Secrets of scene painting and stage effects

The earnest beginner will no doubt desire to adapt his designs to the play to be represented, but he will usually find very little guidance in the author’s directions. Such directions are scant and laconic, except where the position of a door, window, or fireplace is concerned. This reticence of authors is a blessing rather than a restriction, for such directions as ‘Interior of a cottage,’ ‘A drawing-room,’ ‘A stile by a cornfield,’ ‘A woodland stream,’ give the scene painter a free hand in depicting that which his fancy may dictate. A number of the illustrations in this book will be found useful as suggestions for exteriors and interiors suitable for a goodly collection of domestic plays dealing with home life, but where, as in many of Shakespeare’s plays, the scenario lies in Italy and other parts of Europe, or as in The Only Way and The Scarlet Pimpernel, Paris of the Revolution is dealt with, some attempt must be made to get local colour or the effect will be ludicrous. There are occasions where one need not be too particular. For instance, a Baronial Hall covers a long period of English History; it can even be made quite modern when the play deals with personages of ancient lineage, but the amateurs we saw who depicted a stirring incident in the Soudan war inside a Dickensian cottage, required too elastic an imagination from the audience. Where local colour must be got, the scene painter should look up some private prints or illustrations of the period, or, where possible, good pictures of the actual incidents in the play, an easy matter in the case of Shakespeare.

Having obtained these, rough sketches should be made from them with all the portions knocked out which are not practicable for stage purposes, but still retaining the essence of the designs. To be truly conscientious the amateur should mount the sketches on cardboard and make them up into models which will give him a good idea of the finished effect.

The chapter on perspective gives a method of squaring up, by which these rough sketches can be enlarged to the size required.

Landscape will more easily pass muster with the majority of onlookers, but intelligence in designing outdoor scenery is keenly appreciated by those who know, and a landscape that coincides with the locality of the play stamps the painter as an artist rather than an amateur. English landscape can take care of itself, pictures by Birket Foster, B. W. Leader, Alfred East and others provide excellent material. Scotch scenery should be wilder and more rugged, with masses of rock and heath instead of grass, while Irish landscapes should be depicted as somewhat unkempt in appearance, with small stumpy trees. It should be noted also that the character of the fencing changes, hedges to stone walls, stone walls to banks and ditches, and so forth. Where foreign environment is concerned, photographs must be studied, but Italian gardens, which are very popular as back cloths, can be seen copied in many English county mansion domains. With their dark masses of trees, many of the poplar order standing in relief against the sky, suggestions of statuary, fountains, and balustraded terraces, they have a decidedly foreign appearance and are undeniably effective.

Now a few words as to treatment, or what artists would call ‘handling,’ of the subject chosen will be useful, because many amateurs in their desire to be painstaking overdo their work and produce a stiff and angular effect.

Of landscape we can say little, except to urge trying for the broad effect, as pointed out in Chapter I. Do not get trees ‘leggy,’ or with all the foliage on top, like the Noah’s Ark variety.

In the case of buildings and interiors, however, there is considerable difference in treatment. In painting cottage interiors, Elizabethan or Tudor streets, old stone halls, old inns, etc., nice straight lines and square corners are all wrong. The main vertical lines of the buildings must not fall over too much, but the half timbering roofs, sashes, etc., can leave the straight road with reasonable impunity. The colouring must be broken up so that no space of wall or roof presents an even toned surface. Buildings at a distance can be quite sketchy with most of the detail left out. There is no need to paint in the tiles of a roof half a mile away, it is a labour that undoes the effect desired.

When it comes to painting marble halls and French eighteenth century drawing-rooms, the foregoing advice must not be followed, for columns and friezes ‘flopping’ over, would suggest indulgence in strong drink on the part of the artist.

Although requiring accuracy these latter scenes are not really so difficult as the other buildings, for the artistic sense is not so much required as a mechanical exactitude in drawing out the various features of construction. All the straight lines should first be charcoaled and painted in as neatly as possible before any of the decoration is inserted, for it will then not be found a difficult matter to fill in the various spaces by means of stencils, that is, pieces of thin card with the pattern cut out in open work, so that by painting over the outside surface of the card, an impression of the pattern is left on the canvas beneath. Illustrations of these stencil patterns are shown here, but it is not such an easy matter to design and cut them, for unless every portion of the cut-out ornament is connected with tie pieces of card, some parts will drop out. The ‘ties’ however can be put in, even if not wanted as part of the ornament. It is a simple matter to paint them out of the canvas afterwards.

When the whole of a formal interior is set up in line and shadow, the artistic part of the work comes in, in the tinting and colouring, and imitating of gold work, for however well drawn out such a scene may be, the finishing work can be delicately beautiful or crudely coarse, according to the painter’s idea of colour.

These few simple colour rules may be followed with advantage:—

English Oaken Dining-rooms:—Rich brown with creamy whites, silver and glass, and blue pottery.

Italian Halls and Palaces:—Marble, with gold decorations, black and white flooring, palms, heavy crimson drapery.

Gothic Baronial Halls:—Distempered walls, red and black patterns, with a little gold, white walls above frieze-rails, dark green hangings in doorways.

French Drawing-rooms:—White and gold only, or with pale green and rose-coloured panels.

Cottages:—Limewashed walls, black oak beams, doors, and other woodwork.

Modern interiors require no comment or directions.