From: Judy Seigel (jseigel@panix.com)
Date: 02/27/03-08:13:29 PM Z
On Wed, 26 Feb 2003, Sandy King wrote:
> when bromoil was introduced around the turn of the century it quickly
> became far and away the most popular of the pictorial processes.
> Almost everyone abandoned gum for bromoil and during the period from
> 1910-40 bromoil was by far the most popular of the two processes.
> From my research I would calculate that over 60% of all pictorial
> work between 1910-40 consists of bromoil, and gum less than 20%. And
> one certainly can not say that bromoil was more popular because it is
> easier to work. To the contrary, it requires at least as much skill
> to work as gum, and perhaps even more one gets into the transfer
> procedures which gives really exquisite work.
For my personal purposes I'd rather feel I'm doing an obscure process than
the king/queen, or other dominant mode... but I'm very leery of
conclusions so far after the fact. Do you base the 60% figure on work in
archives? On magazine how-to's? On salon records? Or?
Judging by the popular magazines, I'd say the most popular were silver
gelatin prints -- made either by "working up" large size film with
varnish, blade, pencil, et al, or ditto with paper negatives. An article
on bromoil OR gum OR carbon was always presented as something out of the
ordinary. And I also found that in shows of archives (as in MoMA or NY
Public Library) bromoil is VERY rare to non-existent. Gum just medium
rare.
Anyway, I found this comment in the Dictionary of Photography quite
interesting:
10th edition (date ungiven, those finks -- probably 1920 ???? Dennis K --
any idea ?)
Under Artique process [later known as Fresson]:
"In spite of the very great things which were expected of the Artigue
process when the last edition of this DICTIONARY was issued [I may have it
but can't find it], this process has not come into very general use, the
more-plastic gum-bichromate method having proved more widely
applicable...."
But I've also thought that somewhere about 1930 or so the small format
became prevalent among "amateurs" -- I gather you can do bromoil by
projection, but not gum, which may have been another reason for its
popularity. I also suspect that bromoil may have been slow to revive with
the 1970s movement back to the forefront because for quite a while it was
an article of faith that you needed a non-supercoated paper, which was
nearly extinct. Then it was decided/shown that you didn't, but as I
recall, it was a while before that was generally understood (or
'generally" in the "alt" niche).
As for which is most beautiful, colored clay on a cave wall is exquisite
if you're gifted -- but I think the simplicity of gum gives a great
freedom... That is, sure you can spend a month doing 24 coats, but you can
also just wipe on, dry, expose, soak -- and finished. It's certainly
easier to learn than bromoil, which again proves nothing (I mean nothing
is learned to the level of feeling free without long practice)... but it's
all very subjective, isn't it? Gum just seems very direct to me, and
bromoil very indirect -- and no solvents needed for cleaning brushes &
tools.
J.
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