Part 16

On the contrary, I should say, speaking generally, that they are too frivolous. Pictures are continually being painted which have little or no subject. The costumes of the period are pretty, the mild incident depicted happened, or might have happened, and these are quite sufficient reasons to many young artists for painting the picture.

I am far from saying that such a picture must be a bad one. It may be, and often is, charming in color, arrangement, and execution.

Indeed, the better the painting, the more one regrets that so much good work should be spent on so trivial an incident.

Before proceeding to what I have to say about the choice of a subject, I would impress upon you that I only profess to give you my own opinions.

If any student or young artist has a great fancy for a certain subject, the probability is that he will treat it better than he would one less congenial to him, and I should be very sorry to dissuade him from it. Indeed, I should be much pleased to find that he had a subject at all. If there is a rock ahead for the English school, it is a tendency to shirk the difficulties of composition.

Pictures representing single figures (mere models dressed up as men-at-arms, milk-maids, or Highland lassies) are much commoner now than they used to be. Of course, in the minor exhibitions of London one expects to find plenty of work of this class, but the preponderance of these subjectless figure-pictures is becoming very marked even at the Academy; and as lecturer on painting, I should be neglecting my duty if I failed to notice it. It may be that these pictures pay, but art is not a trade; and even from a commercial point of view, I would suggest that there is such a thing as over-stocking the market.

The whole domain of history, both sacred and profane, is open to the artist, besides which there are innumerable subjects which are not strictly historical, but are suggested by history. Finally, to those who prefer illustrating the poets, there are Homer, Dante, Shakespeare, and a whole host of more modern writers. Surely in such a vast quarry it cannot be difficult to dig out good subjects suitable to every mind. Many subjects are too hastily rejected because they have already been painted; when probably a new reading is very possible, or by slightly altering the moment chosen, the subject assumes another aspect.

In a former lecture I mentioned, as a familiar instance, the parable of the good Samaritan. Here is a trite and hackneyed subject enough. Every one has painted it, and yet it would be very possible, by altering the moment depicted, to give a new version of it.

Take the moment when the good Samaritan intrusts the wounded traveller to the care of the innkeeper, and leaves him money, adding that whatever more he may spend will be repaid him; and you have a capital subject, which has never, to my knowledge, been painted. Again, imagine the return of the Samaritan after a few days’ absence, and the gratitude of the injured man, now nearly restored to health, and you have another first-rate subject.

As an extreme example, take the “Holy Family.” How often has this subject been painted! Raffaelle alone painted it over thirty times, and I should think that there are at least a thousand original Holy Families in existence; and yet the subject seems to me as fresh as ever. The reason of this is, because it embodies the purest form of maternal love in the same way that the good Samaritan illustrates human kindness.

Maternal love and humanity are many-sided, and hence the subjects which illustrate them will be many-sided too.

Some artists shrink from taking known subjects from a laudable modesty. They could not think of entering into rivalry with Raffaelle or André del Sarto.

I deem this modesty unnecessary, provided they bestow on their work original thought and invention.

If they attempt to rival the _manner_ of the great masters, then they may be taxed with presumption, but no artist need be deterred from painting such subjects as the “Last Supper,” or the “Walk to Emmaus,” because many great masters have treated the same themes. I have probably said enough in defence of taking subjects which have already been painted, and will now attempt some classification of subjects suitable for the higher class of figure-pictures.

The term “Religious,” in connection with art, ought, I think, to be confined to those subjects in which Divine personages are introduced, or to those which embody some miracle. Thus “The Creation of Adam,” “The Holy Family,” “The Raising of Lazarus,” or “The Conversion of St. Paul,” would all come under the head of religious subjects; but I think the term misapplied when speaking of such subjects as “Hagar in the Desert,” “The Finding of Moses,” “Samson and Delilah,” etc., which have no religious element in them, although they are of course strictly Scriptural.

It is almost needless for me to remark that the Old and New Testament offer an inexhaustible field for pictorial illustration. The Bible is more read and better known than any other book in the world, and this alone would preëminently distinguish it as a source whence artists should derive subjects for their pictures; but besides this, the costumes from Noah down to St. Paul are simple and dignified, suggesting the highest style of art.

There are reasons which militate against young artists (or old ones either) attempting this highest class of religious subjects, the principal of which is the fear of failure; failure in this class being a much greater humiliation than in a lower walk of art. But there is also another good reason, and that is, the want of a market for their work.

Our churches do not, as a rule, purchase Biblical pictures, and our lay patrons of art naturally enough object to importing a “Crucifixion” or a “Noli me Tangere” into galleries and rooms full of mundane-subject pictures.

There seems, however, no reason why the second class of Scriptural subjects (those, I mean, which are simply historical or anecdotic) should not be more often painted than they are.

Of allegory and allegorical subjects I need hardly say any thing. For mere decorative purposes they may sometimes be eligible, but even then I think them quite out of date, and should be sorry to see a revival of the painted riddles which were so much the fashion in the time of Giotto and his followers.

Such semi-allegorical subjects as Reynolds’ “Garrick between Tragedy and Comedy” are permissible enough, because they are easily comprehended; but the allegories I object to are those which are totally incomprehensible without a page or two of letterpress to explain their meaning.

Mythology offers a much better field than allegory for decorative purposes. “Juno in her Peacock-drawn Car Ascending to Olympus,” “Orpheus and Eurydice,” “Prometheus Vinctus,” etc., etc., are all splendid subjects.

There is a _bourgeois_ objection to them on the ground that nobody now cares for Juno or any of the heathen gods and demi-gods; but I should like to ask these objectors if they think that any one cares now for the “Vicar of Wakefield” and his family, or for “Tom Jones” and his Sophia, and yet pictures illustrative of these old-fashioned novels are painted every day, and often meet with great success.

It is quite a mistake to suppose that in order to admire or appreciate pictures we _must_ take a lively interest in the biography of the _dramatis personæ_. Jove, Mars, Venus, and Hercules are of interest to us _now_, just as they probably were to the Athenians in the time of Phidias and Praxiteles, namely, as representatives of power, courage, beauty, and strength; and so long as these qualities are valued by the human race, so long will their personifications continue to be interesting.

Historical subjects may be divided into two classes:--

1. Those where the interest is solely derived from the rank or historical importance of the personages depicted.

2. Those which, from their nature, are dramatically interesting, independently of the names of the personages.

What are commonly called “official pictures” belong to the first class, such as coronations, royal marriages, and ceremonials of all descriptions. Such pictures as Terburg’s “Council of Trent,” and others of the same kind, belong to this category, because all the interest of the work lies in the faithful portraiture of the figures. Deprive the figures of their historical importance, and all interest in the subject (_as_ a subject) vanishes. Of course the picture may have technical excellences which may make it interesting and valuable, but this has nothing to do with the point at issue.

Any trivial incident from the domestic lives of Queen Elizabeth, Charles I, Cromwell, Frederick the Great, etc. (specimens of which are to be found in every exhibition), belong essentially to this class of subjects.

I would hardly class our old friend, “Alfred Minding the Cakes,” with these subjects, simply because he did _not_ mind them; and the contrast between the disguised monarch’s thoughtful and anxious look and the humble task to which he had been set is sufficiently interesting _per se_. Had he done his task cleverly, and toasted the muffins to a turn, this time-honored but apocryphal subject would have been a good specimen of the class I am speaking of.

The following are a few more subjects which will illustrate my meaning:--“Milton Dictating ‘Paradise Lost’ to his Daughters”; “Francis I Picking up Titian’s Brush”; “Sir Isaac Newton Watching an Apple Fall”; “Hampden Refusing to Pay Ship-money.” In all these and similar subjects you will observe that no human passions are concerned. The only reason for painting them at all is either because such famous men as Titian, Francis I, and Milton are engaged in them, or because they led to very important scientific and political consequences, as in the falling apple and the ship-money instances.

I would give as instances of the second class of historical subjects:--“The Death of Seneca”; “Charlemagne Crossing the Alps”; “Cæsar Landing in Britain”; “Queen Boadicea Haranguing the Iceni.”

These are all well known, and, indeed, rather hackneyed subjects, but they will serve as examples of what I mean. There is a certain dramatic quality about them which fits them for pictorial treatment, independently of the particular history attached to each; and these are, in my opinion, the best kind of historical subjects.

Events which do not concern the life of any particular person are also very pictorial, provided always there is plenty of the dramatic element in them:--“A Man Escaping to a City of Refuge”; “A Departure of Emigrants”; “A Rescue from Fire”; “Launching the Life-Boat”; “Return from Victory,” are all eminently suitable for painting, and yet there are no kings and queens, nor even distinguished statesmen, poets, or philosophers to be introduced. There are human interests of various kinds to be excited, and this is quite enough.

War episodes are always interesting. We do not care to know the exact spot or date of the engagement, we have no curiosity about the names of the combatants, nor even much about their nationality. The scene itself is sufficiently exciting without any accompanying explanation. It is true that there are plenty of highly uninteresting battle-pictures, but the fault lies with the treatment and not with the subject.

In selecting a subject, no matter whether from mythology, Scripture, history, fiction, or every-day life, care should be taken to choose one which has unity of action. There ought to be a story in your subject, but not more than _one_ story. In your secondary groups you may have separate action and by-play, but they ought somehow to be connected with the main story of the picture, and instead of distracting the attention from the subject, they ought rather to assist in concentrating it. Where there is more than one centre of interest in a picture, the effect, dramatically speaking, is weakened.

The old masters often disregarded the tolerably self-evident rule.

The famous Transfiguration picture of Raffaelle is a well-known instance in point. The interest is divided between the Transfiguration proper and the demoniac boy. Although some of the figures are pointing upward, yet the faces are all turned toward the demoniac, and he is certainly the principal focus of interest.

This blemish in Raffaelle’s picture is all the more unaccountable, as no mention is anywhere made of a demoniac having been present at the time; but the old masters (especially those of the German schools) abound in incongruities of this kind. I remember seeing somewhere a picture of the “Martyrdom of St. Lorenzo.”

The saint is about to be roasted alive, but the largest and most prominent figure in the picture is one of the executioners, who is making a horrible face, having got some of the smoke in his eye. The introduction of these irrelevant and grotesque episodes cannot be justified, however well they may be painted; and if it be granted that it is undesirable to _select_ a subject in which there is more than one centre of interest, how much more objectionable is it to _invent_ disturbing incidents which are not recorded in the text of the subject.

As an extreme instance of a bad selection of subject, I have always thought that nothing could beat Shakespeare’s “Seven Ages of Man.” The lines suggest seven distinct subjects having no connection whatever with each other. Each is very good of its kind; to attempt to amalgamate them all into one picture is quite absurd. The result is extremely unpleasant; suggesting a company of strolling players, each rehearsing his part, or perhaps the court-yard of a mediæval lunatic asylum.

In justice to Mulready I ought to mention that he did not _select_ “the seven ages of man” as a subject for his picture. He had the impossible task imposed upon him by a liberal but injudicious patron.

For decorative work (for a frieze, for instance) such subjects as the “seven ages of man” are well suited, because each “age” can be treated separately, forming as it were a picture of itself, the only bond of union between the seven being that the figures should be of the same proportion, and should be similar in style and execution.

Another good rule to observe in selecting a subject is to choose one which has illustrative action in it. What I mean by this is that the action of the figures should be sufficient to explain the subject. You cannot put words issuing from their mouths as is done in caricature, you must therefore explain your story by action and expression. We will take as examples two not dissimilar subjects. One shall be a meeting of conspirators, and the other a conference of philosophers. Of course, I don’t mean to insinuate that there is any analogy between philosophers and conspirators, but that in both cases we have five or six figures seated round a table. In the first we should represent our conspirators, in close conclave, leaning over the table with their heads near together, one or two perhaps grasping their daggers, another looking round anxiously--in short, it would be very evident from the expression and attitude of the figures that they were about some villainous work.

If we now turn to the other subject, the conference of philosophers, how are we to express the purport of their conversation? What facial muscles are called into play when men are talking metaphysics or expounding their theories of evolution? It is clear that, however exquisite the execution of the picture may be, the subject of it will be unintelligible, without explanation, and even with the necessary elucidation it will be inferior to the conspirators in dramatic interest.

The subject I gave you in the life-school some time ago (I mean Peter’s denial of Christ) is an eminently good one, because if properly treated it is impossible to mistake the meaning of the figures. The menacing interrogatory of the woman, Peter’s alarm for his personal safety, and the jeers of the soldiers who are sitting round the fire, are all well adapted for pictorial expression. Any one who had never read the New Testament, an unconverted Chinaman for instance, would say at once: “This young woman is taxing a middle-aged man with something he denies, but there is such downright assertion in her action and such fear mixed up with his denial, that the accusation, whatever it is, must be true.”

No subject can be called a really good one which requires a long explanation to make it intelligible. Thus subjects in which the figures are assuming characters which do not properly belong to them are unfit for painting. For example, in the “conspirators” just mentioned, it might very well have happened that to conceal their sinister designs they assumed the mask of joviality, but you should not select this particular phase of the story.

On the stage, this kind of make-believe is managed by an “aside.” The actor takes the audience into his confidence when he says, “Here comes the king, let us dissemble,” and accordingly for the next ten minutes or so you are to understand that he is not the obsequious sycophant he pretends to be, and lest by chance you should forget that he is dissembling, he will come forward and frown, clench his fist or point contemptuously over his shoulder at his fellow-actor, who, strangely enough, never seems to see these ominous gestures.

All this is understood and accepted on the stage, but it does not do in a picture. I would, therefore, advise you as much as possible to choose subjects which can be understood at a glance. Let your personages appear in their natural characters, and not assuming parts which do not belong to them.

Acts of mercy, such as clothing the naked, feeding the hungry, visiting the sick, etc., are all good subjects, because the meaning is explained directly by the action of the figures.

Speaking for myself, I have but little sympathy with subjects taken from works of fiction.

The artist who selects them for pictorial treatment seems to me to abnegate whatever creative power he may possess, and to become an illustrator or translator of other men’s thoughts. Homer, Dante, and Milton are of course exceptional poets. Their creations are heroic, and the personifications of their heroes would be either nude or sternly classical. Besides, they never descend to minute particulars, and the artist is left very much to his own invention. The more detail an author gives, and the more picturesque the detail, the less fitted are his works for figure-pictures. Scott and Dickens are eminently unpaintable; that is, it is a hopeless task to illustrate them. Pictures taken from their works are always disappointing. The Ivanhoes, the Mrs. Gamps, and the Pecksniffs of our imagination are always superior to their effigies on canvas, and this is more or less the case with the personages of Shakespeare, Cervantes, and Molière.

Costume has a great deal to do with the choice of a subject, and this, no doubt, is the reason why the works of Shakespeare, Cervantes, and Molière are such favorite hunting-grounds for artists. If the Prince of Denmark had been a modern heir-apparent, attired in a frock coat, tweed trousers, and a chimney-pot hat, or if Malvolio had worn the dress of an ordinary British butler, we should not often see them painted.

For one picture taken from Thackeray’s modern novels, we find dozens illustrating Tennyson’s “Idyls of the King,” or his “Holy Grail.”

Now, although the question of costume must always be an important factor in the selection of a subject, it ought not to be the only one. A picture should not be painted _merely_ for the sake of the costumes. This seemed to me the principal fault in the large Austrian pictures of the International Exhibition; and I may add that it is a fault which is not altogether unknown in England.

There is one more class of subjects which I have not yet noticed, and that is the domestic or “genre” class; the pictures, in short, of every-day life. Pictures of this kind are much less dependent on a good choice of subject than those which illustrate some historical incident. They are generally prized for the brilliancy and harmony of their color, or for the delicacy of their execution; and if these qualities exist in a high degree, the subject is a minor consideration.

Still it ought to be a consideration, and in choosing subjects of this class you should prefer those which are typical of the personages you have to represent. If you attempt rustic pictures, not only should your figures look like peasants, but the subject should be thoroughly bucolic.

A dirty ploughman plodding wearily homeward along a muddy lane on a dull November evening seems commonplace and prosaic enough, and yet the subject would not be deficient in pictorial interest. It would be typical of the man’s hard and comfortless life. It would be in perfect harmony with his furrowed face, his bony limbs, and his stooping gait.

It would not only represent that particular ploughman in that particular lane, but it would give a true though mournful impression of farm-laborers generally.

I should much prefer for the subject of a picture, a common episode from the life of a laborer to an uncommon one.

Again, if I wished to represent the same man at home, I should endeavor, without exaggeration, to give the squalor of his surroundings, and should not, out of my inner consciousness, evolve an ideal peasant surrounded by a comely family, and looking (as Dickens has somewhere said) as if he had “spent his little All in soap.”

Artists understand pretty well nowadays that in painting rustic subjects, honesty is the best policy. The great success of the French painter, Millet, was due entirely to his uncompromising honesty of purpose, and to the unerring judgment with which he selected his subjects.

There _are_ pretty girls (even in France) amongst the peasant class, although they are certainly rare. There are plenty of _fête_ days when every woman makes herself as smart as she can; but Millet knew better than to paint pretty girls and smart dresses. Instead of this, he depicted the true types of French peasantry, gaunt, hard-featured women, dressed in the coarsest garments, and shod with wooden sabots. The novelty of truth was unwelcome at first to the Parisian public. They had so long been accustomed to Opera Comique peasants that they had lost relish for the genuine article; but by degrees they began to perceive that these uncouth figures were very like the Jeannes and the Victoires they knew _à la campagne_. Moreover, they did not fail to observe that the subjects chosen by the artist were of that homely, agricultural kind peculiar to the French peasantry. They smelt of the village dunghill, and this was the great secret of their success.

I am often told by people who don’t know much about art, that they have thought of “such a capital subject for a picture,” and it generally turns out to be something odd or incongruous, and not at all fitted for painting. For several years we have had pictures sent in for exhibition, representing children playing at judge and jury, police-courts, auctions, etc. In these pictures the children are all dressed up to represent policemen, barristers, plaintiffs, and defendants. Moreover, they have so thoroughly learned their parts that their action is no longer childlike. Some of these pictures are very well painted, but the principle is so wrong and false that we now invariably refuse them admission.

Children should, in a picture, be engaged on something childlike. Thus it would be perfectly natural for children to play at being wild beasts, making use of any bear or wolf skin which happened to be handy. Coach-and-horses, hen-and-chickens, are again legitimate games for children, and therefore proper for painting; but in the arts we don’t want elaborately got-up burlesque.