That is to say, she saw that she must not tell all if she was to tell most. If the essence of humor is the thing not said, but which completes the triangle of elements with the giver and the receiver, art always assumes some element supplied by the observer. Even primitive forms of art placed demands upon the imagination-very heavy demands, we sometimes think! But in general it may be said that the higher the art the more is demanded from him who shall apprehend it. Even a photographer may understand that a picture which says all says nothing. Mrs. Cameron set out to leave something to the imagination. A work that does this-that leaves out and that leaves in just the right things cannot be exhausted in a moment, for since some elements are being supplied by ourselves, these elements are constantly subject to change, and we see new things in the work from time to time, just as we see them in any work of art."

"But," protested the painter, "I have seen failed photographs, accidents, that looked just like these intentional effects of Mrs. Cameron, and that were fully equipped with the quality of giving our imaginations opportunity for absolute riot."

"This would be true of the elements of every art; but there comes a point in photography, as in other arts, where the obvious intention of the artist meets the imagination of the spectator at the right moment and in the right way. When the apposition is perfect we have art."

"You probably will think I am mean," laughed the painter, "but I have a feeling, after all you have said, and after all that seems to be true of photography, that makes it easier for me to believe that the photographer can be an artist than that photography can be an art.”

"Quite reasonable!" cried the professor. "I often have felt that very thing."

"In other words," the painter went on, "you have done things that have made me know you for an artist. The things you speak of are perhaps art, but I can't call them photography. Have you read Stillman on this? 'Photography,' he says, 'is the absolute negative of art; and if to-morrow it could succeed in reproducing all the tints of nature, it would only be the more antagonistic, if that were possible, to the true artistic qualities. The letter killeth, the spirit giveth life, and though artistic creation does not involve the creation of the prime material, no more does, so far as science teaches, the creation of the world;

the old material takes new forms, that is all. The idealist gets his materials from nature, but he recasts them in expression; the realist who is no artist repeats them as he gets them. This is the fundamental distinction in all design; the copyist is not an artist.""

Stillman is speaking of photography in the primary sense," replied the photographer. "When the photographer 'recasts them in expression,' he is doing an artistic work with his materials. Visible nature is not all of nature, and I don't see why, in the interest of expression, a man may not use as much or as little of nature as he chooses. Take the art of the stage. Is n't it accomplished by much realism? We cannot even say that the stage always is used to vocalize written art. The other night I heard Bronson Howard declare that the best thing he ever did in a dramatic way existed in a situation unaccompanied by words. Now, the art of that situation lay, first, in the idea, second, in the expression of it. The agency of expression was an absolutely natural, realistic appearance. If a man does the same thing in photography, why must he be condemned because the means of expression includes a literal reflection of nature?"

"You have n't made a better point than that," said the professor, judicially, "but you must let me say that we don't seem to be able to get much beyond this: An artist may express himself through photography, he may even create a product that includes the action of a lens which may be called a work of art; but the product does not prove that photography is an art, and that the man who is able to overcome, by interference with them, the mechanical obstacles to artistic expression-that is, to personal expression-in a picture, might not do a better thing without using the lens at all."

"Is n't that splitting a hair?" demanded the photographer. "First you admit the photography, and say that it is n't art. Then you admit the art, and say that it is n't photography. It all is because you can't get a preconception of photography as a mechanical process out of your heads. However, I am grateful to have made you admit the beauty, the art, in some of these things, even if you think it is art of questionable parentage, and even if you think it is not photography."

"You must permit me another word," insisted the painter. "I fancy painters and others who are not painters resent certain movements in photography, not for the reason

which appeared in the exclamation of the Frenchman, when Daguerre's invention was exploited: 'Painting is dead from this day!' but for the reason that these movements seem to be less interesting to the world than those things which photography has been producing as a science. I need not mention these things-we hear a great deal about them, about all that photography does as the handmaid of painting-I had almost said art, again!-as the handmaid of various sciences. Photography seems to desire too much glory."

"Well," summed up the photographer, "photography does n't seem at all likely to

FOR

stop being these other things because it is trying also to be an art."

Somehow all three, the painter, the photographer, and the professor, found themselves looking at one of the last pictures in the portfolio. It was a portrait study of a grizzled old man. All remained silent for some moments, and there was admiration in the silence.

"When all is said," mused the painter, "it is a quarrel about a label, after all."

The professor nodded, and the photographer smiled. "I have always liked that about as well as anything he ever did," the photographer said.

OR some years there has been a distinct movement toward art in the photographic world. In England, the birthplace of pictorial photography, this movement took definite shape over nine years ago with the formation of the "Linked Ring," an international body composed of some of the most advanced pictorial photographic workers of the period, and organized mainly for the purpose of holding an annual exhibition devoted exclusively to the encouragement and artistic advancement of photography. This exhibition, which was fashioned on the lines of the most advanced art salons of France, was an immediate success, and has now been repeated annually for nine years, exercising a marked influence on the pictorial photographic world. These exhibitions mark the beginning of modern pictorial photography. Exhibitions similar to those instituted by the Linked Ring were held in all the largest art centers of Europe, and eventually also in this country. America, until recently not even a factor in pictorial photographic matters, has during the last few years played a leading part in shaping and advancing the pictorial movement, shattering many photographic idols, and revolutionizing photographic ideas as far as its art ambitions were concerned. It battled vigorously for the establishment of newer and higher standards, and is at present doing everything possible still further to free the art from the trammels of conventionality, and to encourage greater individuality.

In spite of all derision, prejudice, and opposition, the serious character of many of

the exhibitions, and the distinct individual worth of many of the pictures shown, together with their artistic promise, eventually attracted the interested attention of some of the more liberal-minded artists and art critics. The organization of artists known as the Munich Secession, one of the most progressive, liberal, and influential art associations in the world, was the first officially to recognize the possibilities of pictorial photography, inviting to exhibit at one of its own exhibitions certain of the pictorial photographers of Austria, Great Britain, Germany, France, and America. Following in these footsteps, the Art Committee of the Glasgow International Arts and Industrial Exposition, in 1901, opened its arms to receive pictorial photography as a legitimate member of the family of the fine arts. In view of the importance of Glasgow as an art center, the welcome thus accorded was of special significance.

In the spring of the present year the painters and sculptors of the Vienna Secession likewise threw open their exhibition to photography, allowing photographs to be submitted to the jury of selection on the same terms as paintings, drawings, statuary, and other examples of individual artistic expression. Twelve pictorial photographs, representing the work of four Austrian photographers, were hung in this exhibition. They were not only well received by the public, but were favorably commented upon by many of those painters and art critics who had up to that time been among the bitterest opponents of recognition of the