_ON PICTURE LIGHTING_
[Illustration: E]VERY art-worker, whether his materials be palette and
brushes or camera and dry-plates, must feel the greatest interest in the
subject with which we have now to deal.
Lighting is the art of placing the sitter or choosing the landscape
under the most favourable aspects for effect.
From this we are able to grasp the form in all its firmness, and see the
finest play of colour, or, if ignorant, embody only a disjointed object,
apparently badly drawn because it is badly lighted, with the finest
passages of colour, and all the poetry and pathos of our intentions lost
through lack of a little consideration.
Some painters, in breaking from the Academy rules, show their
independence and immature audacity by revealing to the public ugly
slant-laws and unpoetic phases of realism; but with those who discard
knowledge for a purpose we have at present nothing to do, our task being
to speak about a few of the necessary lines of action, and to prove
their utility by the effects as seen in nature every day and in the
works of those men who have left a halo round their names by their
faithful adherence to the laws and truthful translations of the
revelations of nature; for the great men of the past and present are
those who grew strong by looking on the face of this divine mother,
whilst the little men, who are forgotten or may be passing into
oblivion, are those who were mighty in their own conceit, who depended
only on themselves, and hearkened weakly to the chirruping of
flatterers.
This point I wish to place before you rigidly, the unflinching adherence
to nature, for it is a much wiser thing to risk forgetfulness by the
faithful rendering of commonplace effects and forms than to lose
yourselves altogether, seeking after a beauty that is not of heaven or
earth. In the first case you may be passed over without comment, yet you
know that you have used the one talent bestowed upon you, and if so, you
cannot die altogether unknown; but in the other case you will only
startle a crowd, as the fiery meteor may startle, to drop out of sight
without a trace, excepting, it may be, the trace of a stain.
In light and shade there are what we may term _phenomenal_ laws, as
rigid in their demands as those rules which can be regulated by
measurement and proportion, and which the artist ought to observe as
closely as he may do the more ordinary or everyday phases of lighting;
for example, a fly darting suddenly from the deep shadow into the strong
light will in the first startled glance assume the proportions of a
crow.
In a picture of the 'Tercentenary Students' Torchlight Procession of
Edinburgh, 1884,' I intentionally made the horses and portions of the
crowd unduly large, on the same principle as the exaggeration of the
fly.
My reasons for doing so were just and strictly according to the reality
of a momentary effect; I state my reasons in order to show you that I
was right in doing so, and also because I dare say this may be one of
the objections to my treatment of this particular subject. I take up the
position of a spectator whose pupils have been dilated by the
semi-darkness, and who, with imagination active, is suddenly startled by
the flaring and irregular flashing of the waving torches; shadows dart
up to colossal proportions, also prominent objects, such as the mounted
police, and it is only by means of this distortion of size that I have
been able to give motion to the crowd, along with the weirdness of such
an effect.
I would ask all who have seen a torchlight procession to recall the
sensation, as closely as they can, when the first burst of torchlight
came upon them, for that is the moment I have attempted to fix upon my
canvas; and those who have not seen a large crowd under these conditions
may imagine what it would be like by the aid of fire or torchlights
which they have seen at other times. I would ask you to exercise the
faculties of memory or imagination while I give you a brief description
of the emotions it roused in my mind as one of the many thousand
spectators, and the effect it had upon my seeing faculties, which will
enable you to comprehend my motives for working as I did, preferring the
_strict reality_ of the instantaneous phase or impression to the
_actuality_ of the known form. (This I give you, not as an apology or
explanation for my picture, but as the nearest illustration I can think
about, at present, of one of the phenomenal laws of lighting.)
We were standing upon a house roof, looking over the city. Right and
left lay Princes Street, with the Mound at our feet, and Scott's
Monument in the middle distance.
Most of the time we were in darkness, with the exception of one or two
straggling candles at windows here and there, at wide intervals. A
mellow glow at the south end of the North Bridge, a blue light behind
the Monument, an occasional rocket fizzing from Calton Hill, also
faintly illumined with white and blue fire, into the umber-tinted
darkness of that starless, cloud-bulging sky, and the alternating
glaring from Hanover Street of rose-coloured, white, and green lights,
which dyed the upturned faces of the crowd and the columns of the
Institution in a broad line with the scarlet or emerald colour of the
fire then burning, for a few pulsating moments of eye-nerve-straining.
Then fell a deeper wave of darkness as the light passed from us, rushing
over the heaving masses below, whence rose up that sympathetic thrilling
sound which ever grips and holds the hearts of a crowd like one heart,
and over the houses, with their lights dashed out for a moment by the
passing away of that more intense light, all preparing me for the
fantastic sight we were awaiting.
Then increased the murmuring louder in its hoarseness with the sound of
many feet trampling, and as we looked towards the North Bridge, where
the lamp-lights showed faintly, the yellow glare of the advancing
torches gilded the sides of the opposite shops, while the houses on this
side became more jetty in their intervening blackness, and in another
moment they were blazing over the parapet of the bridge with a motion
like the walking of a centipede of fire; and so on, with the slow
appearance which distance always gives to all rapid motion, the
procession crossed the bridge, hiding behind the shops and houses
between the bridge and Princes Street, reappearing again by the Post
Office, gliding along to Calton Hill; then they paused for a moment,
turned round and came towards us, foreshortened, but growing vaster as
they neared, until, with a sudden burst, they were rolling along beneath
us, a heaving mass of upturned faces, crimson-tinted, with a river of
yellow light rolling along the centre, white flames with orange
terminations and wreaths of blurring rose and purple smoke, coats
reversed, shirt sleeves or bare arms waving about the torch-sticks,
smut-grimed faces, more like sweeps than students, with here and there a
colossal blue-vestured guardian angel of order bestriding an exaggerated
horse.
This is how it appeared to me and how I treated my picture--as I
conceived it ought to be treated; not as I knew the men and horses to
be, men and horses, but like the perturbed legions of spectres they for
the moment became: ghosts of giants and dwarfs, and other strange forms,
like those extinct monsters of the past, all whirling madly past me, a
vision of passion and flame crossing a chaos of darkness; an invasion of
demons, unreal, yet fascinating--a nightmare of glittering
phantasmagoria of light and shadow, blending colour with intense
blackness.
In this illustration I have given you the two most direct specimens of
lighting a picture that I can think of; in the one portion you have the
light coming from behind and making the objects stand out dark, as in
sunrises, sunsets, moonlights, or artificial lights behind figures; in
the other portion you have the light thrown into the picture, as from
the spectator, or in open daylight, sunshine, or lamp-light effects,
when the light is in front, and shadows fall behind or from the side.
I have divided both effects, as equally as they can be divided, into
light and shadow, the light occupying an equal space with the dark.
These are by no means the most satisfactory methods of dividing a
picture, as they are apt to be mannered and fixed; what I would rather
advise is, to allow either shadow or light to predominate--shadow, if
force is required; light, if air and delicacy are the aims you wish to
strive for. Yet, as they contain within them the primal divisions of all
lighting, they are the most appropriate for my present purpose.
In both effects the treatment is extremely simple, yet in the one, when
the light comes from behind, simplicity and directness are the more
strictly necessary; indeed, in painting a subject with the light from
the back, the energy of the painter should principally be directed to
the gradation of the shadows from misty distance to direct foreground,
having as few lights as can be dispensed with for the sake of form.
In the other, the time of day must be considered with the direction of
the light, so that it may pass directly and consistently throughout all
parts of the picture.
* * * * *
[Illustration: A NEW GUINEA VILLAGE
(_A study of lighting from behind_)]
There is one strict rule I would have you bear in mind when sketching
outside; remember that the whole of your picture only represents a
second of time, the flapping of a drop-shutter over an instantaneous
plate. It will never be like nature if the light upon one part falls
half an hour before the light falls on another portion; so in planning
out the dispositions of your light you must do as the photographic
camera does. Fix one second upon the plate of your memory all over the
scene, and try to work up to this second.
The mechanical worker, who thinks he is a much more conscientious artist
and lover of nature than the impressionist, because he sits down with
his palette and canvas to his easel before nature six or ten hours at a
stretch, is much more unfaithful, even to the image he so patiently
tries to copy, than the impressionist, who, glancing rapidly and
comprehensively round, makes a few swift notes, catches the spirit of
the effect, and depends upon his memory, or a faithful photograph of his
image, for his detail afterwards. We may blink at this as much as we
choose, yet pre-Raphaelitism must come to its proper place in good time,
and be shut in with the antique casts of the schoolroom, with the young
men and women student days, shut in along with their cross-hatchings and
point-stipplings, to be laid carefully in their boxes along with their
gold, silver, and bronze medals, and other school prizes, when they come
out to face flesh and blood, broad daylight, and the world that will not
wait upon the crochet-meshes of meaningless patience.
I would not have a painter work a single line without having a direct
meaning for that line--not only a direct meaning, but a very potent
intention, which cannot be laid aside without injuring all the other
parts of the composition; so in lighting, I wish to impress upon all the
necessity for the strictest economy in the placing of the lights and
shadows; too much protestation will ever weaken an assurance, so also
too many lights will destroy the effect of light.
The other day I passed along a road when the sun was shining, a broad
daylighty forenoon sun-effect, and yet that stretch of road only
received the full force of it on one portion; silver-grey it spread from
my feet into distance; in mid-distance it took the gleam of quicksilver
upon it, growing blue-grey as it receded, and fawn-coloured as it neared
me, darkening with the ruts and markings of the foreground--detail
always produces darkness unless the light shines full and nearly upon
it, and then it will be full of acute shadow and strong light.
* * * * *
Let us now divide our present subject, as Burnet has done, into five
parts--light, half-light, middle-tint, half-dark, and dark.
He tells us that, 'When a picture is chiefly composed of light and
half-light, the dark will have more force and point, but without the
help of strong colour to give it solidity it will be apt to look feeble;
and when a picture is composed mainly of dark and half-dark, the lights
will be more brilliant, but they will be apt to look spotty for want of
half-light to spread and connect them, and the piece be in danger of
becoming black and heavy; and when a picture is composed chiefly of
middle-tint, the dark and light portions have a more equal chance of
coming into notice, but the general effect is in danger of being common
and insipid.
'Light and shade are capable of producing many results, but the three
principal are relief, harmony, and breadth. By the first the artist is
enabled to give his works the distinctness and solidity of nature, the
second is the result of a union and consent of one part with another,
and the third, a general breadth, is the necessary attendant on extent
and magnitude. A judicious management of these three properties is to be
found in the best pictures of the Italian, Venetian, and Flemish
schools, and ought to employ the most attentive examination of the
student, for by giving too much relief, he will produce a dry, hard
effect; by too much softness and blending of the parts, woolliness and
insipidity; and in a desire to preserve a breadth of effect, he may
produce flatness.
'Relief is most necessary in large works, as their being seen from a
greater distance than easel pictures prevents them looking harsh or
cutting, and gives them that sharpness and clearness of effect so
necessary to counteract heaviness.
'Not only the works of Raphael and those of the Italian school possess
this quality, but we find it in the greatest perfection in the pictures
of Paulo Veronese and Tintoretto; and even the larger works of Titian
and Correggio have a flatness and precision which we look for in vain in
the succeeding school of Caracci and their disciples, Guido excepted.
'Harmony, or a union of the different parts of a composition, depends
upon the intermediate parts serving as a link or chain, either by
conveying a sensation of the same colours with those in immediate
contact, or by neutralising and breaking down the harsh asperities of
the two extremes, and thus producing a connection or agreement. Breadth
of effect is only to be produced by a great extent of light or shade
pervading the picture. If an open daylight appearance is intended, such
as we see in Cuyp, &c., it will be best produced by leaving out part of
the middle tint, and allowing a greater spread of light and half-light;
this will also give the darks the relative force which they possess in
nature. If a breadth of shadow is required, such as we find in
Rembrandt, &c., the picture ought to be made up of middle tint and
half-dark. In the one treatment the dark ought to tell sharp and
cutting, which is the characteristic of sturdy daylight; in the other,
the light ought to appear powerful and brilliant, enveloped in masses of
obscurity.'[12]
Burnet, in his treatise, gives also examples of light and shade taken
from the different masters. Light coming from the centre in a bright
spot or focus, with darkness surrounding it, as in some of the Dutch
pictures, where the light comes through a window, from a bright fire, a
lamp, or a candle, the effect will be a splash of white upon a ground of
dark grey and black; light coming from behind, where the effect is open
air with the ground light and the dark work starting out.
Light falling diagonally, almost equally divided, the light portion with
the dark.
Light striking into the picture, and falling upon the most prominent
object, if in a room, the effect will be dark background; if outside,
gloomy skies, as in autumn, winter, or storm effects. In landscape, this
effect is apt to produce solemnity, weirdness, or grandeur; if in a
room, the sombre yet rich depth of Rembrandt.[13]
Light falling perpendicularly and horizontally, as in doorways and
narrow passages, where the light comes in with difficulty.
Light striking across the picture horizontally, as in sunrises, when the
ground is in shadow.
Light striking sharply on one side, as when a lantern picture is thrown
obliquely against a wall, making the nearest edge sharp against a deep
dark, and drifting into shadow by degrees, thus founding the principles
of light and shadow. Light-acute, half-light, middle-tint, dark-acute,
half-dark, and middle-tint. Burnet gives a great number of examples to
prove the justice of his theory, which to give here would only be a loss
of time, as they repeat those different orders of lighting, yet I may
with benefit quote the wise advice of Rubens to his students, where he
says, 'Begin by painting in your shadows lightly, taking care that no
white is suffered to glide into them, for it is the poison of a picture
except in the lights; if even your shadows are corrupted by the
introduction of this baneful colour, your tones will no longer be warm
and transparent, but heavy and leady. It is not the same in the lights,
they may be loaded with colour as much as you think proper.'
A sheet of white paper or a clean piece of primed canvas will give us a
good idea of the value of shadow: make a stain upon any portion of its
surface, say two shades deeper grey than the canvas, and you have the
effect of light and half-tint. In open-air effects be sparing of your
darks, so that strength and force may be the consequence.
A sheet of grey tone paper is about the best medium to impress upon you
the value of tone. Make a mark with white chalk and a few darks, and the
ground will give all the other qualifying powers needful; the fewer
markings you make the more strength you must get in your effect.
In planning your picture, your first care, after the form has been seen
to, is to ascertain where the lights are to come from, and upon what
they are likely to fall; nature is our best guide in this, yet nature
must be followed with great caution, owing, as I have said before, to
the rapidity of her changes; also the superiority of light over white,
and shadow under black; we see, for example, degrees of light without
shadow, and degrees of shadow after the greatest depth of darkness has
been attained, and these we can no more follow than we can follow the
separate blade-markings on a grass-field; as in the one case so in the
other, we must suit ourselves to our limited means and simplify the
whole matter, gather our lights into a narrower and more concentrated
focus, and depend upon the half-tints and reflections for the greater
part of our picture.
If we see a dozen ripples of light, be content with the capture of one
light, and let the other eleven become half-lights or vanish altogether;
so shall we secure force.
Devote our skill to those half-tones which in reality mean the labour,
pride, and test of the painter, even although it is the high lights and
deep darks that finish the picture.
As I have said, there are only about half a dozen ways of lighting up a
picture--eight at the most--and all the pictures in the world, when
painted scientifically, work upon those eight direct or combination
arrangements, as in composition the varieties turn upon two primary
laws, angular and circular arrangements, and in colours upon three
colours, and it is in the strict observance of those scientific ground
lines that the entire success of our design or picture depends; but,
above all, the whole secret of scientific and artistic success lies in
the extreme singleness of our aim; we must not confuse or combine two
opposite laws in one composition, or else the blending will end either
in utter failure, or in a doubtful success which will not be worth the
trouble and labour expended.
[Illustration]