Part 15

He has now two working drawings to guide him, viz., his original nude study, and the study from the draped model. Having thus as it were laid his foundations, he may drape his lay figure and paint direct from it on to his picture, taking care (as he proceeds) to correct the form from his preliminary studies. He will thus be doing sound, honest work, and, even if dissatisfied with his finished drapery, he has always his studies to fall back upon.

Some artists, especially French and Italians, make a great use of photography, and, if kept within bounds, I see no objection whatever to the practice. It would hardly be legitimate art to dress up and pose a number of models and have them photographed with the intention of transferring the group to canvas, but it is perfectly allowable to call in the aid of photography for draperies or costumes, where, from the action of the figures, it would be impracticable to draw the folds from nature.

All portrait-painters know that it is not easy to get ladies and gentlemen to sit for their clothes, and it is far better to get help from a good photograph than from a model or a lay figure whom the clothes do not fit. I have no doubt that if photography had been known in the time of Raffaelle he would have largely availed himself of it. He often copied whole figures from his predecessors, and this is certainly more reprehensible.

I now approach the vexed question as to how far the draperies, background, and accessory parts of a picture should be finished without detracting from the heads.

Most of you will doubtless recollect the passage in Sir Joshua’s discourses where, speaking of drapery, he says: “It is the inferior style that marks the variety of stuffs. With the historical painter the clothing is neither woollen, nor linen, nor silk, nor satin nor velvet: it is drapery, nothing more.”

I would fain believe that Sir Joshua meant to say that it was beneath the dignity of high art to trouble itself with surface texture, in which case I should certainly agree with him; but I am afraid this is hardly what he _did_ mean. However that may be, it is certainly not the inferior style which by intelligent arrangement and careful study of the folds expresses the nature and quality of the various stuffs. How is it possible (using Sir Joshua’s own words) to “dispose the drapery with the nicest judgment, and to copy it carefully,” without clearly expressing the material out of which it is made?

Satin and velvet are very seldom wanted in pictures of subjects taken from the Bible, ancient history, or mythology. The figures should be clothed in woollen or linen stuffs, and without descending to minute imitation of texture, the nature of these garments should be clearly expressed.

If in Raffaelle’s frescoes, and in the works of the Roman school generally, we are in doubt as to whether the draperies are meant for wool, linen, or silk, it is because their folds were _not_ “studied with the greatest care,” and often _not_ “disposed with the nicest judgment.” In many of Raffaelle’s works, and particularly in those of Giulio Romano, we feel that the draperies are wholly imaginary, and hence the vague uncertainty as to the material.

This uncertainty, instead of being a quality to be imitated, appears to me as a blemish to be avoided.

In the highest style of landscape-painting, again, although it would doubtless be absurd for the artist to elaborate his foliage leaf by leaf, yet there would be nothing beneath the dignity of his art in faithfully giving the general characteristics of the oak, the beech, the ash, the bay, and the olive, so that each species should be distinctly recognized in the picture.

I am quite aware that in many classical landscapes by Poussin and the old masters, it is difficult to specify the kind of trees they contain, but the botanical uncertainty in which we are left, instead of enhancing the merit of the work, rather lessens it.

I remember going through an Italian gallery with a mixed company, and coming upon a magnificent Titianesque landscape.

This arrested the attention of all the party, and was greatly admired, until some botanical Philistine asked what kind of trees the artist had meant to represent. We none of us could tell; I thought they were evergreen oaks, another said they were elms, a third apple-trees, and so on; but we were all in doubt.

“Well,” says the questioner, “it cannot be much of a picture if the trees are done so badly that no one can tell what they are.”

Our Philistine was no doubt wrong, but, at the same time, the work would have been all the better, and would have lost none of its imposing grandeur if the specific characters of the trees had been given with greater care.

I am glad to note that almost all modern landscape-painters are fully alive to the fact that a tree is not merely a tree, but a particular species of tree, and that the species can be thoroughly indicated without in any way lessening the grand character of the work.

To return to draperies and costumes.

The artists of the Byzantine and Romanesque periods used to paint their heads of a conventional and very ugly type, without any attempt at individuality, and bestow all their care on the draperies, nimbi, and accessory parts, often enriching their work with real jewels.

This fashion, which was rampant in the Byzantine period, began to wane in the fourteenth century, but lingered on almost till Leonardo da Vinci’s time.

During what may be called the golden age of art (that is, from Leonardo’s time down to Poussin’s) the proper balance of finish between flesh and drapery seems to have been well observed, but in the last century (especially in this country) the artists of the time reversed the practice of the old Byzantine painters; that is, they painted the heads of the sitters as well as they could, and left the dress and accessories to be put in by their assistants.

Bad as the flesh-painting was, the treatment of the dress was still more slovenly and inartistic. The apologists for this style of work say that the head is everything in a portrait, and that no one cares about the dress and background, but this was certainly not the opinion of the old masters. To take a familiar example. Is not the head of Gavartius greatly improved by the exquisitely-painted frill which surrounds it? Or, again, is not the life-like flesh in Bordoni’s female portrait rendered still more life-like by the gorgeous color and masterly execution of the crimson dress?

Our National Gallery teems with examples of the same kind, where judicious finish of the accessory parts assists rather than mars the effect of the flesh-painting.

I do not wish to be understood as insisting that in all cases the dress and background should be as much finished as the heads, but there is a great difference between unfinished work and bad work, and it is this difference which the advocates for neglecting accessories seem unable to understand. I do not find fault with a certain charming unfinished portrait group by Rubens in the Louvre, because the accessory parts are merely indicated, but I _should_ find fault with it if they were clumsily and inartistically painted. The kind of work I am protesting against is that which is often noticeable in portraits of the Gainsborough and Lawrence schools, where the shoulders and hands are quite shapeless, and the folds of the dress utterly impossible.

It is very refreshing to me to emerge from a gallery containing pictures of this class, and to enter one devoted to pictures of the Dutch school. I feel as if I had reached _terra firma_ after floundering about in a quagmire. We never find a want of intelligent and careful drawing in the hands and dresses of portraits by Rembrandt, Van der Heist, Franz Hals, Terburg, and all the other masters of the school.

It may be objected that I am deprecating a fault which no longer exists, that my expressions of antipathy to a slovenly treatment of the accessory parts of a picture are out of date, and that the commonplace, simpering full-lengths of fifty years ago, with their impossible shoulders and badly-drawn hands, are no longer seen in an Academy exhibition. I am quite willing to grant this, but it does not follow that because this pseudo-Lawrence sort of work is no longer seen on the walls of the Academy, that therefore it is defunct.

There is a large and ever-increasing class of young artists who are treading in the footsteps of the old masters, who grudge no time and spare no pains in the study of their hands, costumes, and every thing which will give finish and completeness to their work; but, on the other hand, there are still many who, to save themselves trouble, and perhaps misled by the present extraordinary popularity of Gainsborough, are satisfied with the most careless and weak treatment of all accessories in their pictures.

That these pictures are not often seen on the Academy walls is due to the rejecting power of the Council, and not to the non-existence of their authors.

* * * * *

Having thus, I trust, given you to understand that by the word “finish” I mean something quite different from mere smoothness or polish, I will now give you a few hints as to how the work of finishing a picture is to be accomplished.

It was the habit of Horace Vernet to make a very rough pen-and-ink sketch for his elaborate battle-pieces. He would then, without further preamble, have his models, and paint direct from them on to the blank canvas, finishing every thing as he went on.

When the whole canvas was covered, the picture was finished.

I remember, on one occasion, he painted a most gorgeous Arab saddle, holsters, stirrups, and all, and several weeks afterward painted the horse which bore it.

Cocked-hats, kepis, etc., he would knock off by the dozen, and then, when he could get his trooper models, he would paint the wearers. He was always, in the matter of finish, putting the cart before the horse. I don’t think that he did this intentionally, but he was of an impatient nature, and could not bear to sit idle, waiting for his sitters.

He was not a great colorist, like his contemporary Delacroix, nor a great draughtsman, like Flandrin, but his pictures have a manly, business-like look about them, and a homogeneous quality which is perfectly marvellous, considering the heterodox way in which they were put together.

No living artist, and probably none that ever lived, could have taken such liberties with his _modus operandi_ without the most disastrous results; and I feel sure that no one present here to-night would think of painting a figure-picture in this haphazard fashion.

Supposing the subject of the picture to be the time-honored one of “King John Signing Magna Charta.”

Instead of (like Vernet) beginning by painting a mediæval inkstand, and then perhaps doing a bit of tapestry background, proceeding onward toward the figures, the proper process would be to get the figures done first, and finish with the accessory parts.

I will assume, therefore, that this has been done, that the composition of the groups has been thoroughly studied, that a colored sketch has been made, and that each individual figure has been carefully studied from nature. The picture, however, after all this work, would probably be far from finished.

The general effect would have to be revised; certain portions which had cost hours, and even days of labor, would have to be sacrificed; other important parts, such as heads and hands, to be altered. Finally, the general scheme of color, which was pleasing enough in the sketch, but had somehow deteriorated in the picture, would have to be attended to.

A conscientious artist has often great difficulty in knowing _when_ his picture may be called finished.

Some men will carry their striving after perfection too far, and waste their time over really trivial details, or, like Penelope, be always undoing their previous day’s work. This is, no doubt, better than being too easily satisfied, but these vacillating artists should recollect that alterations are not always improvements.

On the whole, I think it may be safely said, that when the artist has fully carried out on the larger scale the intentions of his sketch, his work may be said to be done.

By the word “fully” I mean that each figure should be executed in such a way as to give force and pathos to his version of the subject. In the designing of hands, for instance, there are fifty ways (to return to our King John) of holding a pen. He should not hold it as if he were writing “Yours truly”; he should betray unwillingness mixed with fear both in his face and his hands.

The burly barons, again, should not appear to be inviting their monarch to kindly sign his name. Their hands ought to express a resolve that he _should_ sign it, and in their muscular knotty fingers should be indicated a foreshadowing of the consequences if he refused.

Attention to all these points is what constitutes “finish” rather than the elaboration of detail.

My master, Paul Delaroche, was a great adept at this dramatic completeness; indeed, it was this quality alone which earned him his reputation. His drawing was sound and correct, but nothing more; his color was generally inky and cold, but the dramatic force and truthfulness of his figures were quite enough to insure him a very high place amongst the artists of the nineteenth century.

When he was painting his well-known “Napoleon after Waterloo,” he wanted a pair of muddy boots. Some artists would have thought the mud-splashes of no importance whatever, and would have daubed them in at random; others, more careful, would have made their model put the boots on, and sent him for a walk in the muddy streets; but Delaroche, reflecting that boots are differently splashed after riding to what they are after walking, hired a horse, and got one of his pupils to don the jackboots, and take a good gallop across the plain St. Denis. The boots were splashed to perfection, and it did not take the master long to do them full justice.

Intelligent brain-work is of a higher order of excellence, and contributes more largely toward the completion of a work of art than mere execution. I am far from underrating executive skill, but the term is rather an elastic one, and generally includes good drawing and good color as well. Taken in its restricted sense, as meaning merely brilliant manual dexterity, I hold it to be of but little value. Of course a certain amount of dexterity is necessary, otherwise a fine sense of form could not be adequately expressed. If Leonardo and Raffaelle had not possessed considerable manipulative skill, they could not have produced a “Last Supper” and a “Madonna de S. Sisto.” Where would Holbein have been if he had not had great precision of touch as well as the keenest perception of form? Every painter should have sufficient power in his hand to give expression to what he feels, but this is not the kind of manual dexterity to which I have said I attach little importance. I mean the showy, impudent kind of work of which there are always numerous examples in foreign exhibitions--the kind of work which is too common amongst modern Italian painters, and which seems to be rampant in the Austrian capital.

To return to my subject, namely, the finishing of a picture. I would advise all young artists to beware of making alterations either in the composition or in the scheme of color of their pictures, when they are in an advanced state. A very slight change often brings in its wake many others, and gets the whole work into a muddle. Observations about incorrect drawing or faulty proportions are always valuable, as these imperfections can be remedied without disturbing the rest of the picture, but beware of suggestions which may in any way affect the general scheme of coloring.

Thus, if it is suggested to you that a certain mass of white drapery would be better dark, and you happen to agree with the suggestion, do not be in a hurry to carry out the change. Try the effect with charcoal or water-color first, and if the result does not please you, no harm has been done. Even if it _does_ please you, you should make a large allowance for the charm of novelty. You have had your picture before your eyes for a long time, and the change may be agreeable to you at first sight; and yet, if you carry it out, you may repent. Of course, if you do not agree with the suggestion, dismiss it from your minds.

The man who listens to every piece of advice that is given him will never finish his work. You probably all know the story of the artist with many candid friends, who got so bewildered by their criticisms that he provided a large piece of chalk and requested each of them to mark the part he desired altered. By the end of the day the surface of the picture was like a section of a chalk-pit.

A long experience has taught me that nothing ought to be left undone in the hope of retouching the picture on the so-called varnishing days. Such anticipations are almost always illusory; and it does not matter whether you have one or three days for retouching.

It often happens that one would like to have the picture home again and repaint it, but the few changes one has time to make during the purgatorial varnishing time are so trifling, that, except to the artist himself, they do not affect the general appearance of the picture, and they often interfere considerably with the rubbing-in of medium or some temporary varnish, which is generally indispensable for the exhibition of pictures painted with the ordinary materials.

As the professorship of sculpture is still vacant, I am not trespassing on any one’s ground if I say a word or two about finish in sculpture.

In this art, even more than in painting, excessive smoothness is too often mistaken for high finish.

The sculptors of the female figure especially, are too prone to efface (even in the clay) details which ought to be carefully preserved; and after the figure has been cast in plaster, the work of polishing goes on with file and sand-paper, until the few touches of nature which had been left are effaced.

The great mischief, however, is usually done when the plaster is copied into marble. The paid statuary who does this work strives to give still greater roundness to the already smooth and rounded limbs, and he generally succeeds too well. When the marble is ready for the finishing-touches of the sculptor, he sometimes endeavors to regain a little of the natural element, but generally he consoles himself with the reflection that high art is incompatible with detail, and so his Venus or nymph leaves his studio for the exhibition or the patron’s gallery, there to be admired as a model of beautiful carving and of exquisite taste; of the former, on account of its soft, boneless appearance; and of the latter, because, though a nude figure, there is no reminiscence of nature about it.

There is less of this kind of insipid sculpture now than formerly.

Terra cotta, which, as every one knows, is the direct impression of the artist’s modelling, has to a great extent supplanted marble, and the smooth pseudo-classical nymphs of forty years ago are rather out of favor.

French sculptors of the nude have, in their horror of smoothness, gone into the opposite extreme; and, thinking to give more realism to their work, have adopted a coarse granular style of modelling for their surface texture. I question, however, whether this new fashion at all meets the objection every artist must entertain toward the old style of work.

Even supposing we grant that, in nature, the skin is of a granular hummocky texture, such as we see in the plaster statues by Carpeaux and his school, I cannot allow that any thing is gained by this piece of realism.

Carpeaux himself was a man of genius, and in _his_ work, nature (though not of a very beautiful kind) is apparent everywhere; but his imitators, like most imitators, copy his eccentricities rather than his good qualities.

The real objection to the work of the Canova school of sculpture is not that the surface is unlike the human skin, but that unintelligent carving and excessive polishing tend to obliterate all character and individuality of form.

This objection can only be met by sculptors aiming at a more discriminating perception of form, as well as what (from want of a better word) I may call a more conservative style of execution.

The excellence of the masterpieces of antiquity does not lie either in their smoothness or in their surface texture, but in the beauty of their proportions, and in the thorough though never obtrusive knowledge of anatomy displayed in the modelling of every part.

These qualities, in sculpture as well as in drawing, are what constitute “finish,” and not mere surface polishing on the one hand, or on the other a coarse imitation of the cellular tissue of the skin.

LECTURE X.

ON THE CHOICE OF A SUBJECT.

Before beginning to treat of the composition of a picture, I should like to make some remarks on the choice of a subject. Of course, no rule can be laid down in this matter. What strikes one artist as being a very good subject will appear totally uninteresting to another. It is, perhaps, fortunate that this should be so. The taste of the general public is at least as varied as that of the profession, and thus every one can be suited. I remember an old gentleman who has now been dead many years, but who in his day was a great patron of artists, telling me that he preferred pictures with little or no subject in them. He liked what he called nice “satiny” bits of painting, and the less story there was in them to distract his attention from the “satiny” painting the better. I fancy that this want of appreciation of composition is more common than is generally supposed. For one person who notices the skill shown in the general arrangement of a picture, fifty will be found to admire its color and execution.

Now I do not wish in any way to depreciate the charm of harmonious color and brilliant execution. Of all qualities in painting they are, perhaps, the most captivating; but they are not the alpha and omega of art. I purpose, therefore, to devote several lectures to the study of composition, and acting in conformity with the precept about “first catching your hare before you proceed to cook it,” we will this evening review the various kinds of subjects generally chosen by artists.

In my lecture on the International Exhibition, I mentioned with disapproval a certain class of subjects much affected by the modern French school. The artists seem to have ransacked history for every incident that was most loathsome and horrible. I am not at all squeamish, and should not object to blood and torture occasionally, but it is the morbid treatment of these ghastly subjects and their frequency which are offensive.

Perhaps it is hardly necessary to caution English students against painting death and putrefaction. They generally have a laudable desire to sell their pictures, and this desire would naturally tend to keep their subjects sweet. Some letters on the dismal tendency of modern British art appeared in the _Times_ last autumn, and certainly I am not prepared to say that the writers were wholly in the wrong.

But if they had had an opportunity of comparing our school with the French, I think the letters would not have been written. Why, our deathbed scenes, funerals, etc., are positively cheerful, compared with the sensational pictures of a French exhibition. No; whatever the faults of English pictures may be, I don’t think the subjects can be called dismal.