PHOTOGRAPHY is treated so generally G. C. Cox. as an art in which a machine does all the work, that it is difficult to believe that some of the greatest portraits of our time have been produced by this medium. It is true, however, that the ideal requirement of a portrait-to give a glimpse of a man's soul-has never been more nearly satisfied than by a few photographs made several years ago in England by Mrs. Julia Cameron, and by a large number made in the last few years in New York by Mr. Of Mrs. Cameron's work this magazine has already given its readers some specimens.* The present article is devoted to that of Mr. Cox. So quietly has Mr. Cox's work been done that, except to a limited public particularly interested in purely artistic results, it is unfamiliar. He has never sought general recognition. Conscious that what he was striving to attain would be understood by only a few men, he has worked for them MCCLURE'S MAGAZINE for December, 1803. alone, seeking their criticisms and suggestions and observing closely the effect on them of what he had done. 46 To appreciate his method of work, one should have a sitting in his studio. The experience is altogether unusual. One does nothing as in the conventional studio. He is not posed. He is not bidden to look at the upper right-hand corner" of anything. He is not asked to smile. He is not made to keep quiet while a watch ticks out an interminable minute. As for the camera, it seems hardly to come into the operation. Probably many persons have had a series of portraits taken by Mr. Cox who afterwards were unable to tell without an effort where the camera stood and how it was operated. All this is natural enough if one understands what the artist is trying to do. His treatment of a sitter is founded on his theory that all men purposely or unwittingly wear a mask, and that unless this mask can be torn away and the emotions allowed to chase freely across the face, no characteristic picture is possible. His first effort then is to get rid of the non-committal mask; to make the subject forget himself, the camera, his mission at the studio. An ordinary man could not do this, but Mr. Cox is no ordinary man. He is origi- tional opinions; the odd personal observanal, sincere, witty, and in profound earnest tions; the contempt for shams, surprise and over his work. The subject who comes arouse the subject. Before he is aware he, to him prepared to pose is surprised to be too, is talking animatedly. Mr. Cox tells greeted with what seems to be quite irrele- with appreciation how Bishop Taylor, the vant, though decidedly brilliant, talk. Mr. great African missionary, came to him. Cox has known many of the most interest- once to be photographed. He was for ing people of the last twenty years, and some time indifferent and dull, not underhas a great fund of unusual anecdotes standing at all what the artist was after, about them. When he begins to tell but finally thawed out, and Mr. Cox caught stories of Whitman and Beecher, of William one of his best portraits just as the aged Hunt and Richardson, of Amélie Rives Bishop finished telling with great gusto and Duse, it is only an unusually dull and the story of a young man coming to the preoccupied mood which will prevent one ship to see him off on a recent voyage. from becoming interested. The quaint "Good-by, dear Bishop," he blubbered; and original expressions; the unconven- "I shall probably never see you again." |