Often the whole composition should be a balancing of the elements, as in this case. But the emphasizing of one element will always emphasize the characteristics to which those elements tend as the main characteristic of the picture.

Grace, rhythm, movement, come most naturally from arrangement chiefly in line. If mass comes into the picture, the masses may be arranged to help the line, or to modify it. In "The Sower" the management of mass is such as to give great dignity, and almost solemnity, to the picture, yet not to take away from the rhythmic swing and action of the figure which comes from line, but even to emphasize it. Compare this in these respects with the lighter grace of "The Golden Stairs" and the less unified movement, but greater activity, of the "Descent from the Cross."

Of course masses will come into the picture; but either the masses themselves can be arranged into line, or there can be emphasis given to lines which break up or modify the masses, so that the character of the picture is governed by them.

Mass.—In the arrangement of mass, light and shade and color are effective. Smaller groups may be made into a larger one, and individual objects also brought together, by grouping them in light or in shade, or by giving them a common color.



Weight, dignity, the statuesque, scale, are characteristics of mass. Line in this connection only takes from the brusqueness that mass alone would have, or helps to break up any tendency to monotony. The "Return to the Farm," by Millet, shows this combination, the reverse of "The Sower." In this, the line is used to enrich the repose and weight, the statuesque of the mass. In the other, the mass gives dignity and impressiveness to the grace and rhythm of the line.

The color scheme of course will have an equal effect in the emphasizing or modifying of the motive of line or mass. Color will not only have an effect on it, but must be in sympathy with it, or the balance will be lost.

Color.—This is mainly where composition in color will come in. Light and shade or chiaroscuro, as I explained in the last chapter, are necessarily intimately connected with composition here. And you never work in color or mass without working in light and shade also. Of color itself I shall speak in the next chapter. It is only necessary to point out the fact of connection here. Of course in painting, all the elements are most closely related. Although it is necessary to speak of them separately in the actual working out, you keep them all in mind together, and so make them continually help and modify each other.

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 mass, though not absolutely. As a rule, line or mass, one or the other, must be the main element.

Leverage.—I have often thought that much insight into the principles of balance of masses, and of mass and line, could be gained by thinking of it analogously to equilibrium in leverage. A small mass, or a simple line or accent, may be made to balance a very much greater mass. The greater part of a canvas may be one mass, 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 mass 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 mass 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 mass 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 mass or object with reference to the size of the canvas. This is analogous to what is called scale in architecture.

If the mass 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 mass 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 class, 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 mass 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 mass 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 assured 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 mass 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 assurance of the man who claims the right to assert 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 analogous to that of line and mass, but is of course governed by conditions peculiar to it. The qualities which derive from line and mass 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 mass may be simplified and strengthened, or broken up and lightened, by the color of the forms in it. By massing groups of objects in the same color, or by introducing different colors in the different forms in the same group, the mass is emphasized or weakened. So in line, the same color in repetition will carry the line through a series of otherwise isolated forms, and effect the emphasis of line. Masses 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 constituted a principal 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 analogy 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 mass 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 scumbling 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 fashion. 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 Titian 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 encompass, 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.

All pigment is more or less absorbent of color rays, and more or less reflective of them; certain color rays being absorbed by a pigment, and certain other rays being reflected by it. The pigment is named according to those rays which it reflects. As a color-producing substance, then, the pigment is practically a mirror reflecting color rays. But a true mirror would reflect all rays unmodified. If we could paint with mirrors, each of which would reflect its own color unsullied, we could do what the scientist does with light; but the painter deals with an imperfect mirror which gives no color rays back unsullied by rays of another class, and so our results cannot be the same as the scientist's. So that just in accordance with the degree of purity of transmitting power of a pigment will be the purity of the color which we get by its use. But absolute purity of pigment we cannot get, so we cannot deal with it as we do with light, and we deal with a practical fact rather than a scientific fact, as painters.

Primaries and Secondaries.—As all the other shades of color are produced by the combinations (over-lappings) of the waves or vibrations in the light rays from the primary colors, we have a series of colors called secondaries, because they are made up of the rays of any two of the three primaries: as purple, which is a combination of blue and red. When dealing with light the secondaries are: shades of violet and purple from red and blue; shades of orange red, orange, orange yellow, yellow, and yellowish green from red and green; and bluish green and greenish blue from blue and green—the character of the color being decided by the proportions of the primaries in the mixture.

These conclusions have been reached mainly through experiments in white light. The primaries so obtained do not hold good with pigment, as I have stated, but the principles do. It will avoid confusion if I speak hereafter of the combinations as they occur with pigment, it being borne in mind that it is a practical fact that we are dealing with rather than a scientific one.

In dealing with pigment the primaries are red, blue, and yellow, not green. Of course the secondaries are also changed; and we have purple and violet shades from red and blue, orange from red and yellow, and green from blue and yellow—all of which vary in shade with the proportion of the mixture of the primaries, as is the case with light.

Tertiaries.—Another class of shades or colors is called tertiary, or third; for they are mixtures of all the three primaries, or of a primary with a secondary which does not result from mixture with that primary. Tertiaries are all grays, and grays are practically always tertiaries. If you keep this in mind as a technical fact, it will help you in management of color. Grays are, to the painter, always combinations of color which include the three primaries. The usual idea is that gray is more or less of a negation of color. This is not so. Gray is the balancing of all color, so that any true harmony of color, however rich it may be, is always quiet in effect as a whole; that is, grayish—good color is never garish. It is very important that the painter should understand this characteristic of color. You cannot be too familiar with the management of grays. If you try to make your grays with negative colors, you will not produce harmonious color, but negative color, and negative color is only a shirking of the true problem. Grays made of mixtures of pure colors, balancings of primaries and secondaries, that is, modifications of the tertiaries, are quite as quiet in effect and quite as beautiful as any, but they are also more luminous; they are live color instead of dead color. Grays made by mixing black with everything are the reverse, and should not be used except when you use black as a color (which it is in pigment), giving a certain color quality to the gray that results from it.

Complementary Colors.—Two colors are said to be complementary to each other when they together contain the three primaries in equal strength. Green, for instance, is the complementary of red, for it contains yellow and blue; orange (yellow and red) is complementary to blue; and purple (red and blue) is complementary to yellow.

The knowledge of complements of colors is very important to the painter, for all the effects of color contrast and color harmony are due to this. Complementary colors, in mass, side by side, contrast. The greatest possible contrast is that of the complementaries.

Complementary colors mixed, or so placed that small portions of them are side by side, as in hatching or stippling, give the tertiaries or grays by the mixing of the rays.

The Law of Color Contrast.—"When two dissimilar colors are placed in contiguity, they are always modified in such a manner as to increase their dissimilarity."

Warm and Cold Colors.—Red and yellow are called warm colors, and blue is called a cold color. This is not that the color is really cold or warm, of course, but that they convey the impression of warmth and coldness. It is mainly due to association probably, for those things which are warm contain a large proportion of yellow or red, and those which are cold contain more blue. There is a predominance of cold color in winter and of the warm colors in summer.

From the primaries various degrees of warmth and coldness characterize the secondaries and tertiaries, as they contain more or less proportionately of the warm or cold primaries.

In contrasting colors these qualities have great effect.

Color Juxtaposition.—In studying the facts of color contrast and color juxtaposition you will find that two pigments, if mixed in the ordinary way, will have one effect; and the same pigments in the same proportions, mixed not by stirring them into one mass, but by laying separate spots or lines of the pigment side by side, produce quite another. The gain in brilliancy by the latter mode of mixing is great, because you have mixed the color rays, which are really light rays, instead of mixing the pigment as in the usual way. You have really mixed the color by mixing light as far as it is possible to do it with pigment. You have taken advantage of all the light reflecting power of the pigment on which the color effect depends. Each pigment, being nearly pure, reflects the rays of color peculiar to it, unaffected by the neutralizing effect of another color mixed with it; while the neutralizing power of the other color being side by side with it, the waves or vibrations of the color rays blend by overlapping as they come side by side to the eye; and so the color, made up of the two waves as they blend, is so much more vibrant and full of life.

"Yellow and Purple."—It is this principle which is the cause of the peculiarity in the technique of certain "Impressionist" painters. The "yellow lights and purple shadows" is only placing by the side of a color that color which will be most effective in forcing its note.

Brilliancy is what these men are after, and they get it by the study of the law of color contrast and color juxtaposition. The effect of complementaries in color contrast is what you must study for this, for the theory of it. For the practice of it, study carefully and faithfully the actual colors in nature, and try to see what are the real notes, what the really component colors, of any color contrast or light contrast which you see. Purple shadows and yellow light re-enforcing each other you will find to exist constantly in nature. Refine your color perception, and you will be able to get the result without the obviousness of the means which has brought down the condemnation on it. Closer study of the relations is the way to find the art of concealing art.

But yellow and purple are not the only complementaries. All through the range of color, the secondaries and tertiaries as well as the primaries, this principle of complement plays a part. There is no color effect you can use in painting which does not have to do, more or less, with the placing of the complementary color in mass, to emphasize; or mixed through to neutralize, the force of it. Train your eyes to see what the color is which makes the effect. Analyze it, see the parts in the thing, so that you may get the thing in the same way, if you would get it of the same force as in nature.

Practical Color.—All these theoretical ideas as to color have their relation to the actual handling of pigment, which is the craft of the painter. The facts of contrasting and harmonizing color relation have a practical bearing on the painter's work, both in what he is to express and how he is to do it; as to his conception of a picture and his representation of facts. In his conception he must deal with the possibilities of effect of color on color. The power of one color to strengthen the personal hue of another, or its power to modify that hue, is a fact bearing on whether the color in the picture is the true image of the color he has seen in his mind. In the same degree must this possibility affect his representation of actual objects.

The greatest possibilities of luminosity in sunlight or atmospheric effects come from the power to produce vibration by cool contrasted with warm color. You will find that a red is not so rich in any position as when you place its complementary near it. At times you will find it impossible to get the snap and sparkle to a scarlet—cannot make it carry, cannot make it felt in your picture as you want it without placing a touch of purple, perhaps, just beside it; to place near by a darker note will not have the same effect. It is the contrast of color vibration, not the contrast of light and shade, which gives the life. And at the same time that you enhance the brilliancy of the several notes of color in the picture, you harmonize the whole. For the mosaic of color spots all over the canvas brings about the balance of color in the composition, and harmony is the result.

Study Relations.—You must constantly study the actual relations of color in nature. You will find, if you look for it, that always, just where in art you would need a touch of the complementary for strength or for harmony, nature has put it there. She does it so subtly that only a close observer would suspect it. But the thing is there, and it is your business to be the close observer who sees it, both for your training as a colorist, and your use as an interpreter of nature's beauties. It is your business to see subtly, for nature uses colors subtly. The note sparkles in nature, but you do not notice the complementary color near it. Can you not also place the complementary color so that it is not seen, but its influence on the important color is felt? It is by searching out these finesses of nature that you train your eye. You must actually see these colors. At first you may only know that they must be there because the effect is there. But your eye is capable of actually recognizing them themselves, and you are no painter till it can. The theoretical knowledge is and should be a help to you, but the actual power of sight is most important. A painter may use theoretical knowledge to help his self-training, but power of eye he must have as the result of that training. The instantaneous recognition of facts and relations, the immediate and perfect union of eye and thought, are what make that intuitive perception which is the true feeling of the artist.

Work this out with eye and palette. Study the color and its relation in nature, and study its analogy in the pigment touches on the canvas.

The Palette.—You try to attain nature's effects of light with pigment. Pigment is less pure than light. You cannot have the same scale, the same range, but you must do the best you can, and the arrangement of your palette will help you. As you have not a perfect blue, a perfect red, and a perfect yellow, you must have two colors for one. Your paints will always be more or less impurely primary. No one red will make a pure purple with blue, and an equally pure orange with yellow. Yet pure purple and pure orange you must be able to make. Have, then, both a yellowish or orange red and a bluish or purplish red on your palette. Do the same with blue and yellow. In this way you can not only get approximately pure secondaries when you need them, but the primaries themselves lean somewhat towards the secondaries, so that you can make very delicate combinations with pure colors. A bluish yellow and a yellowish blue, for instance, will make a rather positive green. By using a reddish yellow and a bluish or purplish red, you practically bring in the red note, and make a grayer green while still using only two pigments.

So, too, you get similar control of effects by the use of opaque or transparent pigments, the transparent ones tending to richness, the opaque to dulness of color. Various processes in the manner of laying on paint bring about these different qualities, and will be spoken of in the chapter on "Processes."

Classify your pigments in your mind in accordance with these characteristics. Think of the ochres, for instance, as mainly opaque, and as yellows tending to the reddish. With any blue they make gray greens because of the latter quality, and they make gray oranges with red because of the dulness of their opacity and body. For richer greens think of the lighter chromes and cadmium yellows or citrons; and for the richer oranges, the deeper cadmiums and chromes. With reds, work the same way, scarlet or orange vermilions for one side of the scale, and the Chinese or bluish vermilion on the other side. The deeper and heavier reds fall in line the same way. Indian red is bluish, light red and Venetian red are yellowish.



PART IV

PRACTICAL APPLICATION



CHAPTER XXII

REPRESENTATION

Although much has been said about the theoretical and abstract side of painting, and the importance of the aesthetic elements in art have been insisted upon, it is not to be supposed for a moment that painting does not deal with actual things. All painting which is not purely conventional must deal with and represent nature and natural facts. These are the body of the picture; the aesthetic elements are the heart of it. I believe that it is important that you should know that there is that side to painting, and should have some insight into it; that you should see that there is something else to think of than the imitation of natural objects. I would have you think more nobly of painting than to believe that "the greatest imitation is the greatest art." Beneath the imitation of the obvious facts of nature are the deeper facts and truths, and in and through these may you express those qualities of intellectual creation by means of which only, painting is not a craft, but an art.

But for all that, painting does, and always must, deal with those obvious facts; and however much you may give your mind to the problems of composition and color, you must base it on a foundation of ability to represent what you see. Represent well the external objects, and you are in a position to interpret the spirit of them. For as nature only manifests her inner spirit through her outward forms and facts, you must be able to paint these well before you can do anything else.

The intellectual action which perceives and constructs is the art, the skill which represents and reproduces is the science, of painting.

Painting is the art of expression in color. The fact of color rather than form is the fundamental characteristic of it. The use of pigment rather than other materials is implied in its name. Therefore the science of painting deals with the materials with which to produce on canvas all manner of visible color combinations; and those processes of manipulation which make possible the representation of all the facts of color and light, of substance and texture, through which nature manifests herself.

It is not enough to have the pigment, nor even that it should get itself onto the canvas. Different characteristics call for different management of paint. Luminosity of light and sombreness of shadow will not be expressed by the same color, put on in the same way. Different forms and surfaces and objects demand different treatment. The science of painting must deal with all these.

It has been said that there are as many ways of painting as there are painters. Certainly there are as many ways as there are men of any originality. For however a painter has been trained, whatever the methods which he has been taught to use, he will always change them, more or less, in adapting them to his own purposes. And as the main intent of the art of an epoch or period differs from that of a previous one, so the manner of laying on paint will change to meet the needs of that difference. The manner of painting to-day is very different from that of other times. Some of the old processes are looked upon by the modern man as quite beneath his recognition. Yet these same methods are necessary to certain qualities, and if the modern man does not use or approve of those methods, it is because he is not especially interested in the qualities which they are necessary to.

There is probably no one statement which all fair-minded painters will more willingly acquiesce in, than one which affirms that the method by which the result is attained is unimportant, provided that the result is attained, and that it is one worth attaining. Every man will, whether it is right or not, use those methods which most surely and completely bring about the expression of the thing he wishes to express. In the face of this fact, and of the many acknowledged masterpieces, every one of which was painted in defiance of some rule some time or other alleged to be the only right one, it is not possible to prescribe or proscribe anything in the direction of the manipulation of colors. The result must be right, and if it is, it justifies the means. If it be not right, the thing is worthless, no matter how perfectly according to rule the process may be. As Hunt said, "What do I care about the grammar if you've got something to say?" The important thing is to say something, and if you do really say something, and do really completely and precisely express it, as far as a painter is concerned it will be grammatical. If not to-day, the grammar will come round to it to-morrow. Henry Ward Beecher is reported to have answered to a criticism on grammatical slips in the heat of eloquence, "Young man, if the English language gets in the way of the expression of my thought, so much the worse for the English language!" In painting, at any rate, the complete expression of thought is grammatical, and if not, so much the worse for the grammarians.

Try Everything.—Know, then, all you can about all the ways of manipulating paint that have ever been used. Use any or all of those ways as you find them needful or helpful. There is none which has not the authority of a master behind it, and though another master may decry it, it is because, being a master, he claims the very right he denies to you.

Experiment with all; but never use any method for the sake of the method, but only for what it is capable of doing for you in helping expression.

Safety.—The only real rule as to what to use and what not, applies to the effect on the permanence of your canvas. Never use pigments which will fade; nor in such a way that they will cause others to fade. Avoid all such using of materials as you know will make your picture crack, or in any other way bring about its deterioration.

Good Painting.—But for all I have just said, there is an acknowledged basis of what is good painting. If any man or school lays on paint in a frank, direct way, getting the effect by sheer force of putting on the right color in just the right place, with no tricks nor affectations, that is good painting; and the more simple, direct, and frank the manner of handling, the better the painting.

Let us understand what direct painting is first, and then consider varieties of handling. For whatever may be the subsequent manipulations, the picture is generally "laid in" with the most direct possible manner of laying on paint, and the other processes are mainly to modify or to further and strengthen the effect suggested in the first painting. And generally, also, in all sketches and studies which are preliminary preparations for the picture, the most direct painting is used, and the various processes are reserved for working out more subtle effects on the final canvas.

Old Dutch Painting.—Probably there are no better examples of frank painting than the works of the old Dutchmen. You should study them whenever you have a chance. Waiving all discussion as to the aesthetic qualities of their work,—as painters, as masters of the craft of laying on paint, they are unexcelled. And in most cases, too, they possessed the art of concealing their art. You will have to use the closest observation to discover the exact means they used to get the subtle tones and atmospheric effects.

The only obvious quality is the perfect understanding and skill of their brush-work. In the smoothest as well as in the roughest of their work, you can note how perfectly the brush searches the modelling, and with the most exquisite expressiveness and perfect frankness, follows the structural lines. No doubt there were often paintings, glazings, and scumblings; but they always furthered the meaning of the first painting, and never in the least interfered with or obscured the effect of naivete, of candor of workmanship.

It is, however, this simple and sincere brush-work that you should strive to attain as the basis of your painting. Learn to express drawing with your brush, and to place at once and without indecision or timidity the exact tone and value of the color you see in nature at that point. Until you are enough of a master of your brush to get an effect in this way, do not meddle with the more complex methods of after-painting. You will never do good work by subsequent manipulation, if you have a groundwork of feebleness and indecision. Direct painting is the fundamental process of all good painting.

Let me take the type of old Dutch painting to represent to you this quality of direct painting. First of all notice a basis of perfect drawing,—a knowledge, exactness, and precision which admits of no fumbling, no vagueness, but only of a concise and direct recognition of structure. Note that this drawing is as characteristic of the brush-work as of the drawing which is under it. Observe that the handling of the whole school, from the least to the greatest, is founded on a similar and perfect craftsmanship,—the same use of materials; the same deliberateness; the same simple yet ample palette; the same use of solid color candidly expressing the planes of modelling, freely following the lines of structure; the absence of affectation or invention of individual means. Whatever the individuality of the artist, it rests on something else than difference of technique. From the freest and most direct of painters, Frans Hals, to the most smooth and detailed, Gerard Dou, the directness and ingenuousness of means to ends is the same, and founded on the same technical basis of color manipulation. The one is more eager, terse, the other more deliberate and complete; but both use the same pigments, both use the same solid color, are simple, lucid, both occupied solely with the thing to be expressed, and the least degree in the world with the manner of it. That manner comes from the same previous technical training which each uses in the most matter-of-course way, with only such change from the type, as his temperament unconsciously imposes on him.

There is nothing like it elsewhere. Study it; notice the unaffectedness of brush-stroke in Rembrandt. See how it is the same as Hals, but less perfunctory. See how the brush piles up paint again and again along the same ridge of flesh, taking no notice of its revelation of the insistence of attempt at the right value, nor of its roughness of surface. To get that drawing and that color in the freest, frankest, most direct way: that is the aim. The absolute conviction of it: that is the essence of this technique of the old Dutch masters. And whatever else it may have or may not have, you will find in it all that you can find anywhere of suggestion of direct and frank and sincere painting, and nothing I can say will give you any such clear idea of what you should strive for as the basis of all the different sorts of brush-work necessary or useful in the production of an oil painting.



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 button of a trooper's coat, and De Neuville barely paints the button 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 space, 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.



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 mass of paint of one kind mixing with a mass 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 scraped 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 niggardly 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.



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, scrape 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 shirking 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.

Scumbling.—Another means of modifying the color and effect of a painting has perhaps always been more or less commonly in use. This is called scumbling, 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 scumble 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 scumbling. Too much scumbling will make a picture vague and soft, and after a scumble it is best to paint into it with firm color to avoid this.

The scumble 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.

Scumbling 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 scumbling, 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 Titian, 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 scumble 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 scumbling, 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 scumble. 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.

From the side of study, the copy gives the student the most practical means of understanding the intent and the expression of the painter whose work he wishes to know. There is no way of understanding the why and the how of technical expression so sure and complete as to study with the brush and paint, following the same method and processes as the master you copy, and trying to comprehend the meaning and the expression at the same time.

This is not the best means of study for a beginner, as I have said before. It trains the understanding of processes rather than the eye; and the training of the power of perception rather than the understanding of methods is what the young student needs. The processes with which he may put on canvas the effect he sees in nature are secondary matters to him. Let him really see the thing and find his own way of expressing it, clumsily, rudely most probably, it is still the best thing for him. He may take such help as he can find, as he needs it; get such suggestions as the work of good painters can give to him, when he cannot see his own way. But the searching of nature should come first. The seeing of what is must precede the stating of it.

But when you do undertake to make a copy, there is something more to be tried for than an approximation of the right colors in the right places.

Certainly to get out of copying all there is to get, one must try for something more than a recognizable picture. When a serious student makes a copy, he not only tries to get it like in color and drawing, but also in manner of treatment, peculiarities of technique, and whatever there may be that goes to make up the "manner" of the original.

This is not only for the sake of the copy, for the sake of really having a picture which is more than superficially like the original; but in this way can be gained much real knowledge of technique which cannot be gotten so easily otherwise.

Study your original carefully before and while working on your own canvas. See how it was done if you can (and you can), and do it in the same way, touch for touch, stroke for stroke, color for color. Use a large brush when he used a large brush; if the original was done with a palette-knife, use yours; and particularly never use a smaller brush than the painter used on the picture you are copying.

The same thing holds as to processes. If your original was painted solidly, with full body of color, do so on your copy. Never glaze nor scumble because you can't get the colors without. Your business is to try to get the same qualities in the same way. And any other manipulation is not only getting a different thing, but shirking the problem. Because, if you can't get the effect in the way he did, you certainly won't get the same one any other way. You are not originating, you are not painting a picture, you are copying another man's work; and common honesty to him, as well as what you are trying to learn, demands that you shall not belie him by stating on your canvas implicitly, that he did the thing one way, when as a matter of fact his canvas shows that he did it another way.

This may seem commonplace, because one would think that as a matter of course any one would naturally make a copy this way. But this is precisely what the average person does not do when copying, and I have found it constantly necessary to insist upon these very points even to advanced students.

So in the pigments, the vehicles, the tools, and even the canvas if you can, as well as in the handling of the paint and the processes used, follow absolutely and humbly, but intelligently, the workmanship of the picture you copy, if it is worth your while to do it at all.

In making copies it is not usual to make the preliminary drawing freehand. It takes time that may better be given to something else, and often it is not exact enough. When a painter has made careful studies which he wishes to transfer to his canvas, they may have qualities of line or movement, or of emphasis or character which the model may not have had. These studies, probably, are much smaller than they will be in the picture. The same things may be true of the characteristics of the sketches. These are problems which have been worked out, and to copy them freehand makes the work to be done over again on a larger scale on the canvas of the picture. This would not only take too much time, but the same result might not follow. For this purpose a more mechanical process is commonly made use of, which combines the qualities of exactness with a certain freedom of hand, without which the work would be too rigid and hard.

"Squaring up."—This process is called "squaring-up," and consists of making a network of squares which cut up the study, and map out its lines and proportions, and make it possible to be sure that any part of the original will come in the same relative place in the copy no matter what the size may be, and at the same time leaves the actual laying out of the thing to freehand drawing.

The process is a very simple one. You mark off a number of points horizontally and vertically on the study. Make as many as you think best—if there are too few, you will have too much of the study in one part; if too many, it makes you more trouble. It is not necessary that there be as many points one way as the other; make the number to suit the lines of the study.

Draw straight lines across the study from each of the points, keeping them carefully parallel, and seeing to it that the horizontal lines cross the vertical ones exactly at right angles. These lines cut the study into right-angled parallelograms, which may be squares or not according as the vertical lines are the same distance from each other that the horizontal ones are, or not.

Number the spaces between the lines at the top, 1, 2, 3, etc., and at one side the same.

Now if you square off a part of your canvas with the same number of spaces at the top and the same number at the side as you have done with the study, and keep the relation of the spaces the same, you can make it as large or as small as you please, and you can draw the outlines within those squares as they fall in the study, and they will be the same in proportion without your having the trouble of working to scale. The squares furnish the scale for you, and the proportion is not of the study to the picture, but as the vertical spaces are to the horizontal, in both the study and the picture.

By numbering the squares on the canvas to correspond with those on the study, and noticing in which square, and in what part of it, any line or part of a line comes, you can, by drawing that line in the same part of the corresponding square on the canvas, repeat the line in the same relation and with exactness, while still leaving the hand free to modify it, or correct it.

In this way the simplest or the most complex, the largest or the smallest study sketch or drawing may be accurately transferred to any surface you please.



CHAPTER XXV

KINDS OF PAINTING

Why not recognize that conviction, intense personal attraction to a certain sort of thing is the life of all art. How else can life get into art than through the love of what you paint? A man may understand what he does not love, but he will never infuse with life that which he does not love. Understand it he should, if he would express it; but love it he must, if he would have others love it.

You see it is not the thing, but the manner; not the fact, but what you can find in it; not the object, but what you can express by it. "Un chef d'oeuvre vaut un chef d'oeuvre" because perfect delight in loveliness found in a small thing is as perfect as perfect delight in loveliness found in a great thing. And still life uninteresting as a fact, may be fascinating if "seen through the medium of a temperament."

Don't let the idea get into your head that one thing is easier to do than another thing. Perhaps it is, but it is a bad mental attitude to think so. And even then, you may find that when you have worked out all that its easiness shows you, some one with better knowledge or insight may come along and point out undreamed-of beauties and subtleties. And are they easy? To see and express the possibilities in easy things is the hardest of all.

Classification.—Divide paintings into two classes,—those representing objects seen out-of-doors, and those representing objects in-doors. This is the most fundamental of all classifications, and it is one which belongs practically to this century. Before this century it was hardly thought of to distinguish out-door light from in-door light.

Some of the Dutchmen did it. But it is only in this century that the principle has made itself felt. It is this which makes the difference of pitch or key so marked between the modern and the ancient pictures. It has changed the whole color-scheme.

An out-door picture may be still painted in the studio, but it must be painted from studies made out-doors. It is no longer possible to pose a model in a studio-light and paint her so into a landscape. It was right to do it when it was done frankly, when the world had not waked up to the fact that things look different in diffused and in concentrated lights. It is not right now. You cannot go back of your century. To be born too late is more fatal than to be born too soon.

Whatever kind of picture you take in hand, remember that what distinguishes the treatment of it from that of other pictures depends on the inherent character of it. That the difficulties as well as the facilities in the working of it are due to the fact that it demands a different application of the universal principles. Don't think that landscape drawing is easier than that of the figure because smudges of green and blue and brown can be accepted as a landscape, while a smudge of pink will not do duty for the nude figure. It is only that the drawing of the figure is more obvious, and variations from the more obvious right are more easily seen.

You must study the necessities, the demands of treatment of the different sorts of subjects—see what is peculiar to each, and what common to all. You must find to what aesthetic qualities each most readily lends itself, what are the subtleties to be sought for, and what are the problems they offer.



CHAPTER XXVI

THE SKETCH

The sketch is the germ of the picture. It contains the idea which may later become the finished work. In your sketches you gather effects and suggestions of possibilities, of all kinds. You do not work long over a sketch, nor do you work perfunctorily. You do not make it because you ought to, but because you see something in nature which charms you; or because you have found an idea you wish to make a note of.

Understand thoroughly the use and meaning of sketches, and you will get more good from the making of them. For your sketching is an important matter to your painting. You do not learn how to paint by sketching; but you can learn a great many things, and some of them you can learn no other way. A sketch is not a picture; neither is it a study. Each of these things has its special purpose and function, and its proper character.

A sketch is always a note of an idea—an idea seen or conceived. Everything is sacrificed in the sketch to the noting of that idea. One idea only, in one sketch; more ideas, more sketches.

There are two kinds of sketches: those made from nature to seize an effect of some sort; and those made to work out or express tersely some composition or scheme of color which you have in your mind. Both are of great use to the student as well as essential to the work of the artist.



The first conception of a picture is always embodied in the form of a sketch, and the artist will make as many sketches as he thinks of changes in his original idea. It is in this form that he works out his picture problem. He is troubled here by nothing but the one thing he has in mind at this time. It may be an arrangement of line or of mass. He changes and rearranges it as he pleases, not troubling himself in the least with exactness of drawing, of modelling, of color, nor of anything but that one of composition. It may be a scheme of color, and here again the spots of pigment only vaguely resemble the things they will later represent; now they are only composition of color to the painter, and everything bends to that. When this has been decided on, has been successfully worked out, then it is time enough to think of other things. And think of other things he does, before he makes his picture; but not in this sketch; in another sketch or other sketches, each with its own problem, or in studies which will furnish more material to be used later; or in the picture itself, where the problem is the unity of the various ideas within the great whole in the completed painting.

It is the sketch on which the picture rests for its singleness of purpose. No picture but begins in this way, whether it is afterwards built up on the same canvas or not. The sketch points the way. But all the preliminary sketches of a painting are not problems of composition or color; are not conceptions of the brain. There are suggestions received from nature which the painter perceives rather than conceives. Possibilities show themselves in these, but it is in the sketch that they first become tangible and stable. This is the sketch from nature, always the record of an impression, the note of an idea hinted by one fact or condition seen more sharply or clearly than any or all of the thousands which surrounded it at the moment.

The painter must always sketch from nature. Only by so doing can he be constantly in touch with her, and receive her suggestions unaffected by multitudinous facts. The sketch preserves for him the evanescent effects of nature, which the study would not so entirely, because not so simply, grasp. The sudden storm approaches; the fleeting cloud shadow; or the last gleam of afterglow; these, as well as the more permanent, but equally charming effects of mass against mass of wood and sky, or of meadow and hill, he can only store up for future use or reference in his sketches.

Main Idea Only.—In the making of the sketch, then, no problem should come in but that of the expression of the main idea,—no problem of drawing or of manipulation of color. To get the idea expressed in the most direct and immediate and convenient way, anything will do to sketch on or with; that which presents the least difficulty is the best. The matter of temperament, of course, comes in largely, and technical facility. That which you can use most freely, use in your sketching, and keep for other occasions the new means or medium. Use freely, if you can, black and white for whatever black and white will express, and pigment for all color effects. Oil for greatest certainty and facility of correction.

Quick Work.—Make your sketch at one sitting, or you will have something which is not a sketch. Work long enough, and it may be a study; but more than one sitting makes it neither one thing nor the other. To say nothing of the fact that the conditions are unlikely to be exactly the same again, you are almost sure on the second working to have lost the first impression,—the freshness and directness of purpose which the first impress gives; and this is the very heart of a sketch. You must never lose sight of what was the original purpose of it; never forget what it was which first made you want to paint it. No matter what else you get or do not get, if you lose this you lose all that can give it life or reality.

The very fact that you have limited yourself to one working makes you concentrate on that which first caught your attention, and that is what you want to seize.

Overworkings and after-paintings will only interfere with the directness and force with which this is expressed.

Remember that nature is never at rest. You must catch her on the wing, and the more quickly you do it the more vivid will be the effect.



"Nature is economical. She puts her lights and darks only where she needs them." Do the same, and use no more effort than will suffice to express that which is most important. The rest will come another time.

Try to keep things simple. Keep the impression of unity; have the sketch one thing only.

Express things as they look. As they look to you and at this time. How they seem to some one else, or seemed at some other time, is not to the point. What you know they are or may be will not help you, but only hinder you in a sketch. The more facts the worse, in sketching. Remember always what a sketch is for. Don't be beguiled into trying to make a picture of it, nor a study of it. Above all, don't try to make a clever thing of it. Make something sincere and purposeful of it, and have it as concise, as terse, as direct, and as expressive of one thing as you can.

Keep Looking.—Always keep your eyes open and your mind receptive; do not be always looking for reasons. Accept the charm as it presents itself; note it, if you have anything handy to express it with; if not, study it, and get something into your mind and memory from it. The simplest way of expressing it, and the simplest elements which cause it, you can study without the materials to preserve it, and you so keep your receptivity and quicken your power of observation.

Your sketch will be more quickly done, directly and more forcefully, if you map out the thing rather deliberately first with a few very exact lines and masses in some way: then you have a free mind to concentrate on the effect. A few values and masses well placed are the things you most want; you can almost always spare time to ensure their exactness by a few measurements and two or three rubs of color first. Of course if the sketch is of a passing gleam you can do nothing but get a few smudges of color. But get them true in value and in color relation; get the glow of it, or you will get nothing.

Canvases of a Size.—In sketching from nature, have the habit of using always the same sized canvases or panels. They pack better, and you learn to know your spaces, and so you do quicker and better work. Make them big enough to do free work on, yet small enough to cover easily, so that you lose no time in mere covering of surface. Ten inches by fourteen is plenty small enough, and fifteen by twenty large enough, for most persons. Suit yourself as to the size, but settle on a size, and stick to it. Nothing is more awkward and inconvenient than to have stacks of canvases of all sizes and shapes.

Always have plenty of sketching materials on hand. You will lose many a good effect which will pass while you are getting your kit ready.

In sketching, avoid details. When you want them, make a study of them. In a sketch they only interfere with frankness of expression. One or two details for the sake of accent only, may be admitted.

Make a frame with your hand, or, better, cut a square hole in a card, and look through it. Decide what is the essence of it, what is vital to the effect, and do that; concentrate on that. Put in what you need for the conveying of that, and leave out everything else.

Work Solidly.—Work in body color, and lay on your paint fully and freely. In getting an effect of light, don't be afraid of contrast either of value or of color. Paint loosely; get the vibration which results from half-mixed color. Don't flatten out the tone. Load the color if you want to. In twenty years you will wonder to see how smooth it has become.

Freedom and breadth give life to a sketch. Don't work close to your work. Don't bend over it. Use plenty of color, large brushes, and strike from the shoulder.



CHAPTER XXVII

THE STUDY

The qualities which make a good study are the reverse of those which make a good sketch. In the sketch all is sacrificed to the effect, or to the one thing which is its purpose. The study is what its name implies, and its purpose is not one thing, but many. In a study you put in everything which may be valuable. You store it with facts. You leave out nothing which you wish to put in. It is all material. You can take and leave in using it afterwards, as you could from nature. Of course every study has some main intention, but you must take the trouble to give everything that goes to the making of that.

A study is less of a picture than a sketch is. For unity of effect is vital to both a sketch and a picture. But this quality is of no essential value in a study—unless it be a study of unity. For you can make a study of anything, from a foreground weed to a detailed interior, from a bit of pebble to a cavalry charge.

But in a study of one thing you concentrate on that thing, you deliberately and carefully study everything in it, while in a sketch you work only for general effect. The study is the storehouse of facts to the painter. By it he assures himself of the literal truths he needs, collecting them as material in color or black and white, and as mental material by his mental understanding of them, only to be gained in this way.

In making a study you may work as long as you please, timing yourself by the difficulty and size of the thing you are studying. A study of an interior or a landscape may occupy a week or two; one of a simple object for some detail in a picture may be a matter of only a few hours. But in any work of this kind you should be deliberate, and remember that what you are doing is neither a sketch nor a picture, but the gathering of material which is to be useful, but which can be useful only so far as it is accurate.

In making studies, don't try for surface finish; get the facts, and leave all other qualities for the picture. Don't glaze and scumble, but work as directly as you can. Study the structure and texture of whatever you are doing. Understand it thoroughly as you go on, and search out whatever is not clear to you. This is no place for effects; nor for slighting or shirking. If you do not do work of this kind thoroughly, you might as well not do it at all—better; for you are at least not training yourself to be careless.

There are places where you may be careless, but the making of a study is not that place.

Take plenty of trouble with preliminaries. Get all your foundation work true. Have a good drawing, get the groundwork well laid in, and then build your superstructure of careful study.

Don't be afraid of over-exactness, nor of hardness and edginess here. All that is only an excess of precision, and it is just as well to have it. You can leave it out if you want to in your picture, but a groundwork of exactness is not to be despised.

Be exact also with your values. If your study is not sure of its values, it will weaken the results you should get from it later.

Make your studies in the same light as that which the picture will represent. You can paint a picture under any light you please if your studies give you the facts as to light and shade that the truth to nature requires; but studies made in one light for a picture representing another are useless to that picture.