by John Ruskin
LETTER III.
ON COLOUR AND COMPOSITION.
MY DEAR READER:--
If you have been obedient, and have hitherto done all that I have toldyou, I trust it has not been without much subdued remonstrance, and someserious vexation. For I should be sorry if, when you were led by thecourse of your study to observe closely such things as are beautiful incolour, you had not longed to paint them, and felt considerabledifficulty in complying with your restriction to the use of black, orblue, or grey. You _ought_ to love colour, and to think nothing quitebeautiful or perfect without it; and if you really do love it, for itsown sake, and are not merely desirous to colour because you thinkpainting a finer thing than drawing, there is some chance you may colourwell. Nevertheless, you need not hope ever to produce anything more thanpleasant helps to memory, or useful and suggestive sketches in colour,unless you mean to be wholly an artist. You may, in the time which othervocations leave at your disposal, produce finished, beautiful, andmasterly drawings in light and shade. But to colour well, requires yourlife. It cannot be done cheaper. The difficulty of doing right isincreased--not twofold nor threefold, but a thousandfold, and more--bythe addition of colour to your work. For the chances are more than athousand to one against your being right both in form and colour with agiven touch: it is difficult enough to be right in form, if you attendto that only; but when you have to attend, at the same moment, to a muchmore subtle thing than the form, the difficulty is strangelyincreased--and multiplied almost to infinity by this great fact, that,while form is absolute, so that you can say at the moment you draw anyline that it is either right or wrong, colour is wholly _relative_.Every hue throughout your work is altered by every touch that you add inother places; so that what was warm a minute ago, becomes cold when youhave put a hotter colour in another place, and what was in harmony whenyou left it, becomes discordant as you set other colours beside it; sothat every touch must be laid, not with a view to its effect at thetime, but with a view to its effect in futurity, the result upon it ofall that is afterwards to be done being previously considered. You mayeasily understand that, this being so, nothing but the devotion of life,and great genius besides, can make a colourist.
But though you cannot produce finished coloured drawings of any value,you may give yourself much pleasure, and be of great use to otherpeople, by occasionally sketching with a view to colour only; andpreserving distinct statements of certain colour facts--as that theharvest-moon at rising was of such and such a red, and surrounded byclouds of such and such a rosy grey; that the mountains at evening werein truth so deep in purple; and the waves by the boat's side were indeedof that incredible green. This only, observe, if you have an eye forcolour; but you may presume that you have this, if you enjoy colour.
And, though of course you should always give as much form to yoursubject as your attention to its colour will admit of, remember that thewhole value of what you are about depends, in a coloured sketch, on thecolour _merely_. If the colour is wrong, everything is wrong: just as,if you are singing, and sing false notes, it does not matter how truethe words are. If you sing at all, you must sing sweetly; and if youcolour at all, you must colour rightly. Give up _all_ the form, ratherthan the slightest part of the colour: just as, if you felt yourself indanger of a false note, you would give up the word, and sing ameaningless sound, if you felt that so you could save the note. Nevermind though your houses are all tumbling down--though your clouds aremere blots, and your trees mere knobs, and your sun and moon likecrooked sixpences--so only that trees, clouds, houses, and sun or moon,are of the right colours. Of course, the discipline you have gonethrough will enable you to hint something of form, even in the fastestsweep of the brush; but do not let the thought of form hamper you in theleast, when you begin to make coloured memoranda. If you want the formof the subject, draw it in black and white. If you want its colour, takeits colour, and be sure you _have_ it, and not a spurious, treacherous,half-measured piece of mutual concession, with the colours all wrong,and the forms still anything but right. It is best to get into the habitof considering the coloured work merely as supplementary to your otherstudies; making your careful drawings of the subject first, and then acoloured memorandum separately, as shapeless as you like, but faithfulin hue, and entirely minding its own business. This principle, however,bears chiefly on large and distant subjects; in foregrounds and nearstudies, the colour cannot be had without a good deal of definition ofform. For if you do not map the mosses on the stones accurately, youwill not have the right quantity of colour in each bit of moss pattern,and then none of the colours will look right; but it always simplifiesthe work much if you are clear as to your point of aim, and satisfied,when necessary, to fail of all but that.
Now, of course, if I were to enter into detail respecting colouring,which is the beginning and end of a painter's craft, I should need tomake this a work in three volumes instead of three letters, and toillustrate it in the costliest way. I only hope at present to set youpleasantly and profitably to work, leaving you, within the tethering ofcertain leading-strings, to gather what advantages you can from theworks of art of which every year brings a greater number within yourreach;--and from the instruction which, every year, our rising artistswill be more ready to give kindly, and better able to give wisely.
And, first, of materials. Use hard cake colours, not moist colours:grind a sufficient quantity of each on your palette every morning,keeping a separate plate, large and deep, for colours to be used inbroad washes, and wash both plate and palette every evening, so as to beable always to get good and pure colour when you need it; and forceyourself into cleanly and orderly habits about your colours. The twobest colourists of modern times, Turner and Rossetti,[234] afford us, Iam sorry to say, no confirmation of this precept by their practice.Turner was, and Rossetti is, as slovenly in all their procedures as mencan well be; but the result of this was, with Turner, that the colourshave altered in all his pictures, and in many of his drawings; and theresult of it with Rossetti is, that, though his colours are safe, he hassometimes to throw aside work that was half done, and begin over again.William Hunt, of the Old Water-colour, is very neat in his practice; so,I believe, is Mulready; so is John Lewis; and so are the leadingPre-Raphaelites, Rossetti only excepted. And there can be no doubt aboutthe goodness of the advice, if it were only for this reason, that themore particular you are about your colours the more you will get into adeliberate and methodical habit in using them, and all true _speed_ incolouring comes of this deliberation.
Use Chinese white, well ground, to mix with your colours in order topale them, instead of a quantity of water. You will thus be able toshape your masses more quietly, and play the colours about with moreease; they will not damp your paper so much, and you will be able to goon continually, and lay forms of passing cloud and other fugitive ordelicately shaped lights, otherwise unattainable except by time.
This mixing of white with the pigments, so as to render them opaque,constitutes _body_-colour drawing as opposed to _transparent_-colourdrawing and you will, perhaps, have it often said to you that thisbody-colour is "illegitimate." It is just as legitimate as oil-painting,being, so far as handling is concerned, the same process, only withoutits uncleanliness, its unwholesomeness, or its inconvenience; for oilwill not dry quickly, nor carry safely, nor give the same effects ofatmosphere without tenfold labour. And if you hear it said that thebody-colour looks chalky or opaque, and, as is very likely, think soyourself, be yet assured of this, that though certain effects of glowand transparencies of gloom are not to be reached without transparentcolour, those glows and glooms are _not_ the noblest aim of art. Aftermany years' study of the various results of fresco and oil painting inItaly, and of body-colour and transparent colour in England, I am nowentirely convinced that the greatest things that are to be done in artmust be done in dead colour. The habit of depending on varnish or onlucid tints transparency, makes the painter comparatively lose sight ofthe nobler translucence which is obtained by breaking various
coloursamidst each other: and even when, as by Correggio, exquisite play of hueis joined with exquisite transparency, the delight in the depth almostalways leads the painter into mean and false chiaroscuro; it leads himto like dark backgrounds instead of luminous ones,[235] and to enjoy, ingeneral, quality of colour more than grandeur of composition, andconfined light rather than open sunshine: so that the really greatestthoughts of the greatest men have always, so far as I remember, beenreached in dead colour, and the noblest oil pictures of Tintoret andVeronese are those which are likest frescos.
Besides all this, the fact is, that though sometimes a little chalky andcoarse-looking, body-colour is, in a sketch, infinitely liker naturethan transparent colour: the bloom and mist of distance are accuratelyand instantly represented by the film of opaque blue (_quite_accurately, I think, by _nothing_ else); and for ground, rocks, andbuildings, the earthy and solid surface is, of course, always truer thanthe most finished and carefully wrought work in transparent tints canever be.
Against one thing, however, I must steadily caution you. All kinds ofcolour are equally illegitimate, if you think they will allow you toalter at your pleasure, or blunder at your ease. There is _no_ vehicleor method of colour which admits of alteration or repentance; you mustbe right at once, or never; and you might as well hope to catch a riflebullet in your hand, and put it straight, when it was going wrong, as torecover a tint once spoiled. The secret of all good colour in oil,water, or anything else, lies primarily in that sentence spoken to me byMulready: "Know what you have to do." The process may be a long one,perhaps: you may have to ground with one colour; to touch it withfragments of a second; to crumble a third into the interstices; a fourthinto the interstices of the third; to glaze the whole with a fifth; andto reinforce in points with a sixth: but whether you have one, or ten,or twenty processes to go through, you must go _straight_ through them,knowingly and foreseeingly all the way; and if you get the thing oncewrong, there is no hope for you but in washing or scraping boldly downto the white ground, and beginning again.
The drawing in body-colour will tend to teach you all this, more thanany other method, and above all it will prevent you from falling intothe pestilent habit of sponging to get texture; a trick which has nearlyruined our modern water-colour school of art. There are sometimes placesin which a skilful artist will roughen his paper a little to get certainconditions of dusty colour with more ease than he could otherwise; andsometimes a skilfully rased piece of paper will, in the midst oftransparent tints, answer nearly the purpose of chalky body-colour inrepresenting the surfaces of rocks or buildings. But artifices of thiskind are always treacherous in a tyro's hands, tempting him to trust inthem; and you had better always work on white or grey paper as smooth assilk;[236] and never disturb the surface of your colour or paper, exceptfinally to scratch out the very highest lights if you are usingtransparent colours.
I have said above that body-colour drawing will teach you the use ofcolour better than working with merely transparent tints; but this isnot because the process is an easier one, but because it is a more_complete_ one, and also because it involves _some_ working withtransparent tints in the best way. You are not to think that because youuse body-colour you may make any kind of mess that you like, and yet getout of it. But you are to avail yourself of the characters of yourmaterial, which enable you most nearly to imitate the processes ofNature. Thus, suppose you have a red rocky cliff to sketch, with blueclouds floating over it. You paint your cliff first firmly, then takeyour blue, mixing it to such a tint (and here is a great part of theskill needed), that when it is laid over the red, in the thicknessrequired for the effect of the mist, the warm rock-colour showingthrough the blue cloud-colour, may bring it to exactly the hue you want;(your upper tint, therefore, must be mixed colder than you want it;)then you lay it on, varying it as you strike it, getting the forms ofthe mist at once, and, if it be rightly done, with exquisite quality ofcolour, from the warm tint's showing through and between the particlesof the other. When it is dry, you may add a little colour to retouch theedges where they want shape, or heighten the lights where they wantroundness, or put another tone over the whole; but you can take noneaway. If you touch or disturb the surface, or by any untoward accidentmix the under and upper colours together, all is lost irrecoverably.Begin your drawing from the ground again if you like, or throw it intothe fire if you like. But do not waste time in trying to mend it.[237]
This discussion of the relative merits of transparent and opaque colourhas, however, led us a little beyond the point where we should havebegun; we must go back to our palette, if you please. Get a cake of eachof the hard colours named in the note below[238] and try experiments ontheir simple combinations, by mixing each colour with every other. Ifyou like to do it in an orderly way, you may prepare a squared piece ofpasteboard, and put the pure colours in columns at the top and side;the mixed tints being given at the intersections, thus (the lettersstanding for colours):
b c d e f &c.
a ab ac ad ae af b -- bc bd be bf c -- -- cd ce cf d -- -- -- de df e -- -- -- -- ef &c.
This will give you some general notion of the characters of mixed tintsof two colours only, and it is better in practice to confine yourself asmuch as possible to these, and to get more complicated colours, eitherby putting a third _over_ the first blended tint, or by putting thethird into its interstices. Nothing but watchful practice will teach youthe effects that colours have on each other when thus put over, orbeside, each other.
FIG. 29.]
When you have got a little used to the principal combinations, placeyourself at a window which the sun does not shine in at, commanding somesimple piece of landscape; outline this landscape roughly; then take apiece of white cardboard, cut out a hole in it about the size of a largepea; and supposing _R_ is the room, _a d_ the window, and you aresitting at _a_, Fig. 29., hold this cardboard a little outside of thewindow, upright, and in the direction _b d_, parallel a little turned tothe side of the window, or so as to catch more light, as at _a d_, neverturned as at _c d_, or the paper will be dark. Then you will see thelandscape, bit by bit, through the circular hole. Match the colours ofeach important bit as nearly as you can, mixing your tints with white,beside the aperture. When matched, put a touch of the same tint at thetop of your paper, writing under it: "dark tree colour," "hill colour,""field colour," as the case may be. Then wash the tint away from besidethe opening, and the cardboard will be ready to match another piece ofthe landscape.[239] When you have got the colours of the principalmasses thus indicated, lay on a piece of each in your sketch in itsright place, and then proceed to complete the sketch in harmony withthem, by your eye.
In the course of your early experiments, you will be much struck by twothings: the first, the inimitable brilliancy of light in sky and insunlighted things: and the second, that among the tints which you canimitate, those which you thought the darkest will continually turn outto be in reality the lightest. Darkness of objects is estimated by us,under ordinary circumstances, much more by _knowledge_ than by sight;thus, a cedar or Scotch fir, at 200 yards off, will be thought of darkergreen than an elm or oak near us; because we know by experience that thepeculiar colour they exhibit, at that distance, is the _sign_ ofdarkness of foliage. But when we try them through the cardboard, thenear oak will be found, indeed, rather dark green, and the distantcedar, perhaps, pale gray-purple. The quantity of purple and grey inNature is, by the way, another somewhat surprising subject of discovery.
Well, having ascertained thus your principal tints, you may proceed tofill up your sketch; in doing which observe these following particulars:
1. Many portions of your subject appeared through the aperture in thepaper brighter than the paper, as sky, sunlighted grass, &c. Leave theseportions, for the present, white; and proceed with the parts of whichyou can match the tints.
2. As you tried your subjec
t with the cardboard, you must have observedhow many changes of hue took place over small spaces. In filling up yourwork, try to educate your eye to perceive these differences of huewithout the help of the cardboard, and lay them deliberately, like amosaic-worker, as separate colours, preparing each carefully on yourpalatte, and laying it as if it were a patch of coloured cloth, cut out,to be fitted neatly by its edge to the next patch; so that the _fault_of your work may be, not a slurred or misty look, but a patchedbed-cover look, as if it had all been cut out with scissors. Forinstance, in drawing the trunk of a birch tree, there will be probablywhite high lights, then a pale rosy grey round them on the light side,then a (probably greenish) deeper grey on the dark side, varied byreflected colours, and over all, rich black strips of bark and brownspots of moss. Lay first the rosy grey, leaving white for the highlights _and for the spots of moss_, and not touching the dark side. Thenlay the grey for the dark side, fitting it well up to the rosy grey ofthe light, leaving also in this darker grey the white paper in theplaces for the black and brown moss; then prepare the moss coloursseparately for each spot, and lay each in the white place left for it.Not one grain of white, except that purposely left for the high lights,must be visible when the work is done, even through a magnifying-glass,so cunningly must you fit the edges to each other. Finally, take yourbackground colours, and put them on each side of the tree-trunk, fittingthem carefully to its edge.
Fine work you would make of this, wouldn't you, if you had not learnedto draw first, and could not now draw a good outline for the stem, muchless terminate a colour mass in the outline you wanted?
Your work will look very odd for some time, when you first begin topaint in this way, and before you can modify it, as I shall tell youpresently how; but never mind; it is of the greatest possible importancethat you should practice this separate laying on of the hues, for allgood colouring finally depends on it. It is, indeed, often necessary,and sometimes desirable, to lay one colour and form boldly over another:thus, in laying leaves on blue sky, it is impossible always in largepictures, or when pressed for time, to fill in the blue through theinterstices of the leaves; and the great Venetians constantly lay theirblue ground first, and then, having let it dry, strike the golden brownover it in the form of the leaf, leaving the under blue to shine throughthe gold, and subdue it to the olive green they want. But in the mostprecious and perfect work each leaf is inlaid, and the blue worked roundit: and, whether you use one or other mode of getting your result, it isequally necessary to be absolute and decisive in your laying the colour.Either your ground must be laid firmly first, and then your upper colourstruck upon it in perfect form, for ever, thenceforward, unalterable; orelse the two colours must be individually put in their places, and ledup to each other till they meet at their appointed border, equally,thenceforward, unchangeable. Either process, you see, involves_absolute_ decision. If you once begin to slur, or change, or sketch, ortry this way and that with your colour, it is all over with it and withyou. You will continually see bad copyists trying to imitate theVenetians, by daubing their colours about, and retouching, andfinishing, and softening: when every touch and every added hue only leadthem farther into chaos. There is a dog between two children in aVeronese in the Louvre, which gives the copyist much employment. He hasa dark ground behind him, which Veronese has painted first, and thenwhen it was dry, or nearly so, struck the locks of the dog's white hairover it with some half-dozen curling sweeps of his brush, right at once,and forever. Had one line or hair of them gone wrong, it would have beenwrong forever; no retouching could have mended it. The poor copyistsdaub in first some background, and then some dog's hair; then retouchthe background, then the hair, work for hours at it, expecting it alwaysto come right to-morrow--"when it is finished." They _may_ work forcenturies at it, and they will never do it. If they can do it withVeronese's allowance of work, half a dozen sweeps of the hand over thedark background, well; if not, they may ask the dog himself whether itwill ever come right, and get true answer from him--on Launce'sconditions: "If he say 'ay,' it will; if he say 'no,' it will; if heshake his tail and say nothing, it will."
Whenever you lay on a mass of colour, be sure that however large it maybe, or however small, it shall be gradated. No colour exists in Natureunder ordinary circumstances without gradation. If you do not see this,it is the fault of your inexperience; you _will_ see it in due time, ifyou practise enough. But in general you may see it at once. In the birchtrunk, for instance, the rosy grey _must_ be gradated by the roundnessof the stem till it meets the shaded side; similarly the shaded side isgradated by reflected, light. Accordingly, whether by adding water, orwhite paint, or by unequal force of touch (this you will do at pleasure,according to the texture you wish to produce), you must, in every tintyou lay on, make it a little paler at one part than another, and get aneven gradation between the two depths. This is very like laying down aformal law or recipe for you; but you will find it is merely theassertion of a natural fact. It is not indeed physically impossible tomeet with an ungradated piece of colour, but it is so supremelyimprobable, that you had better get into the habit of asking yourselfinvariably, when you are going to copy a tint,--not "_Is_ thatgradated?" but "_Which way_ is it gradated?" and at least in ninety-nineout of a hundred instances, you will be able to answer decisively aftera careful glance, though the gradation may have been so subtle that youdid not see it at first. And it does not matter how small the touch ofcolour may be, though not larger than the smallest pin's head, if onepart of it is not darker than the rest, it is a bad touch; for it is notmerely because the natural fact is so, that your colour should begradated; the preciousness and pleasantness of the colour itself dependsmore on this than on any other of its qualities, for gradation is tocolours just what curvature is to lines, both being felt to be beautifulby the pure instinct of every human mind, and both, considered as types,expressing the law of gradual change and progress in the human soulitself. What the difference is in mere beauty between a gradated andungradated colour, may be seen easily by laying an even tint ofrose-colour on paper, and putting a rose leaf beside it. The victoriousbeauty of the rose as compared with other flowers, depends wholly on thedelicacy and quantity of its colour gradations, all other flowers beingeither less rich in gradation, not having so many folds of leaf; or lesstender, being patched and veined instead of flushed.
4. But observe, it is not enough in general that colour should begradated by being made merely paler or darker at one place than another.Generally colour _changes_ as it _diminishes_, and is not merely_darker_ at one spot, but also _purer_ at one spot than anywhere else.It does not in the least follow that the darkest spot should be thepurest; still less so that the lightest should be the purest. Very oftenthe two gradations more or less cross each other, one passing in onedirection from paleness to darkness, another in another direction frompurity to dullness, but there will almost always be both of them,however reconciled; and you must never be satisfied with a piece ofcolour until you have got both: that is to say, every piece of blue thatyou lay on must be _quite_ blue only at some given spot, nor that alarge spot; and must be gradated from that into less pure blue--greyishblue, or greenish blue, or purplish blue, over all the rest of the spaceit occupies. And this you must do in one of three ways: either, whilethe colour is wet, mix it with the colour which is to subdue it, addinggradually a little more and a little more; or else, when the colour isquite dry, strike a gradated touch of another colour over it, leavingonly a point of the first tint visible: or else, lay the subduing tintson in small touches, as in the exercise of tinting the chess-board. Ofeach of these methods I have something to tell you separately: but thatis distinct from the subject of gradation, which I must not quit withoutonce more pressing upon you the preeminent necessity of introducing iteverywhere. I have profound dislike of anything like _habit_ of hand,and yet, in this one instance, I feel almost tempted to encourage you toget into a habit of never touching paper with colour, without securing agradation. You will not in Turner's larg
est oil pictures, perhaps six orseven feet long by four or five high, find one spot of colour as largeas a grain of wheat ungradated: and you will find in practice, thatbrilliancy of hue, and vigour of light, and even the aspect oftransparency in shade, are essentially dependent on this characteralone; hardness, coldness, and opacity resulting far more from_equality_ of colour than from nature of colour. Give me some mud off acity crossing, some ochre out of a gravel pit, a little whitening, andsome coal-dust, and I will paint you a luminous picture, if you give metime to gradate my mud, and subdue my dust: but though you had the redof the ruby, the blue of the gentian, snow for the light, and amber forthe gold, you cannot paint a luminous picture, if you keep the masses ofthose colours unbroken in purity, and unvarying in depth.
5. Next note the three processes by which gradation and other charactersare to be obtained:
A. Mixing while the colour is wet.
You may be confused by my first telling you to lay on the hues inseparate patches, and then telling you to mix hues together as you laythem on: but the separate masses are to be laid, when colours distinctlyoppose each other at a given limit; the hues to be mixed, when theypalpitate one through the other, or fade one into the other. It isbetter to err a little on the distinct side. Thus I told you to paintthe dark and light sides of the birch trunk separately, though inreality, the two tints change, as the trunk turns away from the light,gradually one into the other: and, after being laid separately on, willneed some farther touching to harmonize them: but they do so in a verynarrow space, marked distinctly all the way up the trunk; and it iseasier and safer, therefore, to keep them separate at first. Whereas itoften happens that the whole beauty of two colours will depend on theone being continued well through the other, and playing in the midst ofit: blue and green often do so in water: blue and grey, or purple andscarlet, in sky; in hundreds of such instances the most beautiful andtruthful results may be obtained by laying one colour into the otherwhile wet; judging wisely how far it will spread, or blending it withthe brush in somewhat thicker consistence of wet body-colour; onlyobserve, never mix in this way two _mixtures_; let the colour you layinto the other be always a simple, not a compound tint.
B. Laying one colour over another.
If you lay on a solid touch of vermilion, and, after it is quite dry,strike a little very wet carmine quickly over it, you will obtain a muchmore brilliant red than by mixing the carmine and vermilion. Similarly,if you lay a dark colour first, and strike a little blue or whitebody-colour lightly over it, you will get a more beautiful grey than bymixing the colour and the blue or white. In very perfect painting,artifices of this kind are continually used; but I would not have youtrust much to them; they are apt to make you think too much of qualityof colour. I should like you to depend on little more than the deadcolours, simply laid on, only observe always this, that the _less_colour you do the work with, the better it will always be:[240] so thatif you have laid a red colour, and you want a purple one above, do notmix the purple on your palette and lay it on so thick as to overpowerthe red, but take a little thin blue from your palette, and lay itlightly over the red, so as to let the red be seen through, and thusproduce the required purple; and if you want a green hue over a blueone, do not lay a quantity of green on the blue, but a _little_ yellow,and so on, always bringing the under colour into service as far as youpossibly can. If, however, the colour beneath is wholly opposed to theone you have to lay on, as, suppose, if green is to be laid overscarlet, you must either remove the required parts of the under colourdaintily first with your knife, or with water; or else, lay solid whiteover it massively, and leave that to dry, and then glaze the white withthe upper colour. This is better, in general, than laying the uppercolour itself so thick as to conquer the ground, which, in fact, if itbe a transparent colour, you cannot do. Thus, if you have to strikewarm boughs and leaves of trees over blue sky, and they are toointricate to have their places left for them in laying the blue, it isbetter to lay them first in solid white, and then glaze with sienna andochre, than to mix the sienna and white; though, of course, the processis longer and more troublesome. Nevertheless, if the forms of touchesrequired are very delicate, the after glazing is impossible. You mustthen mix the warm colour thick at once, and so use it: and this is oftennecessary for delicate grasses, and such other fine threads of light inforeground work.
C. Breaking one colour in small points through or over another.
This is the most important of all processes in good modern[241] oil andwater-colour painting, but you need not hope to attain very great skillin it. To do it well is very laborious, and requires such skill anddelicacy of hand as can only be acquired by unceasing practice. But youwill find advantage in noting the following points:
(_a._) In distant effects of rich subjects, wood, or rippled water, orbroken clouds, much may be done by touches or crumbling dashes of ratherdry colour, with other colours afterwards put cunningly into theinterstices. The more you practise this, when the subject evidentlycalls for it, the more your eye will enjoy the higher qualities ofcolour. The process is, in fact, the carrying out of the principle ofseparate colours to the utmost possible refinement; using atoms ofcolour in juxtaposition, instead of large spaces. And note, in fillingup minute interstices of this kind, that if you want the colour you fillthem with to show brightly, it is better to put a rather positive pointof it, with a little white left beside or round it in the interstice,than to put a pale tint of the colour over the whole interstice. Yellowor orange will hardly show, if pale, in small spaces; but they showbrightly in firm touches, however small, with white beside them.
(_b._) If a colour is to be darkened by superimposed portions ofanother, it is, in many cases, better to lay the uppermost colour inrather vigorous small touches, like finely chopped straw, over the underone, than to lay it on as a tint, for two reasons: the first, that theplay of the two colours together is pleasant to the eye; the second,that much expression of form may be got by wise administration of theupper dark touches. In distant mountains they may be made pines of, orbroken crags, or villages, or stones, or whatever you choose; in cloudsthey may indicate the direction of the rain, the roll and outline of thecloud masses; and in water, the minor waves. All noble effects of darkatmosphere are got in good water-colour drawing by these two expedients,interlacing the colours, or retouching the lower one with fine darkerdrawing in an upper. Sponging and washing for dark atmospheric effect isbarbarous, and mere tyro's work, though it is often useful for passagesof delicate atmospheric light.
(_c._) When you have time, practice the production of mixed tints byinterlaced touches of the pure colours out of which they are formed, anduse the process at the parts of your sketches where you wish to get richand luscious effects. Study the works of William Hunt, of the OldWater-colour Society, in this respect, continually, and make frequentmemoranda of the variegations in flowers; not painting the flowercompletely, but laying the ground colour of one petal, and painting thespots on it with studious precision: a series of single petals oflilies, geraniums, tulips, &c., numbered with proper reference to theirposition in the flower, will be interesting to you on many groundsbesides those of art. Be careful to get the _gradated_ distribution ofthe spots well followed in the calceolarias, foxgloves, and the like;and work out the odd, indefinite hues of the spots themselves withminute grains of pure interlaced colour, otherwise you will never gettheir richness of bloom. You will be surprised to find, as you do this,first the universality of the law of gradation we have so much insistedupon; secondly, that Nature is just as economical of _her_ fine coloursas I have told you to be of yours. You would think, by the way shepaints, that her colours cost her something enormous: she will only giveyou a single pure touch just where the petal turns into light; but downin the bell all is subdued, and under the petal all is subdued, even inthe showiest flower. What you thought was bright blue is, when you lookclose, only dusty grey, or green, or purple, or every colour in theworld at once, only a single gleam or streak of pure blue in t
he centreof it. And so with all her colours. Sometimes I have really thought hermiserliness intolerable: in a gentian, for instance, the way sheeconomises her ultramarine down in the bell is a little too bad.
Next, respecting general tone. I said, just now, that, for the sake ofstudents, my tax should not be laid on black or on white pigments; butif you mean to be a colourist, you must lay a tax on them yourselveswhen you begin to use true colour; that is to say, you must use themlittle and make of them much. There is no better test of your colourtones being good, than your having made the white in your pictureprecious, and the black conspicuous.
I say, first, the white precious. I do not mean merely glittering orbrilliant; it is easy to scratch white seagulls out of black clouds anddot clumsy foliage with chalky dew; but, when white is well managed, itought to be strangely delicious--tender as well as bright--like inlaidmother of pearl, or white roses washed in milk. The eye ought to seek itfor rest, brilliant though it may be; and to feel it as a space ofstrange, heavenly paleness in the midst of the flushing of the colours.This effect you can only reach by general depth of middle tint, byabsolutely refusing to allow any white to exist except where you needit, and by keeping the white itself subdued by grey, except at a fewpoints of chief lustre.
Secondly, you must make the black conspicuous. However small a point ofblack may be, it ought to catch the eye, otherwise your work is tooheavy in the shadow. All the ordinary shadows should be of some_colour_--never black, nor approaching black, they should be evidentlyand always of a luminous nature, and the black should look strange amongthem; never occurring except in a black object, or in small pointsindicative of intense shade in the very centre of masses of shadow.Shadows of absolutely negative grey, however, may be beautifully usedwith white, or with gold; but still though the black thus, in subduedstrength, becomes _spacious_, it should always be _conspicuous_; thespectator should notice this grey neutrality with some wonder, andenjoy, all the more intensely on account of it, the gold colour and thewhite which it relieves. Of all the great colourists Velasquez is thegreatest master of the black chords. His black is more precious thanmost other people's crimson.
It is not, however, only white and black which you must make valuable;you must give rare worth to every colour you use; but the white andblack ought to separate themselves quaintly from the rest, while theother colours should be continually passing one into the other, beingall evidently companions in the same gay world; while the white, black,and neutral grey should stand monkishly aloof in the midst of them. Youmay melt your crimson into purple, your purple into blue and your blueinto green, but you must not melt any of them into black. You should,however, try, as I said, to give _preciousness_ to all your colours; andthis especially by never using a grain more than will just do the work,and giving each hue the highest value by opposition. All fine colouring,like fine drawing, is _delicate_; and so delicate that if, at last, you_see_ the colour you are putting on, you are putting on too much. Youought to feel a change wrought in the general tone, by touches of colourwhich individually are too pale to be seen; and if there is one atom ofany colour in the whole picture which is unnecessary to it, that atomhurts it.
Notice also, that nearly all good compound colours are _odd_ colours.You shall look at a hue in a good painter's work ten minutes before youknow what to call it. You thought it was brown, presently, you feel thatit is red; next that there is, somehow, yellow in it; presentlyafterwards that there is blue in it. If you try to copy it you willalways find your colour too warm or too cold--no colour in the box willseem to have any affinity with it; and yet it will be as pure as if itwere laid at a single touch with a single colour.
As to the choice and harmony of colours in general, if you cannotchoose and harmonize them by instinct, you will never do it at all. Ifyou need examples of utterly harsh and horrible colour, you may findplenty given in treatises upon colouring, to illustrate the laws ofharmony; and if you want to colour beautifully, colour as best pleasesyourself at _quiet times_, not so as to catch the eye, nor to look as ifit were clever or difficult to colour in that way, but so that thecolour may be pleasant to you when you are happy, or thoughtful. Lookmuch at the morning and evening sky, and much at simpleflowers--dog-roses, wood hyacinths, violets, poppies, thistles, heather,and such like--as Nature arranges them in the woods and fields. If everany scientific person tells you that two colours are "discordant," makea note of the two colours, and put them together whenever you can. Ihave actually heard people say that blue and green were discordant; thetwo colours which Nature seems to intend never to be separated and neverto be felt, either of them, in its full beauty without the other!--apeacock's neck, or a blue sky through green leaves, or a blue wave withgreen lights though it, being precisely the loveliest things, next toclouds at sunrise, in this coloured world of ours. If you have a goodeye for colours, you will soon find out how constantly Nature putspurple and green together, purple and scarlet, green and blue, yellowand neutral grey, and the like; and how she strikes thesecolour-concords for general tones, and then works into them withinnumerable subordinate ones; and you will gradually come to like whatshe does, and find out new and beautiful chords of colour in her workevery day. If you _enjoy_ them, depend upon it you will paint them to acertain point right: or, at least, if you do not enjoy them, you arecertain to paint them wrong. If colour does not give you _intense_pleasure, let it alone; depend upon it, you are only tormenting the eyesand senses of people who feel colour, whenever you touch it; and that isunkind and improper. You will find, also, your power of colouring dependmuch on your state of health and right balance of mind; when you arefatigued or ill you will not see colours well, and when you areill-tempered you will not choose them well: thus, though not infalliblya test of character in individuals, colour power is a great sign ofmental health in nations; when they are in a state of intellectualdecline, their colouring always gets dull.[242] You must also take greatcare not to be misled by affected talk about colour from people who havenot the gift of it: numbers are eager and voluble about it who probablynever in all their lives received one genuine colour-sensation. Themodern religionists of the school of Overbeck are just like people whoeat slate-pencil and chalk, and assure everybody that they are nicer andpurer than strawberries and plums.
Take care also never to be misled into any idea that colour can help ordisplay _form_; colour[243] always disguises form, and is meant to doso.
It is a favourite dogma among modern writers on colour that "warmcolours" (reds and yellows) "approach" or express nearness, and "coldcolours" (blue and grey) "retire" or express distance. So far is thisfrom being the case, that no expression of distance in the world is sogreat as that of the gold and orange in twilight sky. Colours, as such,are ABSOLUTELY inexpressive respecting distance. It is their _quality_(as depth, delicacy, &c.) which expresses distance, not their tint. Ablue bandbox set on the same shelf with a yellow one will not look aninch farther off, but a red or orange cloud, in the upper sky, willalways appear to be beyond a blue cloud close to us, as it is inreality. It is quite true that in certain objects, blue is a _sign_ ofdistance; but that is not because blue is a retiring colour, but becausethe mist in the air is blue, and therefore any warm colour which has notstrength of light enough to pierce the mist is lost or subdued in itsblue: but blue is no more, on this account, a "retiring colour," thanbrown is a retiring colour, because, when stones are seen through brownwater, the deeper they lie the browner they look; or than yellow is aretiring colour, because when objects are seen through a London fog, thefarther off they are the yellower they look. Neither blue, nor yellow,nor red, can have, as such, the _smallest_ power of expressing eithernearness or distance: they express them only under the peculiarcircumstances which render them at the moment, or in that place, _signs_of nearness or distance. Thus, vivid orange in an orange is a sign ofnearness, for if you put the orange a great way off, its colour will notlook so bright; but vivid orange in sky is a sign of distance, becauseyou cannot get the colour of orange i
n a cloud near you. So purple in aviolet or a hyacinth is a sign of nearness, because the closer you lookat them the more purple you see. But purple in a mountain is a sign ofdistance, because a mountain close to you is not purple, but green orgrey. It may, indeed, be generally assumed that a tender or pale colourwill more or less express distance, and a powerful or dark colournearness; but even this is not always so. Heathery hills will usuallygive a pale and tender purple near, and an intense and dark purple faraway; the rose colour of sunset on snow is pale on the snow at yourfeet, deep and full on the snow in the distance; and the green of aSwiss lake is pale in the clear waves on the beach, but intense as anemerald in the sunstreak, six miles from shore. And in any case, whenthe foreground is in strong light, with much water about it, or whitesurface, casting intense reflections, all its colours may be perfectlydelicate, pale, and faint; while the distance, when it is in shadow, mayrelieve the whole foreground with intense darks of purple, blue green,or ultramarine blue. So that, on the whole, it is quite hopeless andabsurd to expect any help from laws of "aerial perspective." Look forthe natural effects, and set them down as fully as you can, and asfaithfully, and _never_ alter a colour because it won't look in itsright place. Put the colour strong, if it be strong, though far off;faint, if it be faint, though close to you. Why should you suppose thatNature always means you to know exactly how far one thing is fromanother? She certainly intends you always to enjoy her colouring, butshe does not wish you always to measure her space. You would be hard putto it, every time you painted the sun setting, if you had to express his95,000,000 miles of distance in "aerial perspective."
There is, however, I think, one law about distance, which has someclaims to be considered a constant one: namely, that dullness andheaviness of colour are more or less indicative of nearness. All distantcolour is _pure_ colour: it may not be bright, but it is clear andlovely, not opaque nor soiled; for the air and light coming between usand any earthy or imperfect colour, purify or harmonise it; hence a badcolourist is peculiarly incapable of expressing distance. I do not ofcourse mean that you are to use bad colours in your foreground by way ofmaking it come forward; but only that a failure in colour, there, willnot put it out of its place; while a failure in colour in the distancewill at once do away with its remoteness: your dull-coloured foregroundwill still be a foreground, though ill-painted; but your ill-painteddistance will not be merely a dull distance,--it will be no distance atall.
I have only one thing more to advise you, namely, never to colourpetulantly or hurriedly. You will not, indeed, be able, if you attendproperly to your colouring, to get anything like the quantity of formyou could in a chiaroscuro sketch; nevertheless, if you do not dash orrush at your work, nor do it lazily, you may always get enough form tobe satisfactory. An extra quarter of an hour, distributed in quietnessover the course of the whole study, may just make the differencebetween a quite intelligible drawing, and a slovenly and obscure one. Ifyou determine well beforehand what outline each piece of colour is tohave; and, when it is on the paper, guide it without nervousness, as faras you can, into the form required; and then, after it is dry, considerthoroughly what touches are needed to complete it, before laying one ofthem on; you will be surprised to find how masterly the work will soonlook, as compared with a hurried or ill-considered sketch. In no processthat I know of--least of all in sketching--can time be really gained byprecipitation. It is gained only by caution; and gained in all sorts ofways: for not only truth of form, but force of light, is always added byan intelligent and shapely laying of the shadow colours. You may oftenmake a simple flat tint, rightly gradated and edged, express acomplicated piece of subject without a single retouch. The two Swisscottages, for instance, with their balconies, and glittering windows,and general character of shingly eaves, are expressed in Fig. 30., withone tint of grey, and a few dispersed spots and lines of it; all ofwhich you ought to be able to lay on without more than thrice dippingyour brush, and without a single touch after the tint is dry.
FIG. 30.]
Here, then, for I cannot without coloured illustrations tell you more, Imust leave you to follow out the subject for yourself, with such help asyou may receive from the water-colour drawings accessible to you; orfrom any of the little treatises on their art which have been publishedlately by our water-colour painters.[244] But do not trust much to worksof this kind. You may get valuable hints from them as to mixture ofcolours; and here and there you will find a useful artifice or processexplained; but nearly all such books are written only to help idleamateurs to a meretricious skill, and they are full of precepts andprinciples which may, for the most part, be interpreted by their_precise_ negatives, and then acted upon, with advantage. Most of thempraise boldness, when the only safe attendant spirit of a beginner iscaution;--advise velocity, when the first condition of success isdeliberation;--and plead for generalisation, when all the foundations ofpower must be laid in knowledge of specialty.
And now, in the last place, I have a few things to tell you respectingthat dangerous nobleness of consummate art,--COMPOSITION. For though itis quite unnecessary for you yet awhile to attempt it, and it _may_ beinexpedient for you to attempt it at all, you ought to know what itmeans, and to look for and enjoy it in the art of others.
Composition means, literally and simply, putting several thingstogether, so as to make _one_ thing out of them; the nature and goodnessof which they all have a share in producing. Thus a musician composes anair, by putting notes together in certain relations; a poet composes apoem; by putting thoughts and words in pleasant order; and a painter apicture, by putting thoughts, forms, and colours in pleasant order.
In all these cases, observe, an intended unity must be the result ofcomposition. A paviour cannot be said to compose the heap of stoneswhich he empties from his cart, nor the sower the handful of seed whichhe scatters from his hand. It is the essence of composition thateverything should be in a determined place, perform an intended part,and act, in that part, advantageously for everything that is connectedwith it.
Composition, understood in this pure sense, is the type, in the arts ofmankind, of the Providential government of the world.[245] It is anexhibition, in the order given to notes, or colours, or forms, of theadvantage of perfect fellowship, discipline, and contentment. In awell-composed air, no note, however short or low, can be spared, but theleast is as necessary as the greatest: no note, however prolonged, istedious; but the others prepare for, and are benefited by, its duration;no note, however high, is tyrannous; the others prepare for and arebenefited by, its exaltation: no note, however low, is overpowered, theothers prepare for, and sympathise with, its humility: and the resultis, that each and every note has a value in the position assigned to it,which by itself, it never possessed, and of which by separation from theothers, it would instantly be deprived.
Similarly, in a good poem, each word and thought enhances the value ofthose which precede and follow it; and every syllable has a lovelinesswhich depends not so much on its abstract sound as on its position. Lookat the same word in a dictionary, and you will hardly recognise it.
Much more in a great picture; every line and colour is so arranged as toadvantage the rest. None are inessential, however slight; and none areindependent, however forcible. It is not enough that they trulyrepresent natural objects; but they must fit into certain places, andgather into certain harmonious groups: so that, for instance, the redchimney of a cottage is not merely set in its place as a chimney, butthat it may affect, in a certain way pleasurable to the eye, the piecesof green or blue in other parts of the picture; and we ought to see thatthe work is masterly, merely by the positions and quantities of thesepatches of green, red, and blue, even at a distance which renders itperfectly impossible to determine what the colours represent: or to seewhether the red is a chimney, or an old woman's cloak; and whether theblue is smoke, sky, or water.
It seems to be appointed, in order to remind us, in all we do, of thegreat laws of Divine government and human polity, that composition
inthe arts should strongly affect every order of mind, however unlearnedor thoughtless. Hence the popular delight in rhythm and metre, and insimple musical melodies. But it is also appointed that _power_ ofcomposition in the fine arts should be an exclusive attribute of greatintellect All men can more or less copy what they see, and, more orless, remember it: powers of reflection and investigation are alsocommon to us all, so that the decision of inferiority in these restsonly on questions of _degree_. A. has a better memory than B., and C.reflects more profoundly than D. But the gift of composition is notgiven _at all_ to more than one man in a thousand; in its highest range,it does not occur above three or four times in a century.
It follows, from these general truths, that it is impossible to giverules which will enable you to compose. You might much more easilyreceive rules to enable you to be witty. If it were possible to be wittyby rule, wit would cease to be either admirable or amusing: if it werepossible to compose melody by rule, Mozart and Cimarosa need not havebeen born: if it were possible to compose pictures by rule, Titian andVeronese would be ordinary men. The essence of composition liesprecisely in the fact of its being unteachable, in its being theoperation of an individual mind of range and power exalted above others.
But though no one can _invent_ by rule, there are some simple laws ofarrangement which it is well for you to know, because, though they willnot enable you to produce a good picture, they will often assist you toset forth what goodness may be in your work in a more telling way thanyou could have done otherwise; and by tracing them in the work of goodcomposers, you may better understand the grasp of their imagination, andthe power it possesses over their materials I shall briefly state thechief of these laws.
1. THE LAW OF PRINCIPALITY.
The great object of composition being always to secure unity; that is,to make out of many things one whole; the first mode in which this canbe effected is, by determining that _one_ feature shall be moreimportant than all the rest, and that the others shall group with it insubordinate positions.
This is the simplest law of ordinary ornamentation. Thus the group oftwo leaves, _a_, Fig. 31., is unsatisfactory, because it has no leadingleaf; but that at _b_ _is_ prettier, because it has a head or masterleaf; and _c_ more satisfactory still, because the subordination of theother members to this head leaf is made more manifest by their gradualloss of size as they fall back from it. Hence part of the pleasure wehave in the Greek honeysuckle ornament, and such others.
FIG. 31.]
Thus, also, good pictures have always one light larger or brighter thanthe other lights, or one figure more prominent than the other figures,or one mass of colour dominant over all the other masses; and in generalyou will find it much benefit your sketch if you manage that there shallbe one light on the cottage wall, or one blue cloud in the sky, whichmay attract the eye as leading light, or leading gloom, above allothers. But the observance of the rule is often so cunningly concealedby the great composers, that its force is hardly at first traceable; andyou will generally find that they are vulgar pictures in which the lawis _strikingly_ manifest. This may be simply illustrated by musicalmelody; for instance, in such phrases as this:
one note (here the upper G) rules the whole passage, and has the fullenergy of it concentrated in itself. Such passages, corresponding tocompletely subordinated compositions in painting, are apt to bewearisome if often repeated. But in such a phrase as this:
it is very difficult to say, which is the principal note. The A in thelast bar is lightly dominant, but there is a very equal current ofpower running through the whole; and such passages rarely weary. Andthis principle holds through vast scales of arrangement; so that in thegrandest compositions, such as Paul Veronese's Marriage in Cana, orRaphael's Disputa, it is not easy to fix at once on the principalfigure; and very commonly the figure which is really chief does notcatch the eye at first, but is gradually felt to be more and moreconspicuous as we gaze. Thus in Titian's grand composition of theCornaro Family, the figure meant to be principal is a youth of fifteenor sixteen, whose portrait it was evidently the painter's object to makeas interesting as possible. But a grand Madonna, and a St. George with adrifting banner, and many figures more, occupy the centre of thepicture, and first catch the eye; little by little we are led away fromthem to a gleam of pearly light in the lower corner, and find that, fromthe head which it shines upon, we can turn our eyes no more.
As, in every good picture, nearly all laws of design are more or lessexemplified, it will, on the whole, be an easier way of explaining themto analyse one composition thoroughly, than to give instances fromvarious works. I shall therefore take one of Turner's simplest; whichwill allow us, so to speak, easily to decompose it, and illustrate eachlaw by it as we proceed.
Figure 32. is a rude sketch of the arrangement of the whole subject; theold bridge over the Moselle at Coblentz, the town of Coblentz on theright, Ehrenbreitstein on the left. The leading or master feature is, ofcourse the tower on the bridge. It is kept from being _too_ principal byan important group on each side of it; the boats, on the right, andEhrenbreitstein beyond. The boats are large in mass, and more forciblein colour, but they are broken into small divisions, while the tower issimple, and therefore it still leads. Ehrenbreitstein is noble in itsmass, but so reduced by aerial perspective of colour that it cannotcontend with the tower, which therefore holds the eye, and becomes thekey of the picture. We shall see presently how the very objects whichseem at first to contend with it for the mastery are made, occultly toincrease its preeminence.
FIG. 32.]
2. THE LAW OF REPETITION.
Another important means of expressing unity is to mark some kind ofsympathy among the different objects, and perhaps the pleasantest,because most surprising, kind of sympathy, is when one group imitates orrepeats another; not in the way of balance or symmetry, butsubordinately, like a far-away and broken echo of it. Prout has insistedmuch on this law in all his writings on composition; and I think it iseven more authoritatively present in the minds of most great composersthan the law of principality. It is quite curious to see the pains thatTurner sometimes takes to echo an important passage of colour; in thePembroke Castle for instance, there are two fishing-boats, one with ared, and another with a white sail. In a line with them, on the beach,are two fish in precisely the same relative positions; one red and onewhite. It is observable that he uses the artifice chiefly in pictureswhere he wishes to obtain an expression of repose: in my notice of theplate of Scarborough, in the series of the "Harbours of England," I havealready had occasion to dwell on this point, and I extract in thenote[246] one or two sentences which explain the principle. In thecomposition I have chosen for our illustration, this reduplication isemployed to a singular extent. The tower, or leading feature, is firstrepeated by the low echo of it to the left; put your finger over thislower tower, and see how the picture is spoiled. Then the spires ofCoblentz are all arranged in couples (how they are arranged in realitydoes not matter; when we are composing a great picture, we must play thetowers about till they come right, as fearlessly as if they werechessmen instead of cathedrals). The dual arrangement of these towerswould have been too easily seen, were it not for a little one whichpretends to make a triad of the last group on the right, but is so faintas hardly to be discernible: it just takes off the attention from theartifice, helped in doing so by the mast at the head of the boat, which,however, has instantly its own duplicate put at the stern.[247] Thenthere is the large boat near, and its echo beyond it. That echo isdivided into two again, and each of those two smaller boats has twofigures in it; while two figures are also sitting together on the greatrudder that lies half in the water, and half aground. Then, finally, thegreat mass of Ehrenbreitstein, which appears at first to have noanswering form, has almost its _facsimile_ in the bank on which the girlis sitting; this bank is as absolutely essential to the completion ofthe picture as any object in the whole series. All this is done todeepen the effect of repose.
Symmetry or the balance of par
ts or masses in nearly equal opposition,is one of the conditions of treatment under the law of Repetition. Forthe opposition, in a symmetrical object, is of like things reflectingeach other; it is not the balance of contrary natures (like that of dayand night) but of like natures or like forms; one side of a leaf beingset like the reflection of the other in water.
Symmetry in Nature is, however, never formal nor accurate. She takes thegreatest care to secure some difference between the corresponding thingsor parts of things; and an approximation to accurate symmetry is onlypermitted in animals because their motions secure perpetual differencebetween the balancing parts. Stand before a mirror; hold your arms inprecisely the same position at each side, your head upright your bodystraight; divide your hair exactly in the middle, and get it as nearlyas you can into exactly the same shape over each ear, and you will seethe effect of accurate symmetry; you will see, no less, how all graceand power in the human form result from the interference of motion andlife with symmetry, and from the reconciliation of its balance with itschangefulness. Your position, as seen in the mirror, is the highest typeof symmetry as understood by modern architects.
In many sacred compositions, living symmetry, the balance of harmoniousopposites, is one of the profoundest sources of their power: almost anyworks of the early painters, Angelico, Perugino, Giotto, &c., willfurnish you with notable instances of it. The Madonna of Perugino in theNational Gallery, with the angel Michael on one side and Raphael on theother, is as beautiful an example as you can have.
In landscape, the principle of balance is more or less carried out inproportion to the wish of the painter to express disciplined calmness.In bad compositions as in bad architecture, it is formal, a tree on oneside answering a tree on the other; but in good compositions, as ingraceful statues, it is always easy, and sometimes hardly traceable. Inthe Coblentz, however, you cannot have much difficulty in seeing how theboats on one side of the tower and the figures on the other are set innearly equal balance; the tower, as a central mass uniting both.
3. THE LAW OF CONTINUITY.
Another important and pleasurable way of expressing unity is by givingsome orderly succession to a number of objects more or less similar. Andthis succession is most interesting when it is connected with somegradual change in the aspect or character of the objects. Thus thesuccession of the pillars of a cathedral aisle is most interesting whenthey retire in perspective, becoming more and more obscure in distance;so the succession of mountain promontories one behind another, on theflanks of a valley; so the succession of clouds, fading farther andfarther towards the horizon; each promontory and each cloud being ofdifferent shape, yet all evidently following in a calm and appointedorder. If there be no change at all in the shape or size of the objects,there is no continuity; there is only repetition--monotony. It is thechange in shape which suggests the idea of their being individuallyfree, and able to escape, if they liked, from the law that rules them,and yet submitting to it. I will leave our chosen illustrativecomposition for a moment to take up another, still more expressive ofthis law. It is one of Turner's most tender studies, a sketch on CalaisSands at sunset; so delicate in the expression of wave and cloud, thatit is of no use for me to try to reach it with any kind of outline in awoodcut; but the rough sketch, Fig. 33., is enough to give an idea ofits arrangement. The aim of the painter has been to give the intensestexpression of repose, together with the enchanted lulling, monotonousmotion of cloud and wave. All the clouds are moving in innumerable ranksafter the sun, meeting towards the point in the horizon where he hasset; and the tidal waves gain in winding currents upon the sand, withthat stealthy haste in which they cross each other so quietly, at theiredges: just folding one over another as they meet, like a little pieceof ruffled silk, and leaping up a little as two children kiss and claptheir hands, and then going on again, each in its silent hurry, drawingpointed arches on the sand as their thin edges intersect in parting; butall this would not have been enough expressed without the line of theold pier-timbers, black with weeds, strained and bent by the stormwaves, and now seeming to stoop in following one another, like darkghosts escaping slowly from the cruelty of the pursuing sea.
I need not, I hope, point out to the reader the illustration of this lawof continuance in the subject chosen for our general illustration. Itwas simply that gradual succession of the retiring arches of the bridgewhich induced Turner to paint the subject at all; and it was this sameprinciple which led him always to seize on subjects including longbridges where-ever he could find them; but especially, observe, unequalbridges, having the highest arch at one side rather than at the centre.There is a reason for this, irrespective of general laws of composition,and connected with the nature of rivers, which I may as well stop aminute to tell you about, and let you rest from the study ofcomposition.
FIG. 33.]
All rivers, small or large, agree in one character, they like to lean alittle on one side: they cannot bear to have their channels deepest inthe middle, but will always, if they can, have one bank to sunthemselves upon, and another to get cool under; one shingly shore toplay over, where they may be shallow, and foolish, and childlike, andanother steep shore, under which they can pause, and purify themselves,and get their strength of waves fully together for due occasion. Riversin this way are just like wise men, who keep one side of their life forplay, and another for work; and can be brilliant, and chattering, andtransparent, when they are at ease, and yet take deep counsel on theother side when they set themselves to their main purpose. And riversare just in this divided, also, like wicked and good men: the goodrivers have serviceable deep places all along their banks, that shipscan sail in; but the wicked rivers go scoopingly irregularly under theirbanks until they get full of strangling eddies, which no boat can rowover without being twisted against the rocks; and pools like wells,which no one can get out of but the water-kelpie that lives at thebottom;--but, wicked or good, the rivers all agree in having two kindsof sides. Now the natural way in which a village stonemason thereforethrows a bridge over a strong stream is, of course, to build a greatdoor to let the cat through, and little doors to let the kittensthrough; a great arch for the great current, to give it room in floodtime, and little arches for the little currents along the shallow shore.This, even without any prudential respect for the floods of the greatcurrent, he would do in simple economy of work and stone; for thesmaller your arches are, the less material you want on their flanks. Twoarches over the same span of river, supposing the butments are at thesame depth, are cheaper than one, and that by a great deal; so that,where the current is shallow, the village mason makes his arches manyand low; as the water gets deeper, and it becomes troublesome to buildhis piers up from the bottom, he throws his arches wider; at last hecomes to the deep stream, and, as he cannot build at the bottom of that,he throws his largest arch over it with a leap, and with another littleone or so gains the opposite shore. Of course as arches are wider theymust be higher, or they will not stand; so the roadway must rise as thearches widen. And thus we have the general type of bridge, with itshighest and widest arch towards one side, and a train of minor archesrunning over the flat shore on the other; usually a steep bank at theriver-side next the large arch; always, of course, a flat shore on theside of the small ones; and the bend of the river assuredly concavetowards this flat, cutting round, with a sweep into the steep bank; or,if there is no steep bank, still assuredly cutting into the shore at thesteep end of the bridge.
Now this kind of bridge, sympathising, as it does, with the spirit ofthe river, and marking the nature of the thing it has to deal with andconquer, is the ideal of a bridge; and all endeavours to do the thing ina grand engineer's manner, with a level roadway and equal arches, arebarbarous; not only because all monotonous forms are ugly in themselves,but because the mind perceives at once that there has been costuselessly thrown away for the sake of formality.[248]
Well, to return to our continuity. We see that the Turnerian bridge inFig. 32. is of the absolutely perfect type, and is
still fartherinteresting by having its main arch crowned by a watch-tower. But as Iwant you to note especially what perhaps was not the case in the realbridge, but is entirely Turner's doing, you will find that though thearches diminish gradually, not one is _regularly_ diminished--they areall of different shapes and sizes: you cannot see this clearly in 32.,but in the larger diagram, Fig. 34., opposite, you will with ease. Thisis indeed also part of the ideal of a bridge, because the lateralcurrents near the shore are of course irregular in size, and a simplebuilder would naturally vary his arches accordingly; and also, if thebottom was rocky, build his piers where the rocks came. But it is not asa part of bridge ideal, but as a necessity of all noble composition,that this irregularity is introduced by Turner. It at once raises theobject thus treated from the lower or vulgar unity of rigid law to thegreater unity of clouds, and waves, and trees, and human souls, eachdifferent, each obedient, and each in harmonious service.
4. THE LAW OF CURVATURE.
There is, however, another point to be noticed in this bridge ofTurner's. Not only does it slope away unequally at its sides, but itslopes in a gradual though very subtle curve. And if you substitute astraight line for this curve (drawing one with a rule from the base ofthe tower on each side to the ends of the bridge, in Fig. 34., andeffacing the curve), you will instantly see that the design has sufferedgrievously. You may ascertain, by experiment, that all beautiful objectswhatsoever are thus terminated by delicately curved lines, except wherethe straight line is indispensable to their use or stability: and thatwhen a complete system of straight lines, throughout the form, isnecessary to that stability, as in crystals, the beauty, if any exists,is in colour and transparency, not in form. Cut out the shape of anycrystal you like, in white wax or wood, and put it beside a white lily,and you will feel the force of the curvature in its purity, irrespectiveof added colour, or other interfering elements of beauty.
FIG. 34.]
Well, as curves are more beautiful than straight lines, it is necessaryto a good composition that its continuities of object, mass, or colourshould be, if possible, in curves, rather than straight lines or angularones. Perhaps one of the simplest and prettiest examples of a gracefulcontinuity of this kind is in the line traced at any moment by the corksof a net as it is being drawn: nearly every person is more or lessattracted by the beauty of the dotted line. Now it is almost alwayspossible, not only to secure such a continuity in the arrangement orboundaries of objects which, like these bridge arches or the corks ofthe net, are actually connected with each other, but--and this is astill more noble and interesting kind of continuity--among featureswhich appear at first entirely separate. Thus the towers ofEhrenbreitstein, on the left, in Fig. 32., appear at first independentof each other; but when I give their profile, on a larger scale, Fig.35., the reader may easily perceive that there is a subtle cadence andharmony among them. The reason of this is, that they are all bounded byone grand curve, traced by the dotted line; out of the seven towers,four precisely touch this curve, the others only falling back from ithere and there to keep the eye from discovering it too easily.
FIG. 35.]
And it is not only always _possible_ to obtain continuities of thiskind: it is, in drawing large forest or mountain forms essential totruth. The towers of Ehrenbreitstein might or might not in reality fallinto such a curve, but assuredly the basalt rock on which they standdid; for all mountain forms not cloven into absolute precipice, norcovered by straight slopes of shales, are more or less governed by thesegreat curves, it being one of the aims of Nature in all her work toproduce them. The reader must already know this, if he has been able tosketch at all among the mountains; if not, let him merely draw forhimself, carefully, the outlines of any low hills accessible to him,where they are tolerably steep, or of the woods which grow on them. Thesteeper shore of the Thames at Maidenhead, or any of the downs atBrighton or Dover, or, even nearer, about Croydon (as Addington Hills),are easily accessible to a Londoner; and he will soon find not only howconstant, but how graceful the curvature is. Graceful curvature isdistinguished from ungraceful by two characters: first, its moderation,that is to say, its close approach to straightness in some parts of itscourse;[249] and, secondly, by its variation, that is to say, its neverremaining equal in degree at different parts of its course.
This variation is itself twofold in all good curves.
FIG. 36.]
A. There is, first, a steady change through the whole line from less tomore curvature, or more to less, so that _no_ part of the line is asegment of a circle, or can be drawn by compasses in any way whatever.Thus, in Fig. 36., _a_ is a bad curve, because it is part of a circle,and is therefore monotonous throughout; but _b_ is a good curve, becauseit continually changes its direction as it proceeds.
FIG. 37.]
The _first_ difference between good and bad drawing of tree boughsconsists in observance of this fact. Thus, when I put leaves on the line_b_, as in Fig. 37., you can immediately feel the springiness ofcharacter dependent on the changefulness of the curve. You may putleaves on the other line for yourself, but you will find you cannot makea right tree spray of it. For _all_ tree boughs, large or small, as wellas all noble natural lines whatsoever, agree in this character; and itis a point of primal necessity that your eye should always seize andyour hand trace it. Here are two more portions of good curves, withleaves put on them at the extremities instead of the flanks, Fig. 38.;and two showing the arrangement of masses of foliage seen a littlefarther off, Fig. 39., which you may in like manner amuse yourself byturning into segments of circles--you will see with what result. I hope,however, you have beside you by this time, many good studies of treeboughs carefully made, in which you may study variations of curvature intheir most complicated and lovely forms.[250]
FIG. 38.]
FIG. 39.]
B. Not only does every good curve vary in general tendency, but it ismodulated, as it proceeds, by myriads of subordinate curves. Thus theoutlines of a tree trunk are never as at _a_, Fig. 40, but as at _b_. Soalso in waves, clouds, and all other nobly formed masses. Thus anotheressential difference between good and bad drawing, or good and badsculpture, depends on the quantity and refinement of minor curvaturescarried, by good work, into the great lines. Strictly speaking, however,this is not variation in large curves, but composition of large curvesout of small ones; it is an increase in the quantity of the beautifulelement, _but not a change in its nature_.
5. THE LAW OF RADIATION.
FIG. 40.]
We have hitherto been concerned only with the binding of our variousobjects into beautiful lines or processions. The next point we have toconsider is, how we may unite these lines or processions themselves, soas to make groups of _them_.
Now, there are two kinds of harmonies of lines. One in which, movingmore or less side by side, they variously, but evidently with consent,retire from or approach each other, intersect or oppose each other:currents of melody in music, for different voices, thus approach andcross, fall and rise, in harmony; so the waves of the sea, as theyapproach the shore, flow into one another or cross, but with a greatunity through all; and so various lines of composition often flowharmoniously through and across each other in a picture. But the mostsimple and perfect connexion of lines is by radiation; that is, by theirall springing from one point, or closing towards it: and this harmony isoften, in Nature almost always, united with the other; as the boughs oftrees, though they intersect and play amongst each other irregularly,indicate by their general tendency their origin from one root. Anessential part of the beauty of all vegetable form is in this radiation:it is seen most simply in a single flower or leaf, as in a convolvulusbell, or chestnut leaf; but more beautifully in the complicatedarrangements of the large boughs and sprays. For a leaf is only a flatpiece of radiation; but the tree throws its branches on all sides, andeven in every profile view of it, which presents a radiation more orless correspondent to that of its leaves, it is more beautiful, becausevaried by the freedom of the separate branches.
I believe it has beenascertained that, in all trees, the angle at which, in their leaves, thelateral ribs are set on their central rib is approximately the same atwhich the branches leave the great stem; and thus each section of thetree would present a kind of magnified view of its own leaf, were it notfor the interfering force of gravity on the masses of foliage. Thisforce in proportion to their age, and the lateral leverage upon them,bears them downwards at the extremities, so that, as before noticed, thelower the bough grows on the stem, the more it droops (Fig. 17, p.295.); besides this, nearly all beautiful trees have a tendency todivide into two or more principal masses, which give a prettier and morecomplicated symmetry than if one stem ran all the way up the centre.Fig. 41. may thus be considered the simplest type of tree radiation, asopposed to leaf radiation. In this figure, however, all secondaryramification is unrepresented, for the sake of simplicity; but if wetake one half of such a tree, and merely give two secondary branches toeach main branch (as represented in the general branch structure shownat _b_, Fig. 18., p. 296), we shall have the form, Fig. 42. This Iconsider the perfect general type of tree structure; and it is curiouslyconnected with certain forms of Greek, Byzantine, and Gothicornamentation, into the discussion of which, however, we must not enterhere. It will be observed, that both in Figs. 41. and 42. all thebranches so spring from the main stem as very nearly to suggest theirunited radiation from the root R. This is by no means universally thecase; but if the branches do not bend towards a point in the root, theyat least converge to some point or other. In the examples in Fig. 43.,the mathematical centre of curvature, _a_, is thus, in one case, on theground at some distance from the root, and in the other, near the top ofthe tree. Half, only, of each tree is given, for the sake of clearness:Fig. 44. gives both sides of another example, in which the origins ofcurvature are below the root. As the positions of such points may bevaried without end, and as the arrangement of the lines is also farthercomplicated by the fact of the boughs springing for the most part in aspiral order round the tree, and at proportionate distances, the systemsof curvature which regulate the form of vegetation are quite infinite.Infinite is a word easily said, and easily written, and people do notalways mean it when they say it; in this case I _do_ mean it; the numberof systems is incalculable, and even to furnish any thing like arepresentative number of types, I should have to give several hundredsof figures such as Fig. 44.[251]
FIG. 41.]
FIG. 42.]
FIG. 43.]
FIG. 44.]
Thus far, however, we have only been speaking of the great relations ofstem and branches. The forms of the branches themselves are regulated bystill more subtle laws, for they occupy an intermediate position betweenthe form of the tree and of the leaf. The leaf has a flat ramification;the tree a completely rounded one; the bough is neither rounded norflat, but has a structure exactly balanced between the two, in ahalf-flattened, half-rounded flake, closely resembling in shape one ofthe thick leaves of an artichoke or the flake of a fir cone; bycombination forming the solid mass of the tree, as the leaves composethe artichoke head. I have before pointed out to you the generalresemblance of these branch flakes to an extended hand; but they may bemore accurately represented by the ribs of a boat. If you can imagine avery broad-headed and flattened boat applied by its keel to the end of amain branch,[252] as in Fig. 45., the lines which its ribs will take,and the general contour of it, as seen in different directions, fromabove and below; and from one side and another, will give you theclosest approximation to the perspectives and foreshortenings of awell-grown branch-flake. Fig. 25. above, page 316., is an unharmed andunrestrained shoot of healthy young oak; and if you compare it with Fig.45., you will understand at once the action of the lines of leafage; theboat only failing as a type in that its ribs are too nearly parallel toeach other at the sides, while the bough sends all its ramification wellforwards, rounding to the head, that it may accomplish its part in theouter form of the whole tree, yet always securing the compliance withthe great universal law that the branches nearest the root bend mostback; and, of course, throwing _some_ always back as well as forwards;the appearance of reversed action being much increased, and renderedmore striking and beautiful, by perspective. Figure 25. shows theperspective of such a bough as it is seen from below; Fig. 46. givesrudely the look it would have from above.
FIG. 45.]
FIG. 46.]
You may suppose, if you have not already discovered, what subtleties ofperspective and light and shade are involved in the drawing of thesebranch-flakes, as you see them in different directions and actions; nowraised, now depressed; touched on the edges by the wind, or lifted upand bent back so as to show all the white under surfaces of the leavesshivering in light, as the bottom of a boat rises white with spray atthe surge-crest; or drooping in quietness towards the dew of the grassbeneath them in windless mornings, or bowed down under oppressive graceof deep-charged snow. Snow time, by the way, is one of the best forpractice in the placing of tree masses; but you will only be able tounderstand them thoroughly by beginning with a single bough and a fewleaves placed tolerably even, as in Fig. 38. page 372. First one withthree leaves, a central and two lateral ones, as at _a_; then with five,as at _b_, and so on; directing your whole attention to the expression,both by contour and light and shade, of the boat-like arrangements,which in your earlier studies, will have been a good deal confused,partly owing to your inexperience, and partly to the depth of shade, orabsolute blackness of mass required in those studies.
One thing more remains to be noted, and I will let you out of the wood.You see that in every generally representative figure I have surroundedthe radiating branches with a dotted line: such lines do indeedterminate every vegetable form; and you see that they are themselvesbeautiful curves, which, according to their flow, and the width ornarrowness of the spaces they enclose, characterize the species of treeor leaf, and express its free or formal action, its grace of youth orweight of age. So that, throughout all the freedom of her wildestfoliage, Nature is resolved on expressing an encompassing limit; andmarking a unity in the whole tree, caused not only by the rising of itsbranches from a common root, but by their joining in one work, and beingbound by a common law. And having ascertained this, let us turn back fora moment to a point in leaf structure which, I doubt not, you mustalready have observed in your earlier studies, but which it is well tostate here, as connected with the unity of the branches in the greattrees. You must have noticed, I should think, that whenever a leaf iscompound,--that is to say, divided into other leaflets which in any wayrepeat or imitate the form of the whole leaf,--those leaflets are notsymmetrical as the whole leaf is, but always smaller on the side towardsthe point of the great leaf, so as to express their subordination to it,and show, even when they are pulled off, that they are not smallindependent leaves, but members of one large leaf.
FIG. 47.]
Fig. 47., which is a block-plan of a leaf of columbine, without itsminor divisions on the edges, will illustrate the principle clearly. Itis composed of a central large mass, A, and two lateral ones, of whichthe one on the right only is lettered, B. Each of these masses is againcomposed of three others, a central and two lateral ones; but observe,the minor one, _a_ of A, is balanced equally by its opposite; but theminor _b_1 of B is larger than its opposite _b_2. Again, each of theseminor masses is divided into three; but while the central mass, A of A,is symmetrically divided, the B of B is unsymmetrical, its largestside-lobe being lowest. Again _b_2, the lobe _c_1 (its lowest lobe inrelation to B) is larger than _c_2; and so also in _b_1. So thatuniversally one lobe of a lateral leaf is always larger than the other,and the smaller lobe is that which is nearer the central mass; the lowerleaf, as it were by courtesy, subduing some of its own dignity orpower, in the immediate presence of the greater or captain leaf; andalways expressing, therefore, its own subordination and secondarycharacter. This law is carried out even in single leaves. As far as Iknow, the upper half, towards the point of the spray, is always thesmaller; and a slig
htly different curve, more convex at the springing,is used for the lower side, giving an exquisite variety to the form ofthe whole leaf; so that one of the chief elements in the beauty of everysubordinate leaf throughout the tree, is made to depend on itsconfession of its own lowliness and subjection.
And now, if we bring together in one view the principles we haveascertained in trees, we shall find they may be summed under four greatlaws; and that all perfect[253] vegetable form is appointed to expressthese four laws in noble balance of authority.
1. Support from one living root.
2. Radiation, or tendency of force from some one given point, either inthe root, or in some stated connexion with it.
3. Liberty of each bough to seek its own livelihood and happinessaccording to its needs, by irregularities of action both in its play andits work, either stretching out to get its required nourishment fromlight and rain, by finding some sufficient breathing-place among theother branches, or knotting and gathering itself up to get strength forany load which its fruitful blossoms may lay upon it, and for any stressof its storm-tossed luxuriance of leaves; or playing hither and thitheras the fitful sunshine may tempt its young shoots, in their undecidedstates of mind about their future life.
4. Imperative requirement of each bough to stop within certain limits,expressive of its kindly fellowship and fraternity with the boughs inits neighborhood; and to work with them according to its power,magnitude, and state of health, to bring out the general perfectness ofthe great curve, and circumferent stateliness of the whole tree.
I think I may leave you, unhelped, to work out the moral analogies ofthese laws; you may, perhaps, however, be a little puzzled to see themeeting of the second one. It typically expresses that healthy humanactions should spring radiantly (like rays) from some single heartmotive; the most beautiful systems of action taking place when thismotive lies at the root of the whole life, and the action is clearlyseen to proceed from it; while also many beautiful secondary systems ofaction taking place from motives not so deep or central, but in somebeautiful subordinate connexion with the central or life motive.
The other laws, if you think over them, you will find equallysignificative; and as you draw trees more and more in their variousstates of health and hardship, you will be every day more struck by thebeauty of the types they present of the truths most essential formankind to know;[254] and you will see what this vegetation of theearth, which is necessary to our life, first, as purifying the air forus and then as food, and just as necessary to our joy in all places ofthe earth,--what these trees and leaves, I say, are meant to teach us aswe contemplate them, and read or hear their lovely language, written orspoken for us, not in frightful black letters, nor in dull sentences,but in fair green and shadowy shapes of waving words, and blossomedbrightness of odoriferous wit, and sweet whispers of unintrusive wisdom,and playful morality.
Well, I am sorry myself to leave the wood, whatever my reader may be;but leave it we must, or we shall compose no more pictures to-day.
This law of radiation, then, enforcing unison of action in arising from,or proceeding to, some given point, is perhaps, of all principles ofcomposition, the most influential in producing the beauty of groups ofform. Other laws make them forcible or interesting, but this generallyis chief in rendering them beautiful. In the arrangement of masses inpictures, it is constantly obeyed by the great composers; but, like thelaw of principality, with careful concealment of its imperativeness, thepoint to which the lines of main curvature are directed being very oftenfar away out of the picture. Sometimes, however, a system of curves willbe employed definitely to exalt, by their concurrence, the value of someleading object, and then the law becomes traceable enough.
In the instance before us, the principal object being, as we have seen,the tower on the bridge, Turner has determined that his system ofcurvature should have its origin in the top of this tower. The diagramFig. 34. page 369, compared with Fig. 32. page 361, will show how thisis done. One curve joins the two towers, and is continued by the back ofthe figure sitting on the bank into the piece of bent timber. This is alimiting curve of great importance, and Turner has drawn a considerablepart of it with the edge of the timber very carefully, and then led theeye up to the sitting girl by some white spots and indications of aledge in the bank; then the passage to the tops of the towers cannot bemissed.
The next curve is begun and drawn carefully for half an inch of itscourse by the rudder; it is then taken up by the basket and the heads ofthe figures, and leads accurately to the tower angle. The gunwales ofboth the boats begin the next two curves, which meet in the same point;and all are centralised by the long reflection which continues thevertical lines.
Subordinated to this first system of curves there is another, begun bythe small crossing bar of wood inserted in the angle behind the rudder;continued by the bottom of the bank on which the figure sits,interrupted forcibly beyond it,[255] but taken up again by thewater-line leading to the bridge foot, and passing on in delicateshadows under the arches, not easily shown in so rude a diagram, towardsthe other extremity of the bridge. This is a most important curve,indicating that the force and sweep of the river have indeed been in oldtimes under the large arches; while the antiquity of the bridge is toldus by the long tongue of land, either of carted rubbish, or washed downby some minor stream, which has interrupted this curve, and is now usedas a landing-place for the boats, and for embarkation of merchandise, ofwhich some bales and bundles are laid in a heap, immediately beneath thegreat tower. A common composer would have put these bales to one side orthe other, but Turner knows better; he uses them as a foundation for histower, adding to its importance precisely as the sculptured base adornsa pillar; and he farther increases the aspect of its height by throwingthe reflection of it far down in the nearer water. All the greatcomposers have this same feeling about sustaining their vertical masses:you will constantly find Prout using the artifice most dexterously (see,for instance, the figure with the wheelbarrow under the great tower, inthe sketch of St. Nicolas, at Prague, and the white group of figuresunder the tower in the sketch of Augsburg[256]); and Veronese, Titian,and Tintoret continually put their principal figures at bases ofpillars. Turner found out their secret very early, the most prominentinstance of his composition on this principle being the drawing of Turinfrom the Superga, in Hakewell's Italy.
I chose Fig. 20., already given to illustrate foliage drawing, chieflybecause, being another instance of precisely the same arrangement, itwill serve to convince you of its being intentional. There, thevertical, formed by the larger tree, is continued by the figure of thefarmer, and that of one of the smaller trees by his stick. The lines ofthe interior mass of the bushes radiate, under the law of radiation,from a point behind the farmer's head; but their outline curves arecarried on and repeated, under the law of continuity, by the curves ofthe dog and boy--by the way, note the remarkable instance in these ofthe use of darkest lines towards the light;--all more or less guidingthe eye up to the right, in order to bring it finally to the Keep ofWindsor, which is the central object of the picture, as the bridge toweris in the Coblentz. The wall on which the boy climbs answers the purposeof contrasting, both in direction and character, with these greatercurves; thus corresponding as nearly as possible to the minor tongue ofland in the Coblentz. This, however, introduces us to another law, whichwe must consider separately.
6. THE LAW OF CONTRAST.
Of course the character of everything is best manifested by Contrast.Rest can only be enjoyed after labour; sound, to be heard clearly, mustrise out of silence; light is exhibited by darkness, darkness by light;and so on in all things. Now in art every colour has an opponent colour,which, if brought near it, will relieve it more completely than anyother; so, also, every form and line may be made more striking to theeye by an opponent form or line near them; a curved line is set off by astraight one, a massy form by a slight one, and so on; and in all goodwork nearly double the value, which any given colour or form would haveuncombined, is
given to each by contrast.[257]
In this case again, however, a too manifest use of the artificevulgarises a picture. Great painters do not commonly, or very visibly,admit violent contrast. They introduce it by stealth and withintermediate links of tender change; allowing, indeed, the opposition totell upon the mind as a surprise, but not as a shock.[258]
Thus in the rock of Ehrenbreitstein, Fig. 35., the main current of thelines being downwards, in a convex swell, they are suddenly stopped atthe lowest tower by a counter series of beds, directed nearly straightacross them. This adverse force sets off and relieves the greatcurvature, but it is reconciled to it by a series of radiating linesbelow, which at first sympathize with the oblique bar, then graduallyget steeper, till they meet and join in the fall of the great curve. Nopassage, however intentionally monotonous, is ever introduced by a goodartist without _some_ slight counter current of this kind; so much,indeed, do the great composers feel the necessity of it, that they willeven do things purposely ill or unsatisfactorily, in order to givegreater value to their well-doing in other places. In a skilful poet'sversification the so-called bad or inferior lines are not inferiorbecause he could not do them better, but because he feels that if allwere equally weighty, there would be no real sense of weight anywhere;if all were equally melodious, the melody itself would be fatiguing; andhe purposely introduces the labouring or discordant verse, that the fullring may be felt in his main sentence, and the finished sweetness in hischosen rhythm.[259] And continually in painting, inferior artistsdestroy their work by giving too much of all that they think is good,while the great painter gives just enough to be enjoyed, and passes toan opposite kind of enjoyment, or to an inferior state of enjoyment: hegives a passage of rich, involved, exquisitely wrought colour, thenpasses away into slight, and pale and simple colour; he paints for aminute or two with intense decision, then suddenly becomes, as thespectator thinks, slovenly; but he is not slovenly: you could not have_taken_ any more decision from him just then; you have had as much as isgood for you; he paints over a great space of his picture forms of themost rounded and melting tenderness, and suddenly, as you think by afreak, gives you a bit as jagged and sharp as a leafless blackthorn.Perhaps the most exquisite piece of subtle contrast in the world ofpainting is the arrow point, laid sharp against the white side and amongthe flowing hair of Correggio's Antiope. It is quite singular how verylittle contrast will sometimes serve to make an entire group of formsinteresting which would otherwise have been valueless. There is a gooddeal of picturesque material, for instance, in this top of an old tower,Fig. 48., tiles and stones and sloping roof not disagreeably mingled;but all would have been unsatisfactory if there had not happened to bethat iron ring on the inner wall, which by its vigorous black_circular_ line precisely opposes all the square and angular charactersof the battlements and roof. Draw the tower without the ring, and seewhat a difference it will make.
FIG. 48.]
One of the most important applications of the law of contrast is inassociation with the law of continuity, causing an unexpected but gentlebreak in a continuous series. This artifice is perpetual in music, andperpetual also in good illumination; the way in which little surprisesof change are prepared in any current borders, or chains of ornamentaldesign, being one of the most subtle characteristics of the work of thegood periods. We take, for instance, a bar of ornament between twowritten columns of an early 14th Century MS., and at the first glance wesuppose it to be quite monotonous all the way up, composed of a windingtendril, with alternately a blue leaf and a scarlet bud. Presently,however, we see that, in order to observe the law of principality thereis one large scarlet leaf instead of a bud, nearly half-way up, whichforms a centre to the whole rod; and when we begin to examine the orderof the leaves, we find it varied carefully. Let A stand for scarlet bud,_b_ for blue leaf, _c_ for two blue leaves on one stalk, _s_ for a stalkwithout a leaf, and R for the large red leaf. Then counting from theground, the order begins as follows:
_b_, _b_, A; _b_, _s_, _b_, A; _b_, _b_, A; _b_, _b_, A; and we think weshall have two _b_'s and an A all the way, when suddenly it becomes _b_,A; _b_, R; _b_, A; _b_, A; _b_, A; and we think we are going to have_b_, A continued; but no: here it becomes _b_, _s_; _b_, _s_; _b_, A;_b_, _s_; _b_, _s_; _c_, _s_; _b_, _s_; _b_, _s_; and we think we aresurely going to have _b_, _s_ continued, but behold it runs away to theend with a quick _b_, _b_, A; _b_, _b_, _b_, _b_![260] Very often,however, the designer is satisfied with _one_ surprise, but I never sawa good illuminated border without one at least; and no series of anykind is ever introduced by a great composer in a painting without a snapsomewhere. There is a pretty one in Turner's drawing of Rome, with thelarge balustrade for a foreground in the Hakewell's Italy series: thesingle baluster struck out of the line, and showing the street belowthrough the gap, simply makes the whole composition right, whenotherwise, it would have been stiff and absurd.
If you look back to Fig. 48. you will see, in the arrangement of thebattlements, a simple instance of the use of such variation. The wholetop of the tower, though actually three sides of a square, strikes theeye as a continuous series of five masses. The first two, on the left,somewhat square and blank; then the next two higher and richer, thetiles being seen on their slopes. Both these groups being couples, thereis enough monotony in the series to make a change pleasant; and the lastbattlement, therefore, is a little higher than the first two,--a littlelower than the second two,--and different in shape from either. Hide itwith your finger, and see how ugly and formal the other four battlementslook.
There are in this figure several other simple illustrations of the lawswe have been tracing. Thus the whole shape of the wall's mass beingsquare, it is well, still for the sake of contrast, to oppose it notonly by the element of curvature, in the ring, and lines of the roofbelow, but by that of sharpness; hence the pleasure which the eye takesin the projecting point of the roof. Also because the walls are thickand sturdy, it is well to contrast their strength with weakness;therefore we enjoy the evident decrepitude of this roof as it sinksbetween them. The whole mass being nearly white, we want a contrastingshadow somewhere; and get it, under our piece of decrepitude. Thisshade, with the tiles of the wall below, forms another pointed mass,necessary to the first by the law of repetition. Hide this inferiorangle with your finger, and see how ugly the other looks. A sense of thelaw of symmetry, though you might hardly suppose it, has some share inthe feeling with which you look at the battlements; there is a certainpleasure in the opposed slopes of their top, on one side down to theleft, on the other to the right. Still less would you think the law ofradiation had anything to do with the matter: but if you take theextreme point of the black shadow on the left for a centre and followfirst the low curve of the eaves of the wall, it will lead you, if youcontinue it, to the point of the tower cornice; follow the second curve,the top of the tiles of the wall, and it will strike the top of theright-hand battlement; then draw a curve from the highest point of theangle battlement on the left, through the points of the roof and itsdark echo; and you will see how the whole top of the tower radiates fromthis lowest dark point. There are other curvatures crossing these mainones, to keep them from being too conspicuous. Follow the curve of theupper roof, it will take you to the top of the highest battlement; andthe stones indicated at the right-hand side of the tower are moreextended at the bottom, in order to get some less direct expression ofsympathy, such as irregular stones may be capable of, with the generalflow of the curves from left to right.
You may not readily believe, at first, that all these laws are indeedinvolved in so trifling a piece of composition. But as you study longer,you will discover that these laws, and many more, are obeyed by thepowerful composers in every _touch_: that literally, there is never adash of their pencil which is not carrying out appointed purposes ofthis kind in twenty various ways at once; and that there is as muchdifference, in way of intention and authority, between one of the greatcomposers ruling his colours, and a common painter confused by them, asthere is
between a general directing the march of an army, and an oldlady carried off her feet by a mob.
7. THE LAW OF INTERCHANGE.
Closely connected with the law of contrast is a law which enforces theunity of opposite things, by giving to each a portion of the characterof the other. If, for instance, you divide a shield into two masses ofcolour, all the way down--suppose blue and white, and put a bar, orfigure of an animal, partly on one division, partly on the other, youwill find it pleasant to the eye if you make the part of the animal bluewhich comes upon the white half, and white which comes upon the bluehalf. This is done in heraldry, partly for the sake of perfectintelligibility, but yet more for the sake of delight in interchange ofcolour, since, in all ornamentation whatever, the practice iscontinual, in the ages of good design.
Sometimes this alternation is merely a reversal of contrasts; as that,after red has been for some time on one side, and blue on the other, redshall pass to blue's side and blue to red's. This kind of alternationtakes place simply in four-quartered shields; in more subtle pieces oftreatment, a little bit only of each colour is carried into the other,and they are as it were dovetailed together. One of the most curiousfacts which will impress itself upon you, when you have drawn some timecarefully from Nature in light and shade, is the appearance ofintentional artifice with which contrasts of this alternate kind areproduced by her; the artistry with which she will darken a tree trunk aslong as it comes against light sky, and throw sunlight on it preciselyat the spot where it comes against a dark hill, and similarly treat allher masses of shade and colour, is so great, that if you only follow herclosely, every one who looks at your drawing with attention will thinkthat you have been inventing the most artifically and unnaturallydelightful interchanges of shadow that could possibly be devised byhuman wit.
You will find this law of interchange insisted upon at length by Proutin his "Lessons on Light and Shade:" it seems, of all his principles ofcomposition, to be the one he is most conscious of; many others he obeysby instinct, but this he formally accepts and forcibly declares.
The typical purpose of the law of interchange is, of course, to teach ushow opposite natures may be helped and strengthened by receiving each,as far as they can, some impress or imparted power, from the other.
8. THE LAW OF CONSISTENCY.
It is to be remembered, in the next place, that while contrast exhibitsthe _characters_ of things, it very often neutralises or paralyses their_power_. A number of white things may be shown to be clearly white byopposition of a black thing, but if you want the full power of theirgathered light, the black thing may be seriously in our way. Thus, whilecontrast displays things, it is unity and sympathy which employ them,concentrating the power of several into a mass. And, not in art merely,but in all the affairs of life, the wisdom of man is continually calledupon to reconcile these opposite methods of exhibiting, or using, thematerials in his power. By change he gives them pleasantness, and byconsistency value; by change he is refreshed, and by perseverencestrengthened.
Hence many compositions address themselves to the spectator by aggregateforce of colour or line, more than by contrasts of either; many noblepictures are painted almost exclusively in various tones of red, orgrey, or gold, so as to be instantly striking by their breadth of flush,or glow, or tender coldness, these qualities being exhibited only byslight and subtle use of contrast. Similarly as to form; somecompositions associate massive and rugged forms, others slight andgraceful ones, each with few interruptions by lines of contrarycharacter. And, in general, such compositions possess higher sublimitythan those which are more mingled in their elements. They tell a specialtale, and summon a definite state of feeling, while the grandcompositions merely please the eye.
This unity or breadth of character generally attaches most to the worksof the greatest men; their separate pictures have all separate aims. Wehave not, in each, grey colour set against sombre, and sharp formsagainst soft, and loud passages against low; but we have the brightpicture, with its delicate sadness; the sombre picture, with its singleray of relief; the stern picture, with only one tender group of lines;the soft and calm picture, with only one rock angle at its flank; and soon. Hence the variety of their work, as well as its impressiveness. Theprincipal bearing of this law, however, is on the separate masses ordivisions of a picture: the character of the whole composition may bebroken or various, if we please, but there must certainly be a tendencyto consistent assemblage in its divisions. As an army may act on severalpoints at once, but can only act effectually by having somewhere formedand regular masses, and not wholly by skirmishers; so a picture may bevarious in its tendencies, but must be somewhere united and coherent inits masses. Good composers are always associating their colours in greatgroups; binding their forms together by encompassing lines, andsecuring, by various dexterities of expedient, what they themselves call"breadth:" that is to say, a large gathering of each kind of thing intoone place; light being gathered to light, darkness to darkness, andcolour to colour. If, however, this be done by introducing false lightsor false colours, it is absurd and monstrous; the skill of a painterconsists in obtaining breadth by rational arrangement of his objects,not by forced or wanton treatment of them. It is an easy matter to paintone thing all white, and another all black or brown; but not an easymatter to assemble all the circumstances which will naturally producewhite in one place, and brown in another. Generally speaking, however,breadth will result in sufficient degree from fidelity of study: Natureis always broad; and if you paint her colours in true relations, youwill paint them in majestic masses. If you find your work look brokenand scattered, it is, in all probability, not only ill composed, butuntrue.
The opposite quality to breadth, that of division or scattering of lightand colour, has a certain contrasting charm, and is occasionallyintroduced with exquisite effect by good composers.[261] Still, it isnever the mere scattering, but the order discernible through thisscattering, which is the real source of pleasure; not the meremultitude, but the constellation of multitude. The broken lights in thework of a good painter wander like flocks upon the hills, notunshepherded; speaking of life and peace: the broken lights of a badpainter fall like hailstones, and are capable only of mischief, leavingit to be wished they were also of dissolution.
9. THE LAW OF HARMONY.
This last law is not, strictly speaking, so much one of composition asof truth, but it must guide composition, and is properly, therefore, tobe stated in this place.
Good drawing is, as we have seen, an _abstract_ of natural facts; youcannot represent all that you would, but must continually be fallingshort, whether you will or no, of the force, or quantity, of Nature.Now, suppose that your means and time do not admit of your giving thedepth of colour in the scene, and that you are obliged to paint itpaler. If you paint all the colours proportionately paler, as if anequal quantity of tint had been washed away from each of them, you stillobtain a harmonious, though not an equally forcible statement of naturalfact. But if you take away the colours unequally, and leave some tintsnearly as deep as they are in Nature, while others are much subdued, youhave no longer a true statement. You cannot say to the observer, "Fancyall those colours a little deeper, and you will have the actual fact."However he adds in imagination, or takes away, something is sure to bestill wrong. The picture is out of harmony.
It will happen, however, much more frequently, that you have to darkenthe whole system of colours, than to make them paler. You remember, inyour first studies of colour from Nature, you were to leave the passagesof light which were too bright to be imitated, as white paper. But, incompleting the picture, it becomes necessary to put colour into them;and then the other colours must be made darker, in some fixed relationto them. If you deepen all proportionately, though the whole scene isdarker than reality, it is only as if you were looking at the reality ina lower light: but if, while you darken some of the tints, you leaveothers undarkened, the picture is out of harmony, and will not give theimpression of truth.
It is n
ot, indeed, possible to deepen _all_ the colours so much as torelieve the lights in their natural degree; you would merely sink mostof your colours, if you tried to do so, into a broad mass of blackness:but it is quite possible to lower them harmoniously, and yet more insome parts of the picture than in others, so as to allow you to show thelight you want in a visible relief. In well-harmonised pictures this isdone by gradually deepening the tone of the picture towards the lighterparts of it, without materially lowering it in the very dark parts; thetendency in such pictures being, of course, to include large masses ofmiddle tints. But the principal point to be observed in doing this, isto deepen the individual tints without dirtying or obscuring them. It iseasy to lower the tone of the picture by washing it over with grey orbrown; and easy to see the effect of the landscape, when its colours arethus universally polluted with black, by using the black convex mirror,one of the most pestilent inventions for falsifying nature and degradingart which ever was put into an artist's hand.[262] For the thingrequired is not to darken pale yellow by mixing grey with it, but todeepen the pure yellow; not to darken crimson by mixing black with it,but by making it deeper and richer crimson: and thus the required effectcould only be seen in Nature, if you had pieces of glass of the colourof every object in your landscape, and of every minor hue that made upthose colours, and then could see the real landscape through this deepgorgeousness of the varied glass. You cannot do this with glass, but youcan do it for yourself as you work; that is to say, you can put deepblue for pale blue, deep gold for pale gold, and so on, in theproportion you need; and then you may paint as forcibly as you choose,but your work will still be in the manner of Titian, not of Caravaggioor Spagnoletto, or any other of the black slaves of painting.[263]
Supposing those scales of colour, which I told you to prepare in orderto show you the relations of colour to grey, were quite accurately made,and numerous enough, you would have nothing more to do, in order toobtain a deeper tone in any given mass of colour, than to substitute foreach of its hues the hue as many degrees deeper in the scale as youwanted, that is to say, if you want to deepen the whole two degrees,substituting for the yellow No. 5. the yellow No. 7., and for the redNo. 9. the red No. 11., and so on; but the hues of any object in Natureare far too numerous, and their degrees too subtle, to admit of somechanical a process. Still, you may see the principle of the wholematter clearly by taking a group of colours out of your scale, arrangingthem prettily, and then washing them all over with grey: that representsthe treatment of Nature by the black mirror. Then arrange the same groupof colours, with the tints five or six degrees deeper in the scale; andthat will represent the treatment of Nature by Titian.
You can only, however, feel your way fully to the right of the thing byworking from Nature.
The best subject on which to begin a piece of study of this kind is agood thick tree trunk, seen against blue sky with some white clouds init. Paint the clouds in true and tenderly gradated white; then give thesky a bold full blue, bringing them well out; then paint the trunk andleaves grandly dark against all, but in such glowing dark green andbrown as you see they will bear. Afterwards proceed to more complicatedstudies, matching the colours carefully first by your old method; thendeepening each colour with its own tint, and being careful, above allthings, to keep truth of equal change when the colours are connectedwith each other, as in dark and light sides of the same object. Muchmore aspect and sense of harmony are gained by the precision with whichyou observe the relation of colours in dark sides and light sides, andthe influence of modifying reflections, than by mere accuracy of addeddepth in independent colours.
This harmony of tone, as it is generally called, is the most importantof those which the artist has to regard. But there are all kinds ofharmonies in a picture, according to its mode of production. There iseven a harmony of _touch_. If you paint one part of it very rapidly andforcibly, and another part slowly and delicately, each division of thepicture may be right separately, but they will not agree together: thewhole will be effectless and valueless, out of harmony. Similarly, ifyou paint one part of it by a yellow light in a warm day, and another bya grey light in a cold day, though both may have been sunlight, and bothmay be well toned, and have their relative shadows truly cast, neitherwill look like light: they will destroy each other's power, by being outof harmony. These are only broad and definable instances of discordance;but there is an extent of harmony in all good work much too subtle fordefinition; depending on the draughtsman's carrying everything he drawsup to just the balancing and harmonious point, in finish, and colour,and depth of tone, and intensity of moral feeling, and style of touch,all considered at once; and never allowing himself to lean tooemphatically on detached parts, or exalt one thing at the expense ofanother, or feel acutely in one place and coldly in another. If you havegot some of Cruikshank's etchings, you will be able, I think, to feelthe nature of harmonious treatment in a simple kind, by comparing themwith any of Richter's illustrations to the numerous German story-bookslately published at Christmas, with all the German stories spoiled.Cruikshank's work is often incomplete in character and poor in incident,but, as drawing, it is _perfect_ in harmony. The pure and simple effectsof daylight which he gets by his thorough mastery of treatment in thisrespect, are quite unrivalled, as far as I know, by any other workexecuted with so few touches. His vignettes to Grimm's German stories,already recommended, are the most remarkable in this quality. Richter'sillustrations, on the contrary, are of a very high stamp as respectsunderstanding of human character, with infinite playfulness andtenderness of fancy; but, as drawings, they are almost unendurably outof harmony, violent blacks in one place being continually opposed totrenchant white in another; and, as is almost sure to be the case withbad harmonists, the local colour hardly felt anywhere. All German workis apt to be out of harmony, in consequence of its too frequentconditions of affectation, and its wilful refusals of fact; as well asby reason of a feverish kind of excitement, which dwells violently onparticular points, and makes all the lines of thought in the picture tostand on end, as it were, like a cat's fur electrified; while good workis always as quiet as a couchant leopard, and as strong.
I have now stated to you all the laws of composition which occur to meas capable of being illustrated or defined; but there are multitudes ofothers which, in the present state of my knowledge, I cannot define, andothers which I never hope to define; and these the most important, andconnected with the deepest powers of the art. Among those which I hopeto be able to explain when I have thought of them more, are the lawswhich relate to nobleness and ignobleness; that ignobleness especiallywhich we commonly call "vulgarity," and which, in its essence, is one ofthe most curious subjects of inquiry connected with human feeling. Amongthose which I never hope to explain, are chiefly laws of expression, andothers bearing simply on simple matters; but, for that very reason, moreinfluential than any others. These are, from the first, as inexplicableas our bodily sensations are; it being just as impossible, I think, toexplain why one succession of musical notes[264] shall be noble andpathetic, and such as might have been sung by Casella to Dante, and whyanother succession is base and ridiculous, and would be fit only for thereasonably good ear of Bottom, as to explain why we like sweetness, anddislike bitterness. The best part of every great work is alwaysinexplicable: it is good because it is good; and innocently gracious,opening as the green of the earth, or falling as the dew of heaven.
But though you cannot explain them, you may always render yourself moreand more sensitive to these higher qualities by the discipline which yougenerally give to your character, and this especially with regard to thechoice of incidents; a kind of composition in some sort easier than theartistical arrangements of lines and colours, but in every sort nobler,because addressed to deeper feelings.
For instance, in the "Datur Hora Quieti," the last vignette to Roger'sPoems, the plough in the foreground has three purposes. The firstpurpose is to meet the stream of sunlight on the river, and make itbrighter by opposition; but any da
rk object whatever would have donethis. Its second purpose is by its two arms, to repeat the cadence ofthe group of the two ships, and thus give a greater expression ofrepose; but two sitting figures would have done this. Its third andchief, or pathetic, purpose is, as it lies abandoned in the furrow (thevessels also being moored, and having their sails down), to be a type ofhuman labour closed with the close of day. The parts of it on which thehand leans are brought most clearly into sight; and they are the chiefdark of the picture, because the tillage of the ground is required ofman as a punishment; but they make the soft light of the setting sunbrighter, because rest is sweetest after toil. These thoughts may neveroccur to us as we glance carelessly at the design; and yet their undercurrent assuredly affects the feelings, and increases, as the paintermeant it should, the impression of melancholy, and of peace.
Again, in the "Lancaster Sands," which is one of the plates I havemarked as most desirable for your possession; the stream of light whichfalls from the setting sun on the advancing tide stands similarly inneed of some force of near object to relieve its brightness. But theincident which Turner has here adopted is the swoop of an angry seagullat a dog, who yelps at it, drawing back as the wave rises over his feet,and the bird shrieks within a foot of his face. Its unexpected boldnessis a type of the anger of its ocean element, and warns us of the sea'sadvance just as surely as the abandoned plough told us of the ceasedlabour of the day.
It is not, however, so much in the selection of single incidents ofthis kind as in the feeling which regulates the arrangement of the wholesubject that the mind of a great composer is known. A single incidentmay be suggested by a felicitous chance, as a pretty motto might be forthe heading of a chapter. But the great composers so arrange _all_ theirdesigns that one incident illustrates another, just as one colourrelieves another. Perhaps the "Heysham," of the Yorkshire series which,as to its locality, may be considered a companion to the last drawing wehave spoken of, the "Lancaster Sands," presents as interesting anexample as we could find of Turner's feeling in this respect. Thesubject is a simple north-country village, on the shore of MorecambeBay; not in the common sense, a picturesque village: there are no prettybow-windows, or red roofs, or rocky steps of entrance to the rusticdoors, or quaint gables; nothing but a single street of thatched andchiefly clay-built cottages, ranged in a somewhat monotonous line, theroofs so green with moss that at first we hardly discern the houses fromthe fields and trees. The village street is closed at the end by awooden gate, indicating the little traffic there is on the road throughit, and giving it something the look of a large farmstead, in which aright of way lies through the yard. The road which leads to this gate isfull of ruts, and winds down a bad bit of hill between two broken banksof moor ground, succeeding immediately to the few enclosures whichsurround the village; they can hardly be called gardens; but a decayedfragment or two of fencing fill the gaps in the bank; and aclothes-line, with some clothes on it, striped blue and red, and asmock-frock, is stretched between the trunks of some stunted willows; a_very_ small haystack and pigstye being seen at the back of the cottagebeyond. An empty, two-wheeled, lumbering cart, drawn by a pair of horseswith huge wooden collars, the driver sitting lazily in the sun, sidewayson the leader, is going slowly home along the rough road, it being aboutcountry dinner-time. At the end of the village there is a better house,with three chimneys and a dormer window in its roof, and the roof is ofstone shingle instead of thatch, but very rough. This house is no doubtthe clergyman's; there is some smoke from one of its chimneys, nonefrom any other in the village; this smoke is from the lowest chimney atthe back, evidently that of the kitchen, and it is rather thick, thefire not having been long lighted. A few hundred yards from theclergyman's house, nearer the shore, is the church, discernible from thecottage only by its low-arched belfry, a little neater than one wouldexpect in such a village; perhaps lately built by the Puseyiteincumbent;[265] and beyond the church, close to the sea, are twofragments of a border war-tower, standing on their circular mound, wornon its brow deep into edges and furrows by the feet of the villagechildren. On the bank of moor, which forms the foreground, are a fewcows, the carter's dog barking at a vixenish one: the milkmaid isfeeding another, a gentle white one, which turns its head to her,expectant of a handful of fresh hay, which she has brought for it in herblue apron, fastened up round her waist; she stands with her pail on herhead, evidently the village coquette, for she has a neat bodice, andpretty striped petticoat under the blue apron, and red stockings. Nearerus, the cowherd, barefooted, stands on a piece of the limestone rock(for the ground is thistly and not pleasurable to bare feet);--whetherboy or girl we are not sure; it may be a boy, with a girl's worn-outbonnet on, or a girl with a pair of ragged trowsers on; probably thefirst, as the old bonnet is evidently useful to keep the sun out of oureyes when we are looking for strayed cows among the moorland hollows,and helps us at present to watch (holding the bonnet's edge down) thequarrel of the vixenish cow with the dog, which, leaning on our longstick, we allow to proceed without any interference. A little to theright the hay is being got in, of which the milkmaid has just taken herapronful to the white cow; but the hay is very thin, and cannot well beraked up because of the rocks; we must glean it like corn, hence thesmallness of our stack behind the willows, and a woman is pressing abundle of it hard together, kneeling against the rock's edge, to carryit safely to the hay-cart without dropping any. Beyond the village is arocky hill, deep set with brushwood, a square crag or two of limestoneemerging here and there, with pleasant turf on their brows, heaved inrusset and mossy mounds against the sky, which, clear and calm, and asgolden as the moss, stretches down behind it towards the sea. A singlecottage just shows its roof over the edge of the hill, looking seaward;perhaps one of the village shepherds is a sea captain now, and may havebuilt it there, that his mother may first see the sails of his shipwhenever it runs into the bay. Then under the hill, and beyond theborder tower, is the blue sea itself, the waves flowing in over the sandin long curved lines, slowly; shadows of cloud and gleams of shallowwater on white sand alternating--miles away; but no sail is visible, notone fisherboat on the beach, not one dark speck on the quiet horizon.Beyond all are the Cumberland mountains, clear in the sun, with rosylight on all their crags.
I should think the reader cannot but feel the kind of harmony there isin this composition; the entire purpose of the painter to give us theimpression of wild, yet gentle, country life, monotonous as thesuccession of the noiseless waves, patient and enduring as the rocks;but peaceful, and full of health and quiet hope, and sanctified by thepure mountain air and baptismal dew of heaven, falling softly betweendays of toil and nights of innocence.
All noble composition of this kind can be reached only by instinct: youcannot set yourself to arrange such a subject; you may see it, and seizeit, at all times, but never laboriously invent it. And your power ofdiscerning what is best in expression, among natural subjects, dependswholly on the temper in which you keep your own mind; above all, on yourliving so much alone as to allow it to become acutely sensitive in itsown stillness. The noisy life of modern days is wholly incompatible withany true perception of natural beauty. If you go down into Cumberland bythe railroad, live in some frequented hotel, and explore the hills withmerry companions, however much you may enjoy your tour or theirconversation, depend upon it you will never choose so much as onepictorial subject rightly; you will not see into the depth of any. Buttake knapsack and stick, walk towards the hills by short day'sjourneys--ten or twelve miles a day--taking a week from somestarting-place sixty or seventy miles away: sleep at the pretty littlewayside inns, or the rough village ones; then take the hills as theytempt you, following glen or shore as your eye glances or your heartguides, wholly scornful of local fame or fashion, and of everythingwhich it is the ordinary traveller's duty to see or pride to do. Neverforce yourself to admire anything when you are not in the humour; butnever force yourself away from what you feel to be lovely, in search ofanything better: and gradually the deeper scenes of the
natural worldwill unfold themselves to you in still increasing fulness of passionatepower; and your difficulty will be no more to seek or to composesubjects, but only to choose one from among the multitude of melodiousthoughts with which you will be haunted, thoughts which will of coursebe noble or original in proportion to your own depth of character andgeneral power of mind: for it is not so much by the consideration yougive to any single drawing, as by the previous discipline of your powersof thought, that the character of your composition will be determined.Simplicity of life will make you sensitive to the refinement and modestyof scenery, just as inordinate excitement and pomp of daily life willmake you enjoy coarse colours and affected forms. Habits of patientcomparison and accurate judgment will make your art precious, as theywill make your actions wise; and every increase of noble enthusiasm inyour living spirit will be measured by the reflection of its light uponthe works of your hands.
Faithfully yours,
J. RUSKIN.
FOOTNOTES:
[234] I give Rossetti this preeminence, because, though the leadingPre-Raphaelites have all about equal power over colour in the abstract,Rossetti and Holman Hunt are distinguished above the rest for renderingcolour under effects of light; and of these two, Rossetti composes withricher fancy and with a deeper sense of beauty, Hunt's stern realismleading him continually into harshness. Rossetti's carelessness, to dohim justice, is only in water-colour, never in oil.
[235] All the degradation of art which was brought about, after the riseof the Dutch school, by asphaltum, yellow varnish, and brown trees,would have been prevented, if only painters had been forced to work indead colour. Any colour will do for some people, if it is browned andshining; but fallacy in dead colour is detected on the instant. I evenbelieve that whenever a painter begins to _wish_ that he could touch anyportion of his work with gum, he is going wrong.
It is necessary, however, in this matter, carefully to distinguishbetween translucency and lustre. Translucency, though, as I have saidabove, a dangerous temptation, is, in its place, beautiful; but lustre,or _shininess_, is always, in painting, a defect. Nay, one of my bestpainter-friends (the "best" being understood to attach to both divisionsof that awkward compound word), tried the other day to persuade methatlustre was an ignobleness in _anything_; and it was only the fear oftreason to ladies' eyes, and to mountain streams, and to morning dew,which kept me from yielding the point to him. One is apt always togeneralise too quickly in such matters; but there can be no questionthat lustre is destructive of loveliness in colour, as it is ofintelligibility in form. Whatever may be the pride of a young beauty inthe knowledge that her eyes shine (though perhaps even eyes are mostbeautiful in dimness), she would be sorry if her cheeks did; and whichof us would wish to polish a rose?
[236] But not shiny or greasy. Bristol board, or hot-pressed imperial,or grey paper that feels slightly adhesive to the hand, is best. Coarse,gritty, and sandy papers are fit only for blotters and blunderers; nogood draughtsman would lay a line on them. Turner worked much on a thintough paper, dead in surface; rolling up his sketches in tight bundlesthat would go deep into his pockets.
[237] I insist upon this unalterability of colour the more because Iaddress you as a beginner, or an amateur; a great artist can sometimesget out of a difficulty with credit, or repent without confession. Yeteven Titian's alterations usually show as stains on his work.
[238] It is, I think, a piece of affectation to try to work with fewcolours; it saves time to have enough tints prepared without mixing, andyou may at once allow yourself these twenty-four. If you arrange them inyour colour-box in the order I have set them down, you will alwayseasily put your finger on the one you want.
Cobalt. Smalt. Antwerp blue. Prussian blue. Black. Gamboge. Emerald green. Hooker's green. Lemon yellow. Cadmium yellow. Yellow ochre. Roman ochre. Raw sienna. Burnt sienna. Light red. Indian red. Mars orange. Ext't of vermilion. Carmine. Violet carmine. Brown madder. Burnt umber. Vandyke brown. Sepia.
Antwerp blue and Prussian blue are not very permanent colours, but youneed not care much about permanence in your own work as yet, and theyare both beautiful; while Indigo is marked by Field as more fugitivestill, and is very ugly. Hooker's green is a mixed colour, put in thebox merely to save you loss of time in mixing gamboge and Prussian blue.No. 1. is the best tint of it. Violet carmine is a noble colour forlaying broken shadows with, to be worked into afterwards with othercolours.
If you wish to take up colouring seriously, you had better get Field's"Chromatography" at once; only do not attend to anything it says aboutprinciples or harmonies of colour; but only to its statements ofpractical serviceableness in pigments, and of their operations on eachother when mixed, &c.
[239] A more methodical, though, under general circumstances, uselesslyprolix way, is to cut a square hole, some half an inch wide, in thesheet of cardboard, and a series of small circular holes in a slip ofcardboard an inch wide. Pass the slip over the square opening, and matcheach colour beside one of the circular openings. You will thus have nooccasion to wash any of the colours away. But the first rough method isgenerally all you want, as after a little practice, you only need to_look_ at the hue through the opening in order to be able to transfer itto your drawing at once.
[240] If colours were twenty times as costly as they are, we should havemany more good painters. If I were Chancellor of the Exchequer I wouldlay a tax of twenty shillings a cake on all colours except black,Prussian blue, Vandyke brown, and Chinese white, which I would leave forstudents. I don't say this jestingly; I believe such a tax would do moreto advance real art than a great many schools of design.
[241] I say _modern_, because Titian's quiet way of blending colours,which is the perfectly right one, is not understood now by any artist.The best colour we reach is got by stippling; but this not quite right.
[242] The worst general character that colour can possibly have is aprevalent tendency to a dirty yellowish green, like that of a decayingheap of vegetables; this colour is _accurately_ indicative of decline orparalysis in missal-painting.
[243] That is to say, local colour inherent in the object. Thegradations of colour in the various shadows belonging to various lightsexhibit form, and therefore no one but a colourist can ever draw _forms_perfectly (see "Modern Painters," vol. iv. chap. iii. at the end); butall notions of explaining form by superimposed colour, as inarchitectural mouldings, are absurd. Colour adorns form, but does notinterpret it. An apple is prettier, because it is striped, but it doesnot look a bit rounder; and a cheek is prettier because it is flushed,but you would see the form of the cheek bone better if it were not.Colour may, indeed, detach one shape from another, as in grounding abas-relief, but it always diminishes the appearance of projection, andwhether you put blue, purple, red, yellow, or green, for your ground,the bas-relief will be just as clearly or just as imperfectly relieved,as long as the colours are of equal depth. The blue ground will notretire the hundredth part of an inch more than the red one.
[244] See, however, at the close of this letter, the notice of one morepoint connected with the management of colour, under the head "Law ofHarmony."
[245] See farther, on this subject, "Modern Painters," vol. iv. chap.viii Sec. 6.
[246] "In general, throughout Nature, reflection and repetition arepeaceful things, associated with the idea of quiet succession in events,that one day should be like another day, or one history the repetitionof another history, being more or less results of quietness, whiledissimilarity and non-succession are results of interference anddisquietude. Thus, though an echo actually increases the quantity ofsound heard, its repetition of the note or syllable gives an idea ofcalmness attainable in no other way; hence also the feeling of calmgiven to a landscape by the voice of a cuckoo."
[247] This is obscure in the rude woodcut, the masts being so delicatethat they are confused among the lines of reflection. In the originalthey hav
e orange light upon them, relieved against purple behind.
[248] The cost of art in getting a bridge level is _always_ lost, foryou must get up to the height of the central arch at any rate, and youonly can make the whole bridge level by putting the hill farther back,and pretending to have got rid of it when you have not, but have onlywasted money in building an unnecessary embankment. Of course, thebridge should not be difficultly or dangerously steep, but the necessaryslope, whatever it may be, should be in the bridge itself, as far as thebridge can take it, and not pushed aside into the approach, as in ourWaterloo road; the only rational excuse for doing which is that when theslope must be long it is inconvenient to put on a drag at the top of thebridge, and that any restiveness of the horse is more dangerous on thebridge than on the embankment. To this I answer: first, it is not moredangerous in reality, though it looks so, for the bridge is alwaysguarded by an effective parapet, but the embankment is sure to have noparapet, or only a useless rail; and secondly, that it is better to havethe slope on the bridge, and make the roadway wide in proportion, so asto be quite safe, because a little waste of space on the river is noloss, but your wide embankment at the side loses good ground; and so mypicturesque bridges are right as well as beautiful, and I hope to seethem built again some day, instead of the frightful straight-backedthings which we fancy are fine, and accept from the pontificalrigidities of the engineering mind.
[249] I cannot waste space here by reprinting what I have said in otherbooks: but the reader ought, if possible, to refer to the notices ofthis part of our subject in "Modern Painters," vol. iv. chap. xviii.,and "Stones of Venice," vol. iii. chap. i. Sec. 8.
[250] If you happen to be reading at this part of the book, withouthaving gone through any previous practice, turn back to the sketch ofthe ramification of stone pine, Fig. 4. page 30., and examine the curvesof its boughs one by one, trying them by the conditions here statedunder the heads A. and B.
[251] The reader, I hope, observes always that every line in thesefigures is itself one of varying curvature, and cannot be drawn bycompasses.
[252] I hope the reader understands that these woodcuts are merelyfacsimiles of the sketches I make at the side of my paper to illustratemy meaning as I write--often sadly scrawled if I want to get on tosomething else. This one is really a little too careless; but it wouldtake more time and trouble to make a proper drawing of so odd a boatthan the matter is worth. It will answer the purpose well enough as itis.
[253] Imperfect vegetable form I consider that which is in its naturedependent, as in runners and climbers; or which is susceptible ofcontinual injury without materially losing the power of giving pleasureby its aspect, as in the case of the smaller grasses. I have not, ofcourse, space here to explain these minor distinctions, but the lawsabove stated apply to all the more important trees and shrubs likely tobe familiar to the student.
[254] There is a very tender lesson of this kind in the shadows ofleaves upon the ground; shadows which are the most likely of all toattract attention, by their pretty play and change. If you examine them,you will find that the shadows do not take the forms of the leaves, butthat, through each interstice, the light falls, at a little distance, inthe form of a round or oval spot; that is to say, it produces the imageof the sun itself, cast either vertically or obliquely, in circle orellipse according to the slope of the ground. Of course the sun's raysproduce the same effect, when they fall through any small aperture: butthe openings between leaves are the only ones likely to show it to anordinary observer, or to attract his attention to it by its frequency,and lead him to think what this type may signify respecting the greaterSun; and how it may show us that, even when the opening through whichthe earth receives light is too small to let us see the Sun himself, theray of light that enters, if it comes straight from Him, will still bearwith it His image.
[255] In the smaller figure (32.), it will be seen that thisinterruption is caused by a cart coming down to the water's edge; andthis object is serviceable as beginning another system of curves leadingout of the picture on the right, but so obscurely drawn as not to beeasily represented in outline. As it is unnecessary to the explanationof our point here, it has been omitted in the larger diagram, thedirection of the curve it begins being indicated by the dashes only.
[256] Both in the Sketches in Flanders and Germany.
[257] If you happen to meet with the plate of Durer's representing acoat of arms with a skull in the shield, note the value given to theconcave curves and sharp point of the helmet by the convex leafagecarried round it in front; and the use of the blank white part of theshield in opposing the rich folds of the dress.
[258] Turner hardly ever, as far as I remember, allows a strong light tooppose a full dark, without some intervening tint. His suns never setbehind dark mountains without a film of cloud above the mountain's edge.
[259]
"A prudent chief not always must display His powers in equal ranks and fair array, But with the occasion and the place comply, Conceal his force; nay, seem sometimes to fly. Those oft are stratagems which errors seem, Nor is it Homer nods, but we that dream."
_Essay on Criticism._
[260] I am describing from a MS., _circa_ 1300, of Gregory's"Decretalia" in my own possession.
[261] One of the most wonderful compositions of Tintoret in Venice, islittle more than a field of subdued crimson, spotted with flakes ofscattered gold. The upper clouds in the most beautiful skies owe greatpart of their power to infinitude of division; order being markedthrough this division.
[262] I fully believe that the strange grey gloom, accompanied byconsiderable power of effect, which prevails in modern French art mustbe owing to the use of this mischievous instrument; the French landscapealways gives me the idea of Nature seen carelessly in the dark mirror,and painted coarsely, but scientifically, through the veil of itsperversion.
[263] Various other parts of this subject are entered into, especiallyin their bearing on the ideal of painting, in "Modern Painters," vol.iv. chap. iii.
[264] In all the best arrangements of colour, the delight occasioned bytheir mode of succession is entirely inexplicable, nor can it bereasoned about; we like it just as we like an air in music, but cannotreason any refractory person into liking it, if they do not: and yetthere is distinctly a right and a wrong in it, and a good taste and badtaste respecting it, as also in music.
[265] "Puseyism" was unknown in the days when this drawing was made; butthe kindly and helpful influences of what may be called ecclesiasticalsentiment, which, in a morbidly exaggerated condition, forms one of theprincipal elements of "Puseyism,"--I use this word regretfully, no otherexisting which will serve for it,--had been known and felt in our wildnorthern districts long before.
APPENDIX.
THINGS TO BE STUDIED.
The worst danger by far, to which a solitary student is exposed, is thatof liking things that he should not. It is not so much his difficulties,as his tastes, which he must set himself to conquer; and although, underthe guidance of a master, many works of art may be made instructive,which are only of partial excellence (the good and bad of them beingduly distinguished), his safeguard, as long as he studies alone, will bein allowing himself to possess only things, in their way, so free fromfaults, that nothing he copies in them can seriously mislead him, and tocontemplate only those works of art which he knows to be either perfector noble in their errors. I will therefore set down in clear order, thenames of the masters whom you may safely admire, and a few of the bookswhich you may safely possess. In these days of cheap illustration, thedanger is always rather of your possessing too much than too little. Itmay admit of some question, how far the looking at bad art may set offand illustrate the characters of the good; but, on the whole, I believeit is best to live always on quite wholesome food, and that our taste ofit will not be made more acute by feeding, however temporarily, onashes. Of course the works of the great masters can only be serviceableto the student after he has made considerable pro
gress himself. It onlywastes the time and dulls the feelings of young persons, to drag themthrough picture galleries; at least, unless they themselves wish to lookat particular pictures. Generally, young people only care to enter apicture gallery when there is a chance of getting leave to run a race tothe other end of it; and they had better do that in the garden below.If, however, they have any real enjoyment of pictures, and want to lookat this one or that, the principal point is never to disturb them inlooking at what interests them, and never to make them look at what doesnot. Nothing is of the least use to young people (nor, by the way, ofmuch use to old ones), but what interests them; and therefore, though itis of great importance to put nothing but good art into theirpossession, yet when they are passing through great houses or galleries,they should be allowed to look precisely at what pleases them: if it isnot useful to them as art, it will be in some other way: and thehealthiest way in which art can interest them is when they look at it,not as art, but because it represents something they like in nature. Ifa boy has had his heart filled by the life of some great man, and goesup thirstily to a Vandyck portrait of him, to see what he was like, thatis the wholesomest way in which he can begin the study of portraiture;if he love mountains, and dwell on a Turner drawing because he sees init a likeness to a Yorkshire scar, or an Alpine pass, that is thewholesomest way in which he can begin the study of landscape; and if agirl's mind is filled with dreams of angels and saints, and she pausesbefore an Angelico because she thinks it must surely be indeed likeheaven, that is the wholesomest way for her to begin the study ofreligious art.
When, however, the student has made some definite progress, and everypicture becomes really a guide to him, false or true, in his own work,it is of great importance that he should never so much as look at badart; and then, if the reader is willing to trust me in the matter, thefollowing advice will be useful to him. In which, with his permission, Iwill quit the indirect and return to the epistolary address, as beingthe more convenient.
First, in Galleries of Pictures:
1. You may look, with trust in their being always right, at Titian,Veronese, Tintoret, Giorgione, John Bellini, and Velasquez; theauthenticity of the picture being of course established for you byproper authority.
2. You may look with admiration, admitting, however question of rightand wrong,[266] at Van Eyck, Holbein, Perugino, Francia, Angelico,Leonardo da Vinci, Correggio, Vandyck, Rembrandt, Reynolds,Gainsborough, Turner, and the modern Pre-Raphaelites.[267] You hadbetter look at no other painters than these, for you run a chance,otherwise, of being led far off the road, or into grievous faults, bysome of the other great ones, as Michael Angelo, Raphael, and Rubens;and of being, besides, corrupted in taste by the base ones, as Murillo,Salvator, Claude, Gasper Poussin, Teniers, and such others. You maylook, however, for examples of evil, with safe universality ofreprobation, being sure that everything you see is bad, at Domenichino,the Caracci, Bronzino, and the figure pieces of Salvator.
Among those named for study under question, you cannot look too much at,nor grow too enthusiastically fond of, Angelico, Correggio, Reynolds,Turner, and the Pre-Raphaelites; but, if you find yourself gettingespecially fond of any of the others, leave off looking at them, for youmust be going wrong some way or other. If, for instance, you begin tolike Rembrandt or Leonardo especially, you are losing your feeling forcolour; if you like Van Eyck or Perugino especially, you must be gettingtoo fond of rigid detail; and if you like Vandyck or Gainsboroughespecially, you must be too much attracted by gentlemanly flimsiness.
Secondly, of published, or otherwise multiplied, art, such as you may beable to get yourself, or to see at private houses or in shops, the worksof the following masters are the most desirable, after the Turners,Rembrandts, and Durers, which I have asked you to get first:
1. Samuel Prout.
All his published lithographic sketches are of the greatest value,wholly unrivalled in power of composition, and in love and feeling ofarchitectural subject. His somewhat mannered linear execution, thoughnot to be imitated in your own sketches from Nature, may be occasionallycopied, for discipline's sake, with great advantage; it will give you apeculiar steadiness of hand, not quickly attainable in any other way;and there is no fear of your getting into any faultful mannerism as longas you carry out the different modes of more delicate study aboverecommended.
If you are interested in architecture, and wish to make it your chiefstudy, you should draw much from photographs of it; and then from thearchitecture itself, with the same completion of detail and gradation,only keeping the shadows of due paleness, in photographs they are alwaysabout four times as dark as they ought to be; and treat buildings withas much care and love as artists do their rock foregrounds, drawing allthe moss and weeds, and stains upon them. But if, without caring tounderstand architecture, you merely want the picturesque character ofit, and to be able to sketch it fast, you cannot do better than takeProut for your _exclusive_ master; only do not think that you arecopying Prout by drawing straight lines with dots at the end of them.Get first his "Rhine," and draw the subjects that have most hills, andleast architecture in them, with chalk on smooth paper, till you can layon his broad flat tints, and get his gradations of light, which are verywonderful; then take up the architectural subjects in the "Rhine," anddraw again and again the groups of figures, &c., in his "Microcosm," and"Lessons on Light and Shadow." After that, proceed to copy the grandsubjects in the sketches in "Flanders and Germany;" or in "Switzerlandand Italy," if you cannot get the Flanders; but the Switzerland is veryfar inferior. Then work from Nature, not trying to Proutise Nature, bybreaking smooth buildings into rough ones, but only drawing _what yousee_, with Prout's simple method and firm lines. Don't copy his colouredworks. They are good, but not at all equal to his chalk and pencildrawings, and you will become a mere imitator, and a very feebleimitator, if you use colour at all in Prout's method. I have not spaceto explain why this is so, it would take a long piece of reasoning;trust me for the statement.
2. John Lewis.
His sketches in Spain, lithographed by himself, are very valuable. Getthem, if you can, and also some engravings (about eight or ten, I think,altogether) of wild beasts, executed by his own hand a long time ago;they are very precious in every way. The series of the "Alhambra" israther slight, and few of the subjects are lithographed by himself;still it is well worth having.
But let _no_ lithographic work come into the house, if you can help it,nor even look at any, except Prout's, and those sketches of Lewis's.
3. George Cruikshank.
If you ever happen to meet with the two volumes of "Grimm's GermanStories," which were illustrated by him long ago, pounce upon theminstantly; the etchings in them are the finest things, next toRembrandt's, that, as far as I know, have been done since etching wasinvented. You cannot look at them too much, nor copy them too often.
All his works are very valuable, though disagreeable when they touch onthe worst vulgarities of modern life; and often much spoiled by acuriously mistaken type of face, divided so as to give too much to themouth and eyes, and leave too little for forehead, the eyes being setabout two thirds up, instead of at half the height of the head. But hismanner of work is always right; and his tragic power, though rarelydeveloped, and warped by habits of caricature, is, in reality, as greatas his grotesque power.
There is no fear of his hurting your taste, as long as your principalwork lies among art of so totally different a character as most of thatwhich I have recommended to you; and you may, therefore, get great goodby copying almost anything of his that may come in your way; except onlyhis illustrations lately published to "Cinderella," and "Jack and theBeanstalk," and "Tom Thumb," which are much over-laboured, and confusedin line. You should get them, but do not copy them.
4. Alfred Rethel.
I only know two publications by him; one, the "Dance of Death," withtext by Reinick, published in Leipsic, but to be had now of any Londonbookseller for the sum, I believe, of eighteen pence, and containing sixplat
es full of instructive character; the other, of two plates only,"Death the Avenger," and "Death the Friend." These two are far superiorto the "Todtentanz," and, if you can get them, will be enough inthemselves, to show all that Rethel can teach you. If you dislikeghastly subjects, get "Death the Friend" only.
5. Bewick.
The execution of the plumage in Bewick's birds is the most masterlything ever yet done in wood-cutting; it is just worked as Paul Veronesewould have worked in wood, had he taken to it. His vignettes, though toocoarse in execution, and vulgar in types of form, to be good copies,show, nevertheless, intellectual power of the highest order; and thereare pieces of sentiment in them, either pathetic or satirical, whichhave never since been equalled in illustrations of this simple kind; thebitter intensity of the feeling being just like that which characterisessome of the leading Pre-Raphaelites. Bewick is the Burns of painting.
6. Blake.
The "Book of Job," engraved by himself, is of the highest rank incertain characters of imagination and expression; in the mode ofobtaining certain effects of light it will also be a very useful exampleto you. In expressing conditions of glaring and flickering light, Blakeis greater than Rembrandt.
7. Richter.
I have already told you what to guard against in looking at his works. Iam a little doubtful whether I have done well in including them in thiscatalogue at all; but the fancies in them are so pretty and numberless,that I must risk, for their sake, the chance of hurting you a little injudgment of style. If you want to make presents of story-books tochildren, his are the best you can now get.
8. Rossetti.
An edition of Tennyson, lately published, contains woodcuts fromdrawings by Rossetti and other chief Pre-Raphaelite masters. They areterribly spoiled in the cutting, and generally the best part, theexpression of feature, _entirely_ lost;[268] still they are full ofinstruction, and cannot be studied too closely. But observe, respectingthese woodcuts, that if you have been in the habit of looking at muchspurious work, in which sentiment, action, and style are borrowed orartificial, you will assuredly be offended at first by all genuine work,which is intense in feeling. Genuine art, which is merely art, such asVeronese's or Titian's, may not offend you, though the chances are thatyou will not care about it: but genuine works of feeling, such as Maudeand Aurora Leigh in poetry, or the grand Pre-Raphaelite designs inpainting, are sure to offend you; and if you cease to work hard, andpersist in looking at vicious and false art, they will continue tooffend you. It will be well, therefore, to have one type of entirelyfalse art, in order to know what to guard against. Flaxman's outlines toDante contain, I think, examples of almost every kind of falsehood andfeebleness which it is possible for a trained artist, not base inthought, to commit or admit, both in design and execution. Base ordegraded choice of subject, such as you will constantly find in Teniersand others of the Dutch painters, I need not, I hope, warn you against;you will simply turn away from it in disgust; while mere bad or feebledrawing, which makes mistakes in every direction at once, cannot teachyou the particular sort of educated fallacy in question. But, in thesedesigns of Flaxman's, you have gentlemanly feeling, and fair knowledgeof anatomy, and firm setting down of lines, all applied in thefoolishest and worst possible way; you cannot have a more finishedexample of learned error, amiable want of meaning, and bad drawing witha steady hand.[269] Retsch's outlines have more real material in themthan Flaxman's, occasionally showing true fancy and power; in artisticprinciple they are nearly as bad, and in taste worse. All outlines fromstatuary, as given in works on classical art, will be very hurtful toyou if you in the least like them; and _nearly_ all finished lineengravings. Some particular prints I could name which possessinstructive qualities, but it would take too long to distinguish them,and the best way is to avoid line engravings of figures altogether. Ifyou happen to be a rich person, possessing quantities of them, and ifyou are fond of the large finished prints from Raphael, Correggio, &c.,it is wholly impossible that you can make any progress in knowledge ofreal art till you have sold them all--or burnt them, which would be agreater benefit to the world. I hope that some day, true and nobleengravings will be made from the few pictures of the great schools,which the restorations undertaken by the modern managers of foreigngalleries may leave us; but the existing engravings have nothingwhatever in common with the good in the works they profess to represent,and if you like them, you like in the originals of them hardly anythingbut their errors.
Finally, your judgment will be, of course, much affected by your tastein literature. Indeed, I know many persons who have the purest taste inliterature, and yet false taste in art, and it is a phenomenon whichpuzzles me not a little: but I have never known any one with false tastein books, and true taste in pictures. It is also of the greatestimportance to you, not only for art's sake, but for all kinds of sake,in these days of book deluge, to keep out of the salt swamps ofliterature, and live on a rocky island of your own, with a spring and alake in it, pure and good. I cannot, of course, suggest the choice ofyour library to you, every several mind needs different books; but thereare some books which we all need, and assuredly, if you read Homer,[270]Plato, AEschylus, Herodotus, Dante,[271] Shakspeare, and Spenser, as muchas you ought, you will not require wide enlargement of shelves to rightand left of them for purposes of perpetual study. Among modern books,avoid generally magazine and review literature. Sometimes it may containa useful abridgement or a wholesome piece of criticism; but the chancesare ten to one it will either waste your time or mislead you. If youwant to understand any subject whatever, read the best book upon it youcan hear of; not a review of the book. If you don't like the first bookyou try, seek for another; but do not hope ever to understand thesubject without pains, by a reviewer's help. Avoid especially that classof literature which has a knowing tone; it is the most poisonous of all.Every good book, or piece of book, is full of admiration and awe; it maycontain firm assertion or stern satire, but it never sneers coldly, norasserts haughtily, and it always leads you to reverence or lovesomething with your whole heart. It is not always easy to distinguishthe satire of the venomous race of books from the satire of the nobleand pure ones; but in general you may notice that the cold-bloodedCrustacean and Batrachian books will sneer at sentiment; and thewarm-blooded, human books, at sin. Then, in general, the more you canrestrain your serious reading to reflective or lyric poetry, history,and natural history, avoiding fiction and the drama, the healthier yourmind will become. Of modern poetry keep to Scott, Wordsworth, Keats,Crabbe, Tennyson, the two Brownings, Lowell, Longfellow, and CoventryPatmore, whose "Angel in the House" is a most finished piece of writing,and the sweetest analysis we possess of quiet modern domestic feeling;while Mrs. Browning's "Aurora Leigh" is, as far as I know, the greatestpoem which the century has produced in any language. Cast Coleridge atonce aside, as sickly and useless; and Shelley as shallow and verbose;Byron, until your taste is fully formed, and you are able to discern themagnificence in him from the wrong. Never read bad or common poetry, norwrite any poetry yourself; there is, perhaps, rather too much than toolittle in the world already.
Of reflective prose, read chiefly Bacon, Johnson, and Helps. Carlyle ishardly to be named as a writer for "beginners," because his teaching,though to some of us vitally necessary, may to others be hurtful. If youunderstand and like him, read him; if he offends you, you are not yetready for him, and perhaps may never be so; at all events, give him up,as you would sea-bathing if you found it hurt you, till you arestronger. Of fiction, read Sir Charles Grandison, Scott's novels, MissEdgeworth's, and, if you are a young lady, Madame de Genlis', the FrenchMiss Edgeworth; making these, I mean, your constant companions. Ofcourse you must, or will read other books for amusement, once or twice;but you will find that these have an element of perpetuity in them,existing in nothing else of their kind: while their peculiar quietnessand repose of manner will also be of the greatest value in teaching youto feel the same characters in art. Read little at a time, trying tofeel interest in little things, and rea
ding not so much for the sake ofthe story as to get acquainted with the pleasant people into whosecompany these writers bring you. A common book will often give you muchamusement, but it is only a noble book which will give you dear friends.Remember also that it is of less importance to you in your earlieryears, that the books you read should be clever, than that they shouldbe right. I do not mean oppressively or repulsively instructive; butthat the thoughts they express should be just, and the feelings theyexcite generous. It is not necessary for you to read the wittiest or themost suggestive books: it is better, in general, to hear what is alreadyknown, and may be simply said. Much of the literature of the presentday, though good to be read by persons of ripe age, has a tendency toagitate rather than confirm, and leaves its readers too frequently in ahelpless or hopeless indignation, the worst possible state into whichthe mind of youth can be thrown. It may, indeed, become necessary foryou, as you advance in life, to set your hand to things that need to bealtered in the world, or apply your heart chiefly to what must be pitiedin it, or condemned; but, for a young person, the safest temper is oneof reverence, and the safest place one of obscurity. Certainly atpresent, and perhaps through all your life, your teachers are wisestwhen they make you content in quiet virtue, and that literature and artare best for you which point out, in common life and familiar things,the objects for hopeful labour, and for humble love.
FOOTNOTES:
[266] I do not mean necessarily to imply inferiority of rank, in sayingthat this second class of painters have questionable qualities. Thegreatest men have often many faults, and sometimes their faults are apart of their greatness; but such men are not, of course, to be lookedupon by the student with absolute implicitness of faith.
[267] Including under this term, John Lewis, and William Hunt of the OldWater-colour, who, take him all in all, is the best painter of stilllife, I believe, that ever existed.
[268] This is especially the case in the St. Cecily, Rossetti's firstillustration to the "palace of art," which would have been the best inthe book had it been well engraved. The whole work should be taken upagain, and done by line engraving, perfectly; and wholly fromPre-Raphaelite designs, with which no other modern work can bear theleast comparison.
[269] The praise I have given incidentally to Flaxman's sculpture in the"Seven Lamps," and elsewhere, refers wholly to his studies from Nature,and simple groups in marble, which were always good and interesting.Still, I have overrated him, even in this respect; and it is generallyto be remembered that, in speaking of artists whose works I cannot besupposed to have specially studied, the errors I fall into will alwaysbe on the side of praise. For, of course, praise is most likely to begiven when the thing praised is above one's knowledge; and, therefore,as our knowledge increases, such things may be found less praiseworthythan we thought. But blame can only be justly given when the thingblamed is below one's level of sight; and, practically, I never do blameanything until I have got well past it, and am certain that there isdemonstrable falsehood in it. I believe, therefore, all my blame to bewholly trustworthy, having never yet had occasion to repent of onedepreciatory word that I have ever written, while I have often foundthat, with respect to things I had not time to study closely, I was ledtoo far by sudden admiration, helped, perhaps, by peculiar associations,or other deceptive accidents; and this the more, because I never care tocheck an expression of delight, thinking the chances are, that, even ifmistaken, it will do more good than harm; but I weigh every word ofblame with scrupulous caution. I have sometimes erased a strong passageof blame from second editions of my books; but this was only when Ifound it offended the reader without convincing him, never because Irepented of it myself.
[270] Chapman's, if not the original.
[271] Carey's or Cayley's, if not the original. I do not know which arethe best translations of Plato. Herodotus and AEschylus can only be readin the original. It may seem strange that I name books like these for"beginners:" but all the greatest books contain food for all ages; andan intelligent and rightly bred youth or girl ought to enjoy much, evenin Plato, by the time they are fifteen or sixteen.