A Handbook for Students and Lovers of Art New York and London
G. P. Putnam's Sons
1903
It is with sincere pleasure that I dedicate this book to my first teacher, Peter Moran, as an acknowledgment to the interest he inspired in this important subject
Preface
This book has been prepared because, although the student has been abundantly supplied with aids to decorative art, there is little within his reach concerning pictorial composition.
I have added thereto hints on the critical judgment of pictures with the hope of simplifying to the many the means of knowing pictures, prompted by the recollection of the topsyturviness of this question as it confronted my own mind a score of years ago. I was then apt to strain at a Corot hoping to discover in the employment of some unusual color or method the secret of its worth, and to think of the old masters as a different order of beings from the rest of mankind.
Let me trust that, to a degree at least, these pages may prove iconoclastic, shattering the images created of superstitious reverence and allowing, in their stead, the result in art from whatever source to be substituted as something quite as worthy of this same homage.
The author acknowledges the courtesies of the publishers of Scribners, The Century and Munsey's magazines, D. Appleton, Manzi, Joyant & Co., and of the artists giving consent to the use of [pg 3] their pictures for this book. Acknowledgment is also made to F. A. Beardsley, H. K. Freeman and L. Lord, for sketches contributed thereto.
Preface to Second Edition
The revision which the text of this book has undergone has clarified certain parts of it and simplified the original argument by a complete sequence of page references and an index. The appendix reduces the contents to a working formula with the purpose of rendering practical the suggestions of the text.
In its present form it seeks to meet the requirements of the student who desires to proceed from the principles of formal and decorative composition into the range of pictorial construction.
Preface to Tenth Edition
After twelve years Pictorial Composition continues with a steady demand. Through the English house it has become “a standard” in the British Isles and finds a market in India and Australia.
At the request of a few artists of Holland it has been translated and will shortly be issued in Dutch.
Contents
- Preface
- PART I
- CHAPTER I - INTRODUCTORY
- CHAPTER II - THE SCIENTIFIC SENSE IN PICTURES
- CHAPTER III - BALANCE
- BALANCE OF THE STEELYARD.
- POSTULATES
- VERTICAL AND HORIZONTAL BALANCE.
- THE NATURAL AXIS
- APPARENT OR FORMAL BALANCE.
- BALANCE BY OPPOSITION OF LINE.
- BALANCE BY OPPOSITION OF SPOTS.
- TRANSITION OF LINE.
- BALANCE BY GRADATION
- BALANCE OF PRINCIPALITY OR ISOLATION
- BALANCE OF CUBICAL SPACE.
- CHAPTER IV - EVOLVING THE PICTURE
- CHAPTER V - ENTRANCE AND EXIT
- GETTING INTO THE PICTURE
- GETTING OUT OF THE PICTURE
- CHAPTER VI - THE CIRCULAR OBSERVATION OF PICTURES
- CIRCULAR COMPOSITION
- RECONSTRUCTION FOR CIRCULAR OBSERVATION.
- CHAPTER VII - ANGULAR COMPOSITION, THE LINE OF BEAUTY AND THE RECTANGLE
- THE VERTICAL LINE IN ANGULAR COMPOSITION
- ANGULAR COMPOSITION BASED ON THE HORIZONTAL
- THE LINE OF BEAUTY.
- THE RECTANGLE
- CHAPTER VIII - THE COMPOSITION OF ONE, TWO, THREE AND MORE UNITS
- THE FIGURE IN LANDSCAPE
- CHAPTER IX - GROUPS
- CHAPTER X - LIGHT AND SHADE
- PRINCIPALITY BY EMPHASIS, SACRIFICE, AND CONTRAST.
- GRADATION
- CHAPTER XI - THE PLACE OF PHOTOGRAPHY IN FINE ART
- PART II - THE ÆSTHETICS OF COMPOSITION
- CHAPTER XII - BREADTH VERSUS DETAIL
- SUGGESTIVENESS.
- MYSTERY.
- SIMPLICITY.
- RESERVE.
- RELIEF.
- FINISH.
- PART III - THE CRITICAL JUDGEMENT OF PICTURES
- CHAPTER XIV - SPECIFIC QUALITIES AND FAULTS
- CHAPTER XV - THE PICTURE SENSE
- CHAPTER XVI - COLOR, HARMONY, TONE
- VALUES.
- CHAPTER XVII - ENVELOPMENT AND COLOR PERSPECTIVE
- CHAPTER XVIII - THE BIAS OF JUDGMENT
- CHAPTER XIX - THE LIVING PRINCIPLE
- APPENDIX
Illustrations
- Light and Shade--Geo. Inness
- Fundamental Forms of Construction
- Why Art Without Composition is Crippled: The Madonna of the Veil--Raphael; The Last Judgement--Michael Angelo; Birth of the Virgin Mary--Durer; The Annunciation--Botticelli; In Central Park; The Inn--Teniers
- Three Ideas in Pictorial Balance
- Pines in Winter (Unbalance); The Connoisseurs--Fortuny (Balance of the Steelyards)
- Portrait of Sara Bernhardt--Clairin (Balance Across the Natrual Axis)
- Lady with Muff--Photo A. Hewitt (Steelyard in Perspective)
- Lion in the Desert--Gerome (Balance of Isolated Measures); Salute to the Wounded--Detaille (Balance of Equal Measures)
- Indian and Horse--Photo A.C. Bode (Oppposition of Light and Dark Measures); The Cabaret--L. L'hermitte (Opposition Plus Transition)
- Along the Shore--Photo by George Butler (Transitional line); Pathless--Photo by A. Horsely Hinton (Transitional Line)
- Hillside (Graded Light Upon Surfaces; Cloud Shadows); River Fog (Light Graded by Atmospheric Density); The Chant (Gradation through Values of Separated Objects)
- The View-Metre
- Three Pictures Found with the View-Metre
- View Taken with a Wide Angle Lens
- Photography Nearing the Pictorial
- The Path of the Surf--Photo (Triangles Occuring in the leading line); The Shepherdess--Millet (Composition Exhibiting a Double Exit)
- Circular Observation--The Principle; The Slaying of the Unpropitious Messengers (Triangular Composition--Circular Observation)
- Huntsman and Hounds (Triangle with Circular Attraction); Portrait of Van der Geest--Van Dyck (A sphere within a Circle)
- Marriage of Bacchus and Ariadne--Tintoretto (Circle and Radius); Endymion--Watts (The Circle--Vertical Plane)
- The Fight Over the Body of Patroclus--Weirls; 1807--Meissonier; Ville d'Avray--Corot; The Circle in Perspective
- The Hermit--Gerard Dow (Rectangle in Circle); The Forge of Vulcan--Boucher (Circular Observation by Suppression of Sides and Corners)
- Orpheus and Eurydice--Corot (Figures outside the natural line of the picture's composition); The Holy Family--Andrea del Sarto (The circle overbalanced)
- The Herder--Jaque
- Alone--Jacques Israels (Constructive Synthesis upon the Vertical); The Dance--Carpeaux (The Cross Within the Circle)
- Sketches from Landscapes by Henry Ranger; Parity of Horizonatals and Verticals; Crossings of Horizontals by Spot Diversion
- Sketch from the Book of Truth--Claude Lorrain (Rectangle Unbalanced); The Beautiful Gate--Raphael (Verticals Destroying Pictorial Unity)
- Mother and Child--Orchardson (Horizontals opposed or Covered); Stream in Winter--W. E. Schofield (Verticals and Horizontals vs. Diagonal)
- Hogarth's Line of Beauty
- Aesthetics of Line; The Altar; Roman Invasion--F. Lamayer (Vertical line in action; dignified, measured, ponderous); The Flock--P. Moran (The horizontal, typifying quietude, repose, calm, solemnity); The curved line: variety, movement; Man with Stone--V. Spitzer (Transitional Line, Cohesion); The Dance--Rubens (The ellipse: line of continuity and unity); Swallows--From the Strand (The diagonal: line of action; speed)
- Aesthetics of Line, Continued, Where Line is the motive and Decoration is the Impulse; Winter Landscape--After Photograph (Line of grace, variety, facile sequence); Line Versus Space (The same impulse with angular energy, The line more attractive than the plane); Reconciliation--Glackens (Composition governed by the decorative exterior line); December--After Photograph (Radial lines with strong focalization)
- Unity and its Lack; The Lovers--Gussow; The Poulterers--Wallander
- Return of Royal Hunting Party--Isabey; The Night Watch--Rembrandt
- Departure for the Chase--Cuyp (Background Compromising Original Structure); Repose of the Reapers--L. L'hermite (The Curvilinear Line)
- The Decorative and Pictorial Group; Allegory of Spring--Botticelli (Separated concepts expressing separate ideas); Dutch Fisher Folk--F. V. S. (Separated concepts of one idea); The Cossack's Reply--Repin (Unity through a cumulative idea)
- Fundamental Forms of Chiaroscuro; Whistler's Portrait of his Mother; Moorland--E. Yon; Charcoal Study--Millet; The Arbor--Ferrier
- Fundamental Forms of Chiaroscuro, Continued; Landscape--Geo. Inness; The Kitchen--Whistler; St. Angela--Robt. Reid; An Annam Tiger--Surrand; The Shrine--Orchardson; Monastic Life--F. V. DuMond
- A Reversible Effect of Light and Shade (The Same Subject Vertically and Horizontally Presented)
- Spots and Masses; Note-book sketches from Rubens, Velasquez, Claude Lorrain and Murillo
- Death of Caesar--Gerome; The Travel of the Soul--After Howard Pyle
- Bishop Potter
- Decorative Evolving the Pictorial; The North River--Prendergast; An Intrusion--Bull; Landscape Arrangement--Guerin
- Stable Interior--A. Mauve (A simple picture containing all the principles of composition); Her Last Moorings--From a Photograph
- Alice--W.M. Chase (Verticals Diverted); Lady Archibald Campbell--Whistler (Verticals Obliterated); The Crucifixion--Amie Morot (Verticals Opposed)