The Painter in Oil Part 7

CHAPTER XI

TRADITION AND INDIVIDUALITY

A picture is made up of many elements. Certain of them are essentially abstract. They must be thought out by a sort of _mental vision without words_. This is the most subtle and intimate part of the picture.

These are the means by which the ideal is brought into the picture.

=Line, Ma.s.s, and Color.=--Such are the qualities of _line_, dissociated from representation; of _ma.s.s_, not as representing external forms; and _color_, considered as a _quality_, not as yet expressed visibly in pigment, nor representing the color of any _thing_. When these elements are combined they may make up such conceptions as proportion, rhythm, repet.i.tion, and balance, with all the modifications that may come from still further combination.

It is because these elements are qualities in themselves beautiful that actual objects not beautiful may be made so in a painting, by being treated as _color_ or _line_ or _ma.s.s_, and so given place on the canvas, rather than as being of themselves interesting. A face, for instance, may be ugly as a _face_, yet be beautiful as color or light and shade in the picture. These qualities, I say, do not represent--they do not necessarily even exist, except in the mind to which they are the terms of its thought. Nevertheless, they are the soul of the picture. For whatever the subject, or the objects chosen for representation, it is by working out combinations of these elements, through and by means of those objects, that the picture really is made.

The picture, _as a work of art_, is not the representation of objects making up a subject, but a fabric woven of color, line, and ma.s.s; of form, proportion, balance, rhythm, and movement, expressed through those actual objects in the picture which give it visible form.

I do not purpose to go deeply into these matters here. Elsewhere, as they bear practically on the subject in hand, as in the chapters on "Composition" and on "Color," I shall speak of them more fully. But I wish here to call attention to this abstract side of painting in order to show the relation between the two cla.s.ses of things, the one abstract and the other concrete, which together are needed to make up a picture.

The concrete, or material, part of a picture includes all those things which you can look at or feel on the canvas; and by seeing which you can also see the abstract qualities, which do not _visibly_ exist until made visible through the disposition of these tangible things, on the canvas.

Beyond this is included all the technical qualities of expression; form, as _drawing_; all representations of objects; the pigment by means of which color is seen; and all those technical processes which produce the various kinds of surface in the putting on of paint, and bring about the different effects of light and shade and color, form or accent.

In learning to paint, it is with these concrete things that you should concern yourself mainly. The science of painting consists in the knowledge of how to be the master of all the practical means of the craft. For it is with these that you must work, with these you must express yourself. These are the tools of your trade. They are the words of your art language--the language itself being the abstract elements--and the thoughts, the combinations which you may conceive in your brain by means of these abstract elements.

You must have absolute command of these _materials_ of painting. No matter how ideal your thought may be, no matter how fine your feeling for line and color and composition, if you do not know how to handle the gross material which is the only medium by which this can all be made visible and recognizable to another person, you will fail of either expressing yourself, or of representing anything else.

Now you will see what I have been driving at all this time; why I have been talking in terms which may well be called not practical. I want to fix your attention on the fact that there are two qualities in a picture: that one will be always within you, mainly, and will control the character of your picture, because it will be the expression of your mental self; and the other the practical part, which any one may, and all painters must learn, because it is the only means of getting the first into existence.

The one, the abstract part, no one can tell you how to cultivate nor how to use. If I tried to do so, it would be my idea and not yours which would result. I can only tell you that it is the _thought of art_, and you must think your own thoughts.

But the other, the material, the concrete, the practical, it is the purpose of this whole book to help you to understand and to acquire the mastery of, so far as may be done by words.

Teaching by words is difficult, and never completely satisfactory. But much may be done. If you will use your own brains, so that what does not seem clear at first may come to have a meaning because of your thinking about it, we may accomplish a great deal. I cannot make you paint. I cannot make you understand. I can give you the principles, but you must apply them and think them out.

Everything I say must be in a measure general; for the needs of every one are individual, and the requirement of each technical problem is individual. I must speak for all, and not to any one. Yet I shall state principles which can always be made to apply to each single need, and I will try to show how the application may be made.

=Technique.=--The science of painting consists of a variety of processes by means of which a canvas is covered with pigment, and various objects are represented thereon. The whole body of method and means is called technique; the several parts of technique are called by names of their own. That part which applies to the putting on of the paint may be generally called _handling_, although the word _painting_ is sometimes restricted to this sense, and _brush-work_ is often used for the same thing. The other technical means will be spoken of in their proper place. Let me say now a few words as to _handling_ in general.

Where did all this technique come from?

From experiment.

Ever since art began, men have been searching for means of fixing ideas upon surfaces. But it is only within the last four hundred years that the processes of oil painting have been in existence--simply because they are peculiar to the use of pigments ground in oil as a vehicle, and the oil medium was not invented until the middle of the fifteenth century.

With the invention of this medium new possibilities came into the world, and a continual succession of painters have been inventing ways of putting on paint, the result being the stock of methods and processes of handling which are the groundwork of the art of painting to-day.

From time to time there have been groups of artists who have used common methods, and who have developed expression through those methods which became characteristic of their epoch; and because the resulting pictures were of a high degree of perfection, their methods of handling acquired an authority which had a very determining effect on different periods of painting.

In this way have come those ideas as to what kind of painting or what ways of putting paint on canvas should be accepted as "legitimate."

And the methods accepted as legitimate or condemned as illegitimate have been varied from time to time--those condemned by one period being advocated by another; and the processes themselves have been almost as varied as the periods or groups of men using them.

In the long run, methods and processes have received such authoritative sanction from having been each and all used by undoubted masters, that they have become the traditional property of all art, which any one is free to use as he finds need of them. They have become the stock in trade of the craft.

The artist may use them as he will, provided only he will take the trouble to understand them. He must understand them, because the manipulations which make up these different processes accomplish different effects and different qualities; and as the painter aims at results, if he does not understand the result of a process when he uses it, he will get a different one from that which he intended.

The painter should not be hampered by process; he should not be controlled in the expression of himself by tradition. He should feel free to use any or all means to bring about the result he aims at, and he should allow no tradition or point of view to prevent him from selecting whichever means will most surely or satisfactorily bring about his true purpose.

Of course there are many ways of using paint which are unsafe. Some pigments are unsafe to use because they either do not hold their own color, or tend to destroy the color of others. You should always bear this in mind; and if you care for the permanence of your work, you should not use such materials or such processes as work against it.

But beyond this, the whole range of the experience and experiment of the workers who have gone before you are at your command, to help you to express yourself most perfectly or completely; to represent whatever of visible beauty you may conceive or perceive.

And this is the whole aim of the painter; to stand for this is the whole purpose of the picture.

CHAPTER XII

ORIGINALITY

Originality is not a thing to strive for. If it comes, it is not through striving. The search for originality seldom results in anything worth having. It is a quality inherent in the man; and the best way of being original in your work is to be natural. Perhaps the most useful advice which you could receive is that you be always natural. Never be artificial nor insincere; never copy another person's subject, manner, or method, with the intention of doing as he does. The most original things are often the most simple, because they have come naturally from a sincere desire to express what has been seen or felt, in the most direct way.

If every one were content to be himself, there would be no dearth of originality. No two people are alike, neither are any two painters alike; they could not be. They do not look alike, nor see alike, nor feel alike, nor think alike. How, then, should they paint alike? The attempt to do a thing because another has made a success of that sort of thing is the most fruitful source of the commonplace in painting.

Paint that which appeals to you most fully. Don't try to paint what appeals to some one else. If you like it, then do it; and do it in the most direct way you can find; only do it so as to fully and completely convey just what it is that _you_ like, unaffected by anything else.

And because you have seen or felt for yourself in your own way, and expressed that; and because you are not another, nor like any other that ever was, what you have done will not be like anything else that ever was--and that is originality.

But never imitate yourself, either. Be open. Be ready to receive impressions and emotions. And if you have done one thing well, accept that in itself as a reason for not doing it again. There are always plenty of things--ideas, impressions, conceptions, appreciations--waiting to be painted; and if you try to paint one twice, you fail once of freshness, and lose a chance of doing a new thing.

That is what a painter is for, not to cover a canvas with paint, hang it on a wall, and call it by a name. The painter is the eye of the people. He sees things which they have no time to look for, or looking, have not learned to see. The painter serves his purpose best when he recognizes the beautiful where it was not perceived before, and so sets it forth that it is recognized to be beautiful through his having seen it.

There is the difference between the artist and the photograph, which sees only facts as facts; which while often distorting them does so mindlessly, and at best, when accurate, gives the bad with the good in unconscious impartiality. But back of the painter's eye which sees and distinguishes is the painter's brain which selects and arranges, using facts as material for the expression of beauties more important than the facts.

But what is a picture? I have met some strange though positive notions as to what is and what is not a picture. Some persons think that a certain (or uncertain) proportion of definite forms and objects are necessary to make canvas a picture; that it must contain some definite and tangible facts of the more obvious kind. I remember one man who a.s.serted that a canvas in an exhibition was not a picture, but only a sketch, because it had nothing in it but an expanse of sea and sky. To make a picture of it there was needed at least a moon, and some birds, or better, a ship and some reflections. All this sort of thing is idle. A picture is not a picture because it has more of this or less of that; it is a picture because it is complete in the expression of the idea which is the cause of its existence. And that idea may be tangible or not. It may include many details or none. It is an idea which is best or only expressed by being made visible, and which is worthy of being expressed because of its beauty; and when that idea is wholly and fully visible on canvas or other surface, that surface is a picture. What the contents of a picture shall be is a matter personal to the painter of it. The manner in which it is conceived and produced is determined by his temperament and idiosyncrasy.

A picture is a visible idea expressed in terms of color, form, and line. It is the product of perception plus feeling, plus intent, plus knowledge, plus temperament, plus pigment. And as all these are differently proportioned in all persons, it is only a matter of being natural on the part of the painter that his picture should be original.

CHAPTER XIII

THE ARTIST AND THE STUDENT

It is a mistake to make pictures too soon. The nearest a student is likely to get to a picture is a careful study, and he will be as successful with this, if he makes it for the study of it, as if he made it for the sake of making a picture--better probably. The making of a picture for the picture's sake is dangerous to the student. His is less likely to be sincere. He is apt to "idealize," to make up something according to some notion of how a picture should be, rather than from knowledge of how nature is. Real pictures grow from study of nature.

They are the outcome of maturity, not of the student stage. This implies something deeper than superficial facts, and a power of selection,--of choice and of purpose which must rest on a very broad and deep knowledge. The artist is always a student, of course; but he is not a student only. He is a student who knows what and why he wants to study; not one who is in process of finding out these things.

=Aims.=--It should be noted that the aim of the student and the aim of the artist are essentially different. The student's first aim is to learn to see and represent nature's facts; to distinguish justly between relations. It is the training of the eye and the judgment.