Gottfried Lindemann:Prints and Drawings: A Pictorial History

Abstract

Doris Uhnann The Appalachian Photographs of Doris Ulmann, Remembrance by John Jacob Niles, preface by Jonathan Williams, 29 pp., 63 ilL, Penland, N.C.: The Jargon Society, 1971. S10.00 Photography has been accused of sounding the death knell of representational art by making the imitation of nature too easy to hold the painter's concern. If this legend about modern art is true, it is hard not to believe, after looking at photographs like these, that the painters gave up something very important. What they lost, or a part of it, is between the covers of this poignant collection of studies of Appalachian folk. The human face, in spite of all efforts to pro\'e the contrary. is still by far the most moving and absorbing object of contemplation which this world provides. Rembrandt knew this very well, exploring its depths more compassionately than any artist before him, but it is no false parallel to say that Miss Ulmann knew it also, and in much the same way, for her gentle eye, made permanent by her camera, saw plainly what the face can tell of the human predicament. The good people of Amsterdam tell us much, the poor of Appalachia tell us more still. In both cases the validity of what is reported is a function of some delicate spirit able to locate and bring forth what there is that we should see. Whatever this spirit is, Mis« Ulmann had it in abundance. James Agee had it as well-so eloquently phrased in Let Us Noll' Praise Famous iHen-and the present volume seems to make something of what he said visible. Photography is still the stepchild of art history. and its masters, many of them, are not yet as well known to students, or scholars either. as one day they will be, but surely one of them was this frail "New York spinster who in a short fifty years (1884-1934) became a master of the simple plate camera, and travelled among the mountain people, firmly and sympathetically recording what she observed. Her companion on these excursions was John