3 JULY 1858, Page 32

lint arts.

THE PHOTOGRAPHIC SOCIETY.

The fifth annual exhibition of the Photographic Society has been open fur some few weeks at their new and advantageous premises, No. 1, New Coventry Street; and, although to a certain extent forestalled by their earlier display held at the beginning of the year in the South Kensing- ton Museum, it will afford gratification to all who are interested in the progress of photography as an art, or who take delight in the marvel- lous pictures which are its individual results. A valuable feature of this particular exhibition is the appearance of the " Societe Francais° de Photographic" side by side with their British brethren, furnishing pretty nearly a third of the total number of works. Perhaps the most curious specimens of all are two views by Mr. Fenton from St. James's Park in foggy weather. We assume that these are actually what they profess to be—not views with an effect managed to resemble a fog, but of a fog itself. If so, they represent, as far as we are aware, a new conquest made by photography; whose spiriting must be done gently indeed to obtain, by the agency of its modicum of light, the ap- parent darkness visible of a London fog. We remark also "A Frame containing five Portraits" by Mr. Moule, "taken at night by artificial light and patented apparatus "—the effect quiet and successful on the whole, though the whites come a little blank; Mr. Maxwell Lyte's " lietagelatine Process," exemplified in the "Vallee de Campan," with a dark breadth not unlike that of a French painted landscape, and the sky very well given ; Taupenot's process, as in the "River Mole at Brockham" and others in frame No. 108, very perfect in its dark clear- ness; and seven glimpses of the veritable "Waves of the Sea" by Mr. Crookes, the Secretary of the Society, "the time of exposure varying from the 80th to the 150th part of a second." But Nature laughs her " aneritlimon gelasma" even faster than Mr. Crookes's 150th : he cannot catch the breaking foam quick enough to save it from becoming furry and confused at the edges, precious and beautiful though his little re- cords are.

Futile as it is to attempt to apply to photographs the saint kind of in- dividual criticism which pertains to the productions of human art, we may single out a few of the specimens which caught our attention. Mr. Grundy's " Scenes at Constantinople," and other studies of oriental figures and accessories, (we fear the nationality of the figures is a little dubious,) are remarkable for grandeur and power of light and shade, and for their fine colour. Mr. Morgan's views "On the Froom " &c., are about as exqui- site as photography can make them—uniting feathery delicacy with fusion of tone. Mr. Frith sends several of his Egyptian views on a large scale. Messrs. Caldesi and Montecchi's photograph of " Sir Jam- setjee Jejeebhoy, from a statue by Baron Marochetti," introduces us to a singular example of the sculptor's powers—massive, quiescent, and realistic. The same photographers give us two views of "Mr. Rarey and ' Cruiser,' " reduced to entire subjection. For downright strength it would be difficult to match the untouched "View on the Quay in Sut- ton Pool, Plymouth," by Mr. W. J. Cox; da rough houses, with a late- ral sun bringing out every slightest detail of the rasping stone-surface. Messrs. Hanneh and Kent are more than commonly successful both in animals and in men. Their "Frame containing photographs of animals from life, untouched," catches cats and dogs sometimes, it would seem, at the very moment before a spring or a start would destroy the por- trait ; and the " Portraits " of officers of the Inniskillings are among the most " gentlemanly " photographs ever produced—a result due, of course, in great measure to the sitters, but partly also to the excellent focussing of the manipulators, and their avoidance of any kind of forced efyeet. Mr. Bosley again has seized an instantaneous action (or the appearance of one) with great skill in the two leap-frog subjects of his

Case of Stereoscopic Pictures."

We regret to part from the exhibition with a word of censure; but the system indulged in by one of our leading photographers, Mr. May all, is so perverse, and finds so much acceptance with the public, that we cannot forbear protesting against it. The system is briefly that of taking good photographs, and destroying them by painting over them poor resemblances of sepia drawings. The long series of portraits of eminent men, beginning with No. 335, is an example. It is scarcely possible to overstate the idiocy of this proceeding. A production which may in some sense be called absolutely right is plastered over with a substitute which cannot in any sense be called other than extremely wrong. In some other instances, regular colouring is added, with a result still more detestable : the "Arid in Midsummer Night's Dream' " (so the catalogue has it) is a wretched abortion. Another painful feature in the cooperation of photography and fine art is illustrated in Messrs. Cal- desi and Montecchi's "St. Catherine, after Raffaelle." The notorious obstacles in the way of photographing direct from pictures, deranging the chiaroscuro relations of the colours, induces the practice of taking

first a drawing in light and shade from the painting, and then a photo. graph from the drawing. Thus the photograph before us is not a fac- simile from Raffaelle but from Mr. Stohi's mediocre copy of Raffaelle, which is a very different thing indeed. This, however, is a choice between real difficulties ; and the photographer, even though he May have chosen the worse side, claims to have allowance made for his dilemma.