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beginnings, the Linked Ring had enor- day s end.The light created by the fading
mous influence in photographic circles sun shining through both dark and white
both in Europe and America. Eventually it billowing clouds and the shadows cast by
became the inspiration for an even more the horses and men in the image make the
powerful group that would be formed in figures appear almost as if they were taken
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P H O T O G R A P H Y / A N I L L U S T R A T E D H I S T O R Y " 6 2
in silhouette. By framing the lone figure in an emulsion of gum arabic, potassium
the center of the picture with the men and bichromate, and any color of pigment.
horses to either side, Davison gave a pleas- Light passed strongly through the thinnest
ing balance to the picture. parts of the negative, which were the dark
Thanks to the influence of photogra- areas of the subject, and less strongly
phers like Davison, and to organizations like through the middle-tone and highlight
the Linked Ring, the pictorial movement areas.The emulsion hardened in propor-
spread throughout Europe.In France,a pho- tion to the strength of the light,so when the
tographer named Robert Demachy not print was developed in warm water the
only adopted the approach but helped pio- emulsion would wash away in the lighter
neer a technique that would be employed areas, letting more of the white (or colored)
by artistic photographers everywhere. paper show through, but it would remain
As a young man Demachy was most more strongly in the middle-tone and dark-
interested in music and in driving fast cars. er areas of the positive image.The emulsion
He was a successful banker with esthetic could be applied evenly, or with coarse
Image Not Available
interests. Before he turned to photography brushstrokes, or stippled on, for a variety of
in 1892,he was a literary critic and an ama- effects. And the photographer could use
teur painter. He particularly admired the very hot water to wash away or alter any
work of the renowned artist Edgar Degas, details in the print he desired. It was a
who was himself an amateur photographer process that allowed Demachy and other
as well as a professional painter. Degas was pictorialists to work much like painters.
taken with the motion studies that Ead- Demachy s photographs placed him at
weard Muybridge had produced (see page the forefront of those who sought artistry
18). He made many drawings from Muy- in their pictures by manipulating their
bridge s pictures, including a lineup of bal- images. He wrote five books and more
let dancers in various postures, drawn to than 1,000 articles describing all of the var-
Robert Demachy.Behind the
give the appearance of motion. Several of ious aspects of photographic manipulation.
Scenes, about 1900.
Demachy s photographs are highly reminis- He also traveled throughout the world, lec-
Young ballet dancers were among
cent of Degas paintings. turing on the subject.
Demachy s favorite subjects.Often he
Demachy believed that in order to pro- In the last two decades of the 1800s, the
would manipulate a negative,develop
duce a work of art the photographer had to art photography movement in Europe
it,and then apply further manipula-
tions to the negative and develop it
regard the photograph he or she took as gained great momentum. Much of it was
again. As a result,he often produced
just the first step in creating a masterful due to the appearance of the first photo-
very different looking photographs
image.The key, he was convinced, were the graphic exhibitions devoted exclusively to
from the same negative.
techniques and manipulations the photog- the work of pictorialist photographers.The
rapher would then use to add to and change first of these exhibitions, featuring images
the photographic image. Demachy was a by Peter Henry Emerson, was mounted in
pioneer and a master in the use of the gum Vienna in 1887 by the Club-der-Amateur
bichromate printing process. A negative Photographers. In the words of one of the
was contact printed on paper coated with club s founders, it marked the first time
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P H O T O G R A P H Y A S A R T " 6 3
huge Club-der-Amateur Photographers
show of 1891, it was positively stunned by
the Kunsthalle Museum s display of 6,000
artistic photographs. One of the added fea-
tures of this show was a demonstration of
how to frame photographs properly
according to the tastes of the period.
Image Not Available The attention that artistic photography
received through the growing number of
pictorialist exhibitions had a dramatic effect
on the many European photographic clubs
made up of both amateurs and profession-
als.When The Photo-Club de Paris staged
its First Exhibition of Photographic Art,the
show took on an importance that went
beyond the exhibition itself. By this time,
the process for reproducing photographs
on a printed page had been invented
(described in Chapter 6), and as an accom-
paniment to the exhibition the club issued
Baron Adolphe de Meyer. that art-lovers had been offered a series of a booklet containing reproductions of 50 of
Still Life,about 1906.
original photographs of interest not in the the photographs displayed in the show. It
The still life,a traditional
objects they represent, but in the interpre- was a forerunner to the illustrated catalog
subject for painting,also
tation and handling. Four years later, the that is now a regular part of almost all
became a theme for photogra-
club astounded both the art and photo- major photographic exhibitions.
phers.De Meyer was a lead-
graphic worlds by presenting a massive By the beginning of the 1900s, artistic
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