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Article about the Sun Pictures of Victoria
published in The Argus (Melbourne) - 13 August 1858, page 6
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| View in the Ferntree Gully, Dandenon Ranges |
SUN PICTURES OF VICTORIA
Under this title Messrs. A. Fauchery and R. Daintree have just published the first monthly part of a work which it is proposed to extend to ten numbers, and which is to comprise 50 large photo- graphs, in illustration of our colonial celebrities, our landscape and marine scenery, and our private and public architecture.
The invention of the stereomonoscope, by means of which the objects exhibited in a sun picture, of any size, assume solidity and relief to the eye of the spectator, gives an additional value to photographic transcripts of nature.
The collection under notice are admirable specimens of this branch of art, for art it is; as, irrespective of the skill requisite to manipulate successfully, the manipulators must also possess the artistic faculty in the choice of subjects, in the selection of the most picturesque point of view, and in discerning the most favorable aspects or accidental dispositions of light and shade. With this faculty Messrs. Fauchery and Daintree appear to be endowed, and it appears to advantage in more than one of the pictures now before us.
These are five in number, and merit separate notice.
No. 1. The portrait of His Excellency the Governor has much of the effect of a sepia drawing, but with a softness and delicacy of finish such as a sepia-drawing rarely exhibits. It is especially rich in tone, and strikingly like the original, which (paradoxical as the assertion may appear) a great many photo graphic portraits are not.
No. 2. Bourke-street, from the Houses of Parliament, is sharp and clear up to the middle distance, beyond which it is some what hazy, while the horizontal line appears to be incredibly level. The buildings in the foreground are depicted with intense vividness; and the depth of the shadows will serve to give people at the other end of the world a good idea of the brilllancy of the sunshine and the strength of the light here.
No. 3. View in the Fern-tree Gully, Dandenong Ranges, is Nature's affidavit of the truth of M. de Guerard's picture. The scene has all the luxuriance of a tropical jungle, and the underwood appears to be as impenetrable as that of a South American forest .
We miss the color which captivates us in the oil painting, but so far as form and detail are concerned, the instantaneous limning of the sun is more minute than the patient pencil of the laborious artist. Here and there the wind has slightly blurred the image on the camera, but, on the whole, it is a beautiful specimen of photographic art, and most interesting as a study of foliage. Myriads of spiculae might be counted in the space of a few square inches, and a magnifying-glass would no doubt reveal fresh wonders.
No. 4. The new Savings Bank dazzles the eye almost as much as sunshine reflected from white marble, it is so luminous; so rich in its high lights and withal so deep in its shadows. A painter would never dare to venture on such startling contrasts.
No. 5. Pyramid Rock, south coast of Phillip Island, is the least satisfactory, of the number; from the very nature of the subject. The sun refuses to depict water or clouds, and what is a coast view without these important elements?
Take from Turner, Stanfield, or Danby's marine pictures that wonderful variety of form and play of color which the heaving sea and rolling clouds assume; and they would be little better than tabulae rasae; and hence, as in the photograph before us the sky is a blank, and the water undistin guishable from a level waste of sand, but for the creaming ripple on the beach, and the reflection of the rock, the picture is far inferior to the others; and we should counsel the publishers to eschew marine views for the future.
We may add that the pictures are mounted on cardboard, and will constitute, when the full number has been issued, a work of particular value and interest.
A selection of photographs from The Sun Pictures of Victoria by Antoine Fauchery and Richard Daintree
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