possibility, but only with its indispensability. More than that must be
possible, however, before you can have a school of art; namely, that you
find places elsewhere than in England, or at least in otherwise
unserviceable parts of England, for the establishment of manufactories
needing the help of fire, that is to say, of all the +technai
banausikai+ and +epirrêtoi+, of which it was long ago known to be
the constant nature that "+ascholias malista echousi kai philôn
kai poleôs sunepimeleisthai+," and to reduce such manufactures to their
lowest limit, so that nothing may ever be made of iron that can as
effectually be made of wood or stone; and nothing moved by steam that
can be as effectually moved by natural forces. And observe, that for all
mechanical effort required in social life and in cities, water power is
infinitely more than enough; for anchored mills on the large rivers, and
mills moved by sluices from reservoirs filled by the tide, will give you
command of any quantity of constant motive power you need.
Agriculture by the hand, then, and absolute refusal or banishment of
unnecessary igneous force, are the first conditions of a school of art
in any country. And until you do this, be it soon or late, things will
continue in that triumphant state to which, for want of finer art, your
mechanism has brought them;--that, though England is deafened with
spinning wheels, her people have not clothes--though she is black with
digging of fuel, they die of cold--and though she has sold her soul for
gain, they die of hunger. Stay in that triumph, if you choose; but be
assured of this, it is not one which the fine arts will ever share with
you.
124. Now, I have given you my message, containing, as I know, offence
enough, and itself, it may seem to many, unnecessary enough. But just in
proportion to its apparent non-necessity, and to its certain offence,
was its real need, and my real duty to speak it. The study of the fine
arts could not be rightly associated with the grave work of English
Universities, without due and clear protest against the misdirection of
national energy, which for the present renders all good results of such
study on a great scale, impossible. I can easily teach you, as any other
moderately good draughtsman could, how to hold your pencils, and how to
lay your colours; but it is little use my doing that, while the nation
is spending millions of money in the destruction of all that pencil or
colour has to represent, and in the promotion of false forms of art,
which are only the costliest and the least enjoyable of follies. And
therefore these are the things that I have first and last to tell you in
this place;--that the fine arts are not to be learned by Locomotion, but
by making the homes we live in lovely, and by staying in them;--that
the fine arts are not to be learned by Competition, but by doing our
quiet best in our own way;--that the fine arts are not to be learned by
Exhibition, but by doing what is right, and making what is honest,
whether it be exhibited or not;--and, for the sum of all, that men must
paint and build neither for pride nor for money, but for love; for love
of their art, for love of their neighbour, and whatever better love may
be than these, founded on these. I know that I gave some pain, which I
was most unwilling to give, in speaking of the possible abuses of
religious art; but there can be no danger of any, so long as we remember
that God inhabits cottages as well as churches, and ought to be well
lodged there also. Begin with wooden floors; the tessellated ones will
take care of themselves; begin with thatching roofs, and you shall end
by splendidly vaulting them; begin by taking care that no old eyes fail
over their Bibles, nor young ones over their needles, for want of
rushlight, and then you may have whatever true good is to be got out of
coloured glass or wax candles. And in thus putting the arts to universal
use, you will find also their universal inspiration, their universal
benediction. I told you there was no evidence of a _special_ Divineness
in any application of them; that they were always equally human and
equally Divine; and in closing this inaugural series of lectures, into
which I have endeavoured to compress the principles that are to be the
foundations of your future work, it is my last duty to say some positive
words as to the Divinity of all art, when it is truly fair, or truly
serviceable.
125. Every seventh day, if not oftener, the greater number of
well-meaning persons in England thankfully receive from their teachers a
benediction, couched in those terms:--"The grace of our Lord Jesus
Christ, and the Love of God, and the Fellowship of the Holy Ghost, be
with you." Now I do not know precisely what sense is attached in the
English public mind to those expressions. But what I have to tell you
positively is that the three things do actually exist, and can be known
if you care to know them, and possessed if you care to possess them;
and that another thing exists, besides these, of which we already know
too much.
First, by simply obeying the orders of the Founder of your religion, all
grace, graciousness, or beauty and favour of gentle life, will be given
to you in mind and body, in work and in rest. The Grace of Christ
exists, and can be had if you will. Secondly, as you know more and more
of the created world, you will find that the true will of its Maker is
that its creatures should be happy;--that He has made everything
beautiful in its time and its place, and that it is chiefly by the fault
of men, when they are allowed the liberty of thwarting His laws, that
Creation groans or travails in pain. The Love of God exists, and you may
see it, and live in it if you will. Lastly, a Spirit does actually exist
which teaches the ant her path, the bird her building, and men, in an
instinctive and marvellous way, whatever lovely arts and noble deeds are
possible to them. Without it you can do no good thing. To the grief of
it you can do many bad ones. In the possession of it is your peace and
your power.
And there is a fourth thing, of which we already know too much. There is
an evil spirit whose dominion is in blindness and in cowardice, as the
dominion of the Spirit of wisdom is in clear sight and in courage.
And this blind and cowardly spirit is for ever telling you that evil
things are pardonable, and you shall not die for them, and that good
things are impossible, and you need not live for them; and that gospel
of his is now the loudest that is preached in your Saxon tongue. You
will find some day, to your cost, if you believe the first part of it,
that it is not true; but you may never, if you believe the second part
of it, find, to your gain, that also, untrue; and therefore I pray you
with all earnestness to prove, and know within your hearts, that all
things lovely and righteous are possible for those who believe in their
possibility, and who determine that, for their part, they will make
every day's work contribute to them. Let every dawn of morning be to you
as the beginning of life, and every setting sun be to you as its
close:--then let every one of these short lives leave its sure record of
some kindly thing done for others--some goodly strength or knowledge
gained for yourselves; so, from day to day, and strength to strength,
you shall build up indeed, by Art, by Thought, and by Just Will, an
Ecclesia of England, of which it shall not be said, "See what manner of
stones are here," but, "See what manner of men."
LECTURE V
LINE
126. You will, I doubt not, willingly permit me to begin your lessons in
real practice of art in the words of the greatest of English painters:
one also, than whom there is indeed no greater, among those of any
nation, or any time,--our own gentle Reynolds.
He says in his first discourse:--"The Directors" (of the Academy) "ought
more particularly to watch over the genius of those students, who being
more advanced, are arrived at that critical period of study, on the nice
management of which their future turn of taste depends. At that age it
is natural for them to be more captivated with what is brilliant, than
with what is solid, and to prefer splendid negligence to painful and
humiliating exactness."
"A facility in composing, a lively and, what is called, a 'masterly'
handling of the chalk or pencil, are, it must be confessed, captivating
qualities to young minds, and become of course the objects of their
ambition. They endeavour to imitate these dazzling excellences, which
they will find no great labour in attaining. After much time spent in
these frivolous pursuits, the difficulty will be to retreat; but it will
then be too late; and there is scarce an instance of return to
scrupulous labour, after the mind has been debauched and deceived by
this fallacious mastery."
127. I read you these words, chiefly that Sir Joshua, who founded, as
first President, the Academical schools of English painting, in these
well-known discourses, may also begin, as he has truest right to do, our
system of instruction in this University. But secondly, I read them that
I may press on your attention these singular words, "painful and
humiliating exactness." Singular, as expressing the first conditions of
the study required from his pupils by the master, who, of all men except
Velasquez, seems to have painted with the greatest ease. It is true that
he asks this pain, this humiliation, only from youths who intend to
follow the profession of artists. But if you wish yourselves to know
anything of the practice of art, you must not suppose that because your
study will be more desultory than that of Academy students, it may
therefore be less accurate. The shorter the time you have to give, the
more careful you should be to spend it profitably; and I would not wish
you to devote one hour to the practice of drawing, unless you are
resolved to be informed in it of all that in an hour can be taught.
128. I speak of the practice of _drawing_ only; though elementary study
of modelling may perhaps some day be advisably connected with it; but I
do not wish to disturb, or amuse, you with a formal statement of the
manifold expectations I have formed respecting your future work. You
will not, I am sure, imagine that I have begun without a plan, nor blame
my reticence as to the parts of it which cannot yet be put into
execution, and which there may occur reason afterwards to modify. My
first task must unquestionably be to lay before you right and simple
methods of drawing and colouring.
I use the word "colouring" without reference to any particular vehicle
of colour, for the laws of good painting are the same, whatever liquid
is employed to dissolve the pigments. But the technical management of
oil is more difficult than that of water-colour, and the impossibility
of using it with safety among books or prints, and its unavailableness
for note-book sketches and memoranda, are sufficient reasons for not
introducing it in a course of practice intended chiefly for students of
literature. On the contrary, in the exercises of artists, oil should be
the vehicle of colour employed from the first. The extended practice of
water-colour painting, as a separate skill, is in every way harmful to
the arts: its pleasant slightness and plausible dexterity divert the
genius of the painter from its proper aims, and withdraw the attention
of the public from excellence of higher claim; nor ought any man, who
has the consciousness of ability for good work, to be ignorant of, or
indolent in employing, the methods of making its results permanent as
long as the laws of Nature allow. It is surely a severe lesson to us in
this matter, that the best works of Turner could not be shown to the
public for six months without being destroyed,--and that his most
ambitious ones for the most part perished, even before they could be
shown. I will break through my law of reticence, however, so far as to
tell you that I have hope of one day interesting you greatly (with the
help of the Florentine masters), in the study of the arts of moulding
and painting porcelain; and to induce some of you to use your future
power of patronage in encouraging the various branches of this art, and
turning the attention of the workmen of Italy from the vulgar tricks of
minute and perishable mosaic to the exquisite subtilties of form and
colour possible in the perfectly ductile, afterwards unalterable clay.
And one of the ultimate results of such craftsmanship might be the
production of pictures as brilliant as painted glass,--as delicate as
the most subtle water-colours, and more permanent than the Pyramids.
129. And now to begin our own work. In order that we may know how
rightly to learn to draw and to paint, it will be necessary, will it
not, that we know first what we are to aim at doing;--what kind of
representation of nature is best?
I will tell you in the words of Lionardo. "That is the most praiseworthy
painting which has most conformity with the thing represented," "quella
pittura e piu laudabile, la quale ha piu conformita con la cosa mitata,"
(ch. 276). In plain terms, "the painting which is likest nature is the
best." And you will find by referring to the preceding chapter, "come lo
specchio e maestro de' pittori," how absolutely Lionardo means what he
says. Let the living thing, (he tells us,) be reflected in a mirror,
then put your picture beside the reflection, and match the one with the
other. And indeed, the very best painting is unquestionably so like the
mirrored truth, that all the world admits its excellence. Entirely
first-rate work is so quiet and natural that there can be no dispute
over it; you may not particularly admire it, but you will find no fault
with it. Second-rate painting pleases one person much, and displeases
another; but first-rate painting pleases all a little, and intensely
pleases those who can recognise its unostentatious skill.
130. This, then, is what we have first got to do--to make our drawing
look as like the thing we have to draw as we can.
Now, all objects are seen by the eye as patches of colour of a certain
shape, with gradations of colour within them. And, unless their colours
be actually luminous, as those of the sun, or of fire, these patches of
different hues are sufficiently imitable, except so far as they are seen
stereoscopically. You will find Lionardo again and again insisting on
the stereoscopic power of the double sight: but do not let that trouble
you; you can only paint what you can see from one point of sight, but
that is quite enough. So seen, then, all objects appear to the human eye
simply as masses of colour of variable depth, texture, and outline. The
outline of any object is the limit of its mass, as relieved against
another mass. Take a crocus, and lay it on a green cloth. You will see
it detach itself as a mere space of yellow from the green behind it, as
it does from the grass. Hold it up against the window--you will see it
detach itself as a dark space against the white or blue behind it. In
either case its outline is the limit of the space of light or dark
colour by which it expresses itself to your sight. That outline is
therefore infinitely subtle--not even a line, but the place of a line,
and that, also, made soft by texture. In the finest painting it is
therefore slightly softened; but it is necessary to be able to draw it
with absolute sharpness and precision. The art of doing this is to be
obtained by drawing it as an actual line, which art is to be the subject
of our immediate enquiry; but I must first lay the divisions of the
entire subject completely before you.
131. I have said that all objects detach themselves as masses of
colour. Usually, light and shade are thought of as separate from colour;
but the fact is that all nature is seen as a mosaic composed of gradated
portions of different colours, dark or light. There is no difference in
the quality of these colours, except as affected by texture. You will
constantly hear lights and shades spoken of as if these were different
in their nature, and to be painted in different ways. But every light is
a shadow compared to higher lights, till we reach the brightness of the
sun; and every shadow is a light compared to lower shadows, till we
reach the darkness of night.
Every colour used in painting, except pure white and black, is therefore
a light and shade at the same time. It is a light with reference to all
below it, and a shade with reference to all above it.
132. The solid forms of an object, that is to say, the projections or
recessions of its surface within the outline, are, for the most part,
rendered visible by variations in the intensity or quantity of light
falling on them. The study of the relations between the quantities of
this light, irrespectively of its colour, is the second division of the
regulated science of painting.
133. Finally, the qualities and relations of natural colours, the means
of imitating them, and the laws by which they become separately
beautiful, and in association harmonious, are the subjects of the third
and final division of the painter's study. I shall endeavour at once to
state to you what is most immediately desirable for you to know on each
of these topics, in this and the two following lectures.
134. What we have to do, then, from beginning to end, is, I repeat once
more, simply to draw spaces of their true shape, and to fill them with
colours which shall match their colours; quite a simple thing in the
definition of it, not quite so easy in the doing of it.
But it is something to get this simple definition; and I wish you to
notice that the terms of it are complete, though I do not introduce the
term "light," or "shadow." Painters who have no eye for colour have
greatly confused and falsified the practice of art by the theory that
shadow is an absence of colour. Shadow is, on the contrary, necessary to
the full presence of colour; for every colour is a diminished quantity
or energy of light; and, practically, it follows from what I have just
told you--(that every light in painting is a shadow to higher lights,
and every shadow a light to lower shadows)--that also every _colour_ in
painting must be a shadow to some brighter colour, and a light to some
darker one--all the while being a positive colour itself. And the great
splendour of the Venetian school arises from their having seen and held
from the beginning this great fact--that shadow is as much colour as
light, often much more. In Titian's fullest red the lights are pale
rose-colour, passing into white--the shadows warm deep crimson. In
Veronese's most splendid orange, the lights are pale, the shadows crocus
colour; and so on. In nature, dark sides if seen by reflected lights,
are almost always fuller or warmer in colour than the lights; and the
practice of the Bolognese and Roman schools, in drawing their shadows
always dark and cold, is false from the beginning, and renders perfect
painting for ever impossible in those schools, and to all who follow
them.
135. Every visible space, then, be it dark or light, is a space of
colour of some kind, or of black or white. And you have to enclose it
with a true outline, and to paint it with its true colour.
But before considering how we are to draw this enclosing line, I must
state to you something about the use of lines in general, by different
schools.
I said just now that there was no difference between the masses of
colour of which all visible nature is composed, except in _texture_. Now
textures are principally of three kinds:--
(1) Lustrous, as of water and glass.
(2) Bloomy, or velvety, as of a rose-leaf or peach.
(3) Linear, produced by filaments or threads as in feathers, fur,
hair, and woven or reticulated tissues.
All these three sources of pleasure to the eye in texture are united in
the best ornamental work. A fine picture by Fra Angelico, or a fine
illuminated page of missal, has large spaces of gold, partly burnished
and lustrous, partly dead;--some of it chased and enriched with linear
texture, and mingled with imposed or inlaid colours, soft in bloom like
that of the rose-leaf. But many schools of art affect for the most part
one kind of texture only, and a vast quantity of the art of all ages
depends for great part of its power on texture produced by multitudinous
lines. Thus, wood engraving, line engraving properly so called, and
countless varieties of sculpture, metal work, and textile fabric, depend
for great part of the effect, for the mystery, softness, and clearness
of their colours, or shades, on modification of the surfaces by lines or
threads. Even in advanced oil painting, the work often depends for some
part of its effect on the texture of the canvas.
136. Again, the arts of etching and mezzotint engraving depend
principally for their effect on the velvety, or bloomy texture of their
darkness, and the best of all painting is the fresco work of great
colourists, in which the colours are what is usually called dead; but
they are anything but dead, they glow with the luminous bloom of life.
The frescoes of Correggio, when not repainted, are supreme in this
quality.
137. While, however, in all periods of art these different textures are
thus used in various styles, and for various purposes, you will find
that there is a broad historical division of schools, which will
materially assist you in understanding them. The earliest art in most
countries is linear, consisting of interwoven, or richly spiral and
otherwise involved arrangements of sculptured or painted lines, on
stone, wood, metal or clay. It is generally characteristic of savage
life, and of feverish energy of imagination. I shall examine these
schools with you hereafter, under the general head of the "Schools of
Line."[12]
[Footnote 12: See "Ariadne Florentina," § 5.]
Secondly, even in the earliest periods, among powerful nations, this
linear decoration is more or less filled with chequered or barred shade,
and begins at once to represent animal or floral form, by filling its
outlines with flat shadow, or with flat colour. And here we instantly
find two great divisions of temper and thought. The Greeks look upon all
colour first as light; they are, as compared with other races,
insensitive to hue, exquisitely sensitive to phenomena of light. And
their linear school passes into one of flat masses of light and
darkness, represented in the main by four tints,--white, black, and two
reds, one brick colour, more or less vivid, the other dark purple; these
two standing mentally their favourite +porphyreos+ colour, in its
light and dark powers. On the other hand, many of the Northern nations
are at first entirely insensible to light and shade, but exquisitely
sensitive to colour, and their linear decoration is filled with flat
tints, infinitely varied, but with no expression of light and shade.
Both these schools have a limited but absolute perfection of their own,
and their peculiar successes can in no wise be imitated, except by the
strictest observance of the same limitations.
138. You have then, Line for the earliest art, branching into--
(1) Greek, Line with Light.
(2) Gothic, Line with Colour.
Now, as art completes itself, each of these schools retain their
separate characters, but they cease to depend on lines, and learn to
represent masses instead, becoming more refined at the same time in all
modes of perception and execution.
And thus there arise the two vast mediæval schools; one of flat and
infinitely varied colour, with exquisite character and sentiment added,
in the forms represented; but little perception of shadow. The other, of
light and shade, with exquisite drawing of solid form, and little
perception of colour: sometimes as little of sentiment. Of these, the
school of flat colour is the more vital one; it is always natural and
simple, if not great;--and when it is great, it is very great.
The school of light and shade associates itself with that of engraving;
it is essentially an academical school, broadly dividing light from
darkness, and begins by assuming that the light side of all objects
shall be represented by white, and the extreme shadow by black. On this
conventional principle it reaches a limited excellence of its own, in
which the best existing types of engraving are executed, and ultimately,
the most regular expressions of organic form in painting.
Then, lastly,--the schools of colour advance steadily, till they adopt
from those of light and shade whatever is compatible with their own
power,--and then you have perfect art, represented centrally by that of
the great Venetians.