MARINES
All that has been said on landscape painting applies to marines. You
have the same open-air feeling and vibration of light and color. There
is no need to say the same things over again. It is only necessary to
take all these things for granted, and emphasize certain other things
which are peculiar to the sea.
=Sea and Sky.=--To begin with, the relation of the sky to what is
under it is markedly different in color from any other relations in
painting. The sea is always more or less of a perfect reflecting
surface, and always strongly influenced in color, value, and key by
the reflections of the sky on its surface. The sky color is always
modifying the water--when and how depends on the condition of the
weather, and the degree of quiet or movement of the water. Sometimes
the water is a perfect mirror; sometimes the mirror quality is almost
lost, but the influence is there.
This relation is the most important thing, because the sea and the sky
is always the main part of your picture; and no matter what else is
there, or how well painted it may be, if these things are not
recognized, if they are not justly observed, your picture is bad.
I cannot tell you all about these things. The variety of effects and
relations is infinite. You must study them, paint them in the presence
of nature, and use your eyes; only remember the general principles of
air and atmosphere and light and color that I have spoken of
elsewhere--all have most vital importance on marine painting. You must
study these, and think of them, and in the presence of sea or sky
observe their bearings, and apply them as well as you can.
=Movement.=--If "_la nature ne s'arrete pas_" ordinarily, the fact is
even more marked in marines; for the water is the very type of
ceaseless motion. Somehow, you must not only study in spite of the
continual motion, but you must manage to make that motion itself felt.
This you will find is in the larger modelling of the whole
surface--the "heave" of it as distinguished from the waves themselves.
The waves are a part of that motion of course; but give the
wave-drawing only, without their relation to the great swing of the
whole body of water, and you get rigidity rather than movement. The
wave movement is in and because of this larger motion. See that first,
and make it most evident, then let the waves themselves cut it up and
help to express it.
[Illustration: =Entrance to Zuyder Zee.= _Clarkson Stanfield._]
=Wave Drawing.=--How shall you "draw" so changeable a thing as a wave?
Every wave has a type of form, has a characteristic movement and
shape; and as it changes it comes into a new position and shape in
logical and practically identical sequence of movement. You can only
study this by constant watching. You look at the wave, and then turn
your eyes away to fix it on your canvas; as you look back, the wave is
not there. Well, you can only not try to make a portrait of each wave;
it isn't possible. Don't expect to. Study the movement and type forms;
think of it; fix it in your mind; decide on the mass and suggestive
relation of it to other masses, and put that down.
There is never a recurrence of the same thing either in exact form or
color, but fix your eyes on one place, and over and over again you
will see a succession of waves of similar kind. Or look at a wave and
follow it as it drives on; changes come and go, but the wave form in
the main keeps itself for some time.
Look over a large field of the water without too sharply focussing the
eyes, you will see the great lines and planes of modelled surface over
and over again taking the same or similar shapes, positions, and
relations. And as you look your eye will follow the movement in spite
of yourself. Your gaze will gradually come nearer and nearer; but
meanwhile, in following the wave, it will have felt that the wave was
the same in shape, but only varied in position.
In this way you will come to know the wave forms. Jot them down,
either in color or with charcoal; but do not look for outline too
much. Try to study the forms and relations, mainly by the broad touch,
with a characteristic direction and movement. No amount of explanation
will tell you anything. You must sit and look, think, analyze, and
suggest, then generalize as well as you can.
=Open Sea and Coast.=--The open sea is all movement. Even a ship, the
most rigid thing on it, moves with it. But you do not have to study
these things from the standpoint of invariable movement. You can start
from a stable base. Study coast things first. You have then the
relation of the movement of the water to the rock or land, and you can
simplify the thing somewhat. What has been said of motion holds good
still; but you can get something definite in a rock mass, and study
the changes near it, and then extend your study as you feel strong
enough.
The study of coast scenery is quite as full of changing beauty as the
open sea, and it has certain types that belong to it alone. Breakers
and surf, and the contrast of land and sea colors and forms, give
great variety of subject and problem. In the drawing of rocks the
study of character is quite as important, but not so evasive, as the
study of wave forms. You must try to give the feeling of weight to
them. The mass and immovability add to the charm and character of the
water about them.
=Subject.=--Don't undertake too much expanse on one canvas. Of course
there are times when expanse is itself the main theme; but aside from
that, too much expanse will make too little of other things which you
should study. Whether your canvas be big or little, to get expanse
everything in the way of detail and form must be relatively small,
otherwise there is no room on the canvas for the expanse. So if you
would paint some surf, or a rock and breakers, or a ship, place the
main thing in proper proportion to the canvas, and let the expanse
take care of itself, making the main thing large enough to study it
adequately. If it is too small on the canvas, you cannot do this.
=Ships.=--The painting of the sea necessarily involves more or less
the painting of vessels of different kinds. You may put the ship in so
insignificant a relation to the picture that a very vague
representation of it will do, but you must have a thorough knowledge
of all the details of structure and type if you give any prominence to
the ship in your picture.
=Detail.=--You do not need to put in every rope in a vessel. You do
not need to follow out every line in the standing rigging even, in
order to paint a ship properly. To do this would miss the spirit of
it, and make the thing rigid and lifeless. But ignorance will not take
the place of pedantry for all that. Every kind of vessel has its own
peculiar structure, its own peculiar proportions, and its own peculiar
arrangement of spar and rigging. Whether you are complete or not in
the detailing of the masts and rigging, you must know and represent
the true character of the craft you are painting. You must take the
trouble to know how, why, and when sails are set, and what are the
kinds, number, and proportion of them, and their arrangement on any
kind of vessel or boat you may paint. There is again only one way to
know this. If you are not especially a painter of marines, you may
find that the study of some particular vessel in its present condition
and relation to surrounding things will serve your turn; but if you go
in for the painting of marine pictures generally, you can only get to
know vessels by being on and about them at all seasons and places.
Your regular marine painter fills dozens and hundreds of sketch-books
with pencilled notes of details and positions and accidents and
incidents of all sorts and conditions of ships. Ships under full sail
and under reefed canvas; ships in a squall and ships in dead calm--he
can never have too many of these facts to refer to.
The true marine painter is nine parts a sailor. If he does not take,
or has not taken a voyage at sea, at least has passed and does pass a
large part of his time among vessels and sailors. He knows them both;
his details are facts that he understands. And what he puts in or
leaves out of a painting is done with the full knowledge of its
relative importance to his picture and to the significance of the
ship.
All this sounds like a good deal to undertake; but to the man who
loves the water and what sails upon it, it is only following his
liking, and any one who does not love all this should content himself
with only the most incidental sea painting; for sea pictures are not
to be painted from recipes any more than any other thing, and ships
particularly cannot be represented without an understanding of them.
And after all, you do not have to do all this study at once. If you
will only study well each thing that you do, and never paint one
vessel or boat without understanding that one; if you will study the
one you are doing now, and will do the same every time,--eventually
you will have piled up a vast deal of knowledge without having
realized how much you were doing.
=Color of Water.=--You must study the color of water in the large when
you paint it. Remember that its color depends on other things than
what it is itself. The character of the bottom, whether it be rocky
or sandy, and the depth of the water, will affect its color; and to
one accustomed to see these things, the picture betrays its truth or
falsity at a glance, especially as the character of the wave and the
great movement of the whole surface are influenced by the same things.
[Illustration: =Girl Spinning.= _Millet._
Example of "_contre jour_" and out-of-door contrast of light and
shade.]