This is the most important of all processes in good modern[48] oil and
water-color painting, but you need not hope to attain very great skill
in it. To do it well is very laborious, and requires such skill and
delicacy of hand as can only be acquired by unceasing practice. But you
will find advantage in noting the following points:
173. (_a._) In distant effects of rich subject, wood, or rippled water,
or broken clouds, much may be done by touches or crumbling dashes of
rather dry color, with other colors afterwards put cunningly into the
interstices. The more you practice this, when the subject evidently
calls for it, the more your eye will enjoy the higher qualities of
color. The process is, in fact, the carrying out of the principle of
separate colors to the utmost possible refinement; using atoms of color
in juxtaposition, instead of large spaces. And note, in filling up
minute interstices of this kind, that if you want the color you fill
them with to show brightly, it is better to put a rather positive point
of it, with a little white left beside or round it in the interstice,
than to put a pale tint of the color over the whole interstice. Yellow
or orange will hardly show, if pale, in small spaces; but they show
brightly in firm touches, however small, with white beside them.
174. (_b._) If a color is to be darkened by superimposed portions of
another, it is, in many cases, better to lay the uppermost color in
rather vigorous small touches, like finely chopped straw, over the under
one, than to lay it on as a tint, for two reasons: the first, that the
play of the two colors together is pleasant to the eye; the second, that
much expression of form may be got by wise administration of the upper
dark touches. In distant mountains they may be made pines of, or broken
crags, or villages, or stones, or whatever you choose; in clouds they
may indicate the direction of the rain, the roll and outline of the
cloud masses; and in water, the minor waves. All noble effects of dark
atmosphere are got in good water-color drawing by these two expedients,
interlacing the colors, or retouching the lower one with fine darker
drawing in an upper. Sponging and washing for dark atmospheric effect is
barbarous, and mere tyro's work, though it is often useful for passages
of delicate atmospheric light.
175. (_c._) When you have time, practice the production of mixed tints
by interlaced touches of the pure colors out of which they are formed,
and use the process at the parts of your sketches where you wish to get
rich and luscious effects. Study the works of William Hunt, of the Old
Water-color Society, in this respect, continually, and make frequent
memoranda of the variegations in flowers; not painting the flower
completely, but laying the ground color of one petal, and painting the
spots on it with studious precision: a series of single petals of
lilies, geraniums, tulips, etc., numbered with proper reference to their
position in the flower, will be interesting to you on many grounds
besides those of art. Be careful to get the gradated distribution of the
spots well followed in the calceolarias, foxgloves, and the like; and
work out the odd, indefinite hues of the spots themselves with minute
grains of pure interlaced color, otherwise you will never get their
richness or bloom. You will be surprised to find as you do this, first,
the universality of the law of gradation we have so much insisted upon;
secondly, that Nature is just as economical of _her_ fine colors as I
have told you to be of yours. You would think, by the way she paints,
that her colors cost her something enormous; she will only give you a
single pure touch, just where the petal turns into light; but down in
the bell all is subdued, and under the petal all is subdued, even in the
showiest flower. What you thought was bright blue is, when you look
close, only dusty gray, or green, or purple, or every color in the world
at once, only a single gleam or streak of pure blue in the center of it.
And so with all her colors. Sometimes I have really thought her
miserliness intolerable: in a gentian, for instance, the way she
economizes her ultramarine down in the bell is a little too bad.[49]
176. Next, respecting general tone. I said, just now, that, for the sake
of students, my tax should not be laid on black or on white pigments;
but if you mean to be a colorist, you must lay a tax on them yourself
when you begin to use true color; that is to say, you must use them
little, and make of them much. There is no better test of your color
tones being good, than your having made the white in your picture
precious, and the black conspicuous.
177. I say, first, the white precious. I do not mean merely glittering
or brilliant: it is easy to scratch white seagulls out of black clouds,
and dot clumsy foliage with chalky dew; but when white is well managed,
it ought to be strangely delicious,--tender as well as bright,--like
inlaid mother of pearl, or white roses washed in milk. The eye ought to
seek it for rest, brilliant though it may be; and to feel it as a space
of strange, heavenly paleness in the midst of the flushing of the
colors. This effect you can only reach by general depth of middle tint,
by absolutely refusing to allow any white to exist except where you need
it, and by keeping the white itself subdued by gray, except at a few
points of chief luster.
178. Secondly, you must make the black conspicuous. However small a
point of black may be, it ought to catch the eye, otherwise your work is
too heavy in the shadow. All the ordinary shadows should be of some
_color_,--never black, nor approaching black, they should be evidently
and always of a luminous nature, and the black should look strange among
them; never occurring except in a black object, or in small points
indicative of intense shade in the very center of masses of shadow.
Shadows of absolutely negative gray, however, may be beautifully used
with white, or with gold; but still though the black thus, in subdued
strength, becomes spacious, it should always be conspicuous; the
spectator should notice this gray neutrality with some wonder, and
enjoy, all the more intensely on account of it, the gold color and the
white which it relieves. Of all the great colorists Velasquez is the
greatest master of the black chords. His black is more precious than
most other people's crimson.
179. It is not, however, only white and black which you must make
valuable; you must give rare worth to every color you use; but the white
and black ought to separate themselves quaintly from the rest, while the
other colors should be continually passing one into the other, being all
evidently companions in the same gay world; while the white, black, and
neutral gray should stand monkishly aloof in the midst of them. You may
melt your crimson into purple, your purple into blue, and your blue into
green, but you must not melt any of them into black. You should,
however, try, as I said, to give preciousness to all your colors; and
this especially by never using a grain more than will just do the work,
and giving each hue the highest value by opposition. All fine coloring,
like fine drawing, is delicate; and so delicate that if, at last, you
_see_ the color you are putting on, you are putting on too much. You
ought to feel a change wrought in the general tone, by touches of color
which individually are too pale to be seen; and if there is one atom of
any color in the whole picture which is unnecessary to it, that atom
hurts it.
180. Notice also that nearly all good compound colors are _odd_ colors.
You shall look at a hue in a good painter's work ten minutes before you
know what to call it. You thought it was brown, presently you feel that
it is red; next that there is, somehow, yellow in it; presently
afterwards that there is blue in it. If you try to copy it you will
always find your color too warm or too cold--no color in the box will
seem to have an affinity with it; and yet it will be as pure as if it
were laid at a single touch with a single color.
181. As to the choice and harmony of colors in general, if you cannot
choose and harmonize them by instinct, you will never do it at all. If
you need examples of utterly harsh and horrible color, you may find
plenty given in treatises upon coloring, to illustrate the laws of
harmony; and if you want to color beautifully, color as best pleases
yourself at _quiet times_, not so as to catch the eye, nor look as if it
were clever or difficult to color in that way, but so that the color may
be pleasant to you when you are happy or thoughtful. Look much at the
morning and evening sky, and much at simple flowers--dog-roses,
wood-hyacinths, violets, poppies, thistles, heather, and such like,--as
Nature arranges them in the woods and fields. If ever any scientific
person tells you that two colors are "discordant," make a note of the
two colors, and put them together whenever you can. I have actually
heard people say that blue and green were discordant; the two colors
which Nature seems to intend never to be separated, and never to be
felt, either of them, in its full beauty without the other!--a peacock's
neck, or a blue sky through green leaves, or a blue wave with green
lights through it, being precisely the loveliest things, next to clouds
at sunrise, in this colored world of ours. If you have a good eye for
colors, you will soon find out how constantly Nature puts purple and
green together, purple and scarlet, green and blue, yellow and neutral
gray, and the like; and how she strikes these color-concords for general
tones, and then works into them with innumerable subordinate ones; and
you will gradually come to like what she does, and find out new and
beautiful chords of color in her work every day. If you enjoy them,
depend upon it you will paint them to a certain point right: or, at
least, if you do not enjoy them, you are certain to paint them wrong. If
color does not give you intense pleasure, let it alone; depend upon it,
you are only tormenting the eyes and senses of people who feel color,
whenever you touch it; and that is unkind and improper.
182. You will find, also, your power of coloring depend much on your
state of health and right balance of mind; when you are fatigued or ill
you will not see colors well, and when you are ill-tempered you will not
choose them well: thus, though not infallibly a test of character in
individuals, color power is a great sign of mental health in nations;
when they are in a state of intellectual decline, their coloring always
gets dull.[50] You must also take great care not to be misled by
affected talk about colors from people who have not the gift of it:
numbers are eager and voluble about it who probably never in all their
lives received one genuine color-sensation. The modern religionists of
the school of Overbeck are just like people who eat slate-pencil and
chalk, and assure everybody that they are nicer and purer than
strawberries and plums.
183. Take care also never to be misled into any idea that color can help
or display _form_; color[51] always disguises form, and is meant to do
so.
184. It is a favorite dogma among modern writers on color that "warm
colors" (reds and yellows) "approach," or express nearness, and "cold
colors" (blue and gray) "retire," or express distance. So far is this
from being the case, that no expression of distance in the world is so
great as that of the gold and orange in twilight sky. Colors, as such,
are ABSOLUTELY inexpressive respecting distance. It is their quality (as
depth, delicacy, etc.) which expresses distance, not their tint. A blue
bandbox set on the same shelf with a yellow one will not look an inch
farther off, but a red or orange cloud, in the upper sky, will always
appear to be beyond a blue cloud close to us, as it is in reality. It is
quite true that in certain objects, blue is a _sign_ of distance; but
that is not because blue is a retiring color, but because the mist in
the air is blue, and therefore any warm color which has not strength of
light enough to pierce the mist is lost or subdued in its blue: but blue
is no more, on this account, a "retiring color," than brown is a
retiring color, because, when stones are seen through brown water, the
deeper they lie the browner they look; or than yellow is a retiring
color, because, when objects are seen through a London fog, the farther
off they are the yellower they look. Neither blue, nor yellow, nor red,
can have, as such, the smallest power of expressing either nearness or
distance: they express them only under the peculiar circumstances which
render them at the moment, or in that place, _signs_ of nearness or
distance. Thus, vivid orange in an orange is a sign of nearness, for if
you put the orange a great way off, its color will not look so bright;
but vivid orange in sky is a sign of distance, because you cannot get
the color of orange in a cloud near you. So purple in a violet or a
hyacinth is a sign of nearness, because the closer you look at them the
more purple you see. But purple in a mountain is a sign of distance,
because a mountain close to you is not purple, but green or gray. It
may, indeed, be generally assumed that a tender or pale color will more
or less express distance, and a powerful or dark color nearness; but
even this is not always so. Heathery hills will usually give a pale and
tender purple near, and an intense and dark purple far away; the rose
color of sunset on snow is pale on the snow at your feet, deep and full
on the snow in the distance; and the green of a Swiss lake is pale in
the clear waves on the beach, but intense as an emerald in the sunstreak
six miles from shore. And in any case, when the foreground is in strong
light, with much water about it, or white surface, casting intense
reflections, all its colors may be perfectly delicate, pale, and faint;
while the distance, when it is in shadow, may relieve the whole
foreground with intense darks of purple, blue green, or ultramarine
blue. So that, on the whole, it is quite hopeless and absurd to expect
any help from laws of "aërial perspective." Look for the natural
effects, and set them down as fully as you can, and as faithfully, and
_never_ alter a color because it won't look in its right place. Put the
color strong, if it be strong, though far off; faint, if it be faint,
though close to you. Why should you suppose that Nature always means you
to know exactly how far one thing is from another? She certainly intends
you always to enjoy her coloring, but she does not wish you always to
measure her space. You would be hard put to it, every time you painted
the sun setting, if you had to express his 95,000,000 miles of distance
in "aërial perspective."
185. There is, however, I think, one law about distance, which has some
claims to be considered a constant one: namely, that dullness and
heaviness of color are more or less indicative of nearness. All distant
color is _pure_ color: it may not be bright, but it is clear and lovely,
not opaque nor soiled; for the air and light coming between us and any
earthy or imperfect color, purify or harmonize it; hence a bad colorist
is peculiarly incapable of expressing distance. I do not of course mean
that you are to use bad colors in your foreground by way of making it
come forward; but only that a failure in color, there, will not put it
out of its place; while a failure in color in the distance will at once
do away with its remoteness; your dull-colored foreground will still be
a foreground, though ill-painted; but your ill-painted distance will not
be merely a dull distance,--it will be no distance at all.
186. I have only one thing more to advise you, namely, never to color
petulantly or hurriedly. You will not, indeed, be able, if you attend
properly to your coloring, to get anything like the quantity of form you
could in a chiaroscuro sketch; nevertheless, if you do not dash or rush
at your work, nor do it lazily, you may always get enough form to be
satisfactory. An extra quarter of an hour, distributed in quietness
over the course of the whole study, may just make the difference between
a quite intelligible drawing, and a slovenly and obscure one. If you
determine well beforehand what outline each piece of color is to have,
and, when it is on the paper, guide it without nervousness, as far as
you can, into the form required; and then, after it is dry, consider
thoroughly what touches are needed to complete it, before laying one of
them on; you will be surprised to find how masterly the work will soon
look, as compared with a hurried or ill-considered sketch. In no process
that I know of--least of all in sketching--can time be really gained by
precipitation. It is gained only by caution; and gained in all sorts of
ways; for not only truth of form, but force of light, is always added by
an intelligent and shapely laying of the shadow colors. You may often
make a simple flat tint, rightly gradated and edged, express a
complicated piece of subject without a single retouch. The two Swiss
cottages, for instance, with their balconies, and glittering windows,
and general character of shingly eaves, are expressed in Fig. 30 with
one tint of gray, and a few dispersed spots and lines of it; all of
which you ought to be able to lay on without more than thrice dipping
your brush, and without a single touch after the tint is dry.
[Illustration: FIG. 30.]
187. Here, then, for I cannot without colored illustrations tell you
more, I must leave you to follow out the subject for yourself, with
such help as you may receive from the water-color drawings accessible to
you; or from any of the little treatises on their art which have been
published lately by our water-color painters.[52] But do not trust much
to works of this kind. You may get valuable hints from them as to
mixture of colors; and here and there you will find a useful artifice or
process explained; but nearly all such books are written only to help
idle amateurs to a meretricious skill, and they are full of precepts and
principles which may, for the most part, be interpreted by their
_precise_ negatives, and then acted upon with advantage. Most of them
praise boldness, when the only safe attendant spirit of a beginner is
caution;--advise velocity, when the first condition of success is
deliberation;--and plead for generalization, when all the foundations of
power must be laid in knowledge of speciality.
* * * * *
188. And now, in the last place, I have a few things to tell you
respecting that dangerous nobleness of consummate art,--COMPOSITION. For
though it is quite unnecessary for you yet awhile to attempt it, and it
_may_ be inexpedient for you to attempt it at all, you ought to know
what it means, and to look for and enjoy it in the art of others.
Composition means, literally and simply, putting several things
together, so as to make _one_ thing out of them; the nature and goodness
of which they all have a share in producing. Thus a musician composes an
air, by putting notes together in certain relations; a poet composes a
poem, by putting thoughts and words in pleasant order; and a painter a
picture, by putting thoughts, forms, and colors in pleasant order.
In all these cases, observe, an intended unity must be the result of
composition. A pavior cannot be said to compose the heap of stones which
he empties from his cart, nor the sower the handful of seed which he
scatters from his hand. It is the essence of composition that
everything should be in a determined place, perform an intended part,
and act, in that part, advantageously for everything that is connected
with it.
189. Composition, understood in this pure sense, is the type, in the
arts of mankind, of the Providential government of the world.[53] It is
an exhibition, in the order given to notes, or colors, or forms, of the
advantage of perfect fellowship, discipline, and contentment. In a
well-composed air, no note, however short or low, can be spared, but the
least is as necessary as the greatest: no note, however prolonged, is
tedious; but the others prepare for, and are benefited by, its duration:
no note, however high, is tyrannous; the others prepare for, and are
benefited by, its exaltation: no note, however low, is overpowered; the
others prepare for, and sympathize with, its humility: and the result
is, that each and every note has a value in the position assigned to it,
which, by itself, it never possessed, and of which, by separation from
the others, it would instantly be deprived.
190. Similarly, in a good poem, each word and thought enhances the value
of those which precede and follow it; and every syllable has a
loveliness which depends not so much on its abstract sound as on its
position. Look at the same word in a dictionary, and you will hardly
recognize it.
Much more in a great picture; every line and color is so arranged as to
advantage the rest. None are inessential, however slight; and none are
independent, however forcible. It is not enough that they truly
represent natural objects; but they must fit into certain places, and
gather into certain harmonious groups: so that, for instance, the red
chimney of a cottage is not merely set in its place as a chimney, but
that it may affect, in a certain way pleasurable to the eye, the pieces
of green or blue in other parts of the picture; and we ought to see that
the work is masterly, merely by the positions and quantities of these
patches of green, red, and blue, even at a distance which renders it
perfectly impossible to determine what the colors represent: or to see
whether the red is a chimney, or an old woman's cloak; and whether the
blue is smoke, sky, or water.
191. It seems to be appointed, in order to remind us, in all we do, of
the great laws of Divine government and human polity, that composition
in the arts should strongly affect every order of mind, however
unlearned or thoughtless. Hence the popular delight in rhythm and meter,
and in simple musical melodies. But it is also appointed that _power_ of
composition in the fine arts should be an exclusive attribute of great
intellect. All men can more or less copy what they see, and, more or
less, remember it: powers of reflection and investigation are also
common to us all, so that the decision of inferiority in these rests
only on questions of _degree_. A. has a better memory than B., and C.
reflects more profoundly than D. But the gift of composition is not
given _at all_ to more than one man in a thousand; in its highest range,
it does not occur above three or four times in a century.
192. It follows, from these general truths, that it is impossible to
give rules which will enable you to compose. You might much more easily
receive rules to enable you to be witty. If it were possible to be witty
by rule, wit would cease to be either admirable or amusing: if it were
possible to compose melody by rule, Mozart and Cimarosa need not have
been born: if it were possible to compose pictures by rule, Titian and
Veronese would be ordinary men. The essence of composition lies
precisely in the fact of its being unteachable, in its being the
operation of an individual mind of range and power exalted above others.
But though no one can _invent_ by rule, there are some simple laws of
arrangement which it is well for you to know, because, though they will
not enable you to produce a good picture, they will often assist you to
set forth what goodness may be in your work in a more telling way than
you could have done otherwise; and by tracing them in the work of good
composers, you may better understand the grasp of their imagination,
and the power it possesses over their materials. I shall briefly state
the chief of these laws.