THE CLASSIC LANDSCAPE
We have seen in the previous chapters how Raphael built up composition
from a simple geometric plan, on the principles of repetition and
contrast, rhythmically balanced. Other Italian artists worked upon the
same lines, and with such skill and grandeur of invention that the
Italian pictures, especially of the Sixteenth Century, are still
considered the finest examples of this sort of composition. It is
distinguished by being what we may call “formal,” or “conventional.”
The figures are arranged, that is to say, not as you would be likely to
see them in actual life, but according to a rule or formula or
convention. The idea has been not to represent a real scene, but to
display the figures and their surroundings in such a way as to produce
an effect of beauty; sometimes a simple one, more often one of great
impressiveness or magnificent splendor. The figures and other objects
have been so arranged and so drawn as to furnish an orderly pattern of
beauty and dignity. The subjects of the pictures might be taken from the
Bible story or from the legends of ancient Greece, or be simply invented
to set forth the pride that the people took in their cities--the pomp
and glory of Venice, for example. But, no matter what the subject might
be, the aim of the artist was first and foremost to paint a thing of
beauty. And in this search for beauty he soon discovered how much
depended upon the surroundings of his figures and the objects that he
introduced.
When he desired the simpler kind of beauty he set his figures in lovely
landscape scenery with hills and trees and winding streams; when he was
bent on grander effects, he added architectural settings. For the
architects of that day were erecting noble buildings with columns and
arches, vaulted roofs and domes; partly in imitation of the remains of
Roman architecture, but also designed in a fresh spirit of invention to
fit the new purposes for which the buildings were required. Thus arose
that vast temple of the Roman Church, St. Peter’s. It is what is called
a classic building; because its style is in many respects like that of
the old classic Roman temples, which in their turn had represented a new
use of the still older classic style of Greek architecture.
The painters, then, inspired by the work of the architects, discovered
how much dignity they could give to their own compositions by
introducing architectural features. Sometimes they would introduce
columns, or a flight of steps or a balustrade, sometimes a whole
building; or represent the figures grouped in a street or square,
surrounded by buildings, or often inside a building, standing under a
vaulted ceiling. These are only a few of the architectural features, so
freely used by the Italian painters. Let us study their value to the
composition.
Some people who live in country homes are fond of flowers. They grow
cluster-roses, honeysuckle, wistaria and other long-armed climbing
plants over their verandahs. If they are fond of gardening and not
satisfied merely with a lawn and a few shrubs, they will erect arches
and trellis-work on which vines may cling and cluster. In the first
place, they know that these slender, straggling plants will thrive
better, if they have some support; they will not be so torn by the
buffets of the wind, and their limbs and leaves and flowers will get
more sunshine. Secondly, they will show to better advantage, because of
the contrast of their winding, wreathing forms and irregular masses with
the firm, strong, simple lines of the verandah or trellis-work. United
they form a prettier composition, than would the vines and
cluster-roses, if huddling in an unsupported tangle.
The principle is the same in the composition of a picture, where the
vines are represented by the action of the figures. To their irregular
masses of drapery and undulating lines of limbs the architecture
presents at once the contrast and support of decided lines and clearly
defined masses. And since the classic style of architecture, which was
used, is so noble, it added nobility to the composition. Even the penny
photographs of the Italian pictures will prove to you that this is so.
Study them and find this out for yourselves.
Now, the example of the Italians, in this respect, was followed by other
nations, especially the French. The latter continue to this day the
painting of beautiful pictures in which the figures are combined with
landscape and architecture. And our own American artists are doing the
same thing, as you can see if you have a chance of visiting the Library
of Congress, at Washington, or any other of the public buildings
throughout this country, in which the walls have been decorated with
mural paintings.[3]
So far we have been speaking of the use of architecture to support the
figures. In time, however, artists found a new use for it. They employed
it to support the landscape; which brings us to a talk about what is
called the “Classic Landscape.”
Nowadays, when so many artists paint nothing else but landscape
pictures, it may seem strange that the Italians of the Fifteenth and
Sixteenth Centuries used landscape only as a support for the figures. It
was not because they were blind to the beautiful scenery of their own
country, for, when they did introduce it into their pictures, they
represented it in a very lovely way. But always as a background to the
figures, which you are made to feel are the principal features of the
picture. The reason is that the public for whom they painted demanded
figure subjects. The Church required pictures that would bring home to
the hearts of the people who could not read the beauty of the Bible
[Illustration: The Manitou Lunette. _E. H. Blashfield._]
Story; rich men and women wished to decorate their palaces with scenes
from the old Greek legends; while cities adorned their public buildings
with allegorical subjects in which the pride they took in their own
municipal life was set forth in figures, personifying the character of
its greatness. Moreover, those were stirring times in which the rivalry
between the cities and between the noble families led to constant wars
and plottings. Men, beginning as nobodies, rose rapidly to power. Not,
as they do to-day in our country, by using their brains and energy in
the peaceful pursuits of industry and trade and learning; but through
brute force, guided by brains that schemed to win by fraud and violence.
So it was man that, as we say, cut the chief figure in these times;
man’s power and woman’s beauty. Mankind was so interested in itself that
it spared little thought for the beauty of nature. It is true that
architects built noble houses on sites commanding beautiful views and
laid out the gardens with fountains, trees and flowers. Even this
however, was for the glorification of some man or woman. But the love of
nature which leads artists to paint landscapes and the public to value
such pictures is a different thing. In the love of nature man forgets
himself; he is absorbed in the beauty of the natural world outside
himself; he is fond of nature for its own sake.
It was not until the Seventeenth Century that artists began to study and
paint the landscape in this spirit. When they did so, the landscape took
the first place in their pictures, and the figures, if any were
introduced, became the unimportant features, kept small and put in
merely to enliven the scene. By this time landscape painting, as a
subject distinct in itself, branched out into two directions--the
_naturalistic_ and the _formal_. The _naturalistic_ was practised by the
Dutch artists, who painted the out of door life and appearance of
Holland so truthfully, that to-day when we look at their pictures we can
see the meadows and streams, the mills and the farms, exactly as they
were three hundred years ago. But the subject of natural landscape we
will study later on.
The other kind of landscape I have called _formal_ because, instead of
being drawn directly from nature, it was made up, like the Italian
figure pictures, according to a rule or formula or convention. Just as
in those pictures the figures were represented as grander and more
beautiful than people usually are in real life, and were arranged for
the purpose of a handsome composition in attitudes that people do not
usually assume, so with the formal landscapes. The artists tried to make
them more grand and imposing than ordinary nature, and composed them
according to an artificial plan. They did not in their picture represent
any real scene in nature, but built up a number of natural details into
a composition, constructed on a geometric plan. And especially they
introduced details of classic architecture; so that these formal designs
are often called _classic_ landscapes.
If you turn to the illustration you will see at once that the artist has
not represented the natural landscape. The very title, _Dido Building
Carthage_, shows the classic influence. The subject is taken from
Virgil’s Æneid, Book I, line 420. Turner, the great English artist, who
in 1815 painted this picture, had never seen Carthage; nor had he ever
seen any spot on earth like the one represented here. What he had seen
was the work of Claude Lorrain, a French artist of the Seventeenth
Century, who lived in Italy and invented this kind of landscape. Turner
himself preferred to paint the natural landscape; but, since the people
of his own day admired the _classic_ landscape of Claude and his
followers, he wished to prove that he also could paint like Claude, if
he chose; and as well as the French artist. Therefore, when he died, he
left this picture and another classic landscape, _The Sun rising in a
Mist_ to the National Gallery, on condition that they should be hung
alongside of two by Claude Lorrain. So, while studying this picture we
are really studying the principles on which Claude built up the
_classic_ landscape, and on which his followers worked for nearly two
hundred years, until the love of nature won out and the _naturalistic_
landscape took its place.
The geometric plan of this picture is very simple. You can discover it
by joining the upper and lower opposite corners by two diagonal lines
that cut each other in the center. This produces four triangles; of
which the top is given to the sky, the bottom to the water, and the two
sides to the land and buildings and trees. Sky and water occupy more
space than the other two parts; but since the latter are filled with
details of bold design, they attract extra attention, so that the
balance between the full and empty spaces is kept true.
The balance is a harmonious one. You will perhaps realise better what
this means if you think for a moment of a balance that is not
harmonious; for instance of a pair of hanging scales, in one pan of
which there is a flat round one pound weight, exactly balancing a pound
of candy in the other pan. We should not call this a harmonious balance.
If we examine why it is not, it will help us to understand the meaning
of harmony in composition. The reason is that there is no relation
between the box of candy and the one pound weight, except that each
weighs the same. On the other hand, in the picture every detail has some
relation to the other details, and all are related to the whole. The
whole, in fact, is a woven mass of contrasts and repetitions, in exact
relation; very much as a composition of music is made up of exactly
related contrasts and repetitions of sound notes. Alter one of these and
there will be a discord, unless some other notes are altered to restore
the harmony. Similarly if the artist had altered the shape of one of the
details in his picture, or its color, or its lightness or darkness,
there would have been a discord in the effect of his picture; it would
no longer present the appearance of perfect oneness. He would have to
alter some other parts to restore the harmony.
In studying the picture to try and discover how the effect of harmony is
produced we find ourselves studying the contrasts and repetitions of
which it is composed. And, first the contrasts. One big one is the
contrast of the architecture with everything else in the picture--the
contrast of these quiet stately masses, which seem so firm and strong,
compared with the shimmering surface of the water and the tremulous
mistiness of the sky; the contrast also of their decided lines with the
irregular spotting of the figures, and with the irregular masses of the
trees and foliage. The big tree, although it is motionless in the quiet
air, seems as if a breeze would stir it; the water has ripples of
motion; some of the figures appear to be moving, while others are only
still for the moment, and the sky--it is palpitating with the actual
stir of the atmosphere, as the upper air gradually cools and draws up
the warmer air from below, and this warmer air cools into mistiness. But
the buildings stand immovable and solid. While all around them either
moves or could move, they seem to suggest the force and permanence of
what does not change. Or perhaps we may feel that grand as the buildings
are, stately and magnificent, yet the sky is lovelier, for the buildings
are limited to their one size and shape, while the sky seems a part of
that which has no limits or boundaries. It draws off our imagination
into the mystery of distance and of the unknown. So the impressions
which the contrast of the architecture arouses are not only such as the
eye can see, but such also as the imagination can feel. This, no doubt,
is one of the secrets of the pleasure which so many people have found
and still find in _classic_ landscapes.
And now for another series of contrasts: those supplied by the lights
and darks. In the original picture these contrasts would depend partly
on the color of the various objects; but here, in the black and white
reproduction, we may think of the pattern simply as one of very dark
spots and very light ones, threaded together by others of varying depths
of greyness. Again, what an important part the sky plays! It is a flood
of light, against which everything forms a silhouette,[4] more or less
dark, relieved by spots and streaks of light. The water, but for the
pathway of reflection, is shrouded in shadow. Shadow, too, is wrapping
itself round the tall building on the left, and slumbers drowsily among
the trees on the opposite hill slopes. The artist, you will notice, has
varied the distribution of shadows. On the left the gradation from very
dark to very light is continuous. It is as if the first building struck
a loud strong note, and the sound gradually diminished toward the
distance. On the right, however, the foreground is lighter, and the dark
gradually increases, swelling up, as they say in music, in a _crescendo_
effect and then passing in a _diminuendo_ far off into the distance. In
fact, on both sides of
[Illustration: Dido Building Carthage. _J. M. W. Turner._]
the picture the arrangement of dark and light is rhythmical. I have only
touched upon the broad general plan of contrasted darks and lights, and
must leave you to study for yourselves the intricate and subtle effects
with which the picture abounds; for example, the fine threads and little
dots of light and dark that form a tangle on the left bank; or, on the
right, the mass of leafage in half shadow against which the trunk of the
tree shows very dark. You know the old proverb about leading a horse to
the water. I can draw your attention to these things, but I can not make
you feel their beauty. I think, however, I can promise you, that, if you
are sufficiently interested in what we are talking about to really study
this picture, to explore carefully the lighter parts and peer into the
shadows to see what lurks within them, its beauty will make itself known
to you.
As I myself am examining a black and white reproduction of this picture,
that lies before me while I write these lines, there is music coming
from the next room. It has stopped, and I wish it would begin again; for
music seems to fit in with the impressions that this picture stirs in my
imagination. Nor is this merely a fanciful idea. Music is one art and
painting is another. They are different, it is true, but yet are sisters
with much in common. And why not? For they come from the same
parents--the hand and the mind of man. And through the harmony of the
light and dark of which this picture is composed there floats, it seems
to me, the fancy of a melody. I think it comes from out the endless
distance of that sky; gently floating toward us, and crooning over the
objects in the foreground, as a mother murmurs a lullaby over her baby
while it falls asleep. But it is not altogether crooning, for see that
tree’s dark, round mass of tone! How it thumps itself into our notice,
while its force spreads up the hill, and then leaps across the water,
and stirs with a different kind of energy in the dark building on the
left. There is nothing of the feebleness and the helplessness of a baby
in this picture. It suggests rather, big and mighty effort, growing
toward the time of rest. It is not the music of a lullaby I seem to
hear, but the evening hymn of sturdy workers as they cease for a little
from their toil.