matter as it might appear to be. Could one set the real person behind
the frame and suddenly fix them for ever with one of those passing
expressions on their faces, however natural it might have been at the
moment, fixed for ever it is terrible, and most unlifelike. As we have
already said, a few lines scribbled on a piece of paper by a consummate
artist would give a greater sense of life than this fixed actuality. It
is not ultimately by the pursuit of the actual realisation that
expression and life are conveyed in a portrait. Every face has
expression of a far more interesting and enduring kind than these
momentary disturbances of its form occasioned by laughter or some
passing thought, &c. And it must never be forgotten that a portrait is a
panel painted to remain for centuries without movement. So that a large
amount of the quality of repose must enter into its composition.
Portraits in which this has not been borne in mind, however entertaining
at a picture exhibition, when they are seen for a few moments only, pall
on one if constantly seen, and are finally very irritating.
But the real expression in a head is something more enduring than these
passing movements: one that belongs to the forms of a head, and the
marks left on that form by the life and character of the person. This is
of far more interest than those passing expressions, the results of the
contraction of certain muscles under the skin, the effect of which is
very similar in most people. It is for the portrait painter to find this
more enduring expression and give it noble expression in his work.
[Sidenote: Treatment of Clothes.]
It is a common idea among sitters that if they are painted in modern
clothes the picture will look old-fashioned in a few years. If the
sitter's appearance were fixed upon the canvas exactly as they stood
before the artist in his studio, without any selection on the part of
the painter, this might be the result, and _is_ the result in the case
of painters who have no higher aim than this.
But there are qualities in dress that do not belong exclusively to the
particular period of their fashion. Qualities that are the same in all
ages. And when these are insisted upon, and the frivolities of the
moment in dress not troubled about so much, the portrait has a permanent
quality, and will never in consequence look old-fashioned in the
offensive way that is usually meant. In the first place, the drapery and
stuffs of which clothes are made follow laws in the manner in which they
fold and drape over the figure, that are the same in all times. If the
expression of the figure through the draperies is sought by the painter,
a permanent quality will be given in his work, whatever fantastic shapes
the cut of the garments may assume.
And further, the artist does not take whatever comes to hand in the
appearance of his sitter, but works to a thought-out arrangement of
colour and form, to a design. This he selects from the moving and varied
appearance of his sitter, trying one thing after another, until he sees
a suggestive arrangement, from the impression of which he makes his
design. It is true that the extremes of fashion do not always lend
themselves so readily as more reasonable modes to the making of a good
pictorial pattern. But this is not always so, some extreme fashions
giving opportunities of very piquant and interesting portrait designs.
So that, however extreme the fashion, if the artist is able to select
some aspect of it that will result in a good arrangement for his
portrait, the work will never have the offensive old-fashioned look. The
principles governing good designs are the same in all times; and if
material for such arrangement has been discovered in the most modish of
fashions, it has been lifted into a sphere where nothing is ever out of
date.
It is only when the painter is concerned with the trivial details of
fashion for their own sake, for the making his picture look like the
real thing, and has not been concerned with transmuting the appearance
of fashionable clothes by selection into the permanent realms of form
and colour design, that his work will justify one in saying that it will
look stale in a few years.
The fashion of dressing sitters in meaningless, so-called classical
draperies is a feeble one, and usually argues a lack of capacity for
selecting a good arrangement from the clothes of the period in the
artist who adopts it. Modern women's clothes are full of suggestions for
new arrangements and designs quite as good as anything that has been
done in the past. The range of subtle colours and varieties of texture
in materials is amazing, and the subtlety of invention displayed in some
of the designs for costumes leads one to wonder whether there is not
something in the remark attributed to an eminent sculptor that
"designing ladies' fashions is one of the few arts that is thoroughly
vital to-day."
XVIII
THE VISUAL MEMORY
The memory is the great storehouse of artistic material, the treasures
of which the artist may know little about until a chance association
lights up some of its dark recesses. From early years the mind of the
young artist has been storing up impressions in these mysterious
chambers, collected from nature's aspects, works of art, and anything
that comes within the field of vision. It is from this store that the
imagination draws its material, however fantastic and remote from
natural appearances the forms it may assume.
How much our memory of pictures colours the impressions of nature we
receive is probably not suspected by us, but who could say how a scene
would appear to him, had he never looked at a picture? So sensitive is
the vision to the influence of memory that, after seeing the pictures of
some painter whose work has deeply impressed us, we are apt, while the
memory of it is still fresh in our minds, to see things as he would
paint them. On different occasions after leaving the National Gallery I
can remember having seen Trafalgar Square as Paolo Veronese, Turner, or
whatever painter may have impressed me in the Gallery, would have
painted it, the memory of their work colouring the impression the scene
produced.
But, putting aside the memory of pictures, let us consider the place of
direct visual memory from nature in our work, pictures being indirect or
second-hand impressions.
We have seen in an earlier chapter how certain painters in the
nineteenth century, feeling how very second-hand and far removed from
nature painting had become, started a movement to discard studio
traditions and study nature with a single eye, taking their pictures out
of doors, and endeavouring to wrest nature's secrets from her on the
spot. The Pre-Raphaelite movement in England and the Impressionist
movement in France were the results of this impulse. And it is
interesting, by the way, to contrast the different manner in which this
desire for more truth to nature affected the French and English
temperaments. The intense individualism of the English sought out every
detail, every leaf and flower for itself, painting them with a passion
and intensity that made their painting a vivid medium for the expression
of poetic ideas; while the more synthetic mind of the Frenchman
approached this search for visual truth from the opposite point of view
of the whole effect, finding in the large, generalised impression a new
world of beauty. And his more logical mind led him to inquire into the
nature of light, and so to invent a technique founded on scientific
principles.
But now the first blush of freshness has worn off the new movement,
painters have begun to see that if anything but very ordinary effects
are to be attempted, this painting on the spot must give place to more
reliance on the memory.
Memory has this great advantage over direct vision: it retains more
vividly the essential things, and has a habit of losing what is
unessential to the pictorial impression.
But what is the essential in a painting? What is it makes one want to
paint at all? Ah! Here we approach very debatable and shadowy ground,
and we can do little but ask questions, the answer to which will vary
with each individual temperament. What is it that these rays of light
striking our retina convey to our brain, and from our brain to whatever
is ourselves, in the seat of consciousness above this? What is this
mysterious correspondence set up between something within and something
without, that at times sends such a clamour of harmony through our whole
being? Why do certain combinations of sound in music and of form and
colour in art affect us so profoundly? What are the laws governing
harmony in the universe, and whence do they come? It is hardly trees and
sky, earth, or flesh and blood, #as such#, that interest the artist; but
rather that through these things in memorable moments he is permitted a
consciousness of deeper things, and impelled to seek utterance for what
is moving him. It is the record of these rare moments in which one
apprehends truth in things seen that the artist wishes to convey to
others. But these moments, these flashes of inspiration which are at the
inception of every vital picture, occur but seldom. What the painter has
to do is to fix them vividly in his memory, to snapshot them, as it
were, so that they may stand by him during the toilsome procedure of the
painting, and guide the work.
This initial inspiration, this initial flash in the mind, need not be
the result of a scene in nature, but may of course be purely the work
of the imagination; a composition, the sense of which flashes across the
mind. But in either case the difficulty is to preserve vividly the
sensation of this original artistic impulse. And in the case of its
having been derived from nature direct, as is so often the case in
modern art, the system of painting continually on the spot is apt to
lose touch with it very soon. For in the continual observation of
anything you have set your easel before day after day, comes a series of
impressions, more and more commonplace, as the eye becomes more and more
familiar with the details of the subject. And ere long the original
emotion that was the reason of the whole work is lost sight of, and one
of those pictures or drawings giving a catalogue of tired objects more
or less ingeniously arranged (that we all know so well) is the
result--work utterly lacking in the freshness and charm of true
inspiration. For however commonplace the subject seen by the artist in
one of his "flashes," it is clothed in a newness and surprise that charm
us, be it only an orange on a plate.
Now a picture is a thing of paint upon a flat surface, and a drawing is
a matter of certain marks upon a paper, and how to translate the
intricacies of a visual or imagined impression to the prosaic terms of
masses of coloured pigment or lines and tones is the business with which
our technique is concerned. The ease, therefore, with which a painter
will be able to remember an impression in a form from which he can work,
will depend upon his power to analyse vision in this technical sense.
The more one knows about what may be called the anatomy of
picture-making--how certain forms produce certain effects, certain
colours or arrangements other effects, &c.--the easier will it be for
him to carry away a visual memory of his subject that will stand by him
during the long hours of his labours at the picture. The more he knows
of the expressive powers of lines and tones, the more easily will he be
able to observe the vital things in nature that convey the impression he
wishes to memorise.
It is not enough to drink in and remember the emotional side of the
matter, although this must be done fully, but if a memory of the subject
is to be carried away that will be of service technically, the scene
must be committed to memory in terms of whatever medium you intend to
employ for reproducing it--in the case of a drawing, lines and tones.
And the impression will have to be analysed into these terms as if you
were actually drawing the scene on some imagined piece of paper in your
mind. The faculty of doing this is not to be acquired all at once, but
it is amazing of how much development it is capable. Just as the faculty
of committing to memory long poems or plays can be developed, so can the
faculty of remembering visual things. This subject has received little
attention in art schools until just recently. But it is not yet so
systematically done as it might be. Monsieur Lecoq de Boisbaudran in
France experimented with pupils in this memory training, beginning with
very simple things like the outline of a nose, and going on to more
complex subjects by easy stages, with the most surprising results. And
there is no doubt that a great deal more can and should be done in this
direction than is at present attempted. What students should do is to
form a habit of making every day in their sketch-book a drawing of
something they have seen that has interested them, and that they have
made some attempt at memorising. Don't be discouraged if the results are
poor and disappointing at first--you will find that by persevering your
power of memory will develop and be of the greatest service to you in
your after work. Try particularly to remember the spirit of the subject,
and in this memory-drawing some scribbling and fumbling will necessarily
have to be done. You cannot expect to be able to draw definitely and
clearly from memory, at least at first, although your aim should always
be to draw as frankly and clearly as you can.
[Illustration: Plate LIV.
STUDY ON BROWN PAPER IN BLACK AND WHITE CONTÉ CHALK
Illustrating a simple method of studying drapery forms.]
Let us assume that you have found a subject that moves you and that,
being too fleeting to draw on the spot, you wish to commit to memory.
Drink a full enjoyment of it, let it soak in, for the recollection of
this will be of the utmost use to you afterwards in guiding your
memory-drawing. This mental impression is not difficult to recall; it is
the visual impression in terms of line and tone that is difficult to
remember. Having experienced your full enjoyment of the artistic matter
in the subject, you must next consider it from the material side, as a
flat, visual impression, as this is the only form in which it can be
expressed on a flat sheet of paper. Note the proportions of the main
lines, their shapes and disposition, as if you were drawing it, in fact
do the whole drawing in your mind, memorising the forms and proportions
of the different parts, and fix it in your memory to the smallest
detail.
If only the emotional side of the matter has been remembered, when you
come to draw it you will be hopelessly at sea, as it is remarkable how
little the memory retains of the appearance of things constantly seen,
if no attempt has been made to memorise their visual appearance.
The true artist, even when working from nature, works from memory very
largely. That is to say, he works to a scheme in tune to some emotional
enthusiasm with which the subject has inspired him in the first
instance. Nature is always changing, but he does not change the
intention of his picture. He always keeps before him the initial
impression he sets out to paint, and only selects from nature those
things that play up to it. He is a feeble artist, who copies
individually the parts of a scene with whatever effect they may have at
the moment he is doing them, and then expects the sum total to make a
picture. If circumstances permit, it is always as well to make in the
first instance a rapid sketch that shall, whatever it may lack, at least
contain the main disposition of the masses and lines of your composition
seen under the influence of the enthusiasm that has inspired the work.
This will be of great value afterwards in freshening your memory when in
the labour of the work the original impulse gets dulled. It is seldom
that the vitality of this first sketch is surpassed by the completed
work, and often, alas! it is far from equalled.
In portrait painting and drawing the memory must be used also. A sitter
varies very much in the impression he gives on different days, and the
artist must in the early sittings, when his mind is fresh, select the
aspect he means to paint and afterwards work largely to the memory of
this.
Always work to a scheme on which you have decided, and do not flounder
on in the hope of something turning up as you go along. Your faculties
are never so active and prone to see something interesting and fine as
when the subject is first presented to them. This is the time to decide
your scheme; this is the time to take your fill of the impression you
mean to convey. This is the time to learn your subject thoroughly and
decide on what you wish the picture to be. And having decided this, work
straight on, using nature to support your original impression, but don't
be led off by a fresh scheme because others strike you as you go along.
New schemes will do so, of course, and every new one has a knack of
looking better than your original one. But it is not often that this is
so; the fact that they are new makes them appear to greater advantage
than the original scheme to which you have got accustomed. So that it is
not only in working away from nature that the memory is of use, but
actually when working directly in front of nature.
To sum up, there are two aspects of a subject, the one luxuriating in
the sensuous pleasure of it, with all of spiritual significance it may
consciously or unconsciously convey, and the other concerned with the
lines, tones, shapes, &c., and their rhythmic ordering, by means of
which it is to be expressed--the matter and manner, as they may be
called. And, if the artist's memory is to be of use to him in his work,
both these aspects must be memorised, and of the two the second will
need the most attention. But although there are these two aspects of the
subject, and each must receive separate attention when memorising it,
they are in reality only two aspects of the same thing, which in the act
of painting or drawing must be united if a work of art is to result.
When a subject first flashes upon an artist he delights in it as a
painted or drawn thing, and feels instinctively the treatment it will
require. In good draughtsmanship the thing felt will guide and govern
everything, every touch will be instinct with the thrill of that first
impression. The craftsman mind, so laboriously built up, should by now
have become an instinct, a second nature, at the direction of a higher
consciousness. At such times the right strokes, the right tones come
naturally and go on the right place, the artist being only conscious of
a fierce joy and a feeling that things are in tune and going well for
once. It is the thirst for this glorious enthusiasm, this fusing of
matter and manner, this act of giving the spirit within outward form,
that spurs the artist on at all times, and it is this that is the
wonderful thing about art.
XIX
PROCEDURE
In commencing a drawing, don't, as so many students do, start carelessly
floundering about with your chalk or charcoal in the hope that something
will turn up. It is seldom if ever that an artist puts on paper anything
better than he has in his mind before he starts, and usually it is not
nearly so good.
Don't spoil the beauty of a clean sheet of paper by a lot of scribble.
Try and see in your mind's eye the drawing you mean to do, and then try
and make your hand realise it, making the paper more beautiful by every
touch you give instead of spoiling it by a slovenly manner of procedure.
To know what you want to do and then to do it is the secret of good
style and technique. This sounds very commonplace, but it is surprising
how few students make it their aim. You may often observe them come in,
pin a piece of paper on their board, draw a line down the middle, make a
few measurements, and start blocking in the drawing without having given
the subject to be drawn a thought, as if it were all there done before
them, and only needed copying, as a clerk would copy a letter already
drafted for him.
Now, nothing is being said against the practice of drawing guide lines
and taking measurements and blocking in your work. This is very
necessary in academic work, if rather fettering to expressive drawing;
but even in the most academic drawing the artistic intelligence must be
used, although that is not the kind of drawing this chapter is
particularly referring to.
Look well at the model first; try and be moved by something in the form
that you feel is fine or interesting, and try and see in your mind's eye
what sort of drawing you mean to do before touching your paper. In
school studies be always unflinchingly honest to the impression the
model gives you, but dismiss the camera idea of truth from your mind.
Instead of converting yourself into a mechanical instrument for the
copying of what is before you, let your drawing be an expression of
truth perceived intelligently.
Be extremely careful about the first few strokes you put on your paper:
the quality of your drawing is often decided in these early stages. If
they are vital and expressive, you have started along lines you can
develop, and have some hope of doing a good drawing. If they are feeble
and poor, the chances are greatly against your getting anything good
built upon them. If your start has been bad, pull yourself together,
turn your paper over and start afresh, trying to seize upon the big,
significant lines and swings in your subject at once. Remember it is
much easier to put down a statement correctly than to correct a wrong
one; so out with the whole part if you are convinced it is wrong. Train
yourself to make direct, accurate statements in your drawings, and don't
waste time trying to manoeuvre a bad drawing into a good one. Stop as
soon as you feel you have gone wrong and correct the work in its early
stages, instead of rushing on upon a wrong foundation in the vague hope
that it will all come right in the end. When out walking, if you find
you have taken a wrong road you do not, if you are wise, go on in the
hope that the wrong way will lead to the right one, but you turn round
and go back to the point at which you left the right road. It is very
much the same in drawing and painting. As soon as you become aware that
you have got upon the wrong track, stop and rub out your work until an
earlier stage that was right is reached, and start along again from this
point. As your eye gets trained you will more quickly perceive when you
have done a wrong stroke, and be able to correct it before having gone
very far along the wrong road.
Do not work too long without giving your eye a little rest; a few
moments will be quite sufficient. If things won't come, stop a minute;
the eye often gets fatigued very quickly and refuses to see truly, but
soon revives if rested a minute or two.
Do not go labouring at a drawing when your mind is not working; you are
not doing any good, and probably are spoiling any good you have already
done. Pull yourself together, and ask what it is you are trying to
express, and having got this idea firmly fixed in your mind, go for your
drawing with the determination that it shall express it.
All this will sound very trite to students of any mettle, but there are
large numbers who waste no end of time working in a purely mechanical,
lifeless way, and with their minds anywhere but concentrated upon the
work before them. And if the mind is not working, the work of the hand
will be of no account. My own experience is that one has constantly to
be making fresh effort during the procedure of the work. The mind is apt
to tire and needs rousing continually, otherwise the work will lack the
impulse that shall make it vital. Particularly is this so in the final
stages of a drawing or painting, when, in adding details and small
refinements, it is doubly necessary for the mind to be on fire with the
initial impulse, or the main qualities will be obscured and the result
enfeebled by these smaller matters.