Effects of Light. — It is important to study the different qualities of light. Take, for instance, the difference of character on a sunny day and on a gray day. On the former, fine distinctions of color are less pronounced; they are lost in the contrasts of sunlight and shadow. On a gray day the light is diffused; contrast is less, but the finer distinctions are more marked. For the study of the subtleties of color choose a gray day.

So, too, is the difference marked between the general light of out-doors and the more concentrated light of the house. The pitch is different. Outside, even in a dark day, the general character of light is clearer, more full, than in-doors.

There is nothing possible under the open sky like the strong contrasts you get from a single window in an otherwise unlighted room.

Compare, for instance, the character of the light and shade as shown in the illustrations on pages 156 and 159. The one is the diffused, out-of-door light, the other that from a studio window. The character of the subject has nothing to do with this quality. The head would have less of sharpness and contrast in the open air, and more reflected light.

Other differences to be studied as to quality of the light in the manner of its contrast, and also for its color quality, are to be seen in moonlight or nightlight as compared with daylight. Artificial [158] light, such as lamp- and candle-light, gives marked effects also, which may be compared with daylight both as it is out-of-doors and in its more concentrated effects in the studio. Compare the picture of the “Woman Sewing by Lamplight,” by Millet, with the “Canal” and the “Bohemian Woman” given above. The effects of gas and electric light also should be studied. Their characteristics both of contrast and, particularly, of color are worth your attention as a student, inasmuch as the essence of some pictures lies in these qualities.

Another matter of great importance to the student, and one which the same three illustrations just referred to may serve to show, is the effect on objects of the position of the point of entrance of the light with reference to them and to the observer. The simplest light is the side-light from a single window. This gives broad, sharp masses of light and shade, and makes the study of drawing and painting more simple. With the observer in the same relative position to the subject, as the light swings round towards a point back of him the contrasts become less, the relations more subtle and difficult of recognition, and naturally the study of them more difficult. In this position of light the values become “close.” To make the object seen at all, it is necessary that the finest distinctions shall be observed. [159]

Bohemian Woman. Frans Hals.
Effect of contrast of light and shade in studio to be compared with diffused light of open air in the “Canal,” and artificial light in “Woman Sewing by Lamplight.” [161]

Sewing by Lamplight. Millet.
Effect of artificial light to be compared with natural light in illustrations of “Canal,” and in “Bohemian Woman.” [163]

Descent from the Cross. [165]

Portrait painters have always been fond of a top light, which gives a direct concentrated light descending on the sitter, very similar in character to the side-light, but more favorable to the expression and drawing of the face.

Cross Lights. — The most confusing and difficult of study and representation are the “cross lights” If there are several windows or other points for the admission of light, and the sitter or object painted is between them, the light comes from all sides, so that the rays cross each other and there is no single scheme of light and shade. The rays from one side modify the shadows cast from the other side, and a perplexing and involved arrangement of values is the result. This is a favorite technical problem with painters, and its solution is splendid training; but the student who can successfully solve it is not far from the end of his “student days.” [166]

CHAPTER XX

COMPOSITION

Importance. — Composition is of the utmost importance. It is impossible that a picture should be good without it. You may define it as that study by means of which the balance of the picture comes about. But you must understand the word balance in its broadest sense. There is nothing in the planning of the picture which has not to be considered in making the picture balance.

The arrangement of the lines, of the forms, of the masses, and of the colors must all be right if the composition be right. Composition is the planning of the picture; and it is more or less complicated, more or less to be carefully studied beforehand in exact accordance with the simplicity or complication of the scheme of the picture. You may not need more than the consideration of a few main facts. It may almost be done by a few moments' deliberation in some simple studies or even pictures. But even then there is possible the most subtle discrimination of selection, and a perfect gem of composition may be found in the [167] arrangement of a picture having the simplest and fewest elements. The more complicated the materials which are to be worked into a picture, the more careful must be the previous planning; but, for all that, the genius will find scope for his utmost powers in a simple figure, just because the fewer the means, the more each single thing can interfere with the balance of the whole, and the more a fine choice will tell.

The Æsthetic. — I have already mentioned briefly the æsthetic elements of a picture. I have called to your attention that back of the obvious facts of a subject and the objects in the picture, and the theme which the painter makes his picture represent; back of the technical processes and management of concrete material which make painting possible, is the æsthetic purpose of the work of art; without this it could not be a work of art at all: it would be merely a more or less exact representation of something, a mere prosaic description, the interest in which would lie wholly in the fact, and would perish whenever interest in the fact should cease. It is not the fact, nor even the able expression of the fact, which makes a work of art a thing of interest and delight centuries after the bearing of the fact has been forgotten. The perennial interest of a work of art lies in the way in which the artist has used his ostensible theme, and all the facts and objects [168] appertaining to it, as a part of the material with which he expresses those ideas which are purely æsthetic; which do not rest on material things. These have to do with material things only by rendering them beautiful, giving to them an interest which they themselves could not otherwise have.

Theory. — Does this sound unpractical? Well, it is unpractical. Does it seem mere theory? It is theory. I want to impress it on you that it is theory. For it is the theory which underlies art, and if you do not understand it, you only understand art from the outside. Consciously or unconsciously every artist works to express these purely æsthetic qualities, and to a greater or less extent he expresses himself through them.

Art for Art's Sake. — This is the real meaning of the much-debated phrase, “Art for art's sake.” The mistake which leads to the misconception and most of the discussion about it, is in confounding “art for art's sake” with “technique for technique's sake,” which is a very different thing. Certainly every painter will work to attain the most perfect technique he is'capable of. But not for the sake of the technique, but for what it will do. The better the technique the better the control of all the means to expression. If you take technique to mean only the understanding and knowledge of all the manipulations of art, technique is [169] only a means, and it is so that I mean it to be understood here. If you broaden its meaning to include all the mental conceptions and means, that is another thing, and one likely to lead to confusion of idea. So I use the word technique in its strictest sense.