Starting with a single idea represented by a single unit the coexistent
thought must be the frame or canvas circumference. Supplying this we may
then think of the unit as a matter of proportion. When the amount of
space allowed the unit has been decided, the space between its
circumference and the dimensions of the canvas, or what may be called the
surplus or contributing area is the only thing that remains to engage us.
Let the unit be a standing figure, or a portrait, head and shoulders.
The unification of a unit, enclosed in four sides, _with those sides_ can
only be accomplished by either having the mass of the figure touch the
sides of the canvas, or stretch toward them with that intent. According
to the _strength or number_ of such points of attachment will the unit be
found to maintain a stable existence amid its surroundings. In the case
of the single figure standing within the frame where no chance of contact
occurs, the background should show an oppositional mass or line attaching
at some point the vertical sides of the figure to the sides of the canvas.
An equivalent of such a line is a gradation, often the shadow from the
figure serving to effect this union. If the shadow unites the outline
with the background in such a tone as to subdue or destroy this outline,
the attachment becomes stronger and at the same time the positiveness of
outline on the light side finds its contrast and balance in this area of
mystery and envelopment.
A development by chiaroscuro is a necessity to the pictorial unity of the
single figure.
In the portrait of Olga Nethersole (see “The Pose in Portraiture”), the
photographer presents the section of a figure; not a picture. The spaces
in the background form no scheme with the figure and have not been used to
relieve the lines of the skirt. The sacrifice in half-tone of the lower
part would have given prominence to the upper and more important part.
Owing to the interest and attraction of the triplicated folds of the dress
the vision is carried all the way to the lower edge, where it is irritated
by the sudden disappearance. The picture has no conclusion. It is simply
cut off, and so ended.
It is the opinion of some artists that the portrait having for its purpose
the presentation of a personality should contain nothing else. With the
feeling that the background is something that should not be seen, more art
is often expended in painting a space with nothing in it than in putting
_something there_ that may not be seen. In doing nothing with a
background a space may be created that says a great deal that it should
not.
There is nothing more difficult than the composition of two units
especially when both are of equal prominence. The principle of
Principality sets its face sternly against the attempt.
One must dominate, either in size, or attraction, either by sentiment or
action.
Art can show distinguished examples of two figures of equal importance
placed on the same canvas, but pictorially they lack the essential of
complete art,—unity. The critical study of this problem by modern
painters has secured in portraiture and genre much better solutions than
can be found in the field of good painting up to the present. We may
look almost in vain through old masterdom and through the examples of the
golden age of portraiture in England, discovering but few successes of
such combination in the works of Gainsborough, Reynolds and others.
The foreplacement of one figure over another does not always mean
prominence for it. Light, as an element, is stronger than place. On this
basis where honors are easy with the two subjects one may have precedence
of place and one of lighting.
The difficulty in the arrangement of two is in their union. If, for
instance, they are opposed in sentiment as markedly as two fencers there
yet must be a union secured in the background. If placed in perspective,
perspective settles most of the difficulty.
[Unity and its Lack; The Lovers--Gussow; The Poulterers--Wallander ]
The accompanying pictures are examples at both ends of the scale. _“__The
Lovers,__”_ in construction, shows what all pictures demand, the
centripetal tendency. All the elements consist. As a picture it is
complete; another figure would spoil it for us and them. Not so the
“Poulterers”; persons could come and go in this picture without effecting
it. It is but a section at best. One can imagine a long row of pickers,
or we could cut it through the centre and have two good _studies._ There
is no union. The other contains principality, transition of line, balance
of light and shade, circular observation, opposition of color values and
the principle of sacrifice.
In Mr. Orchardson’s _“__Mother and Child__”_ the first place is given to
the child in white; the background carries the middle tint and the mother
has been reserved in black. Greater sacrifice of one figure to another,
the mother to the child, is seen in Miss Kasebier’s picture of a nude
infant held between the knees of the mother whose face is so abased as to
be unseen; or in John Sargent’s portrait of a boy seated and gazing toward
us into space while his mother in the half-shadow of the background reads
aloud. The greatest contributing force to contrast is sacrifice. The
subject is known to be important by what is conceded to it.
The portrait of two gentlemen by Eastman Johnson is one of the most
successful attempts at bringing two figures of equal importance on to one
canvas. They are in conversation, the one talking and active, the other
listening and passive, and the necessary contrast is thus created.
In the combination of three units the objection of formal balance
disappears. If one be opposed by two, the force gained by the one through
isolation commensurates the two. In such arrangement the two may be
united by overlapping so that though the sense and idea of two be present
it is shown in one mass as a pictorial unit. This general disposition,
experience shows to be the best. Two other good forms are two separated
units joined by other items and opposed to one, or the three joined either
directly or by suggestion, the units balanced like a triangle by
opposition. The _Madonna and St. John with the Infant Christ_ is a sample
of the first. In the “Connoisseurs” by Fortuny we have the second form,
and in the _“__Huntsman and Hounds__”_ the third. A most original and
commendable arrangement of three figures by W. L. Hollinger appears in
“The Pose in Portraiture,” the members of a trio, violin, cello and piano.
The pianist is designated by the suggestion of her action which is
completed out of the picture. In her position however she accomplishes
the balancing of two figures against one.
THE FIGURE IN LANDSCAPE
A writer on the use of the figure in out-of-door photography after leading
the reader through many pages concludes by saying: after all you had
better leave them out.
In two works on photography from an English and American press the writer
has seen this article quoted in full and therefore infers that the author
has been taken seriously.
The relation of Man to Nature, and the sentiment, interchangeable,
proceeding from one to the other, is a link binding the one to the dust
from which he sprang and the other to the moods of man to which she makes
so great an appeal. It is a union of a tender nature to the real lover of
the voiceless influences which surround him:
“Tears, idle tears,”
“I know not what they mean,”
“Rise in the heart and gather to the eyes”
“In looking on the happy Autumn fields.”
Can a sentiment so strong in fact, be divorced in art? It is the fulcrum
on which the art of Mauve and Millet and Walker lifts and turns us. It is
not necessary to mention other painters; but to the case in point observe
that at Barbizon a photographer of artistic perceptions has for years
followed in the footprints of Millet. If nature moves us directly she
will move us through our own kind. We feel the vastness of a scene by the
presence of a lone figure. The panoramic grandeur of the sky attracts us
the more if it has also appealed to a figure in the picture. But beyond
this affinity in the subject there are sufficient reasons why the figure
should be included. The figure can be moved about as a knight in the
game, hither and yon as the fixed conditions of topography demand. Many a
landscape which would be entirely useless without such an element is not
only redeemed, but is found to be particularly prepared and waiting for
this keystone. Take for example a picture in which lines are paralleling
one another in their recession from the foreground or where there is a
monotony in any horizontal sequence. The vertical of the figure means the
balance of these. The principle is one already noted, action balancing
action in contrary direction.
What of the nymphs of Corot, or the laveuses bending at the margin of the
lake, the plowman homeward plodding o’er the lea, the shepherd on the
distant moor, the woodsman in the forest, the farmer among his fields. We
associate our vision of the scene with theirs. When as mere dots they are
discerned, the vastness of their surroundings is realized at their expense
and the exclamation of the psalmist is ours: “What is man that thou art
mindful of him.”
The danger in the use of the figure is that it is so frequently lugged in.
The friends that happen to be along are often made to do. There is no
case where the fitness of things is more compulsory than in the
association of figures with landscape. The haymaker creates a sensation
on Broadway but no more so than Dundreary crossing a plowed field in
Oxford ties. As the poetry of a Corot landscape invites the nymphs to
come and the ruggedness of the Barbizon plain befits the toiling peasants
of Millet, so should our landscape determine the chord in humanity to be
harmoniously played with it.
A fault in construction is frequently seen in the lack of simplicity of
foreplane and background. It must first be determined whether it is to be
a landscape with figures or figures in landscape. The half one and half
another picture is a sure failure.
The most serviceable material one may collect in sketching are such
positions which play second or third parts in composition; cattle or other
animals in back or three-quarter view which readily unite with and lead to
their principals.
In the selection of the subject the main object has most of one’s thought.
This however usually “goes” without thought, asserting itself by its own
interest. Figures which are less interesting than this and still less,
such as will combine with the subject proper, are what the painter and
illustrator long for. As with the background, those things which are not
of sufficient interest to be worth while in themselves are, owing to their
lesser significance, of the utmost importance to the composer. Note in
the usual Van Marke cattle picture of five cows, the diminishing interest
in the other four, or the degree of restraint expressed in most of the
figures successfully introduced into landscape.