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meaning in the observer was fundamental to the Western
tradition, indeed, well known to the Roman and Greeks
before the Renaissance: that projected ‘reality’ has to be
the product of astute re-creation and that composition
is one device used to create the illusion of that reality.
Some photographers did notice something different
about photography—that, when controlled, it could cre-
ate precise meanings especially if composition was used
effectively. While photography, like etching, is a subtle
art, it can nevertheless be impregnated with intended
meanings. To give one example: of all the photographs
of the Equestrian bronze statue of Marcus Aurelius
standing in the square of the Capitol, Rome taken in
the 19th century, not many are found by the Scottish
photographer Robert Macpherson (1814–1872), which
relates the object, the statue, to its surroundings and
locates the head of Marcus Aurelius within the window
pediment of the Capitoline Museum behind it and,
with equally exact mathematical precision, lines up the
horse’s front leg and tail to fi t within the boundary of the
two columns of the window. This produces, within the
confi nes of the use of photography as a two dimensional
graphic art, a perfect harmony between the sculpture and
its stage set, resulting in a picture of supreme nobility.
Technically, in order to achieve such a line up, it had
to be taken from a point suspended above the normal
eye level, probably from a ladder and/or by the use of a
tilt lens. All other photographers of this sculpture, and
there were many, ignore the surrounding building which
nevertheless becomes part of the image, thus forgetting
that everything that occurs in the picture must be con-
structed for a purpose, that if meaning is to be created,
it is created from a knowledge of composition, from the
ability to compose.
There was an exception to Fox Talbot who fooled
many into thinking that it was his individual genius
that was able to create an entirely new language; one
that pushed art forward. Later he was to ‘fool’ many art
historians who seemed to prefer to give, as explanation
of his imagery, the infl uence to the more intellectually
acceptable Japanese woodcut that entered Europe for
the fi rst time in the mid-nineteenth century and which
had became much loved, particularly in France. That
artist was Edgar Degas (1834–1917), painter, sculptor,
printmaker, draughtsman (and photographer) who had
been trained in the Renaissance tradition, well placed,
therefore, to notice a new and different visualisation. He,
more than most, had observed, perhaps early on even
unconsciously, what happened to ‘reality’ when it was
interrupted by photographers who were not part of the
visual tradition; who used it, in comparison, crudely,
badly; allowing it to be itself. Degas then re-translated
this new vocabulary by applying the same principles
as the Renaissance/Academy, exactly as he had been
trained to do: observe, analyse, distil, re-invent. Those
who praised his new way of ‘seeing,’ his unique genius,
never noticed that it was rooted in an astute perception
and understanding of how photography actually works.
Those who labelled it as unworthy as a snap-shot had
entirely missed the point. Degas was able to articulate
in paint many of the observations of Fox Talbot that had
gone ignored. Such was the incomprehension of fellow
artists and critics that, ironically, Degas’ paintings began
to infl uence photographers and fellow artists so that, for
example, the young Edward Steichen, photographing the
races and street scenes in Paris at the end of the century,
interrupts time consciously when he observes a similar-
ity of composition to that of the radical painter, Edgar
Degas. All art, as Oscar Wilde observed, infl uences art.
We can add to that: knowingly or unknowingly.
Most of the characteristics of photography, the work-
ings of the camera and its lenses, are to be found in
Degas’ paintings: the blurred, out of focus, differential
focused image; scientifi c movement (not seen by the
eye); the specifi cs of camera angle, camera view point,
lens perspective (especially distinct from Renaissance
perspective); distortion and the acceptance of none
information conveyed by the photograph for this never
existed in visual art prior to photography, such as the
absence of specifi c tones in order to explain light and
shade as volume as hitherto all artists had been taught
Renaissance formulas for drawing three dimensionally
onto a two dimensional surface; asymmetric composi-
tion (certainly to be seen in Japanese prints); cut-off
composition (hardly ever to be seen in Japanese prints
made prior to the invention of photography, more likely
if found to be a folded page or torn out print); use of
height and distance as acceptable subject matter in their
own right; giving more prominence to other matter at
the expense of the apparent subject of the picture, for
example, in Degas’ ‘The Rehearsal,’ 1873–1874, a spiral
staircase takes over and obliterates most of the dancers,
meanwhile the Ballet Master nearly disappears, stage
right; placing subjects against the light so as to be hardly
seen; the depiction of (apparent) spontaneity, the acci-
dental, the unplanned; including the incongruous and
inexplicable to the point of looking unreal: consider the
seated girl in Degas’ ‘Bellelli Family,’ c. 1860: where
is her other leg?
Degas’ perception and use of photography was pro-
foundly intellectual. In his painting of the ‘The Cotton
Offi ce, New Orleans,’ 1873, (Portraits dans un bureau),
he depicts a strange interior which rushes to the back of
the room, the perspective has not been made according
to the accepted norms, it is more probable the result of
lens perspective. While there has been much written
on the infl uence of Japanese prints and their use of
asymmetric composition, correctly so, they may have
legitimised the acceptance of similar compositional
structures now seen in photographs, a natural result of
COMPOSITION
