-matt surface, which “automatically compresses shadow tones (unlike a
66Nancy Newhall 1975, p. 135. 67
Emerson 1889, p. 116
68
Dick ArentzPlatinum & Palladium Printing(Boston: Focal Press, 2000) p. 99.
glossy surface, which extends them), but the paper can give considerably more contrast and separation than Emerson advocated.”70
Emerson utilized only a small portion of the tonality which could be achieved by a platinotype. In particular, he did little to exploit the “great subtlety in the rendition of whites” of which platinum was capable of capturing.71In order to keep his prints low and
subdued, he has minimized the lighter tones both by excluding them from the composition as well as by minimal development which reduces the brilliance of the lighter tones. In many of his prints, only the sky is a white or near white, and given his use of isochromatic film, that was unavoidable unless photography was limited to heavily overcast days.
Summary
A key error of Emerson’s was to still tie art to scientific principles and not be free to simply produce beauty; as much as he admired Whistler, this was a Whistlerian
concept he could not reconcile. On the contrary, Whistler directly refuted his most basic assertion, that Nature was the basis for art. “That Nature is always right, is an assertion, artistically, as untrue, as it is one whose truth is universally taken for granted - Nature is very rarely right, to such an extent even, that it might almost be said that Nature is
usually wrong - that is to say - the condition of things that shall bring about the perfection of harmony worthy a picture, is rare, and not common at all.”72How could Emerson ever
reconcile this with his philosophy? For him, there was an objective truth whereas
70Crawford 1979, p. 99. 71
Arentz 2000, p. 99.
72
James M. Whistler “Ten O’clock Lecture” 1885 from the Whistler Centre Archives, University of Glasgow.
Whistler and Davison believed in a personal expression. It was a head-on collision of science and the human need for personal expression. His painter-friend Clausen had warned him “don’t try to make art scientific” to no avail.73
Emerson’s theory was exclusively tied to the landscape, believing that all art was tied to nature with a capital “N.”. When criticizing portraits by Demachy, he
characterized him as having the “inability to see pictures in nature and no one can be an artist without that.”74This is a classic Emerson inconsistency; Chapter IV ofNaturalistic
Photographywas on the studio and its furnishings (although it is a remarkably short
chapter, consisting of only four pages, reflecting his near total lack of experience with the subject). For Emerson, art photography exclusively meant the landscape or the figure in the landscape.
His entire photo career spanned a relatively brief period: from the 1886Life and
Landscape on the Norfolk Broadsto the1895Marsh Leaves. As if embracing deliberate
obscurity, he never allowed a photo to be exhibited or reproduced after 1901. By contrast, Davison’s photographic period extended from 1888 until his final show in 1911
(London’s Newman Gallery), a decade longer than Emerson.
Emerson’s credibility was largely related to his published portfolios, rarified objects not accessible to the ordinary man; Davison, as already noted, was highly visible in the Salons, winning numerous medals. If his production had been overlooked up to that time, “The Onion Field” controversy surely brought his name into almost universal prominence amongst serious amateurs. Additionally, Davison’s participation in forming The Linked Ring almost required his peers to respect his views and images.
73
George Clausen to PHE, 5thJuly 1891 inLife and Landscape: P. H. Emerson, art and photography in East Anglia 1885-1900(Norwich: Salisbury Centre for Visual Arts, 1986) p. 10.
The renunciation by Emerson of his previous stand in 1890/1 was not important in the flow of Pictorialism’s development as (1) it did not changehisstyle and (2) the
revolution had started and this peripheral issue could not derail it. It did, however, probably make photographers skeptical of his words if he did not follow them himself. Emerson had lost the argument to himself (a unique situation in photographic philosophy) and to Davison as well, both in a very public way. His vituperative letters isolated him from public opinion; Davison emerged as the ‘common man’ with an uncommon talent.
Ostensibly concerned with ‘naturalism’ many of Emerson’s figures nonetheless appear posed and often wooden. His prints are dull and dreary compared to New English Art Club paintings which were his influences and model. He seems to have studiously avoided days with direct sunlight, so concerned as he was with ‘atmosphere’ as a ruling principle whereas the ‘naturalist’ English painters are quite concerned with the various aspects of light, although often diffuse light, it did not seem to create a low contrast, muddy painting.
Many of his prints have excellent depth of field and no principle of differential focusing is evident. The matte surface of the platinotype and the paper chosen for the gravures also lowers the resolution and tone across the image, similar in effect to the soft focus lens — an effect Emerson soundly disapproved of in his pronouncements.
English photohistorian Margaret Harker summarizes Emerson thusly: “Neither were his pronouncements on theories of photographic art always sound or commensurate with his practice of the medium. What was worse, he was egocentric and ‘vain almost beyond
endurance.’”75The latter characteristics, which almost anyone would have applied to
Emerson, are part of the constellation of attributes of Asperger’s syndrome. First described by Austrian pediatrician Hans Asperger in 1944, Asperger’s
Syndrome is sometimes described as high-functioning autism Although the diagnosis of Asperger’s disorder is fraught with difficulty even with a living person, it would be ever more so with one long deceased. However, I would be remiss in not raising the
possibility that Emerson suffered from this autistic-like syndrome. Gillberg76lists a set of
criteria for Asperger’s which includes:
1. lack of appreciation of social cues, socially and emotionally inappropriate behavior;
2. all-absorbing narrow interest, more rote than meaning; 3. imposition of routines and interests on self;
4. formal, pedantic language.
The person affected can “manifest extremely sophisticated reasoning, an almost obsessive focus, and a remarkably good memory for trivial facts,”77an accurate
description of Emerson. Nancy Newhall characterizes his letters as “among the hardest- to-transcribe letters in English” because of his scrawl;78Another Asperger characteristic
is illegibility in hand-writing. Obviously it cannot be stated with certainty, but circumstantial evidence points to the possibility that he was afflicted by Asperger’s Syndrome, which would serve to explain many of his behaviors.
75 Harker 1979, p.66
76Gillberg, I.C. and Gillberg, C. “Asperger Syndrome- Some Epidemiological Considerations: a Research
Note”Journal of Child Psychology and PsychiatryJune 30, 1989 pp. 631-638.
77
www.en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asperger_syndrome