The Practice and Science of Drawing Part 13

H. LINES DRAWN AT RANDOM.

I. LINES DRAWN AT RANDOM.

J. ADDITIONAL LINES DRAWN TO RELATE ORIGINAL LINES AND BRING THE WHOLE INTO HARMONY TAKING LINE 1-2, AS DOMINANT.

K. ADDITIONAL LINES DRAWN TO RELATE ORIGINAL LINES TAKING 1-2 AS DOMINANT.

L. THE SAME AS J WITH ADDITION OF Ma.s.sES TO COVER CROSSING OF LINES.

M. THE SAME AS AT K WITH ADDITION OF Ma.s.sES TO COVER CROSSING LINES.]

In H, I have introduced a straight line into our initial scribble, and this somewhat increases the difficulties of relating them. But by drawing 7-8 and 9-10 radiating from 1-2, we have introduced this straight line to 5-6. For although 5-6 and 9-10 do not radiate from the same point, they are obviously in sympathy. It is only a short part of the line at the end marked 5 that is out of sympathy, and had 5-6 taken the course of the dotted line, it would have radiated from the same point as 9-10. We still have line 3-4 to account for. But by drawing 11-12 we bring it into relationship with 5-6, and so by stages through 9-10 and 7-8 to the original straight line 1-2. Line 13-14, by being related to 3-4, 11-12, and also 5-6, still further harmonises the group, and the remainder echo 5-6 and increase the dominant swing. At L ma.s.ses have been introduced, covering crossing lines, and we have a basis for a composition.

In Diagram I lines have been drawn as before, at random, but two of them are straight and at right angles, the longer being across the-centre of the panel. The first thing to do is to trick the eye out of knowing that this line is in the centre by drawing others parallel to it, leading the eye downwards to line 9-10, which is now much more important than 1-2 and in better proportion with the height of the panel. The vertical line 3-4 is rather stark and lonely, and so we' introduce two more verticals at 11-12 and 13-14, which modify this, and with another two lines in sympathy with 5-6 and leading the eye back to the horizontal top of the panel, some sort of unity is set up, the introduction of some ma.s.ses completing the scheme at M.

There is a quality of sympathy set up by certain line relationships about which it is important to say something. Ladies who have the instinct for choosing a hat or doing their hair to suit their face instinctively know something of this; know that certain things in their face are emphasised by certain forms in their hats or hair, and the care that has to be taken to see that the things thus drawn attention to are their best and not their worst points.

The principle is more generally understood in relation to colour; everybody knows how the blueness of blue eyes is emphasised by a sympathetic blue dress or touch of blue on a hat, &c. But the same principle applies to lines. The qualities of line in beautiful eyes and eyebrows are emphasised by the long sympathetic curve of a picture hat, and the becoming effect of a necklace is partly due to the same cause, the lines being in sympathy with the eyes or the oval of the face, according to how low or high they hang. The influence of long lines is thus to "pick out" from among the lines of a face those with which they are in sympathy, and thus to accentuate them.

To ill.u.s.trate this, on page 178 [Transcribers Note: Plate XLII] is reproduced "The Portrait of the Artist's Daughter," by Sir Edward Burne-Jones.

The two things that are brought out by the line arrangement in this portrait are the beauty of the eyes and the shape of the face. Instead of the picture hat you have the mirror, the widening circles of which swing round in sympathy with the eyes and concentrate the attention on them. That on the left (looking at the picture) being nearest the centre, has the greatest attention concentrated upon it, the lines of the mirror being more in sympathy with this than the other eye, as it is nearer the centre. If you care to take the trouble, cut a hole in a piece of opaque paper the size of the head and placing it over the ill.u.s.tration look at the face without the influence of these outside lines; and note how much more equally divided the attention is between the two eyes without the emphasis given to the one by the mirror. This helps the unity of impression, which with both eyes realised to so intense a focus might have suffered. This mirror forms a sort of echo of the pupil of the eye with its reflection of the window in the left-hand corner corresponding to the high light, greatly helping the spell these eyes hold.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Diagram XX.

INDICATING THE SYMPATHETIC FLOW OF LINES THAT GIVE UNITY TO THIS COMPOSITION.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: Plate XLII.

PORTRAIT OF THE ARTIST'S DAUGHTER SIR EDWARD BURNE-JONES, BART.

An example of sympathetic rhythm. (See diagram on opposite page.)

_Photo Hollyer_]

The other form accentuated by the line arrangement is the oval of the face. There is the necklace the lines of which lead on to those on the right in the reflection. It is no mere accident that this chain is so in sympathy with the line of the face: it would hardly have remained where it is for long, and must have been put in this position by the artist with the intention (conscious or instinctive) of accentuating the face line. The line of the reflection on the left and the lines of the mirror are also sympathetic. Others in the folds of the dress, and those forming the ma.s.s of the hands and arms, echo still further this line of the face and bring the whole canvas into intense sympathetic unity of expression.

The influence that different ways of doing the hair may have on a face is ill.u.s.trated in the accompanying scribbles. The two profiles are exactly alike--I took great trouble to make them so. It is quite remarkable the difference the two ways of doing the hair make to the look of the faces. The upward swing of the lines in A sympathise with the line of the nose and the sharper projections of the face generally (see dotted lines), while the full downward curves of B sympathise with the fuller curves of the face and particularly emphasise the fullness under the chin so dreaded by beauty past its first youth (see dotted lines). It is only a very sharply-cut face that can stand this low knot at the back of the head, in which case it is one of the simplest and most beautiful ways of doing the hair. The hair dragged up high at the back sharpens the lines of the profile as the low knot blunts them.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Diagram XXI.

ILl.u.s.tRATING THE EFFECT ON THE FACE OF PUTTING THE HAIR UP AT THE BACK.

HOW THE UPWARD FLOW OF LINES ACCENTUATES THE SHARPNESSES OF THE FEATURES.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: Diagram XXII.

ILl.u.s.tRATING THE EFFECT ON THE SAME FACE AS DIAGRAM XXI, OF PUTTING THE HAIR LOW AT THE BACK. HOW THE FULLER LINES THUS GIVEN ACCENTUATE THE FULLNESSES OF THE FEATURES.]

The ill.u.s.trations to this chapter have been drawn in diagrammatical form in order to try and show that the musical quality of lines and the emotions they are capable of calling up are not dependent upon truth to natural forms but are inherent in abstract arrangements themselves. That is to say, whenever you get certain arrangements of lines, no matter what the objects in nature may be that yield them, you will always get the particular emotional stimulus belonging to such arrangements. For instance, whenever you get long uninterrupted horizontal lines running through a picture not opposed by any violent contrast, you will always get an impression of intense quiet and repose; no matter whether the natural objects yielding these lines are a wide stretch of country with long horizontal clouds in the sky, a pool with a gentle breeze making horizontal bars on its surface, or a pile of wood in a timber yard. And whenever you get long vertical lines in a composition, no matter whether it be a cathedral interior, a pine forest, or a row of scaffold poles, you will always have the particular feeling a.s.sociated with rows of vertical lines in the abstract. And further, whenever you get the swinging lines of the volute, an impression of energy will be conveyed, no matter whether it be a breaking wave, rolling clouds, whirling dust, or only a ma.s.s of tangled hoop iron in a wheelwright's yard. As was said above, these effects may be greatly increased, modified, or even destroyed by a.s.sociations connected with the things represented. If in painting the timber yard the artist is thinking more about making it look like a stack of real wood with its commercial a.s.sociations and less about using the artistic material its appearance presents for the making of a picture, he may miss the harmonic impression the long lines of the stacks of wood present. If real wood is the first thing you are led to think of in looking at his work, he will obviously have missed the expression of any artistic feeling the subject was capable of producing. And the same may be said of the scaffold poles or the hoop iron in the wheelwright's yard.

This structure of abstract lines at the basis of a picture will be more or less overlaid with the truths of nature, and all the rich variety of natural forms, according to the requirements of the subject. Thus, in large decorative work, where the painting has to take its place as part of an architectural scheme, the severity of this skeleton will be necessary to unite the work to the architectural forms around it, of which it has to form a part; and very little indulgence in the realisation of natural truth should be permitted to obscure it. But in the painting of a small cabinet picture that exists for close inspection, the supporting power of this line basis is not nearly so essential, and a full indulgence in all the rich variety of natural detail is permissible. And this is how it happens that painters who have gloried in rich details have always painted small pictures, and painters who have preferred larger truths pictures of bigger dimensions. It sounds rather paradoxical to say the smaller the picture the more detail it should contain, and the larger the less, but it is nevertheless true.

For although a large picture has not of necessity got to be part of an architectural scheme, it has to be looked at from a distance at which small detail could not be seen, and where such detail would greatly weaken its expressive power. And further, the small picture easily comes within the field of vision, and the whole impression can be readily grasped without the main lines being, as it were, underlined.

But in a big picture one of the greatest difficulties is to get it to read simply, to strike the eye as one impression. Its size making it difficult for it to be got comfortably within the field of vision, every artifice has to be used to give it "breadth of treatment," as it is called, and nothing interferes with this like detail.

XIII

VARIETY OF Ma.s.s

The ma.s.ses that go to make up a picture have variety in their #shape#, their #tone values#, their #edges#, in #texture# _or_ #quality#, and in #gradation#. Quite a formidable list, but each of these particulars has some rhythmic quality of its own about which it will be necessary to say a word.

[Sidenote: Variety of Shape.]

As to variety of shape, many things that were said about lines apply equally to the s.p.a.ces enclosed by them. It is impossible to write of the rhythmic possibilities that the infinite variety of shapes possessed by natural objects contain, except to point out how necessary the study of nature is for this. Variety of shape is one of the most difficult things to invent, and one of the commonest things in nature. However imaginative your conception, and no matter how far you may carry your design, working from imagination, there will come a time when studies from nature will be necessary if your work is to have the variety that will give life and interest. Try and draw from imagination a row of elm trees of about the same height and distance apart, and get the variety of nature into them; and you will see how difficult it is to invent. On examining your work you will probably discover two or three pet forms repeated, or there may be only one. Or try and draw some c.u.mulus clouds from imagination, several groups of them across a sky, and you will find how often again you have repeated unconsciously the same forms. How tired one gets of the pet cloud or tree of a painter who does not often consult nature in his pictures. Nature is the great storehouse of variety; even a piece of coal will suggest more interesting rock-forms than you can invent. And it is fascinating to watch the infinite variety of graceful forms a.s.sumed by the curling smoke from a cigarette, full of suggestions for beautiful line arrangements. If this variety of form in your work is allowed to become excessive it will overpower the unity of your conception. It is in the larger unity of your composition that the imaginative faculty will be wanted, and variety in your forms should always be subordinated to this idea.

Nature does not so readily suggest a scheme of unity, for the simple reason that the first condition of your picture, the four bounding lines, does not exist in nature. You may get infinite suggestions for arrangements, and should always be on the look out for them, but your imagination will have to relate them to the rigorous conditions of your four bounding lines, and nature does not help you much here. But when variety in the forms is wanted, she is pre-eminent, and it is never advisable to waste inventive power where it is so unnecessary.

But although nature does not readily suggest a design fitting the conditions of a panel her tendency is always towards unity of arrangement. If you take a bunch of flowers or leaves and haphazard stuff them into a vase of water, you will probably get a very chaotic arrangement. But if you leave it for some time and let nature have a chance you will find that the leaves and flowers have arranged themselves much more harmoniously. And if you cut down one of a group of trees, what a harsh discordant gap is usually left; but in time nature will, by throwing a bough here and filling up a gap there, as far as possible rectify matters and bring all into unity again. I am prepared to be told this has nothing to do with beauty but is only the result of nature's attempts to seek for light and air. But whatever be the physical cause, the fact is the same, that nature's laws tend to pictorial unity of arrangement.

[Sidenote: Variety of Tone Values]

It will be as well to try and explain what is meant by tone values. All the ma.s.ses or tones (for the terms are often used interchangeably) that go to the making of a visual impression can be considered in relation to an imagined scale from white, to represent the lightest, to black, to represent the darkest tones. This scale of values does not refer to light and shade only, but light and shade, colour, and the whole visual impression are considered as one mosaic of ma.s.ses of different degrees of darkness or lightness. A dark object in strong light may be lighter than a white object in shadow, or the reverse: it will depend on the amount of reflected light. Colour only matters in so far as it affects the position of the ma.s.s in this imagined scale of black and white. The correct observation of these tone values is a most important matter, and one of no little difficulty.

The word tone is used in two senses, in the first place when referring to the individual ma.s.ses as to their relations in the scale of "tone values"; and secondly when referring to the musical relationship of these values to a oneness of tone idea governing the whole impression.

In very much the same way you might refer to a single note in music as a tone, and also to the tone of the whole orchestra. The word values always refers to the relationship of the individual ma.s.ses or tones in our imagined scale from black to white. We say a picture is out of value or out of tone when some of the values are darker or lighter than our sense of harmony feels they should be, in the same way as we should say an instrument in an orchestra was out of tone or tune when it was higher or lower than our sense of harmony allowed. Tone is so intimately a.s.sociated with the colour of a picture that it is a little difficult to treat of it apart, and it is often used in a sense to include colour in speaking of the general tone. We say it has a warm tone or a cold tone.

There is a particular rhythmic beauty about a well-ordered arrangement of tone values that is a very important part of pictorial design. This music of tone has been present in art in a rudimentary way since the earliest time, but has recently received a much greater amount of attention, and much new light on the subject has been given by the impressionist movement and the study of the art of China and j.a.pan, which is nearly always very beautiful in this respect.

#This quality of tone music is most dominant when the ma.s.ses are large and simple#, when the contemplation of them is not disturbed by much variety, and they have little variation of texture and gradation. A slight mist will often improve the tone of a landscape for this reason.

It simplifies the tones, ma.s.ses them together, obliterating many smaller varieties. I have even heard of the tone of a picture being improved by such a mist scrambled or glazed over it.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Plate XLIII.

MONTE SOLARO CAPRI

Study on brown paper in charcoal and white chalk.]

The powder on a lady's face, when not over-done, is an improvement for the same reason. It simplifies the tones by destroying the distressing shining lights that were cutting up the ma.s.ses; and it also destroys a large amount of half tone, broadening the lights almost up to the commencement of the shadows.

#Tone relationships are most sympathetic when the middle values of your scale only are used, that is to say, when the lights are low in tone and the darks high.#

#They are most dramatic and intense when the contrasts are great and the jumps from dark to light sudden.#

The sympathetic charm of half-light effects is due largely to the tones being of this middle range only; whereas the striking dramatic effect of a storm clearing, in which you may get a landscape brilliantly lit by the sudden appearance of the sun, seen against the dark clouds of the retreating storm, owes much of its dramatic quality to contrast. The strong contrasts of tone values coupled with the strong colour contrast between the warm sunlit land and the cold angry blue of the storm, gives such a scene much dramatic effect and power.