ultramarine. The colors known as ultramarine ash and mineral gray are
sometimes useful, but they can very easily be imitated on the palette. I
never use either Prussian, Antwerp, or any other cyaneous blue; and I
think that, at any rate for figure-painting, they are unnecessary.
You will observe that I have not put any brown on the palette, not even
umber.
I am quite aware that with many painters, especially English ones, raw
umber is considered a _sine quâ non_, and I thought so myself a few
years ago.
I took, however, a dislike to it from a conviction that it turned black,
and I fancy that I have done better since I discarded it. It is very
seldom seen on the palettes of foreign artists. Asphaltum and bitumen
are very seductive colors, but, as every one knows, they have been the
ruin of many excellent pictures, and it is well to steer clear of them.
I think, however, that either color, when mixed with white lead, is
tolerably safe, and nothing else that I know of gives so effectively and
pleasantly the gray hair and fur of animals.
In blacks, you have ivory or blue black, both excellent colors, and
there is also a charcoal black which is much more gray than either of
the others, and has very little body. I think, when mixed with white,
that it may be useful in painting clouds. It is generally gritty and
badly ground, but for the purpose I mention, I don’t think this fault
matters much.
Before taking leave of the palette, I may be expected to say something
about brushes and mediums.
First, as to brushes:
As to the size of the brushes, this depends very much on the taste and
habits of the artist.
I am fond of small ones myself, not necessarily sables, but small hog’s
hair tools, and I should recommend them to beginners, who wish to
express form as well as color in their work.
I never use flat brushes for painting flesh, and very seldom for any
thing else, but this is merely an old habit.
Every one is perfectly right to use the tools which he finds the most
convenient, only let them be good of their kind, and always kept in
working order.
Now as to mediums:
This is a subject on which I speak with diffidence, as opinions vary
greatly about these compounds. I think, however, that I may safely say
that the less they are used by students the better. By mediums, I mean
the various copal jellies which are sold in tubes, and placed on the
palette like the colors.
I do not say that they are unsafe to use in moderation, but moderation
is said by teetotalers to be a virtue more difficult to practise than
total abstinence.
For a great many years I used them, and have only quite lately discarded
them altogether in favor of clarified poppy oil. This oil is a very slow
drier, and is, therefore, peculiarly suitable for Academy students’
work. It continually happens that a student prepares a larger portion of
the figure than he can finish in one day. The next day it is too dry to
continue the modelling, and yet not dry enough for glazing and
repainting.
If he has painted it with poppy oil, he will find it in a very workable
state for two or even three days.
Nothing can be safer, provided of course the picture is painted
throughout with the same slow drier. The best and purest poppy oil is
known by the name of _huile chromophile_. It has a strong smell of
castor-oil, which to susceptible persons may be rather an objection.
I shall not attempt a criticism of the various oils and essences which
are to be found at the color-man’s. What is one man’s meat is another
man’s poison, and I even go farther and say, that the same man at one
period of his career will swear by some compound which a few years
afterward he will regard with special aversion. The only advice I give
to young artists is to use the simplest materials they can, both for
mediums and colors; and I may add, that the better the colorist, the
simpler his palette generally is.
I have seen on some foreign artists’ palettes as many as six different
kinds of lake, when one would have been quite sufficient, and I need
hardly say that whatever other merit their pictures may have had, they
were not distinguished for brilliant color.
After all, it is only natural that it should be so.
An artist who is not a good colorist must (unless he is blinded by
conceit) have some suspicion of his deficiency, and would naturally
endeavor by a more elaborate palette to remedy his shortcomings, just as
some of our bad cooks endeavor to improve their cuisine by a liberal use
of made sauces. With artists as with cooks, the remedy is unsuccessful;
in both cases it is taste that is wanted, and not a multiplicity of
ingredients.
If a student has a germ of feeling for color, he may develop it into a
plant of respectable growth. He will probably never become a great
colorist, but he may at any rate learn to attain a certain degree of
harmony and propriety, qualities which are not always found in the works
of noted colorists.
I would strongly deprecate the habit of painting pictures up to
exhibition pitch. Paint them up to the pitch you see in nature, and you
will have quite enough to do. Exasperation is not force, and although a
soberly-colored work may be eclipsed on the exhibition walls by a
dazzling neighbor, yet it will more than hold its own when removed from
the glare and glitter of its surroundings.
Color, as understood by many people, means violent contrasts of reds,
blues, and yellows. Now, I am far from saying that strong contrasts and
positive colors are always inharmonious. We have (even in our climate)
plenty of wild flowers to prove the contrary. The scarlet poppy, the
blue corn flower, the common yellow buttercup, are all as positive in
color as red, blue, and yellow well can be, but the green stalk and
leaves of each plant harmonize perfectly with the flower, and the
contrast, though strong, is never offensive. The kind of contrasts I am
deprecating are perhaps best known by the epithet “vulgar.” Look at the
cheap colored glass windows which abound in our country churches, and
which are generally much admired by the congregation. As a rule, the
more crude the colors, the more grateful are the farmers and their wives
to the donors of these windows for giving them something cheerful to
look at during the service. We need not go into the country for
specimens of vulgar taste in color. I never pass a London pillar
letter-box without an uncomfortable feeling, particularly after it has
been newly painted.
The post-office authorities are certainly not bound to educate the eye
of the British public, and their object in painting these post-boxes
vermilion was of course to make them more conspicuous, just as a red
flag is used to indicate danger. But the daily press, and particularly
that sheet which claims the largest circulation in the world, praised
the authorities for “giving us a bit of color” to refresh the eye. Had
these letter-boxes been painted of a laky Indian red, or of a bronze
color, they would have been unobjectionable, but no one would have
thought of commending them as “bits of color.”
Again, if we consider the scheme of clothing the volunteer regiments in
scarlet, and try to account for the enthusiasm with which certain corps
have hailed the innovation, we shall find that the “bit of color” is at
the bottom of it. It can hardly be supposed that the gallant East-end
volunteers wish to be mistaken for militiamen; it must be that the
scarlet cloth is thought becoming, both by themselves and their female
relatives. If I am not mistaken, the West-end corps, such as the
Queen’s, the Inns of Court, and especially the artists, will be very
loth to give up their gray uniforms and don the national red.
I am afraid that the average Englishman’s taste in color (though much
improved of late years) is still but little more refined than the West
African’s. If he no longer buys hideous wall-papers and vulgar carpets,
it is not that he dislikes them, but that he does not know where to get
them, so great has been the improvement in our manufactures. If we turn
from the English Philistine to the English artist, we find ourselves at
the opposite pole. He has often such a horror of loud, vulgar tints,
that he is apt to fall into the affectation of painting on too subdued
a scale, and I would caution you against this affectation. Truth is not
necessarily dull, nor is simplicity monochromatic. There is no danger of
the general public, which delights in the red coats of our soldiers, and
thinks the crudest colored dyes the prettiest, encouraging you to paint
sad olive pictures. The danger comes from the select few who are gifted
with æsthetic tastes, and who, having recently awakened to the fact that
crude contrasts do not constitute color, fall into the opposite extreme,
and praise whatever is negative and colorless.
The dismal view of nature seems to me an unhealthy view; and although it
may be commended as a reaction against vulgar, tawdry color, the art
which it tends to foster is morbid and unsound.
Beauty of color is a much more subtle and indefinable quality than
beauty of form. We are all pretty well agreed that the antique is the
nearest approach to perfection of form which has ever been made, but we
are by no means agreed about color. Some will think that Titian was the
greatest colorist that ever lived, some Velasquez, some Paul Veronese,
and some Rembrandt; and it is not only individual opinions that differ,
but the collective opinion of the age. We all are familiar with
instances of pictures which are now highly prized for their color, but
which within the present century failed to gain admission to any
exhibition.
Delacroix’s pictures used to be regularly rejected, or very badly hung,
and these same pictures are now considered the gems of the gallery at
Versailles. On our side of the Channel we used to turn out Muller’s,
and, I believe, Constable’s pictures. These acts of what we should call
injustice were not committed from any Academic spite or jealousy. They
were simply the expression of the general public opinion at that time.
It may be noted that our predecessors in this country were by no means
indifferent to color. On the contrary, they prided themselves on being
the _crème de la crème_ of colorists, and any one who expressed
admiration for the color of Gros and Géricault would be looked upon as a
kind of traitor to the English school.
It was a generally accepted article of belief in England, that the
French could draw, but knew nothing about color, and that for fine
coloring you must look at home.
We have less national prejudice now, and I hope that we are in a better
path toward forming a right judgment than our predecessors were. They
almost always judged of the color of a picture by comparing it with
similar works by the old masters, and if it reminded them of Titian,
Correggio, Rubens, or some other acknowledged colorist, it was
pronounced a fine thing. If it were unlike the work of any accepted
master of color, it was thought nothing of, however true it might be to
nature. Hence as Constable’s pictures resembled neither Claude, Cuyp,
nor Ruysdael, they were disliked by the connoisseurs of the period, and
were quite unsalable.
A remnant of this artificial way of judging pictures still lingers
amongst us, but, speaking generally, the present generation has ceased
to take this narrow view of color.
Mistakes in judgment are no doubt made, and posterity may pronounce a
different verdict on some of our favorites; still the principle on which
we decide whether a man is to be called a colorist or not, is sound.
The principle is briefly this:--That however unusual or novel the
coloring of a picture may be, if it reminds one vividly of some harmony
of nature, if there is space and air in it, and if the same atmosphere
pervades the whole canvas, it is the work of a real colorist.
I have abstained in this lecture from giving you any of the
old-fashioned recipes for coloring (such as keeping the shades warm and
lights cool, and _vice versâ_), because I think that all such rules have
a tendency to cramp and fetter the artist who follows them. Nothing can
be more dissimilar than the works of the Florentine Ghirlandajo and the
portraits of Rembrandt, and yet few will deny the right of both these
painters to rank as colorists. I might bracket Titian with Rubens, or
Correggio with Ostade, to show how broad is the path which leads to
excellence in color.
An innate sense of the harmonious color in nature, and a steadfast
determination, by hook or by crook, to reproduce an echo of this harmony
on your canvas, must ultimately lead to a good result.
No original colorist could tell you by what process he arrives at the
effects he obtains. His only secret (if secret it be) is that he
observes more closely and intelligently than other men. It is not the
colors he uses, nor the canvas, nor the medium, nor even the technical
skill of his hand which cause his pictures to look like nature, whilst
his neighbor’s look like paint. It is simply what phrenologists would
call his bump of color, but what I (who do not believe in bumps) would
term his keen appreciation of the harmony of nature, and his retentive
memory which enables him to reproduce in his studio the fleeting effects
he has seen.
I cannot promise you that by adopting the same method you will all
become great colorists; but of this you may rest assured, that habits of
observation and repeated attempts at rendering honestly and faithfully
what you have seen, will tend to improve your color far more than all
the rules that have ever been laid down, and all the lectures that have
ever been delivered.
LECTURE VIII.
ON DECORATIVE PAINTING.
By decorative painting, I mean moral figure-painting. Ornamental designs
are a very important factor in all decorative work, but as this branch
of the art is out of my province, I shall say nothing about it.
The great mistake most artists make when they have a large wall-space to
decorate with figures, is to proceed in the same way as they would for
an easel picture. Elaborate finish, powerful light and shade, expression
and individuality in the heads, are all excellent qualities in an easel
picture, but they are by no means necessary in decorative work.
On the other hand, a well-balanced and harmonious composition, a pure
and grand style of drawing, and great breadth and luminosity of coloring
are absolutely essential for good decorative work.
These are all qualities which are never got by dexterity of hand, dodges
about color, or chance, to which much of the fascination of oil-painting
on canvas must be attributed. They are only attainable by patient and
laborious work. I will endeavor to show you, step by step, what the
nature of this work is.
It is always advisable for decorative work of any importance to make a
cartoon of the size of the painting, and, if possible, after the
completion of the cartoon, to have it put up _in situ_, so that the size
of the figures, the arrangement of the groups, and the general effect
may be judged of.
If the result is satisfactory, the work may be considered three parts
done. Should there, however, be any alterations required, they should be
carried out on the cartoon. Nothing which requires alteration should be
left knowingly. There will always be plenty of unforeseen changes
suggesting themselves during the progress of the painting, without
complicating matters by having an imperfect cartoon.
For fresco-painting a cartoon is absolutely necessary.
In the course of this lecture I will describe the process of
fresco-painting. Before, however, proceeding to speak of the different
methods of painting, we will first consider the preliminary operations.
The first thing to be done, even before a stroke of charcoal sullies the
spotless purity of our cartoon paper, is to get an idea of the kind of
arrangement which it will be best to adopt. This pursuit of an idea for
the general arrangement of our subject is of course entirely brain-work,
but as soon as an idea is got, the hand comes into play; not, however,
with charcoal on the big cartoon, but with pen and ink or pencil in the
scrap-book.
I always think the clearest way of describing any process is to take an
example. We will therefore take an example, and suppose that we are
lucky enough to have the decoration of a town-hall or some similar
building in a large seaport town entrusted to us, and that it has been
suggested to us by our employers that groups of figures representing all
countries would be appropriate.
Very well, we don’t at once seize a stick of charcoal and begin drawing
promiscuously. We think first how we can best fit our subject into the
space allotted to us.
How are we to arrange our personages? Shall we group them irrespective
of their nationality, like the figures in Delaroche’s “Hemicycle”; or
shall we adopt a kind of geographical arrangement? Shall we have a
centre figure or group? Shall we introduce architecture into the
background, as Raffaelle has done in the “School of Athens”?
These and a dozen other questions of vital importance to our design have
all to be settled before the cartoon is begun, and we must be guided in
our settlement very much by the nature of the building, the shape of the
panel, the height of the work from the ground, etc. The decorative
painter ought always to bear in mind that his work is supplementary to
that of the architect. Inattention to this self-evident truism has been
the cause of many failures. In an easel picture we order the frame to
suit the picture. We don’t paint the picture to suit the frame; but in
mural painting the reverse ought always to be the rule. Of course, there
are cases--as, for instance, in museums and picture galleries--where the
works of art are the jewel and the building the setting; but these works
of art are not decorative. The very word decorative implies subserviency
to that which has to be decorated.
To return to our imaginary work; I will suppose we have decided that a
central group of figures is desirable, and that England, as the greatest
maritime power in the world, ought to occupy the place of honor.
Moreover, not being of the “Perish India” school, we think that she
ought to be supported by her colonies. We will, therefore, surround her
with figures representing Canada, India, Australia, etc.
Having so far settled our scheme of composition, we must abandon our
idea of a geographical arrangement. We find that it is more logical to
arrange our figures according to the importance of the countries they
represent, than according to their latitude and longitude. We will
accordingly place in the immediate vicinity of our central group,
representatives of France, the United States, Germany, Italy, etc. We
then gradually descend to less civilized countries, until finally we
reach the remote corners, which we reserve for barbarians like our late
enemy King Coffee.
The next point for our consideration would be, ‘How are we to represent
England?’ Certainly not as a pseudo-classical Minerva with a trident in
her hand, and the British lion at her feet; still less as an obese,
ill-tempered John Bull. We may leave this venerable joke to the comic
press.
We must try and invent something new, which shall be characteristic of
England, and yet neither commonplace nor grotesque.
We may, however, leave the costume and action of our Britannia for
future consideration. We have made up our minds that Britannia must be
typified by a female figure, but farther than this we need not go at
present. Having got the key-note (as it may be called) of the
composition, we shall have no difficulty in determining that all the
other civilized countries must also be represented by female figures.
It will not probably be advisable to clothe these figures in their
respective national costumes; such a mode of treatment would be
incompatible with a grand style of decoration. It will, nevertheless, be
quite allowable to vary their features and complexion according to the
nationality they represent, and to give them something, either flowers,
fruit, grain, or produce, which will help to identify them.
Having got thus far, we may begin to map out our groups on the cartoon.
We do not engage models until we have approximately decided on the
various attitudes we wish our figures to assume.
Some must be standing, some sitting, and very possibly some kneeling or
reclining. We try these various attitudes on the cartoon, sketching them
in very lightly with soft charcoal. We transfer and shift them about
until we get an harmonious and pleasant arrangement of line, not too
symmetrical, and yet sufficiently so to give an air of grandeur and
repose to the work. These figures need not, of course, be more than
indicated, but they ought to be tolerably correct in proportion, and the
attitudes should be natural, or at any rate possible.
It is here that a knowledge of anatomy is especially useful to the young
artist. When a man has been drawing figures for forty years he ought to
draw the human form very much as he forms the letters of the alphabet
when writing; but until long experience has given him this kind of
facility, he will find his studies of anatomy and proportion of the
greatest benefit to him. He will save many a long and profitless
morning’s work from a model, and save his pocket too.
It is when the cartoon is in this state of progress--that is, when the
size of the figures, the general arrangement of the different groups,
and their relative position have been settled approximately--that it is
so desirable to hoist it up to its place on the wall. Any alteration
can be made now much easier than later; certain figures or even whole
groups may want to be shifted a few inches, certain actions modified,
the line of heads may require revisal, and so on; and it is obvious that
what can be done now with a few lines of charcoal, would at a later
period involve a great amount of rubbing out and a great waste of labor.
Having at last decided on the proportions and positions of the various
groups and single figures, we may now begin to work from the living
model; and here it may perhaps not be out of place if I give you some
advice about the selection of your models.
I would strongly advise you to engage those who are intelligent and apt,
rather than those who may be better proportioned, but who are stiff and
awkward. What you want in the present stage of your work is natural and
graceful action, and with some models it is hopeless to struggle in this
direction.
When I was a student in Paris, there were some three or four models who
were so intelligent (and I may say so artistic) that they naturally put
themselves into the attitudes wanted, and even suggested and assumed
other positions which were often adopted by the artist.
In violent and spontaneous action suitable for battle pictures these
models were invaluable, and the decline of many a great reputation in
historical painting dates from the death of these humble assistants,
some of whom could neither read nor write. I am afraid the race is
extinct, but even in the present generations of models some are far
superior in artistic feeling to others. In our present cartoon, however,
we do not require any violent action; all we need is perfect ease and
dignity.
As our personages are to be clothed, it will be unnecessary to make
careful nude studies. Nevertheless, it will be well to get rough outline
drawings from the nude of all the figures, just to correct and verify
the proportions of our personages.
Two or three of these nude studies can be made in a day. If the artist
is an experienced draughtsman, there may not be much to correct on the
large cartoon; but let him be ever so experienced, there is always
something wrong about the attitude of figures drawn without models, and
occasionally very gross mistakes are made.
I knew a very clever draughtsman in Paris who made the mistake of giving
one of his figures two right hands, and he did not find it out until he
began to work from nature.
In an outstretched arm, the twist of the radius and ulna makes all the
difference about the position of the thumb, and if the thumb be placed
on the wrong side of the hand, you immediately make a right hand of what
ought to be a left, and _vice versâ_.
I will assume now that we have corrected the drawing of our cartoon
from our small nude studies.