BIRTH OF CAMEOGRAPHY.

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

BIRTH OF CAMEOGRAPHY.

j A NEW ART. ' REPRODUCTION IN THREE DIMENSIONS. (From Our Own Correspondent.) LONDON, March 12. The Press was bidden yesterday to celebrate the birth of an invention likely to have a widespread effect on our daily lives. Its sponsors likened it to such momentous occasions as those on which 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 pictures in two dimensions—photographic reproductions—can be produced in three dimensions. The new art has been somewhat , clumsily named cameography, chiefly because what will probably prove its most popular form of reproduction will he small medallion-like cameos of heads in low relief. At the same time the • productions, and many fine examples were shown, are capable of being made in full dimensions of the sculptured figure. The mechanism of this reproduction has the simplicity of all great ideas. A screen with very fine parallel lines is projected on to the face of the sitter, who is at the same time photographed by two cameras placed at carefullyadjusted angles. On the negatives these parallel lines appear as distorted curves following the shapes of the features. 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 depth. That is to say, where the line deviates from the straight, this deviation causes the cutter to penetrate the material, thus producing a relief, the depth of which can be automatically regulated. What this complex of photograph, 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 sitter. 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 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 absolutely mechanical. On the other hand I had an opportunity for discussing it with Mr. Ernest Pinches, one of the best, known English makers of medals. His firm was at work in the 18th century and he showed mc 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. This most thrilling achievement will bring the art of sculpture to the same dilemma as the introduction of photography to portraiture. Sculpture—as has already been shown in a Phidias or a Rodin, even to-day in Epstein—is no mere reproduction of exact detail. There is something, a soul peering out from the sculptured art of the great masters. Below tbese great masters we have the ruck whose aim is exact rendering of a scene or a personality in exact measurements or proportions. That kind of art can be more quickly, more accurately and —what is important— more cheaply done by cameography. For the people of the Dominions one sees in this now art an immense scope. Hitherto they have been limited in the range of sculpture obtainable. Expense, first and foremost, has prevented the acquisition of good examples, and the lesser even are expensive and too often unsatisfactory. Cameography, like photography, does assure one of at least good work. Just as it is impossible to . obtain satisfactory portraiture from any but iirst rate artists, so it is impossible to get first rate sculpture except at prices impossible for art lovers in the Dominion. The effect of cameography on sculpture—especially in its closest and personal aspect of portrait work—can be likened to the effect of photography on portrait painting. The worst forms of portrait paintings have been banished and good photography lias taken its place. The inventor, Mr. Howard Edmunds, an ex-officer in a cavalry regiment, worked out his device in two years. He is the son of Mr. Henry -Edmunds, an electrical engineer, who was the first to introduce electric lighting on a British battleship.