these extraordinary photographs. Out of the series of twelve there are
only two (Nos. 2 and 3) which give the least idea of galloping, and in
these two all the legs are tucked under the horse in a bunch. Well may
the editor of the _Field_ have written back to America to say that there
was some mistake, as, barring two, which looked something like
galloping, all the others represented the horse as more or less
stationary. To me they looked more like the tricks of a highly-trained
steed in a circus.
However grotesque the position of a horse’s legs may be, we must (per
force) accept them as truthful, and to those sceptics who cannot
reconcile their minds to this fact, I would observe that four-footed
animals don’t fly; their legs not only touch the ground, but must at one
particular 2000th part of a second be vertical, and I am quite sure that
under these conditions the cleverest draughtsman would fail to make the
horse appear galloping. Géricault, Horace Vernet, and all the best
delineators of horses galloping, have represented them with all the feet
in the air and the legs more or less extended.
It has now been proved, beyond the possibility of doubt, that this
position is never assumed by the horse. Does it follow that the pictures
of these artists are all wrong? By no means. Speaking scientifically,
they _are_ wrong, but science and art, though often bracketed together,
are very distinct, and ought to be independent of each other; so that if
the old-fashioned way of representing a racer conveys to the mind a
better idea of speed than any of these diagrams, we ought to continue to
wallow in our ignorance. It is impossible to say what the art of the
future may be. We may get valuable hints from these and future
instantaneous photographs; we may learn to modify, to a considerable
extent, the time-honored sporting way of depicting horseraces, but I can
hardly believe that the struggle for the Derby of 1981 will be
represented as above.[2]
[Illustration]
The other paces of the horse, the walk and the trot, have also been
photographed by the same gentleman. The results are curious, but there
is nothing so outrageously absurd as the “1:40 gait” photographs.
In conclusion, I would caution you against being disquieted by any
modern investigation of the true action of animals. In art, whatever
appears right _is_ right, and this seems to me to constitute one of the
differences between art and science. I have already said that in drawing
men or animals in motion artists are limited to one momentary position,
and that care should be taken that _that_ momentary position be
characteristic of the general action. Thus in the greyhound pursuing the
hare, the legs appear even more extended than in the racing horse, and
we ought accordingly to represent them in this way, regardless of the
literal truth.
What we call action, both in men and animals, is not the attitude at one
particular moment, but the combination of various attitudes in rapid
succession. To give a perfect representation of action lies, therefore,
beyond the province of art. All we can do is to select, or sometimes
even to invent, an attitude which, whether true or not true, shall
accurately give the general impression of what we want to represent.
We have heard a good deal lately of a new school of painters calling
themselves Impressionists. I need hardly say I have but little sympathy
with their work. To neglect form, as they ostentatiously do, is to
abandon voluntarily the highest quality of art; but I must confess that
in drawing animated objects in motion, I am somewhat of an Impressionist
myself.
Wherever from the rapidity of the movement any deliberate drawing of the
form is out of the question, I hold it to be much safer to trust to
general impressions than to be guided by the results of instantaneous
photography.
LECTURE VII.
COLOR.
Lectures on color are generally semi-scientific discourses. The lecturer
explains the theory of primaries and secondaries, and the optical
effects produced by contrast, illustrating what he has got to say on the
subject by means of colored diagrams. Those who are interested in the
singular effect produced by what are called simultaneous and successive
contrasts of color had better consult Chevreuil’s book on color, which
has been translated into English, and is a very exhaustive work on the
subject.
From a very slight knowledge of the book I should say that it was more
likely to be of use to the designer and manufacturer than to the artist.
The author deals almost entirely with flat surfaces of color, and the
weakest part of the book is that where he tackles the complex problem of
reducing to rule the coloring of pictures. Some of his theories appear
to me very fanciful, and some are quite contrary to my own experience.
Indeed, it is a question to me whether a scientific knowledge of optics
in their relation to color can be of any use to an artist in his
profession.
After this preamble you will not be surprised if I do not exhibit
to-night any prisms or kaleidoscopic effects of color. Moreover, I don’t
know enough of the subject to venture to lecture on it.
I shall give you the results of my experiences (_quantum valeant_) not
only about colors, but about such prosaic matters as brushes, palettes,
and mediums. It appears to me that many a student is kept back or
discouraged because his palette is in a hopeless mess; his brushes are
like old birch-brooms, and his canvas is slippery and greasy.
If you were learning to write, instead of learning to paint, you would
not provide yourselves with stumpy worn-out pens, bad ink, and cartridge
paper. You would get fairly good pens and ink and white foolscap, so as
to give yourselves a chance.
I don’t wish you to be fastidious about the choice of your materials.
This is as bad as being too careless; nor do I want to bind you to use
the colors and brushes which I myself find most convenient for life
studies.
All I desire is that you should not multiply your difficulties
unnecessarily by using bad materials.
Before, however, entering on these details, I wish to make a few
observations about the effect and contrast of colors.
In the first place, I would observe that, pictorially speaking, no color
can, taken individually, be called either pretty or ugly. The dullest
mud-color, if in its right place, is charming; and the most delicate
mauve, if in the wrong place, hideous.
Dirt has been defined as matter in the wrong place. No one while digging
among his flower-beds would call the rich mould “dirt,” but if he
proceeds to wipe his spade with his pocket-handkerchief, he will
certainly “dirty” it. In the same way when in a picture we speak of a
color being ugly or dirty, all we mean is that it appears so with
reference to its surroundings. Take the same color and put it in a more
harmonious setting, and it will appear all right.
We are told by scientific writers on color, that the primaries (red,
yellow, and blue) harmonize with their secondaries, viz., red with
green, yellow with purple, and blue with orange. This is no doubt true
in a general way, but it is by no means invariably true. Any color will,
under certain conditions, harmonize with any other, provided they are of
the proper shade, and the surrounding setting and background are
suitable; whilst, on the other hand, we often see in pictures by bad
colorists the most orthodox combination of reds and greens, which,
instead of being harmonious, are painfully discordant.
The truth is that color cannot be subjected to theoretical rules. The
only safe book for the student to consult is the Book of Nature. He will
there find no limit to the harmonious combinations of the primary and
secondary colors. Do the golden blossoms of the ragwort or the
blue-bells of the wild hyacinth not harmonize with their respective
green leaves? Are the orange orchards of the South, or the mingled blue,
green, and gold of the peacock’s plumage, unpleasant to the eye? And yet
these combinations of color violate the rules laid down by theorists.
Another obvious truth to be gleaned from Nature, and which may be made
applicable to art, is that she varies her tints according to climate. In
the plumage and coloring of exotic birds and insects we find the most
gorgeous combinations of bright colors. In the parrot-house of the
Zoölogical Gardens we see red and blue, orange and purple, blue and
green plumages of the most brilliant hues. The coloring of these birds,
although not as discordant as their voices, seems in our gray climate
too crude and violent, but in their native tropical forests, with an
intensely blue sky overhead, the crudity would disappear, and they would
be as much in keeping with the surrounding scenery as eagles and hawks
are on our mountains, black and white seafowl on our coasts, or sparrows
in our streets.
The truth appears to be that in color there are various scales of
intensity and strength. If the key-note, or, in other words, the most
decided color in your picture, be strong and vivid, you will have to
carry out the whole picture on the same scale. If it be of a delicate or
neutral tint, you must treat the remainder of the picture accordingly.
Good specimens of old stained-glass windows, where the strongest reds,
blues, greens, and yellows are seen in juxtaposition, are fine examples
of a powerful rich harmony of color, and many pictures of the Dutch
school are very good illustrations of harmony of a delicate gray kind.
This sort of low-toned harmony is much more easily obtained than the
stronger and richer kind. The reason for this is that faults of color
and errors of taste are much less conspicuous in a gray picture than in
a brilliantly colored one. In the former all the costumes are of a
whitey-brown, buff, or slate color, and an injudicious distribution of
these Quaker-like tints would be hardly noticeable; but in a work where
strong reds, yellows, blues, and blacks predominate, the substitution of
one color for another would be fatal to the picture.
In landscape again, it is far easier to paint the gray land of mountain
and mist than the brilliant sunshine of the South. Any one who honestly
attempts to depict the blue Mediterranean sparkling in the sunshine will
probably be severely criticised, whilst his neighbor who has painted the
kind of Highland scenery we all know so well, will get praised for his
painstaking truthfulness, although his picture may be in every respect
inferior as a transcript of nature to the Southern one.
The axiom to be derived from this is, that whatever your subject may be,
whether figures or landscape, it is comparatively easy to succeed as a
colorist in a low or gray scale of color.
I do not mean to recommend any shirking of difficulties, and if your
subject is of a nature which requires brilliant coloring, by all means
endeavor to paint it up to the mark; but in decorative work, and in
pictures which admit of a tender and soft coloring, you will do well to
select grays, bluish greens, and broken tints generally.
Your shortcomings will be less conspicuous, and you will avoid the risk
of becoming tawdry and vulgar.
Some men are born with a strong natural feeling for color, and a good
many more fancy they have this gift without really possessing it. Some
have an exceptionally dull sense for color, and although they may be
quite able to distinguish red from green, yet they cannot be taught to
discriminate between different shades of the same color.
To students belonging to any of these three classes I am afraid my
lecture will be of no use.
The first--that is, the born colorists--will instinctively use
harmonious tints, and their natural feeling will be a better guide to
them than any lectures. The second class--namely, those who fondly
believe themselves to be colorists--will, of course, not attend to any
thing I may say; and those to whom nature has denied a sense of color
are unteachable, just as it is hopeless to teach music to a man who has
no ear.
The great majority, however, of students belong to none of these
exceptional classes. They have an average sense of color, just as they
have an average sense of form; and although I am quite aware that
practice and experience will alone improve and develop their power of
coloring, yet a few practical hints may facilitate and shorten their
studies.
I assume that whatever method is adopted for painting flesh, the object
ought to be to get it like nature. I don’t mean necessarily like the
model, but like what nature would be under the conditions imposed by the
subject, and it is very necessary continually to bear in mind what those
conditions are. It will not do (if you have an open-air subject to
paint) to copy your model faithfully as he appears in the studio, and
then put in a sky and background from your out-of-door studies.
Although the whole picture might truly be said to be painted from
nature, yet it would certainly not look right. The figures would have
been painted under one condition of light, and the landscape under
another.
You cannot be expected, except under peculiar circumstances, to paint
direct from your model out-of-doors, but you may take careful notice of
the difference between studio light and shade and open-air effect. I
must do modern painters the justice to say that this difference is much
more generally recognized than it was twenty years ago. Formerly a
group of figures used to be painted with more or less care from models
as they appeared in the studio, the aperture which admitted light being
often not more than three or four feet wide. It was immaterial to the
artist whether the scene of his subject was an apartment similarly
lighted, or an open heath; and the consequence was that the picture,
however cleverly it might be painted, had an unreal appearance whenever
a landscape background was introduced. This discrepancy must have been
felt, and hence no doubt we may account for the perfectly conventional
landscape backgrounds we notice in many pictures by the masters of the
last century. Instead of the old artifice of spoiling the landscape for
the sake of the figures, it is much better and healthier art to paint
the figures to suit the landscape. We cannot do this completely unless
we paint the whole picture on the spot, and then we should not have the
same command over the arrangement of the groups as we have in the
studio; but we _can_ make an approximation toward this desirable end,
and it is satisfactory to notice that many young artists, both French
and English, are making efforts in this direction, and thus studying the
ever-varying effects of color and light in the only way in which they
ought to be studied. If you do not feel equal to the task of thus
modifying your studio work, choose some subject where the scene is an
interior, analogous to your own room, and then you may copy literally
the color and light and shade of your models and draperies.
I am not going to give any recipe for painting flesh; some English
artists and the great majority of foreigners paint it in at once as near
nature as they can. Others model it first in what is technically called
dead color, and finish with transparent or semi-transparent tints. If
the result is good, it matters little how it has been obtained. Every
artist has his own method, and he generally adheres to it, either
because he is accustomed to it, or because it suits his style of
composition and drawing. I shall therefore confine the remarks I have to
make on color to the harmonious arrangement of backgrounds, draperies,
and costumes.
First, as to backgrounds. It is a curious fact, which any one can
verify, that if you have painted a head and you find the color too hot
and red, the proper remedy is to paint the background of a cool green or
some cold color. Naturally one would suppose that on the principle of
contrasts the cool-colored background would make the head appear redder.
Such, however, is certainly not the case. A vermilion curtain behind
your rubicund gentleman would make him appear more objectionably
rubicund, but a cool gray or green would have the contrary effect.
On the other hand, if you want warmth of color in your head, paint a red
background to it. If you try to give warmth to it by setting it in a
cold background you will make it look more ghastly than it did.
The only explanation I can offer for this apparent anomaly is that the
eye gets filled or saturated with the color of the background until the
head seems to partake of it. In the first example the eye gets filled
with cool green, and thus the redness of the head becomes less apparent.
In the second example, the optic nerves get accustomed to a hot color,
and so the pallor of the head disappears.
In my opinion a colored sketch or water-color drawing gains brilliancy
by being mounted on a white ground, whereas, according to theory, the
dazzling whiteness of the mount ought to make the drawing look dingy.
In the same way, supposing you have painted a series of figures for the
decoration of a pediment or frieze, and you find that your figures are
dull and heavy in color, how are you to remedy this without repainting
them? My answer would be, Give them a gold or light bright-colored
background. It is not only that this bright background enlivens the
whole work, but it has the effect of making each individual figure
appear less dull in color.
Although experience has taught me that these apparently anomalous
effects are produced with color, yet, of course, where black and white
alone are concerned, the law of contrast follows its natural course;
that is, if you want to give brilliancy to a white spot, surround it
with black; and if you want to give darkness to a black spot, surround
it with white.
* * * * *
In a composition of several figures, it is almost always desirable to
assist the effect by selecting white or light-colored draperies for the
figures in the light, and dark colors for the figures in the shade.
This principle may, of course, be carried too far, but as a general rule
it may be depended on.
A good deal has been said by Sir J. Reynolds and others in praise of a
simple palette, and with much of this I cordially agree; still I think
that in the ordinary practice of figure-painting nine or ten colors are
indispensable.
If I give you my own palette, it is not that I wish to dictate to you
what colors to employ, but simply as a foundation for the remarks I am
going to make about the colors generally used. First, with regard to
white.
[Illustration]
White lead is the pigment all but universally used in oil-painting. Many
years ago I tried zinc-white. It was strongly recommended, on the ground
that it did not turn yellow or black with age like white lead. I believe
it has this good quality, but it wants opacity and body; and although I
think it might be used with great advantage in skies, or for scumbling,
I don’t think it can ever replace white lead for flesh-painting.
We next come to Naples yellow. I am no chemist, and do not profess to
tell you what Naples yellow is made of, any more than I could inform you
of what London butter is made. There are a great many shades of this
useful color, but I think that the pale greenish variety is the most
serviceable. The French have _jaune de Naples ordinaire_, _jaune
brilliant_, and three shades of _jaune Pinard_. Our colormen have pale
and deep Naples yellow, of various shades, and lemon yellow besides. Of
all these varieties, I prefer the light-colored _jaune Pinard_. In
painting flesh it will be found useful, especially in the reflected
light of the shadows, where white lead would probably create heaviness
and opacity; but it is in light-colored draperies, in gold-embroidered
brocades, and in glowing sunsets that Naples yellow of some kind becomes
indispensable. Yellow ochre ought to be a simple earth, tinted yellow in
nature’s laboratory; but, like the aforesaid Naples yellow, you cannot
tell what the contents of the tube you purchase as yellow ochre really
are.
The _terra chiara_, which, in Italian fresco, replaces our yellow ochre,
is perfectly durable, but no yellow ochre that I ever bought in London
would resist the action of the lime.
Hence I conclude that the yellow ochre of the trade is not a genuine
earth. However that may be, it is quite indispensable on the palette,
and in oil-paintings seems perfectly durable. Roman ochre, golden ochre,
and other varieties are quite unnecessary if you have yellow ochre on
your palette; but brown ochre is capital for one particular purpose, and
for nothing else that I know of. The purpose of which I am speaking is
for painting a dead white luminous bit of wall or pavement. If you
mellow your white lead with a very little brown ochre, you will get a
luminous compound which is neither yellow nor red, and is totally
dissimilar to your flesh tint.
Of raw sienna I would speak with great respect, as it is perfectly
durable in fresco-work, where yellow ochre drops off the wall and
disintegrates every thing it is mixed with. Nevertheless, raw
sienna wants body; when ground in oil, and except perhaps for
landscape-painting, I hardly ever use it.
Before exhausting the yellows, I may mention that the only violent
yellow you ought ever to admit on your palette is cadmium. Chromes of
all kinds are rank poison, and cadmium, though quite safe, is a
difficult color to manage with discretion.
Light red is burnt ochre, and is one of the most useful colors of the
palette for painting flesh. Mixed with white and a very little yellow it
is the foundation of all flesh-painting. The French light red, or
“_brun rouge_,” as it is called, is much better than ours. It is a
little more pink in color, and is generally pleasanter to work with.
We now come to vermilion. Of this color there are two kinds in common
use, the Chinese and the so-called extract of vermilion. I should think
it hardly necessary to have both kinds on the palette, but some artists,
who are much better colorists than I can pretend to be, think otherwise;
and although they omit altogether umbers and browns of all sorts, yet
never lay their palette without both sorts of vermilion.
Burnt sienna is the next color on our palette, and is of universal use.
It is the best color to use for giving warmth to shades, and for
preparing draperies or stuffs which are ultimately to be blue or green.
Of course, one may use it too much, but it never gives opacity and
heaviness, which any other red would do if employed for a similar
purpose.
There are many other reds. Venetian red is hardly to be distinguished
from light red. Indian red is a deep laky red, and very opaque. I don’t
think it is much used now, but formerly it was in great request for
painting flesh. Etty was very fond of it.
The so-called Mars reds are perfectly durable, but all these colors are
quite unnecessary.
Of the lakes the most useful for general purposes is madder lake. Some
of them, such as yellow lake and scarlet lake, are very fugitive and
not safe to use. Rose madder and purple madder are expensive, and,
except for very rich stuffs, are seldom wanted. There are several
varieties of brown and yellow madders, which may be used with advantage
in landscape, but which are never really wanted for figure-painting.
Green is a color which is not absolutely necessary if you have blue on
the palette, still it is sometimes very useful for the half tones. Oxide
of chromium is the best of the decided greens, but I think that the
French _vert de Cobalt_ is more generally useful. This is a bluish
green, and a most excellent color for painting skies.
_Terra verte_ has no body in it, and I find it turns black very
speedily. Malachite green is a sickly color that I cannot recommend; and
what we used to call emerald green, but which the French call _vert
veronese_, is rank poison on the palette.
Almost all the rich dark greens required for foliage and verdure in
landscape-painting can be obtained by a judicious mixture of blues and
yellows. French ultramarine, mixed with raw or burnt sienna, gives a
strong dark green, which is not at all heavy, and every
landscape-painter discovers new combinations of blues and blacks with
yellows and reds, which enable him to give the infinite variety of
nature.