A German photographic journal published under the cooperation of the Camera Club of Vienna was the Photographisches Centralblatt.  (Photographic Central Sheet or Photographic Journal)  First appearing in October of 1895 (1) and ending under its own imprint in 1903,  it was published twice monthly and priced at 1 Mark. Title page information beginning in 1898 indicates it was first published on the fifth of each month, and included at least one hand-pulled photogravure as well as numerous full-page halftone plates. The second monthly issue came out on the 20th and featured mostly technical articles and club news.

Select examples of Photographisches Centralblatt: 1895  1898   1899  1900  1901  1902  1903

Professor Fritz Schmidt, a lecturer and head of the Photographic Institute based at Karlsruhe Palace (then part of the Karlsruhe Technische Hochschule and presently The University of Karlsruhe), was the journals first publisher and editor. Schmidt, specializing in the technical aspects of photography,  held his position at the Hochschule since 1888 (2) and was the author of Photographisches Fehlerbuch, (Photographic Mistakes) a volume first published in 1895, the same year Photographisches Centralblatt appeared. Successive expanded editions of Schmidt’s Fehlerbuch included reviews like the following which appeared   in 1900:

“This is a quite encyclopaedic reference book of the causes of, and remedies for, all the fogs, stains, spots, and other ills that photographic plates and papers can develop. They are classified under processes and in many cases illustrated by lithographic plates. It is a textbook of photography which enforces its lessons in the school of experience, and for this reason is probably the most scientifically arranged manual existent. For it takes facts as its basis, and the motto on its title-page ought to be Experientia docet.” (Experience is the best teacher)  3.
 
Initially, Karlsruhe publisher Otto Nemnich, responsible for issuing Schmidt’s technical volume, printed the Photographisches Centralblatt.

But as a photographic publication, Centralblatt apparently lacked a distinct mission. Its featured technical content and photographic illustrations were both similar to  those found in Das Atelier des Photographen as well as Photographische Rundschau, (4) (although picture editor Ernst Juhl in 1896 began a revitalization of the Photographische Rundschau) two photographic journals published by Wilhelm Knapp in Halle. Perhaps due to similarity, a new direction was sought for Centralblatt.

In this regard, Fritz Matthies-Masuren (1873-1938) would be its savior. Now known as one of one of the most important proponents of early artistic photography in Germany and the Continent as well as a frequent correspondent with Alfred Stieglitz in America, Matthies-Masuren spent part of his formative artistic education studying painting among other creative endeavors at the State Academy of Fine Arts in Karlsruhe, enrolling in 1894 (5) when he was 20 or 21 years of age. By 1896, he had become an avid photographer with an interest in breaking down conventional photographic wisdom. In October of 1897 he moved to Munich, accepting the managing editorship responsible for among other things, the journals photographic illustrations from its new publisher Georg D.W. Callwey. 6.
 
A surviving year-end title page from the 1897 volume of Centralblatt (7) included the following subtitle: Internationale Rundschau auf dem Gesamt-Gebiete der Photographie. (International review on all aspects of Photography) But with Callwey as new publisher, the January 1898 issue was launched with a new design as well as content. (8) To put an emphasis on its new direction in relation to artistic photography, the subtitle was changed to Zeitschrift für Künstlerische und Wissenschaftliche Photographie. (Journal of Artistic and Scientific Photography) Professor Fritz Schmidt stayed on as editor through 1898, (9) but the title page for the bound volume issued by Callwey at the end of the year omitted his name altogether, listing Matthies-Masuren as sole editor.

In neighboring Austria,  the publication of the final issue of the Vienna Camera Club journal Wiener Photographische Blätter occurred in December 1898, but the club was able to continue its mission by teaming up with the Photographisches Centralblatt beginning in 1899. Professor Franz Schiffner, who edited Wiener Photographische Blätter for its entire 1894-1898 run, now joined Matthies-Masuren as co-editor of the journal. With a background in technical photography, specializing in photogrammetry, (photographic surveying) Schiffner as early as 1888 had been a Professor at the Austro-Hungarian Naval Base Secondary School in Pola. (today Pula, Croatia) (10) By 1892, as indicated in the volume Imperial and Royal Gazette for the Ministry of Culture and Education, he was listed as teaching at an undetermined secondary school in a Vienna municipality. 11.

1898 was a watershed year for Matthies-Masuren and especially for European photographic pictorialism. Besides his responsibilities as co-editor, he mounted, according to its’ published catalogue, 304 photographs as part of the Elite-Ausstellung künstlerischer Photographien (International Exhibition of Artistic Photographs) at the end of the year in the Munich Secession:

“The aim of this exhibition was, among other things, to confirm that art photography was on an equal footing with the other media in the fine arts hierarchy and, at the same time, to encourage painters to “use this new, independent means of expression…” 12.

Monthly issues (published on the fifth of each month) of the Centralblatt during 1898 were devoted to the work of a particular photographer, which certainly made it stand out among other photographic publications. The Hofmeister brothers, Georg Einbeck, Prof. Paul Hoecker, Carl Winkel, Otto Scharf, Otomar Anschütz, Dr. Hugo Henneberg, Robert Demachy and even Fritz Matthies-Masuren for the February issue were all featured in the journal for 1898. A snapshot of the contents page for January, 1898 lists correspondence relating to art-photography from a wide European geography: Berlin, Danzig, Dresden, Hamburg, Paris, Prag and Vienna. In addition, club news from Chemnitz, Darmstadt and Dresden appear. 13.

Sometime after 1900, Halle an der Saale publisher Wilhelm Knapp took over the journal from Georg D.W. Callwey. By 1902, the title had been changed to Photographisches Central-Blatt. Additionally, Georg Aarland, a professor and head of the photographic and photo-mechanical departments at Leipzig’s Imperial Academy of Graphic Arts and Bookbinding (14) joined Matthies-Masuren and Franz Schiffner as editor.

Finally, in 1903, the decision had been made by Wilhelm Knapp to combine Photographisches Central-Blatt with their other journal, Photographische Rundschau, most likely for reasons of economy. Aarland was replaced by Rundschau editor Richard Neuhauss and Knapp issued the journal for 1903 using the same sequence of hand-pulled photogravure plates included with that years Photographische Rundschau, even retaining the Rundschau imprints on several of the gravure plates. (15) From 1904-1911, its new title became the Photographische Rundschau und Photographisches Centralblatt.

Our online Photographisches Centralblatt galleries include the majority of its photogravure supplements as well as other plates for 1898-1903.

Notes:

1. ONLINE BIBLIOGRAPHICAL ENTRY #11598: PHOTOCOLL: BIBLIOTHEK UND AUFSATZDATENBANK ZUR PHOTOGRAPHIE COLLECTION DR. R.H. KRAUSS
2. JOSEF MARIA EDER: HISTORY OF PHOTOGRAPHY: TRANSLATED BY EDWARD EPSTEAN: COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY PRESS: NEW YORK: 1945: P. 687
3. PRINTS: PHOTOGRAPHISCHES FEHLERBUCH: IN: THE PHOTOGRAM AND THE PROCESS PHOTOGRAM: EDITED BY H. SNOWDEN & CATHERINE WEED WARD: DAWBARN & WARD, LTD.: LONDON: VOLUME VII: 1900: P. 325
4. MÜNCHEN — DAS ›PHOTOGRAPHISCHE CENTRALBLATT ‹: IN: KUNSTFOTOGRAFIE UM 1900-DIE SAMMLUNG FRITZ MATTHIES-MASUREN 1873-1938: CHRISTINE KÜHN: STAATLICHE MUSEEN ZU BERLIN: 2003: P. 17
5. IBID: P. 10
6. IBID: P. 17
7. PHOTOSEED ARCHIVE
8. KUNSTFOTOGRAFIE UM 1900: P. 17
9. PHOTOSEED ARCHIVE
10. SCHIFFNER BIOGRAPHICAL REFERENCE: FROM: LECTURE DELIVERED ON DECEMBER 21, 1888: “ÜBER PHOTOGRAPHISCHE MESSKUNST”: IN: ORGAN DER MILITÄR-WISSENSCHAFTLICHEN VEREINE: VOLUME XXXVII, 1889: WIEN: VERLAG DES MILITÄR-WISSENSCHAFTLICHEN VEREINES: PP. 49-55
11.  SCHIFFNER LISTING: IN: VERORDNUNGSBLATT FÜR DEN DIENSTBEREICH DES K. K. MINISTERIUMS FÜR CULTUS UND UNTERRICHT: JAHRGANG 1892: WIEN: VERLAG DES K.K. MINISTERIUMS FÜR CULTUS UND UNTERRICHT: P. CLXIII
12. SYMBOLISM AND PICTORIALISM-THE INFLUENCE OF EUGÈNE CARRIÈRE’S PAINTING ON ART PHOTOGRAPHY AROUND 1900: ULRICH POHLMANN: IN: IMPRESSIONIST CAMERA: PICTORIAL PHOTOGRAPHY IN EUROPE, 1888-1918 : MERRELL PUBLISHERS : 2006 : P. 87 
13. INHALT: IN: PHOTOGRAPHISCHES CENTRALBLATT: ZEITSCHRIFT FÜR KÜNSTLERISCHE UND WISSENSCHAFTLICHE PHOTOGRAPHIE: HERAUSGEBER UND LEITER: PROFESSOR F. SCHMIDT-KARLSRUHE I. B.: MÜNCHEN: VERLAG VON GEORG D.W. CALLWEY: IV JAHRG.: HEFT 1: JANUARY, 1898.
14. AARLAND OBITUARY: IN: THE BRITISH JOURNAL OF PHOTOGRAPHY: HENRY GREENWOOD & CO. : LONDON: APRIL 12, 1907: P. 282
15. PHOTOGRAPHISCHES CENTRAL-BLATT: ZEITSCHRIFT FÜR KÜNSTLERISCHE UND WISSENSCHAFTLICHE PHOTOGRAPHIE: REDIGIERT VON F. MATTHIES-MASUREN- HALLE A. S., DR. R. NEUHAUSS-GROSS- LICHTERFELDE O. UND PROF. F. SCHIFFNER-WIEN: DRUCK UND VERLAG VON WILHELM KNAPP: HALLE A. S. 1903

When evaluating the chiaroscuro masterpiece Campo San Margherita by James Craig Annan, a striking vertical composition taken in 1894 during his visit to the Campo San Margherita piazza in Venice-an outdoor market and tourist destination still popular today- the idea of Modernism, a decidedly 20th Century school as applied to the photographic arts, should be taken seriously considering the intent and evidence posed by this finished work.

Documentary, cubist in form and radically pictorial for its time, this slice of life study showing the interaction of a market vendor and customer can be dissected for compositional posterity with the intent a post-mortem of sorts by this reviewer is reason enough when re-considering the historical record of early photographic aesthetics.

First off, Scotsman Annan was a master engraver and pioneer of the hand-pulled photogravure, an intaglio process similar to etching, but with the matrix of a photographic negative “from life” doing the stand-in for the artists brush or pencil. With this control afforded, the photographic results transferred to a copper plate could be altered at will depending on artistic intent, giving Annan the ability to subtly control and change aspects of his composition after he took the initial exposure by camera.

Arbitrarily beginning at the bottom of the frame, a subtle flow begins to develop reaching near the top of this composition. Here we see the Campo San Margherita title, with letters spanning the entire width of the vertical composition placed in its own compartmentalized box serving as anchor to the entire work.

From here, the eye travels upwards. With an engraver’s burin, Annan deliberately alters a portion of highlighted marketplace cobblestones to a shaded version- the result being complimentary, contrasting diagonals now taking residence within the dead-zone of space created by his decision to present the work as an extreme vertical composition from the outset.

This in turn brings us to the very center of the frame. Without reading too much into it, the scale itself is the perfect symbol for what Annan achieves in this area we are most interested in visually. Holding it out while weighing a marketplace purchase for his customer opposite, the vendor’s action gives credibility to the idea a kind of balance has been created and achieved at the very center of the frame, especially after she conveniently stoops to his same level while contemplating the purchase.

The rest of the frame serving as backdrop to this drama in the middle compliments everything else within in, but with a twist. Instead of a purely static presentation of a lone moment occurring in the marketplace, the hat-wearing gentleman walking directly behind the vendor preparing to bust out of the frame gives a refreshing jolt to the work. Annan’s inclusion of this other action reminds us the marketplace bustles with life.

Finally, the central part of the background: a large shaded alleyway dividing two separate buildings anchoring the entire left and right margins of the frame, neatly compliments the balance of the two windows seen behind the man wearing the hat. Here, the area of the arched window frame in the top left of the composition reaches upwards to its natural conclusion: another area of naturally shaded discoloration similar in tone and effect Annan manipulated for the bottom third of the frame.

But this is just one opinion, albeit from someone who has spent a lifetime constructing and deconstructing photographs. Hopefully, this insight into one singular example of Annan’s art might give others the chance to see his motives and intent for what they are: a strong example of photographic Modernism ahead of his time.

David Spencer-

Besides the obvious: a permanent, for the most part, result in the form of a photograph; the act of taking said photograph could be argued as being just as important. For some, it really is the point.

Can I take your picture? Why sure. Why would you be interested may I ask? Because…

I find you: insert adjective here. Or don’t ask permission.

Because. No real reason at all, other than it sorta confirms your existence for posterity. So not a bad tradeoff, especially for those who might want to look back, far off in the future, or five minutes from now.

Going back well over a century, this series of photographs is confirmation act has always been wrapped up in art. For proof, observe the capable body language of voiceless French actress Félicia Mallet, (1863–1928) published in 1896 and recently posted. As Pierrot, she was taking on the role modern scholars consider the essence of the artist’s alter-ego. Especially as some might consider: “the famously alienated artist of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.” (1.)

But the inherently silent results recorded by French photographer Arthur da Cunha here are besides the point. A live performance will always elicit a critic, particularly one on the public stage.

In a fortunate coincidence, no less an observer than George Bernard Shaw weighed in a year later, his take on Mallet’s performance during the London stage production of A Pierrot’s Life giving readers the opinion her Pierrot was far more believable than one played by (Mrs.) Signora Litini:

The recasting of “A Pierrot’s Life” at the matinees at the Prince of Wales’ Theatre greatly increases and solidifies the attraction of the piece. Felicia Mallet now plays Pierrot; but we can still hang on the upturned nose of the irresistible Litini, who reappears as Fifine. Litini was certainly a charming Pierrot; but the delicate, subtle charm was an intensely feminine one, and only incorporated itself dreamily with the drama in the tender shyness of the first act and the pathos of the last. Litini as a vulgar drunkard and gambler was as fantastically impossible as an angel at a horse-race. Felicia Mallet is much more credible, much more realistic, and therefore much more intelligible — also much less slim, and not quite so youthful. Litini was like a dissolute “La Sylphide”: Mallet is frankly and heartily like a scion of the very smallest bourgeoisie sowing his wild oats. She is a good observer, a smart executant, and a vigorous and sympathetic actress, apparently quite indifferent to romantic charm, and intent only on the dramatic interest, realistic illusion, and comic force of her work. And she avoids the conventional gesture-code of academic Italian pantomime, depending on popularly graphic methods throughout. The result is that the piece is now much fuller of incident, much more exciting in the second act (hitherto the weak point) and much more vivid than before.  (2.)

Notes:

1. Pierrot: see: Wikipedia overview: accessed, March, 2014
2. excerpt: Meredith on Comedy: An Essay on Comedy. By George Meredith. Westminster: Archibald Constable & Co. 1897: from:  Dramatic Opinions and Essays by G. Bernard Shaw/(James Huneker): Volume 2: New York: Brentanos: 1906:  pp. 225-6

Subversive and unwilling to play by the rules. This is why the body of work produced by British photographer Julia Margaret Cameron (1815–1879) should still matter to us today.

How can one not admire the intent and courage it must have taken her to focus a camera lens in the era of wet plate photography (1860s-1870s) and then, just as often as not, deliberately have the mischievous bent to throw that lens slightly out of focus in order to create photographs often resembling the feelings found in dreams? Photographs that justifiably draw admiration and discussion even today of the lives of Victorian celebrities and house servants who were convinced to sit or be dragged in front of that camera.

For those inclined to learn the mysterious ingredient-and staying power so to speak-of Cameron’s photography-the answer might be a single word: “beauty”. This might indeed be the key, a Citizen Kane, Rosebud moment if you will, the one final word she reportedly uttered on her deathbed.

Beauty, and a renewed appreciation is what I took away from a visit late last year to a show at the Metropolitan Museum of Art simply titled “Julia Margaret Cameron“.  

Surprisingly, it was first devoted solely to her work at the museum, a tightly edited overview comprised of 38 works, including several by her contemporaries: David Wilkie Wynfield, William Frederick Lake Price, and Oscar Gustav Rejlander.

The wall copy set the stage for those not already familiar with Cameron, describing her rightly as:

 “One of the greatest portraitists in the history of photography—indeed in any medium“…

A further explanatory statement in her own words followed:

“From the first moment I handled my lens with a tender ardour,” she wrote, “and it has become to me as a living thing, with voice and memory and creative vigour.” 

Words that no doubt have influenced scores of photographers, painters and others working in various artistic disciplines during the many decades since her passing. An important early tribute came in the lifetime of Cameron’s youngest son Henry Herschel Hay Cameron. (1852-1911) Inspired no doubt by his mother’s art, he was a working photographer who maintained a London studio, and provided the Introduction as well as a series of complimentary portraits paired with those by his mother for the folio volume Alfred, Lord Tennyson and his Friends. This series of 25 large-plate photogravures along with letterpress was published in a limited edition in 1893.

Other notable remembrances of Cameron’s work appeared earlier and much later. In 1890, the English publication Sun Artists featured four of her photographs: Sir John Herschel, Alfred Lord Tennyson and the allegorical works The Day Dream and The Kiss of Peace. All large-plate gravures for the 5th Number.

For Camera Work 41 published in 1913, editor Alfred Stieglitz presented five plates of Cameron’s work published as tissue gravures: two of Scottish philosopher Thomas Carlyle, portraits of English polymath John Herschel and Hungarian violinist Joseph Joachim and an allegorical study of English Shakespearean actress Ellen Terry taken done in 1864 when she was 16 originally titled “Sadness“.

Later in the British Number of the short-lived publication Platinum Print published in Feb. 1915, American photographer Clarence White’s essay titled Old Masters in Photography lauded Cameron as an early influence, singling out her photograph he most likely saw in an 1891 issue of Sun and Shade titled the Dalmatian Maid.

This portrait of Christina Spartali, a neighbor of Cameron on the Isle of Wight who was most certainly not a maid, as her family had made their fortune from the cotton trade and her father was Consul-General for Greece, was taken in 1868. White observed:

“While some questions have been raised as to the influence these workers have had on those of today, for my own part I must confess an influence on my work inspired by Mrs. Cameron’s “Dalmatian Maid,” a copy of which I saw in the days of my early efforts.” (p.4)

Although ended, photographs from the Cameron show at the Met can still be viewed in digital form, along with an ambitious project devoted to her and other notable photographers now ongoing on behalf of the rich photographic collection held by the Royal Photographic Society at the National Media Museum in Bradford, England.

Other treasures await additional scholarship. For our part, PhotoSeed presents with this post a seldom-seen work by Cameron formerly owned by Peter Hukill, (1927-2003) an early collector of fine art photography who built a collection thanks to the early efforts of galleries including the former Robert Schoelkopf Gallery in New York City, the records of which now reside in the Smithsonian Archives of American Art.

Prescient, and subversive indeed. The Schoelkopf Gallery was apparently one of the first to feature photography as fine art in the United States. In 1967, it had the distinction of mounting the last solo show of Cameron’s work before the Met’s which opened in 2013: “timing it to coincide with a show at the Metropolitan Museum of Art that focused on Cameron as one of four Victorian photographers.” (1.)

1. excerpt: Robert Schoelkopf Gallery records, 1851-1991: Smithsonian Archives of American Art online resource: “In its early years the Robert Schoelkopf Gallery contributed considerably to the development of interest in fine art photography that fostered an increasingly lucrative market for photographic prints during the 1960s and 1970s.”

A curious photograph entered this archive last year, and with the debut of a new season of Downton Abbey upon us here in the States, I thought it important to pay homage to those women who made English Service, from circa 1917, the noble effort it was.