Transcriber’s notes.
Italic text is indicated with _underscores_, bold text with =equals=.
Small/mixed capitals have been replaced with ALL CAPITALS.
Evident typographical and punctuation errors have been corrected
silently. Inconsistent spelling/hyphenation has been normalised.
The usage “Bastien Lepage” (Bastien-Lepage) is the author’s.
A half-title and reiterations of chapter titles have been discarded.
[Illustration:
_Leonardo da Vinci_ _National Gallery_
THE VIRGIN OF THE ROCKS]
SIX LECTURES ON PAINTING
DELIVERED TO THE STUDENTS OF
THE ROYAL ACADEMY OF ARTS
IN LONDON, JANUARY 1904
BY
GEORGE CLAUSEN
A.R.A., R.W.S.
PROFESSOR OF PAINTING IN THE ROYAL ACADEMY
WITH NINETEEN ILLUSTRATIONS
THIRD EDITION
METHUEN & CO.
36 ESSEX STREET W.C.
LONDON
_Originally published by Mr. Elliot Stock April 1904_
_Second Edition September 1904_
_First Published by Methuen & Co., Third Edition 1906_
CONTENTS
I. INTRODUCTORY--SOME EARLY PAINTERS 1
II. ON LIGHTING AND ARRANGEMENT 23
III. ON COLOUR 45
IV. TITIAN, VELASQUEZ, AND REMBRANDT 67
V. ON LANDSCAPE AND OPEN-AIR PAINTING 89
VI. ON REALISM AND IMPRESSIONISM 113
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
THE VIRGIN OF THE ROCKS _Leonardo da Vinci_
_Frontispiece_
THE ANNUNCIATION _Fra Angelico_ 14
THE EXPULSION FROM PARADISE _Masaccio_ 15
PORTRAIT OF AN OLD MAN _Masaccio_ 18
DIAGRAM OF COMPOSITION _Corot_ 33
DIAGRAM OF COMPOSITION _Velasquez_ 33
THE REPOSE IN EGYPT _Rembrandt_ 39
THE ENTOMBMENT _Titian_ 72
THE SURRENDER OF BREDA _Velasquez_ 79
LAS MENIÑAS _Velasquez_ 80
THE ADORATION OF THE SHEPHERDS _Rembrandt_ 83
JOSEPH CONSOLING THE PRISONERS _Rembrandt_ 84
ZACHARIAS AND THE ANGEL _Rembrandt_ 86
THE EMBARKATION OF THE QUEEN
OF SHEBA _Claude_ 98
APPROACH TO VENICE _Turner_ 99
SOUVENIR DE MORTE-FONTAINE _Corot_ 102
NOON _J. F. Millet_ 106
LES FOINS _J. Bastien Lepage_ 108
NIGHT _J. F. Millet_ 109
NOTE
These Lectures are not printed exactly as they were delivered; in
preparing them for publication, some slight alterations in their form
have been made.
G. C.
I
INTRODUCTORY--SOME EARLY PAINTERS
So much has been achieved in painting, so much is to be learnt, that
no artist, occupied as he must be with his own work, can have the
necessary detachment of mind and the leisure to review impartially,
and with proper appreciation, the history and practice of painting
to the present day. The field is too wide. At most, he can give such
rough conclusions as his own work, and the study of others’ work, has
led him to form.
In the time of Sir Joshua Reynolds and for long after, hardly a
painter earlier than Raphael was considered seriously; but now, and
speaking roughly, since the days of the Pre-Raphaelite movement,
which did so much for our art, we have learnt to know and to
appreciate the great work of the earlier painters.
I think we may consider that extraordinary genius, William Blake,
who was once a student of these schools, to be the real forerunner
of the Pre-Raphaelite movement. Writing in 1809, he draws attention
to the clearness and beauty of the early Italian pictures, praising
their precision and hardness, which he contrasts with the art of
Rubens, Titian, and Rembrandt, whom he calls smudgers, blunderers,
and daubers.
At about the same time, too, as the Pre-Raphaelite movement came the
invention of photography, which has, I think, exercised a disturbing
influence on our art; and a little later the art of the Japanese
became known among us. So many theories are in the air to-day, so
many courses are open to us, that it is more than ever difficult for
the student to find his way; and though, knowing my own shortcomings,
I feel strongly my inadequacy, I will do my best to give you such
help as, were I a student in your place, I should wish to receive.
I imagine the intention of the Royal Academy in establishing this
Chair was to supplement the teaching of the schools--the life class,
which is a training of the hand and eye, the tools of the artist, so
to speak--with some direction of the mind also, so that the student
should be not only equipped with sound technical skill, but be put
on the track of some direction, or at least given indications, which
would help him to decide how he should apply his skill when he goes
out into the world. For the artist’s education does not finish in the
life class; it begins there.
In the old days, when there was the constant relation of pupil to
master, theory and practice went hand in hand. The training was
thorough, the best obtainable, but limited. An artist knew at most
what a few others were doing round about him, and was, as a rule,
content to develop himself on the lines of the traditions and with
the instruction he had received. And so arose the “schools” of one
place and another.
But to-day we are at once worse off and better. We have lost all
tradition--almost the tradition of fine workmanship. With the
exception of the Pre-Raphaelite painters, no moderns have attained
the wonderful, almost miraculous, perfection and delicacy of
execution which we find in the best old paintings--not achieved
once or twice only, but steadily and consistently for a long
period. But we are better off in that we have before us, brought
into the open light of discussion and criticism, the whole practice
of painting, for our admiration and guidance--and confusion; for
our wider knowledge has brought uncertainty, and every man is a
law unto himself. We are also under the disadvantage--if it is a
disadvantage--of there being practically no direct commands for
pictures, such as the Church or the great patron furnished in former
days, which allowed the artist full liberty of expression under the
restraint of a given idea.
We have long been without this; in fact, the varied developments of
painting in the last century are owing to the freedom which artists
enjoy, or I might say to the necessity which every artist feels
himself under, to express his own feeling; and this accounts for the
somewhat chaotic and confused impression which our big exhibitions
produce, as a whole, in spite of so much excellent work.
Portraiture, which is vigorous and flourishing, and wall decoration,
in which, thanks to the initiative of the late Lord Leighton, some
essays are being made, are the only branches of our art that rest
on the simple basis of direct demands. It is to be hoped that those
who have the power will do all that is possible in the direction
of encouraging fine decorative painting; for the conditions of
decorative work are such as necessarily to develop the best faculties
of the artist and the finest qualities of painting.
But I don’t want to paint my picture too black, or to imply that our
painting is in decadence, for I think it is advancing; and although
we live in times when everything is in the melting-pot, including
the Fine Arts, we know that the instinct for beauty, and for its
expression in the Fine Arts, is as natural and as necessary to our
being as any other of our instincts, and that the cry of decadence is
as old as the world itself. There is a comforting little story told
by Lanzi in his book on Italian painting, of Orcagna the Florentine
artist, who was living somewhere about 1320, at the very beginning
of Florentine art. He gives it on the authority of a contemporary
writer, Sacchetti, that one day Orcagna proposed as a question, Who
was the greatest master, setting Giotto out of the question? Some
answered Cimabue, some Stephano, some Bernardo, and some Buffalmacco.
Taddeo Gaddi, who was in the company, said: “Truly these were very
able painters, but the art is decaying every day.” And I think
that Michelangelo said that in his time the arts were not much
considered. So we may conclude that the relation of the artist to the
world in general was always much the same as it is now. As in other
departments of human activity, painters have done well or ill, as it
has been given them to do; succeeding generations of artists have
cherished their memories, or have forgotten them, according to the
estimation in which they held their work.
And so, when we find ourselves in the presence of great works of
the past--in the presence, one might say, of the thought of great
men made visible to us, it is well that we should put aside, as far
as we can, our own preoccupations and theories, and try and read
their thought, and see how far we can gain from them confirmation,
strength, and support for ourselves.
For one result of the wider appreciation of the older men is that
our own work is brought sharply up against them; and when we find
that a work of our own time may lose its freshness and interest in
a few years, while the older works still hold us with an increasing
charm, must we not see that we may have something to unlearn as well
as to learn? There is no doubt that greater knowledge only serves
to confirm and to extend our admiration for the work of the past,
and this must lead every thoughtful student to question much that is
practised to-day. We should try to reach some firm ground, some fixed
principles that we can hold in common with the old painters.
I wish to direct your attention to-day to some of the Early Italian
painters, but I do not propose to take you systematically through the
history of any of the different schools. Some knowledge of the kind
is very necessary, and no doubt in early days it was the duty of the
painting professor to give this instruction. But we must remember
that in those days communication between nations was difficult.
There were no national collections, and there was little or no
literature on artistic subjects generally available; while to-day
we have readily accessible to us, not only--thanks to the Royal
Academy--our Old Masters Exhibitions, but an enormous and admirable
body of literature, covering the whole field of painting, which, as
I have reminded you, is now very fully explored. Indeed, I almost
think that too much attention is given nowadays to the minutiæ of
criticism; but still, we should be very grateful to those writers
whose learning and patient enthusiasm are devoted to the service of
our art, who have done so well a necessary work, which practising
painters could never be expected to do. It is a hopeful sign of the
interest taken in the Fine Arts to-day that it is not only possible,
but profitable, to produce such works, and I earnestly recommend you
to make as much use of them as you can.
But I should advise you not to go to work systematically, and to
take it as a task; not to grind through the different schools, and
then thank goodness you’ve done with it; not to puzzle yourselves
too much in trying to reconcile contradictory excellences, for
things will make themselves clear to you as you go on. I should
recommend you to go through a picture-gallery as one seeking the
face of a friend in a crowd, and to let yourselves be led on by
your sympathies. If you admire the work of a man, find out all you
can about him; see his work as much as you can, especially his
beginnings,--always look out for beginnings,--and try to get at his
drawings and studies, which you can readily see either in photographs
in your library, or in the Print Room at the British Museum, where
there is a magnificent collection of original drawings. So I must
leave the detailed study of the Old Masters to your own goodwill.
But there are problems in painting--the main points of
pictures--which appeal only or mainly to artists, and on this ground
I hope that my remarks may be of some service to you.
Painting, as we know it, may be said to begin with the Early
Italians, for but little remains of the painting of the ancients,
and we have no example of their finest work, though we may infer,
from the merit of such works as the Græco-Egyptian mummy-portraits
of the second century A.D.--ordinary journeyman painters’ work, no
doubt, and of no pretension--that the ancients were as great in their
painting as in their sculpture. There are several of these portraits
in the National Gallery. But, for us, the Italian Primitives are
the starting-point. We do not perhaps realise how great were the
earliest men of all--Giotto and the other inventors, the men who
took the first steps forward, who discovered perspective and
foreshortening, realising not only length and breadth, but depth in
their pictures, and giving nature in its three dimensions--the men
who first expressed form by the use of shadow. Although these things
are commonplaces to us, we can still learn much from the study of the
early men; but I do not propose now to do more than touch on the work
of two early painters--not of the earliest time, but still of the
beginning--Fra Angelico and Masaccio, an idealist and a realist. They
both lived in Florence (Angelico from 1387 to 1455, Masaccio from
1401 to 1446), and rank among the great artists of the world.
Angelico painted in Florence, in Orvieto, and in Rome. There are a
number of his frescoes in the monastery of St. Mark, in Florence,
little pictures on the walls of the cells and passages. They are
remarkable, apart from the directness and simplicity of their
execution, for their deep religious feeling. It seems as if Angelico
must have had a distinct vision of the scene he was painting in his
mind, for his paintings convey to us the feeling or sentiment of his
subject more strongly than anything else. We are not concerned with
the people of his pictures as individuals, nor with their dresses,
or the general setting of the scene, except so far as it serves to
express the subject. And it is, I think, because of his preoccupation
with the subject that his execution is so straightforward and
expressive. There is no cleverness, but he does just what he wishes
to do, with beautiful and expressive drawing and very simple, clear
colour. The sentiment of his landscape is, like that of all the early
painters, very serene; like the clear light before sunrise in summer.
There is no trace of posing in his figures; they have an unstudied
grace, and there is even in their movements something of the little
awkwardnesses that we notice in the movements of children. And,
though they are very human and touching, there is something about
them different from ordinary people--something remote and apart from
the world. They seem to exist for the picture only, and to have had
no past history, no experience of life.
His pictures affect one as do things seen in a dream, and we accept
his visions without questioning details which, if they were not
somehow wrapped in his sentiment, would make us smile at their
childishness. The little arcade under which the Virgin sits, in the
picture of the Annunciation (one of the most beautiful of his works),
is so low that she could hardly stand upright in it; but it does not
matter, nor do the little toy trees and towns and towers that we find
in his pictures. They are symbols only, and we do not question their
details; nor are we conscious, in Angelico’s work, of the model as an
individual.
[Illustration:
_Fra Angelico_ _Monastery of St. Mark, Florence_
THE ANNUNCIATION]
But in the work of Masaccio we are conscious of the individual models
throughout, and of the interest of portraiture. He was one of
the first, if not the first, to get beyond the early conventions
of drawing and of light and shade, and to understand drawing in
the sense in which it is understood to-day. We can see this in his
frescoes in the Church of the Carmine, in Florence. The figures of
Adam and Eve, for example, are drawn with an accuracy and truth to
nature--to the nature of his models--which is convincing. And there
is a portrait of an old man by him, in the Uffizi, drawn with the
most absolute assurance and accomplishment. The modelling is so close
and true that a sculptor could model a bust from it. This portrait
is, like the paintings in the chapel, executed in fresco; and, as
we know, this means that the work must be done rapidly, and with
certainty, as no alterations are possible. It seems to me that these
works of Masaccio are as well done as they could possibly be.
[Illustration:
_Masaccio_ _Church of the Carmine, Florence_
THE EXPULSION FROM PARADISE]
These frescoes of his in the church were felt to be so far in
advance of anything till then done, that they became the school and
pattern for all the young Florentine artists, and Masaccio’s chapel
is one of the starting-points of the Renaissance. Raphael and
Michelangelo both studied there, and one may trace there the origin
of the composition of some of Raphael’s cartoons, and even some of
his figures, as the St. Paul, are taken bodily from these frescoes.
Masaccio’s work shows interest in expression of form and character
rather than in sentiment. One can imagine that one kind of subject
would come as readily to him as another, but one cannot imagine
Angelico painting anything but his own visions.
What is the charm of the early artist’s work--a charm which fuller
knowledge only strengthens--in those who have once felt it? It is,
I think, partly owing to the impression which these pictures give
us of a simpler state of life. We see good, honest, simple souls
taking part, without excitement or surprise, in miraculous events.
We feel with perhaps a little touch of envy that man was a little
nearer to the angels than he is to-day; it is very doubtful if he
actually was, but that is the impression. Then there is their great
charm _as paintings_: their wonderful simplicity, and untroubled
ease of execution. We never can admire too much the delicate, clear
lighting, and it is doubtful if in any later work, with all our
added knowledge, the sense of tranquil daylight--not the illusion of
daylight--is given as well as in these early works. There are no cast
shadows--when painters began to see shadows their troubles began--to
take our attention from the sensitive, firm, and expressive lines of
their drawing. How beautiful is their broad, simple modelling, and
their masses of fine colour and beautiful plain spaces, enhancing
little passages of extreme richness! One can go again and again to
them with increasing wonder and delight. And when we come to the
later generation--to the painters who were living just before the
year 1500--we reach a period that to me is the most interesting and
beautiful of Italian painting, although its highest development was
yet to come. But think of the men then working! Da Vinci, Botticelli,
Pollajuolo, Piero di Cosimo, Pinturicchio, Signorelli, Mantegna,
Bellini, Crivelli, and a host of others.
The technical perfection of the early work is one of its great
beauties. Much of it was in fresco, which from its conditions
requires--to take one quality alone--very fine draughtsmanship. And
in tempera painting, which was employed for panels and small work,
the same preliminary planning as in fresco had to be gone through,
although it was, I believe, possible--I have had no practical
experience of tempera painting--to work more than once over the same
surface. But, as a rule, and as we can see by studying these works,
the colour was put on sweetly and quickly, and the draperies were
painted, often with one plain tint of colour over a preparatory
monochrome, and this accounts for the beautiful quality of the paint;
for we know that when the colour is put down clearly and untouched,
it is fresh and untroubled.
Until the time of Masaccio, no attempt was made to gain richness
or relief by the opposition of light to dark. All was in an even
light, and richness was obtained by the local colours of draperies,
ground, sky, etc. It is a style of painting admirably suited to the
decoration of buildings, because of its clearness and formality.
[Illustration:
_Masaccio_ _Uffizi Gallery_
PORTRAIT OF AN OLD MAN]
But I think that the older painters’ ideal was always the
representation of nature--even, if possible, to the point of
imitation or illusion; and we know that the invention of oil
painting was welcomed as giving, in this direction, a greater range
to the artist. And yet one may feel that the unconscious and naïve
representation of nature by the older men was better--in that it was
truer to the spirit of nature--than the self-conscious imitative work
of later times.
I should like to touch on the question of the picture as a
decoration; in our times a distinction is made between painting which
is decorative and painting which is pictorial, which is, I think,
an unfortunate distinction, and one which should not exist: for
all pictures should decorate the walls or places on which they are
placed. That this distinction should exist is perhaps our own fault,
in forgetting, as we do sometimes, that a picture should be agreeable
to the eye in its colours and masses; the good old painters never
forgot that. And a picture that has only cleverness of execution, or
interest of anecdote, will soon cease to charm; while a picture may
be feeble, and even childish, in its execution, yet if its masses
and colours are well arranged, it will always give pleasure to the
eye.
But I do not think it is possible to draw the line, and say at what
point of imitation or of realism a picture ceases to be decorative
and becomes pictorial; for when a picture was painted on a wall, it
was intended to bring the scene into the presence, if possible, of
the spectators in the room.
In the House of Livia, among the ruins on the Palatine Hill, are some
rooms with the painted decorations still on the walls. One room is
painted with architectural openings in the walls, through which we
see landscapes and figures, the intention being to give the idea of
space outside.
And there are many other instances to be seen, especially in Italian
churches, where we find paintings in which the real architectural
features of the building are imitated in paint, and continued into
the picture, to make a scene for it, as in the small refectory of
the monastery of St. Mark in Florence. This is a vaulted room. At
one end is a painting of the Last Supper, by Ghirlandajo. A bay of
the vaulting is continued in perspective into the painting, and the
colour of the vaulting is matched, so as to suggest that the scene
passes in our presence. The same device is employed by Leonardo in
his Last Supper. And the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel is planned
in this way. Michelangelo has joined painted mouldings to real
ones,--one cannot tell where,--and has built up in paint from them
a great structural framework into the ceiling, and on this he has
placed his figures.
And we see the same plan carried on until, in later times, it falls
into the worst possible taste, as in those decorations where a
ceiling will be covered with painted flying figures, with the leg of
the nearest one actually modelled in relief, and projecting over the
enclosing moulding! And the lamentable part of it is that it is very
skilfully done.
We can, I think, draw a little generalisation from this. It seems as
if in the artist’s mind the desire to express his subject and the
desire to display his skill are conflicting tendencies. When these
are in perfect balance we get the finest work. When the desire
for expression is the stronger, we get sincere and beautiful, but
imperfect and immature work, as in the case of the early Primitives.
But when the desire for the display of skill is the stronger, we get
cleverness, affectation, and decadence.
II
ON LIGHTING AND ARRANGEMENT
The difficulties encountered in painting a picture lie, not so much
in the actual painting of each portion of the work (though this is
full of difficulties) as in the control of the whole canvas, in
determining what part of the picture is to be given prominence, and
in what way this is to be attained.
To draw a figure, to paint a head, a piece of drapery, a sky, a
tree--this we can all do to some extent if we have the actual object
before us; but as it is not in the nature of things that a group or a
scene--even if we are so fortunate as to see it once so arranged as
to make us wish to paint it--can be reconstituted every time we get
to work on our picture, we must learn to retain its main points, or
get some general design--some image in our minds of what we want to
accomplish, before we begin our work.
The wonderful range which is possible, and which has been attained
in painting, has been attained by the study and analysis, not only
of nature, but of the way in which things are shown to us in nature
by light and shade, by warm and cold colour. These are the simple
elements of every picture (drawing, of course, included). It is the
appearance of nature that has to be observed and analysed, the object
being to present or suggest an illusion. The painter studies, not
facts, but appearances, being helped in the direction of his vision
by the works of those who have gone before him.
As I have already pointed out, the aim of the early artists was to
imitate nature; and although they had not then learned to give by
light and shade the illusion of nature, their fine taste led them to
produce great work by other means. They were--the best of them--very
true to nature in drawing, in strong characterisation, and very
expressive in sentiment. Their decorative sense and imagination were
not held in restraint by the necessity of being literally true
throughout, and their works, though in them the actual force of
lighting in nature was not attained, often not even attempted, yet
have, in other ways, a beauty and charm as great as any later works
possess.
We will follow a little the development of painting towards realism.
This is, of course, only a partial view, but there is some interest
in following it. Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519), in his treatise on
painting, says that “the first object of a painter is to make a
simple, flat surface appear like a relievo, and some of its parts
detached from the ground. He who excels all others in that part of
the art deserves the greatest praise. This perfection of the art
depends on the correct distribution of lights and shades. If the
painter, then, avoids shadows, he may be said to avoid the glory of
the art, and to render his work despicable to real connoisseurs, for
the sake of acquiring the esteem of vulgar and ignorant admirers
of fine colours, who never have any knowledge of relievo.” I think
Leonardo was a little too hard on the Primitives; he does not seem
to appreciate their beauty. He was the first to record, if not the
first to practise, the study of light and shadow as we understand
it now. For we see also in the work of a contemporary, Melozzo da
Forli (1438-1494) the study of light and shade in nature; there are
two of his pictures in the National Gallery--“Music” and “Rhetoric.”
Those of you who do not know Leonardo’s treatise on painting would
do well to read it. It is full of wisdom and fresh observation. His
clear intelligence raises problems, many of which painters still
discuss. I will read a few extracts. He says on “gradation”: “What
is fine is not always beautiful or good. I address this to such
painters as are so attached to the beauty of colours that they
regret being obliged to give them almost imperceptible shadows, not
considering the beautiful relief which figures acquire by a proper
gradation and strength of shadow.” Again: “Do not make the boundaries
of your figures of any other colour than that of the background on
which they are placed; that is, avoid making dark outlines. The
boundaries which separate one body from another are of the nature
of mathematical lines, not of real lines. The end of any colour is
only the beginning of another; and it ought not to be called a line,
for nothing interposes between them except the termination of the
one against the other, which, being nothing in itself, cannot be
perceivable.” Again: “Those shadows which in nature are undetermined,
and the extremities of which are hardly to be perceived, are to be
copied in your painting in the same manner, never to be precisely
finished, but left confused or blended. This apparent neglect will
show great judgment, and will be the ingenious result of your
observation of nature.” Again he says: “It is a great error in some
painters who draw a figure at home by any particular light, and
afterwards make use of that drawing in a picture representing an
open country, which receives the general light of the sky, where the
surrounding air gives light on all sides. This painter would put dark
shadows where nature would put none at all, or, if any, so faint as
to be almost imperceptible; or he would throw reflected lights where
it is impossible there should be any.”
He recommends the painter to compare his own work with nature in a
small mirror, “which,” says he, “_being your master_, will show you
the lights and shadows of any object whatever.” And, indeed, all
through the book we get constant reference to nature. “If you do not
rest on the good foundation of nature, you will labour with little
honour and less profit.” “Whoever flatters himself that his memory
can retain all the effects of nature is deceived, for our memory is
not so capricious. Therefore, consult nature for everything.”
These words were written four hundred years ago; they might have
been written to-day. One feels how very modern he was in spirit. It
is, of course, a question what he means by “nature”--whether that
ideal which Sir Joshua Reynolds called the general idea of nature, or
nature in its variety and imperfection as we see it. I think Leonardo
meant the latter, in the sense that the persons in a picture should
look what they profess to be--not, of course, in the sense that he
would take the first woman he met as model for a Madonna. There,
where he had to represent the highest type of woman, he chose the
most beautiful person he could, as we see in “The Virgin of the
Rocks” in the National Gallery.
There is a passage of his on lighting that seems to bear on this
picture: “The light admitted in front of heads situated opposite
side-walls which are dark will cause them to have great relievo,
particularly if the light be placed high. And the reason is that the
most prominent parts of these faces are illumined by the general
light striking them in front, which light produces very faint shadows
on the part where it strikes; but as it turns toward the sides it
begins to participate of the dark shadows of the room, which grow
darker in proportion as it sinks with them.
“Besides, when the light comes from on high, it does not strike on
every part of the face alike, but one part produces great shadows on
another, as the eyebrows, which deprive the whole sockets of the eyes
of light. The nose keeps it off from a great part of the mouth, and
the chin from the neck, and such other parts. This, by concentrating
the light upon the most projecting parts, produces a very great
relief.”
I have given these passages from Leonardo to show that we are
justified by tradition and good precedent in examining nature as
closely as we can.
The effect of light colours in a picture is the same as that of
actual light in nature--to attract the eye. Therefore painters have
naturally always striven to give that object to which they wish first
to direct attention the greatest light. There is an old precept that
there should never be two principal lights in a picture. It means
that the spectator’s attention should not be distracted.
Now, if a scene is represented as taking place in a room, it is
possible, by arrangement of objects, to bring the principal things
into prominence naturally and with most beautiful effect, as in the
“Maids of Honour,” by Velasquez. I am sorry to say I have not had the
privilege of seeing this picture, but only the sketch, which was in
the Old Masters Exhibition a year or two ago; but the picture is, I
should think, the greatest achievement in painting of true ordinary
lighting in the world. There is no doubt that the effect in this
picture is exactly as in the room; everything is accounted for
naturally. It is worth remarking how the picture is arranged--divided
diagonally into light and dark, with a strong dark on the light side,
and a little light taken into the dark. This is a very effective
arrangement, and a very natural one. Pictures arrange themselves that
way unconsciously, or perhaps the eye finds something agreeable in
this arrangement--in its interchange. It is common in landscape, as
in the picture by Corot in the Louvre; and Whistler’s portraits of
his mother, and of Carlyle, are arranged in the same kind of pattern.
[Illustration: COROT
(DIAGRAM FOR LECTURE II)]
[Illustration: VELASQUEZ
(DIAGRAM FOR LECTURE II)]
In connection with the arrangement of a picture, it is worth while
inquiring why it is that principal masses or objects, although they
should be placed near the centre of the picture, should not be placed
exactly in the centre, or why any absolutely symmetrical arrangements
are unpleasant to the eye, and should be avoided. I think it may be
a purely physical reason, connected with the fatigue experienced
by the eye in looking at regular forms and spaces, and that this
may also account for the fact that such things as the true surfaces
of machinery, and the straight lines or monotonous regularity of
buildings, fail to charm the eye; while unexpected variety of form
does, as we see in old buildings, ruins, mountains, and generally in
all that is called picturesque.
If a scene is represented as being in the open air, the difficulty
arises that the light of the sky, being so great, will dominate
everything, and, instead of the figure being the principal, the
landscape interest will predominate, and the figure take the second
place. It is not, however, always so. There are effects of light,
such as when one is looking with the light at figures facing the
sun--especially in evening light, or when there is a cloud behind
them--when the figure receives most light, and tells beautifully.
I think Titian studied and used this effect a great deal, and his
picture “The Entombment,” in the Louvre, gives very finely the
impression of that effect.
“The Surrender of Breda,” by Velasquez, is also arranged looking with
the sunlight, and the group is built up and united by shadows from
the figures, and from clouds on the figures in middle distance. The
shadows tie the picture together.
It is possible to avoid the difficulty of the sky by leaving it
out, or by using a high horizon and showing very little; and when
this is done, figures can be painted up to the strength and the
lightness of nature, as in Bastien Lepage’s picture of “Les Foins”
in the Luxembourg. But if much sky were added to this, the brightest
light we could use would only look like paper, because the relative
intensity of the light on figures and on sky would not be correct. It
could be “managed”--if the middle and distance were painted dark, as
in shadow--to have a larger sky; and the sky is so beautiful, and can
be made to convey so much, that a picture gains if it can be used.
And this compromise was used largely by the great Venetian painters,
simply, I feel sure, through knowing well what effects are possible
in nature.
For you will find, if you are in the habit of constantly observing
nature, and on looking on all things as if they were or might be
pictures, that such arrangements and variety of lighting of figures
as one sees in Velasquez, in Rembrandt, in Titian, Veronese,
Tintoret,--figures in shade against figures in full light, and all
in the open air,--that these arrangements are strictly founded on
nature, and result from observation. On a windy day in summer, when
clouds are passing, one constantly sees, but for a moment only, such
effects--of figures in sunlight relieved against a deep background
of shadow, or of near figures dark in the shadow of houses or trees,
with others in the light beyond; one sees no end of beautiful things,
but only for a moment. There is no time to do more than make a mental
note, but they give one a clue which one may follow, and perhaps be
so fortunate as to learn to develop--a clue to the fine scheme of
lighting which these great artists have mastered and used.
We, in our work, lay too much stress on the superficial qualities,
the imitative ones, and are unable to grasp these great
generalisations. They won’t pose for us, but they wouldn’t pose for
Velasquez or Titian either. Then we may feel when we look at great
pictures such as I have mentioned, and such, for instance, as “The
Marriage of Cana,” by Veronese, in the Louvre, how very great and
thorough was the knowledge of the possibilities of light in nature
which enabled them to plan and execute their great works. It is told
of Veronese that when someone objected to his putting some figures in
shadow, and asked him why he did it, “A cloud is passing,” said he.
But it may often be against the intention of the painter to draw
attention to the sky, and we find that some--especially portrait
painters--have adopted the artifice of frankly painting the sky
background darker than it would naturally be, as in the portrait of
Lord Heathfield, by Reynolds, where he stands against an intense
black background, which in a little while we realise is intended for
the smoke of the cannon down on the left.
This is a frank convention. Now, don’t let us despise conventions,
but try and understand them. All conventions rest on some truth. The
convention may have grown so as to obscure the fundamental truth.
Our conception of truth widens with our experience. The student’s
is, as a rule, narrowed down to the particular one he happens to
be struggling with. He is so much engrossed with the difficulty of
imitation that he is apt to think this the main truth. But he should
not confine his observation to the life class, or to the time when
he is actually painting. Let him try and notice, as one can, at all
times, how things look at unpremeditated moments, and he will find as
he becomes familiar with the great men’s work that they did so too.
He will come upon their tracks.
It is well, then, when in a good picture we see some passage we think
false or conventional, to try and understand the intention of the
painter in using it. Almost always it will be found to have been
adopted for the purpose of concentrating attention on the principal
things. The painter, by his artifice, seeks to attract our attention,
and so produce the same effect as, were we ourselves in presence of
the scene, our consciousness would produce in us.
We may copy a scene as truly as we can with regard to values, and
all the rest of it, and find, after all, that it does not give us
the effect of the actual scene. The reason is that we copy with an
eye looking equally and dispassionately on everything, as would
the lens of a camera, forgetting the main thing--the human element
of attention, or attraction to some particular part. A convention
by which we would sacrifice subordinate parts for the sake of
accenting the essential is truer to the effect of nature. For
all painting is a partial statement--a reading or rendering of
nature--rather than an inventory. And the different temperaments
of artists show in the particular qualities which each one feels
most impelled to select; but the desire for literal truth is always
in conflict with this, and every artist must make a compromise for
himself.
There are two extremes in the way artists see light in nature. One is
to half close the eyes. This takes away a certain quantity of light,
joining all the darks together, and leaving the high lights as spots.
This seems to have been the way of Rembrandt. He makes the whole
picture lead up to his point of light. There is a little picture
of his--a “Repose in Egypt”--in one of the German galleries, which
shows very clearly his love of the beauty of light. The arrangement
is typical of many pictures: a central mass of light, surrounded and
led up to by dark. It is the common arrangement of portraits and
still-life pictures; also of many of the old landscapes.
[Illustration:
_Rembrandt_ _Hague Museum_
THE REPOSE IN EGYPT]
Turner, in his long career, began by seeing nature in the same way
as Rembrandt,--by concentrating on the light,--but he studied and
assimilated Claude, and ended by surpassing him. In his picture of
“The Shipwreck,” you will see the same arrangement of a central light
surrounded by dark.
The other way of looking at nature is with the eyes wide open, as
we see in Claude’s pictures, such as the “Queen of Sheba” in the
National Gallery. In this picture the difference in value between the
sun and adjoining sky is very slight; but if in nature we look at the
sun only in such a position, we realise that it is impossible to get
the difference in brightness between it and the sky. If we half close
our eyes so that we can look at the sun, we find that we cannot see
anything else. But if now we look with open eyes on the whole scene,
we realise that not only the whole sky, but everything else, except
the actual shadows, is governed by, and is part of the sun’s light.
The shadows tell out as spots of colour. This is, it seems to me, the
truer way of looking at nature, and I think Claude was the first to
realise it.
Turner, in his later manner, painted in the same way, as we see in
his “Approach to Venice,” where he has completely left his old manner
of vision, and has realised the infinite gradations in light.
But this difference between the earlier and the later manner of
Turner is one which is noticeable in every artist’s work. The
tendency, with increased knowledge, is to broaden and to lighten.
Rembrandt himself shows a difference between his earlier and later
work. It is the growing perception of the beauty of light.
In connection with lighting, there is a point of comparison between
the Flemish and the Italian work generally which is, I think, worth
noticing--that is, that the Northern painters, as a rule, seem to
have been more attracted to the surfaces and textures of things, and
to have studied their models at a closer range than did the Italians.
In some of Dürer’s portraits, for example, one can discern that the
high light of the eye shows the panes of his studio window. And in
the portraits of Holbein, too, we see that everything must have
been studied at extremely close range. That wonderful work, “The
Ambassadors,” in the National Gallery, is all painted in a clear,
even light with the utmost precision and minuteness, over every
square inch of the panel, apparently without effort. It is beautiful
in colour and harmonious, and at its distance everything seems in
its place. Yet the figures do not quite hold the spectator, perhaps
because they are placed so far away from the centre; partly, too,
owing to the lack of atmosphere, which is almost inseparable from
the close point of view necessitated by minute realisation. If we
go from this picture to Velasquez’s “Admiral,” in the next room, we
see the difference, for in this picture atmosphere is realised and
detail suggested. It seems impossible to combine these different
qualities--at anyrate, on a large scale, though it can be done on a
small scale, as we see in the work of Van Eyck and some of the later
Dutchmen.
Holbein’s “Duchess of Milan” is finer as a portrait than “The
Ambassadors,” for there is nothing to distract the attention from
the face. But one finds this difference in the way of seeing, all
through the work of the Flemish and Italian schools. It may be due,
I think, partly to the tradition of the antique, which had never
been entirely lost in Italy. And it may be due also partly to the
difference of climate and light in the two countries. The clear air
of Italy would enable things to be seen plainly at a greater distance
than we can see them here. But I think the main reason is that the
Italian artists were accustomed to design and paint large spaces, and
that they studied their figures and groups at a distance sufficient
for the eye to take in the whole group. At this distance, surfaces
and smaller details of modelling would be lost, and only the broad
structural features and masses of colour remain.
I have mentioned the disturbing influence of photography on
painting. It is hardly necessary to recall that, until the invention
of photography, there was only one way of seeing things--through
the human eye. And all the fine things have been accomplished by
men whose minds were trained to perception of beauty in nature
through the eye. Now, as Leonardo pointed out, nature does not
define everything, and the triumph of painting has been that it
has realised this, and presented things in degrees of emphasis
corresponding to that in which they are presented to us in nature.
But the minutely searching lens of the camera presents everything
with indisputable accuracy, only not as we see it. How cruel and
searching are the majority of portrait photographs! Yet the painter,
for a time, tried to rival the camera in minuteness and detachment,
forgetting that it is just this human quality of attention and
selection that makes a painting a work of art. Photography itself
now seems to admit the pictorial falseness of its own ideal, and
we find photographers occupied to-day in arranging the tones and
concentrating the lights of their pictures--in fact, using clumsily
all the conventions discovered by the masters. But photographs,
especially snapshots of nature, are most interesting and suggestive
to look at. I do not think, though, that photography can in any other
way be an aid to a painter. You cannot make that yours which the
camera chooses to give you. You must make your own selection from
nature.
III
ON COLOUR
One may say broadly that if drawing is the intellectual side of
art--it is understood that I refer to the art of painting--colour
is the emotional side. This is not a hard and fast distinction. It
is impossible to make one where the two qualities are so intimately
connected; but colour has an effect in echoing or waking our
feelings that drawing alone has not. This is perhaps because colours
themselves, even if placed in simple tints without definite form,
suggest to us correspondences with the colours and effects of things
in nature. Thus blue suggests the sky; white and yellow, light; red,
fire or blood; green suggests the fields and trees; and dark colours
the night. One feels this emotional correspondence with some aspect
of nature, or something recognisable in nature, in every tint of the
palette.
The rules of drawing are fairly definite, and we may claim to
know what constitutes good and accurate drawing; but it is not at
all easy to define in what good colouring consists. One cannot go
further than say that it must be harmonious, and that it must convey
the impression of truth to nature. One can tell bad colouring at
once--that the colours are untrue or discordant; but the limits
within which good colour is possible are as wide as the range of
emotion or temperament in man. Any artist will paint things as he
sees or feels them. If he has succeeded in expressing some truth or
beauty, it will be recognised and felt by some among the many who
will in time see his work.
Nothing in nature is actually the colour that we see it. It only
appears to us at a given moment as a particular colour in relation to
other apparent colours which surround it. Thus we may walk out on a
rainy evening when the sky and everything is grey, and come indoors
and light the lamp, and immediately the sky which we see through the
window appears as a beautiful and tender blue, though there was no
trace of blue in the sky a minute before, when we were outside. The
change is produced in our senses by the colour of the sky taking its
place in relation to a range of warm colours in the lighted room.
In the same way the presence of a man with a lantern, or a light
in a window, will apparently change the colour of things in its
neighbourhood, and a mass of any strong colour, such as red, blue, or
orange, will suggest its complementary colour in surrounding objects.
(There is a curious exception to this in the case of lilac or bright
violet, which, instead of suggesting its complementary colour in
surrounding things, appears to diffuse its own colour over them, so
that we seem to see a suspicion of violet in all other neighbouring
colours.)
We must realise, then, that each combination of colours we
see presents and forms a problem of its own. I think this was
a difficulty not present to the older painters, who--perhaps
wisely--seem to have ruled out, or not troubled about, many
subtleties that worry us.