BRUSH-WORK AND DRAWING
Now that we have come to an end of our talk upon color, I must say a
little about brushwork. I hope to show you that a good painter may use
his brush in such a way that there is quality and expression in the
actual strokes.
I say a good “painter,” because I am thinking of that distinction I
pointed out to you, between artists who are really painters or
colorists, and those who are, more strictly speaking, draughtsmen. The
latter, you will remember, pay particular attention to the lines of
their figures, and then in spreading the paint, are careful that it
shall not interfere with the outlines. On the other hand, the man who
is, strictly speaking, a painter, sees his figures as colored masses.
I tried to show you that each method is right from its separate point of
view. But at the time we talked about this, we had not studied the
meaning of quality and expression. So I put off telling you about the
possibilities of quality and expression in line. We will talk about it
now, and then return to the brushwork.
Remember, what we are to think of now is a drawing of a figure or
object, represented simply in outline, with no added strokes to suggest
light and shade. It may have been done with a pencil or brush, or in one
of many other ways; but it is only outline. Now many people think the
only purpose of the outline is to enclose the figure, so that we may see
what the figure is. They may think the figure is beautiful, because it
represents something of which they are fond; the plump body of a baby,
for instance. But suppose the figure represents an old worn-out beggar,
with long scraggy arms and bare, misshapen feet. Would they see any
beauty in it? I expect not.
Yet, although there may be no beauty in the figure, there may be a great
deal in the lines which enclose it. If so, the beauty of line, of which
we are now talking, must be an abstract beauty; due to something in the
line itself, independently of the figure with which it is associated.
Suppose you draw a line on a piece of paper. What is the result? The
line has taken a certain direction, and it is of a certain kind. It is
thick or thin, or it begins thin, grows thicker and then diminishes in
width, or vice versa. It may be faint or distinct; firm or wavering, and
so on. Which ever kind it is it will be so, either because you wished it
to be of that kind, or because you couldn’t make it otherwise. In either
case, it is you that have made the line what it is. If you have enough
skill, you can make the line exactly what you wish.
Again, the direction of the line is the result of a movement of your
hand and arm. Very likely you moved uncertainly: you were not even sure
in what direction it was moving. But, if you were a skilful and
practised draughtsman, don’t you suppose you could so regulate the
movement of your hand and arm, that the line would take the exact
direction you desired? Yes, you would have as much control over the
direction and character of the line, as a musician has over the keys of
a piano, over which his hands move in various directions, sounding the
various notes.
But is the skill in doing this all that makes a good musician? You know
that he must also play, as we say, with feeling. This means, first, that
he must be able to feel the beauty of the music; secondly, that he knows
how to move his arms and touch the notes so as to draw forth from them
just the quality of sound that the feeling demands, and to make the
whole body of sounds render an expression of the feeling.
Now, just as the feeling passes from the brain of the musician into the
tips of his fingers, so it does with an artist. You will see him, as he
tries to tell you about the beauty of something, circling his hand in
the air, meanwhile curving his fingers and thumb, as if he were trying
to grasp the beauty. It is an instinctive movement, due to his habit of
expressing his conception with his hand. A sculptor will do much the
same thing, only he is more apt to close his fingers and express his
meaning with his thumb--the part of his hand that he uses most in
modeling.
One of the most beautiful examples of feeling in the hand is illustrated
in the modeling of a vase. The potter stands before a “wheel,” or table,
the top of which revolves. There is a spike in it that holds in place
the lump of clay. But while we watch, it has ceased to be a lump. It has
grown up under the potter’s hands and is a hollow vessel, every moment
changing its shape slightly, as with his fingers or the palm of his hand
he brings it nearer and nearer to the design that is in his brain. He
stops for a moment, and we think that he has finished. But, no, he is
only criticising it. It is not yet quite as he feels it should be; and
again the wheel revolves and the hand,--oh! so tenderly--coaxes the clay
to receive exactly the line of beauty that he feels.
And from the potter we may gain another insight into the beauty of an
artist’s line. I said that the clay grew up into the required form. And
certainly if you have seen the operation, you will say that growth is
just the word. Now in the line of all beautiful drawings there is the
feeling of growth. Not in a metaphorical way, but most literally, the
line grows under the artist’s hand, impelled by the feeling in him that
he is trying to express.
Let me tell you a little experience of my own. Though I am not an
artist, I have often made drawings. One day I was enlarging a piece of
ornament, in which there were scrolls of acanthus leaves; big cabbagy
sort of leaves, with a curving spine and crinkly edges. The chief point
was to get fine winding lines into the curves. For a long time I
imitated the copy as well as I could, when suddenly I seemed to feel
within me just how the curve should go. It was not a matter of seeing
the copy, but of feeling the actual growth in my brain. And lo! a
miracle, for one moment my hand was able to do what my brain prompted.
That leaf actually grew under my hand. I could feel it growing. And of
course that was the best bit of the whole drawing. The rest was
mechanical; this bit really lived. Well, in my case that was a miracle
and has never been repeated. But in that moment I learned two
things--firstly, what must be the joy of an artist in the act of
creation; and, secondly, that an artist’s line may be a living growth;
and, in the case of really fine draughtsmen, always is.
Since then I have watched the growth of trees and plants, and
discovered, as you may for yourself, the separate beauty and character
that belong to the lines of growth of each separate plant and tree. And,
when you have done so, you will come back to the study of line in
drawing, convinced that the beauty of line consists in its expression of
life and character. Not only the life and character of the object
represented, but the life and character of feeling in the artist.
Now perhaps you will realise how a drawing, though it represents only an
ugly old beggar man, may be beautiful. Life, in all its forms is
wonderful, even if sometimes horrible. And the expression of it by a
thing so slight as a line is beautiful, because we need not trouble
about the object represented, but be satisfied to enjoy only the life
and character that the line expresses.
It will also help you to understand and appreciate the abstract quality
of line, if you study Japanese drawings and prints. For their way of
representing figures and objects is not the same as ours, nor do we
always know what the subject of the picture is about. Therefore we are
better able to enjoy the line in an abstract way, apart from all
consideration of the things that are represented.
* * * * *
After this little talk on line, we may now pass to brushwork. It is no
longer the thin edge that we are to keep in mind, but the mass, great or
small, as the case may be; the mass of a gown, for example, or the mass
of one of its folds.
I need not tell you that an artist’s hands may be alive with feeling
when he holds a brush, just as when he has a pencil in them. In fact,
what we have said about feeling and expression in line may be applied to
brushwork. In the case of a man who is not merely a filler in of spaces
with paint, but is by instinct a painter, the brushwork grows into life
beneath his hand. Sometimes he lays aside his brush and takes a
palette-knife, with which to spread the paint on the surface or to
scrape the part already painted. Sometimes he uses no tool at all, but
kneads the paint with his thumb. Whether he employs these or other
methods, is a matter of comparative unimportance. The main thing for us
to realise is that, whatever means he employs, it is because he is
giving expression to some feeling in his mind. There is a passage of
feeling from his mind through his arm to his hand, and thence to the
canvas.
The swifter the passage is, the more vitality, as a rule, will there be
in the brushwork. The reason is, that in such a case the artist is sure
of himself. The feeling in his mind is so clearly comprehended; he so
thoroughly feels what he wishes to express, and is so sure of the way to
render it, that there is no hesitation or sign of fumbling in the
result. It has grown freely and naturally and the result gives us that
keen and direct pleasure that we derive from what is brimful of life.
You know how stimulating it is to listen to a speaker, whose words flow
from his thoughts without any humming and hawing; and whose words
naturally and exactly express the thought. In such a man’s talk there is
a living growth of thought. As you proceed in your study of painting you
will learn to feel in brushwork either the presence or absence of such
living growth.
You will find sometimes, however, that the brushwork, which at first
seems very much alive, is not really a living growth. It is more like
the clever tricks that you perform with your bodies in a gymnasium. It
is merely an exhibition of vigor. I may liken this to the oratory of
another sort of speaker, who has a great gift of the gab but very few
ideas. He pours out of his mouth a stream of vigorous, showy,
fine-sounding words; and fascinates you for a few minutes with the
“exuberance of his verbosity.” But presently, when you come to think it
over, you discover how pretentious and slip-shod the whole speech was.
He was exhorting to patriotism; but, where Lincoln would have left us
with a few choice thoughts, so perfectly expressed that they will remain
for ever in the memory, this man has only bedecked his generalities with
a confusion of words. His speech is not golden, but cheap tinsel.
Well! you will find that there are painters also, so much in love with
the exuberance of their own cleverness, that they are satisfied to do
nothing but make a gymnastic display of it.
You will find too, that there are others, to whom the mere manual
dexterity is so objectionable, that they deliberately try to make you
lose sight of any brushwork in their pictures. Whistler was one of
these. He used to say that a picture is finished, when the artist has
completely disguised the means by which it has been produced. He wished
the expression of his feeling to reach our imagination immediately and
fully, without any other consideration blocking the way or interfering
with our appreciation.
His method of painting was deliberate; a little added to-day, something
more another day; the whole process extending, frequently, over several
years. For the feeling which he wished to express was a very subtle
one, so the living growth of it, as of many things in nature, was slow.
On the other hand, most of the great painters seem to have been swift
workers; or at any rate their final result gives one the impression of
having been executed in the vigor and glow of a swiftly working mind.
The best way to learn to appreciate brushwork is to stand close to a
picture, and observe the various kinds of strokes and dabs and streaks.
They seem to have no meaning. But step back. Then all or most of the
separate brush marks will have disappeared. They are merged into one
another and their meaning becomes clear. Then, after having thoroughly
studied the effect which the artist has produced, you may again step
close up to the canvas and examine the means by which he has attained
it.
If it is a landscape you are studying, you will find, possibly, that the
sky, which from a distance seems to be grey, is really composed of
streaks of blue and pink and grey. It is, in the first place, by these
streaks of the brush, and, secondly, by the infusion of several colors,
that the artist has succeeded in making his sky have the appearance of
atmosphere, extending far and far back. Then, if you examine the trees,
you may possibly find the strokes short and stubby, so as to bring out
the character of the foliage; while, what from a distance gave the
impression of being simply green, is also found on closer inspection to
contain many spots of other colors. It is in this way that the action of
light upon the foliage has been suggested; so that the trees from a
distance do not seem hard and heavy but penetrated with light and
atmosphere.
In this way, stepping nearer to and further from the picture, and
continually asking yourself: What is the impression that the artist
wished to convey and why has he done so and so? you will soon find that
you are getting an insight into the quality and expression of brushwork.
Now one word more. A little while ago I alluded to “finish.” What is
“finish”? Most people think it means that every part of a picture should
be brought up to a uniform degree of polish and precision. It should be
sleek and shiny, like our shoes, when the man has finished shining them.
Certainly you will see many pictures that seem to justify this
explanation. But as a rule they will not be examples of good painting.
You remember our talk on texture. Well, only some textures are sleek and
shiny and polished. So, if this whole picture is of that character, some
of the textures must have suffered. Then again, life is not uniform, it
does not show itself in all people and things in the same way. Therefore
it is very likely that the uniform polish and precision of this picture
has interfered with its expression of life. The whole thing is
mechanical rather than vital.
No, you must be prepared to find in well painted pictures, all sorts of
conditions of not seeming to be finished; all kinds of different styles,
coarse, refined, bold, dashing, reticent, and tender, brilliant, and
modest; almost as many different styles and conditions as there are
painters. For a painter’s use of the brush is an expression of his own
individuality and life, as well as of the life and character of the
subjects he represents.
I have already told you Whistler’s definition of “finished.” It is
perhaps too much a product of his own personality to be of general
service. One more applicable to all kinds of painters and pictures is
the following. An artist has finished his picture, when he has succeeded
in making it express the feeling that inspired it. This will include
Whistler’s definition, and also the practice of a Titian, a Rubens, or a
Velasquez, whose brush strokes are visible to this day, as witnesses of
the living growth of their conceptions.
Further it will include many pictures that to your eyes seem unfinished.
They look like sketches, and, therefore, you think, cannot be considered
as a finished picture. But go slowly with a thought of that sort. As you
advance in appreciation you will find that many a drawing of a few lines
only, and many a little picture, composed of a few touches of color,
have in them more of the living growth of feeling, more of the charm of
abstract beauty than thousands of so-called finished pictures, in which
the original feeling, if there were any, has been submerged in an ocean
of trivialities.