The earnest beginner will no doubt desire to adapt his designs to the
play to be represented, but he will usually find very little guidance in
the author’s directions. Such directions are scant and laconic, except
where the position of a door, window, or fireplace is concerned. This
reticence of authors is a blessing rather than a restriction, for such
directions as ‘Interior of a cottage,’ ‘A drawing-room,’ ‘A stile by a
cornfield,’ ‘A woodland stream,’ give the scene painter a free hand in
depicting that which his fancy may dictate. A number of the
illustrations in this book will be found useful as suggestions for
exteriors and interiors suitable for a goodly collection of domestic
plays dealing with home life, but where, as in many of Shakespeare’s
plays, the scenario lies in Italy and other parts of Europe, or as in
_The Only Way_ and _The Scarlet Pimpernel_, Paris of the Revolution is
dealt with, some attempt must be made to get local colour or the effect
will be ludicrous. There are occasions where one need not be too
particular. For instance, a Baronial Hall covers a long period of
English History; it can even be made quite modern when the play deals
with personages of ancient lineage, but the amateurs we saw who depicted
a stirring incident in the Soudan war _inside_ a Dickensian cottage,
required too elastic an imagination from the audience. Where local
colour must be got, the scene painter should look up some private prints
or illustrations of the period, or, where possible, good pictures of the
actual incidents in the play, an easy matter in the case of Shakespeare.
Having obtained these, rough sketches should be made from them with all
the portions knocked out which are not practicable for stage purposes,
but still retaining the essence of the designs. To be truly
conscientious the amateur should mount the sketches on cardboard and
make them up into models which will give him a good idea of the finished
effect.
[Illustration: [Sketches]]
The chapter on perspective gives a method of squaring up, by which these
rough sketches can be enlarged to the size required.
[Illustration:
SHAKESPEARE SITTING UNDER HIS FAVOURITE MULBERRY TREE IN THE GARDEN OF
NEW PLACE.
]
Landscape will more easily pass muster with the majority of onlookers,
but intelligence in designing outdoor scenery is keenly appreciated by
those who know, and a landscape that coincides with the locality of the
play stamps the painter as an artist rather than an amateur. English
landscape can take care of itself, pictures by Birket Foster, B. W.
Leader, Alfred East and others provide excellent material. Scotch
scenery should be wilder and more rugged, with masses of rock and heath
instead of grass, while Irish landscapes should be depicted as somewhat
unkempt in appearance, with small stumpy trees. It should be noted also
that the character of the fencing changes, hedges to stone walls, stone
walls to banks and ditches, and so forth. Where foreign environment is
concerned, photographs must be studied, but Italian gardens, which are
very popular as back cloths, can be seen copied in many English county
mansion domains. With their dark masses of trees, many of the poplar
order standing in relief against the sky, suggestions of statuary,
fountains, and balustraded terraces, they have a decidedly foreign
appearance and are undeniably effective.
Now a few words as to treatment, or what artists would call ‘handling,’
of the subject chosen will be useful, because many amateurs in their
desire to be painstaking overdo their work and produce a stiff and
angular effect.
Of landscape we can say little, except to urge trying for the broad
effect, as pointed out in Chapter I. Do not get trees ‘leggy,’ or with
all the foliage on top, like the Noah’s Ark variety.
In the case of buildings and interiors, however, there is considerable
difference in treatment. In painting cottage interiors, Elizabethan or
Tudor streets, old stone halls, old inns, etc., nice straight lines and
square corners are all wrong. The main vertical lines of the buildings
must not fall over too much, but the half timbering roofs, sashes, etc.,
can leave the straight road with reasonable impunity. The colouring must
be broken up so that no space of wall or roof presents an even toned
surface. Buildings at a distance can be quite sketchy with most of the
detail left out. There is no need to paint in the tiles of a roof half a
mile away, it is a labour that undoes the effect desired.
[Illustration: [Tiles]]
[Illustration:
THE BROOK
]
[Illustration:
STREET SCENE. MOONLIGHT
]
[Illustration:
MAUVE SHADOWS. COBALT SKY. FLAT.
]
When it comes to painting marble halls and French eighteenth century
drawing-rooms, the foregoing advice must not be followed, for columns
and friezes ‘flopping’ over, would suggest indulgence in strong drink on
the part of the artist.
[Illustration: Gothic Interior. Stenciled Walls]
[Illustration:
ITALIAN PALACE
]
[Illustration:
COUNTRY KITCHEN
]
Although requiring accuracy these latter scenes are not really so
difficult as the other buildings, for the artistic sense is not so much
required as a mechanical exactitude in drawing out the various features
of construction. All the straight lines should first be charcoaled and
painted in as neatly as possible before any of the decoration is
inserted, for it will then not be found a difficult matter to fill in
the various spaces by means of stencils, that is, pieces of thin card
with the pattern cut out in open work, so that by painting over the
outside surface of the card, an impression of the pattern is left on the
canvas beneath. Illustrations of these stencil patterns are shown here,
but it is not such an easy matter to design and cut them, for unless
every portion of the cut-out ornament is connected with tie pieces of
card, some parts will drop out. The ‘ties’ however can be put in, even
if not wanted as part of the ornament. It is a simple matter to paint
them out of the canvas afterwards.
[Illustration:
COMEDY. SCHOOL SCENE
]
[Illustration:
A VILLAGE INN
]
[Illustration: Johnsonian Tavern]
When the whole of a formal interior is set up in line and shadow, the
artistic part of the work comes in, in the tinting and colouring, and
imitating of gold work, for however well drawn out such a scene may be,
the finishing work can be delicately beautiful or crudely coarse,
according to the painter’s idea of colour.
[Illustration:
A COUNTRY SCENE
]