TECHNICAL PRINCIPLES [123]

CHAPTER XV

TECHNICAL PRELIMINARIES

Reasons. — Painting is something more than laying on paint. It implies a certain amount of knowledge of necessary preliminaries — techinal matters which are not strictly painting, but without which good painting is impossible.

It is all well enough to put paint on canvas, but there must be a knowledge on which to base the where and the why of laying it on, as well as the knowledge of how to lay it on. If anything, the where and why are more important than the how. There are almost infinite methods and processes of getting the paint onto the surface. Every painter may select or invent his own way, and provided it accomplishes the main purpose — the bringing about of combinations of form, relative color and pitch, the expression of an idea — it is all right. But there are laws which govern the positions of the different spots of paint, and the reasons for placing them in certain relations. These laws are back of personal idiosyncrasy. They are a part of the laws which control all material things. The painter may no more go contrary [124] to them in painting than he may go contrary to physical laws in any of the practical matters of life. If pigments are not used in accordance with the laws governing their chemical composition, they will not stand. If the laws of proportion are not observed in composition, the picture will not balance. The laws of color harmony are as mathematically fixed as the law of gravity. So, too, the relations of size, which give the impression of nearness or distance to objects, rest on the laws of optics. You have infinite scope for individual expression inside of those laws, but you cannot go outside of them.

Scientific Knowledge not Necessary. — It is not necessary that you should have any special knowledge of all these laws nor even of the application of them; but you must recognize their existence, and have some practical notions about them and their effect on your work.

You can of course carry the study as far as you are interested to go. The farther the better. The more you study them the more you will find them interesting, and the easier will it be for you to work freely within their limitations. But this is not the place for special study. There are books which treat particularly of these things, and you must go to them.

But a superficial consideration of these subjects cannot be left out of any book which would be [125] really helpful to the student of painting. I can go into the theory of things only so far as to give you that amount of practical knowledge which is absolutely necessary to you as a painter. What I shall give is given only because it cannot be wisely left out, and the form of it as well as the substance and quantity are determined by the same reason.

As you hope to become a painter, then, do not neglect to study and think of this part of the book, not merely as a preliminary to the process of painting, but as containing matter which is continually essential to it — which is part and parcel of it.

Another reason for the careful reading of these chapters is that any discussion of the art of painting necessarily demands the use of words or phrases which must be understood. To speak of technical things presupposes the use of technical phrases, and without a knowledge of the words there can be no comprehension of the thought. [126]

CHAPTER XVI

DRAWING

DRAWING is basic to painting. Good painting cannot exist without it. I do not mean that there must be always the outline felt or seen, but that the understanding of relative position, size, and form must be felt; and that is drawing. Drawing is not merely form, but implies these other things, and painting is not legible without them. They go to the completeness of expression. Movement, and action, as well as composition and all that it implies or includes, depend upon drawing, and they are vital to a painting.

Importance of Drawing. — Much has been said and written of drawing as being the most important thing in a picture; so much so, as to excuse all sorts of shortcomings in other directions. This is a mistake. Drawing is essential because you cannot lay on color to express anything without the colors taking shape, and this is drawing. But still the color itself, and other characteristics which are not strictly a part of drawing, are quite as important to painting, simply because the thing without them could riot be a painting at all: it would be a drawing. [127]

All painters fall into two classes, — those who are most sensitive to the refinements of form, and those most sensitive to refinements of color and tone. But the great colorists, the painters par excellence, the workers in pigment before everything else, those who find their sentiment mainly there, these are the men who have made painting what it is, and who have brought out its possibilities. And looking at painting from their point of view, drawing cannot be more important than other qualities.

Neglect of Drawing. — Great artists have sometimes not been perfect draughtsmen. They have been careless of exactness of form. But they have always been strong in the great essentials of drawing, and they have made up for such deficiencies as they showed, by their greatness in other directions. Delacroix, for instance, sometimes let his temperament run him into carelessness of form in his hurry to express his temperamental richness of color. These things are superficial to the greater ends he had in view, but we have to distinctly forgive it in accepting the picture. And a great colorist may be so forgiven; he makes up for his fault by other things. But there is no forgiveness for the student or the painter who is simply a poor draughtsman.

The effect of neglect of drawing is to make a weak picture. A painter, who was also an exceptionally [128] fine draughtsman, once spoke of work weak in drawing as resembling “boned turkey.” Lack of firmness, indecision, characterize the painter who cannot draw. Those firm, simple, but effective touches which are evident somewhere in the work of all good painters, are impossible without draughtsmanship. They mean precision. Precision means position. Position means drawing.

Proportions. — All good work is from the general to the particular, from the mass to the detail. Keep that in mind as a fundamental principle in good work, whatever the kind. You should never place a detail till you have placed your larger masses. The relative importance of things depends on the consideration of those most important first. Let this be your first rule in drawing.

Proportions next. Largest proportions, then exactness of relative proportions. Study first in masses. See nothing at first but the large planes. As Hunt said, “Hang the nose on to the head, not the head on to the nose.” In getting proportions of the great masses, let no small variations of line or form break into your study of the whole. Therefore, see outlines first in straight lines and angles. If you cannot see them at first, study to find them; look at the long lines of movement; mass several curves into one line representing the general direction of them. Train yourself to look at things in this way. There is nothing which [129] will not fall into position so. This will not be easy at first. The training of a quick perception of these things is a part of your training in drawing — the first essential. It is not that the straight lines are to be sought for themselves, but that they simplify the first breaking up of the whole into its parts, and so makes more easy the study of proportion. The accuracy of the general masses makes possible a greater accuracy of the lesser proportions which come within them.

You see form more truly also, when the perception of it is founded on a mass or a line indicating the larger character of it. It saves time for you, too. You do not have to rub out so much. The great lines and planes once established, everything else falls naturally into place. Spend much time over this part of a drawing. Cut the time you give to a drawing into parts, and let the part given to the laying in of larger proportions be from a third to a half of the whole time, and study and correct these until they are right.

Once these are right a very slight accent tells for twice what it would otherwise, and so you need much less detail to give the effect.