Three Planes. — It will help you in understanding the way the light falls on landscape to consider everything as in one of three planes, and these planes taking greater or less proportions of light according to the position of the sun with reference to them.

The position of the sun changes from a point immediately over, to a point practically at right angles to all objects in nature. Everything that can exist under the sun will come in one of these planes, and at some time in the day in each. The vertical, the horizontal, or some sort of an oblique between these two. If the sun is overhead exactly, the flat ground, the tops of trees and houses, will get the full amount of sunlight. The vertical planes, sides of houses, depths of foliage, etc., will get the least, some of them being lighted only by diffused and reflected light. The planes lying between these two extremes will get more or less, according as they are more or less at right angles to the direct rays of the sun. And as the sun declines from the zenith, the vertical planes get more and more and the horizontal planes less and [333] less of the light, till in the late afternoon the banks of trees and sides of buildings and cloud-masses are gilded with light, and the broad horizontal plains of land and water are in shadow.

However obscured the sun may be, this principle holds more or less; and it makes clear and helps you to observe and notice many facts in landscape light and shade which it is necessary to know.

Millet said that all the beauty of color and value, and the whole art of painting, rested on the comprehension and observance of these facts.

He said that as the planes of any form turned towards or away from the light and so got more or 'less of it, and as one form stood more or less far back of another and the atmosphere came between, the color and value changed; and in the observance of this, and its representation as applied to any and every object or group of objects, lay the whole of painting. All the possible beauties of the art rested on it. He showed a painting of a single pear in which these things were most subtly observed, and said that that painting was as complete and perfect as any painting he could do simply because in the observance of these relations was implied the observance of everything which was vital to painting.

Short Sittings. — This characteristic, and the steady change of position of the sun and its effects on all the objects which are directly lighted [334] by it, make it necessary, whenever you are painting from nature out-of-doors, that you should not paint at one thing very long at a time. The light changes pretty rapidly; at high noon it only takes a few moments to exactly reverse the light. It is seldom that you can do any just study for more than an hour or an hour and a half at a sitting. Some men do work two or three hours, but they are not studying justly all that time; for that which was light is dark three hours later, and any true study of value and color is impossible under these conditions. Of course on gray days this is less marked, but you must suit your sittings to the time and facts.

It would be better if you had more canvases, and worked a short time on each, and many days on all. You would have the truest work.

Monet works never more than a half-hour on one canvas; but when he starts out he takes a half-dozen or more different canvases, and paints on each till the light has changed. Theodore Robinson seldom worked more than three-quarters of an hour, or at most an hour, on one canvas; but, he worked for twenty or thirty days on each canvas, and sometimes had a single canvas under way for successive seasons.

Any man who would truly study for the just value and note of color must work more or less in this way when he works out-of-doors. [335]

CHAPTER XXXII

MARINES

ALL that has been said on landscape painting applies to marines. You have the same open-air feeling and vibration of light and color. There is no need to say the same things over again. It is only necessary to take all these things for granted, and emphasize certain other things which are peculiar to the sea.

Sea and Sky. — To begin with, the relation of the sky to what is under it is markedly different in color from any other relations in painting. The sea is always more or less of a perfect reflecting surface, and always strongly influenced in color, value, and key by the reflections of the sky on its surface. The sky color is always modifying the water — when and how depends on the condition of the weather, and the degree of quiet or movement of the water. Sometimes the water is a perfect mirror; sometimes the mirror quality is almost lost, but the influence is there.

This relation is the most important thing, because the sea and the sky is always the main part of your picture; and no matter what else is there, [336] or how well painted it may be, if these things are not recognized, if they are not justly observed, your picture is bad.

I cannot tell you all about these things. The variety of effects and relations is infinite. You must study them, paint them in the presence of nature, and use your eyes; only remember the general principles of air and atmosphere and light and color that I have spoken of elsewhere — all have most vital importance on marine painting. You must study these, and think of them, and in the presence of sea or sky observe their bearings, and apply them as well as you can.

Movement. — If “la nature ne s'arrête pas” ordinarily, the fact is even more marked in marines; for the water is the very type of ceaseless motion. Somehow, you must not only study in spite of the continual motion, but you must manage to make that motion itself felt. This you will find is in the larger modelling of the whole surface — the “heave” of it as distinguished from the waves themselves. The waves are a part of that motion of course; but give the wave-drawing only, without their relation to the great swing of the whole body of water, and you get rigidity rather than movement. The wave movement is in and because of this larger motion. See that first, and make it most evident, then let the waves themselves cut it up and help to express it. [337]

Entrance to Zuyder See. Clarkson Stanfield. [339]

Wave Drawing. — How shall you “draw” so changeable a thing as a wave? Every wave has a type of form, has a characteristic movement and shape; and as it changes it comes into a new position and shape in logical and practically identical sequence of movement. You can only study this by constant watching. You look at the wave, and then turn your eyes away to fix it on your canvas; as you look back, the wave is not there. Well, you can only not try to make a portrait of each wave; it isn't possible. Don't expect to. Study the movement and type forms; think of it; fix it in your mind; decide on the mass and suggestive relation of it to other masses, and put that down.

There is never a recurrence of the same thing either in exact form or color, but fix your eyes on one place, and over and over again you will see a succession of waves of similar kind. Or look at a wave and follow it as it drives on; changes come and go, but the wave form in the main keeps itself for some time.

Look over a large field of the water without too sharply focussing the eyes, you will see the great lines and planes of modelled surface over and over again taking the same or similar shapes, positions, and relations. And as you look your eye will follow the movement in spite of yourself. Your gaze will gradually come nearer and nearer; [340] but meanwhile, in following the wave, it will have felt that the wave was the same in shape, but only varied in position.

In this way you will come to know the wave forms. Jot them down, either in color or with charcoal; but do not look for outline too much. Try to study the forms and relations, mainly by the broad touch, with a characteristic direction and movement. No amount of explanation will tell you anything. You must sit and look, think, analyze, and suggest, then generalize as well as you can.