The Painter in Oil Part 14

[Ill.u.s.tration: =The Fisher Boy.= _Frans Hals._ To show the directness and sureness of brush-stroke, and candor and simplicity of means, always present in Dutch work, though never so free as with Hals.]

=Detail.=--The question of detail may well come in here. How far are you to carry detail in your painting? The Dutch painters went to both extremes. Gerard Dou worked two weeks on a broom-handle, and hoped to finish it in a few days more. Frans Hals would paint a head in an hour. The French painter Meissonier paints the high light on every b.u.t.ton of a trooper's coat, and De Neuville barely paints the b.u.t.ton at all. What way are you to turn? Which are you to choose? We have a great deal said nowadays against detail in painting. Much is said of breadth and broad painting. Which is right?

=True Breadth.=--The answer lies in the central idea of the picture.

There are times when detail may be very minute, and times when the greatest freedom is essential. True breadth is compatible with much even minute detail in the same canvas. For breadth does not mean merely a large brush. It never means slap-dash. It is the just conception of the amount of detail necessary (and the amount necessary to be left out) in order that the idea of the picture may be best expressed.

Detail is out of place in a large canvas always, and in proportion to its size it is allowable. A decorative canvas, a picture which is to be seen from a distance, or is to fill a wall s.p.a.ce, wants effect, much justness of composition and color. Largeness of conception and execution, and only so much detail as shall be necessary to the best expression compatible with that largeness. On the other hand, a "cabinet picture," a small panel, will admit of microscopic detail if it be not so painted that the detail is all you can see. And just here is the heart of the whole matter. Whether you use much or little detail, it is not for the sake of the detail, not for any interest which lies in the detail itself, but for what power of expression may lie in it. If the picture, large or small, be largely conceived, and its main idea as to subject and those qualities of aesthetic meaning I have spoken of are always kept in view, and never allowed to lose themselves in the search for minuteness, then any amount of detail will take its place in true relation to the whole picture. If it does not do this it is bad.

The relations of parts to the whole are the key to the situation always.

Nothing is right which interferes with the true relations in the picture. This is where the working for detail is most likely to lead you astray. It takes great ability and power to keep detail where it belongs. Detail is always the search for small things, and they are almost sure to obtrude themselves to the neglecting of the more important things. Details which do not stay in their places had better be left out of the picture. There is such a thing as _values_ in _facts_ as well as other parts of your work. And this applies to breadth as well as to detail.

[Ill.u.s.tration: =Boar-Hunt.= _Snyders._ To show relation of detail to the whole picture. The detail is carried far, yet does not interfere with emphasis of action and life. The picture is broad in spirit and effect if detailed in execution.]

Gerard Dou remains a great painter, and even a broad painter, strange as it may sound, in spite of his microscopic work. But only because of his breadth of eye. The detail is not the most important thing with him. It is in the picture, and you can see it when you look for it.

But as you look at the picture it is not peppered all over with pin-points of detail, until the picture itself cannot be seen. Every detail stays back as it would in nature; loses itself in the part to which it belongs; modestly waits to be sought out; is not seen until it is looked for. This is broad painting, because the main things are emphasized; and if the details are painted they are seen in their true relations, and the power of the whole is not sacrificed to them.

With much or little detail, this is what is to be aimed at. Whether with big brushes or little ones, the expression of the main idea, of the important, the vital things,--this is broad painting, and this only.

CHAPTER XXIII

MANIPULATION

=Premier Coup.=--Something similar to what I have spoken of as "direct painting" has long been a much-advocated manner of painting in France, under the name of _Premier Coup_; which means, translated literally, "first stroke."

It is taught that the painter should use no after or overworkings at all; but that he should carefully and deliberately select the color for his brush-stroke, and then lay it on the canvas at one stroke, each after-stroke being laid beside some previous one, until the canvas has been covered by a mosaic of color each shade representing a single "first-stroke," with no after-stroke laid over it to modify its effect. Such a process tends to great deliberation of work and exactness of study. Probably no better thing was ever devised for the training of the eye and hand. But it has its limits, and is not often rigidly adhered to in the painting of pictures; although the fresh, direct effect of this sort of work is preserved as far as possible in much modern French work, and that quality is held in great esteem.

This manner of painting is especially useful in the making of sketches and studies, and leads to a strong control of the brush and the resources of the palette.

In all painting of this character the color should have body.

Transparent color should not be used alone, but only to modify the tint of the more solid pigments; for the transparent colors used indiscriminately are apt to crack, which characteristic is avoided when the heavier color forms the body of the paint.

=Solid Painting.=--In most cases solid painting is the safest,--the least likely to crack, and the most safely cleaned from varnish and dirt without injury to the paint itself. It is firmer in character too, and gives more solidity of effect to the picture.

=Mixing.=--In mixing colors you should be careful not to over mix.

Don't stir your paint. Too much mixing takes the life out of the color. Particles of the pure color not too much broken up by mixing are valuable to your work, giving vibration and brilliancy to it. The reverse is muddiness, which is sure to come from too much fussing and overworking of wet paint. Don't use more than three pigments in one tint if you can help it, and mix them loosely. If you must use more colors, mix still more loosely. Put all the colors together, one beside the other, drag them together with the brush, scoop them up loosely on the end of it, and lay the tint on freely and frankly.

Never muddle the color on the canvas. Don't put one color over another more than you can help; you will only get a thick ma.s.s of paint of one kind mixing with a ma.s.s of another, and the result will be dirty color, which of all things in painting is most useless.

Keep the color clean and fresh, and have your brush-strokes firm and free. Never tap, tap, tap, your paint; make up your mind what the color is, and mix it as you want it. Decide just where the touch is to go, and lay it on frankly and fairly, and leave it. If it isn't right, daubing into it or pat-patting it won't help it. Either leave it, or mix a new color, and lay it on after having sc.r.a.ped this one off.

Don't try to economize on your mixing. A color mixed for one place will never do for another, so don't try to paint another place with it. Have the patience to proceed slowly, and mix the color specially for each brush-stroke. On the other hand, don't be n.i.g.g.ardly with your paint. Don't use less paint than you need. Mix an ample brushful and put it on; then mix another, and use judgment as to how much you should use each time. The variety of tone and value which comes of mixing new color for every touch of the brush is in itself a charm in a painting, aside from the greater truth you are likely to get by it.

[Ill.u.s.tration: =Good Bock.= _Manet._ To ill.u.s.trate direct and solid painting.]

=Corrections.=--As far as you can, make corrections by over-painting when the paint is dry, or nearly so. When I say don't work into wet color to correct, I do not mean that you are never to do so, but that to do it too much is likely to get your work muddy and pasty. Of course it is almost impossible to avoid doing so sometimes, but when you do, do it with deliberation. Don't lose your head and pile wet paint on wet paint in the vain hope of getting the color by force of piling it on. You will only get it worse and worse. Get it as nearly right as you can. If it is hopeless, sc.r.a.pe it off clean, and mix a fresh tint. If it is as near right as you can see to mix it now, go ahead; and put a better color on that place to-morrow when it is dry, if you can.

=Keep at it.=--But above all don't be permanently satisfied with the almost. Don't be afraid to put paint over dry paint till it is right.

Work at it day after day. Let the paint get thick if it will, if only you get the thing right. The secret of getting it right is to keep at it, and be satisfied with nothing less than the best you can do. When you can see nothing wrong you can do no better. But as long as your eye will recognize a difference between what is on the canvas and what ought to be there, you have not done your best, and you are s.h.i.+rking if you stop. Never call a thing done as long as you can see something wrong about it. No matter what any one else says, your work must come up _at least_ to the standard of what you yourself can see.

=Loose Painting.=--Sometimes it is necessary to lay on paint very loosely in order to get vibration of warm and cool color or of pure pigment in the same brush-stroke, or to let the under paint show somewhat through the loose texture of the paint over it. Too much of this sort of thing is not to be desired, but its effect in the right place is not to be obtained in any other way. The paint may be dragged over the canvas with a long brush charged with color more or less thoroughly mixed, as seems most effectual, or it may be flipped into its place, or it may be hatched on with parallel strokes. All these ways will be spoken of as they suggest themselves in other chapters.

Solid color, generally, is used in this manner, and the effect of body is rather strengthened by it than the reverse.

=Sc.u.mbling.=--Another means of modifying the color and effect of a painting has perhaps always been more or less commonly in use. This is called _sc.u.mbling_, and may be considered under the head of solid painting, as it is always done with body, and never with transparent, color. The process consists of rubbing a mixture of body color, without thinning, over a surface previously painted and dried.

Generally this _sc.u.mble_ is of a lighter color than the under-painting, and is rubbed on with a stubby brush slightly charged with the paint. As much surface as is desired may be covered in this way, and the result is to give a hazy effect to that part, and to reduce any sharpness of color or of drawing. Often the effect is very successfully obtained. Distant effects may be painted solidly and rather frankly, and then brought into a general indefiniteness by sc.u.mbling. Too much sc.u.mbling will make a picture vague and soft, and after a sc.u.mble it is best to paint into it with firm color to avoid this.

The sc.u.mble may be used with the richer and darker colors, too, to modify towards richness the tone of parts of the picture, or to darken the value. Most often, however, its value lies in its use to bring harsher and sharper parts together, and to give the hazy effect when it is needed.

Sc.u.mbling will not have a good effect when it is not intended to varnish the picture afterwards; for the oil in the paint is absorbed immediately, and the rubbing of color gives a dead look to the canvas which is very unpleasant, and decidedly the reverse of artistic.

=Glazing.=--A very valuable process, the reverse of sc.u.mbling, is glazing. It has always been in use since the invention of the oil medium. All the Italian painters used it; it is an essential part of their system of coloring. The rich, deep color of t.i.tian, the warm flesh of Raphael, and the jewel-like quality of the early German painters are impossible without some form of glaze. The Germans perhaps made glazes with white of egg before oil was used as a vehicle. But to glaze is the only way to get the fullest effect of the quality characteristic of the transparent paints.

A glaze is a thin wash of transparent color flowed over an under-painting to modify its tone or to add to its effect. It is not always transparent color, but usually it is. Sometimes opaque or semi-opaque color may be used, and it is a glaze by virtue of the fact that it is thinned with a vehicle either oil or varnish, and _flowed_ on. A sc.u.mble is _rubbed_ on, and is never pure transparent color.

=Advantages of Glazing.=--The advantages are the gain in harmony, in force, in brilliancy; you may correct a color when it is wrong, or perfect it when it is not possible to get the force or richness required without it. These are the qualities which have made it used by all schools more or less.

=Disadvantages.=--There are, however, quite as evident and marked disadvantages. The free use of oil as a thinning vehicle, although it makes possible a greater degree of richness of color, is very likely to turn the picture brown in time. Oil will always eventually have a browning effect on all paints, even when mixed with them as little as is absolutely necessary. If you make a tinted varnish of oil (which is practically what a glaze is), you add so much, to the surely darkening action of the oil on the picture.

If, again, you depend upon a glaze for the richness of color for your picture, and you use a color which is not permanent, your glaze fades, and your color is not there. A glaze is particularly liable to be injured by the cleaner if it ever gets into his hands. He works down to fresh color, and what with the browning of the glaze and the fact that the cleaner is more anxious that the picture should be cleaned than that its color should be fine, he will, in nine cases out of ten, _clean_ off the glaze which may be the final and most expensive color the painter has put on it.

Glazing is little used nowadays, compared with what it once was. But there are times when you cannot get what you want in any other way, and when you are sure that glazing is the only thing which will give you your result, the only law for the painter comes in,--get your result.

=Precautions.=--If you do glaze, however, there is a right and a wrong way. You should not use a glaze as a last resort. It is better to calculate on it beforehand; for you always glaze with a darker tint upon a lighter one, so that if you have not allowed for this, you will get your picture too low in tone before you know it.

If you want to make your picture, or a part of it, brighter and lighter, bring it up in pitch with body color first, with solid painting, and then glaze it.

Do not glaze on color which is not well dried. The drying of the under color and the drying of the glaze are apt to be different in point of time, and the picture will crack. If the vehicle is the same as was used in the under-painting, and the drying qualities of both paintings are the same, there is no danger. But when color dries, it shrinks and flattens, and two kinds of colors shrinking differently are sure to pull apart, and that causes cracking. If the under-painting is well dry, but not hard and glossy on the surface, and is capable of still absorbing enough of the new color's vehicle to bind the coats together, your glaze will stand. But rather than have it too soft, have the under-painting too hard, and then before you glaze go over it with a little thin, quick-drying varnish, and glaze into that. The varnish will hold the two coats of paint together.

Glazing, as well as sc.u.mbling, implies the obligation to varnish your picture. Whenever you use oil freely you will have to varnish your picture to keep it bright and fresh in color.

It would be wise never to use a glaze as a final process. Glaze to get the tone or to modify it, but paint into the glaze with body color, and you keep the advantage of the glaze without many of the disadvantages of it, and the picture has a more solid effect of painting.

=Frottee.=--Closely akin to the glaze in manner, but very different in use, is the _frottee_, or "rubbing." This is generally used on the fresh surface of the canvas, to "rub in" the light and shade or the first coloring of the picture after the drawing is done. It is one of the safest and wisest ways of beginning your picture. You can either rub in the picture with a _frottee_ of one color, as sienna or umber, or you can use all the colors in their proper places, only using very little vehicle, and making something very thin in tint, somewhat between a glaze and a sc.u.mble. You can make a complete drawing in monochrome in this way, or you can lay in all the ground colors of the picture till it has much the effect of a complete painting. Then, as you paint and carry the picture forward, every color you put on will be surrounded with approximately the true relations, instead of being contrasted by a glare of white canvas.

A _frottee_ is a most sympathetic ground to paint over.

CHAPTER XXIV

COPYING

Copying may well be spoken of here, as it is in a sense a kind of manipulation. It is a means of study to the student, and a useful, sometimes necessary process to the painter. In the transferring of the results of his sketches and studies to the final canvas, the painter must be able to copy, and to know all the conveniences of it. Before the painting begins on a picture, the main figures in it must be placed and drawn on the canvas with reference to the plan of it, and their relation to that plan. This calls for some method of exact reproduction of the facts stored in the artist's studies for that purpose. The process of copying is that method.