Chapter 24

If there be a basis of reliance for continuous life and consequent value, a search for the living principle must be made in those works which the world will not let die. And this labor will be aided by the exclusion of such as have had their day and passed. Although the verdict suggested in the fostering care of the people or in its lack, may be wrong, as future ages may show, yet for us in our inquiry in the twentieth century this jury is our only court of appeal and its dictum must be final.

We command a view of the long line of art unfolding as a river flows, in winding course from meagre sources, and through untoward obstructions into a natural bed which awaits it, now deep and swollen, now slender, now graceful, now turbid, here breaking into smaller threads stretching into opposed directions, here again uniting and deepening, and we mark in all of its variety of course and depth, the narrow line of the channel. A slender line there is touching hands through all generations from the painters of the twilight of Art to the painters of the present who have seen all of its light and for whom too much of its brilliancy has proved bewildering. The history of art is perforce full of the chronicles of unfruitful effort and the galleries as replete with unprofitable pictures. Our ardent though rapid quest will, unaided by the catalogue, discover for us the real, and sift it free of the spurious if we have settled with ourselves what art _is_ and what its purpose. If we hold to the present popular notion that art is imitation, the results will come out at variance with the popular opinion of five centuries. If, on the other hand, we delegate to its proper place fidelity to the surface of nature, we must of necessity seek still further for its essence. This is subjective and not objective.

To make apparent a statement the edge of which strikes dull from much use in purely philosophical lingo, let us take the case of a picture representing a laborer with his horse. The idea for the expression of which the few elements of field, man and beast, are employed is _Toil._ Whether then the man and beast be in actual labor or not, the dominant idea in the artist’s mind is that they are or have been laboring; that that is what they stand for, _that idea_ to be presented in the strongest possible way. “The strongest possible way” is the question to be debated. Individual artists interpret this as suits their temperament, the jury therefore sits in judgment upon the temperament as the exponent of “the strongest possible way.” With the idea of toil in mind one artist is moved to present its unadorned force, careful not to weaken the conception by the addition of anything superfluous or extraneous to the idea. Its force is therefore ideal force and the presentation appeals to and moves us on this basis. Another will see in the subject of a landscape, a man and a horse, an opportunity presented of detail and of surfaces and will delight in expressing what he knows to do cleverly. Under this impulse the dexterity of his art is poured forth; the long training of the workshop aids him. He paints the horse and makes it look not only like a real horse, but a particular one. The bourgeois claps his hands exclaiming, “See it is unmistakably old Dobbin, the white spot on his fetlock is there and his tail ragged on the end; and the laborer, I know him at once. How true to life with side whiskers and that ugly cut across the forehead and his hat with the hole in it. The field too is all there, the stones, the weeds, the rows of stubble, nothing slighted. And the action of the light too, what a relief the figures possess, how like colored photographs they stand out, clear, sharp and unmistakable.”

A third artist, without sacrificing the individual character of the horse will yet represent him in such a way that one feels first the idea, of a laboring horse and afterward notes that he is a particular horse, and in like manner with the man of the picture. This artist’s conception lies midway between the two extremes and in consequence expresses greater truth than either. He poises himself on the magic line spanning the chasm between these opposing walls, supported by the balancing pole of the real and ideal, lightly gripped in the centre.

But to return to the first in the spirit of nature-love and truth to prove if it be worthy. Judged on this scale does it stand? Coordinately with the idea of toil, does it violate the laws of the universe; do the surfaces thereof reflect the light of day; is the color probable; is the action possible? If under this scrutiny the work fails, its acceptable idealistic expression cannot save it.

It is here that the idealist pleads in vain for the painters of the groping periods of art, or for the pre-Raphaelites of the nineteenth century, who in their spirit beg that we accept their unctuous will for the deed completely wrought. When however they do fill the condition of natural aspect in its fundamental essence, in its condition of non-violation of physical law, when, uncompromised by such discrepancy, the presentment of the idea is complete and this alone engages us, the work by virtue of its higher motive takes higher rank in the scale of art than that in which the idea has been delegated to a place second to the shell which encloses it. It is the art which fulfills both requirements _with the idea paramount_ that has survived in all ages. The reverse order is not sustained by the history of art. Mark the line from the early masters to the present, do you not find the description includes “the idealists” _who could paint?_ The list would be a long and involved one, taking its start in Italy with Botticelli, Giotto, Fra Angelico, Raphael, Leonardo da Vinci, Michael Angelo, Andrea del Sarto, Fra Bartolomeo, Titian, Giorgione, and extending thence to our own time inclusive of Millet, Corot, Watts, Turner, Blake, Rousseau, Mauve, Puvis de Chavannes and Ryder—men of all complexions in art, and typical of many more quite as diverse in their subjects and modes of expression but who place the idea, the motive, the emotion, the type, before the thing depicted. For them the letter of the law killeth, but the spirit giveth life. This of course raises issue with the naturalistic school—a school which believes in rendering Nature as she is, without rearrangement, addition, substraction or idealization; a school presuming the artist to be a copyist, and founded not on the _principles of design,_ but the _love of nature._

Says W. J. Stillman in his impassioned polemic on “The Revival of Art”: “The painter whose devotion to nature is such that he never leaves or varies from her, may be, and likely is, a happier man than if he were a true artist...To men of the other type, the external image disturbs the ideal which is so complete that it admits no interference. To them she may offer suggestions, but lays down no law.”

The complaint of Turner that Nature so frequently _put him out_ contains for us what it should have expressed to Ruskin, the real attitude which he held toward nature, but which Ruskin in his enthusiastic love of nature did not, or would not perceive. What the master artist saw and utilized in nature were forms for his designs and sentiment for emotional expression. Yet the recorder of his labors followed after, verifying his findings with near-sighted scrutiny, lauding him with commendations for keen observation in noting rock fractures, the bark of trees, grass, or the precise shape of clouds, undismayed when his hero neglected all these if they interfered with his art.

The point of the argument as stated by the idealists can be understood only save through the element in our nature from which art draws its vitality. Its deduction is thus bluntly expressed; “the nearest to nature, the farther from art,” an apparent paradox paralleled by the epigram, “the nearer the church, the farther from God.”

Both of them, out of their hollow clamor, echo back a startling truth: Not _form,_ but _spirit._ Thus did Rembrandt work for the spirit of the man and _the art to be got_ from the waiting subject. Thus did Millet reveal in his representation of a single toiler the type of all labor. Thus did Corot stop, when he had produced the spirit of the morning, knowing well his nymphs would have vanished if the mystery of their hiding-places was entirely laid bare, nor ever come to him again had he exposed the full truth of form and feature.

It is the touch of poesy which has glorified these works and those of their kind, the spring of the unwritten law yielding preeminence to the emotional arts. Impulse is the life of it: it dies when short tethered by specific limitations.

On this basis the way seems opened to settle the changeful formulas of taste; why the rejection of what for the moment has held the pinnacle of popular favor; why, for instance, the waning of interest in the detailists of the brilliant French-Spanish School, the school of Fortuny, Madrazzo, Villegas, Rico, or of the work of Meissonier, who as a detailist eclipsed them all. A simple analysis of their work in toto will prove that their best pictures are those in which a sentiment has dominated and in which breadth and largeness of effect is strongest. Thus Meissonier’s “Return of Napoleon from Moscow,” is a better picture than his “Napoleon III surrounded by his staff in Sicily,” which latter is only a marvellous achievement at painting detail in the smallest possible size, and lacks entirely the forceful composition of mass and light and shade of the former. Thus does the “Spanish Marriage” of Fortuny outclass his “Academicians Choosing a Model,” which besides lacking the reserve force of the former has its source in flippant imagination; and so may the many other shifts of time and tide in the graphic arts be measured and chronicled upon the basis of the emotions and the formative touch of the poetic, upon the sequence of the artist’s regard for the ideal and the real, and the degree of his approach toward either. The concensus of the ages regarding finish, dexterity, cleverness, and _chic_ is that in the scale of art they weigh less than the simple breadth of effect which they so frequently interrupt. The school of Teniers with all of its detail was preservative of this.

It is on the question of detail and the careful anxiety concerning the surface that the art instinct avoids science, refusing her microscope in preference for the unaided impression of normal sight. The living art of the ages is that in which the painter is seen to be greater than his theme, in which we acknowledge the power first, and afterward the product. It is the unfettered mode allowing the greatest individualism of expression; it is, in short, the man end of it which lives, for his is the immortal life.

APPENDIX

The argument of the book is here reduced to a working basis.

The Concept

The first point settled in the making of a picture after the subject has germinated, is the shape into which the items of the concept are to be edited; the second is the arrangement of those items within the proscribed limits; the third is the defining of the dark and light masses. This consideration forces the question whence the light, together with its answer, hence the shadow.

The Procedure

The detail of the direction of light and the action of the shadows cuts the pictorial intention clear of the decorative design. Design is a good basis, its simplicity yielding favorably to the settlement of spaces and the construction of lines, but its chief purpose ends when it has cleared the field of little things and reduced the first conception, which usually comes as a bundle of items, to a broad and dignified foundation into which these little things are set.

Design

A severe, space-filling design in three tones or four will place the student in a position of confidence to proceed with detail which, until the design has settled well into its four sides, should be persistently excluded. It may, however, be found that the _essence_ of certain subjects lies in a small item of detail. This, when known, must be allowed for in the design.

Line

Of first importance in composition is the notion of Light and Dark, to which Line is second. In the tone design line is but the edge of the masses. Line as the basis of the form of the design is reduced to a few forms which with modifications become the framework for all pictorial structure. (See _Fundamental Forms._) Line as an element of beauty sufficient of itself to become subjective is rare, an exception in pictorial art. (See _Line_)

The æsthetics of Line must be comprehended and felt in its symbolism. The form into which lines may lead the subject should have the full knowledge of the composer.

The Vertical

The uplift of the _simple vertical_ is spiritual as well as mechanical. It may carry the thought to higher levels or may support therewith an opposed line. In either case its strength is majestic and in so far as this line dominates does the picture receive its quality.

The Horizontal

A group of pines or the columns of the Greek or Egyptian temple alike induce solemnity, quietude and dignity. The horizontal is a line less commanding than the vertical with its upright strength, the symbol of repose, serenity, and reserved motion.

The Diagonal

The _diagonal_ being an unsupported line naturally suggests instability, change, motion, transit. Its purpose frequently is to connect the stabler forms of the composition or lead therefrom.

The _curvilinear line_ is the basis of variety and graceful movement. As an adjunct, it assists the sequence of parts. In the latter capacity it is of great importance to the composer. It is of course the basis of the circle as well as the important notion of circular construction and observation.

Given the subject and means of expression the final labor is the restraint or enforcement of parts in the degree of their importance. This requires ingenuity and knowledge and frequently demands a reconstruction of the original scheme.

Principality and Sacrifice

The most absolute and the most important idea in the production of art is _Principality,_ that one object or idea shall be supreme. Its correlative idea contains in it the hardships of composition, namely, Sacrifice. This forces a graded scale of importance or attraction throughout the entire work.

The idea has complete exposition in the vase or baluster in which the commanding lines of the body find both support and extension through the lesser associated parts. These stand as types of complete art revealing the uncompromising principles of domination and subordination.

[Stable Interior--A. Mauve (A simple picture containing all the principles of composition); Her Last Moorings--From a Photograph]

In the picture, complete in its chiaroscuro, these principles are as easily apprehended as with the more tangible line and space of the solid form. The _“__Cow in a Stable,__”_ by Mauve, contains by his management of this rude and simple subject all the possibilities opened to and demanded by compositions involving many elements. It might stand as the light and dark scheme for some of the allegories of Rubens, Wiertz or Correggio, or for many genre interiors, or for an “arrangement” of flowers.

When once the importance of this principle is realized many of the pitfalls into which beginners are so prone to fall are covered, and that forever. Time and regrets are both saved to the student who will pause for the absorption of the few principles on which all the arts are founded.

This idea may seem to disturb the notion of balance across the centre, especially when the object which receives our first consideration occupies one side of the picture. A study of the postulates together with the principle of the steelyard and the knowledge of picture balance will clear any apprehension of conflict.

The Dominant Idea

Above and beyond the object which dominates all others is the idea which dominates the picture. Such may be light, gloom, space, action, passion, repose, communion, humor, or whatever has stimulated and therefore must govern the composition. If with the sentiment of Repose as subjective, the principal object expresses action, there must necessarily be conflict between the idea and the reality.

Action, however, may very appropriately be introduced into a conception of repose, its contrast heightening this emotion; the creeping baby, the frolicking kitten, the swinging pendulum, the distant toilers observed by a nearer group at rest.

The point where a counter emotion weakens and where it strengthens the idea is determined on a scale of degree, many necessary parts taking precedence thereto before the opposed sentiment shall attract us. These ideas, correlative to their principal, have also their scale of attraction, and only in the formal arrangement of allegory and decoration may two units be allowed the same degree of attraction. This is one of the most frequent forms in which weak composition develops, leaving the mind uncertain as to the sequence, and the eye wavering between the equal claims of separated parts. The neglect of leading lines, or of forcing a logical procedure from part to part, so that no part may escape the continuous inspection of all, produces _decomposition._ The avoidance of inharmony must of course yield harmony.

Harmony

Harmony, therefore, though a necessary principle in all art, does not push herself to the front as does Principality. She follows naturally, if allowed to.

The Must Be’s and May Be’s of Composition

Of the other _principles_, Consistency or breadth, Continuity and its complement, Contrast, associate themselves in greater or less degree with Principality and Harmony, which are the must be’s; while Repetition, Radiation, Curvature and Interchange are reckoned as the may be’s of composition.

Perspective

The basis of all plane presentation is founded on perspective, an absolute science giving absolute satisfaction to all who would have it. _Knowing_ that a figure must be of a certain height if it occupy a given space is often a shorter road to the fact even though it demand a perspective working plan than _feeling_ for it with the best of artistic intentions. One may feel all around the spot before finding it, and meanwhile the scientist has been saving his temper.

In all compositions demanding architectural environment or many figures, perspective becomes essential, at least as a time saver. Yet if the science never existed such art as embraces many figures and architecture could find adequate expression at the hands of the discerning artist.

The science of perspective does no more than acquaint the artist with any given angle. His knowledge of cause and effect in the universe, with an added art instinct, are equipment sufficient to obtain this.

No part of art expression commands more of the mysterious reverence of the _atechnic_ than perspective. It is that universal art term that includes very much to many people. When, after writing a thorough treatise on the subject, Mr. Ruskin remarked the essence of the whole thing can be known in twenty minutes, it was doubtless in rebuke of the unqualified suppositions of the artless public.

Balance

The conception of balance clearly understood in the length, the height and the depth of a picture contains the whole truth of pictorial composition. The elements which war against unity and which we seek to extract, reveal themselves as the disturbers of balance and are to be found when the principles of balance are put into motion.

Does divided interest vex us, the foreground absorbing so much interest that the background, where the real subject may lie, struggles in vain for its right; then we may know that the balance through the depth of the picture has been disturbed. Does the middle distance attract us too much in passing to the distance where the real subject may lie; then we may know that its attachment to the foreground or its sacrifice to the background is insufficient and that its shift in the right direction will restore balance. Do we feel that one side of the picture attracts our entire attention and the other side plays no part in the pictorial scheme, then we may know that the items of the lateral balance are wanting.

It is rare to find apart from formality a composition which develops to a finish in an orderly procedure. Once separated from the even balance the picture becomes a sequence of compromises, the conciliation of each new element by the reconstruction of what is already there or the introduction of the added item which unity necessitates.

The argument reminds the picture maker that he is in like case with the voyageur who loads his canoe, sensible of the exquisite poise which his craft demands. Along its keelson he lays the items of his draught, careful for instance that his light and bulky blanket on one side is balanced by the smaller items of heavier weight in opposed position. The bow under its load may be almost submerged and the onlooker ventures a warning. But again balance is restored when the seat at the other end is occupied as a final act in the calculation.(20)

The degree of attraction of objects in the balanced scheme must be a matter of individual decision as are many other applied principles in temperamental art.

Color representing the natural aspect of objects, color containing “tone,” and color containing tone quality or “tonal quality,” are three aspects of color to be met with in accepted art.

Color

As with the sentiment of the art idea, whether it incline toward the real or the ideal, so the distinction applies between what is reflective only of nature and what is reflective also of the artist’s temperament. It is a simple proposition in the scale of value and it works as truly when applied to color as to the art concept: the more of the man the better the art. Were it not so the color-photograph would have preeminence.

The first degree in the scale of color is represented by that sort which applied to canvas to imitate a surface seems satisfying to the artist as nature-color. The second degree is that in which the color is made to harmonize with all other colors of the picture on the basis of a given hue. This tonal harmony may fail to reveal itself in many subjects in nature or in such arrangements of objects as the still-life painter might and often does collect, and is therefore clearly a quality with which the artist endows his work. Such painters as Whistler and his following see to it that this tonality inheres in all subjects which may be governed in the composition of color (such as his “arrangements” in the studio), so that the production of this harmony results naturally by following the subject.

Tone

The color key is given in that selected hue which influences to a greater or less degree all the colors, even when these make violent departures in the scheme of harmony. Solicitous only of the quality of unified color, the majority of these painters (though this frequently does not include Mr. Whistler himself) concern themselves wholly with that thought, employing their pigment so directly that the _vibration_ of color is sacrificed.

The production of this vibration is by agreement on the part of all great colorists impossible through impasted color or that applied flatly to the surface, which they declare cannot be as powerful, as significant or as beautiful as that which vibrates, either by reason of the juxtaposition of color plainly seen, as with the impressionists, or of its broken tone, or by virtue of the influence of a transparent glaze of color which enables two colors to be seen at once.

The last method is that of Titian, the second in combination with the last that of Rembrandt in his latest and best period, the first that of Monet, which contains the principle of coloration in its scientific analysis. The chasm between these men is not known in any such degree as a superficial notion of their respective arts might presuppose. The real disparity in color presentation exists between all such painters and those who paint directly on white canvas, neglecting the influence of the undertone and the enrichment which enters into color by glazes (transparent color).

Such painters may be able to represent most faithfully the true tints of Nature but not the true impression, for Nature is always expressive of that depth and strength which lies far in and which the painter of “quality” insists to render. To him it is that something containing the last word of a thorough statement, and without it the statement is a surface one.

Technically, it may mean the labor of many repaintings, of color glazes, and of procedure from one process to another, so that the first statement on the canvas becomes the general but not the final dictum. Through these the work takes on that unctuousness of depth and strength by which one experiences the same thrill as through the deep reverberations of a musical tone from many instruments, simple tone being producible by one instrument. Practically, it is the pulsation of color in every part of the picture felt by either the play of one color through another or by such broken color as may be administered by a single brush stroke loaded with several colors or by a single color so dragged across another as to leave some of the under color existent.

Quality

Such technique produces the highest tonal quality. It cannot be supposed that Rembrandt glazed and repainted on his portraits for a lesser reason than to supply them with a quality which direct painting denied, nor that Frank Holl, of our own times, employed a like method _for the sake of being like Rembrandt._

Natural Color; Tonal Color, representing nature; and Tonality plus “Quality” (the last a vague term denoting depth and fullness of color) are three grades represented, the first by Meissonier in his _“__1807__”_, a picture devoid of tone; the second by the portraits of Alice, by Chase, and _Lady Archibald Campbell_, by Whistler; and the last or tonal quality, by the later works of George Fuller and Albert Ryder. Under these specified classes the lists of names in art are now lengthening and shortening, the indications of our present art pointing to a revival of the color quality of a former age.

[Alice--W.M. Chase (Verticals Diverted); Lady Archibald Campbell--Whistler (Verticals Obliterated); The Crucifixion--Amie Morot (Verticals Opposed)]

Don’ts

It was stated in the introduction that the commandments of this book would be the “must nots,” yet for him who apprehends principles, commandments do not exist. A few conclusions from the foregoing arguments may, however, be of service to beginners in the practice of composition.

Structures to be avoided are:—

Those in which the lines all run one way without opposition:

Those especially in which the bottom of the frame is paralleled:

Those in which the perspective of a line or the edge of a mass happens to be a vertical:

Those in which an opposing plane or attractive mass barricades the entrance of the picture:

Those in which two masses in different planes happen to be the same size:

Those in which objects of equal interest occur in the same picture:

Those in which an object awkwardly prolongs a line:

Those in which the line of the background duplicates the lines of the subject:

Those in which the picture is cut by lines too long continued in any direction:

Those in which radial lines fail to lead to a focal object:

Those in which the items of a picture fail to present a natural sequence:

Those in which the subject proper is not dignified by a conspicuous placement or is swamped by too attractive surroundings:

Those in which the most energetic forms of construction are not allied to the principal but to secondary parts of the picture:

Those formal compositions in which greater interest is shown at the sides than in the centre:

Those in which the aesthetic principle of the constructive form is antagonistic to the sentiment of the subject.