Six lectures on painting

The difficulties encountered in painting a picture lie, not so much in the actual painting of each portion of the work (though this is full of difficulties) as in the control of the whole canvas, in determining what part of the picture is to be given prominence, and in what way this is to be attained.

To draw a figure, to paint a head, a piece of drapery, a sky, a tree—this we can all do to some extent if we have the actual object before us; but as it is not in the nature of things that a group or a scene—even if we are so fortunate as to see it once so arranged as to make us wish to paint it—can be reconstituted every time we get to work on our picture, we must learn to retain its main points, or get some general design—some image in our minds of what we want to accomplish, before we begin our work.

The wonderful range which is possible, and which has been attained in painting, has been attained by the study and analysis, not only of nature, but of the way in which things are shown to us in nature by light and shade, by warm and cold colour. These are the simple elements of every picture (drawing, of course, included). It is the appearance of nature that has to be observed and analysed, the object being to present or suggest an illusion. The painter studies, not facts, but appearances, being helped in the direction of his vision by the works of those who have gone before him.

As I have already pointed out, the aim of the early artists was to imitate nature; and although they had not then learned to give by light and shade the illusion of nature, their fine taste led them to produce great work by other means. They were—the best of them—very true to nature in drawing, in strong characterisation, and very expressive in sentiment. Their decorative sense and imagination were not held in restraint by the necessity of being literally true throughout, and their works, though in them the actual force of lighting in nature was not attained, often not even attempted, yet have, in other ways, a beauty and charm as great as any later works possess.

We will follow a little the development of painting towards realism. This is, of course, only a partial view, but there is some interest in following it. Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519), in his treatise on painting, says that “the first object of a painter is to make a simple, flat surface appear like a relievo, and some of its parts detached from the ground. He who excels all others in that part of the art deserves the greatest praise. This perfection of the art depends on the correct distribution of lights and shades. If the painter, then, avoids shadows, he may be said to avoid the glory of the art, and to render his work despicable to real connoisseurs, for the sake of acquiring the esteem of vulgar and ignorant admirers of fine colours, who never have any knowledge of relievo.” I think Leonardo was a little too hard on the Primitives; he does not seem to appreciate their beauty. He was the first to record, if not the first to practise, the study of light and shadow as we understand it now. For we see also in the work of a contemporary, Melozzo da Forli (1438-1494) the study of light and shade in nature; there are two of his pictures in the National Gallery—“Music” and “Rhetoric.” Those of you who do not know Leonardo’s treatise on painting would do well to read it. It is full of wisdom and fresh observation. His clear intelligence raises problems, many of which painters still discuss. I will read a few extracts. He says on “gradation”: “What is fine is not always beautiful or good. I address this to such painters as are so attached to the beauty of colours that they regret being obliged to give them almost imperceptible shadows, not considering the beautiful relief which figures acquire by a proper gradation and strength of shadow.” Again: “Do not make the boundaries of your figures of any other colour than that of the background on which they are placed; that is, avoid making dark outlines. The boundaries which separate one body from another are of the nature of mathematical lines, not of real lines. The end of any colour is only the beginning of another; and it ought not to be called a line, for nothing interposes between them except the termination of the one against the other, which, being nothing in itself, cannot be perceivable.” Again: “Those shadows which in nature are undetermined, and the extremities of which are hardly to be perceived, are to be copied in your painting in the same manner, never to be precisely finished, but left confused or blended. This apparent neglect will show great judgment, and will be the ingenious result of your observation of nature.” Again he says: “It is a great error in some painters who draw a figure at home by any particular light, and afterwards make use of that drawing in a picture representing an open country, which receives the general light of the sky, where the surrounding air gives light on all sides. This painter would put dark shadows where nature would put none at all, or, if any, so faint as to be almost imperceptible; or he would throw reflected lights where it is impossible there should be any.”

He recommends the painter to compare his own work with nature in a small mirror, “which,” says he, “being your master, will show you the lights and shadows of any object whatever.” And, indeed, all through the book we get constant reference to nature. “If you do not rest on the good foundation of nature, you will labour with little honour and less profit.” “Whoever flatters himself that his memory can retain all the effects of nature is deceived, for our memory is not so capricious. Therefore, consult nature for everything.”

These words were written four hundred years ago; they might have been written to-day. One feels how very modern he was in spirit. It is, of course, a question what he means by “nature”—whether that ideal which Sir Joshua Reynolds called the general idea of nature, or nature in its variety and imperfection as we see it. I think Leonardo meant the latter, in the sense that the persons in a picture should look what they profess to be—not, of course, in the sense that he would take the first woman he met as model for a Madonna. There, where he had to represent the highest type of woman, he chose the most beautiful person he could, as we see in “The Virgin of the Rocks” in the National Gallery.

There is a passage of his on lighting that seems to bear on this picture: “The light admitted in front of heads situated opposite side-walls which are dark will cause them to have great relievo, particularly if the light be placed high. And the reason is that the most prominent parts of these faces are illumined by the general light striking them in front, which light produces very faint shadows on the part where it strikes; but as it turns toward the sides it begins to participate of the dark shadows of the room, which grow darker in proportion as it sinks with them.

“Besides, when the light comes from on high, it does not strike on every part of the face alike, but one part produces great shadows on another, as the eyebrows, which deprive the whole sockets of the eyes of light. The nose keeps it off from a great part of the mouth, and the chin from the neck, and such other parts. This, by concentrating the light upon the most projecting parts, produces a very great relief.”

I have given these passages from Leonardo to show that we are justified by tradition and good precedent in examining nature as closely as we can.

The effect of light colours in a picture is the same as that of actual light in nature—to attract the eye. Therefore painters have naturally always striven to give that object to which they wish first to direct attention the greatest light. There is an old precept that there should never be two principal lights in a picture. It means that the spectator’s attention should not be distracted.

Now, if a scene is represented as taking place in a room, it is possible, by arrangement of objects, to bring the principal things into prominence naturally and with most beautiful effect, as in the “Maids of Honour,” by Velasquez. I am sorry to say I have not had the privilege of seeing this picture, but only the sketch, which was in the Old Masters Exhibition a year or two ago; but the picture is, I should think, the greatest achievement in painting of true ordinary lighting in the world. There is no doubt that the effect in this picture is exactly as in the room; everything is accounted for naturally. It is worth remarking how the picture is arranged—divided diagonally into light and dark, with a strong dark on the light side, and a little light taken into the dark. This is a very effective arrangement, and a very natural one. Pictures arrange themselves that way unconsciously, or perhaps the eye finds something agreeable in this arrangement—in its interchange. It is common in landscape, as in the picture by Corot in the Louvre; and Whistler’s portraits of his mother, and of Carlyle, are arranged in the same kind of pattern.

In connection with the arrangement of a picture, it is worth while inquiring why it is that principal masses or objects, although they should be placed near the centre of the picture, should not be placed exactly in the centre, or why any absolutely symmetrical arrangements are unpleasant to the eye, and should be avoided. I think it may be a purely physical reason, connected with the fatigue experienced by the eye in looking at regular forms and spaces, and that this may also account for the fact that such things as the true surfaces of machinery, and the straight lines or monotonous regularity of buildings, fail to charm the eye; while unexpected variety of form does, as we see in old buildings, ruins, mountains, and generally in all that is called picturesque.

If a scene is represented as being in the open air, the difficulty arises that the light of the sky, being so great, will dominate everything, and, instead of the figure being the principal, the landscape interest will predominate, and the figure take the second place. It is not, however, always so. There are effects of light, such as when one is looking with the light at figures facing the sun—especially in evening light, or when there is a cloud behind them—when the figure receives most light, and tells beautifully. I think Titian studied and used this effect a great deal, and his picture “The Entombment,” in the Louvre, gives very finely the impression of that effect.

“The Surrender of Breda,” by Velasquez, is also arranged looking with the sunlight, and the group is built up and united by shadows from the figures, and from clouds on the figures in middle distance. The shadows tie the picture together.

It is possible to avoid the difficulty of the sky by leaving it out, or by using a high horizon and showing very little; and when this is done, figures can be painted up to the strength and the lightness of nature, as in Bastien Lepage’s picture of “Les Foins” in the Luxembourg. But if much sky were added to this, the brightest light we could use would only look like paper, because the relative intensity of the light on figures and on sky would not be correct. It could be “managed”—if the middle and distance were painted dark, as in shadow—to have a larger sky; and the sky is so beautiful, and can be made to convey so much, that a picture gains if it can be used. And this compromise was used largely by the great Venetian painters, simply, I feel sure, through knowing well what effects are possible in nature.

For you will find, if you are in the habit of constantly observing nature, and on looking on all things as if they were or might be pictures, that such arrangements and variety of lighting of figures as one sees in Velasquez, in Rembrandt, in Titian, Veronese, Tintoret,—figures in shade against figures in full light, and all in the open air,—that these arrangements are strictly founded on nature, and result from observation. On a windy day in summer, when clouds are passing, one constantly sees, but for a moment only, such effects—of figures in sunlight relieved against a deep background of shadow, or of near figures dark in the shadow of houses or trees, with others in the light beyond; one sees no end of beautiful things, but only for a moment. There is no time to do more than make a mental note, but they give one a clue which one may follow, and perhaps be so fortunate as to learn to develop—a clue to the fine scheme of lighting which these great artists have mastered and used.

We, in our work, lay too much stress on the superficial qualities, the imitative ones, and are unable to grasp these great generalisations. They won’t pose for us, but they wouldn’t pose for Velasquez or Titian either. Then we may feel when we look at great pictures such as I have mentioned, and such, for instance, as “The Marriage of Cana,” by Veronese, in the Louvre, how very great and thorough was the knowledge of the possibilities of light in nature which enabled them to plan and execute their great works. It is told of Veronese that when someone objected to his putting some figures in shadow, and asked him why he did it, “A cloud is passing,” said he.

But it may often be against the intention of the painter to draw attention to the sky, and we find that some—especially portrait painters—have adopted the artifice of frankly painting the sky background darker than it would naturally be, as in the portrait of Lord Heathfield, by Reynolds, where he stands against an intense black background, which in a little while we realise is intended for the smoke of the cannon down on the left.

This is a frank convention. Now, don’t let us despise conventions, but try and understand them. All conventions rest on some truth. The convention may have grown so as to obscure the fundamental truth. Our conception of truth widens with our experience. The student’s is, as a rule, narrowed down to the particular one he happens to be struggling with. He is so much engrossed with the difficulty of imitation that he is apt to think this the main truth. But he should not confine his observation to the life class, or to the time when he is actually painting. Let him try and notice, as one can, at all times, how things look at unpremeditated moments, and he will find as he becomes familiar with the great men’s work that they did so too. He will come upon their tracks.

It is well, then, when in a good picture we see some passage we think false or conventional, to try and understand the intention of the painter in using it. Almost always it will be found to have been adopted for the purpose of concentrating attention on the principal things. The painter, by his artifice, seeks to attract our attention, and so produce the same effect as, were we ourselves in presence of the scene, our consciousness would produce in us.

We may copy a scene as truly as we can with regard to values, and all the rest of it, and find, after all, that it does not give us the effect of the actual scene. The reason is that we copy with an eye looking equally and dispassionately on everything, as would the lens of a camera, forgetting the main thing—the human element of attention, or attraction to some particular part. A convention by which we would sacrifice subordinate parts for the sake of accenting the essential is truer to the effect of nature. For all painting is a partial statement—a reading or rendering of nature—rather than an inventory. And the different temperaments of artists show in the particular qualities which each one feels most impelled to select; but the desire for literal truth is always in conflict with this, and every artist must make a compromise for himself.

There are two extremes in the way artists see light in nature. One is to half close the eyes. This takes away a certain quantity of light, joining all the darks together, and leaving the high lights as spots. This seems to have been the way of Rembrandt. He makes the whole picture lead up to his point of light. There is a little picture of his—a “Repose in Egypt”—in one of the German galleries, which shows very clearly his love of the beauty of light. The arrangement is typical of many pictures: a central mass of light, surrounded and led up to by dark. It is the common arrangement of portraits and still-life pictures; also of many of the old landscapes.

Turner, in his long career, began by seeing nature in the same way as Rembrandt,—by concentrating on the light,—but he studied and assimilated Claude, and ended by surpassing him. In his picture of “The Shipwreck,” you will see the same arrangement of a central light surrounded by dark.

The other way of looking at nature is with the eyes wide open, as we see in Claude’s pictures, such as the “Queen of Sheba” in the National Gallery. In this picture the difference in value between the sun and adjoining sky is very slight; but if in nature we look at the sun only in such a position, we realise that it is impossible to get the difference in brightness between it and the sky. If we half close our eyes so that we can look at the sun, we find that we cannot see anything else. But if now we look with open eyes on the whole scene, we realise that not only the whole sky, but everything else, except the actual shadows, is governed by, and is part of the sun’s light. The shadows tell out as spots of colour. This is, it seems to me, the truer way of looking at nature, and I think Claude was the first to realise it.

Turner, in his later manner, painted in the same way, as we see in his “Approach to Venice,” where he has completely left his old manner of vision, and has realised the infinite gradations in light.

But this difference between the earlier and the later manner of Turner is one which is noticeable in every artist’s work. The tendency, with increased knowledge, is to broaden and to lighten. Rembrandt himself shows a difference between his earlier and later work. It is the growing perception of the beauty of light.

In connection with lighting, there is a point of comparison between the Flemish and the Italian work generally which is, I think, worth noticing—that is, that the Northern painters, as a rule, seem to have been more attracted to the surfaces and textures of things, and to have studied their models at a closer range than did the Italians. In some of Dürer’s portraits, for example, one can discern that the high light of the eye shows the panes of his studio window. And in the portraits of Holbein, too, we see that everything must have been studied at extremely close range. That wonderful work, “The Ambassadors,” in the National Gallery, is all painted in a clear, even light with the utmost precision and minuteness, over every square inch of the panel, apparently without effort. It is beautiful in colour and harmonious, and at its distance everything seems in its place. Yet the figures do not quite hold the spectator, perhaps because they are placed so far away from the centre; partly, too, owing to the lack of atmosphere, which is almost inseparable from the close point of view necessitated by minute realisation. If we go from this picture to Velasquez’s “Admiral,” in the next room, we see the difference, for in this picture atmosphere is realised and detail suggested. It seems impossible to combine these different qualities—at anyrate, on a large scale, though it can be done on a small scale, as we see in the work of Van Eyck and some of the later Dutchmen.

Holbein’s “Duchess of Milan” is finer as a portrait than “The Ambassadors,” for there is nothing to distract the attention from the face. But one finds this difference in the way of seeing, all through the work of the Flemish and Italian schools. It may be due, I think, partly to the tradition of the antique, which had never been entirely lost in Italy. And it may be due also partly to the difference of climate and light in the two countries. The clear air of Italy would enable things to be seen plainly at a greater distance than we can see them here. But I think the main reason is that the Italian artists were accustomed to design and paint large spaces, and that they studied their figures and groups at a distance sufficient for the eye to take in the whole group. At this distance, surfaces and smaller details of modelling would be lost, and only the broad structural features and masses of colour remain.

I have mentioned the disturbing influence of photography on painting. It is hardly necessary to recall that, until the invention of photography, there was only one way of seeing things—through the human eye. And all the fine things have been accomplished by men whose minds were trained to perception of beauty in nature through the eye. Now, as Leonardo pointed out, nature does not define everything, and the triumph of painting has been that it has realised this, and presented things in degrees of emphasis corresponding to that in which they are presented to us in nature. But the minutely searching lens of the camera presents everything with indisputable accuracy, only not as we see it. How cruel and searching are the majority of portrait photographs! Yet the painter, for a time, tried to rival the camera in minuteness and detachment, forgetting that it is just this human quality of attention and selection that makes a painting a work of art. Photography itself now seems to admit the pictorial falseness of its own ideal, and we find photographers occupied to-day in arranging the tones and concentrating the lights of their pictures—in fact, using clumsily all the conventions discovered by the masters. But photographs, especially snapshots of nature, are most interesting and suggestive to look at. I do not think, though, that photography can in any other way be an aid to a painter. You cannot make that yours which the camera chooses to give you. You must make your own selection from nature.