-^es^-zD 
 
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 UC-NRLF 
 
 B E fi22 fiMb 
 
THE LIBRARY 
 
 OF 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY 
 
 OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 BEQUEST 
 
 OF 
 
 ANITA D. S. BLAKE 
 

 
 . I 
 
Ihe 
 
 Building of a Pi<fhire 
 
 By 
 W. L. Judson 
 
 Dean of the College of Fine Arts 
 Univerfity of SoutJiern California 
 
 I 
 
 Cob Attgplro an& i^n yrattriarn 
 
 SANDERSON PUBLISHING COMPANY 
 
 1902 
 
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED 
 
 (hL^ 
 
 LOAN STACK 
 GTFT 
 

 Apology 
 
 "Of the making of books there is no end", and yet 
 there seemed to be need of a companionable little 
 book about the making of pictures. 
 
 The cry for knowledge how to judge pictures, 
 how to enjoy them, how to make them is a cease- 
 less hum in these strenuous days of high endeavor 
 and great ideals. 
 
 The words set down here in short sentences 
 are the very phrases used again and again in the 
 actual practice of teaching; the very things the 
 practical student and amateur wants to know. 
 
 The principles upon which pictures are made 
 are the principles by which they must be judged, 
 so those who love art and those who practice it 
 may equally find pleasure and profit in knowing 
 how some successful artists have worked. 
 
 Keep the book handy for reference and read a 
 little now and then. 
 
 The Author 
 
 18.5 
 
I. 
 
 The Vital Qualities 
 
 5 
 
 II. 
 
 The lost Octaves . 
 
 17 
 
 III. 
 
 The Key Note 
 
 29 
 
 IV. 
 
 Technique 
 
 43 
 
 V. 
 
 Composition 
 
 . 65 
 
 VI. 
 
 The Sketch 
 
 73 
 
 VII. 
 
 The Painter 
 
 . 87 
 
The Building of a 
 Picture 
 
 THE VITAL QUALITIES 
 
 1 1 AT is it all about — this confounding 
 and ceaseless discussion of art which 
 loads to nowhere? There is Madame 
 Jones who finds only food for melan- 
 choly in the pictures which fill the 
 soul of Professor Brown with inef- 
 fable peace. Is there anything wrong with her in- 
 tellectual discernment? 
 
 And there is Doctor Smith (the LL. D.), an ac- 
 knowledged authority on art. Why does he turn up 
 his metaphorical nose in disdain at the things which 
 feed the higher life of Madame Jones? Is the taste 
 for art like that for tobacco — a thing to be acquired 
 by practice only? Are there no foundation princi- 
 ples, no common ground on which all the elect may 
 stand for a common enjoyment? Need they vex 
 their righteous souls over the weaknesses of their 
 neighbors for this, that, or the other special brand 
 or flavor? 
 
 Art criticism 
 
The building of a picture 
 
 Bless you, there is no real quarrel. These people 
 love one another. The Browns, Smiths and Joneses 
 are all highly gifted and cultured people, especially 
 in literature and art. These crisp and pungent opin- 
 ions of theirs are the visible evidences of the fact. 
 
 A tribute 
 to the critics 
 
 If you will always remember, my children, that art 
 criticism should properly be accepted as a just trib- 
 ute to the great learning of the critic it will add 
 much to your peace of mind. 
 
 Because Professor Brown is a successful academi- 
 cian, Madame Jones an impressionist of the broad 
 and vivid branch of that broad and vivid school 
 and Doctor Smith has studied the old masters in 
 Madrid and Florence, is it not necessary that each 
 should shout something or other to draw attention 
 to the fact? 
 
 Secretly they envy and admire each other for their 
 attainments and opinions. 
 
 The days 
 of peace 
 
 This discussion is as old as the emancipation of 
 the painter's art. 
 
 Time was when the Egyptian artist painted by 
 formula at the direction of an over-fed priesthood, 
 the basest and least progressive era of painting 
 with which we are acquainted. In a later time 
 painting, like everything else, fell under the sacer- 
 dotal yoke again. It became a soulless convention 
 and relapsed into absolute imbecility. 
 
 In those days there was peace in the schools. 
 6 
 
The vital qualities 
 
 When the cave man of Neanderthal scratched his 
 spirited sketch of the Aurochs on a flat bone he 
 doubtless took time to express his opinion of the 
 lake dweller who did his sketching on a board with 
 a hot pebble. 
 
 If you ask Doctor Smith he will tell you, warmly, 
 that in the hands of Titian and Velasquez the art of 
 painting reached its ultimate perfection, beyond 
 which it is impossible to go. 
 
 Get your information from Madame Jones and 
 you will learn that the ancients of the sixteenth 
 century were a lot of clever children who painted 
 quite well, considering that they lived three hun- 
 dred years ago, but that the moderns are really the 
 people — at least those of the impressionist school 
 are. 
 
 Professor Brown tells us definitely that the mod- 
 ern academic training gives the youth of today the 
 advantage of half a lifetime, enabling him to begin 
 where the old masters left off — that there are in fact 
 hundreds of painters doing better technical work to- 
 day than any painter of any previous century. 
 
 Doubtless they all are quite right. The world 
 moves on and if the principles of art chanefe not. The point 
 at least our view point does. The moderns have °' ^^^^ 
 
 their own problems — problems which may or may 
 not have concerned the old masters but which thous- 
 ands of the painters of our day are strenuously and 
 passionately working to solve. 
 
The building of a picture 
 
 It may be and probably is true that there is no 
 vital principle impelling the artists of today which 
 cannot find illustration in the work of some old 
 master. Yet we concern ourselves deeply in this 
 penultimate year of the greatest century of time 
 over qualities which worried our ancestors little or 
 not at all. 
 
 Modern 
 
 problems 
 
 General 
 
 principles 
 
 There are problems of light and color, modeling 
 and texture, movement and atmosphere which, with 
 all reverence for the great ones of the past, we re- 
 gard in an essentially modern way. 
 
 While the schools differ radically on many ques- 
 tions which seem important enough to quarrel about, 
 there are yet a number of qualities upon which all 
 schools agree, though with differing degrees of em- 
 phasis. These may be considered as the vital quali- 
 ties of painting. 
 
 There are four groups of these qualities which 
 may be classified as composition, color, form and 
 handling, with many minor subdivisions. 
 
 As composition we group together chiaroscuro or 
 light and shade values, mass, breadth, contrast, rehef 
 and opposition. 
 
 Color includes the group of essential qualities 
 known as tone, tint, harmony, vibration, atmosphere, 
 envelope, luminosity, color values and all those 
 things which have to do with the action of light on 
 transparent media and solid surfaces. 
 8 
 
The vital qualities 
 
 As form we classify all the qualities which relate 
 to drawing, as, line, movement, proportion, mass, 
 grace, perspective. 
 
 On handling or technique the vitality of all the 
 other qualities depends : touch, texture and finish 
 are its immediate distinctions. The word covers all 
 that relates to the manipulation of tools and ma- 
 terials and the various processes by which effects 
 are obtained. 
 
 "The art which conceals itself is the best art" — 
 once a famous doema — is now most distinguished in 
 its general disregard. 
 
 Much modern work seems indeed to have been 
 produced solely to display the clever manipulation 
 of its author. The bravura or brush work is a sure 
 passport to recognition with some schools. 
 
 Of a good picture we may say then, that it has Vital 
 luminosity, perhaps brilliancy. It has color, mean- qualities 
 
 ing that it is consistent in tone and that all its parts 
 sing together in perfect harmony whether the gen- 
 eral effect be somber, grey or dazzling with pris- 
 matic tints. 
 
 It has atmosphere whether the subject be indoors 
 or out, whether its objects are represented as a 
 yard or a mile away, it will have that envelope of 
 
The building of a picture 
 
 visible air which in nature is always felt but rarely 
 consciously perceived except by the trained eye. 
 
 It has drawing. Its lines and masses are inti- 
 mately true to nature and its parts in right rela- 
 tion to each other. 
 
 It has technique. Its handling is of such firm and 
 unhesitating stroke, its mingling of color so delicate 
 that the sure and practiced hand is evident. The 
 paint is left glossy or dull, rough or smooth, as the 
 various surfaces require. 
 
 The combination of these qualities may also give 
 it beauty, brilliancy, power, distinction, repose, mys- 
 tery, suggestiveness, and so on. 
 
 Beyond these there is a certain spiritual quality 
 which to most cultured minds is the very raison 
 d'etre of art, but which cannot be included in this 
 list because it is held to be unessential by some 
 painters who otherwise merit our respect. 
 
 "The lust of the eye" is one of the strongest yearn- 
 ings of human nature. It is a desire which increases 
 with culture and its gratification is one of the pur- 
 est delights of life. To please the eye is not an 
 ignoble thing. The appeal to the sense of beauty 
 in form and color is well worthy of the best efforts 
 even of a great artist. 
 
The vital qualities 
 
 "All good art is praise." — Ruskin. 
 
 The painter's brush is one of the most potent 
 teachers in the world. In the hands of a Verestcha- 
 gin its vibrant tones can do more for the cause of 
 peace than can all the oratory of a generation. 
 
 The brush 
 a mighty 
 teacher 
 
 The brush of a Fra Angelico can fill the minds 
 of men with reverence ; can touch their hearts with 
 a deep yearning for purity and the things that make 
 for righteousness. So uncounted millions of men 
 and women are made happier; their hearts are 
 moved with sympathy for the poor and unfortunate; 
 they are stirred with reverence or uplifted with 
 hope. They arc prompted to do justly, to love 
 mercy, to defend the weak, to hasten the better day 
 for which all men look, and this because so many 
 of the painters of our own day are faithful to their 
 mission. 
 
 The solemnity of night. The sweet glamour of 
 the mystery of twilight. The majesty of mountains. 
 The joy of sunlit skies. The passion, the pathos, 
 the sadness, the bliss of painted human life. These 
 are the spiritual qualities of art. 
 
 The spiritual 
 
 qualities 
 
 The working out of all these qualities and their 
 underlying principles presents to the painter many 
 and difficult problems. Of the thousands of artists 
 who. are conscientiously striving for their solution 
 some one is discovering something every day which 
 
The building of a picture 
 
 The needful 
 sacrifice 
 
 will help more or less towards that end. Hence 
 these studio talks. They are the result of much 
 study and many experiments in painting and teach- 
 ing. 
 
 The only way to enjoy art is to approach it in a 
 spirit of tolerance. Whatever has impressed other 
 mature minds to their delight or profit is entitled 
 at least to our respectful consideration, though it 
 may ignore or subvert all our cherished doctrines. 
 We may entertain angels unawares. 
 
 A picture may contain all the vital qualities here 
 enumerated, but a canvas is by no means to be re- 
 jected because of the absence even of several of 
 them. The carping critic comes to a picture in a 
 fault-finding spirit and it will be a wonderful picture 
 indeed if he cannot find it. 
 
 The true connoisseur approaches the picture with 
 the intention of enjoying it, and it will be a very 
 bad picture indeed if he is entirely disappointed. 
 
 "The greatest picture is that which conveys to the 
 mind of the spectator the greatest number of the 
 greatest ideas." — Ruskin. 
 
 From a technical standpoint the greatest picture 
 is that which contains the greatest number of these 
 vital qualities. 
 
 One painter may emphasize a certain set of quali- 
 
The vital qualities 
 
 ties to the neglect of others, as for instance when 
 one sacrifices truth of light and form for the sake 
 of a fine color scheme. Another may sacrifice truth 
 of any kind in order to force a certain sentiment. 
 Where there are so many right ways it is unpardon- 
 able egotism to insist on one's own view-point as 
 the very center of truth. 
 
 The difference between a sketch and a picture 
 lies primarily in the simpler aim of the sketch. 
 
 A sketch may be a record of a single note of color, 
 a memorandum of composition, a pose, a gesture, 
 an outline of any picturesque idea whatever. It 
 states one fact concisely. Its qualities arc few. A 
 picture on the other hand aims at fullness and fin- 
 ish, an adding of truths, relating not only the cen- 
 tral fact, but commenting and enlarging upon it, 
 giving its relation to many other facts. An artist 
 frequently makes many sketches in preparation for 
 a single picture. 
 
 Whatever oddities of style or method a man or a 
 school may develop, careful inquiry will reveal the 
 fact of a serious purpose in it. The oddity indicates 
 a bias towards a certain phase of feeling which to 
 him seems vital and which could not be expressed 
 so well in any other way. 
 
 The strange liney touch of a Raffaelli probably 
 means more to him and his admirers than a mere 
 
 The sketch 
 and 
 the picture 
 
 The underlying 
 purpose 
 
The building of a picture 
 
 mannerism. The weird dots, lines and commas 
 characteristic of the French pointilHst school find 
 admirers and defenders and — yes, even purchasers. 
 
 The painter's 
 limitation 
 
 Suggestlveness 
 
 A man can put no more into a picture than he 
 has in himself. 
 
 This would be a very unfortunate thing for some 
 of us were it not that many spectators are able to 
 find more in a picture than the artist ever put there. 
 Thus an admiring critic sometimes has as much to 
 do with the creation of a great work of art as the 
 painter himself has. He teaches the public what to 
 see there, and it sometimes happens that he sees 
 far above the painter's head. In the same way a 
 suggestive title will work wonders with the spirit 
 of a picture. 
 
 Suggestiveness is one of the great qualities. It 
 not only stimulates the imagination, but it flatters 
 the spectator by taking his discernment for granted. 
 
 When a picture is worked out to the last detail 
 its story is definitely told to the last word. Its 
 charm is soon exhausted, for it has nothing more to 
 say. It offends the amour propre like the story 
 teller who insists on explaining his jokes. 
 
 In a suggestive picture one will ahvays find some- 
 thing new and fine at every visit. This is the thing 
 of beauty which is a joy forever. 
 
 14 
 
The vital qualities 
 
 Mystery is a somewhat similar quality in paint- 
 ing as in poetry. It is continually inviting the 
 imagination to excursions into the realms of all 
 pleasant possibilities. 
 
 If it should be objected that many persons are 
 not gifted with imagination the answer is plain that 
 such pictures are not painted for such people. They 
 have their painters of turnips and brass kettles. 
 
 "What is that object in the foreground?" asked a 
 
 lady of Turner, standing before one of his great can- Imagination 
 
 the interpreter 
 vases. 
 
 "What does it look like?" he in turn inquired. 
 
 "I think it looks like a wheelbarrow." 
 
 "Then it is a wheelbarrow." 
 
 The imagination is a good provider of entertain- 
 ment. It needs only a hint, a gesture to indicate 
 the road and straightway it loses itself in a king- 
 dom of delights of its own creating. The power of 
 art — music, painting or poetry — to do this is of val- 
 ue beyond compare over its power to please the 
 ear or the eye. 
 
 Therefore paint broadly and suggestively. Take 
 the intelligence of the spectator for granted. He 
 will be grateful for it. If he sees inferno where 
 you meant the rivers of light, that is his own affair. 
 It is his pleasure so to see. 
 
 «5 
 
THE LOST OCTAVES 
 
 HE MOST causal observer must have 
 noticed the revohitionary changes in the 
 methods of picture making which have 
 come about in recent times. Invention, 
 discovery, and the natural evolution to- 
 wards perfection have all been at work 
 — sometimes slowly, but oftener by leaps and bounds. 
 The insatiable greed for novelty, developing nec- 
 essarily out of the competition of great modern pic- 
 ture exhibitions is also responsible for some of these 
 changes. 
 
 For the present we are compelled to suspend judg- 
 ment as to whether all of these changes are for the 
 betterment of art since the doctors disagree so bit- 
 terly about even the foundation principles of modern 
 
 schools. 
 
 Evolution 
 
 In art 
 
 It has been believed for three centuries past that 
 
The building of a picture 
 
 the painters of the renaissance pushed the mechan- 
 ical possibilities of their art to their utmost limit, 
 that painting then attained to a perfection which 
 has not since been equalled. 
 
 Lq^j^j^ It is a fact that ambitious students of today set 
 
 backwards themselves seriously to study the works of Titian, 
 Raphael and Velasquez with a profound reverence 
 and much profit, but there are not lacking modern 
 critics to tell us that some of these serious moderns 
 have not only wrested from the great canvases their 
 golden secrets, but that they have surpassed their 
 masters even as far as modern science has surpassed 
 the old. 
 
 Meantime the chemist has come to the aid of the 
 artist. Steam, electricity and invention have done 
 their part in cheapening and perfecting materials 
 and appliances. At the same time art schools have 
 sprung up all over every land. The accumulated 
 knowledge of the ages is added to the thousand 
 discoveries of our time; eyes are trained to see the 
 things to which the great world is blind, and fingers 
 are trained to a dexterity in manipulation which 
 leaves nothing beyond. 
 
 It seems difficult to point out a principle which 
 was not understood by our fathers or a single qual- 
 ity which some old painter did not produce. It is 
 the gathering together of these principles and these 
 innumerable discoveries which gives to the modern 
 painter his strength, 
 
 i8 
 
The lost octaves 
 
 As to truth in art— the red rag of the schools— 
 nineteen hundred years ago one of the great ones 
 asked pointedly, "What is truth?" and the Greatest 
 One was silent. He had no answer ready. After 
 all the volumes written and all the hot words hastily 
 spoken on this subject it seems futile to attempt to 
 throw fresh light upon it, and yet — since we must 
 stand somewhere in relation to this question — let us 
 at least examine the ground immediately about our 
 feet. 
 
 Truth 
 
 We take up, for instance, truth of light. The 
 subject of the picture, we will say, is a wooded 
 landscape. The lover of truth lays in his sky with 
 a glowing luminous light, then he adds the mass of 
 trees in tint and value correctly, thus forcing the 
 sky by contrast into still greater brilliancy. Again 
 he adds the foliage shadows and bits of dark stems 
 and in doing this he has exhausted the resource of 
 his palette — he has used the darkest thing he has. 
 But nature shows him a hollow tree trunk of still 
 more somber hue and nearer still, among rocks and 
 weeds and logs there are touches of still deeper, 
 infinitely deeper, gradations and yet he can see that 
 they are not black, for they are full of warm and 
 glowing colors. 
 
 The real 
 
 problem 
 
 What should we do about it, leave them out or 
 pretend they are not so dark as they look? 
 
 Or try another case, indoors this time. This man 
 will use his umber or Vandyke or black or bitumen, 
 
 19 
 
The missing 
 
 The building of a picture 
 
 which is much blacker, for his deep shadows, he 
 will paint his half-tones in their just relief and his 
 gloss and shine and reflex with absolute truth. He 
 will even paint a bit of white drapery or a high light 
 in a vase and still keep within the limits of truth. 
 He has worked from black to white and again 
 reached the limit of his palette. But there is a win- 
 dow in the background with a vista of trees and 
 buildings and sky, and the darkest thing he can 
 see out there is lighter than the lightest thing he 
 has yet done. 
 
 What must he do? Ignore the window or paint 
 octaves it in a lower key, thus painting a falsehood accord- 
 ing to his notion of the matter? Suppose for fur- 
 ther illustration that a beam of sunlight should sud- 
 denly fall across the bit of white drapery, the light 
 value would be instantly raised at least five octaves 
 — reckoning his painted scale as an octave — therefore 
 forever five .octaves out of his reach as a painter of 
 truth. 
 
 Or suppose again the two pictures are broufrht to- 
 gether, each having been painted by a conscientious 
 pre-raphelite lover of truth. It will at once be per- 
 ceived that both have been painted on the same scale 
 and octave, both ranging from black to white, yet 
 we have just seen that there are at least four octaves 
 of light interposing between the sunlight of outdoors 
 and the semi-obscurity of a window-lit room. Shall 
 we accuse either one or both of lying? 
 
The lost octaves 
 
 No, indeed. Let us keep out of the quarrel and 
 leave these worthy people to settle the matter them- 
 selves — if they can. 
 
 As for ourselves, we will take the lesson to heart 
 and finding absolute truth of values to be out of 
 reach, since four octaves of light are lost to us, we 
 will at least try to paint honestly our impressions of 
 what we see. 
 
 Our impressions — come to think of it — is not that 
 the vital thing after all? What more can be rea- 
 sonably asked? If we can impress others as nature 
 has impressed us it is enough. Let us devise ways 
 and means. 
 
 Our 
 
 Impressions 
 
 First of all we may choose subjects within range 
 of our limited paint and where this is not possible 
 we may translate the low key into a higher or the 
 high key to a lower. When the range of light is too 
 great for our single octave we must condense the 
 five into one and using white for our highest light 
 and the darkest thing we have for the deep shadows 
 will distribute our half tones so as to bring them all 
 within the limited scale at our command. 
 
 The picture will certainly lack the brilliancy and 
 vividness of natural sunlight. That is the inevitable 
 weakness of paint. There are some things we can 
 do, however, which will compensate for this weak- 
 ness. 
 
 The weakness 
 of paint 
 
The remedy 
 
 The building of a picture 
 
 Artists estimate each other solely by their tech- 
 nique. The public estimates the artists' work solely 
 by its subject. "I know what I like but I can't tell 
 you why" is the common formula. 
 
 The judgment of artists is the final verdict in every 
 departrhent of art no matter what the first impression 
 of the public may be, therefore questions of tech- 
 nique are of the first importance to all who wish to 
 excel. 
 
 Every painter whose work or whose future is of 
 any value has met defeat many times in trying to 
 reach nature's color, perhaps in a sunset sky, per- 
 haps in a flower or even in the burnished neck of a 
 dove. He will have demonstrated to his own dis- 
 satisfaction that absolute truth of color is impossible 
 to paint. 
 
 The purest and most vivid pigment ever produced 
 is as the grey of death when placed in competition 
 with the burning glory of sunlit clouds. The sim- 
 plest flower is absolute despair to the painter who 
 presumes to match exactly its tender or glowing hues 
 and yet the brilliancy of the painted sky or the vivid- 
 ness, or the tenderness, or the delicacy of the painted 
 flower is sometimes a marvel of color and a joy to 
 lof)k upon. 
 
 The ability to produce this semblance of nature 
 is a question of technique. It is a matter of con- 
 
The lost octaves 
 
 trasts and harmonies and juxtapositions of pig- 
 ments. 
 
 When men began to study landscape seriously 
 from nature, what were the qualities which most 
 impressed them, which they most strove for? We 
 may find the answer in the work of the Barbizon 
 men. Not that they were the earliest, but their work 
 is best known and easiest of access. 
 
 It was the tranquility of nature first of all. Then ^ school 
 its mystery and the infinite grace of stem and foli- ° ^^^^^ 
 
 age. 
 
 The struggle after effect or catchiness had not 
 yet begun; there was no juggling with color to 
 simulate sunshine but the bigness of nature and the 
 majesty of her masses were their all sufficient 
 reason for painting her. It was a school of greys 
 which charmed all the world and its works are 
 eagerly sought after even today. These men felt 
 the poetry of nature and painted poems. 
 
 These same great qualities of nature are as po- 
 tent today to stir the feelings and charm the hearts 
 of men as ever they were. 
 
 All men like to be amused. The Kaleiodscopists 
 who confound us with their startling combinations 
 of color and dazzle us with the glare of their 
 painted fireworks are all welcome because they all 
 amuse. The prestidigitateurs who excite our as- 
 tonishment by their impossible technique, also have 
 
 23 
 
The building of a picture 
 
 their place. The novelty which is the charm and the 
 curse of modern exhibitions will always fascinate all 
 of us for the passing moment but the picture to live 
 with is the one that appeals to the heart. 
 
 The impression Plato in "The Sophist" urges the need of some- 
 
 of truth times departing from exact truth in order to get 
 
 the appearance of beautiful forms. In painting 
 there are numerous cases in which this departure 
 from exact truth is justified by results. Although 
 we cannot reach the intensity of sunlight there are 
 mechanical means by which we may approach the 
 appearance of its glow and dazzle. Though we 
 find paint too dull to express the glory of nature's 
 colors, we can yet find means to produce much of 
 the impression which nature gives us. 
 JS 
 
 The Dutch The Dutch painters set us an example of reticence 
 
 picture in color and light which has a large following 
 among the younger American painters. 
 
 A low key and a short scale of light, a careful 
 economy of color, a simple composition and a 
 touching sentiment. This is the formula for a good 
 Dutch picture. Each quality appeals to the imag- 
 ination and each is within reach without straining 
 or exaggeration. To this school intensity of light 
 and purity of color present no problems. 
 
 All the world is not grey mist, however, nor all 
 24 
 
The lost octaves 
 
 the time twilight. So long as humanity loves 
 warmth and light and joy, so long will artists try 
 to paint them. The more difficult the problem the 
 greater the number of courageous painters who will 
 concern themselves about it. 
 
 During the second quarter of this century there 
 arose a great cry after truth in art. The books 
 were full of it. The schools were full of it. The 
 clamor was so great and so continuous that the 
 younger generation began to think that truth had 
 never been told before. It inspired a jarreat move- 
 ment toward a new and closer analysis of nature. 
 
 All the world took its color box and umbrella 
 to the woods, the sea shore, the fields, the moun- 
 tains. It began to gather facts — facts of light, of 
 color, of movement and more especially and abund- 
 antly, facts of detail. Critics and authors alike ap- 
 plauded the movement. It began to seem as if the 
 only purpose of art was to catalogue the facts of 
 nature. The landscapes of the time are amusing 
 in their naive sincerity, their industrious research 
 after utterly worthless detail. 
 
 With the inevitable reaction came a saner method, 
 simpler subjects, the suppression of redundant de- 
 tail, a preference for the larger qualities, for the 
 breadth, the majestv. the poetry, the mystery, the 
 infinity of nature. 
 
 Problems of atmosphere and light began to oc- 
 cupy attention, until presently it was found that 
 a new world was opening upon the vision of man- 
 kind. 
 
 The truth 
 
 bogey 
 
The building of a picture 
 
 The beautiful vision was not at first welcomed in 
 the camps of the elect. They reviled it and nick- 
 named it impressionism, but the movement kept on 
 the even tenor of its way, winning fresh admirers 
 every day. 
 
 Like many another p-ood thing, as soon as it had 
 won recognition and applause, it became the vic- 
 tim of its friends. Its name was made sponsor for 
 every wild whimsey of the faddist and insane phant- 
 asm of the color crank. 
 
 The lumlnarlsts Qut of the first movement towards impressionism 
 
 came the luminarists, men who made the study 
 of sunshine their special domain, and out of the 
 whole turmoil has come a rational plein-air method 
 of landscape painting which in spite of the faddist 
 is nearer perfection today than ever it has been 
 before. 
 
 During the third quarter of this century Mariano 
 Fortuny struck a new note in the painting of light 
 for which there seemed to have been no preparation. 
 A* Spaniard by birth, of warm and glowing tem- 
 perament, he was one of the first painters to visit 
 the lands of the sun in North Africa, Algiers and 
 Tunis. With this rendering of sunshine studied in 
 the new mode under almost exaggerated conditions 
 and with subjects which naturally lend themselves 
 to brilliant effects, his vivid canvasses fairly daz- 
 zled his contemporaries for awhile. 
 
The lost octaves 
 
 Every phase of sunlight and sun-cast shadow 
 began to be subjected to study and analysis. For 
 fifteen years the walls of the Salon were ablaze 
 with the sparkle, the glow, the dazzle and the glit- 
 ter of sun-lit surfaces. 
 
 Naturally, so much earnest study led to a good 
 deal of fresh knowledge about paint and its pos- 
 sibilities. 
 
 Luminosity is a quality much prized in painting, 
 not only in sunlight, but in indoor and other dark 
 pictures. The discoveries of the luminarists have 
 proved an enduring gift. 
 
 Madrazo, Rico and a host of lesser investigators 
 have brought down the traditions of the school and 
 added much fresh information. ^*"®/ 
 
 Black shadows and sharp edges have gradually 
 given place to color contrasts, loaded lights, broad, 
 cool shadows suffused with reflexes, cool from the 
 sky and warm from the earth, the blue or purple 
 edge of a cast shadow being made to enhance by 
 contrast the warmth of sunlight, just as nature 
 does it. 
 
 Nowadays every tyro knows that a shadow need 
 not be black to force light into warmth and vividness, 
 that a reflex lighted shadow gives infinitely more 
 brilliant suggestion of intensity of sunlight, that 
 dark sides should be warm and cast shadows blue 
 with sharp, clean cut edges while the light it- 
 
 27 
 
 outcome 
 
The building of a picture 
 
 self owes all its glow to its warmth rather than to 
 its high key. 
 
 These things are among the common formulae 
 taught in every school, but few who use them real- 
 ize with what incredible pains and through what 
 slow development the knowledge has been added 
 to the common heritap-e of the world 
 
 - ^-^f\ 
 
THE KEY NOTE 
 
 T IS maintained by some writers that the 
 color sense in man is still in a state of evo- 
 lution. The spectroscope and the photo- 
 graph take note of a number of colors that 
 are invisible to mortal eyes except through 
 their aid. 
 
 Certain it is that color in the eyes of an Alaskan 
 Indian is a very different thing from the color we 
 know and enjoy in civilized art. There seems a 
 difference even between color as used by an English 
 painter, for instance, and color as seen and under- 
 stood by a French artist, a difference not alto- 
 gether accounted for by the difference in tempera- 
 ment and training. 
 
 The ultra-refined discrimination of obscure tones 
 
 29 
 
 Evolution 
 
 of the 
 color sense 
 
Complexity 
 of color 
 
 The building of a picture 
 
 as seen in our best art is something beyond the 
 understanding, if not beyond the perception, of the 
 uncultured eye. The perception of it is as a new 
 sense. The pleasure derived from it is one altogether 
 denied to the untaught. 
 
 No book can take the place of experience with 
 color. Its combinations are infinite. Accidental 
 mixture and juxtaposition are often as exquisite as 
 they are surprising. The mind should be kept alert 
 for them. Only through the medium of thousands 
 of experiments can an adequate knowledge of the 
 powers and possibilities of paint be determined. 
 
 Primaries and secondaries are exceedingly rare in 
 nature. W€ speak of green trees and blue sky, but 
 we use the words only with a general or modified 
 meaning. A blue sky is usually a cool gray. If 
 trees have any pure green in them it occurs in only 
 small points as, for instance, where a leaf transmits 
 sunlight. The mass of foliage is made up of green- 
 ish greys of infinite variety. 
 
 Accent 
 
 of color 
 
 In every fine work of color there may be found 
 somewhere a touch of primary or secondary, or it 
 may be even tertiary, color which dominates the 
 entire color scheme. It is the key note. Some- 
 times in a picture of pronounced tonality it will be 
 a touch, a concentration of the leading tone, oftener 
 it will be a color complementary to the mass of the 
 picture. It is said that Sir Edwin Landseer could 
 
The key note 
 
 never finish a picture without a spot of red some- 
 
 where. 
 
 A dull grey morning. A shishy road bordered 
 by somber dripping trees. In the distance a woman 
 appears wearing a purple shawl. Instantly the whole 
 landscape lights up with color. The dull green is 
 complemented and enriched, the leaden sky has 
 become a tender lavender. It all vibrates together 
 like a sweet minor chord. It has found its key note. 
 
 A group of students watching with delight the 
 shifting reflection of white clouds and white sails 
 and blue sky on tremulous water, mingling with the 
 black shadows of the pier. Out from beneath floats 
 an orange. The students laugh together. It is the 
 revelation of the key note. The sweet little song 
 has suddenly burst into a resonant gloria. 
 
 Pick up anywhere a decaying twig, a mossy stone 
 or a withered leaf. Look into the intricacies of its 
 texture, the manifold gradations of its ever changing 
 surface. Each square inch is a complete color 
 scheme, a sufficient basis for a picture, a formula 
 which will be safe to follow. 
 
 Infinite 
 
 harmonies 
 of nature 
 
 It is vain to cudgel the weary and bankrupt brain 
 for novel combinations. Go to the nearest rubbish 
 heap and draw at will from an exhaustless treasure 
 house. 
 
 31 
 
The building of a picture 
 
 Influence of 
 shade 
 on color 
 
 There are two distinct conditions of color which 
 should be borne in mind. 
 
 In brilliant and warm sunshine its color is diffused 
 over everything until the lights are simply patches 
 of warm yellow, every other color being almost or 
 entirely absorbed in it, while the intensity of the 
 light dazzles the eye to the utter extinction of 
 detail. 
 
 In this case the local color and detail will be 
 found rich and distinct in the shadow. 
 
 On the contrary, when objects are seen in a neu- 
 tral light with deep shadows and faint reflexes the 
 local color and detail will be found mostly in the 
 lights, both being lost in the obscurity of deep 
 shadows. 
 
 Morning light 
 
 Remember that the color of sunlight varies con- 
 tinually. It is usually yellow but may vary through 
 red to orange and even to green and other cool 
 tones. 
 
 On a warm, clear morninir while the cool grey 
 draperies of night still cling about the tree and 
 mountain shadows the yellow of slanting sunbeams 
 is intensified by contrast. There is no pigment in 
 the palatte too warm to express their glow. A't the 
 zenith the sky is blue, consequently all the light 
 falling into the shadows is blue. 
 
 When the sun rises rosy, shining through a film 
 of high fog bank after a cool, misty night the world 
 
 32 
 
The key note 
 
 is pink and violet, to many eyes the most beautiful 
 expression of color in nature when seen over a 
 dewey cool green foreground. 
 
 riic abuse or exaggeration of this effect gives rise 
 to "the purple vice," Beware of it. It is the leaven 
 of the pseudo-impressionist. Purple, lavender, violet 
 and their nameless brood are the most seductive 
 tones of the palette to a half-trained eye and a 
 source of boundless joy to the most cultured sense 
 when laid on with the myriad gradations of a master 
 touch and balanced into perfect music by their true 
 aflhiities. 
 
 What has just been said of the color of sunlight 
 gives the key to the quality known as tone without 
 wiiich no picture can satisfy the mind — or the jury. 
 
 Whatever may be the prevailing tone of the light 
 be it indoors or out, be it pink, orange, yellow or 
 blue, every touch and tint laid on must be suffused 
 with it more or less. Some of the old painters are 
 said to have depended on glazes and varnishes for 
 this tone. What is called the mellowing of a picture 
 by age is nothing more than yellowing of the tone 
 by the oxidizing of the oils. 
 
 It is related that one of the late eighteenth cen- 
 tury curators of the Louvre Galleries, himself a 
 Netherlander, that he "restored" all the Dutch pic- 
 :urcs in the collection with a golden yellow varnish. 
 Their rich golden tone is the admiration of old 
 naster worshippers to this day. 
 
 33 
 
 The purple vice 
 
 Tonality 
 
The building of a picture 
 
 It often happens that where a subject is first laid 
 in with a few simple masses it seems entirely satis- 
 factory as a theme. Afterwards when the canvas 
 is all covered with the tones intended, that is, when 
 the background is in, we find the thing stale, flat and 
 profitless. It is not what we meant at all. The 
 remedy is to go back to first conditions. The color 
 or value of the canvas was the proper complement 
 to the subject. The components of the canvas 
 color formed the proper tone, or the light value of 
 the canvas was the proper relief for it, probably 
 both. 
 
 In the early morning while the blue of the sky is 
 the dominating note we say the tone is cool. In 
 the blazing orange of an afternoon sun everything 
 is permeated with its warmth. A pure blue or cold 
 purple is impossible under such a light. We say the 
 scene is warm in tone. So it is said of a picture 
 that it has tone when every part is kept consistently 
 subordinate to the key of color adopted for it, 
 whether it be gray, yellow, red or blue. 
 
 The yellowing of the picture by age will sometimes 
 The "Old give it tone which it lacked originally. The word is 
 
 Master" tone sometimes used to mean a certain diffused warmth. 
 There are still some people living who affect to be- 
 lieve that the brown and yellow tone of the old mas- 
 ters is beautiful and that their pictures were origin- 
 ally so painted. To them "tone" means yellow var- 
 nish. 
 
 34 
 
The key note 
 
 This tonality is an important thing to be consid- 
 ered in planning a picture. It should agree with the 
 time and sentiment of the subject. Obviously red or 
 yellow would be wrong for a moonlight. A blue 
 toned "noon" would be just as bad. 
 
 Most eyes delight in rich, warm color and most 
 pictures of exceptionally good tone are painted in a 
 warm key. The essential thing, however, is the 
 perfect consistency of all the colors with each other, 
 every dot and dash bemg permeated more or less by 
 the tonal color. 
 
 Language is a slow way and a poor way of ex- 
 pressing ideas. Many books there are on the subject 
 of harmony of color with many fanciful theories of 
 harmony, but all the books ever written cannot value 
 a single half-hour spent with a fine work of some 
 master colorist. 
 
 None of the theorists provide for the exquisite, 
 heart-gladdening combinations which seem almost 
 accidental in the painting and which nature flings 
 into every corner with lavish abundance. 
 
 To a savage perhaps there may be but six colors, 
 red, blue, yellow, purple, green and orange. These 
 have a distinct individuality which is obvious to 
 every intelligence. Citron, russet and olive are also 
 permitted to be known by name to those who read. 
 
 35 
 
 Color harmonies 
 
 The color sense 
 
The building of a picture 
 
 The six colors are like the harmonic notes of i 1 
 bugle, stirring the blood and waking the imagination, 
 but they are little capable of expressing sentiment 
 except in the hands of a consummate master. 
 
 But what of the limitless, nameless, brood, progeny 
 of the three primaries, which to the untutored are 
 simply grey. Every tint of them are individual to the 
 artist as the faces of his own children. These are 
 the materials out of which pictures are made, ma- 
 terials which nature uses so lavishly and so carelessly 
 as to astound us with her bounty. 
 
 Red, blue and yellow art delighted the souls of 
 the Egyptians six thousand years ago as it delights 
 the souls of infants and Indians today. So do violet, 
 orange and green satisfy the eye cravings of pseudo- 
 impressionists. The cultured mind and eye find 
 their uttermost joy^ in the company of that limitless, 
 nameless brood of greys with only a family re- 
 semblance to the primary stocks from which they 
 sprang. 
 
 The truth is that harmony of color defies analysis 
 and overrides theories. How often we have been 
 told that a blonde must not wear yellow nor a bru- 
 nette violet, yet in practice we find that both find 
 their most fitting splendor in the things that are for- 
 bidden them. 
 
The key note 
 
 Yet, experience has taught us a number of 
 formulae, which may be relied on to always please. 
 These formulae are useful. It is wise to have a good 
 stock of them always in memory but the exquisite 
 arrangements which surprise and delight us in art 
 are oftenest the result of momentary inspiration or of 
 accident. 
 
 A grey day. A simple grey sky with infinite deli- 
 cate gradations of cool color accented at the horizon 
 with dark mountains or trees. A foreground of 
 tender green grading into sky greys in the distance. 
 A tree or a building for shadow. Behold a color 
 scheme perennially sweet like an old Gregorian 
 chant! 
 
 A strong purple or rich brown dark horizon 
 against a gleaming yellow sky. A foreground in cool 
 low half tones with warm sky reflexes. The stock 
 in trade of many an old painter. Contrast of color 
 is frequently used as relief in the same way as shade 
 values. A spot of bright color will often accent an 
 important incident in the picture quite as well as a 
 high light or shadow will, and without disturbing the 
 composition. Contrast is also used as a means of 
 forcing the brilliancy of color. The warmth and in- 
 tensity of sunshine are equally enhanced by con- 
 trasting the orange or yellow light with blue or pur- 
 ple shadows. 
 
 "Who ever saw a red horse with a blue shadow?" 
 exclaimed a critic the other day. 
 
 37 
 
 Simple 
 
 harmonies 
 
 Value of 
 contrast 
 
The building of a picture 
 
 Some untaught people will tell you that they do 
 not see shadows always blue. True, neither does the 
 artist, for that matter. Both see the golden glare of 
 sunshine. That vivid contrast of color is the only 
 way to get it in paint. The small truth of color is 
 sacrificed to gain the greater truth of light. 
 
 Sacrificing ^^^ burning glory of a sunset sky or the dazzling 
 
 small truths brilliancy of midday sunshine are not attainable in 
 
 for greater paint, but by means of this sacrifice of color truth 
 
 we can come a little nearer to it. It is worth 
 
 while to make almost any sacrifice to come even a 
 
 little nearer. 
 
 This question of the influence of colors on each 
 other has always a lively interest. For instance, a 
 rosy cloud may be found on experiment to have no 
 red in it at all. It is made to appear rosy by a 
 slight greenish hue in the blue, being actually a 
 neutral grey. 
 
 Color 
 
 a question 
 of contrast 
 
 In nature grey is sometimes so altered by its sur- 
 roundings that it is diflficult to find its components 
 in paint. The difficulty is solved by simply holding 
 up in front of it a brush charged with any known 
 color. The contrast will reveal the composition of 
 the obscure tone. All greys being compositions of 
 red, blue and yellow it is easily seen which pre- 
 odminates and which is lacking. 
 
The key note 
 
 There are painters who feel great enough to ignore 
 the beauty of color, who delight in strange, weird, 
 bizarre combinations, talking slang, punning, even 
 swearing in color. Why? Perhaps to advertise 
 their cleverness. Certainly, not to make the worlcj 
 wiser. 
 
 When we speak of color we think of something 
 distinct from colors. The 
 
 "Greenery yallery 
 Grosvenor gallery 
 Out of the way young man" 
 of Gilbert and Sullivan's opera "Patience" marked 
 an era in history. The civilized world was just then 
 awakening to the fact of a higher life of the senses 
 and through them a higher spiritual life. The 
 aesthetic craze came and passed but left behind it a 
 saner understanding of beauty in color which then 
 came to be recognized as something finer, richer and 
 worthier than mere colors. 
 
 Acrobatic 
 
 painters 
 
 It is no uncommon thing to see an amateur pro- 
 duce and destroy the finest color schemes appar- 
 ently without having recognized them. Some tem- 
 peraments seem to feel color instinctively, to find 
 beautiful combinations without effort and to recog- 
 nize harmonies readily. This gift may be the result 
 of fortunate environment, or it may be inherited. It 
 is this inherent abihty to seize and utilize the rarer 
 and finer harmonies which gives the quality we know 
 as "distinction" in color. 
 
 Distinction 
 
The'^ building of a picture 
 
 Evolution of A young artist usually begins by experimenting 
 
 t e palette ^j^j^ every color he can find. Experience will 
 teach him to select those pigments which best suit 
 his purpose, his palette becoming continually sim- 
 pler. The present century has seen the invention or 
 discovery of many new pigments each having some 
 special excellence of its own. Certain cliques are 
 now beginning to discard all the earths as being il- 
 logical broken tints or impure color mixtures. The 
 tendency seems to be continually towards the use 
 of pure colors, primaries and secondaries, chemical 
 products all of them. 
 
 A palette of broken tints — umbers, siennas, ochres, 
 etc. — is useful in unskilled hands in counteracting 
 any tendency towards crudeness. The pure color 
 palette on the other hand may do harm in encour- 
 aging mere prettiness of color to the neglect of the 
 more sober and refined harmonies. 
 *.*■*' 
 
 "The 'Light Red' humbug" is the way a noted 
 Parisian teacher once referred to the use of earths 
 and other broken tones. 
 
 There may be something in it, but another genera- 
 tion will be needed to prove the worth of the new 
 mode. Meanwhile we will remember that for some 
 hundreds of years painters have been limited almost 
 solely to those imperfect and broken tones and they 
 produced with them some works which merit our 
 respectful consideration. 
 
The key note 
 
 Try ultramarine, alizarine crimson and aurora yel- 
 low. Almost every shade and tint under the sun 
 can be produced from them with flake white. If 
 they were all absolutely pure and transparent colors 
 nothing more could be desired. 
 
 It is admitted on all sides that the tendency of the 
 neo-impressionist movement is towards the deco- 
 rative in color rather than the purely natural and 
 imitative. If this is freely admitted by the school 
 as it is by many of its leading exponents the last 
 remnant of objection to impressionism vanishes. 
 
 Impressionist color has always, or rather usually 
 been beautiful, though often extravagant. The woi;ld 
 wept over it only when it was told that impression- 
 ists really saw Nature as they painted her. So long 
 as we tolerate satyrs, dragons and brownies in art 
 we cannot reasonably object to the purple cow or the 
 blue milkmaid. They are alike creatures of the 
 imagination. If they have beauty they fulfill their 
 mission. 
 
 Broad planes of well considered color, pure colors 
 or simple mixtures, delicate but simple harmonies; 
 these are the characteristics of the best decorative 
 painting. It is always more or less conventional in 
 color and often conventional in drawing as well. 
 
 The light and color of the mural work of Puvis 
 de Chavannes was never seen on land or sea, but 
 
 A decorative 
 tendency 
 
The building of a picture 
 
 their beauty and aptness has never been questioned. 
 When we have learned to distinguish between im- 
 aginative and decorative work and frankly put each 
 in its place we have removed another hindrance to 
 our peace. 
 
TECHNIQUE 
 
 PICTURE is finished when the means 
 taken to produce it arc completely hid- 
 den." IVIiistler. 
 
 This motto has been held for many 
 
 years as an unassailable dogma with 
 
 painters of all schools down to these degenerate 
 
 days when smart painting is thought to be its own 
 
 reason for being. 
 
 A great orator is known by his abundance of ideas, 
 his fervid or passionate delivery, his appropriate 
 language and perfect modulation of voice. Even a 
 commonplace subject becomes important and is dig- 
 nified by his manner of delivery. 
 
 43 
 
 Value 
 
 of method 
 
The building of a picture 
 
 So ill the hands of a great painter a bold, brilHant, 
 masterly handling of the brush with a refined and 
 original color sense may dignify and make splendid 
 even the flimsiest theme. 
 
 Facile brushwork is an easy flow of language. 
 Correct manipulation is good grammar. Composi- 
 tion is its rhetoric. If fine words clothe a fine idea 
 so much the better. 
 
 There be some wise men who speak but stam- 
 meringly and some clever talkers who have nothing 
 to impart. So it is in painting. This is why there 
 are so many empty canvases. 
 
 The lang^uage Painting is a language simply. A cultured speak- 
 
 of paint jj^g voice with a sweet tone and an easy command 
 of words is a pleasant thing to listen to but it must 
 express ideas to hold our attention. Sweet color and 
 facile brushwork, all the mechanical qualities of a 
 picture are good and pleasant things, but if they 
 fail to instruct or amuse or move us they are mean- 
 ingless gabble. 
 
 Men paint much as they talk. Color and brush- 
 work may be flippant, audacious or insolent. Thev 
 may degenerate into even a pun. There are canvases 
 which seem forever shouting with a conceited swag- 
 ger "Me voila!" 
 
 The eye is much keener of perception than is the 
 consciousness. Every surface in nature is made up 
 
 44 
 
Technique 
 
 of an infinite multitude of varied colors so minute Disintegration 
 that the mind is unconscious of them but if we °' ^^'^'^ 
 
 substitute for any natural surface a flat tint of paint 
 the eye rejects the imitation at once even before 
 llic understanding is appealed to. 
 
 If a bit of Bouguerrcau's flesh painting is exam- 
 ined closely it will be found to be composed of 
 minute dots of the various tints into which flesh 
 color decomposes under the minutest scrutiny, the 
 rose tones of the blood, the lavender of the veins, 
 the pale violet of the high light and ruddy greys of 
 tlic darks; a complex touch only realized by enor'- 
 mous labor. A square inch will contain hundreds of 
 little dots laid side by side with masterly knowledge 
 and infinite patience. Seen at the proper distance 
 they blend in a perfectly harmonious color. The 
 result is an effect of imitation almost illusive. 
 
 Many other painters have many other methods of 
 arriving at the same effect, all depending on th<? 
 mingling of component tints without complete mix- 
 ture. This is known as "the disintegration of color" 
 and its object is the quality known as "vibration." 
 
 Most modern painters prefer to take the various 
 tints which make up a color and allow the brush to 
 mix them very slightly in the act of laying on with 
 a swift stroke. The result satisfies the ey.e and the 
 end is attained with but little labor. 
 
 45 
 
The fresh, 
 
 clean touch 
 
 The building of a picture 
 
 One of the most eminent of French luminarists 
 was Manet, father of the impressionist school. He 
 produced his marvelous color by laying side by side 
 alternate strokes in pastel, of the component tints 
 of any given color, trusting to distance to mingle 
 them into the required tone. All the world knows 
 with what surprise and delight his magical creations 
 were greeted when shown together at the Academie 
 des Beaux Arts in Paris. 
 
 Many hands took up the problem and carried 
 Manet's analysis to its logical conclusions. For a 
 long time the disintegration of color has been an 
 accepted doctrine and common practice. 
 
 "Consider nature a Mosaic of various colors and 
 reproduce them stroke for stroke. Does it make a 
 sort of fresco? Yes, something even better. Mosaic." 
 — Ruskin. 
 
 The freshness and clearness of color laid on the 
 canvas with a single stroke is the foundation secret 
 of brilliant painting, the basis of much of the best 
 technique. 
 
 When each tint and gradation is studied and 
 mixed on the palette, put into its place with one 
 touch and then carefully left alone we get what Rus- 
 kin refers to as "Mosaic." Seen close at hand some 
 eyes may be offended by its apparent want of unity, 
 like a brass band heard too near, but the proper 
 distance merges it all into music. 
 46 
 
» 
 
 Technique 
 
 "Should a brush handle be three feet or five feet 
 in length?" 
 
 The apochryphal quarrel over this question among 
 the pre-Raphaclites may have had a grain of truth 
 in its origin. As men become more skilled in tech- 
 nique they seek more and more to paint from a dis- 
 tance that the blending of disintegrated color may 
 be seen as it progresses. 
 
 The problems which most occupy the attention of 
 modern painters and discriminate the new art from 
 the old arc mostly the result of the nlein-air move- 
 ment. There is no evidence that any of the old 
 painters ever studied their subjects in the open air. 
 On the contrary, it seems evident that their out-of- 
 door subjects were painted in dimly-lit rooms, result- 
 ing in a conventional and unnatural color. The first 
 good out-door work is yet but little more than a cen- 
 tury old, while the general acceptance and practice 
 of out-door work is less than half that age. 
 
 Outdoor 
 
 painting 
 
 Every painter has experienced more or less of the 
 pleasure and surprise of making a brilliant and 
 beautiful sketch under the impulse of a strong feel- 
 ing and afterwards the bitterness of ruining the 
 same in the attempt to carry it forward to a finish. 
 
 There are two reasons operating towards this dis- 
 astrous result, one of which is purely mechanical. In 
 the haste and rush of urgent expression the mixture 
 of pigments is incomplete, edges are left undefined 
 and details neglected, everything is subordinate to 
 
 Value of the 
 first impulse 
 
 47 
 
The building of a picture 
 
 the one idea, the raison d'etre of the sketch. The 
 swift stroke is full of grace, the hasty mixture is 
 full of Httle refinements of gradation, little runs of 
 color, little accidental harmonies which the mind is 
 scarcely capable of thinking out systematically. The 
 imperfect contours and hasty brushing are full of 
 suggestions which appeal to the mind as well as tliQ 
 eye. 
 
 The other reason is an intellectual one. The 
 stimulus of a strong emotion makes the senses keen 
 and the thinking clear. Values are perceived and 
 given with truth with a stroke bold and accurate. 
 
 The attempt to improve such work as this in cold 
 blood and a judicial temper is Hke patching cloth of 
 gold with twelve ounce duck. The original im- 
 pulse being expended can never be revived again. 
 Neither learning nor patience can take its place. 
 
 Decorative art Imitation is an instinct with the human being, 
 
 and fine art We point to the etching of prehistoric man and the 
 elaborate carving of every aboriginal race and call 
 it art. The name is wrong. Call it decoration. 
 Art, fine art, is a later development in the higher 
 culture of the senses and refinement of the spirit. 
 It deals not only with the imitation of objects as 
 such, but uses them as means of stirring the emo- 
 tions and teaching men to see and love the things 
 which make for a nobler life. 
 
 Until a man paints with the hope or with the wish 
 to stir the minds of his fellows to better thinking 
 
Technique 
 
 and their hearts to better living or to make some ^^s purpose 
 creature happier or wiser he has not understood the 
 meaning of art. 
 
 "Pas de peluche, pas de peinture" — Carolus Duran. 
 
 In the painting of plush by this great master we 
 find tlie richest and strongest cfTects of which paint 
 is capable, proving that he practiced what he 
 preached. 
 
 The sheen of plush in vivid contrast with its deep 
 and glowing shadows, the graceful play of light and 
 local color over its surface, the satisfactory har- 
 mony which is characteristic of the fabric, all unite 
 in rendering plush a most desirable object of study 
 and as background in portraiture or accessory in 
 still life its distinguished richness renders it oc- 
 casionally indispensable. 
 
 A smear of paint here, a dab there, a crisp out- Method 
 line, a touch of bright color or an accent of shadow 
 yonder, balancing masses, adjusting tones, keeping 
 the entire conception in mind all the time and not- 
 ing the effect of every touch. This is the way to 
 plan a picture. 
 
 If you begin at one end and proceed like a car- 
 penter driving nails into a fence your work will 
 have about the same aesthetic value. 
 
The building of a picture 
 
 "Chechez delibrementt mais travaillez avec pas- 
 sion." Boulanger's advice to students at Julian's. 
 
 The result of the method is rapid work. Any er- 
 rors or shortcomings in the composition will be 
 discovered before much work is done; consequently 
 alterations are easily made and no labor is wasted. 
 
 Many a good reputation has been spoiled by put- 
 oroug ness ^j^^^ ^^^^ imperfect work. The necessary changes in- 
 volved too much work or the painter lacked the 
 courage to paint out the offending part. 
 
 There is a good remedy for an unsatisfactory 
 picture which has already cost much labor — two 
 coats of white lead. A clean canvas has more value 
 than a bad picture. 
 
 Time or labor, indeed, has little to do with the 
 Time matter. A man may work for a week after a cer- 
 
 tain effect and fail to get it. At another time, in 
 another mood or with fresh insight he may succeed 
 in ten minutes. Which picture, think you, has the 
 greater value, the failure which cost time and labor 
 or the success due to a happy accident? 
 
 The week of labor added absolutely no value to the 
 picture. The successful tour de force, done in a 
 short morning may bring more joy to the artist and 
 to the world than would a month of industrious but 
 uninspired niggling. 
 
 50 
 
 and labor 
 
Technique 
 
 We may pile on paint an inch thick and experi- 
 ment and perspire from morn to dewy eve, through 
 weary v/eeks and changing seasons but it all counts 
 for nothing until the magical stroke is given which 
 fully expresses the idea. Whether that stroke comes 
 soon or late there is no picture until it does arrive. 
 
 Moral : Don't be afraid of labor. No one can 
 work intelligently with brush and paint without 
 learning something. Therefore the labor is not 
 wasted. You have at least learned what not to do. 
 Tt all counts on the next picture. 
 
 A too facile trick of the brush sometimes degen- 
 erates into something very like slang when a clever, 
 catchy stroke or a telling combination of colors is 
 used to give effect to all kinds of subjects without 
 regard to time, place or season. 
 
 Of the various methods of laying on paint impasto Impasto 
 is the chief and in many subjects the only available 
 way. Aside from its robust and solid appearance it 
 is the only method which is absolutely permanent. 
 Its great body is security against change. 
 
 Thin painting will often sink into the ground 
 color. Glazes are easily abraded or removed on ac- 
 count of their slightness. Still it is the custom of 
 many painters to load the lights heavily for the sake 
 of texture and high light and to paint shadows thinly 
 and smoothly where texture is lost in obscurity. 
 
 51 
 
The building of a picture 
 
 The more modern way is to paint heavily 
 throughout with a large and full brush, seeking after 
 light and atmosphere rather than richness and depth. 
 
 There is something very satisfying to the eye in 
 the rich, fat, generously laid canvas even if nothing 
 else were gained by it. 
 
 Unless in the hands of a skilled master a thinly 
 painted canvas suggests meagreness and weakness. 
 A Bouguerreau or a Meissonier may paint as he 
 will. His genius is master of his material. 
 
 Misapplied With a long haired, supple brush loaded with 
 
 labor f'lt color and a clean, crisp, quick touch, a certain 
 
 rich quality of surface is developed which is bril- 
 liant in itself. Dabbling and teasing the paint with 
 the brush, smoothing, blending ' and fondling the 
 color makes mud of the purest pigments while it 
 destroys every vestige of texture. 
 
 In a brilliant style of handling the colors remain 
 clean and the touch crisp. Delicate modulations will 
 round the surfaces without the need of unduly mix- 
 ing colors together. When color is thickly laid on, 
 the touches will blend insensibly at the edges ol 
 their own accord. 
 
 If laid on with a long, flexible knife instead of a 
 brush the effect of soHdity with delicacy of color is 
 greatly enhanced, but the knife lacks precision in 
 
Technique 
 
 drawing minute forms and details. These are much 
 better added with a brush. 
 
 The knife is also a powerful tool in getting cer- 
 tain rough textures like rocks, gravel and tree 
 trunks. The abuse of impasto results in paintiness 
 where the paint by its excessive roughness becomes 
 more obvious than its intention. 
 
 Glazing has a magical effect in deepening or 
 warming shadows or enriching colors, also in add- 
 ing delicate tints and modifying gradations of color 
 already laid on and perfectly dry. 
 
 Glazing: 
 
 To test the dryness of paint breathe on it. If the 
 breath dims the surface evenly it is dry enough 
 lo work over. 
 
 Any transparent color will do for glazing when 
 ililuted with some colorless medium like mcgb''^ oil, 
 or retouching varnish and brushed thinly. 
 
 Scumbling expresses air, smoke, mist, dust and 
 the like where these things must be added over 
 paint already dry. Use thick body color, driving it 
 very thinly with a stiff brush. These thin paintings 
 would better be avoided, however, when it is pos- 
 sible, because they are so easily abraded. 
 
 Many mediums have been invented for the dilu- 
 tion of tube colors. They are one and all objection- 
 able for one reason or another. Practice demon- 
 strates that wherever pigments must be diluted the 
 
 53 
 
 Scumbling 
 
 Mediums 
 
The building of a picture 
 
 The mat 
 
 surface 
 
 meek and lowly coal oil will do the most good and 
 the least harm. It will not yellow with age or dark- 
 ness like the vegetable oils. It will not dry too fast 
 and crack like varnishes. It will not dry mat like 
 turpentine. It will not dry sticky or crack like me- 
 gilp, but it will stick readily to any surface. It 
 works easily and spreads evenly and after it has an- 
 swered its purpose it will evaporate entirely, leaving 
 the color pure. 
 
 For its brilliant atmospheric quality the mat effect 
 is much valued by some landscape painters. Absorb- 
 ent grounds are sometimes used to promote it. Some- 
 times turpentine is added to the pigment after its 
 oil has been removed by blotting paper. Rapid and 
 repeated painting is sure to produce the mat sur- 
 face. 
 
 The chief fault of this method is that the dark 
 colors sink so that their true values and colors are 
 not seen. A little very dilute retouching varnish 
 rubbed on with a bit of rag or an old brush will 
 reveal the color at once. It should be rubbed on 
 thinly. Varnishes are very likely to crack the paint 
 later on. 
 
 Varnish A still better varnish for mat pictures is white 
 
 of egg beaten to a froth and spread thinly with a 
 large brush. It brings out the color, preserves the 
 pigments from gas and smoke and can be washed 
 off and renewed whenever the picture requires clean- 
 ing. 
 
 54 
 
Technique 
 
 The chief value of the mat surface h"es in its 
 power of keeping its brilliancy under artificial light. 
 A varnished picture will reflect more or less all the 
 shadows in the room. In an evening exhibition un- 
 der gas or electric light the mat picture has an 
 immeasurable advantage. 
 
 Some of the more delicate and transparent tube 
 colors are very bad dryers. They may remain for 
 weeks on the canvas and still smear with a touch of 
 the hand. The smallest possible quantity of sugar 
 of lead will insure prompt drying and will not in- 
 jure the color. 
 
 Drying 
 
 A great change in manipulation of recent years 
 has led to a revision of all old methods. The new- 
 '^<t school seems inclined to reject varnish entirely 
 ^ causing an injury to the tone and durability of the 
 work. Especially do the plein-air and luminarist 
 schools condemn it, for its use destroys all the splen- 
 did qualities gained by a high key and a mat surface. 
 
 Paint the other side of things. How often we 
 find a portrait, for instance, swimming in its back- 
 ground, like a potato swimming in water, half in 
 and half out. 
 
 The envelope 
 
 The other side may be suggested by the touch. 
 A stroke somewhat parallel to the outline of a 
 rounded surface will foreshorten the edges and 
 carry it round. 
 
 55 
 
The building of a picture 
 
 The management of the cast shadow is also im- 
 portant in detaching an object from its background. 
 The farther the shadow falls from the object the 
 farther back will the background appear. 
 
 The painter's touch is not a sweep, but a stroke or 
 The touch p^^j- gf ^j^g brush intended to lay color on and not to 
 
 remove it. First one side of the brush and then 
 the other, changing its direction at every stroke and 
 rolling it round in the fingers this way or that to 
 give the edge decision or softness, as the case re- 
 quires. 
 
 There are hundreds of little tricks of handling 
 Textures which are acquired in the attempt to imitate surfaces. 
 
 The touch which expresses the foliage of an oak 
 perfectly will not answer at all for the foliage of an 
 eucalyptus or a fig tree and no foliage touch will in- 
 terpret the texture of rough bark. 
 
 Texture is one of the important factors of good 
 brushwork. Every different material shows a dif- 
 ferent kind of surface which is only rightly ex- 
 pressed by a touch peculiar to it. Hamerton says of 
 a certain figure painter: "Everything in his picture 
 was metallic except the armor; that was leathery." 
 
 So we see trees looking like bags of potatoes and 
 flesh like putty, rocks looking soft and transparent 
 and skies as solid as rocks. The development of the 
 surface of things is one of the crucial tests of 
 the painter's skill. 
 
 s6 
 
Technique 
 
 It has been said that the world of art students is 
 divided between those who swear by Bouguereau 
 and those who swear at him. 
 
 In truth there is a deal of water flowing between 
 his patient dot by dot, small-sable execution and 
 the method of Rafaelli, who lays his whole canvas 
 in with soft cloudy masses of uncertain color and 
 then gives definition to contours and surfaces alike 
 by means of dark pen-like lines. 
 
 And between these extremes there is also much 
 safe and sound texture painting by many methods, 
 and plenty of room still left for discovery and inven- 
 tion. 
 
 There are plenty of intelligent people who cannot Training 
 tell one horse from another of the same color. Com- ^^® ^^^ 
 
 paratively few people can tell one sheep from an- 
 other. Yet they have no difficulty in knowing one 
 human face from another even though the difference 
 is much less than in the case of the sheep. 
 
 Most people recognize a vertical line when they 
 see it. Many people know a right angle at sight. 
 Some know an angle of forty-five degrees 
 but very few know an angle of thirty or fifty 
 or eighty degrees. Why? Because they are not in 
 the habit of comparing angles, while their well-being 
 depends on their habit of comparing faces. 
 
 57 
 
The building of a picture 
 
 The secret 'p^js jg ^^^g whole secret of drawing, the habit of 
 
 o rawng comparison. Comparing height with width, com- 
 paring angles, values and relative positions. With 
 the skilled draughtsman this habit is practised uncon- 
 sciously. Doubtless individuals differ in their apti- 
 tude in acquiring this habit, but anyone who can tell 
 one face from another can learn to draw. 
 
 Learning thus to distinguish angles and triangles 
 is a rapid method of learning to compare forms, that 
 is, learning to draw. There will be comparatively 
 little difficulty with the fingers. 
 
 Value of clay As generally used, the word drawing refers to 
 
 modeling outline only, but it should be understood that outline 
 is but a part of all that is included as drawing. It is 
 comparatively easy for the eye to distinguish bulk 
 and outline. The modulation of surface is another 
 and more difficult thing because changes of plane 
 and direction are marked by the most delicate grad- 
 ations of shade, gradations which are often invisible 
 to the untrained eye. 
 
 This is why clay modeling is recommended for 
 students in drawing and painting. To draw intelli- 
 gently it is necessary to feel the plasticity of the sub- 
 ject, its mass and projection in space. 
 
 Beginners are too apt to think of their drawing 
 as a flat thing or a flat surface. Clay modelling 
 dispels this idea at once. 
 
 58 
 
Technique 
 
 A' careful drawing before beginning to paint is 
 imperative with the beginner. It is not that the 
 point is better than the brush as a drawing instru- 
 ment, but because the deliberate study necessary 
 for a good drawing gives a thorough acquaintance 
 with the subject. Without this thorough knowledge 
 brilliant handling and true character are impossible. 
 Jt 
 
 There are five distinct difficulties to be over- The difficulties 
 come by the beginner in painting. Take them one 
 at a time and master them as you go. 
 
 I'irst draw patterns or figures in outline. The 
 models may be either flat or solid but proportions 
 must be determined by the eye alone. 
 
 Next modulation of surfaces or shading follows. 
 Plaster makes the best model because it has no 
 gradation of local color to confuse the shading. 
 
 Painting may begin as soon as the ability has 
 been acquired to make a correct drawing quickly. 
 Learn to lay a flat tone accurately. 
 
 The fourth point is to make a perfect gradation of 
 color. 
 
 Lastly learn to grade color and shade at the 
 same time. It is in this stage that the hundreds 
 of little tricks of brush and fingers are acquired 
 upon which good technique depends. 
 
 59 
 
The building of a picture 
 
 This is the ideal way. Most beginners take all 
 these five difficulties at once and after floundering 
 helplessly for awhile give it up — or go back and 
 begin right — more or less. You will probably do 
 the same. 
 
 Analysis of 
 
 the subject 
 
 Painting 
 
 the air 
 
 It is important to know what to look for. Almost 
 every familiar surface may be formulated in a way 
 which will render its study easier. For instance, 
 near foliage in sunshine will always present at least 
 four important characteristic components of its 
 color. The local color may be found strongest in 
 the dark or in the light but the upper surfaces of 
 leaves always reflect more or less of the grey or 
 blue of the sky. The most brilliant points of color 
 will be found in the transmitted lights where the 
 sun shines through the leaf. The dark side of the 
 mass for these reasons will always be greyer than 
 the light. The accent of deep tree shadows is al- 
 most invariably warm. 
 
 The air is always visible. There is a subcon- 
 scious perception of it though the eye does not al- 
 ways take note of it. Envelop your subject in air 
 no matter how near it may be or in what light. 
 The envelope is an essential quality of light and 
 color. 
 
 On a foggy day the mist envelope is very ob- 
 vious. All objects are seen more or less veiled, the 
 more distant becoming more and more obscured un- 
 60 
 
Technique 
 
 ;til they are finally hidden. The difference in mist 
 values is very apparent between an object ten feet 
 away and another ten yards away. 
 
 requires a little 
 represent these 
 nicely balanced 
 
 To sec the air in the same way 
 more delicate perception and to 
 infinitessimal differences requires a 
 judgment and careful manipulation. 
 
 Shadows arc more sensitive to this air envelope 
 than arc the lights. Thus the toning of the darks 
 (if a picture, giving them more and more grey or 
 blue as they recede, will always render a satisfactory 
 perspective to the eye. 
 
 Aerial 
 
 perspective 
 
 The chief quality of a clear sky is its translucency 
 and this is exactly the most difficult of all quaHtes 
 to reproduce. 
 
 We can make a flat tint look a very long way off, 
 pushing it back by means of the horizon, but a 
 Hat tint is always a flat surface and the sky has no 
 surface but infinite depth. A fleeting cloudlet will 
 push it back still further, but it will be a wall when- 
 ever you come to it. 
 
 Translucency 
 of skies 
 
 A clouded or mottled sky is easier to manage be- 
 cause its members are seen to be beyond each other, 
 suggesting various planes of distance, and if the blue 
 is of small surface the imagination easily makes 
 the leap as into a limitless vault. 
 
 6x 
 
The building of a picture 
 
 The clearest sky is full of gradation from the 
 grey of the horizon to the blue of the zenith. To 
 this is added the faint mottling of suspended vapor, 
 a tenuous, impalpable veil of shifting, shimmering 
 light, invisible to any but the practiced eye. 
 
 Most painters lay in a soft rosy grey over the up- 
 per sky and into this the blue is touched with a 
 delicacy which is true according to its refinement. 
 Sometimes the reverse course is followed, the blue 
 being laid on first. Whatever method is adopted 
 it should be remembered that the essential quality of 
 a clear sky is its translucency. 
 
 No one but an experienced painter can realize the 
 beauty and the wealth of color to be seen in a cloudy 
 sky. 
 
 Sunlit clouds are usually tinged with rose or 
 orange in the light, grading to cool grey in the 
 shadows, coolness and darkness varying according 
 to the density or depth of the cloud. Into this 
 grey the warm hght penetrates with infinite grada- 
 tions. In the greyest and gloomiest skies, when it 
 is not actually raining, we find these beautiful gra- 
 dations of warm light and cold shadow modified by 
 endless accidents of reflection and contrast. 
 
 Movement in ^'''^ ^^ ^^^^ loveliest manifestations of the poetry 
 
 cloud drawing of motion is the rising of wood smoke on a moder- 
 ately calm day. Neither pen nor paint can ade- 
 62 
 
Technique 
 
 quately describe the swaving, sinuous, curling, ca- 
 pricious grace of its movements and its infinite va- 
 riety of beautiful form and color. 
 
 Clouds, too, have something of the same grace of 
 form and movement, but to this is added the im- 
 pressiveness of space, the majesty of enormous 
 mass. 
 
 To beauty of form and color and motion we must 
 add also semi-transparency and lightness. A painted 
 cloud which docs not seem to float of its own buoy- 
 ancy looks dangerous. Its weight is a menace to 
 the rest of the landscape. 
 
 The secret is all in the intermingling of tones, an 
 interpenetration of mist and air and light which in- 
 terprets its translucency. 
 
 It is not to be supposed that the reading of a industry 
 book, no matter how exhaustive, or the listening to 
 a course of lectures, no matter how lucid, will ever 
 give the ability to paint well. Good painting is the 
 result of dexterity of hand, an intimate knowledge 
 of pigments and the essential qualities of objects. 
 
 These things can only be acquired by practice, 
 hundreds and thousands of experiments in light, 
 color and touch, the effect of brush on paint, of 
 tints and pigments on one another. 
 
 63 
 
The building of a picture 
 
 The story is never fully told, and the power of 
 
 paint or pen can never express entirely the glory or 
 
 the strength of the conception which impelled it. 
 
 The best is still withheld, inexpressible in human 
 
 terms. 
 
 J« 
 
 Our best songs are still unsung; our best thoughts 
 
 are still unuttered and must so remain until eyes 
 
 and ears and hands are quickened by a diviner 
 
 life to a keener sensibility. 
 
 Much of the bad techinque we ridicule is in reality 
 only a pathetic impulse of the voiceless to utter the 
 joy of beauty which clamors for expression, the 
 wordless and tuneless songs which, big with emo- 
 tion, swell the mute heart almost to bursting. 
 
COMPOSITION 
 
 I ERE is no surer sign of the decadence of 
 art than the search after formulae, striv- 
 ing to lay down rules in imitation of the 
 methods of the past, as if discovery were 
 dead. 
 
 The modern renaissance of art was 
 simultaneous with its emancipation from tradition. 
 Almost every rule and dogma of the old painters 
 finds refutation in some splendid recent canvas. 
 
 Conventionality 
 
 It is no longer safe to lay down rules of compo- 
 sition. Some mannerless fellow is sure to prove 
 their futility tomorrow. The best we can do is to 
 make some suggestions showing how others have 
 succeeded, which will at least be helpful for a be- 
 ginning. 
 
The building of a picture 
 
 When Sir Joshua Reynolds stated in one of his 
 Royal Academy lectures that blue could not be used 
 with good effect except in small masses Gainsbor- 
 ough immediately painted his famous "Blue Boy," 
 a picture which is all blue — one of the most splen- 
 did things of its day. 
 
 Sir Joshua's explanation was "The 'Blue Boy' 
 does not disprove the rule; it only proves how great 
 a painter is Gainsborough who can afford to ignore 
 rules." 
 
 There are, in fact, men great enough to override 
 all the theories ever expounded and plenty of men 
 who seek to prove their greatness by breaking all 
 the rules they ever heard of. 
 
 Nevertheless there are certain arrangements of 
 
 light, lines and color which all men accept as good. 
 Some accepted >^ > *- o 
 
 principles ^^^ Greek honeysuckle ornament has delighted the 
 eyes of men for twenty-five centuries. The eye and 
 mind accept it at once as a pleasing arrangement of 
 lines. A simple transposition of its details proves 
 at once that the beauty lies not in the lines them- 
 selves, but in their arrangement. 
 
 It is useless to ask why. Beauty is an arbitrary 
 thing defying reason. We only know that certain 
 combinations of lines, masses, shades, lights or colors 
 will please the majoritv of eyes, while other arrange- 
 ments of the same things are unanimously rejected. 
 
 66 
 
Composition 
 
 Allowing for the proverbial exception which proves 
 the rule any work of good chiaroscuro will present 
 several distinct points of interest. 
 
 It will have a mass of light half-tones of which 
 some point, called the high lieht. will be lighter than 
 anything else in the picture. It will have a mass 
 of dark half-tones of which some point called the 
 accent will be darker than all the rest. If the com- 
 position has any complication at all the principal 
 light will have an echo in a subordinate light of 
 smaller area and lower key. The main shadow will 
 also have its echo and all the masses will be full of 
 gradation, no absolutely flat tone anyhere. 
 
 Analysis 
 of Ught 
 modulation 
 
 Intense concentration of the sight on any detail 
 gives it for the moment an exaggerated importance. 
 When every detail of a composition passes succes- 
 sively under this "searching" process the resulting 
 picture is an agglomeration of units, each clamor- 
 ing to be seen first. 
 
 Seek rather to make the entire picture a single 
 unit subordinating every detail to the general con- 
 ception according to its relative importance. Most 
 young eyes see too much. Try more for breadth. 
 
 Breadth 
 
 and detail 
 
 In nature there is such an intimate mingling of 
 shadows and reflexes that objects have the appear- 
 ance of merging into each other by their edges. A 
 hard edge is always offensive. It can only be ex- 
 
 67 
 
The building of a picture 
 
 cused when its purpose is to force an object forward 
 or bring it into special relief. 
 
 A good easel picture has the qualities of a good 
 short story. Its plan is simple. It tells its tale 
 without unnecessary detail. Its incidents are clear 
 cut and well relieved. Its local color true and char- 
 acteristic and its language of the best. 
 
 The most exquisite outline or the most subtle 
 modulation of form is utterly without value if it is 
 lost in its surroundings. The use of relief is a thing 
 to be considered with tho greatest care lest it become 
 an abuse and the composition be shattered to frag- 
 ments by making everything equally emphatic. 
 
 The thing best worth painting in the picture should 
 be so contrasted and relieved by its surroundings 
 that it will be the first thing to attract the eye with 
 the accent placed where it will be most effective, as 
 the picturesque branching of a tree, the head of a fig- 
 ure or some important part of its outline or mass. 
 Everything else is accessory, each incident tak- 
 ing just so much relief as its importance requires and 
 no more. When everything in the picture is equally 
 prominent it becomes unintelligible like a roomful of 
 women all talking at once. 
 
 "Cave on Colour" is an old book on water color 
 painting. Among other good things it recommends 
 
 68 
 
Composition 
 
 laying in all the shadows with a wash of black 
 before using color at all. The method is com- 
 mended because it insures transparency of shadows 
 with breadth and simplicity of composition, which 
 amply compensates for the slight loss of color. 
 
 The theme of a picture is the melody to which 
 its surroundings form a harmony, subordinate but 
 adding force and beauty. 
 
 A picture is meant to be enjoyed. It should be 
 equally pleasing at any distance within the limits of 
 the room where it hangs. Its carrying quality de- 
 pends on its relief. If that is right it will look 
 well and tell at least the outline of its story where- 
 ever it can be seen. 
 
 The purpose 
 of a picture 
 
 Few painters have the power to preserve breadth 
 and carrying quality and at the same time give the 
 work a minute and elaborate finish. If anything must 
 be sacrificed let it be the finish. 
 
 Breadth 
 
 and finish 
 
 Variety is the essential quality of picturesqueness. 
 Symmetry, the chief beauty of conventional deco- 
 ration, has no place in fine art. 
 
 In posing a composition of flowers or other simi- 
 lar objects they are continually falling into lines, 
 circles, triangles and other geometrical figures. They 
 never look picturesque until we get every suspicion 
 of symmetry out of them. In a study of animals we 
 
 69 
 
 Symmetry 
 
 and variety 
 
The building of a picture 
 
 aim to get variety of pose, of groupings of values 
 and colors. The greater their variety the more life 
 and character will the picture possess. 
 
 So in landscape. A' dozen trees may look alike 
 at the first glance. Careful seeking will show one 
 a little taller, another a little greyer, another a little 
 darker than the rest. When these differences are 
 accented three results a pleasing variety which gives 
 character to the individual and to the whole work. 
 
 The characteristic quality of any object, whatever 
 it may be, is the point to be insisted on and accented 
 
 PIcturesqueness 
 
 If a pond or a tree or a mountain were placed 
 exactly in the middle of a picture it would apear 
 to divide the composition into halves with a sugges- 
 tion of symmetry and a failure of variety. Parallel 
 or concentric lines too have a geometric formality 
 which is unpicturesque. It is the business of the 
 painter to so choose his point of view or arrange his 
 models that picturesqueness may not be sacrificed. 
 
 The element of picturesqueness depends largely 
 on variety and irregularity for its charm. A sky line 
 broken by mountains or buildings, towers, domes, 
 spires, trees, anything indeed which will give va- 
 riety of bulk, shape and outline, somehow add to 
 the gratification of the beholder. A row of domes 
 or spires or trees exactly alike would excite no 
 such pleasure. Variety is the essential quality. 
 70 
 
Composition 
 
 One of the most powerful means of appeal to the 
 imagination is contrast. The opposition of a dark 
 against a light thing is obvious as a means of relief, 
 so is the contrast of complimentary colors in search- 
 ing for harmony. 
 
 There is a subtler source of power in the con- 
 trasting of things having dissimilar physical qualities 
 as, for instance, the fairy tracery of birch branches 
 against a distant mountain, the firm level line of a 
 distant bay shore in contrast with the undulating 
 contour of rugged mountains behind it, the spider 
 web lines of shipping seen against massive cumulus 
 clouds or a low barred sky seen through tall tree 
 stems. 
 
 Contrast 
 of line 
 and mass 
 
THE SKETCH 
 
 enmity 
 certain 
 other schools 
 
 N THE world of art the lines of cleavage 
 run in so many directions that it is almost 
 impossible to conceive it as a homogeneous 
 entity or to divide it into a few well defined 
 groups. 
 
 Certain schools may differ with a mortal 
 and yet find many points of agreement on 
 principles which are wholly denied by still 
 
 Schools 
 
 of painting: 
 
 It is safe to say, however, that in the study of 
 nature, landscape artists are definitely divided into 
 two camps, working on diametrically opposed lines. 
 
 Sit down before the choicest bit of scenery 
 within your reach. Simply sit and look and enjoy 
 
 73 
 
 Memory 
 and facts 
 
The building of a picture 
 
 it for awhile. Next day put down your memory of 
 it with pen or brush. The picture will be somewhat 
 vague of outline and sadly lacking in detail but it 
 will be sure to have the warmth of the sunshine, 
 the tender grey of the mountains, the fathomless 
 depth of the mottled sky, the infinite flash and spar- 
 kle of color and light on rock and leaf and stem 
 because these are the things which will impress you. 
 
 Now observe how a young beginner proceeds in 
 painting his picture on the spot. He does not ask 
 himself what he most enjoys in the scene,, but only 
 what he sees. The most prominent object may be a 
 fence. In it goes, just the right number of rails 
 and probably the right number of nails. Another 
 fact is a house. In it goes, windows and doors^ 
 panes and panels, chimneys and clapboards. Next 
 come the trees and their leaves, each in its proper 
 place; weeds, grasses, ferns, clouds and mountains, 
 everything in its local color. 
 
 Everything the eye can see is too important to be 
 neglected. 
 
 When it is all finished she may weep over it. 
 If it be he, the palette knife will make an end of it, 
 for with all these facts — these truths of nature — 
 studied on the spot — the thing does not resemble 
 anything but an auctioneer's inventory. 
 
 The charm Without the distraction of the canvas and the 
 
 of it all matter-of-fact mood, the student would have felt 
 that the facts he understood had nothing to do with 
 the charm of the scene. 
 
 74 
 
The sketch 
 
 These two persons, the dreamer and the digger, 
 represent the two divisions of workers into which 
 the world is divided. 
 
 The dreamers, the poet painters, the transcend- 
 entalists, despise the paint box and sketching easel 
 as insignia of imbecile industry. They go off alone 
 or by twos or threes equipped with nothing more 
 than a pocket notebook and a bundle of cigarettes. 
 
 They wander about in the cool of the morning 
 and the dusk of the evening or it may be in the 
 blaze of noon or the tranquil shade of a grey day. 
 A pencil note of color effect here, an outline of a 
 dozen strokes there, a gnarled tree or a picturesque 
 roof, a calf or an old gate. 
 
 Collecting 
 
 material 
 
 The hour or the day comes when the painter 
 stands in the presence of his inspiration, the thing 
 worth painting. He makes himself comfortable. 
 He sits and smokes and dreams and looks. There 
 he will go every day while sun and weather are 
 right. He sits and dreams and looks until he is 
 steeped in the theme^ penetrated through and 
 through. It is forevermore his possession. 
 
 Next day the place that knew him so long will miss 
 him. He is painting. He paints with passion. His 
 pulses leap with the creative instinct. His soul is 
 brimming over with the poetry, the music of it, the 
 sweetness, the harmony, the emotion of his theme. 
 
 75 
 
 Saturation 
 
 Inspiration 
 
The building of a picture 
 
 With strong quick strokes the glowing tints are laid 
 side by side. 
 
 Realization With consummate judgment tone and value and 
 
 texture are fitted and balanced. Fingers, handles, 
 knife or brushes are used as the impulse of the mo- 
 ment directs. His gladness of spirit is as the joy 
 of the gods. It is the day of his inspiration and the 
 best that is in him will appear on his canvas. 
 
 <^ 
 
 Next day when the paint is cold and the original 
 impulse spent, when the glamour of inspiration no 
 longer deceives the eyes the picture max seem to 
 him a grey and lifeless thing but it is the best he 
 has in him. 
 
 Is there any need of the contrast? The picture 
 begun in the violet dawn and continued at yellow 
 noon, painted at day by dav through changing 
 weather and changing moods of spirit, painted for 
 truth's sake and missing truth altogether through 
 superabundance of material, commenced with a chill 
 and finished with a cramp. 
 
 After all, it is only a question of temperament, this 
 selecting of the higher or lower truth, this painting 
 objectively or subjectively, synthetically or analy- 
 ticaly. 
 
 76 
 
The sketch 
 
 A mechanical piano may play with absolute cor- 
 rectness but it has no emotion, no passion. We 
 would prefer a jewsharp if it be only played with 
 feeling. 
 
 It is the element of human emotion in a picture 
 which makes it thrill. 
 
 In sitting down before nature to paint ask your- 
 self ''What is it that impresses me and makes this 
 scene worth painting? Is it in the play of light 
 and shadow, in the harmony of tones, grace of line, 
 or is it in the number, shape and construction of its 
 details? How shall I paint it to impress others?" 
 These questions may be hard to answer at first 
 but it is not worth while to go on until a correct 
 solution is reached. 
 
 Planning: 
 the sketch 
 
 Landscape painting must always be largely a ques- 
 tion of memory. The glare of excessive light out- 
 doors and the strong reflexes cast on wet paint by 
 trees, sky and earth render it impossible to get the 
 delicate gradations of nature, not to mention the 
 discomfort of dust and flies and wind, sometimes 
 cold and damp, always the changing light and color 
 of nature. The work must of necessity receive more 
 or less of finish indoors. Still the training of the 
 memory to do good work requires long and labori- 
 ous experiment in the presence of nature. An ade- 
 quate knowledge of nature is only to be acquired 
 by living with her and questioning her incessantly. 
 
 77 
 
 The 
 
 hindrances 
 
The building of a picture 
 
 Composition In choosing what to paint an innate sense of pro- 
 
 portion, of picturesqueness and of fitness is the best 
 guide. We find few landscapes ready made. There 
 is always something to be modified, transposed or 
 left out, especially the latter. Sometimes an im- 
 pressive scene would be better made into several 
 pictures; again the picturesque elements may be 
 selected and everything else left out. 
 
 In a sketch perfect liberty is permitted as to 
 fidelity to form and grouping, provided that no law 
 of nature or probability is broken. Ideality should 
 be held of more value than actual portraiture, yet 
 there are occasional compositions found in nature 
 which are perfect — ^altogether beyond any improve- 
 ment. 
 
 Tonal 
 
 qualities 
 
 A sketch begun in the morning should not be 
 worked on in the afternoon. The appearance of 
 things changes so much from hour to hour in light, 
 color and atmosphere that it becomes practically 
 a new theme. 
 
 In the morning while the sun is low, shadows are 
 large and dense, while tones are cool. At noon 
 the sun penetrates everything and relief is destroyed. 
 This is not a good time to paint. In the evening 
 when the sun is low again, things take on form and 
 become paintable, but instead of the grey mist of 
 morning the air is filled with a golden haze, 
 
 78 
 
The spirit of 
 
 The sketch 
 
 The essential quality of landscape painting is at- 
 mosphere. To paint landscape well is to paint mist 
 and dust and cloud shadows in the air, the shim- 
 mer of summer heat, the translucent stillness of 
 black frost, the subtle veilings of the grey morning, 
 the smoking spume of the driving storm. 
 
 The subject of the picture is of less importance. 
 The scene which stirs your heart today, under the "the time 
 
 warm glow of some unusual light or cloud effect, 
 you may find meaningless tomorrow. 
 
 S 
 It is the state of the atmosphere which makes or 
 mars the picture. It may have one tree or more, 
 three cows or a dozen, a horse, a mountain, a pig 
 or a wheelbarrow, but if it be not enveloped within 
 a veil of glorified air it is vanity. 
 
 Time was when we were instructed that each 
 mass must occupy a certain proportion of space but 
 we have happily forgotten that teaching now. A 
 simple plan of light and shade will be found to be- 
 stow a certain breadth of effect and concentration 
 of force which is both strong and pleasing. 
 
 The plan of a love song would scarcely meet the 
 requirements of an anthem; still less would it fit 
 the elaboration of an opera. A picture may be 
 nothing more than a simple sonnet, it may rise to the 
 beauty of a poem or even to the grandeur of an epic. 
 
 79 
 
 Old formulae 
 
Evolution of 
 personal 
 manner 
 
 The building of a picture 
 
 A composition must have a plan fitting to the 
 dignity of its subject. 
 
 Whether we make a third or a fifth of the picture 
 shadow, or even if we dispense with shadow alto- 
 gether, we are free so long as the story is well told 
 and the eye is gratified. There is no discredit due 
 the song because it is not an epic. We only insist 
 that it shall be a good song. 
 
 Any conventional treatment of chiaroscuro should 
 be regarded only as a temporary expedient. Every 
 young artist will base his method on the work of 
 some master, perhaps many masters in succession. 
 Gradually his own individuality begins to emerge 
 and he adopts a manner of his own. 
 .': 
 
 Every man has his own ideal or personal conven- 
 tion in composition by which he selects his subject or 
 into which he makes his subject fit. 
 S 
 
 This convention is really the thing by which an 
 artist is known, the personal quality in the picture 
 which declares it to be the work of Brown, Smith 
 or Jones. 
 
 It is the special arrangement of line, color, light 
 or mass which for him is the only way to express 
 the force, the delicacy, the beauty, the vividness or 
 the glory which appeals to him as the thing best 
 worth expressing. 
 
The sketch 
 
 A painter of narrow limitations will have a nar- 
 row convention. He is like a shore bird repeat- 
 ing forever a single note. It may be a very sweet 
 note, but it is all he has. 
 
 In a collection of two hundred pictures by many 
 artists it is rarely that the work of one man can be 
 mistaken for that of another by a connoisseur. 
 
 Ten artists sketching the same subject will pro- 
 duce ten totally different conceptions of it. Not 
 one of them but has some characteristic quality, 
 the sign manual of the artist. 
 
 The personal 
 sign 
 
 In great exhibitions like the Royal Academy or 
 the Salon all the pictures can be grouped into a 
 few sections according to their conventions. It will 
 be found that a few great masters of pronounced 
 originality have developed .styles or conventions of 
 their own. Nearly all the rest are more or 
 less frank imitations of these conventions, each 
 painter being led by his personal perceptions to 
 follow one or another, and yet each will have some 
 peculiarity of manner, which, if he be strong and 
 original himself, will some day develop into a style. 
 
 A good theoretical knowledge of art may be ob- 
 tained from books plus a familiarity with good 
 pictures but no critic is able to judge truly of the 
 merits of a picture without a practical experience 
 
 8i 
 
 Need of 
 practical 
 experience 
 
The magic of 
 knowing how 
 
 The building of a picture 
 
 with paint. What seems easy and a matter of 
 course in the finished work may be in fact a tre- 
 mendous triumph of skill over difficulties and per 
 contra, the lurid and catchy effect may be the re- 
 sult of some simple commonplace trick of the studio, 
 
 A study which seems hopelessly weak can be made 
 to glow and sparkle by means of a few judicious 
 strokes of accent. An edge here, a dot of color 
 there, a point of shadow or a high light else- 
 where. It blooms out like the unfolding of a morn- 
 ing glory. 
 
 An overworked sketch which has run to mud can 
 be cleared up by a few careful touches of pure color 
 placed just where they will give the local keynote to 
 each mass. 
 
 Accent 
 
 Too much value cannot be placed on accent. It 
 is the concentration of light or color in small points 
 which give spirit and value and express relief and 
 contrast. Every mass has its accent somewhere. 
 
 "Papillonage" is an expressive French term for 
 which there is no English equivalent. Many de- 
 tached lights and spots of bright color or shadow 
 suggest the restless, flicking movement of a butter- 
 fly; hence the name. The result is a certain disloca- 
 tion of composition which takes it out of the realm 
 of fine art and puts it over on the side of decora- 
 tion — provided, of course, that it is otherwise good. 
 8a 
 
The sketch 
 
 "Cherchez, cherchez, toujours." 
 Jt 
 
 Eyes have been ruined, pecks of them, not to 
 speak of the acres of canvas, by this mischievQUS, 
 unqualified formula. 
 
 That excessive elaboration of surface called "fin- Finish 
 ish" so dear to the heart of the Philistine and once 
 held in toleration even by some artists has now 
 almost passed out. It is the enemy of so many more 
 important qualities, so inconsistent with spirituality, 
 breadth, grandeur, atmosphere and so on that art- 
 ists sacrifice it without ruth. 
 
 It so happens that these highest qualities are the 
 very ones which are most difficult to understand by 
 the uncultured many, while minute detail is plain 
 to even the lowest intelligence. 
 
 This fact is not likely to influence artists to their 
 hurt so long as "art is for art's sake" and the art- 
 ist's judgment must always be the final word, but 
 beginners may be sometimes bewildered between 
 the applause of the untaught and the dictum of 
 the teacher. 
 
 "And when the evening mist clothes the river- 
 side with poetry, as with a veil, and the poor build- 
 ings lose themselves in the dim sky, and the tall 
 chimneys become campaniles, and the warehouses 
 
 83 
 
The building of a picture 
 
 are palaces in the night, and the whole city hangs 
 in the heavens, and fairyland is before us — then 
 the wayfarer hastens home; the working man and 
 the cultured one, the wise man and the one of pleas- 
 ure, cease to understand as they have ceased to see, 
 and Nature, who, for once, has sung in tune, sings 
 her exquisite song to the artist alone, her son and 
 her master, her son in that he loves her, her master 
 in that he knows her." — Whistler. 
 
 ^^ , , When the heart is full of the gladness of art the 
 
 The impulse , , , . , . . , . 
 
 to paint eager hands hasten with nnpatient desire to impart 
 
 it to the world, but the most successful effort of the 
 
 highest inspiration always falls short of the fullness 
 
 of the message. 
 
 The placid perseverance of methodical industry 
 has no more art or inspiration in it than the turn- 
 ing of a grindstone. 
 
 Lovely color and graceful outline and clever tex- 
 ture are good things, but we need more, much 
 more for the making of a real picture. When /he 
 soul is brimming with an overflowing bounty of 
 beauty, all means are inadequate to express the full- 
 ness of its splendor. Man has not yet come to his 
 full heritage, but every new mode of expression is 
 an added language which brings him a little nearer 
 to it. 
 
 84 
 
The sketch 
 
 "Industry in art is a necessity, not a virtue— and 
 any evidence of the same, in the production, is a 
 blemish, not a quality." 
 
 "The completed task of perseverance only, has 
 never been begun, and will remain unfinished to 
 eternity— a monument of good will and foolishness." 
 —Whistler. 
 
 In the painting of a tree, its bulk, its projection The great 
 in space, its envelope of atmosphere, the grace of qualities 
 
 its movement, the majesty of its mass — these are 
 the qualities which impress us. All the petty ama- 
 teurish niggling with leaf and twiglet which delights 
 the great unlearned adds not one iota of value, but 
 may sweep out of existence all the real beauties 
 which make the thing a joy forever. 
 ^^ 
 
 If the subject be a rose, a cathedral, a human 
 face, or a burro the same principle equally applies. 
 
 Whoever has seen the exquisite jewel-like cabi- 
 net pictures of Diaz or Rico with their rich textures, 
 vivid color, dazzling light and telling composition, 
 has recognized that a broad handling, even on a 
 small scale, is consistent with the expression of all 
 of which paint is capable. 
 
 Some good work has been done by the analytic 
 method in which the painting is built up, touch by 
 touch, beginning with the detail and finishing with 
 the glazed shadow but nothng short of genius can 
 accomplish it, and the labor of it is enormous. 
 
 85 
 
The building of a picture 
 
 To be modern is to paint synthetically, com- 
 mencing with masses as if blocking it out in clay, 
 aiming first at the grand qualities, composition, light, 
 color and atmosphere. Detail is added last of all. 
 if at all, and used as accent to the masses. 
 
THE PAINTER 
 
 F I HAD but six pennies in the world I 
 would use three of them to buy me a loaf Beauty the 
 of bread and with the other three I would '°°'*°' 
 
 buy a white hyacinth to feed my soul" — 
 Goethe 
 
 To every spiritually conscious man there comes, 
 sooner or later, to some often, the day of fasting 
 in the desert. It is in his bitter hour of discourage- 
 ment, under the juniper tree, that art comes to him 
 as the ravens to Elijah, to feed his soul. 
 
 The hungering and thirsting for beauty is innate 
 in man. As the starved body shrinks and perishes 
 for want of physical aliment, so does the starved 
 spirit languish and suffer atrophy. 
 
 «7 
 
 the soul 
 
The building of a picture 
 
 Without the sense of beauty in Hfe (and art is its 
 language) nian is but a one-sided creature. Like 
 a one-sided wheel, he goes through life with a limp. 
 
 Originality The gift most valued b}"- artists is originality. It 
 
 seems every year as if the entire scale of subject 
 and treatment had been exhausted and there re- 
 mained nothing more but to repeat the best things 
 already done. Once in a while some man will dis- 
 cover a new line of subjects, a new locality of 
 paintable quality, or a new way of looking at an old 
 thing. In each case he becomes the man of the hour 
 and the pattern for a hundred imitators. 
 
 The art impulse 
 and 
 the artist's 
 equipment 
 
 A hunger for beauty and the faculty for recog- 
 nizing and reproducing it are the impulses which 
 drive men to paint and carve, and keep them at it 
 if need be through poverty and neglect. Beside 
 these gifts are three essential requirements in the 
 making of a painter. First, his mind must be stored 
 with the necessary facts about nature and the use 
 of materials. In the occupations of ordinary daily 
 life there is so litle occasion for exact knowledge 
 of objects that the sight becomes atrophied by dis- 
 use. The painter must see with the keenness of an 
 Indian on the trail. He must be able to recog- 
 nize and compare masses, outlines, modulations of 
 surface, light and tint. He must learn to see. 
 Lastly, the skilful use of implements and pigments 
 requires the same patient practice as the technique 
 
The painter 
 
 of the piano or violin. Whether the tool be brush 
 or pencil there is no escape from incessant, long- 
 continued practice with the fingers. They must be 
 trained to execute the will of the mind. 
 S 
 
 What becomes of the thousands of young artists 
 who yearly graduate out of the art schools into the 
 world of productive activity? It looks as if the 
 profession of painting must inevitably become 
 swamped from over-production. 
 
 The annual 
 
 brood 
 
 Not so, however. It is the old story of the fit 
 and few. Good pictures are as saleable as ever 
 they were. Prices are as good as ever they were. 
 But have you noticed the marvelous improvement 
 in wall paper in late years, in ceiling decoration, in 
 color and pattern of fabrics of all kinds, carpets, 
 furniture, stained glass, metal work, everything^ in 
 fact, to which ornament or decoration can be ap- 
 plied, not to speak of commercial lithography, news- 
 paper illustration and similar artistic industries? 
 
 Countless 
 
 byways 
 
 Of six girls studying art side by side, three will 
 marry, one will color photographs, another will be- 
 come a designer, and the last a teacher or perhaps 
 a house decorator. 
 
 Of six boys graduating together, three will become 
 newspaper illustrators, one a scene painter, another 
 a modeler, still another a lithographer or what 
 
 89 
 
The building of a picture 
 
 The fit and few 
 
 not. Perhaps one of the dozen will stick to the 
 brush through every discouragement and in course 
 of time will blossom out as a successful painter. 
 
 Following the line of least resistance the majority 
 prefer the assured salary or the easy berth, dropping 
 out of the line one by one until only the fit sur- 
 vive and the fit are always few. 
 
 Specialism 
 
 The early career of many eminent painters has 
 been a series of experiments. Everything beautiful 
 seems so well worth painting that it requires both 
 will and courage to follow out a single line of work 
 to its ultimate conquest. It is the specialist who 
 wins, however, whether the limitation be a matter 
 of accident or preference. 
 
 Personal temperament will always be a large 
 factor in determining the choice or treatment of any 
 class of subjects. 
 
 Subject and 
 temperament 
 
 Surely every phase of human passion is a legi- 
 timate subject for painting as is every phase of 
 beauty in nature. Sadness and tragedjr are quite 
 as acceptable in painting as in the drama. 
 
 Undoubtedly it is good for us that we may find 
 hope and inspiration in the painted despair of Hagar 
 prone on the desert sands unwitting of the angel 
 who stands near with deliverance in his hands. 
 
 Yet there are some men, notably of the Dutch 
 
 90 
 
The painter 
 
 school, who find nature always weeping, who see 
 in humanity nothing worth recording but tears, the 
 wretchedness of poverty, the bitterness of disappoint- 
 ment, the horror of death. 
 
 Perhaps we need such pictures but the painter 
 whose one note is a note of sadness is the same 
 man who is forever complaining of his rheumatism. 
 
 And there are those whose entire artistic output 
 is limited to a single narrow convention. Such a 
 case is like a tune written with but two notes for 
 melody and harmony or like an endless repetition of 
 the chord 5-1, an agreeable and good enough chord 
 — occasionally. 
 
 Nay, I have in mind one painter of a single dis- 
 agreeable note who reminds me of notliing finer than 
 a wheelborrow in need of axle grease. 
 
 The work of some other man rests you. Whether 
 he paints a figure or a landscape, a cattle piece or ^°^ 
 a bag of potatoes his finished work has always that 
 serene completeness which invites to content and 
 repose. "Alabama, here let us rest," it says. Such 
 a picture is a well spring of perennial joy, good for 
 every day's meditation, saints' days and holidays in- 
 cluded. 
 
 The modern reversion to old types and archaic 
 composition is nothing more than a seeking after 
 sentiment, that strange elusive charm of thrills and 
 shivers which dwells in the half ghostly creations of 
 the early renaissance. 
 
 91 
 
 forever 
 
The building of a picture 
 
 Is it a useless quest? That sentiment is an odor 
 from the mouldy borderland between a dead past 
 and an awakening future. Today we stand in the 
 dawn of a new time, on the threshold of a new 
 era where art and commerce join hands. Art, 
 strange and beautiful as ever, but illumined by the 
 clear light of science in which there is no glamor of 
 mystery. 
 
 The painter is no longer a mystic, a recluse, a 
 hermit, an alchemist. He is a plain business man, 
 well skilled in his craft, who works for good dollars 
 and estimates his ability solely by its commercial 
 value. He is keeping up with the procession. 
 
 And yet the old spirit of art is not dead, that 
 spirit which, like charity "seeketh not her own, 
 hopeth all things, endureth all things," nor are all 
 men and women yet blind or deaf to its presence. 
 You may find them up and down the quiet ways of 
 life, listening for the faint and far-off echoes which 
 fall on the world-wearied spirit of man like the 
 sound of church bells after war. 
 
 So long as human hearts yearn for consolation, 
 so long as human spirits feel the impulse of a 
 diviner life, so long will they find in art a refuge, 
 and seek it as a fountain of life; so long also will 
 be found in the world seers and poets and painters 
 whose chief joy in life is to interpret the sweet 
 spirit of the Master's music. 
 
 92 
 

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