THE NEW PICTORIAL MOVEMENT Dr. Emerson's "Naturalistic Photography" (1887).—The expansion of a lecture by Dr. P. H. Emerson, "Naturalistic Pho tography," to the Camera Club in 1886, was the beginning of the new movement. Unquestionably this book struck a powerful blow at the many conventionalities which had attached themselves to the practice of photography and had a powerful influence upon the younger pictorialists. In it he lays down that, "naturalism is an impersonal method of expression, a more or less correct reflec tion of nature wherein (I) truth of sentiment, (2) illusion of truth of appearance (so far as is possible), and (3) decoration are of first and supreme importance." He further advocated the differentiation of focus to secure separation of the planes, closer attention to the rendering of "tone," greater adherence to truth through the study of nature and generally a higher and more intellectual standard.
To what extent Dr. Emerson's book contributed to the new pic torial movement that made itself evident in the late eighties is doubtful. The movement originated no doubt from the ferment in the artistic world due to the influence of the French Impression ist school which was becoming known and appreciated. The leaders of the new pictorialism were George Davison, Alexander Keighley, James Craig Annan, A. Horsley Hinton and Alfred Stieglitz, and the consensus of opinion is that the first visible sign of the break with the older Victorian tradition is to be found in Davison's picture "An old farmhouse" or, as it was called later, "The Onion field." This famous picture received the Photographic Society's medal in 189o. The council of the society consisted mainly of scientists who, beyond holding the annual Exhibition, did little to encourage pictorial work, and as a result the new body of pictorialists soon came into conflict with them.
There was a secession and many whose interests were purely pictorial left the parent society to band themselves together as "The Linked Ring" with definitely pictorial aims and interests, one of which was the holding of a separate exhibition to be known as The Salon. Although the society's neglect of pictorial interests was advanced at the time as the reason, the schism originated in a quarrel in which H. P. Robinson, Davison and the assistant secre
tary of the Photographic Society were involved. The estab lishment of this energetic new organisation brought about a veritable renaissance which received a further stimulus by the revival of Pouncy's Gum-Bichromate process in a workable form by Ladeveze, a Frenchman, and by Alfred Maskell and others in England. At last the pictorialists had a really controllable printing process. Demachy, Le Begue, Puyo and others in France co-operated and our pictorialism took on a new orientation. Two of the finest pictures of this period are Horsley Hinton's "Melton Meadows" and Alex. Keighley's "The White Sail." American Influence.—By the end of the century the first impetus of the movement was largely spent but a new era began in 1900 when F. Holland Day of Boston, U.S.A., exhibited at the R.P.S. house a collection of some 36o prints by members of the new American School. The exhibition proved a sensation and had a tremendous influence upon British photography, with the result that during the next six years pictorial photography reached a high level that it has never quite touched again.
The influence that was behind this wonderful American develop ment was that strange genius Alfred Stieglitz, who after studying photography in Berlin, returned to New York about 1890 to be gin his great task of building up an American School of pictorial photography upon foundations that were practically non-existent. The inspired achievements of the Americans from 1900 to 1908 are eloquent testimony to the success of his great work, for which in 1924 the Royal Photographic Society awarded him its Progress Medal, a unique distinction for a pictorial photographer. It is necessary to name only F. Holland Day, Yarnall Abbott, Ger trude Kasebier, Eduard Steichen, Frank Eugene, Clarence White, Alvin Langdon Coburn, Mrs. Annie Brigman and George H. Seeley to realise the number of photographers of real vision and genius who responded to the inspiration of Stieglitz.