Part 18

In the first place, they distract the eye, destroying the full bold outline of your groups, and, secondly, there is a comic element about them which it is rather difficult to avoid. When, as in many of Raffaelle’s Loggie, the whole of the figures which are raising their arms are seen, the effect is bad and trivial; but there is nothing particularly comical about it. When, however, an arm crops up here and there from the unseen figures of the background, it is difficult to avoid the ludicrous. Cases may occur when a whole forest of hands will have to be raised, as in an oath of allegiance; but here the action of raising the arms is inseparable from the subject.

My remarks apply only to upraised arms as indicative of wonder, joy, or grief.

All these hints about designing may appear to some of you rather far-fetched, but if ever you get experience in decorative painting, I think you will find they are not far from the truth.

The art of good grouping is not of spontaneous growth. You may have a general idea of how you are to fill your canvas or wall-space, and that idea may be a good one, but all the details of the groups have to be worked out bit by bit. A change in the attitude of one figure will be almost sure to entail a change in a good many others, and it often happens that, after giving yourself a good deal of trouble, you will have to go back to your first idea.

A conscientious and fastidious designer may be compared to an Arctic explorer picking his way in an ice-pack. He will have to saw through one ice-barrier, to blow up another with gunpowder, to circumvent a third, and when, after surmounting all these difficulties, he thinks his course clear and open water at hand, he may have to retrace his steps and seek some other channel.

I am perfectly aware that in painting small easel pictures all this groping after fine lines may be unnecessary, nay, even detrimental to the life-like spirit of the composition.

“Our own correspondent’s” sketches at the seat of war (if done on the spot, which I am afraid they not always are) will be not only more interesting but better composed than if he had sat at home and trusted to his imagination; but in this lecture I am not dealing with easel pictures and realistic subjects, and I repeat that in decorative figure-painting excellence can only be obtained by a continuous process of altering, modifying, adding, and omitting.

In the same way that the lines and general grouping of a picture should be arranged with a view to expressing the subject with dignity and grandeur, so the management of light and shade should tend toward the same end, and it is as impossible to lay down strict rules for light and shade as for outline designing. Didactic writers on art will tell you that the principal light ought to fall on the principal figure--

“Fair in the front in all the blaze of light, The hero of thy piece should meet the sight.”

Sir Joshua Reynolds remarks very justly on this piece of doggerel, that there is no necessity for the principal figure to be placed in the middle of the picture, or receive the principal light. He goes on to say that “this conduct, if always observed, would reduce the art of composition to too great a uniformity,” and that “it is sufficient if the place he holds, or the attention of the other figures to him, denote him the hero of the piece.”

In works which partake strongly of a decorative character this axiom about “Fair in the front in all the blaze of light” for the principal figure may be tolerably true, but in historical pictures something more unforeseen is wanted.

In the often-painted subject of the “Death of Cæsar,” I should be very much inclined to put the Cæsar in the shade, and the tyrannicides with their flashing daggers in the light. It appears to me that to throw a shade over the face of the prostrate emperor would somehow or other convey the idea of the shadow of death, which is overspreading him, and the reproachful “Et tu Bruté” would come with greater pathos from a figure half-veiled in shadow than from one in broad daylight. We will suppose now that instead of having the death of Cæsar to paint we have the “Stoning of St. Stephen.” The subject is analogous. The young man named Saul and the Jewish executioners of Stephen were not common assassins any more than the murderers of Cæsar. Shall we, therefore, adopt the same plan with the figure of Stephen as we did with that of Cæsar and put him in the shade? I say, Certainly not. Stephen was the first Christian martyr. We read that his face was as that of an angel, and he ought to be surrounded by an angelic halo of light, and this treatment need not be dictated by the text. We should come to the same conclusion simply on the grounds of pictorial fitness. Stephen was a voluntary martyr, and gloried in his own death. Cæsar was assassinated much against his will; and although we are told that he covered his face with his toga and died with dignity, yet he certainly cannot be called a martyr.

I have introduced these two subjects to show you how hopeless it is to attempt to lay down general rules such as old Du Fresnoy gives us in his poem on the art of painting. Every new theme you undertake to illustrate ought to have a treatment special to itself if you wish to produce a fresh and original picture. When the master of a vessel is starting on a voyage, he would not steer S. W. by W. ½ W. because that happened to be the course he steered the last time he was at sea, nor would he run up his skyscrapers and set his studding-sails because he carried all his light canvas the last voyage out.

He would consult his chart, the state of the tide, the direction of the wind, and act accordingly. In short, for this new voyage, the condition of the wind, tide, and barometer being new, he would give new orders to his mate and crew.

Substituting the brain for the master, the hand for the mate, and the brushes for the crew, we ought to set about our pictures much in the same way.

After giving the subject of light and shade a good deal of thought, it appears to me that there is only _one_ rule which invariably applies to all pictures, and that is, that there should be a uniform scale of tone throughout the work. The gradient, from light to shade, may be very steep as in Rembrandt, or very gentle as in P. Veronese, but this gradient or transition should not be abrupt in one part of the picture, and gentle in another. The whole work (whatever scale you adopt) should be homogeneous.

Sir. J. Reynolds and others have endeavored to ascertain the proportion of light to shade in the works of the old masters. I believe these experimental blots have been made rather with a view to black and white than legitimate light and shade; but whatever their object, I don’t think that any theory can be built up on them. I am convinced that what the old masters called the _chiaro-oscuro_ of their pictures was a matter of feeling, and sometimes of accident, but never of calculation.

Theorists often talk learnedly about secondary and tertiary lights, but the artist never dreamt of them. They are nothing more than the efforts he has made, and the means to which he has resorted, in order to connect the highest light of his principal group with the gloom of his background.

Rembrandt’s vigorous light and shade and Correggio’s luminous breadth ought to be ascribed to the natural idiosyncrasies of the painters, intensified probably by the conditions under which their works were executed. They were assuredly not the results of calculation or learning.

Modern artists are often credited by their critics with subtleties of which they are perfectly innocent. They introduce into their pictures certain harmonies of tone or color by a kind of pictorial instinct, but certainly not in obedience to theoretical laws.

In designing a composition of many figures, it is natural to begin with the principal group or centre of interest. When you have got this satisfactorily arranged, you proceed with the less important figures, and it is here that beginners (and some who are by no means beginners) often come to grief.

They get a fine action or a noble attitude for some accessory figure, and they are so much in love with it that they _must_ introduce it, whether it is in keeping with the principal group or not. It may (viewed as a single figure) be very good, and yet be injurious to the general harmony of the composition.

Recollect that accessory figures, however good in themselves, if they mar the general effect, ought to be sacrificed.

By so doing you will doubtless raise a cry of lamentation from your friends. They will say, “What _could_ have induced you to have scraped out that figure? Why, it was the best thing in the picture,” and so on. To which you might reply that you did not want it to be the best thing in the picture, and therefore you erased it.

It was this tendency to introduce some favorite figure where it was not wanted, which rather mars Raffaelle’s latest manner, as exemplified in the “Transfiguration,” and in the “Incendio del Borgo”; and what in Raffaelle was only an incipient tendency became a confirmed habit in the work of his imitators.

Sir J. Reynolds, in his discourses, is continually urging the student of composition to think how the old masters would have treated the subject he is engaged upon, and advises him to imitate their style and manner. Indeed, the sixth discourse is devoted entirely to this principle of imitation. Now, if we were vastly superior to M. Angelo, Raffaelle, and Titian, and held the same relative position to them that they did to their predecessors, I could understand our occasionally adopting their figures, after greatly improving them; but as we should not be likely to improve any figure we had appropriated, we had much better leave the old masters alone. Plagiarism, or, to use a plainer word, “stealing,” can only be excused when the plagiarist makes a better use of the property he has appropriated than the original possessor did.

Sir Joshua certainly says that you should “imitate,” and not copy servilely. Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, and if Philippino Lippi could have seen Raffaelle transferring _his_ St. Paul into the famous cartoon of the saint preaching at Athens, no doubt he would have felt flattered. But how about Raffaelle? Is it not true that this plagiarism on Raffaelle’s part detracts somewhat from his fame? Does not every one, on seeing the Carmine Chapel at Florence, and recognizing the familiar figure of St. Paul, think somewhat more of Philippino Lippi and somewhat less of Raffaelle? I believe that nothing can be more fatal to the career of an artist than _intentional_ imitation of another man’s work. I say “intentional,” because we are all more or less imitators quite unconsciously. We often confound a reminiscence of something we have seen in a picture with a reminiscence of nature, and so become unconscious imitators; but this is a very different thing from deliberately setting aside our own ideas and endeavoring to fancy what would be the ideas of some one else.

It may be argued that Sir J. Reynolds addressed his advice to students and not to mature artists, but the habit of imitating others, when once acquired, is not easily got rid of. A certain degree of excellence may doubtless be attained by following this method, provided the masters imitated are excellent, but, after all, it is only a kind of reflected light, and not to be compared to the electric light of original genius. Besides, the student who follows Sir Joshua’s advice may begin by honestly attempting to paint his pictures in the _style_ of Raffaelle without downright imitation of the figures, but he soon learns to adopt Raffaelle’s attitudes, Raffaelle’s expression, and even Raffaelle’s mannerisms. He becomes, in short, a mere copyist. If this be deplorable in the case of the imitator of Raffaelle, how much more deplorable is it to adopt the modes of thought and expression of an inferior master! It may be thought by some that in these lectures I often speak disrespectfully of the old masters, but it is certainly not my intention so to do. I have the greatest respect for many of them, though not for all; but I respect nature and truth still more, and it appears to me that the true artist should go to the fountain-head for his ideas and inspiration, and not to second-hand sources.

It may be answered that it is all very well saying that an artist should go to nature and rely on his own powers of creation and invention, but supposing he is relying on a broken reed; suppose he cudgels his brain in vain for ideas, what is he to do? In this case I should advise him, instead of borrowing from the old masters, that he should turn his attention to portrait-painting, landscape, or some branch of the profession where the creative and imaginative faculties are not much required. He may have great imitative power with a dexterous execution; he may be a charming colorist, or, again, he may be a refined and accomplished draughtsman, and yet be totally unable to give dramatic vitality to a scene he has not himself witnessed.

It has always been the fashion to apply the term “high art” to heroic or Scriptural figure-subjects, but I think there is almost as much high art in a noble portrait of Titian or a fine landscape by Claude as in any historical painting whatever. I object to the term altogether; but if it means any thing, it ought to mean a dignified and poetic view of nature, in contradistinction to a trivial or prosaic view. It ought certainly never to be applied to a pasticcio of the old masters, however plausible such an imitation may be.

In my opinion there is high art in Turner’s early pictures, because in them we get the man’s own poetic interpretation of nature, but in those works where he attempts to rival Claude I can see nothing but the labor of a skilful imitator.

I have wandered away from the proper subject of this lecture, and have but little time left; but before concluding I should wish to explain that although I am continually urging the extreme importance of _originality_ in painting, I do not mean forced singularity or oddity. I mean by the word, the expression of the painter’s own sober ideas. A sane man should produce sane work. It may not be very powerful, it may in no way recall Michael Angelo, but it will have qualities of its own. How charming, simple, and unaffected are Flaxman’s designs until he got inoculated with the Sistine Chapel lymph! After this inoculation we notice (at least I do) a great change for the worse in his compositions. To graft successfully, the parent stem ought to be of the same nature as the scion or graft. Now Flaxman’s nature was gentle, and very appreciative of beauty and grace. With such a nature he ought to have abstained from attempting the grand and the terrible.

If Flaxman erred in grafting Michael Angelo’s manner on his own, what shall we say about Blake? Flaxman was at any rate a good draughtsman, but Blake’s ignorance of the first principles of drawing makes his Michael Angelesque imitations simply ludicrous. The successful attempts which have been made of late years to rehabilitate Blake, and to elevate him into a kind of British Michael Angelo, make me almost despair of high art in this country. I do not wish to speak contemptuously of Blake as a poet, but in his pictures (even supposing he had grand ideas) I cannot accept the will for the deed. The frog in the fable had grand ideas when he wished to rival the ox in size, and yet he only made himself ridiculous. Were I to express all I think about the Blake revival, I could hardly confine myself to parliamentary language. I will, therefore, in closing my lecture, simply protest to the best of my power against this strange infatuation.

LECTURE XII.

COMPOSITION OF INCIDENT PICTURES.

In my last lecture I treated the art of composition as applied to decorative or semi-decorative work--of work intended rather to cover a given wall-space with noble and picturesque forms than to give a dramatic version of any particular incident. My present lecture will be devoted to the composition and arrangement of figure-pictures, whether Biblical, historical, or anecdotic, whose object is to represent in the most forcible way any given incident.

We are far more particular now about the arrangement, or what the French call the _mise en scène_, of a picture, than the old masters ever were. We may not be able to paint like Titian or Correggio, but we attempt an approximation to truth which they never did; and not only is a modern historical painter more truthful about the costumes of his personages and the architecture of his backgrounds, but in the disposition and action of his figures he honestly endeavors to represent the scene as it actually may have occurred. When I say that the modern painter does this, I mean that in my opinion he _ought_ to do it. I am quite aware that many artists prefer to look at nature through the spectacles of the old masters, but it appears to me that all art should be in some measure representative of the age in which it exists. When we come upon a Romanesque, Umbrian, Venetian, Flemish, or eighteenth-century work of art, we can tell at a glance to what period it belongs, and I think that our own time, being one of original thought and research, should in some measure be similarly reflected in our painting.

I have no objection to Gothic architects repeating in modern buildings the narrow staircases, the dim lighting, and other inconvenient peculiarities of the style.

Were they to give us large plate-glass windows and noble flights of steps, they would cease to be Gothic architects; but I don’t think that, however much we painters may admire the old masters, we ought to adopt their modes of composition when we know them to be the result of ignorance, error, or carelessness.

The present graphic method of treating figure-pictures is of quite modern growth, and the innovation extends to all kinds of subjects. Compare any of Giulio Romano’s, Rubens’, or Lebrun’s battle-pieces with those of Raffet, Horace Vernet, or, better still, De Neuville. How unreal the old masters appear!

Recall to mind the Romans of David and his school, and compare them with the best modern representations of Roman manners and customs. In the one case we may admire the noble drawing and even the classical lines of the composition, but we are never transported back to the scene; whereas in certain modern pictures we feel on much more intimate terms with the personages. We fancy we are actually a spectator at the Colosseum or a participator in a _fête intime_.

The realism of modern art is due partly to a greater knowledge of, and a greater attention to, costume, architecture, furniture, and all the properties of the stage on which we place our personages, but it is also due to our making truth a primary object.

An incident may be treated truthfully in fifty different ways, but some of these versions of it will be dull, some obscure, and some vulgar, and it is for the artist to select a rendering which, though perfectly truthful, shall be neither dull, obscure, nor vulgar. As soon as he loses sight of truth he ceases to be a realistic painter. He may produce a beautiful picture, but it will partake more or less of what I call semi-decorative work. It is sometimes very difficult to fix a boundary-line between realistic and decorative painting. To which class, for instance, belong the cartoons of Raffaelle? Although designed for tapestry, and therefore for decorative purposes, there is too much truth and reality about them to allow of their being classed among purely decorative works; whilst, on the other hand, we can hardly admit that they are like the scenes they are meant to represent.

The heads are Italian rather than Jewish or Oriental, and sometimes (as, for instance, in the “Miraculous Draught of Fishes”) pictorial liberties are taken which are quite inadmissible in realistic work.

I may here observe that in this lecture I shall not use the word realistic in the bad sense in which it has generally come to be used.

The term is now generally employed to designate some ugly or offensive piece of reality which is prominently thrust upon our notice by the artist; as when Quintin Matseys gives us wrinkled and abnormally ugly old men, or when a modern French painter throws all his talent into depicting the thick viscosity of a pool of arterial blood. Reality is only in rare instances repellent, and I can see no good reason for confining the word to these exceptional cases.

In historical, or what may be called incident pictures, the main object of the artist ought to be to tell his story forcibly, clearly, and pathetically.

We have seen that in work partaking of a decorative character the principal object of the designer should be to group his figures in a noble and picturesque manner, to attend to his drawing, and if possible to add the charm of agreeable color to his work.

In realistic historical painting he has something else to occupy his thoughts. He must by no means neglect the lines of his groups, he must avoid disagreeable angles, equidistant heads, convergent lines where they are not wanted, and all the other rocks and shoals on which many a composition has been wrecked, but in addition to this he must tell his story truthfully and clearly.

Much more latitude in the matter of arrangement may be allowed him than would be conceded to the painter of decorative subjects.

He may (if he thinks fit) huddle up all his figures into a corner of the canvas, or he may place them all in the centre, leaving the sides unoccupied.

In short, he may take great liberties with the laws of composition, provided always these liberties tend to assist in giving reality to the scene.

The more picturesque or melodramatic the subject, the more he may depart from the usual rules of composition.

Paul Delaroche was, I think, the first of the numerous cohort of modern painters who have striven to combine truthful sentiment with pictorial fitness, and of all his works the “Assassination of the Duc de Guise” is perhaps the most striking.

The arrangement of this picture is as dramatic as it is truthful. On one side of the picture we have the murdered duke lying on his back, stone dead. The group of assassins are quite separated from their victim, and are giving themselves no further trouble about him; and yet the greatest ignoramus, who knew nothing whatever about the story, would have no hesitation in divining it, so graphically is the incident told.

Again, if we recall to mind another and a better known picture by the same master, I mean that known as “Les Enfants d’Edouard,” we find the same subtle taste displayed.