The Painter in Oil Part 12

=A Principle.=--There is a well-established principle in architecture, that you must never try to emphasize two proportions in one structure.

A hall may be long and narrow, but not both long and wide; in which case the proportions would neutralize each other--you would have a simple square, characterless. You may emphasize height or breadth--not both, or you get the same negative character.

So you may apply this principle more or less exactly to the composition of a picture. Don't try to express too many things in one picture, or if you do, let some one be the main thing, and all the rest be subordinate to it. There is perhaps no law more rigid than the one which denies success to any attempt to scatter force, effect, and purpose. One main idea in each picture, and everything subordinated to lend itself to the strengthening of that.

To a certain extent this will apply to line and ma.s.s, though not absolutely. As a rule, line or ma.s.s, one or the other, must be the main element.

=Leverage.=--I have often thought that much insight into the principles of balance of ma.s.ses, and of ma.s.s and line, could be gained by thinking of it a.n.a.logously to equilibrium in leverage. A small ma.s.s, or a simple line or accent, may be made to balance a very much greater ma.s.s. The greater part of a canvas may be one ma.s.s, and be balanced by quite a small spot. But leverage must come in to help.

Somewhere in the picture will be the point of support, the fulcrum.

And the large ma.s.s and the small one will have an obvious relation with reference to that point. Or the element of apparent density will come in. The large ma.s.s will be the least dense, the small one the most dense, and the equilibrium is established. For composition is but the equilibrium of the picture, and equilibrium the picture must have.

There are many rules as to placing of ma.s.s and arrangement of line, but they are all more or less arbitrary and limiting in influence.

Individuality must and will ignore such rules, just because composition deals chiefly with the abstract qualities rules will not help. A fine feeling or perception of what is right is the only law, and the trained eye is the only measure. As in values, so in composition you must study relations in nature, and results in the work of the masters, to train your eye to see; and you must sketch and block in all sorts of combinations with your own hand, to give you practical experience.

=Scale.=--One point of great importance should be noticed. That is the effect on the observer of the size of any main ma.s.s or object with reference to the size of the canvas. This is a.n.a.logous to what is called _scale_ in architecture.

If the ma.s.s or object is justly proportioned to the whole surface of the canvas, and is treated in accordance with it, it will impose its own scale on all other objects. You can make a figure impress the observer as being life size, although it may really be only a few inches long. A house or castle coming into the picture may be made to give its scale to the surroundings, and make them seem small instead of itself seeming merely an object in a picture. This will be due to the _placing_ of it on the canvas, largely, and more in this than in anything else. The manner of painting will also lend importantly to it; for an object to appear big must not be drawn nor painted in a little manner.

The placing of objects of a known size near, to give scale, is a useless expedient in such a case. At times it may be successful, often of use; but if the scale of the main object is false, the other object of known size, instead of giving size to the main one, as it is intended to do, will be itself dwarfed by it.

=Placing.=--This matter of placing is one which you should constantly practise. Make it a regular study when you are sketching from nature.

Try to concentrate in your sketches so as to help your study of composition. In making a sketch, look for one main effect, and often have that effect the importance of some object, studying to give it _scale_ by the placing and the treatment of it, and its relation to the things surrounding it in nature and on the canvas. In this way you will be studying composition in a most practical way.

=Still Life.=--For practical study of composition, the most useful materials you can have are to be found in still life. Nowhere can you have so great freedom of arrangement in the concrete. You can take as many actual objects as you please, and place them in all sorts of relations to each other, studying their effect as to grouping; and so study most tangibly the principles as well as the practice of bringing together line and ma.s.s and color as elements, through the means of actual objects. This you should constantly do, till composition is no more an abstract thing, but a practical study in which you may work out freely and visibly intellectual aesthetic ideas almost unconsciously, and train your eye to see instinctively the possibilities of all sorts of compositions, and to correct the falsities of accidental combinations.

=Don't Attempt too much.=--Don't be too ambitious. Begin with simple arrangements, and add to them, studying the structure of each new combination and grouping. When you are going to paint, remember that too much of an undertaking will not give you any more beauty in the picture, and may lead to discouragement.

In the Chapter on "Still Life" I will explain more practically the means you may take, and how you may take them, to the end of making composition a practical study to you.

CHAPTER XXI

COLOR

The subject of color naturally divides, for the painter, into two branches,--color as a _quality_, and color as _material_. Considered in the former cla.s.s, it divides into an abstract a theoretical and a scientific subject; considered in the latter, it is a material and technical one. The material and technical side has been treated of in the Chapter on "Pigments." In this chapter we will have to do with color considered as an aesthetic element.

=The Abstract.=--The quality of _color_ is the third of the great elements or qualities, through the management of which the painter works aesthetically.

Just as he uses all the material elements of his picture as the means of making concrete and visible those combinations of line and ma.s.s which go to the making of the aesthetic structure, so he uses these in the expression of the ideal in combinations of color. In this relation nothing stands to him for what it is, but for what it may be made to do for the color-scheme of his picture. If he wants a certain red in a certain place, he wants it because it is red, and it makes little difference to him, _thinking in color_, whether that red note is actually made by a file of red-coated soldiers, by a scarlet ribbon, or by a lobster. The scarlet spot is what he is thinking of, and what object most naturally and rightly gives it to him is a matter to be decided by the demands of the subject of the picture; and its fitness as to that is the only thing which has any influence beyond the main fact that red color is needed at that point. If he were a designer of conventional ornament, the color problem would be the same. At that point a spot of red would be needed, and a spot of paint would do it.

The painter thinks in color the same way, but he expresses himself in different materials.

=The Ideal.=--This is the reason that a still-life painting is as interesting to a painter as a subject which to another finds its great interest in the telling of a story. To the painter the story, or the objects which tell it, are of minor importance. That the picture is beautiful in color is what moves him. As composition and color the thing is an admirable piece of aesthetic thinking and aesthetic expression, and so gives him a purely aesthetic delight; and the technical process is secondary with him, interesting only because he is a technician. The representation of the objects incidental to the subject is as incidental to his interest, as it is to the picture considered as an aesthetic thought.

This is what the layman finds it so impossible to take into his mental consciousness. And it is probable that many painters do not so distinguish their artistic point of view from their human point of view. But consciously or unconsciously the painter does think in these terms of color, line, and ma.s.s when he is working out his picture; and whether he admits it to himself or not, these characteristics are the great influencing facts in his judgment of pictures, as well as in the growth and permanency of his own fame. That is why a great popular reputation dies so rapidly in many instances. The aesthetic qualities of the man's work are the only ones which can insure a permanent reputation for that work; for the art of painting is fundamentally aesthetic, and nothing external to that can give it an artistic value.

Without that its popularity and fame are only matters of accidental coincidence with popular taste.

If a painter is really great in the power of conception and of expression of any of the great aesthetic elements, his work will be permanently great. It will be acknowledged to be so by the consensus of the world's opinion in the long run; nothing else can make it so, and nothing but obliteration can prevent it.

I am explicit in stating these ideas, not because I expect that you will learn from this book to be a great master of the aesthetic, but because I am a.s.sured that you can never be a painter unless you understand a painter's true problems. You must be able to know a good picture in order to make a good picture, and however little you try for, your work will be the better for having a painter's way of looking at a painter's work. The technical problems are the control of the materials of expression. The painter must have that control. The student's business is to attain that control, and then he has the means to convey his ideas. But those ideas, if he be a true painter, are not ideas of history or of fiction, but ideas of line and ma.s.s and color, and of their combinations.

=The Color Sense.=--Therefore color is a thing to be striven for for its own sake. Good color is a value in itself. You may not have the genius to be a good colorist, but you need not be a bad one; for the color sense can be definitely acquired. I will not say that color initiative can always be acquired; but the power to perceive and to judge good color can be, and it will go far towards the making of a good painter, even of a great one.

I knew one painter who came near to greatness, and near to greatness as a colorist, who in twelve years trained his eye and feeling from a very inferior perception of color to the power which, as I say, came near to greatness. He was an able painter and a well-trained one before that; but in this direction he was deficient, and he deliberately set about it to educate that side of himself, with the result I have stated. How did he do it? Simply by recognizing where he needed training, and working constantly from nature to perceive fine distinctions of tone; and by careful and severe self-criticism. Summer after summer he went out-doors and worked with colors and canvas to study out certain problems. Every year he set himself mainly one problem to solve. This year it might be luminosity; next it might be the domination of a certain color; another year the just discrimination of tones--and he became a most exquisite colorist.

So, as I knew his work before and after this self-training, and as I know personally of the means he took to attain his purpose, I think I can speak positively of the fact that such development of the color sense is possible.

=Taste.=--It is well to remember that taste in color is not dependent on personal judgment alone; that what is good and what is bad in color does not rest on mere opinion. That a good colorist's idea of color does not agree with your own is not a matter of mere whim or liking, in which you have quite as good a right to your opinion as he has to his. The colorist, it is true, does not produce or judge of color by rule. He works from his feeling of what is right. But there is a law back of his taste and feeling. The laws of color harmony are definite, and have been definitely studied and definitely calculated.

Color depends for its existence on waves of vibration of rays of light, just as sound is dependent on sound waves.

=Color Waves.=--These waves of light give sensations of color which vary with the rapidity or length of the wave, and certain combinations of wave lengths will be harmonious (beautiful), and others will not be. This is a matter of scientific fact; it is not a notion. The mathematical relations of color waves have been calculated as accurately as the relations of sound waves have been. It is possible to make combinations of mathematical figures which shall represent a series of harmonious color waves. And it is possible to measure the waves radiated from a piece of bad coloring and prove them, _mathematically_, to be bad color.

It is a satisfaction to the artist to know that this is so; because although he will never compose color-schemes by the aid of mathematics, it gives him solid ground to stand on, and it diminishes the a.s.surance of the man who claims the right to a.s.sert his opinion on color because "one man's taste is as good as another's." It is also encouraging to the student to know it, because he then knows that there is a definite knowledge, and not a personal idiosyncrasy, on which he can found his attempts to cultivate this side of his artistic life.

=Color Composition.=--The artist's problem in color composition is a.n.a.logous to that of line and ma.s.s, but is of course governed by conditions peculiar to it. The qualities which derive from line and ma.s.s are emphasized or modified by the management of color in relation to them. The painter in this direction uses the three elements together. Contrast and accent are attributes of color. Dignity and weight, as well as certain emotional qualities, such as vivacity and sombreness, may give the key to the picture in accordance with the arrangement of its color-scheme.

The ma.s.s may be simplified and strengthened, or broken up and lightened, by the color of the forms in it. By ma.s.sing groups of objects in the same color, or by introducing different colors in the different forms in the same group, the ma.s.s is emphasized or weakened.

So in line, the same color in repet.i.tion will carry the line through a series of otherwise isolated forms, and effect the emphasis of line.

Ma.s.ses can be strung into line, like beads, on a thread of color. In the great compositions of the old Venetian painters this marshalling of color groups const.i.tuted a princ.i.p.al element. The decorative unity of these great canvases could have been possible in no other way.

As I have said, the key of the color-scheme has a direct emotional effect, so adding to the power and dignity or the grace and lightsomeness of the composition. The a.n.a.logy between color and imagination is marked. Certain temperaments instinctively express their ideals through color. To the painter color may be an all-influencing power; it is the glory of painting.

Drawing appeals to the intellect, but color speaks directly to the emotions, and conveys at a glance the idea which is re-enforced through the slower intellectual perception of the meaning of forms. In some unexplained way it expresses to the observer the temperamental mood; the joyousness, the severity or agitation which was the cause of its conception. In this strange but direct manner the color note aids the expression by line and ma.s.s of the aesthetic emotion which is the meaning of the painter's thought.

=Key.=--The key, then, is an important part of the picture. The very terms _warm_ and _cold_ applied to colors suggest what may be done by color arrangement. The _pitch_ of the picture places it, in the emotional scale.

=Tone.=--Tone is harmony; the perfect balance of color in all parts of the picture. Fine color always means the presence, in all the color of the picture, of all the three primaries in greater or less proportion.

Leave one color out in some proportion, and you have just so much less of a balance. I do not mean that some touch may not be pure color. On the contrary, the whole picture may be built up of touches of pure color. But the balance of color must be made then by touches of the different colors balancing each other, not only all over the picture, but in each part of it, to avoid crudity or over-proportion of any color. Generally the color scheme is dominated by some one color: which means that every touch of color on the canvas is modified to some extent by the presence of that color, keeping the whole in key.

Each color retains its personal quality, but the quality of the dominant color is felt in it.

=False Tone.=--This is not to be attained by painting the picture regardless of color relations, and then glazing or sc.u.mbling some color all over the whole. This is the false tone of some of the older historical painters, particularly of the English school of the earlier part of this century. They "painted" the picture, and then just before exhibiting it "toned" it by glazing it all over with a large brush and some transparent pigment, generally bitumen. This did, in fact, bring the picture in tone after a fas.h.i.+on. But it is not a colorist's method. It is the rule of thumb method of a false technique and a vicious color sense. True tone is not something put onto the picture after it is painted. It is an inherent part of its color conception, and is worked into it while the picture is being painted, and grows to perfection with the growth of the picture. It is of the very essence of the picture. It is the dominant balance of color qualities; the result of a perfect appreciation of the value of every color spot which goes to the expression of the artist's thought.

In one sense it is the same as _atmosphere_ in that the tonality of the picture is the atmosphere which pervades it. It may perhaps be best described by saying that it is that combination of color which gives to the picture the effect of every object and part in it having been seen under the same conditions of atmosphere; having been seen at the same time, with the same modification, and with the same degree and quality of light vibration. Tone is _color value_ as distinguished from value as degree of power as light and shade; and in this is the perfection of subtlety of color feeling.

=Tone Painters and Colorists.=--Some painters have been called "tone painters," while others have been called "colorists;" not that tone painters are not colorists, but that there is a difference. It is a difference of aim, a difference of desire. Those painters who are usually called colorists, like t.i.tian and Rubens, are in love with the richness and power of the color gamut. They are full of the splendor of color. They paint in full key, however balanced the canvas. Each note of color tells for its full power. Their stop is the open diapason, and their harmony is the harmony of large intervals and full chords.

The tone painter deals with close intervals. He is in love with subtle harmonies. What he loves is the essence of the color quality, and not its splendor. With the closest range he can give all possible half-tones and shades and modulations of color, yet never exceed the gray note perhaps; never once go to the full extent of his palette-power.

The utmost delicacy of perception and feeling, and the most perfect command of materials and of values, are necessary to such a painter.

Above all, is he the "painter's painter," for the infinite subtlety and the exquisiteness of power are his. And yet this is the thing least appreciated by the lay mind, the most difficult to encompa.s.s, and requiring the most knowledge to appreciate.

=Scientific Color.=--To the scientist color is simply the irritation of the nerves of the retina of the eye by the waves of light.

Different wave lengths give different color sensations. It is the generally accepted theory now that there are three primary sensations; that is, that the eye is sensitive to three kinds of color, and that all other shades and varieties of color are the results of mingling or overlapping of the waves which produce those three colors, and irritating more or less the nerves sensitive to each color simultaneously. These three primary colors are now stated to be red, blue, and _green_. The older idea was that they were red, blue, and _yellow_; and was based on experiments with pigments. Pigments do give these results; for a mixture of blue and yellow _pigment_ will give green, and a mixture of red and green _pigment_ will not give yellow, while the reverse is the fact with _light_.

White light is composed of all the colors. And the white light may be broken up (separated by refraction or the turning aside of light rays from their true course) into the colors of the rainbow, which is itself only this same decomposition of light by atmospheric refraction. Black is the absence of light, and consequently of color.

This is not the case with pigment, for pure pigment has never been produced. The pigment simply reflects light rays which fall on it; that is, pigments have the power of absorbing, and so rendering invisible, certain of the rays which, combined, make up the white light which illumines them; and of transmitting others to the eye by reflection. We see, that is, our nerves of sight are irritated by, those rays which are not absorbed, but which are reflected.