BIRTH OF CAMEOGRAPHY.

Auckland Star, Volume LV, Issue 116, 17 May 1924, Page 5

BIRTH OF CAMEOGRAPHY.

A SEW AST. REPRODUCTION IX TIIRI.I. DIMENSIONS. (From Our nun Correspondent.) LONDON, March 12. Tim Press was bidden yesterday lo celebrate the birth of an invention likely to have a widespread effect on our daily lives. lis sponsors likened it to such momentous occasions ns those on which I Edison achieved the phonograph. And, indeed, the new invention will reproduce ! scenes in sculpture as mechanically as ! the phonograph reproduces sound. The new invention is no less than a mechanical means whereby flat pie- ! lures in two dimensions—photographic | reproductions—can be produced in three dimensions. | The new art has been somewhat I dumpily iiiiniotl cameography, chiefly because what will probably prove its most popular form of reproduction will I lie small mcdallion-liko cameos of heads in low relief. At Hie same time the •t productions, and many fine examples j were shown, are capable of being made jin full dimensions of the sculptured I figure. j The mechanism of this reproduction i lias the simplicity if all jjreat ideas. | A screen with very line parallel lines is , projected on to the face of the sitter, j who is at. the same time photographed |by two cameras placed at carefully'adjusted angles. On tho negatives these I parallel lines appear as distorted curves ' | following the shapes of the features. j The carving machine is provided with a ! revolving cutter which is guided to follow the parallel lines on the negative, the curvatures being translated into 1 depth. That is to say. where the line \ deviates from the straight, this devia--1 tion causes the cutter to penetrate the material, thus producing a relief, the depth of which ciin be automatically I regulated. J What this complex of photopraph, microscope and graving tool appears to ! have achieved is the tracing out of the , locus of the lines projected on to the ; face of the fitter. , The question arises in one's mind at - once on seeing this invention, is it not • bound to wipe out all creative work, to . | rob the sculptor of originality, in fact .I to reduce his art to the commonplace • level of common photography? To some ; extent, yes. for according to the expert , whom I questioned, the work is absos lutely mechanical. r On the other hand T had an oppor- ! tunity for discussing it with Mr. Ernest Pinches, one of the best known I.nglish makers of medals. His firm was at work in the 18th century and he showed mc I a reproduction of a medal they made in ISOS to celebrate the victory of Trafalgar, work which an authority on medallic art assured mc cannot now be surpassed. I This most thrilling achievement will i bring (lie art of sculpture to tho same 1 dilemma as tho introduction of photo- . graphy to portraiture. Sculpture—as - has already been shown in a Phidias or c a Rodin, even to-day in Epstein—is no _ mere reproduction of exnert detail. t There is something, a soul peering out t j from the sculptured art of the great - masters. Below these great, masters we - I have the ruck whose aim is exact ren- _ I dering of a scene or a personality in 1 exact measurements or proportions. That t I kind of art can be more quickly, more 3 ! accurately and—what is important— 2 • more cheaply done by cameography. I I For the people of the Dominions one > I sees in this new art nn immense scope. • I Hitherto they have been limited in tho 15 , range of sculpture obtainable. Expense, r | first and foremost, has prevented the '■' I acquisition of good examples, nnd the ' ! lesser even are expensive and too often 8 unsatisfactory. Cameography, like photography, does assure one of at least c ' good work. Just as it is impossible to 1 ] obtain satisfactory portraiture from any J but first rate artists, so it is impossible to get first rate sculpture, except nt prices impossible for art lovers in the , Dominion. '' The effect of cameography on sculpture—especially in its closest and perj sonal aspect of portrait work —can be likened to tho effect of photography on portrait painting. The worst forms of portrait paintings have been banished and good photography has taken its . place, i Tho inventor, Mr. Howard Edmunds, an ex-officer in n cavalry regiment, worked out his device in two years. H_ is the son of Mr. Henry -Edmunds, an electrical engineer, who was the first to introduce electric lighting on a British battleship.