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effects.” The infl ected surfaces of such photographs
were thought to further authenticate photography as
fi ne art, in opposition to the machine-made perfection
of manufactured printing papers. However, manipulated
photographs were not acceptable to all. Both Emerson
and Davison saw retouching as an adulteration or ide-
alisation of natural, photographic truth, a view upheld
by proponents of the ‘straight print,’ such as Frederick
Hollyer and Frederick H. Evans.
The advocates of impressionist painting defended
rapid brush work as the means of recording transitory
phenomena. The photographer could hardly argue this
necessity, for the camera could instantaneously capture
a scene with detail and precision. The painters them-
selves were ambivalent about instantaneity. In 1872,
Edgar Degas complained of the tendency among young
painters to begin work without thought or premedita-
tion: “The instantaneous is photography, nothing more”
(Degas 1872, 220). This view was echoed by manyphotographers and attributed to the unconsidered work
arising from snapshot photography. Yet instantaneity
brought artistic benefi ts: practical exposure times could
be obtained with low light levels, which suited the natu-
ralistic and impressionist interest in atmospheric effects
of light and weather (also see under night photography).
In the 1890s, photography was credited with inspiring
new compositional structures in art, as discussed by the
editor of The Studio, Gleeson White, and the German
art historian, Richard Muther. They identifi ed aesthetic
crosscurrents between snapshot photography, impres-
sionism, and Japanese art; asymmetric and seemingly
arbitrary framing, the compression of space, and an
emphasis on foreground objects, presented as close-ups
and functioning as dynamic compositional devices. Such
elements appear in stereoscopic photography as early as
the 1860s, and recur in later, ‘pictorialist’ photographs
by Alvin Langdon Coburn, Theodor and Oskar Hof-
meister, and Heinrich Kühn.IMPRESSIONIST PHOTOGRAPHY
George B. Jr., and Mary M. Vaux,
William Sansom Vaux, Jr. Twin Falls,
Yoho Valley, 100 ft. High, Mark Field,
British Columbia.
The J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles
© The J. Paul Getty Museum.Hannavy_RT72353_C009.indd 738 7/5/2007 11:33:25 AM