consent would have been given everywhere to the proposition that it would be absurd to work when anything like fog or atmospheric haze was present. Isochromatic plates, introduced for the purpose of equalizing the actinic power of various colour luminosities, and so rendering colours in correct relative value, were recommended by one writer, who applauded their supposed advantage of enabling the photographer to photograph distance without any suggestion of atmosphere. That evening or morning haze might enhance the beauty of a landscape, or that the mystery of half-concealment might itself be beautiful, does not seem to have occurred to the photographer, who had become infatuated by the exquisite clearness and sharpness which, with a minimum of labour, he was able to achieve. It is therefore interesting to note one of the first photographic successes which broke away from this convention, just as Rejlander's Solar Club group defied the formula of arranging human figures like the tiers of an amphitheatre. William M'Leish, of Darlington, a Scottish gardener who had taken to photography, and who seems to have been less under the influence, or it may have been that he was ignorant, of the old dicta, sent to the Royal Photographic Society's Exhibition in 1882 a photograph entitled “Misty Morning on the Wear,” a very beautiful view of Durham Cathedral as seen through the mist from across the river. The judges, although they that year awarded eleven medals, passed this by; but appreciation came from outside, for newspaper critics, and practically all those who were not blinded by prejudice and conventionality, declared it to be the photograph of the year. The exhibitions immediately succeeding revealed numerous imitators of M'Leish, and both figure and landscape work began to be shown in which there was evidence of greater freedom and originality.
Meanwhile the Photographic Society of Great Britain had drifted away from its artistic starting-point, and had become chiefly absorbed in purely scientific and technical subjects. But the general apathy which existed in respect of the artistic aspirations of some workers was the forerunner of a period of renaissance which was to end in lifting the pictorial side of photography into a greatly improved position. In 1886 Dr P. H. Emerson read before the Camera Club a paper on “Naturalistic Photography,” which served as an introduction to the publication (1887) of his book under that title. Unquestionably this book struck a powerful blow at the many conventionalities which had grown up in the practice of photography; the chief doctrines set forth being the differentiation of focus in different planes, a more complete recognition and truer rendering of “tone,” a kind of truthful impressionism derived from a close study and general acquaintance of nature, and a generally higher and more intellectual standard. After the publication of a second edition in 1889 Dr Emerson publicly renounced the views he had published, by issuing in January of 1891 a bitterly worded, black-bordered pamphlet, entitled The Death of Naturalistic Photography. But the thoughts which the book had stirred were not to be stilled by its withdrawal. Towards the end of the same year the conflict which within the Photographic Society had become apparent as between the pictorial enthusiasts and the older school, culminated in connexion with some matters respecting the hanging of certain photographs at the exhibition of that year; and a number of prominent members resigned their membership as a protest against the lack of sympathy and the insufficient manner in which pictorial work was represented and encouraged. This secession was to prove the most important event in the history of that branch of photography. The secessionists being among the most popular contributors to the annual exhibition gathered round them numerous sympathizers. In the following year they formed themselves into a brotherhood called “The Linked Ring,” and in 1893 held their first “Photographic Salon,” at the Dudley Gallery, Piccadilly. The most noteworthy of the early adherents attracted to the new body was James Craig Annan, whose work was practically unknown until he exhibited it at the first Salon, and almost at once he, by general consent, took a position amongst pictorial photographers second to none (see Plate II). Aroused into greater activity by these events, the Royal Photographic Society began to pay more attention to what had now become the more popular phase. At subsequent exhibitions the technical and scientific work was hung separately from the “Art Section,” and a separate set of judges was elected for each section. It became the custom to allot by far the greater amount of space to the “artistic”; and later, artists were elected as judges, by way of encouraging those who were devoted to the pictorial side to send in for exhibition. In the autumn of 1900 the New Gallery was secured, and a comprehensive exhibition of all phases of photography was held.
It is interesting to note that as a distinct movement pictorial photography is essentially of British origin, and this is shown by the manner in which organized photographic bodies in Vienna, Brussels, Paris, St Petersburg, Florence and other European cities, as well as in Philadelphia, Chicago, &c., following the example of London, held exhibitions on exactly similar lines to those of the London Photographic Salon, and invited known British exhibitors to contribute. The international character of the “Linked Ring” encouraged an interchange of works between British and foreign exhibitors, with the result that the productions of certain French, Austrian and American photographers are perfectly familiar in Great Britain. This, in the year 1900, led to a very remarkable cult calling itself “The New American School,” which had a powerful influence on contemporaries in Great Britain.
It may be well to glance at such improvements of process or apparatus as have not been direct and essential means to pictorial advance, but rather modifications and Improvements made in response to the requirements of the artistic aspirant. Such improvements are of two orders—those which are devised with the aim of securing greater accuracy of delineation, the correction of distortion and of apparent exaggeration of perspective, and the more truthful rendering of relative values and tones; and those which seek to give the operator greater personal control over the finished result. While great advances have been made in photographic optics, it cannot be said that pictorial work has been thereby materially assisted, some of the most successful exponents preferring to use the simplest form of uncorrected objective, or even to dispense with the lens altogether, choosing rather to employ a minute aperture, technically called a “pinhole.” This is but one example of many which might be quoted to bear out the statement that in photography the advance of anything in the nature of artistic qualities has not been correlative with mechanical improvements. The hand camera can only be said to have had an indirect influence: it has increased the photographer's facilities, and by removing the encumbrance of heavy tools has widened his sphere of operations; but it is perhaps in connexion with the plates and printing processes that more direct advantages have been gained. The fact that the actinic power of colours is not proportional to their luminosity was long regretted as an obstacle to correct representation; but by the introduction of or the chromatic or isochromatic plates in 1886 (when B. J. Edwards bought the Tailfer and Clayton patent, under which he shortly brought out his orthochromatic plates) this original disability was removed; while with increased rapidity in the isochromatic plate colour values may still further be corrected by the use of coloured screens or light filters, without interfering with the practicability of making sufficiently rapid exposures for most subjects. Again, by a better knowledge of what is required in artistic representation, certain modifications in the formulated treatment of ordinary and uncorrected plates are found to do much towards removing the evil; hence, with an ordinary plate “backed” so as to counteract overexposure of the higher lights, an exposure may, except in extreme cases, be given of length sufficient to secure the feeble rays of the less actinic colours, and by subsequent suitable development a result hardly distinguishable from that of a colour corrected late may be secured. Chemical experiment has placed in the photographer's hands improved and easier means of entire, unequal and focal intensification and reduction, but utility of these is restricted. By the artistic worker it is claimed that the lens and camera are but the tools, and the negative the preliminary sketch or study, the final print standing to him in the same relation as the finished painting does to the artist. In the production of the print various means of personally controlling the formation of the image have been resorted to. Thus the local development of platinotype by means of glycerine has its champions, but it seems to have been little used, its resuscitation being chiefly due to two or three prominent workers in New York. Here should also be mentioned the revival in 1898 of rough-surface printing papers, chiefly those sensitized with silver, the roughest texture drawing papers being employed to break up the excessive sharpness of the photographic image, and by the superficial inequalities introducing the effect
