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16 THE ADVANCE OF PHOTOGRAPHY
directions, and soon one of Voigtlander's lenses became indispensable to every daguerreotypist. By employing bromide with iodide of silver, and Voigtlander's lens, the exposure was reduced to seconds.
The daguerreotype art had therewith reached its zenith. However delicate the pictures so produced appeared, it was found, after the first enthusiasm had gone and had given place to a cold sprit of criticism, that much still remained to be desired.
First, the glare of the pictures made it difficult to look at them. Then there were several marked deviations from nature : yellow objects often produced little or no effect, and appeared black ; on the other hand, blue objects, which appear dark to the eye, frequently, though not always, came out white.
Thus a well-grounded aesthetic objection was brought against these pictures.
It was indisputable that the daguerreot}Tpe greatly surpassed painting in the wonderful clearness of detail, and the fabulous truthfulness with which it reproduced the outlines of objects. The daguerreotype plate gave more than the artist, but for that very reason it gave too much. It reproduced the subordinate objects as faithfully as the principal object in the picture.
The artist of merit has no cause to fear photography. On the contrary, it proves advantageous to him by the fabulous fidelity of its drawing — through it he learns to reproduce the outline of things correctly — nor can it be disputed that, since the invention of photography, a decidedly closer study of nature and a greater truthfulness are visible in the works of our ablest painters.
We shall see further on, how even photography appropriated the aesthetic principles according to which painters proceed in preparing their portraits, and how thereby a certain artistic stamp was given to these productions, which raised them far above those of the early period.