The evening times., 1899-03-08
CoIor-Photogrnphs.

The discovery said to have been made
by Prof. r. W. Wood, of the University OF
Wisconsin. of new method of photograph
ing in natural colors may prove important
in the history of art OF course ii will rot
affect the painters of pictures to any great
extent; there will always be place in
the world for the man who can create a
beautiful thing; but color photography
would open a new world TO the masses
of the people who cannot afford to buy
paintings. Ever since photography was in
vented artists have been seeking for a
method of reproducing colors as well as
light and shade by the agency of the sun;
and 1t was reasonably certain from the first
that some day such process would be dis
covered.
The chrome lithograph and other cheap
reproductions of great paintings will
gradually disappear when color photogra-
ply becomes inexpensive. No lithograph
can reproduce TO perfection all the inf
mite shades of color in the wing of bird
or the shifting masses OF cloudy sky The
color photograph will not only do this with
accuracy, but will make far more accu-
rate copy of a great artists masterpiece
Than is now possible. OF course there will
be some color photographs which are good
and some which are very bad, but the
possibilities open TO the photographer of
real artistic feeling and skill will be sim
ply illimitable.
During the last generation the Ameri-
can has been accused of being a person
-;.t Il .ho {f,,1 -
10 some extent true. The mass of our
people get no art education: they are not
trained from childhood 10 recognize beauti-
full things, and their artistic sense often
grows with their growth instead of being
born in them as is the case with the Japa-
nese and one or two other races. But for
all that, we are gradually developing our
own Ideals and standards in art, and in
the next generation there will be hundreds
of young men and women with quick per-
ceptions and thorough training in this
line. The invention of color photography
will be their opportunity. Photography
itself is only in its infancy; it is only re-
Gently that people have understood the
possibility of making portrait which shall
be an artistic picture as well as a like
ness. Hundreds of amateurs are now TAX
ing up this pursuit with the deliberate
purpose of making it an art and not a
trade.
Mechanical processes have now been
brought much nearer perfection than they
were twenty years ago; the manual LABOR
has been reduced TO minimum; now the
artistic sense of the photographer will
come into play. With color as well as
black and white for a medium. there is
almost no end TO the possibilities TO be
brought out. BY the cunning management
of light and shade, carefulness in compo-
sition and contrast of colors, the portrait
of the future, the color photograph. will
be almost equal to the painters MASTER
piece. and far superior TO any second-rate
artistic work. There will always be some
thing in the work of the true portrait
painter which eludes the camera, and so
there will always be place in the world
for those who are called TO be true artists;
but all the talented people who have some
feeling for color and form, and some
skill in the arrangement of a subject,
and a certain intuitive knack in the
management of material, can do far
better with the camera than with the
brush. This is beginning to be understood
and with the camera which reproduces
color ii will be still better understood