The Painter in Oil Part 18

Flowers will change, and change more rapidly than any other models you can have; and at the same time they are so subtle that the most exquisite truth and justness are necessary to paint them well.

People seem to think that any one can paint flowers. On the contrary, almost no one can paint them well. There are not a dozen painters in the world who can really paint flowers as they ought to be painted.

Why? Because while they are so exquisite in drawing and color, and so infinitely delicate in value, they are also even more infinitely subtle in substance and sentiment.

When you have got the drawing and the color and the value, you have not got the _quality_.

What is the petal of a flower? It is not paper, and it is not wax, neither is it flesh and blood, of the most exquisite kind. All these are gross as substance compared to the tender firmness of the flower petal; and the whole bunch of flowers is made up of petals.

Yet you cannot paint the _petals_ either, else you lose the _flower_.

You must paint the _quality_ of the petal, and the _character_ of the flower.

All these things make the mere perception of facts most difficult, and it must be done with full knowledge that in an hour it will be something else, and you can never get it back to its original form again. Yet you cannot paint a bunch of flowers in an hour. What will you do?

=Ma.s.s and Value.=--There is something besides the flower and the petal; there is the _ma.s.s_. The ma.s.s is _one thing_, and it is surrounded with air, and air goes through the interstices of it. You must make this visible. The difference in value in flowers is something "infinitely little," as a great flower painter said to me once. Yet the difference is there. The bunch has its nearer and its farther sides, and the way the light falls on it is the most obvious expression of it.

When you begin a group of flowers, get the _whole_ first. Make up your mind that you cannot complete your work from the flower you have in front of you, and that you must constantly change your models. Do not paint the little things, the personal things first then. Paint what is common to all the flowers in the group first. Paint the ma.s.s and the rotundity of it, and express most vaguely the _forms_ of the accents, and of the darks which fall between the flowers, but get their values. For you will have to change these, and you should have nothing there which will influence you to shirk. In this way only can you get the larger things without hampering your future work by what may be wrong.

[Ill.u.s.tration: =Sweet Peas.=]

Get the large values, and as little as possible of the expression of the individual flowers; then as the flowers fade and change, subst.i.tute one or two fresh ones at a time, in this or that part of the partially wilted group, using the same kind of flower as that which was in that place before; then work more closely from these new flowers, letting the whole bunch preserve for you the ma.s.s and general relation. As you work, the bunch will be gradually changing and constantly renewed from part to part, and you can work slowly from general to particular. Finally, from new flowers, put in those more individual touches which give the personal flowers.

This is the only way you can work a long time, and it is not easy. But it should not discourage you. Nothing takes the place of the flower picture, and the only way to learn to paint flowers is to paint flowers.

=General Principles Hold Always.=--Still, the principles of all painting hold here as elsewhere, and what is said of painting in general will have its application to flowers.

Paint flowers because you love them; and if you love them, love them enough to study patiently to express the qualities most worth painting, even if there be difficulties.

=Details Again.=--Don't make too much of unimportant things. The whole is more than the part; the flower than the petal. Of course you can't paint a flower without painting the petals, but you need not paint the petals so that you can't see anything else. If the character of the flower as a whole is to be seen at a glance without the emphasis of any special petal, suggest the petals only. If the petal is important to the expression of character, then paint it; and if you do, paint it well. Use your judgment; make the less expressive of the greater, or do not paint it at all.

=Colors.=--Colors and tints in flowers are always more rather than less subtle than you think them. If you have a doubt, make it more delicate--give delicacy the benefit of the doubt. Still, flowers are never weak in color. Subtle as they are, it is the very subtlety of strength. Black will be the most useless color of your palette. Make your grays by mixing your richer colors. A gray in a flower is shadow on rich color, and it must not be painted by negation of color, but by refinement of color.

=Sketches.=--Make sketches of flowers constantly. Try to carry the painting of a single flower or of a group as far as you can in an hour. Practise getting as much of the effect of detail as possible with as little actual painting of it, and then apply this to your picture.

Get to know your work in studies and sketches, and you will work better in more difficult combinations.

When you have, as you generally will have, still-life accessories to your flowers, rub in quickly the color and values of the vase or what not first, but leave the painting of it till the flowers are done. It will be a more patient sitter than they.

Apply the ways of painting spoken of with reference to still life to the sketching of flowers. Either rub in quickly a _frottee_ and then paint solidly into that, or work frankly and solidly but deliberately to render the characteristic qualities. When you sketch flowers don't take too many at a time; calculate to work not more than an hour and a half or two hours, and have no more flowers in your sketch than you can complete in that time.

When you sketch, quite as much as when you work at more ambitious canvases, get the ma.s.s first, especially if the group is large. Then put in the accents which do most to give the character or type of the flower. Make studies of single flowers and sketches of groups. In the study search detail and modelling; in the sketch search relations and relief, effect and large accent.

CHAPTER x.x.x

PORTRAITS

Don't look upon portraits as something any one can do. A portrait is more than a likeness, and the painting of it gives scope for all of the great qualities possible in art. Only a great painter can paint a great portrait. Some great painters rest their fame on work in this field, and others have added by this to the fame derived from other kinds of work.

You must not think it easy to paint a portrait, or rest satisfied with having got a likeness. Likeness is a very commonplace thing, which almost any one can get. If there were no other qualities to be tried for, it would hardly be worth while to paint a portrait. Back of the likeness, which a few superficial lines may give, is the character, which needs not only skill and power to express but great perception to see, and judgment to make use of to the best advantage.

=Character.=--The first requisite in a good portrait is character,--more than likeness, more than color or grace, before everything else, it needs this; nothing can take the place of it and make a portrait in any real sense of the word. Everything else may be added to this, and the picture be only so much the greater; but this is the fundamental beauty of the portrait. Some of the greatest painters made pictures which were very beautiful, yet the greatest beauty lay in the perception and expression of character. Holbein's wonderful work is the apotheosis of the direct, simple, sincere expression of character in the most frank and unaffected rect.i.tude of drawing. There are masterpieces of Albrecht Durer which rest on the same qualities, as you can see in the Portrait of Himself by Durer.

Likeness is incidental to character; get that, and the likeness will be there in spite of you.

Hubert Herkomer said once that he did not try for likeness; if only he got the right values in the right places, the likeness had to be there. The same can hardly be said of character, for this depends on the selection from the phases of expression which are constantly pa.s.sing on the face, those which speak most of the personality of the man; and the emphasis of these to the sacrifice of others. The painting of character is interpretation of individuality through the painting of the features, and, like all interpretation, depends more on insight and selection than on representation. Try for this always.

Search for it in the manner, in the pose and occupation, of your sitter. Get likeness if you will, of course; but remember that there is a petty likeness, which may be accident or not, which you can always get by a little care in drawing; and that there is a larger character which includes this, and does not depend on exaggeration of feature or emphasis of accidental lines, but on the large expressiveness of the individual. You may find it elsewhere than in the face. The character affects the whole movement of the man. The set of the head and the great lines of the face, the head and shoulders alone would give it to you even if the features were left out. Study to see this, and to express it first, and then put in as much detail as you see fit, only taking care never to lose the main thing in getting those details.

=Qualities.=--There are other great qualities also which you can get in a portrait. All the qualities of color and tone, of course. But the simplicity of a single figure does not preclude the qualities of line and ma.s.s. The great things to be done with composition may as well be done in portrait as elsewhere. If you would see what may be done with a single figure, study the Portrait of his Mother, by Whistler. You could not have a better example. It is one of the greatest portraits of the world. Notice the character which is shown in every line and plane in the figure. The very pose speaks of the individuality. Notice the grace and repose of line, and the relations of ma.s.s to ma.s.s and s.p.a.ce--the proportion. See how quiet it is and simple, yet how just and true. Of the color you cannot judge in a black and white, but you can see the relations of tones, the values and the drawing. It is these things which make a picture; not only a portrait, but a great work of art as well.

[Ill.u.s.tration: =Durer=, _by Himself_.

To be studied as an example of directness and navete of painting.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: =Portrait of his Mother.= _Whistler._]

=Drawing.=--Good work in portraiture depends on good drawing, just as other work does. Don't think that because it is only a head you can make it more easily than anything else. As in other kinds of work, the drawing you should try for is the drawing of the proportions and characteristic lines. Get the ma.s.ses and the more important planes, and don't try for details. You can get these afterwards, or leave them out altogether, and they will not be missed if your work has been well done.

Don't undertake too much in your work. Make up your mind how much you can do well, and don't be too ambitious; the best painters who ever lived have been content to work on a head and shoulders, and have made masterpieces of such paintings. You may be content also. See how little Velasquez could make a picture of! and notice also the placing of the head, and the simplicity of ma.s.s, and of light and shade.

=Painting.=--Of course you can help your color with glazing and sc.u.mbling, but work for simplicity first. It is not necessary to use all sorts of processes; you can get fine results and admirable training from portrait studies, and the more directly you do it, the better the training will be.

Study the Portrait of Himself, by Albrecht Durer. You will find no affectation here; the most simple and direct brush-work only. You will not be able to do this sort of thing, but that is no reason why you should not try for it. It will depend on the brush-stroke. It implies a precision of eye as well as of hand. It means drawing quite as much as painting,--drawing in the painting. You will not get this great precision; nevertheless, try for it, and get as near it as you can.

Don't try for too much cleverness; be content with good sincere study, and the most direct expression of planes that you can give.

[Ill.u.s.tration: =Portrait of Himself.= _Velasquez._]

Let your brush follow lines of structure. Don't lay on paint across a cheek, for instance. Notice the direction of the muscle fibre. It is the line of contraction of the muscle which gives the anatomical structure to a face. If your brush follows those, you will find that it takes the most natural course of direction.

Do the same with the planes of the body and of the clothing. Note the lines of action, and the brush-stroke will naturally follow them.

See that the whole form, and particularly the head, "constructs." The head is round, more or less; it is not flat. The planes of it cross the plane of the canvas, recede from it, cross behind, and return.

This in all directions. You must make your painting express this. It is not enough that there be features, the features must be part of a whole which is surrounded, behind as well as in front, by the atmosphere. The hair is not just hair, it is the outer covering of the skull, and of necessity follows the curves of the skull; and there is a back part to the skull which you cannot see, but which you can feel--can know the presence of, because of the way it is connected with the front part by the sides. All this you must make evident in your painting, as well as the facts which are on the side of the skull turned toward you. How make it evident? By values and directness of brush-stroke.

=Background.=--Never treat the background as something different from the head. The whole thing must go together. The slightest change in the background is equivalent to that much change of the head itself.

For the change means necessarily a different contrast, either of color or light and shade, and it will have its effect on the color or relief of the head.

Paint the two together, then. Make the head and all that goes with it or around it as equally parts of the picture, which all tend to affect each other. Your background is not something which can be laid in after the head is finished. True you can paint the background immediately around the head first, and then, after painting the head, extend the background to the edge of the canvas; but the color, tone, and character of the background must be decided upon at the time the head is painted, and carried on in the same feeling.

It is never good work to paint the head and then paint a background behind it. Particularly is this true when there are windows or any objects whatever in the background. It is most important that the whole thing shall be seen in the same kind of light, and in the same relation of light. This is hardly to be done when the head is one painting and the background another.

[Ill.u.s.tration: =Portrait.= _D. Burleigh Parkhurst._]

This is not rigidly true, however, in cases when the whole thing is planned beforehand, and studies made for each part, as in elaborate portraits and compositions which include several figures or special surroundings. But the principle holds good here also. The relation must be kept of the head to the surroundings, and the effect of the one upon the other always kept in mind.

=Complex Portraits.=--It is often possible to pose your model so as to bring out some characteristic occupation. This is often done in portraits of distinguished men. Such a treatment gives opportunity for composition both of the figure and of the various objects which may make up the background.

In such pictures you should study arrangement of line and ma.s.s, to make the thing aesthetically interesting as well as interesting as a portrait. Composition in ma.s.s,--the consideration of the head and shoulders in relation to the s.p.a.ce of the canvas,--is necessary in the simplest head; but as soon as the canvas takes in a representation of action on the part of the figure, line and movement must be considered, as was done so beautifully in Whistler's portrait. In this the study of composition is your problem. You may study it all the time and in every picture you do, but it should be worked out before you begin to paint.