[Light and Shade--Geo. Inness]
Pictorial Composition and the Critical Judgment of Pictures
A Handbook for Students and Lovers of Art
By H. R. Poore
New York and London
G. P. Putnam’s Sons
1903
_It is with sincere pleasure that I dedicate this book to my first
teacher, Peter Moran, as an acknowledgment to the interest he inspired in
this important subject_
PREFACE
This book has been prepared because, although the student has been
abundantly supplied with aids to decorative art, there is little within
his reach concerning pictorial composition.
I have added thereto hints on the critical judgment of pictures with the
hope of simplifying to the many the means of knowing pictures, prompted by
the recollection of the topsyturviness of this question as it confronted
my own mind a score of years ago. I was then apt to strain at a Corot
hoping to discover in the employment of some unusual color or method the
secret of its worth, and to think of the old masters as a different order
of beings from the rest of mankind.
Let me trust that, to a degree at least, these pages may prove
iconoclastic, shattering the images created of superstitious reverence and
allowing, in their stead, the result in art from whatever source to be
substituted as something quite as worthy of this same homage.
The author acknowledges the courtesies of the publishers of _Scribners,_
_The Century _and _Munsey’s_ magazines, D. Appleton, Manzi, Joyant & Co.,
and of the artists giving consent to the use of their pictures for this
book. Acknowledgment is also made to F. A. Beardsley, H. K. Freeman and
L. Lord, for sketches contributed thereto.
Henry Rankin Poore
Orange, N. J., Feb. 1, 1903.
PREFACE TO SECOND EDITION
The revision which the text of this book has undergone has clarified
certain parts of it and simplified the original argument by a complete
sequence of page references and an index. The appendix reduces the
contents to a working formula with the purpose of rendering practical the
suggestions of the text.
In its present form it seeks to meet the requirements of the student who
desires to proceed from the principles of formal and decorative
composition into the range of pictorial construction.
H. R. P.
PREFACE TO TENTH EDITION
After twelve years _Pictorial Composition_ continues with a steady demand.
Through the English house it has become “a standard” in the British Isles
and finds a market in India and Australia.
At the request of a few artists of Holland it has been translated and will
shortly be issued in Dutch.
CONTENTS
Preface
PART I
CHAPTER I - INTRODUCTORY
CHAPTER II - THE SCIENTIFIC SENSE IN PICTURES
CHAPTER III - BALANCE
BALANCE OF THE STEELYARD.
POSTULATES
VERTICAL AND HORIZONTAL BALANCE.
THE NATURAL AXIS
APPARENT OR FORMAL BALANCE.
BALANCE BY OPPOSITION OF LINE.
BALANCE BY OPPOSITION OF SPOTS.
TRANSITION OF LINE.
BALANCE BY GRADATION
BALANCE OF PRINCIPALITY OR ISOLATION
BALANCE OF CUBICAL SPACE.
CHAPTER IV - EVOLVING THE PICTURE
CHAPTER V - ENTRANCE AND EXIT
GETTING INTO THE PICTURE
GETTING OUT OF THE PICTURE
CHAPTER VI - THE CIRCULAR OBSERVATION OF PICTURES
CIRCULAR COMPOSITION
RECONSTRUCTION FOR CIRCULAR OBSERVATION.
CHAPTER VII - ANGULAR COMPOSITION, THE LINE OF BEAUTY AND THE RECTANGLE
THE VERTICAL LINE IN ANGULAR COMPOSITION
ANGULAR COMPOSITION BASED ON THE HORIZONTAL
THE LINE OF BEAUTY.
THE RECTANGLE
CHAPTER VIII - THE COMPOSITION OF ONE, TWO, THREE AND MORE UNITS
THE FIGURE IN LANDSCAPE
CHAPTER IX - GROUPS
CHAPTER X - LIGHT AND SHADE
PRINCIPALITY BY EMPHASIS, SACRIFICE, AND CONTRAST.
GRADATION
CHAPTER XI - THE PLACE OF PHOTOGRAPHY IN FINE ART
PART II - THE ÆSTHETICS OF COMPOSITION
CHAPTER XII - BREADTH VERSUS DETAIL
SUGGESTIVENESS.
MYSTERY.
SIMPLICITY.
RESERVE.
RELIEF.
FINISH.
PART III - THE CRITICAL JUDGEMENT OF PICTURES
CHAPTER XIV - SPECIFIC QUALITIES AND FAULTS
CHAPTER XV - THE PICTURE SENSE
CHAPTER XVI - COLOR, HARMONY, TONE
VALUES.
CHAPTER XVII - ENVELOPMENT AND COLOR PERSPECTIVE
CHAPTER XVIII - THE BIAS OF JUDGMENT
CHAPTER XIX - THE LIVING PRINCIPLE
APPENDIX
ILLUSTRATIONS
Light and Shade--Geo. Inness
Fundamental Forms of Construction
Why Art Without Composition is Crippled: The Madonna of the Veil--Raphael;
The Last Judgement--Michael Angelo; Birth of the Virgin Mary--Durer; The
Annunciation--Botticelli; In Central Park; The Inn--Teniers
Three Ideas in Pictorial Balance
Pines in Winter (Unbalance); The Connoisseurs--Fortuny (Balance of the
Steelyards)
Portrait of Sara Bernhardt--Clairin (Balance Across the Natrual Axis)
Lady with Muff--Photo A. Hewitt (Steelyard in Perspective)
Lion in the Desert--Gerome (Balance of Isolated Measures); Salute to the
Wounded--Detaille (Balance of Equal Measures)
Indian and Horse--Photo A.C. Bode (Oppposition of Light and Dark
Measures); The Cabaret--L. L’hermitte (Opposition Plus Transition)
Along the Shore--Photo by George Butler (Transitional line);
Pathless--Photo by A. Horsely Hinton (Transitional Line)
Hillside (Graded Light Upon Surfaces; Cloud Shadows); River Fog (Light
Graded by Atmospheric Density); The Chant (Gradation through Values of
Separated Objects)
The View-Metre
Three Pictures Found with the View-Metre
View Taken with a Wide Angle Lens
Photography Nearing the Pictorial
The Path of the Surf--Photo (Triangles Occuring in the leading line); The
Shepherdess--Millet (Composition Exhibiting a Double Exit)
Circular Observation--The Principle; The Slaying of the Unpropitious
Messengers (Triangular Composition--Circular Observation)
Huntsman and Hounds (Triangle with Circular Attraction); Portrait of Van
der Geest--Van Dyck (A sphere within a Circle)
Marriage of Bacchus and Ariadne--Tintoretto (Circle and Radius);
Endymion--Watts (The Circle--Vertical Plane)
The Fight Over the Body of Patroclus--Weirls; 1807--Meissonier; Ville
d’Avray--Corot; The Circle in Perspective
The Hermit--Gerard Dow (Rectangle in Circle); The Forge of Vulcan--Boucher
(Circular Observation by Suppression of Sides and Corners)
Orpheus and Eurydice--Corot (Figures outside the natural line of the
picture’s composition); The Holy Family--Andrea del Sarto (The circle
overbalanced)
The Herder--Jaque
Alone--Jacques Israels (Constructive Synthesis upon the Vertical); The
Dance--Carpeaux (The Cross Within the Circle)
Sketches from Landscapes by Henry Ranger; Parity of Horizonatals and
Verticals; Crossings of Horizontals by Spot Diversion
Sketch from the Book of Truth--Claude Lorrain (Rectangle Unbalanced); The
Beautiful Gate--Raphael (Verticals Destroying Pictorial Unity)
Mother and Child--Orchardson (Horizontals opposed or Covered); Stream in
Winter--W. E. Schofield (Verticals and Horizontals vs. Diagonal)
Hogarth’s Line of Beauty
Aesthetics of Line; The Altar; Roman Invasion--F. Lamayer (Vertical line
in action; dignified, measured, ponderous); The Flock--P. Moran (The
horizontal, typifying quietude, repose, calm, solemnity); The curved line:
variety, movement; Man with Stone--V. Spitzer (Transitional Line,
Cohesion); The Dance--Rubens (The ellipse: line of continuity and unity);
Swallows--From the Strand (The diagonal: line of action; speed)
Aesthetics of Line, Continued, Where Line is the motive and Decoration is
the Impulse; Winter Landscape--After Photograph (Line of grace, variety,
facile sequence); Line Versus Space (The same impulse with angular energy,
The line more attractive than the plane); Reconciliation--Glackens
(Composition governed by the decorative exterior line); December--After
Photograph (Radial lines with strong focalization)
Unity and its Lack; The Lovers--Gussow; The Poulterers--Wallander
Return of Royal Hunting Party--Isabey; The Night Watch--Rembrandt
Departure for the Chase--Cuyp (Background Compromising Original
Structure); Repose of the Reapers--L. L’hermite (The Curvilinear Line)
The Decorative and Pictorial Group; Allegory of Spring--Botticelli
(Separated concepts expressing separate ideas); Dutch Fisher Folk--F. V.
S. (Separated concepts of one idea); The Cossack’s Reply--Repin (Unity
through a cumulative idea)
Fundamental Forms of Chiaroscuro; Whistler’s Portrait of his Mother;
Moorland--E. Yon; Charcoal Study--Millet; The Arbor--Ferrier
Fundamental Forms of Chiaroscuro, Continued; Landscape--Geo. Inness; The
Kitchen--Whistler; St. Angela--Robt. Reid; An Annam Tiger--Surrand; The
Shrine--Orchardson; Monastic Life--F. V. DuMond
A Reversible Effect of Light and Shade (The Same Subject Vertically and
Horizontally Presented)
Spots and Masses; Note-book sketches from Rubens, Velasquez, Claude
Lorrain and Murillo
Death of Caesar--Gerome; The Travel of the Soul--After Howard Pyle
Bishop Potter
Decorative Evolving the Pictorial; The North River--Prendergast; An
Intrusion--Bull; Landscape Arrangement--Guerin
Stable Interior--A. Mauve (A simple picture containing all the principles
of composition); Her Last Moorings--From a Photograph
Alice--W.M. Chase (Verticals Diverted); Lady Archibald Campbell--Whistler
(Verticals Obliterated); The Crucifixion--Amie Morot (Verticals Opposed)
PART I
“The painter is a compound of a poet and a man of science.”
_—Hamerton_
“It is working within limits that the artist reveals himself.”
—_Goethe._
CHAPTER I - INTRODUCTORY
This volume is addressed to three classes of readers; to the layman, to
the amateur photographer, and to the professional artist. To the latter
it speaks more in the temper of the studio discussion than in the spirit
didactic. But, emboldened by the friendliness the profession always
exhibits toward any serious word in art, the writer is moved to believe
that the matters herein discussed may be found worthy of the artist’s
attention—perhaps of his question. For that reason the tone here and
there is argumentative.
The question of balance has never been reduced to a theory or stated as a
set of principles which could be sustained by anything more than example,
which, as a working basis must require reconstruction with every change of
subject. Other forms of construction have been sifted down in a search
for the governing principle,—a substitution for the “rule and example.”
To the student and the amateur, therefore, it must be said this is not a
“how-to-do” book. The number of these is legion, especially in painting,
known to all students, wherein the matter is didactic and usually set
forth with little or no argument. Such volumes are published because of
the great demand and are demanded because the student, in his haste, will
not stop for principles, and think it out. He will have a rule for each
case; and when his direct question has been answered with a principle, he
still inquires, “Well, what shall I do here?”
Why preach the golden rule of harmony as an abstraction, when inharmony is
the concrete sin to be destroyed. We reach the former by elimination.
Whatever commandments this book contains, therefore, are the shalt nots.
As the problems to the maker of pictures by photography are the same as
those of the painter and the especial ambition of the former’s art is to
be painter-like, separations have been thought unnecessary in the address
of the text. It is the best wish of the author that photography,
following painting in her essential principles as she does, may prove
herself a well met companion along art’s highway,—seekers together, at
arm’s length, and in defined limits, of the same goal.
The mention of artists’ names has been limited, and a liberal allusion to
many works avoided because to multiply them is both confusing and
unnecessary.
To the art lover this book may be found of interest as containing the
_reasons_ in picture composition, and through them an aid to critical
judgment. We adapt our education from quaint and curious sources. It is
the apt correlation of the arts which accounts for the acknowledgment by
an English story writer that she got her style from Ruskin’s “Principles
of Drawing”; and of a landscape painter that to sculpture he owed his
discernment of the forest secrets, by daily observing the long lines of
statues in the corridor of the Royal Academy; or by the composer of
pictures to the composer of music; or by the preacher that suggestions to
discourse had come to him through the pictorial processes of the painter.