May 2020
Publisher: Ernst Wasmuth A.G. / Berlin
With an Introduction by Charles F. G. Masterman
E. O. Hoppé (British, born Germany 1878-1972)
74: Land’s End, Cornwall
1926
In this, the second tranche of photographs from E. O. Hoppé’s 1926 book Picturesque Great Britain: Its Architecture and Landscape, we can analyse some of the techniques of picture construction that the artist has so creatively mastered.
Firstly, that of the floating horizon line. In photographs such as 74: Land’s End, Cornwall; 80: Selworthy, Somerset; 82: Selworthy Church, Selworthy, Somerset; 84: Minehead, Somerset; and 91: Cambden Crescent in Bath, Somerset, Hoppé com/piles the foreground with tone, form and structure, but let’s the eye escape to a distant horizon which moves up and down, according to context, place, space… within the image frame. Time and again he uses this method of allowing the eye to escape the confines of the image.
Secondly, a framing device that the artist is particularly fond of is that of the road, pathway or bridge that helps lead the eye into the image and on to the vanishing point. We can see this approach in photographs such as 96: Approach to Cloisters, Gloucester Cathedral; 97: The Cloisters, Gloucester Cathedral, Gloucestershire; 101: Withe Cottage, Conway, Wales; and 132: The Bridge, Stratford-on-Avon, Warwickshire.
Another framing device that the artist uses very effectively is what I call the blocked approach (to the subject) – which can be seen in photographs such as 77: Glastonbury Abbey, Somerset; 117: Chester, Cheshire; 119: Norman Arches, Much Wenlock Abbey, Shropshire; and 142: Wilsford Manor, Wiltshire, where the object which is in focus in the distance is revealed through out of focus arches, wood, masonry or pillars.
A further device is that of the mid-distance band within the pictorial plane, where Hoppé contains the important architectural information into a central section of information. In photographs such as 103: Carnavon Castle, Wales; 121: Evesham, Worcestershire; and 144: Bideston, Wiltshire the artist focuses the viewers attention in the mid-distance, where the buildings float between ground and air. Instead of closing in to fill the frame, Hoppé is content, satisfied with things as they are… happy to enunciate in the images the sum of what he has perceived, discovered, and learned about his subject, without the need to approach to closely or force the matter. In other words, he lets the architecture speak for itself within the landscape.
In looking at architectural forms of different periods, Hoppé does not rely on the formulaic, the tried and tested traditions of landscape and architecture photography from the Victorian and Edwardian eras. His is not the normal seeing of flat images with limited depth (of substance, of feeling). He is too talented (and experimental) and artist for that.
Dr Marcus Bunyan
.
Please click on the photographs for a larger version of the image. These photographs are published under fair use conditions for educational purposes only.
This magnificent set of pictures displays, with all the art of genius both in selection and technical skill, the beauty of the British Isles. I know of no similar collection which could give alike to the foreigner who wonders what England is like, to the Englishman who has wandered from his native land into all the great dominions of the world, and to the man who has remained behind, that particular sense of pleasure mingled with pain which all beauty excites, and excites especially a passionate love in the vision of home.
This is an introduction to pictures of the landscapes and the works of man; these latter ennobled by the associations of time, and in some cases by time’s decay. They open vistas through which one may gaze at the history of England for a thousand years.
Charles F. G. Masterman
E. O. Hoppé (British, born Germany 1878-1972)
75: Packhorse Bridge, Allerford, Somerset
1926
E. O. Hoppé (British, born Germany 1878-1972)
77: Glastonbury Abbey, Somerset
1926
E. O. Hoppé (British, born Germany 1878-1972)
80: Selworthy, Somerset
1926
E. O. Hoppé (British, born Germany 1878-1972)
81: Selworthy, Somerset
1926
E. O. Hoppé (British, born Germany 1878-1972)
82: Selworthy Church, Selworthy, Somerset
1926
E. O. Hoppé (British, born Germany 1878-1972)
83: From Porlock Hill, Somerset
1926
E. O. Hoppé (British, born Germany 1878-1972)
84: Minehead, Somerset
1926
E. O. Hoppé (British, born Germany 1878-1972)
86: Minehead, Somerset
1926
E. O. Hoppé (British, born Germany 1878-1972)
87: The Market Place, Dunster
1926
E. O. Hoppé (British, born Germany 1878-1972)
89: The Royal Crescent, Bath, Somerset
1926
E. O. Hoppé (British, born Germany 1878-1972)
90: Bath, Somerset
1926
E. O. Hoppé (British, born Germany 1878-1972)
91: Cambden Crescent in Bath, Somerset
1926
E. O. Hoppé (British, born Germany 1878-1972)
93: Wells Cathedral, Somerset
1926
E. O. Hoppé (British, born Germany 1878-1972)
96: Approach to Cloisters, Gloucester Cathedral
1926
E. O. Hoppé (British, born Germany 1878-1972)
97: The Cloisters, Gloucester Cathedral, Gloucestershire
1926
E. O. Hoppé (British, born Germany 1878-1972)
98: Pembridge, Herefordshire
1926
E. O. Hoppé (British, born Germany 1878-1972)
101: Withe Cottage, Conway, Wales
1926
E. O. Hoppé (British, born Germany 1878-1972)
102: Carnavon Castle, Wales
1926
E. O. Hoppé (British, born Germany 1878-1972)
103: Carnavon Castle, Wales
1926
E. O. Hoppé (British, born Germany 1878-1972)
105: Pass of Bwlch-Goerd, Wales
1926
E. O. Hoppé (British, born Germany 1878-1972)
106: Bwlch-Goerd Pass, on the Road to Bala, Wales
1926
E. O. Hoppé (British, born Germany 1878-1972)
107: The Druid Circle, Aberystwyth, Wales
1926
E. O. Hoppé (British, born Germany 1878-1972)
108: On the Bwlch-y-Goerd Pass, Wales
1926
E. O. Hoppé (British, born Germany 1878-1972)
110: Beddgelert, Carnavonshire, Wales
1926
E. O. Hoppé (British, born Germany 1878-1972)
111: Llandinam Lake, Mid-Wales
1926
E. O. Hoppé (British, born Germany 1878-1972)
112: Snowdon, Wales
1926
E. O. Hoppé (British, born Germany 1878-1972)
113: Snowdon at Pen-y-Gwryd, Wales
1926
E. O. Hoppé (British, born Germany 1878-1972)
114: Llanberis Pass, Wales
1926
E. O. Hoppé (British, born Germany 1878-1972)
115: Wye Valley, Wales
1926
E. O. Hoppé (British, born Germany 1878-1972)
116: In the Wye Valley, Wales
1926
E. O. Hoppé (British, born Germany 1878-1972)
117: Chester, Cheshire
1926
E. O. Hoppé (British, born Germany 1878-1972)
119: Norman Arches, Much Wenlock Abbey, Shropshire
1926
E. O. Hoppé (British, born Germany 1878-1972)
120: Bridgenorth, Shropshire
1926
E. O. Hoppé (British, born Germany 1878-1972)
121: Evesham, Worcestershire
1926
E. O. Hoppé (British, born Germany 1878-1972)
124: Harlebury Castle, Worcestershire
1926
E. O. Hoppé (British, born Germany 1878-1972)
125: Worcester Cathedral
1926
E. O. Hoppé (British, born Germany 1878-1972)
126: Rous Lench, Worcestershire
1926
E. O. Hoppé (British, born Germany 1878-1972)
127: Court Farm, Broadway, Worcestershire
1926
E. O. Hoppé (British, born Germany 1878-1972)
130: Broadway, Worcestershire
1926
E. O. Hoppé (British, born Germany 1878-1972)
132: The Bridge, Stratford-on-Avon, Warwickshire
1926
E. O. Hoppé (British, born Germany 1878-1972)
133: Ann Hathaway’s Cottage, Stratford-on-Avon, Warwickshire
1926
E. O. Hoppé (British, born Germany 1878-1972)
134: The Grammar School, Stratford-on-Avon, Warwickshire
1926
E. O. Hoppé (British, born Germany 1878-1972)
135: Welfford-on-Avon, Warwickshire
1926
E. O. Hoppé (British, born Germany 1878-1972)
137: Leycester Hospital, Warwick, Warwickshire
1926
E. O. Hoppé (British, born Germany 1878-1972)
138: Leycester Hospital, Warwick, Warwickshire
1926
E. O. Hoppé (British, born Germany 1878-1972)
139: Kenilworth Castle, Warwickshire
1926
E. O. Hoppé (British, born Germany 1878-1972)
140: Stoneleigh Abbey, Near Leamington, Warwickshire
1926
E. O. Hoppé (British, born Germany 1878-1972)
142: Wilsford Manor, Wiltshire
1926
E. O. Hoppé (British, born Germany 1878-1972)
143: Wilsford Manor, Wiltshire
1926
E. O. Hoppé (British, born Germany 1878-1972)
144: Bideston, Wiltshire
1926