NATURALISTIC COMPOSITION
In the preceding chapters we have been studying _formal_, or
_conventional_, composition. We have seen how the artists arrange their
groups of figures and the position and gestures of each figure according
to a rule or formula or convention, the basis of which is a geometric
plan, on which they build up a balance of repetitions and contrasts. And
we have noted that these formal compositions are artificial
arrangements; that the figures are not grouped as you might expect them
to be in real life, nor in positions that men and women usually assume.
And these formal compositions we have seen were also called, _classic_;
the last example being the _classic landscape_ in which nature has been
made to look more grand by the addition of features of classic
architecture.
We reach now another principle of composition. It is the arrangement
adopted by the artist, whose motive is to make his picture represent
nature naturally; so I call it _naturalistic composition_. But, as we
have noted before, the artist is not satisfied merely to represent
nature; he wishes in the first place to make his picture a thing of
beauty. Nature is not always beautiful; so he selects from nature and
arranges his subject in such a way, that we shall not only recognise how
true the picture is to nature, but feel also how beautiful it is as a
work of art. Its beauty, you see, is founded, not upon a formal plan,
but on its truth to nature.
Here for example, is _The Sower_ by the French artist, Jean François
Millet. If we have ever seen a man scattering grain, we recognise at
once the picture’s truth to life. But Millet’s intention was not only to
make us know what the man is doing, but to create an impression on our
minds that shall make us feel a sense of beauty, through the way in
which the picture represents the incident. As a young man, Millet had
studied the examples of Greek and Roman sculpture in the Museum of the
Louvre in Paris, and learnt through them the classic principles of
composition--the balance obtained by rhythmical repetition and contrast.
And these principles, as we shall see presently, are applied to this
figure of _The Sower_. I hope to show you that this is the secret of the
picture’s beauty. Although the _action_ of the figure inside the shabby
clothes is quite natural, the _movement_ is rhythmical. In fact it
represents a mixture of the _classical_ and the _naturalistic_ motive.
Firstly, the _naturalistic_. We know at a glance what the man is doing.
The forms in the picture, the colors, the light and shade, make an
impression on the eye which is immediately telegraphed to one of the
centers of the brain. The result is that we know the picture represents
a man in a field sowing grain, while from the color and light in the
sky, and the shadows creeping over the field, we know that it is
twilight.
This direct thought stirs us to further thinking; for we recall that
laborers start for their work in early morning, so this one has probably
been toiling all through the day. But we notice that his actions are
still vigorous, he should be tired, yet he is working as sturdily as at
any time during the day; perhaps with even more energy, in order that he
may finish sowing the field before the darkness comes. In fact, the
arrangement of forms, colors, and light and shade has made a strong
impression on the thinking part of the brain, stirring us not only to
observe, but to draw conclusions. And this, of course, is what Millet
meant that it should do.
But this was not all that he intended. Most people of his day must have
thought it was; for nearly all the critics, or persons who are supposed
to be able to judge of the value of a picture, and nearly all the
connoisseurs, who are supposed to be able to appreciate its beauty,
turned up their noses and shrugged their shoulders. “This is horrible!”
they exclaimed. “A common laborer in his dirty clothes, doing his
miserable work. Ugh! how vulgar! This is not art; for art should be
concerned with beauty. Why does not the fellow paint some beautiful girl
in beautiful draperies? Phew! Take the picture away, it smells of the
farm.”
You see they confined their criticisms and appreciation to what the
picture was about--its subject; and because they did not like the
subject, they condemned the picture. They got no further than _knowing_
and _thinking_, they did not permit themselves to _feel_. But it was on
their feelings also that Millet wished to make an impression. Through
the arrangement of line, form, color, and light and shade he sought to
stir that other part of the brain to which messages are telegraphed by
the senses, with a result that we are made to _feel_. Let us analyse the
composition; and see how it illustrates the principle that we have been
discussing of balance, and rhythmic repetition, and contrast.
We will begin with the latter. Note, then, how the sloping line of the
field cuts across the picture. This diagonal line is contrasted with the
perpendicular sides of the picture, and with the upright direction of
the figure of the man. It forms, however, another contrast; it divides
the light from the dark. The sun has gone down behind the slope; so
that, while the sky is still luminous with a lovely glow, the ground is
in shadow, dreary and heavy looking. So, too, the figure of the man. The
light is at his back, so that what we see of him is shrouded in gloom.
Against the gloom of the ground his figure shows comparatively
indistinctly, but the upper part stands very sharp against the light.
There is a strong contrast between its heaviness and gloom and the
lovely radiance of the waning light; while down below the figure looms
out of the gloom and heaviness, as if it were a part of them that had
gathered into definite shape. Yes, though his head may stand against
the sky, the man is part of the earth.
Right away, is there nothing in this to make us feel? Millet, at any
rate, had often felt the poignancy of contrast, in his own life and in
the lives of others. He had known what it was to see his wife and
children short of food, to have his own stomach empty, while his mind
was full of beautiful ideas, and his cottage full of pictures, that some
day men would buy, but not yet. He had seen little bright faced children
standing at the open grave of the father or the mother; the happy young
bride at the altar, and among the congregation the young widow; and
evening after evening, as the darkness fell, the lonely figures in the
field, toiling out their short lives, whilst behind them spread the
everlasting beauty of the sunset, and a few miles off in Paris, where he
came from, the lights were gleaming and people were making ready for
pleasure, though there too, as he knew from his own experience, people
starved. Yes, it is through experience that we learn to feel deeply, and
it is to experience that the contrast of this picture appeals.
When we recognise that by this contrast of light and darkness, Millet
sought to express the dreary routine, day in day out, early and late, of
the peasant’s lot in a world where nature is so beautiful, and there can
be so much beauty in life, we may imagine to ourselves what would be the
effect of raising or lowering the diagonal line. To have given more
lighted space, would have made the figure stand out too prominently so
that it would have dominated the scene, and the scene itself would have
seemed too spacious. Velasquez, in his equestrian portraits, kept the
horizon line low, so that _Philip IV_, for example, or his minister,
_Olivarez_, is made to appear a very important person in a very large
world. But Millet wished us to feel the lowliness of the peasant, bound
close to the earth in very narrow surroundings. Again, to have raised
the horizon line, would have destroyed the balance between light and
darkness, which now is absolutely true. This balance suggests a feeling
of repose; shall I say of acquiescence in the necessity of the contrast?
For Millet did not consider himself a reformer whose work is to set
things right and to do away with contrasts; but an artist, whose aim was
to harmonise the contrasts and to find some balance between the lights
and darks of life; just as Stevenson out of his weakness and strength
made his life a beautiful one.
And now let us study the lines of the figure. In the first place you
will agree that they enclose a form which is unmistakably that of a man
sowing grain. It was necessary for Millet to arrange the lines, in some
way that should convey this impression. But there are many other ways in
which they might have been arranged, so as to obtain this result. For in
the act of sowing a man takes many positions and any one of these would
have done, if all the artist had desired was to make us _know_ that the
man was sowing. But Millet wished to do more.
As a boy he toiled in his father’s fields, so he had
[Illustration: The Sower. _J. F. Millet._]
a fellow-feeling for the peasants; and as he watched them, day after day
laboring so faithfully, he found a big idea in their work. It was
something like this--work is necessary, and to do our own share of it as
well as we can is the big thing for each of us. And the oldest work of
all and the most necessary is the growing of the wheat. To-day the seed
is laid in rows by machine-drills; but in Millet’s time it was scattered
by hand, just as it had been since man began to sow. This sower, then,
that he watched was a descendant of a long line of sowers, stretching
back to the beginning of civilisation; and still in the fields of
Barbizon he was doing his humble share of the world’s necessary work.
Millet felt the bigness of this idea; and in his imagination the man was
no longer Jacques or Jean--a sower; he became “The Sower,” a type--a big
heroic type. Then, as Millet felt him to be, so he set to work to paint
him, choosing such lines as would convey this big feeling to us.
Observe, first, the balance of the figure: how the weight of the body is
planted almost equally on both feet. If you try to put yourself in the
position, you will find that you can raise neither foot without moving
the body. If you wish to raise the back foot, you must move the body
forward till the weight is on the right foot; or, if you would raise
this latter, you must move the body back till the weight is over the
left foot. The center of gravity or of mass runs down through the body
and between the legs. Now sway your body backward and forward a few
times, and then bring forward the left leg in front of the right, so
that the position of the feet is reversed. Now sway again forward and
backward. I ask you to do this that you may feel how freely the body
moves in this position. And I ask you to stride, that you may feel that
the position in the picture is only a momentary one, leading on to a
natural advance. For this perfect poise of the body on the feet is not a
stationary one, that in time will seem stiff, but part of a moving one,
that has the freedom and the naturalness of life. And the movement is a
swift one. We can feel it is so from the length of the stride; for it is
only when you are moving quickly, that you can take long strides, and
still preserve the balanced, rhythmic swing of the body.
We have spoken of the poise of the body on the legs; now let us note the
action of the right arm. The action, I need hardly say, begins with
taking a handful of grain from the bag; then the arm is swung back to
the right to its full extent, and then again brought back to the bag.
Between these two points--that of the bag and that of the full
extent--the arm is poised in motion, just as the action of the body was
poised between the backward and forward motion of the legs. We can feel
that the arm is moving, and, at this instant it is moving backward, for
our own experience when we walk and swing our arms naturally is that
each arm goes back as the leg on that side goes forward. The man’s arm
will reach its furthest point backward when he brings his full weight on
the right foot. In a word, the poise of the arm and the poise of the leg
correspond. They present an example of repetition of balance. It is
enforced, you will observe, in the composition by the arm being made
parallel to the direction of the backward leg. This is another instance
of repetition; and there are still others: the repetitions of the waist
line, the shoulders, and the hat brim; of the bandage on the left leg,
the line from the shoulder through the thigh, the apron, hanging over
the arm, and of the echo, as it were, of these, in the tail of the
distant ox and the arm of the driver. These repetitions, and others that
you may discover for yourself, help to bind the composition together and
also to make it rhythmic.
And now for contrast, we have noted the big one made by the diagonal
line, dividing the composition into light and dark. Let us note those
appearing in the figure. First there is the big contrast of the figure’s
own diagonal line from the shoulders down through the right leg. It is
contrasted most forcibly with the sides of the picture, the horizon
line, and the direction of the right arm and the left leg. The latter
are practically at right angles to the figure--strongest of all
contrasts of line. It is to all these vigorous contrasts that the energy
and assertion of the figure are mainly due. But there are other
contrasts in the figure. Do you notice that the swing of the arm brings
the trunk of the body, or the torso, as it is called, along with it?
Swing your own arm and you will find your torso following its direction.
If the man’s arm were to reach its full extension, his left shoulder
would appear and his torso would front us nearly full. If his hand
should reach the bag, the right shoulder would come forward until the
torso would be seen almost in profile. However, neither of these
extremes is presented. The swing of the torso is poised between the two.
But do you observe that the swing of the torso and arms is across the
path of direction of the swing of the legs? While they swing forward and
backward, the arms and torso swing alternately from right to left and
left to right.
Imitate this action with your own body, step forward briskly with a
swinging stride and at the same time swing your arms and torso. If you
feel the exhilaration of the action as I think you will, you will
realise that it is the wonderful way in which Millet has suggested this
contrast of the swing, that makes the action of the figure so stirring.
By the contrast of its lines, it expresses energy; by the contrast of
swing, so free, so rhythmic, so vigorous, it lifts us to enthusiasm.
But finally observe the position of the head and the direction of its
gaze. While below it the torso and arms swing from side to side, the
head is fixed, leaning a little forward in the direction of the onward
movement, its eyes firmly set on what is ahead. Within the head is the
brain which directs all the action of the figure. But the face is
shadowed over, and through the shadow the features appear coarse and
heavy. We feel that the brain, though prompting the man to do his work
to the utmost, is after all a dull brain, in pitiful contrast to the
vigor of the body. Heroic though the figure is in the grandeur of its
free, swift movement, as grand, if you will take my word for it, as a
Greek statue, yet it is but that of a humble peasant, unconscious that
he is doing aught but that which he has to do.
There you have the idea as it presented itself to the imagination of
Millet!
“The Sower” is a striking illustration of the point with which I started
this book; that the beauty of a picture does not depend upon the
subject, but upon the way it is represented.