234. This last law is not, strictly speaking, so much one of composition
as of truth, but it must guide composition, and is properly, therefore,
to be stated in this place.
Good drawing is, as we have seen, an _abstract_ of natural facts; you
cannot represent all that you would, but must continually be falling
short, whether you will or no, of the force, or quantity, of Nature.
Now, suppose that your means and time do not admit of your giving the
depth of color in the scene, and that you are obliged to paint it paler.
If you paint all the colors proportionately paler, as if an equal
quantity of tint had been washed away from each of them, you still
obtain a harmonious, though not an equally forcible, statement of
natural fact. But if you take away the colors unequally, and leave some
tints nearly as deep as they are in Nature, while others are much
subdued, you have no longer a true statement. You cannot say to the
observer, "Fancy all those colors a little deeper, and you will have the
actual fact." However he adds in imagination, or takes away, something
is sure to be still wrong. The picture is out of harmony.
235. It will happen, however, much more frequently, that you have to
darken the whole system of colors, than to make them paler. You
remember, in your first studies of color from Nature, you were to leave
the passages of light which were too bright to be imitated, as white
paper. But, in completing the picture, it becomes necessary to put color
into them; and then the other colors must be made darker, in some fixed
relation to them. If you deepen all proportionately, though the whole
scene is darker than reality, it is only as if you were looking at the
reality in a lower light: but if, while you darken some of the tints,
you leave others undarkened, the picture is out of harmony, and will not
give the impression of truth.
236. It is not, indeed, possible to deepen _all_ the colors so much as
to relieve the lights in their natural degree, you would merely sink
most of your colors, if you tried to do so, into a broad mass of
blackness: but it is quite possible to lower them harmoniously, and yet
more in some parts of the picture than in others, so as to allow you to
show the light you want in a visible relief. In well-harmonized pictures
this is done by gradually deepening the tone of the picture towards the
lighter parts of it, without materially lowering it in the very dark
parts; the tendency in such pictures being, of course, to include large
masses of middle tints. But the principal point to be observed in doing
this, is to deepen the individual tints without dirtying or obscuring
them. It is easy to lower the tone of the picture by washing it over
with gray or brown; and easy to see the effect of the landscape, when
its colors are thus universally polluted with black, by using the black
convex mirror, one of the most pestilent inventions for falsifying
Nature and degrading art which ever was put into an artist's hand.[71]
For the thing required is not to darken pale yellow by mixing gray with
it, but to deepen the pure yellow; not to darken crimson by mixing black
with it, but by making it deeper and richer crimson: and thus the
required effect could only be seen in Nature, if you had pieces of glass
of the color of every object in your landscape, and of every minor hue
that made up those colors, and then could see the real landscape through
this deep gorgeousness of the varied glass. You cannot do this with
glass, but you can do it for yourself as you work; that is to say, you
can put deep blue for pale blue, deep gold for pale gold, and so on, in
the proportion you need; and then you may paint as forcibly as you
choose, but your work will still be in the manner of Titian, not of
Caravaggio or Spagnoletto, or any other of the black slaves of
painting.[72]
237. Supposing those scales of color, which I told you to prepare in
order to show you the relations of color to gray, were quite accurately
made, and numerous enough, you would have nothing more to do, in order
to obtain a deeper tone in any given mass of color, than to substitute
for each of its hues the hue as many degrees deeper in the scale as you
wanted, that is to say, if you wanted to deepen the whole two degrees,
substituting for the yellow No. 5 the yellow No. 7, and for the red No.
9 the red No. 11, and so on: but the hues of any object in Nature are
far too numerous, and their degrees too subtle, to admit of so
mechanical a process. Still, you may see the principle of the whole
matter clearly by taking a group of colors out of your scale, arranging
them prettily, and then washing them all over with gray: that represents
the treatment of Nature by the black mirror. Then arrange the same group
of colors, with the tints five or six degrees deeper in the scale; and
that will represent the treatment of Nature by Titian.
238. You can only, however, feel your way fully to the right of the
thing by working from Nature.
The best subject on which to begin a piece of study of this kind is a
good thick tree trunk, seen against blue sky with some white clouds in
it. Paint the clouds in true and tenderly gradated white; then give the
sky a bold full blue, bringing them well out; then paint the trunk and
leaves grandly dark against all, but in such glowing dark green and
brown as you see they will bear. Afterwards proceed to more complicated
studies, matching the colors carefully first by your old method; then
deepening each color with its own tint, and being careful, above all
things, to keep truth of equal change when the colors are connected with
each other, as in dark and light sides of the same object. Much more
aspect and sense of harmony are gained by the precision with which you
observe the relation of colors in dark sides and light sides, and the
influence of modifying reflections, than by mere accuracy of added depth
in independent colors.
239. This harmony of tone, as it is generally called, is the most
important of those which the artist has to regard. But there are all
kinds of harmonies in a picture, according to its mode of production.
There is even a harmony of touch. If you paint one part of it very
rapidly and forcibly, and another part slowly and delicately, each
division of the picture may be right separately, but they will not agree
together: the whole will be effectless and valueless, out of harmony.
Similarly, if you paint one part of it by a yellow light in a warm day,
and another by a gray light in a cold day, though both may have been
sunlight, and both may be well toned, and have their relative shadows
truly cast, neither will look like light; they will destroy each other's
power, by being out of harmony. These are only broad and definable
instances of discordance; but there is an extent of harmony in all good
work much too subtle for definition; depending on the draughtsman's
carrying everything he draws up to just the balancing and harmonious
point, in finish, and color, and depth of tone, and intensity of moral
feeling, and style of touch, all considered at once; and never allowing
himself to lean too emphatically on detached parts, or exalt one thing
at the expense of another, or feel acutely in one place and coldly in
another. If you have got some of Cruikshank's etchings, you will be
able, I think, to feel the nature of harmonious treatment in a simple
kind, by comparing them with any of Richter's illustrations to the
numerous German story-books lately published at Christmas, with all the
German stories spoiled. Cruikshank's work is often incomplete in
character and poor in incident, but, as drawing, it is _perfect_ in
harmony. The pure and simple effects of daylight which he gets by his
thorough mastery of treatment in this respect, are quite unrivaled, as
far as I know, by any other work executed with so few touches. His
vignettes to Grimm's German stories, already recommended, are the most
remarkable in this quality. Richter's illustrations, on the contrary,
are of a very high stamp as respects understanding of human character,
with infinite playfulness and tenderness of fancy; but, as drawings,
they are almost unendurably out of harmony, violent blacks in one place
being continually opposed to trenchant white in another; and, as is
almost sure to be the case with bad harmonists, the local color hardly
felt anywhere. All German work is apt to be out of harmony, in
consequence of its too frequent conditions of affectation, and its
willful refusals of fact; as well as by reason of a feverish kind of
excitement, which dwells violently on particular points, and makes all
the lines of thought in the picture to stand on end, as it were, like a
cat's fur electrified; while good work is always as quiet as a couchant
leopard, and as strong.
* * * * *
240. I have now stated to you all the laws of composition which occur to
me as capable of being illustrated or defined; but there are multitudes
of others which, in the present state of my knowledge, I cannot define,
and others which I never hope to define; and these the most important,
and connected with the deepest powers of the art. I hope, when I have
thought of them more, to be able to explain some of the laws which
relate to nobleness and ignobleness; that ignobleness especially which
we commonly call "vulgarity" and which, in its essence, is one of the
most curious subjects of inquiry connected with human feeling. Others I
never hope to explain, laws of expression, bearing simply on simple
matters; but, for that very reason, more influential than any others.
These are, from the first, as inexplicable as our bodily sensations are;
it being just as impossible, I think, to show, finally, why one
succession of musical notes[73] shall be lofty and pathetic, and such as
might have been sung by Casella to Dante, and why another succession is
base and ridiculous, and would be fit only for the reasonably good ear
of Bottom, as to explain why we like sweetness, and dislike bitterness.
The best part of every great work is always inexplicable: it is good
because it is good; and innocently gracious, opening as the green of the
earth, or falling as the dew of heaven.
241. But though you cannot explain them, you may always render yourself
more and more sensitive to these higher qualities by the discipline
which you generally give to your character, and this especially with
regard to the choice of incidents; a kind of composition in some sort
easier than the artistical arrangements of lines and colors, but in
every sort nobler, because addressed to deeper feelings.
242. For instance, in the "Datur Hora Quieti," the last vignette to
Rogers's Poems, the plow in the foreground has three purposes. The first
purpose is to meet the stream of sunlight on the river, and make it
brighter by opposition; but any dark object whatever would have done
this. Its second purpose is, by its two arms, to repeat the cadence of
the group of the two ships, and thus give a greater expression of
repose; but two sitting figures would have done this. Its third and
chief, or pathetic, purpose is, as it lies abandoned in the furrow (the
vessels also being moored, and having their sails down), to be a type of
human labor closed with the close of day. The parts of it on which the
hand leans are brought most clearly into sight; and they are the chief
dark of the picture, because the tillage of the ground is required of
man as a punishment: but they make the soft light of the setting sun
brighter, because rest is sweetest after toil. These thoughts may never
occur to us as we glance carelessly at the design; and yet their under
current assuredly affects the feelings, and increases, as the painter
meant it should, the impression of melancholy, and of peace.
243. Again, in the "Lancaster Sands," which is one of the plates I have
marked as most desirable for your possession: the stream of light which
falls from the setting sun on the advancing tide stands similarly in
need of some force of near object to relieve its brightness. But the
incident which Turner has here adopted is the swoop of an angry sea-gull
at a dog, who yelps at it, drawing back as the wave rises over his
feet, and the bird shrieks within a foot of his face. Its unexpected
boldness is a type of the anger of its ocean element, and warns us of
the sea's advance just as surely as the abandoned plow told us of the
ceased labor of the day.
244. It is not, however, so much in the selection of single incidents of
this kind, as in the feeling which regulates the arrangement of the
whole subject, that the mind of a great composer is known. A single
incident may be suggested by a felicitous chance, as a pretty motto
might be for the heading of a chapter. But the great composers so
arrange _all_ their designs that one incident illustrates another, just
as one color relieves another. Perhaps the "Heysham," of the Yorkshire
series, which, as to its locality, may be considered a companion to the
last drawing we have spoken of, the "Lancaster Sands," presents as
interesting an example as we could find of Turner's feeling in this
respect. The subject is a simple north-country village, on the shore of
Morecambe Bay; not in the common sense a picturesque village; there are
no pretty bow-windows, or red roofs, or rocky steps of entrance to the
rustic doors, or quaint gables; nothing but a single street of thatched
and chiefly clay-built cottages, ranged in a somewhat monotonous line,
the roofs so green with moss that at first we hardly discern the houses
from the fields and trees. The village street is closed at the end by a
wooden gate, indicating the little traffic there is on the road through
it, and giving it something the look of a large farmstead, in which a
right of way lies through the yard. The road which leads to this gate is
full of ruts, and winds down a bad bit of hill between two broken banks
of moor ground, succeeding immediately to the few inclosures which
surround the village; they can hardly be called gardens: but a decayed
fragment or two of fencing fill the gaps in the bank; a clothes-line,
with some clothes on it, striped blue and red, and a smock-frock, is
stretched between the trunks of some stunted willows; a _very_ small
haystack and pig-sty being seen at the back of the cottage beyond. An
empty, two-wheeled, lumbering cart, drawn by a pair of horses with huge
wooden collars, the driver sitting lazily in the sun, sideways on the
leader, is going slowly home along the rough road, it being about
country dinner-time. At the end of the village there is a better house,
with three chimneys and a dormer window in its roof, and the roof is of
stone shingle instead of thatch, but very rough. This house is no doubt
the clergyman's: there is some smoke from one of its chimneys, none from
any other in the village; this smoke is from the lowest chimney at the
back, evidently that of the kitchen, and it is rather thick, the fire
not having been long lighted. A few hundred yards from the clergyman's
house, nearer the shore, is the church, discernible from the cottages
only by its low two-arched belfry, a little neater than one would expect
in such a village; perhaps lately built by the Puseyite incumbent:[74]
and beyond the church, close to the sea, are two fragments of a border
war-tower, standing on their circular mound, worn on its brow deep into
edges and furrows by the feet of the village children. On the bank of
moor, which forms the foreground, are a few cows, the carter's dog
barking at a vixenish one: the milkmaid is feeding another, a gentle
white one, which turns its head to her, expectant of a handful of fresh
hay, which she has brought for it in her blue apron, fastened up round
her waist; she stands with her pail on her head, evidently the village
coquette, for she has a neat bodice, and pretty striped petticoat under
the blue apron, and red stockings. Nearer us, the cowherd, bare-footed,
stands on a piece of the limestone rock (for the ground is thistly and
not pleasurable to bare feet);--whether boy or girl we are not sure: it
may be a boy, with a girl's worn-out bonnet on, or a girl with a pair of
ragged trousers on; probably the first, as the old bonnet is evidently
useful to keep the sun out of our eyes when we are looking for strayed
cows among the moorland hollows, and helps us at present to watch
(holding the bonnet's edge down) the quarrel of the vixenish cow with
the dog, which, leaning on our long stick, we allow to proceed without
any interference. A little to the right the hay is being got in, of
which the milkmaid has just taken her apronful to the white cow; but the
hay is very thin, and cannot well be raked up because of the rocks; we
must glean it like corn, hence the smallness of our stack behind the
willows; and a woman is pressing a bundle of it hard together, kneeling
against the rock's edge, to carry it safely to the hay-cart without
dropping any. Beyond the village is a rocky hill, deep set with
brushwood, a square crag or two of limestone emerging here and there,
with pleasant turf on their brows, heaved in russet and mossy mounds
against the sky, which, clear and calm, and as golden as the moss,
stretches down behind it towards the sea. A single cottage just shows
its roof over the edge of the hill, looking seawards: perhaps one of the
village shepherds is a sea captain now, and may have built it there,
that his mother may first see the sails of his ship whenever it runs
into the bay. Then under the hill, and beyond the border tower, is the
blue sea itself, the waves flowing in over the sand in long curved lines
slowly; shadows of cloud, and gleams of shallow water on white sand
alternating--miles away; but no sail is visible, not one fisher-boat on
the beach, not one dark speck on the quiet horizon. Beyond all are the
Cumberland mountains, clear in the sun, with rosy light on all their
crags.
245. I should think the reader cannot but feel the kind of harmony there
is in this composition; the entire purpose of the painter to give us the
impression of wild, yet gentle, country life, monotonous as the
succession of the noiseless waves, patient and enduring as the rocks;
but peaceful, and full of health and quiet hope, and sanctified by the
pure mountain air and baptismal dew of heaven, falling softly between
days of toil and nights of innocence.
246. All noble composition of this kind can be reached only by
instinct; you cannot set yourself to arrange such a subject; you may see
it, and seize it, at all times, but never laboriously invent it. And
your power of discerning what is best in expression, among natural
subjects, depends wholly on the temper in which you keep your own mind;
above all, on your living so much alone as to allow it to become acutely
sensitive in its own stillness. The noisy life of modern days is wholly
incompatible with any true perception of natural beauty. If you go down
into Cumberland by the railroad, live in some frequented hotel, and
explore the hills with merry companions, however much you may enjoy your
tour or their conversation, depend upon it you will never choose so much
as one pictorial subject rightly; you will not see into the depth of
any. But take knapsack and stick, walk towards the hills by short day's
journeys,--ten or twelve miles a day--taking a week from some
starting-place sixty or seventy miles away: sleep at the pretty little
wayside inns, or the rough village ones; then take the hills as they
tempt you, following glen or shore as your eye glances or your heart
guides, wholly scornful of local fame or fashion, and of everything
which it is the ordinary traveler's duty to see, or pride to do. Never
force yourself to admire anything when you are not in the humor; but
never force yourself away from what you feel to be lovely, in search of
anything better; and gradually the deeper scenes of the natural world
will unfold themselves to you in still increasing fullness of passionate
power; and your difficulty will be no more to seek or to compose
subjects, but only to choose one from among the multitude of melodious
thoughts with which you will be haunted, thoughts which will of course
be noble or original in proportion to your own depth of character and
general power of mind; for it is not so much by the consideration you
give to any single drawing, as by the previous discipline of your powers
of thought, that the character of your composition will be determined.
Simplicity of life will make you sensitive to the refinement and modesty
of scenery, just as inordinate excitement and pomp of daily life will
make you enjoy coarse colors and affected forms. Habits of patient
comparison and accurate judgment will make your art precious, as they
will make your actions wise; and every increase of noble enthusiasm in
your living spirit will be measured by the reflection of its light upon
the works of your hands.--Faithfully yours,