The Painter in Oil Part 17

The fact that it would look out of place on furniture or as a dress does not imply that it may not be beautiful as a background or as a foreground color. These old and faded materials furnish some of the most useful things you can have; a fact the reverse of what is true in general of other still-life things.

=The Use of Still Life.=--There is no way in which you can better study the principles of composition than by the use of still life. The fact that you can bring together a large number of objects of any color and form, and can arrange and rearrange them, study the effect and result before painting, and be working with actual objects and not by merely drawing them, gives a positiveness and actuality to composition that is of the greatest service to you. You can use (and should at times) the whole side or corner of a room, and so practise composition on the large scale, or you can make a small group on a table. That you are using furniture and drapery or vases, flowers, and books, instead of men and women, does not affect the seriousness and usefulness of the problem; for the principles of composition and color do not have to do with the materials which you use to bring about the effect, but the effect itself.

It is practically impossible for the student and the amateur to make very advanced study of composition in line and ma.s.s with more than one or two living models; but with still life he may and should get all the practical knowledge possible.

=Practical Composition.=--Suppose you were going to work with still life, how would you begin? In the first place, get a good composition.

Never work from a bad one. You must learn composition some time, so you might as well study it every time you have occasion to start a still-life study. Take any number of things and put them on a table, get a simple background to group them against. Consider your things, and eliminate those which are not necessary, or will not tell in the composition. It is a law that whatever does not help your picture (or composition) tells against it; so get rid of anything which will not help the composition.

[Ill.u.s.tration: =Still Life, No. 1.=]

For instance, here are a lot of things indiscriminately grouped on a table. You might paint them, but they are not arranged. There is no composition. They would lack one commanding characteristic of a good picture if you were to paint them so. What do they lack as they are?

They have no logical connection with each other, either in arrangement or in the placing, to begin with. They do not help each other either in line or ma.s.s. They are crowded, huddled together. You could do with less of them; or, if you want them all, you can place them better. But suppose we take some of them away for simplicity, and rearrange the rest.

[Ill.u.s.tration: =Still Life, No. 2.=]

Here are some of the things, with others taken away. The combination is simpler, but still it is not satisfactory. There is some logical connection among the objects, but none in the grouping. They are still huddled; there is no line; it is too square; no attempt at balance; they are simply things. If you change them about a little, having regard to size, proportion, balance, and line, you can get something better out of these same objects.

[Ill.u.s.tration: =Still Life, No. 3.=]

Here the coffee-pot is moved toward the centre, to give height and ma.s.s, and to break up the round of the plaque; the handle turned around to give more looseness and freedom; the pitcher is placed where it will break the line of the plaque, yet not too obviously or awkwardly; the handle is placed at a good angle with that of the coffee-pot, and the relation of distance with the coffee-pot in balancing the whole is considered. The drapery is spread out so as to have some probability. It does not help much in line, but it does in ma.s.s and in color (in the original). It could be bettered, but it will do for the present. The cup also has a reasonable position, and helps to balance and to give weight to the main ma.s.s, which is the coffee-pot. There is not much light and shade in this composition, nor much distinction. But it does balance, and would make a good study, and is a very respectable piece of composition,--simple, modest, and dignified.

Now if you wanted to add some of those things which were eliminated, and make a more complicated composition, you would look for the same things in it when completed. We have simply the same group, with the bottle and gla.s.s added. The stout jug in the first group is left out because it is not needed, and it will not ma.s.s with the rest easily.

The tall gla.s.s vase is left out because it is too transparent to count either as line, ma.s.s, or color, and does not in any way help, and therefore counts against, because it does not count for, our composition. The things we have here are enough, but they are not right as they are now. They injure rather than help the last arrangement. The bottle and gla.s.s are in the composition, but not of it; a composition must be _one thing_, no matter how many objects go to the making of it. This is two things. Draw a line down between the bottle and gla.s.s and the other things, and you get two compositions, both good, instead of one, which we must have for good arrangement.

[Ill.u.s.tration: =Still Life, No. 4.=]

Let's change them again. This is worse, if anything. We have now got two groups and a thing. The coffee-pot and cup and saucer alone, the bottle and gla.s.s alone, and the pitcher; the drapery tries to pull them together, but can't. The plaque has no connection with anything.

They are all pulled apart. In the last group at least there was some chief ma.s.s, the first complete composition. Now every one is for himself; three up and down lines and a circle--that's about what it amounts to.

[Ill.u.s.tration: =Still Life, No. 5.=]

Let's group them,--push them together. Place the bottle near the coffee-pot. Because they are about the same height, one cannot dominate the other in height; then make them pull together as a ma.s.s.

[Ill.u.s.tration: =Still Life, No. 6.=]

Place the cup about as before, and the ma.s.s pretty well towards the centre of the plaque. Put the pitcher where it will balance, and the gla.s.s where it will count un.o.btrusively, and help break the line of the bottoms of the objects. The drapery now helps in line also, and gives more unity, as well as ma.s.s and weight and color, to the whole.

This group is about as well placed as these objects will come. There is balance, ma.s.s, proportion, dignity, unity.

Of course you may make a paintable and interesting composition with only two things. But you must give them some relation both as to fact and as to position. The same elements of unity and balance and line come in, no matter how many or how few are the objects which enter as elements in your group.

In this way study composition with still life. Move things about and see how they look; use your eye and judgment. Get to see things together, and apply the principles spoken of in the chapter on "Composition" to all sorts of things in nature.

=Scope of Study.=--Drawing is always drawing, whatever the objects to which it is applied, and you can study all the problems of drawing and values with still life. The drawing is not so severe as that of the antique, nor so difficult as study from the life, but you can learn to draw and then apply it to other things, and advance as far as you please; and as I said at first, you need never lack an amiable model.

All sorts of effects of lighting you can study easily with still life; and of color and texture also. The study of surface and texture is most important to you. If you were to undertake to paint a sheep or a cow the first time; if you were to paint without previous experience a background which contained metal and gla.s.s, or a model with a velvet or satin dress, you would not succeed. These all involve problems of skill and facility of representation. When you paint a portrait or figure picture, or a landscape with animals, you should not have to deal with, as new, problems of this sort. You should have arrived at some understanding of this sort of thing in studies which are not complicated by other problems of greater difficulty. This is where still life comes in again to make the study of painting easier.

=Interest.=--But the use of this sort of painting is not only its practical _use_. You need not feel that it is all drudgery--which is something that most students do not love! You may make pictures with a much clearer conscience along this line; for the better the picture, and the more interesting and charming it is, the more successful is your work as study. You can be as interested in the beauty and the picture of it as you please, and it will only make you work the better. To see the picture in a group of bottles and books is to be the more able to see the picture in a tree and sky. An artist's eye is sensitive to beauty of color and line and form wherever he sees it.

The student's should be also. No artist but has found delight in painting still life. No student should think it beneath his serious study.

=Procedure.=--Study painting first in still-life compositions. When you set up your canvas first, and set your palette, let it be in front of a few simple objects grouped interestingly; or, better, set up a single jar or a book, with a simply arranged background for color contrast. All the problems of manipulation are there for you to study.

No processes of handling, no manner of color effect, which you cannot use in this study.

Learn here what you will need in other lines of work.

=Beginning.=--The best way to make a study from still life is to begin with a careful charcoal drawing on the canvas. You may shade it more or less as you please, but be most careful about proportions and forms. The shading means the modelling and the values in black and white; and you can do this either in charcoal as you draw, or it can be put in with monochrome when you begin with paint. But you must have the drawing sure and true first; for drawing is position, locality.

You must know _where_ a value is to go before you can justly place it.

The value is the _how much_. You must have the _where_ before the _how much_ can mean anything in drawing. It would be well to lay in some of the planes of light and shade, because you feel proportion more naturally and truly so than with mere outline. The outline encloses the form, but with nothing but outline you are less apt to feel the reality of the form. The planes of values fill in the outline and give substance to it. They map it out so that it takes thickness and proportion; it is more real. And any fault of outline is more quickly seen, because you cannot get your ma.s.ses of shade of the right form and proportion if the outline enclosing them is not right.

=The Frottee.=--Make, then, a careful light-and-shade drawing with charcoal directly on the canvas, working in the background where it tells against the group, but without carrying it out to the edges of the canvas.

Be accurate with your modelling and values, and keep the planes simple and well defined. Draw all characteristic details, but only the most important, nearly as if it were not to be painted, but were to remain a drawing.

Fix this drawing with fixative and an atomizer.

In beginning with paint go over the drawing with a thin _frottee_ which shall re-enforce the drawing with color. You may do this with one color, making a monochrome painting very thin, leaving the canvas bare for the lights. Many of the best painters lay in all pictures this way. What color is to be used is a matter for consideration. It should be one so sympathetic to the coloring of the whole picture that if it is left without any other paint over it in places it will still look all right. Raw umber is a good color, or raw umber modified with burnt sienna and black. You can make a mixture that seems right. This establishes your larger values, and gives you something better than a bare canvas, and something with which you can have a more just idea of the effect of each touch of color you put on.

If there is much variety of color in the various objects of your composition, it is better to make your _frottee_ suggest the different colors. Instead of making a monochrome _frottee_, rub in each object with a thin mixture, approximating the color and value, but not solid, nor as strong as it will become when painted, of course. Nevertheless, you can get in this first rubbing in, a strong effect, which at a distance has a very solid look, though the relations are not so carefully studied. When you come to put on solid color with this sort of an under-painting, it is easy to judge pretty closely of color as well as light-and-shade relations, and you can work more frankly into it.

Into this painting, when it is dry, you may begin to paint with body color, beginning with the true color and value of the lights, and working down through the half darks into the darks. Paint the background pretty carefully as to color and value, but loosely as to handling. Paint slowly, deliberately, and thoughtfully. There is no need to pile up ma.s.ses of wrong color. You should try to be sure of the color before you lay it on. Study the color in the group, mix on the palette, and compare them. Think at least two minutes for every one minute of actually laying on paint. You save time in the end by being deliberate and by working thoughtfully. Put on color firmly and with a full brush, but there is no need to load color for the sake of the body of it.

=Loaded Lights.=--It was a principle with the older painters to paint the shadows thinly and with transparent color, and to load the lights.

It gave a richness to the shadows and a solidity to the lights which was much valued. But don't think about this; don't let it influence the frankness of your painting. The theory is in itself largely obsolete now, and in fact has been disregarded by almost every able painter who ever lived, in practice, no matter what he said about it.

I only speak of it because almost all books on painting have laid it down as a rule, and you had better know its true relation to painting.

Like all other traditional methods of painting it has been used by the greatest of painters, and has also been disregarded by the greatest of painters; and as far as you are concerned, you may use it or not as suits your purpose. The main thing is to get the right color and value in the right place, in the most direct and natural, in the least affected, manner possible.

You may work into your _frottee_, then, more or less solidly as you feel will give you the best representation of the color you see.

=Solid Painting.=--Don't paint always in the same way. It is a mistake to get too accustomed to one manner of procedure. Different things require different handling. Let the thing suggest how you shall paint it. If you want to paint directly, paint solidly from first to last instead of rubbing in thinly first. But always have an accurate drawing underneath.

In working solidly without previous laying in, begin where each brush-stroke will have the greatest effect toward establishing the appearance of reality. If the canvas is light, begin by putting in the main darks, and if the canvas is dark, do the reverse. You get the most immediate effect of reality by the _relief_; the relief you get most directly by putting in first those values which contrast with what is already there. Establish your most telling values first, then work from them towards less immediately effective things.

=Color and Values.=--Study the color at the same time you do the value. Put on no touch of paint as a value or a color alone. If you do, you will have to paint that spot twice,--once for the value, and again for the color. You might as well paint for the two qualities in one stroke. It takes more thought, but it gives you more command of your work. It doesn't load your canvas with useless paint, and it saves time in the long run.

=Relations and Directness.=--Study to give the true relations of things. Try to get the just color quality. Give it at once. Don't get it half way and trust to luck and a subsequent painting to correct it.

You will never learn to paint that way. Paint intensely while you paint. Use all the energy you have. Paint with your whole strength for a half or a whole hour, and then rest. You will accomplish more so than by painting all day in a languid, half-hearted way.

=Directness.=--Directness comes from making up your mind just what tint of color and value is needed, and just where it is to go, first, then putting it there with no coaxing. Get the right color on your brush and plenty of it; then put the brush deliberately and firmly down in the right place, and take it directly away, and look at the result without touching it again till you have made up your mind that it needs something else, and what it is that it needs. Then do that and stop.

Directness and justness of relation are the most important things in painting. They tell for most, result in most, both to the picture and to the student. Whatever you do, work for that. Try to have no vagueness in your mind as to what you will do or why you do it, and the effect of it will show on your canvas.

CHAPTER XXIX

FLOWERS

Flower painting is the refinement of still life. You have the same control of combination, but you have not the same control of time.