FIGURES
The broadest classification of figure pictures is to consider them as
of two kinds,--those painted in an out-door or diffused light, and
those painted in an in-door or concentrated light. The painting of
figures out-of-doors you will find more difficult if you have had no
experience in painting them in the studio. The problems of light and
shade and color are more complex in the diffused light, and the
knowledge of structure and modelling, as well as of special values
gained by studio study, will be most helpful to you when you paint
out-of-doors. I should say, then, don't attempt any serious painting
of the human figure in the open air till you have had some experience
with its special problems in the house.
=The Nude.=--No good figure-work has ever been done which was not
founded on a knowledge of the nude. Whether the figure is draped or
not, the nude is the basis of form. The best painters have always made
their studies of pose and action in the nude, and then drawn the
draperies over that. This insures the truth of action and structure,
which is almost sure to be lost when the drawing of the form is made
through drapery or clothing. The underlying structure is as essential
here as in portrait. It is the more imperative that the body be felt
within the clothes from the fact that it cannot be seen. There must be
no ambiguity; no doubt as to the anatomy underneath; for without this
there can be no sense of actuality.
I do not say paint the nude. On the contrary, if you want to go so far
as that in the study of the figure, you must not attempt to do it with
the aid of a book. Go to a good life class. But I wish to emphasize
the principle that when you undertake to paint anything involving the
figure, you must know something of the structure of what is more or
less hidden, and must make allowance for the disguising of form which
the draping of it will inevitably cause.
And when you draw your figure, you should lay in your main lines, at
any rate, from the nude figure if you can. If you cannot command a
professional model for this purpose, you can only be more careful
about your study of the underlying lines and forms as they are
suggested by the saliencies of the draperies.
If this is the case, be most accurate in those measurements which
place the proportions of the parts which show through the covering,
and try to trace out by the modelling where the lines would run. By
mapping out these proportions, and drawing the lines over the drapery
masses wherever you can make them out, you can judge to a certain
extent of the truth of action in your drawing.
The use of a lay figure will help you somewhat if you can get one
which is true in proportion. It will not help you much in the finer
modelling, but it will at least insure your structural lines being in
the right place, and that is as much as you can hope for without the
special study of the nude.
A lay figure is expensive, costing about three hundred dollars in this
country. You will hardly be apt to aspire to a full-sized one, as only
professional painters can afford to pay so much for accessories. But
small wooden ones are within the means of most people, and will be
found useful for the purpose I have mentioned, and one should be
obtained.
When you have assured yourself, as far as you can by its use with and
without special draperies, of the right action of your drawing, you
must do your painting from the draped model.
=The Model.=--Never paint without nature before you. If you paint the
figure, never paint without the model. For the sake of the study of
it, it goes without saying that you can learn to paint the figure only
by studying from the figure. But beyond that, for the sake of your
picture, you can have no hope of doing good work without working from
the actual object represented. The greatest masters have never done
pictures "out of their heads." The compositions and aesthetic qualities
came from their heads it is true, but they never worked these things
out on canvas without the aid of nature. And the greater the master,
the more humble was he in his dependence on nature for the truth of
his facts.
Much more, then, the student needs to keep himself rigidly to the
guidance of nature; and this he can only do by the constant use of the
model.
=One Figure or Many.=--Whether you have one or more figures, the
problem may be kept the same. The canvas must balance in mass and line
and in color. When you decide to make a picture with several figures,
study the composition first as if they were not _figures_, but groups
of masses and line. Get the whole to balance and compose, then decide
your color composition. Simplify rather than make complex. The more
you have of number, the more you should consider them as parts of a
whole. Keep the idea of grouping; combine the figures, rather than
divide them. Have every figure in some logical relation to its group,
and then the group in relation to the other parts. Don't string them
out or spot them about. Study the spaces between as well as the
spaces they occupy. And don't fill up these spaces with background
objects. That will not bind the group together, but will separate it.
Fill the spaces with air and with values--even more important!
All this arranged, paint each group and each figure as if it were one
thing instead of many. As you treat the head, the body, the dress, and
the chair as all parts of a whole in a single sitting figure, so treat
the various heads, bodies, dresses, etc., in a group as parts of a
whole, by studying always the relations of each to each. And then
study to keep the different groups as parts of whole canvas in the
same way.
=Simplicity of Subject.=--But do not be too ambitious in your
attempts. Keep your subjects simple. Don't be in a hurry to paint many
figures. Paint one figure well before you try several.
You will find plenty of scope for your knowledge and skill in single
figures. Practise with sketches and compositions, if you will, in
grouping several figures, and try to manage them so that the whole
shall be simple in mass and effect; but do not attempt, as a student,
without experience and skill in the painting of one figure, to paint
pictures containing several. By the time you can really paint a single
figure well, you can dispense with a manual of painting, and branch
out as ambitiously as you please. In the meantime, everything that
you have knowledge enough to express well, you can express with the
single figure.
With the model, the background, the pose and occupation, the clothing
and draperies, and whatever accessories may be natural to the thing as
elements, it is possible to work out all the problems of line and mass
and color. If a really fine thing cannot be made with one figure, more
figures will only make it worse.
Look again at Whistler's portrait of his mother. Consider it now, not
as a portrait, but as a single figure. What are the qualities of it
which would be helped if there were more in it? The very simplicity of
it makes the handling of it more masterly.
Look also at the one simple figure of Millet's "Sower;" all the great
qualities of painting that are likely to get themselves onto one
canvas you will find in this.
See what movement and dignity there are in it. How statuesque it is!
It is monumental. It has scale; it imposes its own standard of
measurement. There are air and envelopment and light and breadth. Are
these not qualities enough for one canvas?
=Nature the Suggester.=--Take your suggestions, your ideas, for
pictures from nature. Keep your eyes open. Observe all poses which may
hint of possible schemes of light and shade, of composition, or of
color. It is marvellous how constantly groupings and poses and effects
of all kinds occur in every-day life. Humanity is kaleidoscopic in its
succession of changes; one after another giving a phase new and
different, but equally suggestive of a picture if you will take the
hint. The picture which originates in a natural occurrence is always
true if it is sincerely and frankly painted. Truth is more various
than fiction. It is easier to see than to invent. And in the
arrangement of the material which nature freely and constantly
furnishes to him there is scope for all the invention of man.
=Action and Character.=--The picture comes from the action--resides in
it. The action comes from the act, and is natural to it, expressive of
it. Any gesture or position which is the natural and unaffected result
of an essential action will be true and vital, suggestive of nature,
and beautiful because it will inevitably have character--be
characteristic. The beauty of the picture is not something external to
the costumes, occupations, and life which surround you, but is to be
found, contained in it, and brought out, manifested, made visible, by
the mere logical working out of the need, the custom, or the occasion.
Emphasis is only the salience of the most natural movement.
Daily life swarms with pictures. You do not need to go to other places
and other times for subjects. If you are awake to what is going on
around you, if you see the essential line of the occupation, or the
mass and color which is incidental to every least activity, you will
have more suggested to you than you have time to do justice to. And it
is your business to see the beautiful in the commonplace. Everything
is commonplace till you see the charm in it. The artistic possibility
does not lie in the unusual in any subject, but in the fact that the
thing cannot get done without action and grouping and color and
contrast; and these are the artist's opportunities. Keep your eyes
open for them; learn to recognize them when you see them; look for
these rather than for the details of the accidental fact which brings
them out. See the movement of it, and the relation of it to what
surrounds it, and you will hardly avoid seeing the picture in it.
Here is a composition which is an almost literal rendering of the
movement and light and shade effect of a position quite accidentally
seen.
The whole effect of lighting and of line, the grouping and the pose,
resulted purely from the musician's desire to get a good light on his
music. There was no need to add to it. It was simply necessary to
recognize the charm of it, and to represent that charm through it as
frankly as it could be done.
[Illustration: =Sketch of a Flute Player.= _D. Burleigh Parkhurst._]
=Posing the Model.=--Let the character of the model suggest the pose.
If you have a scheme for a picture, choose a model whose personality
will lend itself naturally to the occupation or action natural to that
scheme. Then follow the suggestion which you find in the model. Some
rearrangement will always be necessary if you do not use as a model
the same person who originally gave you the idea for the picture.
Every human being has a different manner. You cannot hope for exactly
the same expression in one person that you found in another. But put
the model as nearly as you can in the same situation and pose, and
then when the model eases from the unnatural muscular balance into the
one natural to him, you will find the idea taken from your first
observation translated into the characteristics of your present model.
Never try to place a model in a pose which he can only hold by an
unnatural strain. You will not get a satisfactory result from it.
Study your model; see what poses he most naturally falls into, and
then take advantage of one of these, and arrange your picture with
reference to it.
Never attempt to represent a character in your picture by using a
model of a different class or type from it; you will not be successful
either in painting a lady from a model who is a peasant, nor in
painting a peasant from a model who is a lady. The life and occupation
and thought common to your model will get into your painting of her;
and if that is not in accordance to the idea in the picture, your
picture will be false. The dress, no less than the pose and
occupation, must be such as is natural to your model. The accessories
of your picture must befit the character you wish to paint; otherwise
your model becomes no more than a lay figure.
Take note of the characteristics which are peculiar to your model, and
use them; do not change them nor idealize them. Rather paint them as
they are, and make them a vital part of your study of the subject.
This is the best you can do with these characteristics. They may be
the most expressive thing in your picture. If they are of such a
nature that you cannot use them in this way, then do not use this
model at all; you cannot get rid of these things. In trying to obscure
or idealize them, you only lose character, or paint a character into
your model which is unnatural to him; the result will not be
satisfactory.
=Quiet Sitters.=--An inexperienced painter should not use a model with
too much vivacity of body or of expression. The quiet, reposeful,
thoughtful model, who will change little in position or manner, will
simplify the problem. A model too wide awake or too sleepy will either
of them give you trouble.
Avoid very young children as models, and particularly babies. They are
never quiet, and the problems you will have even with the best of
models will be made enormously more difficult by their restlessness.
For your first work choose models with well-marked faces, and pose
them in a direct light which will give you the simplest and strongest
effect of light and shade.
See that your sitter is in as comfortable a position as you can get
him into, so that the pose can be held easily. Don't attempt difficult
and unusual attitudes. Such things require much skill and knowledge to
take advantage of, and to use successfully. Make your effect more in
the study of composition and color than in fanciful poses. Later, when
you have gained experience, you may do this sort of thing.
If you are painting a face, see that the eyes are in at a restful
angle with the head, and that they are not facing a too strong light,
nor are obliged to look at a blank space. Give them room to have a
restful focus, and perhaps something pleasant or interesting to look
at.
=Length of Pose.=--No sitter can hold a pose in perfect
motionlessness. Do not expect it. You must learn to make allowance for
certain slight changes which are always occurring. You must give your
model plenty of rest, too, especially if he be not a professional
model. A half-hour pose to ten minutes' rest is as much as a regular
model expects to do as a rule. If you have a friend posing for you,
particularly if it be a woman, twenty minutes' pose and ten minutes'
rest, for a couple of hours, is all you should expect; and if the
pose is a standing one, this will probably be more than she can
hold--make the rests longer.
An inexperienced model--and sometimes even a trained one--is likely to
faint while posing, particularly if the room be close. Look out for
this; watch your sitter, and see that she is not looking tired. The
minute that you see the least sign of fatigue, if she shows
pallor--rest. Do not get so absorbed in your canvas that you do not
notice your model's condition. If you are observing and studying your
model as closely as you should, you can hardly fail to notice any
change that may occur, and you should at once give her relief.
=Distance.=--Don't work too near your model, nor too near your canvas.
As regards the first, be far enough away to see the whole of the
figure you are painting, or of that part which you are doing, entirely
at one focus of the eye, and yet near enough to see the detail
clearly. If you are too near, you see parts at a time, and do not see
it as a whole. If you are too far, you see too generally for good
study. You might make it a rule to be away from your subject a
distance of about three or four times the extreme measurement of it.
If it is a full length, say fifteen to twenty feet, if you can get so
large a room. If it is a head and shoulders, about six or eight feet.
Never get closer than six feet.
As to your canvas, work at arm's length. Don't bend over--again you
see parts, and you must treat your canvas as a whole. Never rest your
hand or arm on the canvas. Train your arm to be steady. Sit up
straight, hold your brush well out at the end of the handle, and your
arm extended; now and then, if you need closer work, lean forward, and
if necessary use a rest-stick; but as a rule your work will be
stronger and hang together better if you work as I have suggested. Of
course you will often get up, and walk away from your work. Set your
easel alongside the model, and go away to a distance, and compare
them. Too intense application to the canvas forgets that relations,
effect, and wholeness of impression are of the greatest importance,
and are only to be judged of when seen at some distance.
=Background.=--Under the general title of background you may place
everything which will come in as accessory to the figure, and against
or alongside of which it stands. The picture must "hang together";
must have envelopment; must be a whole, not an aggregation of parts.
Everything that goes to the making up of this whole must have a
natural and logical connection with it. From the first conception of
the picture you must consider the background as an essential part of
it, and as something which will have a vital effect upon the figure.
The color of the background must be thought of as a part of, because
affecting, the figure itself. The simplicity or variety in the
background, the number of objects in it, must be considered as to the
effect on the figure also. You cannot make the background a patchwork
of objects and colors without interfering with the effect of the main
thing in the picture.
If your figure is simple and quiet, keep the background the same. Make
it a principle to treat the background simply always. If the character
of the case demands some detail, and a variety of objects, then treat
them so that their effect is as simple as possible; and the figure
must be made stronger, in order that the variety in the background
shall not overpower it. Control it by the way the light or the color
masses, or simplify the painting of them. Keep the background in value
as regards prominence and relief of objects as well as in the matter
of color.
=Composition of Backgrounds.=--You can make the background help the
figure, not merely by the painting of objects which help to
explain,--that is of course,--but in the placing and arranging of them
you may emphasize the composition. Whether the background be a curtain
with its folds, or an interior with its furniture, you can and must
make every object, every fold of the drapery, every mass of wall or
object, distinctly help out in the composition as line and mass. Your
composition must balance; the line and movement of the figure must
have its true relation. The way you use whatever goes into the
picture, the objects which make up the background, the way they group,
and the spaces between them, must have a helpful reference to that
movement, and to the balance of the whole.
=Simplicity.=--Lean always towards simplicity in composition as
against complexity. In backgrounds particularly, avoid detail and
over-variety. Don't have the whole surface of the canvas spotted with
_things_. If it is necessary, put it in; if it is not necessary, leave
it out; and if there is the slightest doubt which it is, leave it out.
The most common and the most fatal mistake is to make the picture too
"interesting." The interest in a picture does not lie in the quantity
of things expressed, but in the character of them, and in the quality
of their representation. If you cannot treat a simple composition
well, if you cannot make a picture balance well, and make it
interesting with a quiet background, be sure a multitude of objects
will not help it. The more you put into it the worse it will be. Learn
to be master of the less before you try to be master of the more.
[Illustration: =Milton Dictating "Paradise Lost."= _Munkacsy._
To show use of background. Notice also the composition.]
=Lighting.=--I have spoken of lighting in general in other chapters.
You must apply the principles to your use of figures. Study the
different effects which you can get on the model by the different ways
of placing in reference to the window. Whatever lighting will be
difficult in one kind of painting will be no less so in another. Avoid
cross-lights, and do not be ambitious to try unusual and exceptional
effects. If one should occur to you as charming, of course do it, if
it is not too difficult, but don't go around hunting for the strange
and weird. There is beauty enough for all occasions in such effects as
are constantly coming under your observation. What was said about
simplicity of subject will apply here as well, for the light and color
effect is naturally a part of the subject. The most practical lights
are those which fall from one side, so as to give simple masses of
light and dark; they should come from above the level of the head, so
as to throw the shadow somewhat downwards.
="Contre Jour."=--One kind of posing with reference to lighting, gives
very beautiful effect, but calls for close study of values, and is
very difficult. It is called in French, _contre jour_; that is,
literally, "against the day," or, against the light. It is a placing
of the model so that the light comes from behind, and the figure is
dark against the light. From its difficulty it should not be taken as
a study by a beginner, for modelling and color are difficult enough at
best. When they are to be gotten in the low key that the light behind
necessitates, and with the close values which this implies, the
difficulty is enormously increased. But before you attempt the human
figure in the open air, you will find it very good study to work in
the house _contre jour_. The effect of a figure out-doors has many of
the qualities of _contre jour_. The diffusion of light and the many
reflections make the problem more complex; but the contrast, the close
values, and the subtle modelling which you must study in _contre jour_
will be good previous training before going out-doors with a model.
Look at Millet's "Shepherdess Spinning," at the head of this chapter,
as an example of _contre jour_.
=Figures Out-of-doors.=--In painting, an object is always a part of
its environment. So a figure must partake of the characteristics of
its surroundings. Out-of-doors it is part of the landscape,
characterized by the qualities which are peculiar to landscape. The
diffusion of light, the vibration and the movement of it, the
brilliancy and pitch, the cross-reflections and the envelopment,--all
these give to the figure a quality quite different from that which it
has in the house. There is no such definiteness either of drawing, or
of light and shade, or of color. The problem is a different one. You
must treat your figure no more as something which you can control the
effect of, but as something which, place it in what position, in what
surroundings, you will, it will still be affected by conditions over
which you have no control.
Textures and surface qualities, local or personal colors, lose their
significance to the figure out-of-doors. They become lost in other
things. The pose, the action, the mass, the note of color or
value,--these are what are of importance. The more you search for the
qualities which would be a matter of course in the house, the more you
will lose the essential quality,--the quality of the fact of
out-doors.
When in the house, you can have things as definite as you wish;
out-doors you will find a continual play of varying color and light.
The shadows do not fall where you expect them to. The values are less
marked. The stillness of the pose is interfered with by the constant
movement of nature. The color is influenced by the diffused color of
the atmosphere and the reflected color of the grass, the trees, and
the sky. The light does not fall _on_ the face so much as it falls
_around_ it. The modelling is less, the planes are not precise. The
expression is as much due to the influence of what is around it as to
the face itself.
All this means that you must study and paint the figure from a new
point of view. You do not make so much of what the model is as how the
model looks in these surroundings. You must not look for so much
decision, and you must study values closely. Look more for the
modelling of the mass than for the modelling of surface. Look more for
the vibration of light and air on the flesh and drapery colors than
for these colors in themselves. Look for color of contours in the
model. Study the subtleties of values of contours, and make your
figure relieve by the contrast of value in mass rather than by the
modelling within the outline. See how the figure "tells" as a whole
against what is behind it first, and keep all within that first
relation.
[Illustration: =Buckwheat Harvest.= _Millet._]
It is possible to look for and to find many of the qualities which
distinguish the figure in the studio light; sometimes you may want to
do so. The telling of a story, the literary side of the picture, if
you want that side, sometimes needs help that way. But in this you
lose larger characteristics, and the picture as a whole will not have
the spirit of open air in it.
What has been said of the painting of landscape applies to the
painting of figures in landscapes. Pose your figure out-of-doors if
you would represent it out-of-doors. Then paint it as if it were any
other out-door object. If the figure is more important to the
composition than anything else in the landscape, as it often will be,
then study that mainly, and treat the rest as background, but as
background which has an influence which must be constantly recognized.
Never finish a figure begun out-doors by painting afterwards from a
model posed in the house. Leave the figure as you bring it in. If it
is not finished, at least it will be in keeping with itself; and this
will surely be lost if you try to work it from a model in different
conditions.
=Animals.=--Animals should be considered as "figures out-of-doors."
There is no essential difference in the handling one sort of a figure
or another. The anatomy is different, and the light falls on different
textures, but the principle is not changed. You must consider them as
forms influenced by diffused light and diffused color, and paint them
so. You will find that often, especially in full sunlight, the color
peculiar to the thing itself is not to be seen at all. The character
of the light which falls on it gives the note, and controls. In the
shade the effect is less marked, but the constant flicker makes the
same sort of variation, though not to the same extent.
There is no secret of painting animals either in the house or
out-of-doors which is not the same as the secret of painting the human
figure. If you would paint an animal, get one for a model and study
it. Work in some sort of a house-light first, in a barn or shed, or,
if it be a small animal, in your studio. Study as you would any other
thing, from a chair to a man. The principles of drawing do not change
with the character of anatomy. The animal may be less amiable a poser,
but you must make allowance for that.
When you have got a knowledge of the form, and the character of color
and surface, take the animal out-doors, get some one to help hold him,
and apply the same principles that would govern your study of a rock
or a tree in the open air.
As for fur, and all that sort of thing, treat it as you would any
other texture-problem in still life.