Part 7

There is no mechanism in painting; for those, who by a clever handling, possess this quality to the greatest perfection, are rarely found to excel in the higher realities of art.

It is to the _whole_--the absolute and entire impression--the disposition of pictorial matter and auxiliaries, that imply ability and power in their treatment.

Do not let the love of novelty induce you to leave the beaten path of excellence; for all endeavours to surprise and please by that which is uncommon or new, will be attended with defeat; a matter, oftener the result of idleness and caprice, than the striking effect of a mind well-regulated and devoted to study.

Style, manner, handling, are for the most part matters of tact, distinguishing one painter from another, quite as much as one man's manners are known from another's. Where the inferior and subordinate pursuit of skill in _handling_ or execution is aimed at, it tends universally to form a _mannerist_; and this is the greatest evil of our time. Instead of elevating the mind to the quality of the _whole_, it degenerates into an abject and curious species of imitation of the parts, or of some one thing in particular the artist feels he can do cleverly; sacrificing to this 'industrious idleness,' correctness of drawing, character, expression, and elevation of style. In a word, it is mechanics, and not art! Grandeur, sublimity, simplicity, all fly from this one evil.

Style comprehends the whole of a picture, in all its mysterious or simple workings--its moral character--its elevation, or its degeneracy.

Decision, spirit, and freedom of execution and expertness of handling, opposed to feeble uncertainty, have great charms, in common with all excellencies; yet, so delusive is this species of fascination, that it becomes imperious to be guarded against it. The _end_ must not be sacrificed to the means!

OF BACKGROUNDS.

'ONE of the principal and most important parts of painting, is the nature and quality of backgrounds;' from which any round or solid body is to detach itself; and this may be so contrived that both may be of the same colour; 'because the convex sides of solid bodies do not receive the light in the same manner as the ground does, being lighter or darker than the ground.'

Different colours, or degrees of light in the background, can alone separate the object from it. They will become more detached as they differ from the colour of the object to be relieved.

The greatest relief is acquired by a ground of a _neutral_, or undetermined colour. But the object that is to stand out from it, depends wholly on its light and shade for relief.

According to the ground which surround colours, they will appear different to their natures. Flesh will look palest on a red ground: and a pale colour, redder on a yellow ground: and so on, always deriving their character from the surrounding one.

If any object in a composition does not sufficiently assert its place, instead of heightening the colour of it, it is generally more advisable, as the case may be, to subdue the power of its background.

The outlines of figures should be sketched with either the shadow-colour, or the colour of the ground, on which they are laid; strengthening them according to their situations.

A very useful resource, in painting, is often to look at your picture in a looking-glass, whose reflection is a _copy_ of the picture; and the picture, being a _copy_ from nature, a kind of analogy is established: they are both on even superfices, and both give the idea of something _beyond_ their superfices. In viewing your picture in this manner, keep one eye shut: seeing from both eyes surround the objects too much.

Looking at your picture through the medium of a glass, blackened on one side, will, in divesting it of colour, show only its light and shade. This is a capital way of ascertaining if the latter is right.

In painting, it is a good plan to leave _all you can_ to the imagination! it is _flattering_ to the beholder; it gives him latitude for the exertion of his own mind; and _he_ will supply, better than _you_, what you wanted, entirely to his own satisfaction--and, of course, to yours: deprive him of this, and you seldom fail to imbue him with apathy. _His_ imagination assumes characters and forms of its own; you have set it painting: he _finishes_ your picture, and is happy, because he has had something to do with it; and he will not quarrel with you, lest he should blame himself.

Painting should possess 'brilliancy without gaudiness, solidity without harshness, truth without familiarity, and sweetness without insipidity; all conjoined in the greatest breadth of colour.'

If a work possess the known and admitted excellencies of painting, although in the smallest and most moderate degree, it will have the peculiar appearance of _looking well_, which the want of them would quite invest with another character. The _faults_ of a great mind, capable of the greatest beauties, will never appear to have a vulgar origin.

It is just possible a picture may possess no defects, nor any beauties; but he who thinks entirely for himself, will give to his work an appearance of originality; he will be consistent with _himself!_ even faults will appear with some lustre in those to whom they are quite natural.

In conclusion, jealously endeavour to ascertain if any thing has been admitted, or omitted, that, consistent with these rules, may prejudice the general harmony of the work in the _ensemble_.

If I have made use of any contradictory observations, it was because I was impressed with the usefulness of their application to the principle described; in which matter I may take shelter under the noblest authorities of the Italian, English, or French, who have written on art. I likewise trust I have said nothing the student will have to unlearn.

In a word, the grandest, the most exalted principle requires no more _time_ to become master of than the lowest and the worst! And, 'As no school ever excelled the Dutch--combining in itself all the excellencies of the Italian--painters should go to the Dutch and Flemish schools to learn the art of painting, as they would go to a grammar-school to learn languages.'--'A close examination of their works will give us that experience of the principles on which they wrought, in a _very_ short space of time, which cost them ages to ascertain.

'The frequent allusions which every one, who treats of any art, is obliged to make to others, in order to illustrate and confirm his principles, sufficiently show their near connexion and inseparable relation.'

However, 'The great business of study is to form a mind, adapted and adequate to all times, and to all occasions; to which all nature is then laid open.'

'The _highest_ point of art is to _conceal_ itself: and the very praises we lavish on works that are 'true to nature,' only prove the perfection of art.'

I have taken up the art as I found it in the practice of the most approved methods: nor have I attempted to support any paradoxes for the sake of novelty.

Theories herein investigated, and many rules here laid down, many loose and scattered suggestions and successful results, that 'pass current from one to another,' I have endeavoured to place in the readiest manner before the student, that they may become immediately available to his purpose, or occasionally refresh his memory, without caring whence they may be derived. Even in the collecting of disjointed materials, a structure is formed every way calculated to abridge his labours and shorten the road, however carelessly thrown together; and will, in all probability, stimulate him to further investigation.

Improve every hour, and the mind will become variously enriched by systematic study: it will look through Nature with a discriminating power, even to her minutest productions, but with a refinement of taste and skill of selection that will reject all that is unworthy. When small pretension finds a welcome, it usually arises from ignorance in those who patronize. These persons, in their turn, generally pay the penalty their errors or conceit bring upon them.

THE AUTHOR OF THIS WORK TEACHES UPON THE PRINCIPLES THEREIN DEMONSTRATED.

ON WATER-COLOUR.

AS the object of this work was, in the first intention, initiatory, I shall conclude it by addressing a few words to the student in water-colour painting;--the more especially as water colour embraces so many advantages, and as there is no elevated rank in art that it does not involve in its capabilities.

After soaking and laying the paper,--an operation that must be _seen_ to be learned,--and assuming you have proceeded to the colouring, it will be essential that you use two palettes, or tiles; set one with the colours required separately, not allowing them to run together; then take sufficient colour up in the brush from each, and mix the tints on another, kept a little wet that they may mix well together;--cleaning this tile, as occasion may require, to make fresh tints on.

In the management of the greys, allowing the colours to run into one another, will produce many accidental and useful tints.

When too much colour has got on the paper, dip a thick short-haired brush in clean water, and wash into the paper with it, with sufficient force to blend them more, and remove the superfluous colour. If this method be not found sufficient, take a sponge, with very little clean water in it, and pass it lightly over, which will remove all hard edges, and greatly assist the atmospheric effect:--if this too much generalizes the colours, supply the sharp markings, as may be required, with a fine pointed sable, in their positive colours.

This method is not only the quickest way of bringing a drawing into a finished state, but adds materially to its transparency and solidity; and may be done at any period of the work.

A good master of the sponge will make several drawings, while one may be done with the brush alone. The colour will remove most easily when the surface of the drawing is previously wetted; taking great care, by keeping the sponge very clean, that none of the green tints float into the sky.

One colour laid over another, to produce the required tint, is in most cases better than mixing the tint at once, as it tends more to procure that 'internal light' so desirable in water-colour painting--taking care the under colour is dry before the other is floated over it; and always allowing for the density of the colour beneath qualifying the hue of the one laid over it. Thus, blue laid upon yellow, produces green; green over red, grey; and so on.

The slightest quantity of prepared ox-gall will make the colours wash free from grease; triflingly reducing the brilliancy, but fixing the wash more permanently.

_Flatness_ of tint is a matter of great consequence, and of equal difficulty; and is considered a great excellence, as the clearness and beauty of the gradations mainly depend on it. All mechanical means to produce it will betray themselves;--regulated by any such principle, a blue sky would become a tea-tray! Nature distinctly rejects all that is mechanical: skill alone will enable the student to overcome this difficulty, in addition to observing its process by a professor.

Meditate well the mixture before applying it; then dash it on with the greatest decision,--always at once, and not backwards and forwards, and the greatest clearness will be the result.

The greater the diversity of colour, from the transparency of most colours in water, so much more will be its resemblance to nature.

Wiping out the lights, such as the foliage of trees, or any other forms required, is performed by first wetting the part or form to be taken out, with the brush--applied as it would be in painting--and, after the gloss on the water has subsided, with a clean piece of cotton rag or the pocket handkerchief, folded on the fore finger, the colour intended to be removed must be whisked out with some smart degree of force: and in the event of the light not coming out clean and sharp enough (from perhaps being too dry), the application of the India-rubber to the part will effect it. The colours intended are then laid over the parts so wiped out.

OF TINTS.

MAKING good Tints has ever been a matter of extreme difficulty, great perseverance, and too often entire loss of time; and, in the event of success occasionally attending the student's exertions, it is a thousand to one he never gets them twice alike; for that which is done by _accident_ cannot be repeated. The very difficulty attending them, from want of knowledge of those colours that blend well and harmonize in their natures, and the many requisite to charge the memory with, renders them so easily forgotten, that few but professors ever achieve the object sought.

To obviate this,--to save the student's time, that he may devote the more to the attainment of his pursuit,--that he may be enabled to tint a drawing in half an hour, when he would have spent three in making a good tint or two (presuming his capability to do it at all),--induced the Author of this work, at a considerable outlay of time and expense, to form a BOX OF TINTS, in permanent cakes, ready at once for use, and all the necessary purposes of landscape or other painting, and for sketching from nature without inconvenience or difficulty.

As water-colour painting has experienced so much revolution of late, arising from its extensive capabilities,--the best drawings, or rather water-colour paintings, being produced by the balance of opaque and transparent colours,--those tints and mixtures that are found most useful in oil-painting, and most wanting in water, has engaged his particular attention.

He has confided the making them solely to Mr. Charles Smith, of Marylebone-street, Piccadilly. The tints are expressed on the cakes in numbers, which have reference to the coloured plates. In addition to which the following colours are those mostly used:--

Indigo; to which may be added cobalt and French blue. Indian red. Venetian red. Purple lake. Madder lake. Vermilion. Burnt sienna. Raw sienna. Yellow ochre. Gamboge, Brown pink. Raw umber. Vandyke brown. Ivory black.

REFERENCE TO THE PLATES ON COLOUR.

_Plate 7._--The sky is laid with tint No. 10;--the walls and foreground are covered down with No. 1, varied here and there with burnt sienna;--the tiles and roof with No. 4;--tints 6, 7 and 8 are mixed together, varied and floated over for the cool greys;--the figure, Indigo and No. 10; vermilion, ochre and burnt sienna. The greens are composed of indigo, gamboge and burnt sienna, with brown pink. The gallery is tint No. 6, floated over Vandyke brown. Cobalt and Vandyke brown in the hollows.

_Plate 8._--The sky is done with No. 9, and thin cobalt floated over: the horizon with No. 4, varied with Venetian red: the orange brought down into the trees, and worked together with gamboge; the shadowed parts of which are put in with No. 7--repeated in the bases of the clouds. No. 9 is worked into the cool greys of the middle space. The greens are varied with indigo, burnt sienna, gamboge and brown pink;--the brightest lights with yellow ochre: foreground with No. 5.

_Plate 9._--The sky French blue and madder-lake;--distance with No. 1, heightened here and there with ochre;--middle space worked in with 9 and 8--the greys with No. 7. Cobalt in the hollows; warmed, in parts, with No. 4. Boats done with No. 9, strengthened with Vandyke brown;--the water slightly washed with No. 5, varied with the same and indigo;--steps and railing with Nos. 1 and 5.

_Plate 10._--The sky is washed with indigo and madder-lake, kept grey towards the horizon;--the distant buildings with Nos. 7, 8;--No. 7 is mixed with burnt sienna for the greys of the trees: the greens are composed of indigo, burnt sienna, raw sienna, Venetian red, and gamboge;--the gravel with No. 5, a little burnt sienna, and white;--the shadows with No. 7;--figures with positive colours;--foreground slightly washed with No. 1, varied with No. 5;--the pedestal with No. 5, varied at the base with Nos. 6 and 9.

_Plate 11._--The sky, indigo and madder lake: the clouds varied with Nos. 8 and 9, and floated over with cobalt: the warm lights with yellow ochre and burnt sienna;--horizon with cobalt and indigo;--the sands with No. 1, shaded with 2 and 6;--the mill with No. 1, lightly floated over with No. 6, and touched in parts with No. 3;--the foreground brought down with brown pink;--the mill, on the left, painted _into_ with Vandyke brown, Indian-red, and No. 5; the lights with No. 4, and roof with No. 3; the sail, Indian red and Vandyke brown; figures, cobalt and vermilion, subdued with No. 6.

_Plate 12._--The walls and pavement floated down with No. 1, and toned over with No. 6;--the architectural markings with No. 6 and cobalt, with a little No. 9 in the darkest parts, to give them point;--hollows of the arches with No. 9, and No. 7 worked in;--the window is all laid in with positive colours, brought down on the figures, which are subdued with No. 6;--the altar, banners, priests' robes, books, &c., with chrome and white: their shadows with No. 3;--the curtain with Vandyke brown, Venetian red, and burnt sienna.

And here I cannot but express how much the arts and the public are indebted to the highly inventive genius of Mr. Hullmandel, for his numerous inventions and improvements in lithography; having, in a few years, by the most determined perseverance, industry, and singleness of purpose, brought the first hard, dry, and uncertain drawing on stone, through all its various improvements, until the introduction of the now well-known printing of the tint with modified lights; to which we are indebted for the many beautiful productions that have appeared of late; and thence to the extraordinary invention, now dawning on us, of making a _painting_ on stone, from which an impression is procured that may scarcely be articulated from a sepia drawing: enabling _painters_ to multiply their sketches _ad infinitum_, instead of being confined, as before, to the merely practiced pencil draughtsman. The plates of this work are indebted to his invention.

DESCRIPTION OF THE PLATES.

AFTER what has been said already, a lengthened description of the plates would be unnecessary.

_Plate 1_--Has been described in reference to the article on Composition; as Plates 2 and 3 have, in the one on Light and Shade.

_Plate 4._--The Porch of Chartres Cathedral, has been referred to under the inquiry into accidental Shadows.

_Plate 5._--The Temple of Jupiter Tonans, and the Forum of Nerva, have been noticed in like manner: as has likewise Plate 6, an ancient Wine-store in the Rhætian Alps.

_Plate 7._--Here are the extremes of hot and cold. The strongest colours are placed in the darks, from which they derive all the power of the palette, while the point is preserved by the figure in red. A warm light, surrounded by warm tints, has the greatest brilliancy when ably supported by the intervention of a cold one. The cool grey centre is repeated in the hollow of the door, the lower part of the figure, and carried out by the blue of the sky; while the warm colours are dispersed and diffused on the wooden gallery, the walls, the ground, and gathered up by the rich red of the woman's gown and the warm brown of the figure behind; the dark colour of which, being laid on the dark background, helps the woman into her forward position;--the warm colour, projected by the red gown, is again carried up by the cap and brown of the figure behind into the balcony, tiles, &c., until, after mingling in every possible way with the cool greys, it escapes by the walls; spreading its influence every where, and investing the greens of the vine and the foreground with its character. The high light on the wall is repeated on the linen, carried across by the figure in the gallery, and brought down by the figure and flowers in the foreground. The general tone of the work is warm;--the blues, greys and greens are used as a foil to give value to the warm colours, the shadows and middle tints: the greys are glazed warm, to preserve the richness of the general effect throughout. The reds and blues are combined of colours possessing the properties of each. The quantity of warm and cold colours are to be principally observed--the union of one part with another--preservation of the breadth, and the general harmony.

_Plate 8._--A VIEW IN BELGIUM.--The disturbed and heavy clouds sweeping across the country are kept of a low, subdued, but warm grey; intersecting the distant trees, and invading the middle space, until it is found among the greens of the foliage and grass of the foreground; the stones, the chalky road, &c., ending in the darks of the figures. The warm lights are scattered over the tops of the trees and sunny browns of the middle space and foreground, repeated in the lower part of the sky, and brought forward in the foliage and grass on the left; while the reds are gathered up in the branches and stems of the trees, and brought to a point in the figure on the right:--the white of the chalky road is carried into their trunks, the rock, and up into the clouds by the birds. The breadth is divided into two wedge-shaped forms, carried at an angle across the work, and up into the bank and trees on the left; opposed by the long stretching line of the horizon and round forms of the clouds and foliage,--balanced by the mass of rock on the other side. The harsh opposition of the cutting-lines of the foreground serves to attract the eye, while it reposes the distance.

_Plate 9._--In this example, the darkest dark being of a warm brown, is brought up, by contrast, against the half dark in the distance, which is of a cold grey: it is then carried up into the dark markings of the houses, the roofs at the sides, and repeated on the right; brought down by the scaffolding over the steps, and woven throughout into the cool greys of the half shade, occupying nearly two-thirds of the subject, and carried, by the reflections of the boats, into the grey of the water and the blue of the sky;--the density of the barge, deepened by positive colour, clearing up all the half tints. The highest light, near the centre, is gradated along the distant buildings, and repeated in the warm red and yellow lights, catching at different intervals on the houses, until lost in the water.

_Plate 10._--ST. JAMES'S PARK AND THE HORSE GUARDS.--This view was taken from the side of the Column, looking from the steps towards the Treasury. The two great masses, thrown at the boldest angle across the picture, the opposing lines broken up and varied by the round forms of the trees, and cutting it nearly in half, are divided between the bustle of the middle distance and the repose of the sky, the steps, the terraces, and the base of the column;--the colours employed in one division are made to invade the province of the other, until all are _placed_ by the bright red of the soldier's dress and darker markings of the figures in the foreground, repeated here and there as uniting links, and carried through by the figures in the distance; while the communicating principle is sustained between the reds, blues and yellows, by the colour of the sky and distant buildings being composed of all three.