ught, forming a standard of beauty, commences
to shape the raw material toward it. In pure landscape, where
modification is limited, it begins when the artist takes one standpoint in
preference to another. In figure composition, where modification is
infinite, it begins with the first touch to bring the model into pose.
When he bends a twig or turns a fold of drapery the spirit of art has come
and is stirring within him. What matters the process! Surely it is time
that this artistic bigotry was ended."

The kernel lies in the sentence "when he bends a twig," etc., "the spirit
of art has come." In other words when he exhibits choice and preference,
when, in short, he _composes._

Recognizing that composition was the only portal through which the new
candidate for art recognition could gain an entrance into the circle of
Art, the single effort of the past photographer, viz.; the striving for
detail and sharpness of line, has been relegated to its reasonable place.
A comprehension of composition was found to demand the knowledge of a
score of things which then by necessity were rapidly discovered, applied
and installed. Composition means sacrifice, gradation, concentration,
accent, obliteration, replacement, construction of things the plate does
not have, destruction of what it should not have.

Supplied with such a magician's wand no effect was denied: all things
seemed possible.

Gratified by recognition in a new realm the new associations should be
strengthened. Whereas photography had been spanned by the simple compass
of Mr. and Mrs. A. and their daughter, in figures; or topographical
accuracies in landscape, revellers in the new art talked of Rembrandt and
Titian, Corot and Diaz. To do something which should put their art in
touch with these, their new-found brethren, was the thing! A noble
ambition, but only a mistaking of the effect for the cause. These men
_composed._ The blurred outline, the vacant shadow, the suppressed
corners, the clipped edges. This all means composition in the subduing of
insistent outline, in the exchange of breadth for detail, in the
centralization of light, in the suppression of the unnecessary.

But no, the employment of these devices of the painter from the
photographer's point of view of composition is not sufficient.
Photography is now busy complimenting every school of painting under the
sun. Yesterday it was Rembrandt's school. Now that is passed, and
Carriere is