The Mind of the Artist Part 16

Rocco, is my idea of the big way to decorate a building; great cl.u.s.tered groups sculptured in light and shade filling with amazing ingenuity of design the architectural s.p.a.ces at his disposal: a far richer and more satisfying result to me than the flat and unprofitable stuff which of late years has been called "decoration."...

Above all, I thoroughly disbelieve in the cant of mural decorations preserving the flatness of a wall. I see no merit in it whatever. Let them be ma.s.sive as sculpture, but let every quality of value and colour lend them depth and vitality, and I am sure the hall or room will be richer and n.o.bler as a result.

_C. W. Furse._

CLx.x.xIV

People usually declare that landscape is an easy matter. I think it a very difficult one. For whenever you wish to produce a landscape, it is necessary to carry about the details, and work them out in the mind for some days before the brush may be applied. Just as in composition: there is a period of bitter thought over the theme; and until this is resolved, you are in the thrall of bonds and gyves. But when inspiration comes, you break loose and are free.

_A Chinese Painter_ (about 1310 A.D.).

CLx.x.xV

One word: there are _tendencies_, and it is these which are meant by _schools_. Landscape, above all, cannot be considered from the point of view of a school. Of all artists the landscape painter is the one who is in most direct communion with nature, with nature's very soul.

_Paul Huet._

CLx.x.xVI

From what motives springs the love of high-minded men for landscapes? In his very nature man loves to be in a garden with hills and streams, whose water makes cheerful music as it glides among the stones. What a delight does one derive from such sights as that of a fisherman engaging in his leisurely occupation in a sequestered nook, or of a woodman felling a tree in a secluded spot, or of mountain scenery with sporting monkeys and cranes!... Though impatient to enjoy a life amidst the luxuries of nature, most people are debarred from indulging in such pleasures. To meet this want artists have endeavoured to represent landscapes so that people may be able to behold the grandeur of nature without stepping out of their houses. In this light, painting affords pleasures of a n.o.bler sort by removing from one the impatient desire of actually observing nature.

_Kuo Hsi_ (Chinese, eleventh century A.D.).

LANDSCAPE

CLx.x.xVII

Landscape is a big thing, and should be viewed from a distance in order to grasp the scheme of hill and stream. The figures of men and women are small matters, and may be spread out on the hand or on a table for examination, when they will be taken in at a glance. Those who study flower-painting take a single stalk and put it into a deep hole, and then examine it from above, thus seeing it from all points of view.

Those who study bamboo-painting take a stalk of bamboo, and on a moonlight night project its shadow on to a piece of white silk on a wall; the true form of the bamboo is thus brought out. It is the same with landscape painting. The artist must place himself in communion with his hills and streams, and the secret of the scenery will be solved....

Hills without clouds look bare; without water they are wanting in fascination; without paths they are wanting in life; without trees they are dead; without depth-distance they are shallow; without level-distance they are near; and without height-distance they are low.

_Kuo Hsi_ (Chinese, eleventh century A.D.).

CLx.x.xVIII

I have brushed up my "Cottage" into a pretty look, and my "Heath" is almost safe, but I must stand or fall by my "House." I had on Friday a long visit from M---- alone; but my pictures do not come into his rules or whims of the art, and he said I had "lost my way." I told him that I had "perhaps other notions of art than picture admirers have in general.

I looked on pictures as _things to be avoided_, connoisseurs looked on them as things to be _imitated_; and that, too, with such a deference and humbleness of submission, amounting to a total prostration of mind and original feeling; as must serve only to fill the world with abortions." But he was very agreeable, and I endured the visit, I trust, without the usual courtesies of life being violated.

What a sad thing it is that this lovely art is so wrested to its own destruction! Used only to blind our eyes, and to prevent us from seeing the sun shine, the fields bloom, the trees blossom, and from hearing the foliage rustle; while old--black--rubbed out and dirty canvases take the place of G.o.d's own works. I long to see you. I love to cope with you, like Jaques, in my "sullen moods," for I am not fit for the present world of art.... Lady Morley was here yesterday. On seeing the "House,"

she exclaimed, "How fresh, how dewy, how exhilarating!" I told her half of this, if I could think I deserved it, was worth all the talk and cant about pictures in the world.

_Constable._

CLx.x.xIX

A wood all powdered with sunshine, all the tones of the trees illuminated and delicate, the whole in a mist of sun, and high lights only on the stems; a delicious, new, and rich effect.

_Cha.s.seriau._

CXC

The forests and their trees give superb strong tones in which violet predominates--above all, in the shadows--and give value to the green tones of the gra.s.s. The upright stems show bare with colours as of stones and of rocks--grey, tawny, flushed, always very luminous (like an agate) in the reflections: the whole takes a sombre colour which vies in vigour with the foreground.

A magnificent spectacle is that of mountains covered with ice and snow, towards evening, when the clouds roll up and hide their base. The summits may stand out in places against the sky. The blue background at such a time emphasises the warm gold colour of the shadows, and the lower parts are lost in a deep and sinister grey. We have seen this effect at Kandersteg.

_Dutilleux._

CXCI

In your letter you wish me to give you my opinion of your picture. I should have liked it better if you had made it more of a whole--that is, the trees stronger, the sky running from them in shadow up to the opposite corner; that might have produced what, I think, it wanted, and have made it much less a two-picture effect.... I cannot let your sky go off without some observation. I think the character of your clouds too affected, that is, too much of some of our modern painters, who mistake some of our great masters; because they sometimes put in some of those round characters of clouds, they must do the same; but if you look at any of their skies, they either a.s.sist in the composition or make some figure in the picture--nay, sometimes play the first fiddle....

Breadth must be attended to if you paint; but a muscle, give it breadth.

Your doing the same by the sky, making parts broad and of a good shape, that they may come in with your composition, forming one grand plan of light and shade--this must always please a good eye and keep the attention of the spectator, and give delight to every one.

Trifles in nature must be overlooked that we may have our feelings raised by seeing the whole picture at a glance, not knowing how or why we are so charmed. I have written you a long rigmarole story about giving dignity to whatever you paint--I fear so long that I should be scarcely able to understand what I mean myself. You will, I hope, take the will for the deed.

_Old Crome._

CXCII

I am most anxious to get into my London painting-room, for I do not consider myself at work unless I am before a six-foot canvas. I have done a good deal of skying, for I am determined to conquer all difficulties, and that among the rest. And now, talking of skies, it is amusing to us to see how admirably you fight my battles; you certainly take the best possible ground for getting your friend out of a sc.r.a.pe (the example of the Old Masters). That landscape painter who does not make his skies a very material part of his composition neglects to avail himself of one of his greatest aids. Sir Joshua Reynolds, speaking of the landscapes of t.i.tian, of Salvator, and of Claude, says: "Even their _skies_ seem to sympathise with their subjects." I have often been advised to consider my sky as "_a white sheet thrown behind the objects_." Certainly, if the sky is obtrusive, as mine are, it is bad; but if it is evaded, as mine are not, it is worse; it must and always shall with me make an effectual part of the composition. It will be difficult to name a cla.s.s of landscape in which the sky is not the keynote, the standard of scale, and the chief organ of sentiment. You may conceive, then, what a "white sheet" would do for me, impressed as I am with these notions, and they cannot be erroneous. The sky is the source of light in nature, and governs everything; even our common observations on the weather of every day are altogether suggested by it.

The difficulty of skies in painting is very great, both as to composition and execution; because, with all their brilliancy, they ought not to come forward, or, indeed, be hardly thought of any more than extreme distances are; but this does not apply to phenomena or accidental effects of sky, because they always attract particularly. I may say all this to you, though _you_ do not want to be told that I know very well what I am about, and that my skies have not been neglected, though they have often failed in execution, no doubt, from an over-anxiety about them which will alone destroy that easy appearance which nature always has in all her movements.

_Constable._

CXCIII

He was looking at a seventy-four gun ship, which lay in the shadow under Saltash. The ship seemed one dark ma.s.s.

"I told you that would be the effect," said Turner, referring to some previous conversation. "Now, as you perceive, it is all shade!"

"Yes, I perceive it; and yet the ports are there."

"We can only take what is visible--no matter what may be there. There are people in the ship; we don't see them through the planks."

_Turner._