ARC ARTicles - The Painter in Oil - Daniel Burleigh Parkhurst

CHAPTER XXII: REPRESENTATION

Although much has been said about the theoretical and abstract side of painting, and the important to the aesthetic elements in art have been insisted upon, and is not to be supposed for a moment that painting does not deal with actual things. All painting which is not purely conventional must deal with and represent nature and actual facts. These are the body of the picture; the aesthetic elements are the heart of it. I believe that is important that you should know that there is that side of painting, and should have some insight into it; that you should see that there is something else to think of than the imitation of natural objects. I would have you think more nobly of painting than to believe that “the greatest imitation is the greatest art.” Beneath imitation of the obvious facts and truths, and in and through these may you express those qualities of intellectual creation by means of which only, painting is not a craft, but an art.

But for all that, painting does, and always must, deal with those obvious fact; and however much you may give your mind to the problems of composition and color, you must base it on foundation of ability to represent what you see. Represent well the external objects, and you are in a position to interpret the spirit of them. For as nature only manifests her inner spirit through her outward forms and facts, you must be able to paint these well before you can do anything else. Intellectual action which perceives and constructs is the art, the skill which represents and reproduces is the science, of painting.
    Painting is the art of expression in color. The fact of color rather than form is the fundamental characteristic of it. The use of pigment rather than other materials is implied in its name. Therefore the science of painting deals with the materials with which to produce on canvas all manner of visible color combinations; and those processes of manipulation which make possible the representation of all the facts of color and light, of substance and texture, through which nature manifest herself.
    Is not enough to have the pigment, nor even that it should get it itself onto the canvas. Different characteristics call for different management of painting. Luminosity of light and somberness of shadow will not be expressed by the same color, put on in the same way. Different forms and surfaces and objects demand different treatment. The science of painting must deal with all these.
    It has been said that there are as many ways of painting as there are painters. Certainly there are as many ways as they are men of any originality. For however a painter has been trained, whatever the methods which he has been taught to use, he will always change them, more or less, in adapting them to his own purposes. An as the main intent of the art of an epoch or period differs from that of a previous one, so the manner of laying on paint will change to meet the needs of that difference. The manner of painting to-day is very different from that of other times. Some of the old processes are looked upon by the modern man is quite beneath his recognition. Yet these same methods are necessary to certain qualities, and if the modern man does not use or approve of those methods, it is because he is not especially interested in the qualities which they are necessary to.
    There is probably no one statement which all fair-minded painters will more willingly acquiesce in, then one which friends at the method by which the result is attained is unimportant, prodded that the result is attained, and that it is one worth attain. Every man will, whether it is right or not, use those methods which most surely and completely bring about the expression of the thing he wishes to express. In the face of this fact, and of the many acknowledged masterpieces, every one of which was painted in defiance of some rule some time or other alleged to be the only right one, it is not possible to prescribe or proscribe anything in the direction of the manipulation of colors. The result must be right, and if it is, it justifies the means. If it be not right, the thing is worthless, no matter how perfectly according to the rule the process may be. As Hunt said, “What do I care about the grammar if you’ve got something to say?” The important thing is to say something, and if you do really say something, and do really completely precisely and express it, as far as a painter is concerned it will be grammatical. If not to-day, the grammar will come round to it tomorrow. Henry Howard Beecher is reported to have answered to a criticism on grammatical slips in the heat of eloquence, “Young man, if the English language gets in the way of the expression of my thought, so much of the worse for the English language!” In painting, any rate, the complete expression of thought is grammatical, and if not, so much the worst for the grammarians.
    Try Everything. - Know, then, all you can about all the ways of manipulating paint that have ever been used. Use any or all those ways as you find them needful or helpful. There is none which has not the authority of a master behind it, and though another master may decry it, it is because, being a master, he claims the very right he denies you. Experiment with all; but never use any method for the sake of the method, but only for what it is capable of doing for you in helping expression.
    Safety. - The only real rule as to what to use in what not, applies to the effect of the permanence of your canvas. Never use pigments which will fade; nor in such a way that they will cause others to fade. Avoid all such using of materials as you know will make your picture crack, or in any other way bring about its deterioration.
    Good painting. - But for all I have just said, there is an acknowledged basis of what is good painting. If any man or school lays on paint in a frank, direct way, getting the effect by sheer force of putting on the right color in just the right place, with no tricks nor affectations, that is good painting; and the more simple, direct, and frank the manner of handling, the better the painting.
    Let us understand what direct painting is first, and then consider varieties of handling. For whatever may be the subsequent manipulations, the picture is generally “laid in” with the most direct possible manner of laying on paint, and the other processes are mainly to modify or to further and strengthen the effect suggested in the first painting. And generally, also, in all sketches and studies which are preliminary preparations for the picture, the most direct painting is used, and the various processes are reserved for working out more subtle effects on the final canvas.
    Old Dutch Painting. - Probably they are no better examples of frank painting than the works of the old Dutchmen. You should study them whenever you have a chance. Waiving all discussion as to the aesthetic qualities of their work, -- as painters, as masters of the craft of laying on paint, they are unexcelled. And in most cases, too, they possessed the art of concealing their art. You will have to use the closest observation to discover the exact means they used to get the subtle tones and atmospheric effects.
    The only obvious qualities is the perfect understanding and skill of their brush-work. In the smoothest as well as in the roughest of their work, you can not how perfectly the brush searches the modeling, and with the most exquisite expressiveness and perfect frankness, follows the structural lines. No doubt there were often paintings, glazings, and scumblings; but they always furthered the meaning of the first painting, and never in the least interfered with or obscured the effect of naïveté, of candor of workmanship.
    It is, however, the simple and sincere brush-work that you should strive to attain as the basis of your painting. Learn to express drawing with your brush, and to place at once and without indecision or timidity the exact tone and value of the color you see in nature at that point. Until you are enough of a master of your brush to get an effect in this way, do not meddle with the more complex methods of after-painting. You will never do good work by subsequent manipulation, if you have a groundwork of feebleness and indecision. Direct painting is the fundamental process of all good painting.
    Let me take the type of old Dutch painting to represent to you this quality of direct painting. First of all notice a basis of perfect drawing, -- a knowledge, exactness, and precision which admits of no fumbling, no vagueness, but only of a concise and direct recognition of structure. Note that this drawing is as characteristic of the brush-work as of the drawing which is under it. Observe that the handling of the whole school, from the least to the greatest, is founded on a similar and perfect craftsmanship, - the same use of materials; the same deliberateness; the same simple yet ample palette; the same use of solid color candidly expressing the planes of modeling, freely following the lines of structure; the absence of affectation or invention of individual means. Whatever the individuality of the artist, it rests on something else than difference of technique. From the freest and most direct of painters, Frans Hals, to the most smooth and detailed, Gerard Dou, the directness and ingenuousness of means to ends is the same, and founded on the same technical basis of color manipulation. The one is more eager, terse, the other more deliberate and complete; but both use the same pigments, both use the same solid color, are simple, lucid, both occupied solely with the thing to be expressed, and the least degree in the world with the manner of it. That manner comes from the same previous technical training which each uses in the most matter-of-course way, with only such change from the type, as his temperament unconsciously imposes on him.
    There is nothing like it elsewhere. Study it; notice the unaffectedness of brush-stroke in Rembrandt. See how it is the same as Hals, but less perfunctory. See how the brush piles up paint again and again along the same ridge of flesh, taking no notice of its revelation of the insistence of attempt at the right value, nor of its roughness or surface. To get that drawing and that color in the freeest, frankest, most direct way: that is the aim. The absolute conviction of it: that is the essence of this technique of the old Dutch masters. And whatever else it may have or may not have, you will find in it all that you can find anywhere of suggestion of direct and frank and sincere painting, and nothing I can say will give you any such clear idea of what you should strive for as the basis of all the different sorts of brush-work necessary or useful in the production of an oil painting.
    Detail. - The question of detail may well come in here. How far are you to carry detail in your painting? The Dutch painters went to both extremes. Gerard Dou worked two weeks on a broom-handle, and hoped to finish it in a few days more. Frans Hals would paint ahead in an hour. The French painter Meissonier paints the high light on every button of a trooper’s coat, and De Neuville barely paints the button at all. What way are you to turn? Which are you to choose? We have a great deal said nowadays against detail in painting. Much is set of breadth and broad painting. Which is right?
    True Breadth. - The answer lies in the central idea of the picture. There are times when detail may be very minute, and times when the greatest freedom is essential. True breadth is compatible with much even minute detail in the same canvas. For breadth does not mean merely a large brush. It never means slap-dash. It is the just conceptions of the amount of detail necessary (and the amount necessary to be left out) in order that the idea of the picture may be best expressed.
    Detail is out of place in a large canvas always, and in proportion to its size is allowable. A decorative canvas, a picture which is to be seen from a distance, or is to fill wall space, wants effect, much justness of composition and color. Largeness of conception and execution, and only so much detail as shall be necessary to the best expression compatible with that largeness. On the other hand, a “cabinet picture,” a small panel, will admit of microscopic detail is all you can see. And just here is the heart of the whole matter. Whether you use much or little detail, it is not for the sake of the detail, not for what power of expression may lie in it. If the picture, large or small, be largely conceived, and its main idea as to subject and those qualities of aesthetic meaning I have spoken of are always kept in view, and never allowed to lose themselves in the search for minuteness, then any amount of detail will take its place in true relation to the whole picture. If it does not do this it is bad.
    The relations of parts to the whole are the key to the situation always.
    Nothing is right which interferes with the true relations in the picture. This is where the working for detail is most likely to lead you astray. It takes great ability and power to keep detail where it belongs. Detail is always the search for small things, and they are almost sure to obtrude themselves to the neglecting of the more important things. Details which do not stay in their places had better be left out of the picture. There is such a thing as values in fact as well as other parts of your work. And this applies to breadth as well as to detail.
    Gerald Dou remains a great painter, an even a broad painter, strange as it may sound, in spite of his microscopic work. But only because of his breadth of eye. The detail is not the most important thing with him. It is in the picture, and you can see it when you look for it. But as you look at the picture it is not peppered all over with pin-points of detail, until the picture itself cannot be seen. Every detail stays back as it would in nature; loses itself in the part to which it belong; modestly waits to be sought out; is not seen until it is looked for. This is broad painting, because the main things are emphasized; and if the details are painted they are seen in their true relations, and the power of the whole is not sacrificed to them.
    With much or little detail, this is what is to be aimed at. Whether with big brushes or little ones, the expression of the main idea, of the important, the vital things, -- this is broad painting, and this only.

The Lady of Shalott
by Holman Hunt

Cardplayers at Candlelight
by Gerard Dou

The Sergeant's Portrait
by Ernest Meissonier

The Post of Danger
by Alphonse de Neuville

The Fisher Boy
by Frans Hals

CHAPTER XXIII: MANIPULATION

Premier Coupe. - Something similar to what I have spoken of as “direct painting” has long been a much-advocated manner of painting in France, under the name of Premier Coup; which means, translated literally, first stroke.

It is taught that the painter should use no after or overworkings at all; but that he should carefully and deliberately select the color for his brushstroke, and then lay it on the canvas at one stroke, each after-stroke being laid beside some previous once, until the canvas has been covered by a mosaic of color each shade representing a single “first stroke,” with no after-stroke laid over it to modify its effect. Such a process tends to great deliberation of work and exactness of study. Probably no better thing was ever devised for the training of the eye and hand. But it has its limits, and is not often rigidly adhered to in the painting of pictures; although the fresh, direct effect of this sort of work is preserved as far as possible in much modern French work, and that quality is held in great esteem.
    This manner of painting is especially useful in the making of sketches and studies, and leads to strong control of the brush and the resources of the palette. In all painting of this character the color should have body. Transparent color should not be used alone, but only to modify the tint of the more solid pigments; for the transparent colors used indiscriminately are apt to crack, which characteristic is avoided when the heavier color forms the body of the paint.
    Solid Painting. - In most cases solid painting is the safest, -- the least likely to crack, and the most safely cleaned from varnish and dirt without injury to the paint itself. It is firmer in character too, and gives more solidity of effect to the picture.
    Mixing. - In mixing colors you should be careful not to over mix. Don’t stir your paint. Too much mixing takes the life out of the color. Particles of the pure color not too much broken up by mixing are valuable to your work, giving vibration and brilliancy to it. The reverse is muddiness, which is sure to come from too much fussing and overworking of wet paint. Don’t use more than three pigments in one tint if you can help it, and mix them loosely. Put all the colors together, one beside other, drag them together with the brush, scoop them up loosely on the end of it, and lay the tint on freely and frankly. Never muddle the color on the canvas. Don’t put one color over another more than you can help; you will only get a thick mass of paint of one kind mixing with a mass of another, and the result will be dirty color, which of all things in painting is most useless.
    Keep the color clean and fresh, and have your brush-strokes firm and free. Never tap, tap, tap, your paint; make up your mind what the color is, and mix it as you want it. Decide just where the touch is to go, and lay it on frankly and fairly, and leave it. If it isn’t right, daubing into it or pat-patting it won’t help it. Either leave it, or mix a new color, and lay it on after having scraped this one off.
    Don’t try to economize on your mixing. A color mixed for one place will never do for another, so don’t try to paint another lace with it. Have the patience to proceed slowly, and mix the color specially for each brush-stroke. On the other hand, don’t niggardly with your paint. Don’t use less paint than you need. Mix an ample brushful and put it on; then mix another, and use judgment as to how much you should use each time. The variety of tone and value which comes of mixing new color for every touch of the brush is in itself a charm in a painting, aside from the greater truth you are likely to get by it.
    Corrections. - As far as you can, make corrections by over-painting when the paint is dry, or nearly so. When I say don’t work into wet color to correct, I do not mean that you are never to do so, but that to do it too much is likely to get your work muddy and pasty. Of course is almost impossible to avoid doing so sometimes, but when you do, do it with deliberation. Don’t lose your hope of getting the color by force of piling it on, you will only get worse and worse. Get it as nearly right as you can. If it is hopeless, scrape it off clean, and mix a fresh tint. If it is as near right as you can see to mix it now, go-ahead; and put a better color on the place to-morrow when it is dry, if you can.
    Keep at it. - But above all don’t be permanently satisfied with the almost. Don’t be afraid to put over dry paint till it is right. Work at it day after day. Let the paint get thick if it will, if only you get the thing right. The secret of getting it right is to keep at it, and be satisfied with nothing less than the best you can do. When you can see nothing wrong you can do know better. But as long as your eye will recognize a difference between what is on the canvas and what ought to be there, you have not done your best, and you are shrinking if you stop. Never call a thing done as long as you can see something wrong about it. No matter what anyone else says, your work must come up at least to the standard of what you yourself can see.
    Lose painting. - Sometimes it is necessary to lay on paint very loosely in order to get vibration of warm and cool color or of pure pigment in the same brush-stroke, or to let the under paint show somewhat through the loose texture of the paint over it. Too much of this sort of thing is not to be desired, but its effect in the right place is not to be obtained in any other way. The paint may be dragged over the canvas with a long brush charged with color more or less thoroughly mixed, as seems most effectual, or it may be afflicted displays, or it may be had stunned with parallel strokes. All these ways will be spoken of is a suggested sales and other chapters. Solid color, generally, is used in this manner, and the effect of body is rather strengthened by it than the reverse.
    Scumbling. - Another means of modifying the color and effect of a painting has perhaps always been more less commonly in use. This is called scumbling, and may be considered under the head of solid painting, as it is always done with body, never with transparent, color. The process consists of rubbing a mixture of body color, without thinning, over a surface previously painted and dried. Generally the scumble is of a lighter color the under-painting, and is rubbed on with a study brush slightly charged with the paint. As much surface as is desired may be covered in this way, and the result is to give a hazy effect to that part, and to reduce any sharpness of color or of drawing. Often the effects is very successfully obtained. Distant effects may be painted solidly and rather frankly, and then brought into a general indefiniteness by scumbling. Too much scumbling will make a picture vague and soft, and after a scumble it is best to paint into it with firm color to avoid this.
    The scumble may be used with the richer and darker colors, too, to modify towards richness the tone of parts of the picture, or to darken the value. Most often, however, its value lies in its use to bring harsher and sharper parts together, and to give a hazy effect when it is needed.
    Scumbling will not have a good effect when it is not intended to varnish the picture afterwards; for the oil in the paint is absorbed immediately, and the rubbing of color gives a dead look to the canvas which is very unpleasant, and decidedly the reverse of artistic.
    Glazing. - A very valuable process, the reverse of scumbling, is glazing. It has always been in use since the invention of the oil medium. All the Italian painters used it; it is an essential part of their system of coloring. The rich, deep color of Titan, the warm flesh of Raphael, and jewel-like quality of the early German painters are impossible without some form of glaze. The Germans perhaps made glazes with white of egg before oil was used as a vehicle. But the glaze is the only way to get the fullest effect of the quality characteristics of the transparent paints.
    A glaze is a thin wash of transparent color flowed over an under-painting to modify its tone or to add to its effect. It is not always transparent color, but usually it is. Sometimes opaque or semi-opaque color may be used, and it is a glaze by virtue of the fact that it is thinned with a vehicle either oil or varnish, and flowed on. A scumble is rubbed on, and is never pure transparent color.
    Advantages of Glazing. - The advantages are the gain in harmony, in force, in brilliancy; you may correct a color when it is wrong, or perfect it when it is not possible to get the force or richness required without it. These are qualities which have made use by all schools more or less.
    Disadvantages. - There are, however, quite as evident and marked disadvantages. The free use of oil as a thinning vehicle, although it makes possible a greater degree of richness of color, is very likely to turn the picture brown in time. Oil will always eventually have a browning effect on all paints, even when mixed with them as little as is absolutely necessary. If you make a tinted varnish of oil (which is practically what a glaze is), you add so much, to the surely darkening action of the oil on the picture.
    If, again, you depend upon a glaze for the richness of color for your picture, and you use a color which is not permanent, you glaze fades, and your color is not there. A glaze is particularly liable to be injured by the cleaner if it ever gets into his hands. He works down to fresh color, and what with the browning of the glaze and the fact that the cleaner is more anxious that the picture should be cleaned than that its colors should be fine, he will, in nine cases out of ten, clean off the glaze which may be the final and most expensive color the painter has put on it.
    Glazing is little used nowadays, compared with what it once was. But there are times when you cannot get what you want in any other way, and when you are sure that the glazing is the only thing which will give you your result, the only law for the painter comes in, -- get your result.
    Precautions. - If you do glaze, however, there is a right and a wrong way. You should not use a glaze as a last resort. It is better to calculate on it beforehand; for you always glaze with a darker tint upon a lighter one, so that if you have not allowed for this, you will get your picture too low in tone before you know it.
    If you want to make a picture, or a part of it, brighter and lighter, bring it up in pitch with body color first, with solid painting, and then glaze it.
    Do not glaze on color which is not well dried. The drying of the under color and the drying of the glaze are apt to be different in point of time, and the picture will crack. If they vehicle is the same as was used in the under-painting and the drying qualities of both paintings are the same, there is no danger. But when color dries, it shrinks and flattens, and two kinds of colors shrinking differently are sure to pull apart, and that causes cracking. If the under-painting is well dry, but not hard and glossy on the surface, and is capable of still absorbing enough of the new color’s vehicle to bind the coats together, your glaze will stand. But rather than have it too soft, have the under-painting too hard, and then before you glaze over it with a little thin, quick drying varnish, and glaze into that. The varnish will hold the two coats of paint together.
    Glazing, as well as scumbling, implies the obligation to varnish your picture. Whenever you use oil freely you will have to varnish your picture to keep it bright and fresh in color.
    It would be wise never to use a glaze as a final process. Glaze to get the tone or to modify it, but paint into the glaze with body and color, and you keep the advantage of the glaze without many of the disadvantages of it, and the picture has a more solid effect of painting.
    Frottées. - Closely akin to the glaze in manner, but very different in use, is the frottée or “rubbing.” This is generally used on the fresh surface of the canvas, to “rub in” the light and shade or the first coloring of the picture after the drawing is done. It is one of the safest in wisest ways of beginning your picture. You can either rub in the picture with a frottée of one color, as sienna or umber, or you can use all the colors in their proper places, only using very little vehicle, and making something very thin in tint, somewhat between a glaze and a scumble. You can make a complete drawing in monochrome in this way, or you can lay in all the ground colors of the picture till it has much the effect of a complete painting. Then, as you paint and carry the picture forward, every color you put on will be surrounded with approximately the true relations, instead of being contrasted by a glare of white canvas.
    A frottée is a most sympathetic ground to paint over.


	CHAPTER XXII: REPRESENTATION Although much has been said about the theoretical and abstract side of painting, and the important to the aesthetic elements in art have been insisted upon, and is not to be supposed for a moment that painting does not deal with actual things. All painting which is not purely conventional must deal with and represent nature and actual facts. These are the body of the picture; the aesthetic elements are the heart of it. I believe that is important that you should know that there is that side of painting, and should have some insight into it; that you should see that there is something else to think of than the imitation of natural objects. I would have you think more nobly of painting than to believe that “the greatest imitation is the greatest art.” Beneath imitation of the obvious facts and truths, and in and through these may you express those qualities of intellectual creation by means of which only, painting is not a craft, but an art. But for all that, painting does, and always must, deal with those obvious fact; and however much you may give your mind to the problems of composition and color, you must base it on foundation of ability to represent what you see. Represent well the external objects, and you are in a position to interpret the spirit of them. For as nature only manifests her inner spirit through her outward forms and facts, you must be able to paint these well before you can do anything else. Intellectual action which perceives and constructs is the art, the skill which represents and reproduces is the science, of painting. Painting is the art of expression in color. The fact of color rather than form is the fundamental characteristic of it. The use of pigment rather than other materials is implied in its name. Therefore the science of painting deals with the materials with which to produce on canvas all manner of visible color combinations; and those processes of manipulation which make possible the representation of all the facts of color and light, of substance and texture, through which nature manifest herself. Is not enough to have the pigment, nor even that it should get it itself onto the canvas. Different characteristics call for different management of painting. Luminosity of light and somberness of shadow will not be expressed by the same color, put on in the same way. Different forms and surfaces and objects demand different treatment. The science of painting must deal with all these. It has been said that there are as many ways of painting as there are painters. Certainly there are as many ways as they are men of any originality. For however a painter has been trained, whatever the methods which he has been taught to use, he will always change them, more or less, in adapting them to his own purposes. An as the main intent of the art of an epoch or period differs from that of a previous one, so the manner of laying on paint will change to meet the needs of that difference. The manner of painting to-day is very different from that of other times. Some of the old processes are looked upon by the modern man is quite beneath his recognition. Yet these same methods are necessary to certain qualities, and if the modern man does not use or approve of those methods, it is because he is not especially interested in the qualities which they are necessary to. There is probably no one statement which all fair-minded painters will more willingly acquiesce in, then one which friends at the method by which the result is attained is unimportant, prodded that the result is attained, and that it is one worth attain. Every man will, whether it is right or not, use those methods which most surely and completely bring about the expression of the thing he wishes to express. In the face of this fact, and of the many acknowledged masterpieces, every one of which was painted in defiance of some rule some time or other alleged to be the only right one, it is not possible to prescribe or proscribe anything in the direction of the manipulation of colors. The result must be right, and if it is, it justifies the means. If it be not right, the thing is worthless, no matter how perfectly according to the rule the process may be. As Hunt said, “What do I care about the grammar if you’ve got something to say?” The important thing is to say something, and if you do really say something, and do really completely precisely and express it, as far as a painter is concerned it will be grammatical. If not to-day, the grammar will come round to it tomorrow. Henry Howard Beecher is reported to have answered to a criticism on grammatical slips in the heat of eloquence, “Young man, if the English language gets in the way of the expression of my thought, so much of the worse for the English language!” In painting, any rate, the complete expression of thought is grammatical, and if not, so much the worst for the grammarians. Try Everything. - Know, then, all you can about all the ways of manipulating paint that have ever been used. Use any or all those ways as you find them needful or helpful. There is none which has not the authority of a master behind it, and though another master may decry it, it is because, being a master, he claims the very right he denies you. Experiment with all; but never use any method for the sake of the method, but only for what it is capable of doing for you in helping expression. Safety. - The only real rule as to what to use in what not, applies to the effect of the permanence of your canvas. Never use pigments which will fade; nor in such a way that they will cause others to fade. Avoid all such using of materials as you know will make your picture crack, or in any other way bring about its deterioration. Good painting. - But for all I have just said, there is an acknowledged basis of what is good painting. If any man or school lays on paint in a frank, direct way, getting the effect by sheer force of putting on the right color in just the right place, with no tricks nor affectations, that is good painting; and the more simple, direct, and frank the manner of handling, the better the painting. Let us understand what direct painting is first, and then consider varieties of handling. For whatever may be the subsequent manipulations, the picture is generally “laid in” with the most direct possible manner of laying on paint, and the other processes are mainly to modify or to further and strengthen the effect suggested in the first painting. And generally, also, in all sketches and studies which are preliminary preparations for the picture, the most direct painting is used, and the various processes are reserved for working out more subtle effects on the final canvas. Old Dutch Painting. - Probably they are no better examples of frank painting than the works of the old Dutchmen. You should study them whenever you have a chance. Waiving all discussion as to the aesthetic qualities of their work, -- as painters, as masters of the craft of laying on paint, they are unexcelled. And in most cases, too, they possessed the art of concealing their art. You will have to use the closest observation to discover the exact means they used to get the subtle tones and atmospheric effects. The only obvious qualities is the perfect understanding and skill of their brush-work. In the smoothest as well as in the roughest of their work, you can not how perfectly the brush searches the modeling, and with the most exquisite expressiveness and perfect frankness, follows the structural lines. No doubt there were often paintings, glazings, and scumblings; but they always furthered the meaning of the first painting, and never in the least interfered with or obscured the effect of naïveté, of candor of workmanship. It is, however, the simple and sincere brush-work that you should strive to attain as the basis of your painting. Learn to express drawing with your brush, and to place at once and without indecision or timidity the exact tone and value of the color you see in nature at that point. Until you are enough of a master of your brush to get an effect in this way, do not meddle with the more complex methods of after-painting. You will never do good work by subsequent manipulation, if you have a groundwork of feebleness and indecision. Direct painting is the fundamental process of all good painting. Let me take the type of old Dutch painting to represent to you this quality of direct painting. First of all notice a basis of perfect drawing, -- a knowledge, exactness, and precision which admits of no fumbling, no vagueness, but only of a concise and direct recognition of structure. Note that this drawing is as characteristic of the brush-work as of the drawing which is under it. Observe that the handling of the whole school, from the least to the greatest, is founded on a similar and perfect craftsmanship, - the same use of materials; the same deliberateness; the same simple yet ample palette; the same use of solid color candidly expressing the planes of modeling, freely following the lines of structure; the absence of affectation or invention of individual means. Whatever the individuality of the artist, it rests on something else than difference of technique. From the freest and most direct of painters, Frans Hals, to the most smooth and detailed, Gerard Dou, the directness and ingenuousness of means to ends is the same, and founded on the same technical basis of color manipulation. The one is more eager, terse, the other more deliberate and complete; but both use the same pigments, both use the same solid color, are simple, lucid, both occupied solely with the thing to be expressed, and the least degree in the world with the manner of it. That manner comes from the same previous technical training which each uses in the most matter-of-course way, with only such change from the type, as his temperament unconsciously imposes on him. There is nothing like it elsewhere. Study it; notice the unaffectedness of brush-stroke in Rembrandt. See how it is the same as Hals, but less perfunctory. See how the brush piles up paint again and again along the same ridge of flesh, taking no notice of its revelation of the insistence of attempt at the right value, nor of its roughness or surface. To get that drawing and that color in the freeest, frankest, most direct way: that is the aim. The absolute conviction of it: that is the essence of this technique of the old Dutch masters. And whatever else it may have or may not have, you will find in it all that you can find anywhere of suggestion of direct and frank and sincere painting, and nothing I can say will give you any such clear idea of what you should strive for as the basis of all the different sorts of brush-work necessary or useful in the production of an oil painting. Detail. - The question of detail may well come in here. How far are you to carry detail in your painting? The Dutch painters went to both extremes. Gerard Dou worked two weeks on a broom-handle, and hoped to finish it in a few days more. Frans Hals would paint ahead in an hour. The French painter Meissonier paints the high light on every button of a trooper’s coat, and De Neuville barely paints the button at all. What way are you to turn? Which are you to choose? We have a great deal said nowadays against detail in painting. Much is set of breadth and broad painting. Which is right? True Breadth. - The answer lies in the central idea of the picture. There are times when detail may be very minute, and times when the greatest freedom is essential. True breadth is compatible with much even minute detail in the same canvas. For breadth does not mean merely a large brush. It never means slap-dash. It is the just conceptions of the amount of detail necessary (and the amount necessary to be left out) in order that the idea of the picture may be best expressed. Detail is out of place in a large canvas always, and in proportion to its size is allowable. A decorative canvas, a picture which is to be seen from a distance, or is to fill wall space, wants effect, much justness of composition and color. Largeness of conception and execution, and only so much detail as shall be necessary to the best expression compatible with that largeness. On the other hand, a “cabinet picture,” a small panel, will admit of microscopic detail is all you can see. And just here is the heart of the whole matter. Whether you use much or little detail, it is not for the sake of the detail, not for what power of expression may lie in it. If the picture, large or small, be largely conceived, and its main idea as to subject and those qualities of aesthetic meaning I have spoken of are always kept in view, and never allowed to lose themselves in the search for minuteness, then any amount of detail will take its place in true relation to the whole picture. If it does not do this it is bad. The relations of parts to the whole are the key to the situation always. Nothing is right which interferes with the true relations in the picture. This is where the working for detail is most likely to lead you astray. It takes great ability and power to keep detail where it belongs. Detail is always the search for small things, and they are almost sure to obtrude themselves to the neglecting of the more important things. Details which do not stay in their places had better be left out of the picture. There is such a thing as values in fact as well as other parts of your work. And this applies to breadth as well as to detail. Gerald Dou remains a great painter, an even a broad painter, strange as it may sound, in spite of his microscopic work. But only because of his breadth of eye. The detail is not the most important thing with him. It is in the picture, and you can see it when you look for it. But as you look at the picture it is not peppered all over with pin-points of detail, until the picture itself cannot be seen. Every detail stays back as it would in nature; loses itself in the part to which it belong; modestly waits to be sought out; is not seen until it is looked for. This is broad painting, because the main things are emphasized; and if the details are painted they are seen in their true relations, and the power of the whole is not sacrificed to them. With much or little detail, this is what is to be aimed at. Whether with big brushes or little ones, the expression of the main idea, of the important, the vital things, -- this is broad painting, and this only.	The Lady of Shalott by Holman Hunt Cardplayers at Candlelight by Gerard Dou The Sergeant's Portrait by Ernest Meissonier The Post of Danger by Alphonse de Neuville The Fisher Boy by Frans Hals


	CHAPTER XXIV: COPYING Copying may well be spoken of here as it is in a sense a kind of manipulation. It is a means of study to the student, and a useful, sometimes necessary process to the painter. In the transferring of the results of his sketches and studies to the final canvas, the painter must be able to copy, and to know all the conveniences of it. Before the painting begins on a picture, the main figures in it must be placed and drawn on the canvas with reference the plan of it, and their relation to that plan. This calls for some method exact reproduction of the facts stored in the artist’s studies for that purpose. The process of copying is that method. From the side of study, the copy gives the student the most practical means of understanding the intent and the expression of the painter whose work he wishes to know. There is no way of understanding the why and the how of technical expression so sure and complete as to study with the brush and paint, following the same method and processes as the master you copy, and trying to comprehend the meaning and the expression same time. This is not the best means of study for a beginner, as I said before. It trains the understanding of processes rather than the eye; and the training of the power of perception rather than understanding of methods is what the young student needs. The processes with which he may put on canvas the effect he sees in nature are secondary matters to him. Let him really see the thing and find his own way of expressing it, clumsily, rudely most probably, it is still the best thing for him. He may take such help as he can find, as he needs it; get such suggestions as the work of good painters can give him, when he cannot sees own way. But the searching of nature should come first. The seeing of what is must precede the stating of it. But when you do undertake to make a copy, there is something more to be tried for than an approximation of the right colors in the right places. Certainly to get out of copying all there is to get, one must try for something more than a recognizable picture. When a serious student makes a copy, he not only tries to get it like in color and drawing, but also in manner of treatment, peculiarities of technique, and whatever there may be that goes to make up the manner of the original. This is not only for the sake of a copy, for the sake of really having a picture which is more than superficially like the original; but in this way can be gained much real knowledge of technique which cannot be gotten so easily otherwise. Study your original carefully before and while working on your own canvas. See how it was done if you can and you can, do it in the same way, touch for touch, stroke for stroke, color for color. Use a large brush when he used a large brush; if the original was done with a palette knife, use yours; and particularly never use a smaller brush than the painter used on the picture you are copying. The same thing holds as to processes. If your original is painted solidly, with full-bodied color, do so on your copy. Never glaze nor scumble because you can’t get the colors without. Your business is to try to get the same qualities in the same way. And any other manipulation is not only getting a different thing, but shirking the problem. Because, if you can’t get the effect in the same way he did, you certainly won’t get the same one any other way. You are not originating, you are not painting a picture, you are copying another man’s work; and common honesty to him, as well as what you are trying to learn, demands that you shall not belie him by stating on your canvas implicitly, that he did the thing one way, when as a matter of fact his canvas shows that he did it another way. This may seem commonplace, because one would think that as a matter of course any one would naturally make a copy this way. But this is precisely what the average person does not do when copying, and I have found constantly necessary to insist upon these very points even to advanced students. So in the pigments, the vehicles, the tools, and even the canvas if you can, as well as in the handling of the paint and the processes used, follow absolutely and humbly, but intelligently, the workmanship of the picture you copy, if it is worth your while to do it all. In making copies it is not usual to make the preliminary drawing freehand. It takes time that may better be given to something else, and often it is not exact enough. When a painter has made careful studies which he wishes to transfer to his canvas, they may have qualities of line or movement, or of emphasis or character which the model may not have had. These studies, probably, are much smaller than they will be in the picture. The same things may be true of the characteristics of the sketches. These are problems which have been worked out, and to copy them freehand makes the work to be done over again on a larger scale on the canvas of the picture. This would not only take too much time, but the same result might not follow. For this purpose a more mechanical process is commonly made use of, which combines the qualities of exactness with a certain freedom of hand, without the work would be too rigid and hard. “Squaring up.” - This process is called “squaring-up,” and consists of making a network of squares which cut up the study, and map out its lines and proportions, and make it possible to be sure that any part of the original will come in the same relative place in the copy no the matter what the size may be, and at the same time leaves the actual laying out of the thing to freehand drawing. The process is a very simple one. You marl off a number of points horizontally and vertically on the study. Make as many as you think best - if there are too few, you will have too much of the study in one part; if too many, it makes you more trouble. It is not necessary that there be as many points one-way as the other; make the number to suit the lines of the study. Draw straight lines across the study from each of the points, keeping them carefully parallel, and seeing to it that the horizontal lines cross the vertical ones exactly at right angles. These lines cut the study into right- angled parallelograms, which may be squares or not according as the vertical lines are the same distance from each other that the horizontal ones are, or not. Number the spaces between the lines at the top, 1,2,3, etc., and at one side the same. Now if you square off a part of your canvas with the same number of spaces at the top and the same number at the side as you have done with the study, and keep the relation of the spaces with the study, and keep the relation of the spaces the same, you can make it as large or as small as you please, and you can draw the outlines within those squares as they fall in the study, and they will be the same in portion without your having the trouble working to scale. The squares furnish the scale for you, and the proportion is not of the study to the picture, but as the vertical spaces are to the horizontal, in both the study and the picture. By numbering the squares and canvas to correspond with those on the study, and noticing in which square, and in what part of it, any line or part of a line comes, you can, by drawing that in line in the same part of the corresponding square on canvas, repeat the line in the same relation in with exactness, while still leaving the hand free to modify it, or correct it. In this way the simplest or the most complex, the largest or the smallest study sketch or drawing may be accurately transferred to any surface you please.


	CHAPTER XXV: KINDS OF PAINTING Why not recognize that conviction, intense personal attraction to asserted sort of thing is the life of all art. How else can life get into art than through the love of what you paint? A man may understand what he does not love, but he will never infuse with life that which he does not love. Understand it he should, if he would expresses it; but love it he must, if he would have others love it. You see it is not the thing, but the manner; not the fact, the what you can find in it; not the object, but what you can express by it. “Un chef d’oeuvre vaut un chef d’oeuvre,” because perfect delight in loveliness found in a small thing is as perfect as perfect delight in loveliness found in great things. And still life and uninteresting as a fact, may be fascinating if “seen through the medium of a temperament”. Don’t let the idea get into your head that one thing is easier to do than another thing. Perhaps it is, but it is a bad mental attitude to think so. An even then, you may find that when you have worked out all that its easiness show you, some one with better knowledge or insight may come along and point out undreamed-of beauties and subtleties. And are they easy? To see an express the possibilities in easy things is the hardest of all. Classification. - Divide paintings into two classes, - those representing objects seen out-of-doors, and those representing object in-doors. This is the most fundamental of all classifications, and it is one which belongs practically to this century. Before this century it was hardly thought of to distinguish out-door light from in-door light. Some of the Dutchmen did it. But it is only in this century that the principle has made itself felt. It is this which makes the difference of pitch or key so marked between the modern and the ancient pictures. It has changed the whole color-scheme. An out-door picture may be still painted in the studio, but it must be painted from studies made out-doors. It is no longer possible to pose a model in a studio-light and paint her so into a landscape. It was right to do it when it was done frankly, when the world had not waked up to the fact that things look different in diffused in concentrated lights. It is not right now. You cannot go back of your century. To be born too late is more fatal than to be born too soon. Whatever kind of picture you take in hand, remember that what distinguishes the treatment of it from that of other pictures depends on the inherent character of it. That the difficulties as well as the facilities in the working of it are due to the fact that it demands a different application of the universal principles. Don’t think that landscape drawing is easier than that of the figure because smudges of green and blue and brown can be accepted as a landscape, while a smudge of pink will not do duty for the nude figure. It is only that the drawing of the figure is more obvious, and variations from the more obvious right are more easily seen. You must study the necessities, the demands of treatment of the different sorts of objects - see what is peculiar to each, and what common to all. You must find to what aesthetic qualities each most readily lends itself, where the subtleties to be sought for, and what are the problems they offer.