TECHNICAL PRECEPTS
I
If thou wishest to model well in painting, so as to deceive the
eyesight, thou must be right cunning in thy colours, and must know how
to keep them distinct, in painting, one from another. For example, thou
paintest two coats of mantles, one white the other red; thou must deal
differently with them in shading. There is light and shadow on all
things, wherever the surface foldeth or bendeth away from the eye. If
this were not so, everything would look flat, and then one could
distinguish nothing save only a chequerwork of colours.
If then thou art shading the white mantle, it must not be shaded with so
dark a colour as the red, for it would be impossible for a white thing
to yield so dark a shadow as a red. Neither could they be compared one
with another, save that in total absence of daylight everything is
black, seeing that colour cannot be recognised in darkness. Though,
therefore, in such a case, the theory allows one, without blame, to use
pure black for the shadows of a white object, yet this can seldom
come to pass.
Moreover, when thou paintest anything in one colour--be it red, blue,
brown, or any mixed colour--beware lest thou make it so bright in the
lights that it departs from its own kind. For example, an uneducated man
regardeth thy picture wherein is a red coat. "Look, good friend," saith
he, "in one part the coat is of a fair red and in another it is white
or pale in colour." That same is to be blamed, neither hast thou done it
aright. In such a case a red object must be painted red all over and yet
preserve the appearance of solidity; and so with all colours. The same
must be done with the shadows, lest it be said that a fair red is soiled
with black Wherefore be careful that thou shade each colour with a
similar colour. Thus I hold that a yellow, to retain its kind, must be
shaded with a yellow, darker toned than the principal colour. If thou
shade it with green or blue, it remaineth no longer in keeping, and is
no longer yellow, but becometh thereby a shot colour, like the colour of
silk stuffs woven of threads of two colours, as brown and blue, brown
and green, dark yellow and green, chestnut-brown and dark yellow, blue
and seal red, seal red and brown, and the many other colours one sees.
If a man hath such as these to paint, where the surface breaketh and
bendeth away the colours divide themselves so that they can be
distinguished one from another, and thus must thou paint them. But where
the surface lieth flat one colour alone appeareth. Howbeit, if thou art
painting such a silk and shadest it with one colour (as a brown with a
blue) thou must none the less shade the blue with a deeper blue where it
is needful. If often cometh to pass that such silks appear brown in the
shadows, as if one colour stood before the other. If thy model beareth
such a garment, thou must shade the brown with a deeper brown and not
with blue. Howbeit, happen what may, every colour must in shading keep
to its own class.
II
The great genius Hokusai, who has obtained for popular art in Japan a
success comparable to that of the best classic masterpieces of that
country and to the drawings and etchings of Rembrandt, a master of an
altogether kindred nature, wrote a little treatise on the difference of
aim noticeable in European and Japanese art. From the few Dutch pictures
which he had been able to examine, he concluded that European art
attempted to deceive the eye, whereas Japanese art laboured to express
life, to suggest movement, and to harmonise colour. What is meant is
easily grasped when we set before the mind's eye a picture, by Teniers
and a page of Hokusai's "Mangwa." On the other hand, if one chose a
sketch by Rembrandt to represent Dutch art, the difference could no
longer be apparent. If the aim of European art had ever in serious
examples been to deceive the eye, our painting would rank with
legerdemain and Maskelyne's famous box trick; for it is to be doubted if
it could ever so well have attained its end as even a second-rate
conjurer can. I have cited a passage in which Reynolds confronts the
work of great artists with the illusions of the camera obscura (see p.
237). The adept musical performer who reproduces the noises of a
farmyard is the true parallel to the lesser Dutch artists; he deceives
the ear far better than they deceive the eye. For every picture has a
surface which, unless very carefully lighted, must immediately destroy
the illusion, even if it were otherwise perfect. Nevertheless, Dürer in
the foregoing passage seems to accept Hokusai's verdict that the aim of
his painting is to deceive the eye; forgetful of all that he has
elsewhere written about the necessity of beauty, the necessity of
composition, the superiority of rough sketches over finished works.
When a painter has conceived in his heart a vision of beauty, whether he
suggests it with a few strokes of the pen or elaborates it as thoroughly
as Jan Van Eyck did, he wishes it to be taken as a report of something
seen. This is as different from wishing to deceive the eye as for some
one to say "and then a dog barked," instead of imitating the barking of
a dog. A circumstantial description in words and a picture by Van Eyck
or Veronese are equally intended to pass as reports of something
visually conceived or actually seen. Pictures would have to be made
peep-shows of before they could veritably deceive; and Jan Van Beers, a
modern Dutchman, actually turned some of his paintings into peep-shows.
Dürer in the following passage is speaking of the separate details or
objects which go to make up a picture, not of the picture as a whole; he
never tried to make peep-shows; his signature or an inscription is often
used to give the very surface that must destroy the peep-show illusion a
definite decorative value. The rest of his remarks have become
commonplaces; nor has he written at such length as to give them their
true limitations and intersubordination. They will be easily understood
by those who remember that art is concerned with producing the illusion
of a true report of something seen, not that of an actual vision. Such a
report may be slight and brief; it may be stammered by emotion; it may
have been confused or tortured to any degree by the mental condition of
him who delivers it: if it produces the conviction of his sincerity, it
achieves the only illusion with which art is concerned, and its value
will depend on its beauty and the beauty of the means employed to
deliver it.