It is the painter’s business to help memory and imagination, not to
supersede them. He cannot put the whole before the spectator, nothing
can do this short of the thing itself; he should, therefore, not try to
realise, and the less he looks as if he were trying to do so the more
signs of judgment he will show. His business is to supply those details
which will most readily bring the whole before the mind along with them.
He must not give too few, but it is still more imperative on him not to
give too many.
Seeing, thought and expression are rendered possible only by the fact
that our minds are always ready to compromise and to take the part for
the whole. We associate a number of ideas with any given object, and if
a few of the most characteristic of these are put before us we take the
rest as read, jump to a conclusion and realise the whole. If we did not
conduct our thought on this principle—simplifying by suppression of
detail and breadth of treatment—it would take us a twelvemonth to say
that it was a fine morning and another for the hearer to apprehend our
statement. Any other principle reduces thought to an absurdity.
All painting depends upon simplification. All simplification depends
upon a perception of relative importances. All perception of relative
importances depends upon a just appreciation of which letters in
association’s bond association will most readily dispense with. This
depends upon the sympathy of the painter both with his subject and with
him who is to look at the picture. And this depends upon a man’s common
sense.
He therefore tells best in painting, as in literature, who has best
estimated the relative values or importances of the more special features
characterising his subject: that is to say, who appreciates most
accurately how much and how fast each one of them will carry, and is at
most pains to give those only that will say most in the fewest words or
touches. It is here that the most difficult, the most important, and the
most generally neglected part of an artist’s business will be found to
lie.
The difficulties of doing are serious enough, nevertheless we can most of
us overcome them with ordinary perseverance for they are small as
compared with those of knowing what not to do—with those of learning to
disregard the incessant importunity of small nobody-details that persist
in trying to thrust themselves above their betters. It is less trouble
to give in to these than to snub them duly and keep them in their proper
places, yet it is precisely here that strength or weakness resides. It
is success or failure in this respect that constitutes the difference
between the artist who may claim to rank as a statesman and one who can
rise no higher than a village vestryman.
It is here, moreover, that effort is most remunerative. For when we feel
that a painter has made simplicity and subordination of importances his
first aim, it is surprising how much shortcoming we will condone as
regards actual execution. Whereas, let the execution be perfect, if the
details given be ill-chosen in respect of relative importance the whole
effect is lost—it becomes top-heavy, as it were, and collapses. As for
the number of details given, this does not matter: a man may give as few
or as many as he chooses; he may stop at outline, or he may go on to Jean
Van Eyck; what is essential is that, no matter how far or how small a
distance he may go, he should have begun with the most important point
and added each subsequent feature in due order of importance, so that if
he stopped at any moment there should be no detail ungiven more important
than another which has been insisted on.
Supposing, by way of illustration, that the details are as grapes in a
bunch, they should be eaten from the best grape to the next best, and so
on downwards, never eating a worse grape while a better one remains
uneaten.
Personally, I think that, as the painter cannot go the whole way, the
sooner he makes it clear that he has no intention of trying to do so the
better. When we look at a very highly finished picture (so called),
unless we are in the hands of one who has attended successfully to the
considerations insisted on above, we feel as though we were with a
troublesome cicerone who will not let us look at things with our own eyes
but keeps intruding himself at every touch and turn and trying to
exercise that undue influence upon us which generally proves to have been
the accompaniment of concealment and fraud. This is exactly what we feel
with Van Mieris and, though in a less degree, with Gerard Dow; whereas
with Jean Van Eyck and Metsu, no matter how far they may have gone, we
find them essentially as impressionist as Rembrandt or Velasquez.
For impressionism only means that due attention has been paid to the
relative importances of the impressions made by the various
characteristics of a given subject, and that they have been presented to
us in order of precedence.