The Nude. — No good figure-work has ever been done which was not founded on a knowledge of the nude. Whether the figure is draped or not, the nude is the basis of form. The best painters have always made their studies of pose and action in the nude, and then drawn the draperies over that. This insures the truth of action and structure, [348] which is almost sure to be lost when the drawing of the form is made through drapery or clothing. The underlying structure is as essential here as in portrait. It is the more imperative that the body be felt within the clothes from the fact that it cannot be seen. There must be no ambiguity, no doubt as to the anatomy underneath; for without this there can be no sense of actuality.

I do not say paint the nude. On the contrary, if you want to go so far as that in the study of the figure, you must not attempt to do it with the aid of a book. Go to a good life class. But I wish to emphasize the principle that when you undertake to paint anything involving the figure, you must know something of the structure of what is more or less hidden, and must make allowance for the disguising of form which the draping of it will inevitably cause.

And when you draw your figure, you should lay in your main lines, at any rate, from the nude figure if you can. If you cannot command a professional model for this purpose, you can only be more careful about your study of the underlying lines and forms as they are suggested by the saliencies of the draperies.

If this is the case, be most accurate in those measurements which place the proportions of the parts which show through the covering, and try to [349] trace out by the modelling where the lines would run. By mapping out these proportions, and drawing the lines over the drapery masses wherever you can make them out, you can judge to a certain extent of the truth of action in your drawing.

The use of a lay figure will help you somewhat if you can get one which is true in proportion. It will not help you much in the finer modelling, but it will at least insure your structural lines being in the right place, and that is as much as you can hope for without the special study of the nude.

A lay figure is expensive, costing about three hundred dollars in this country. You will hardly be apt to aspire to a full-sized one, as only professional painters can afford to pay so much for accessories. But small wooden ones are within the means of most people, and will be found useful for the purpose I have mentioned, and one should be obtained.

When you have assured yourself, as far as you can by its use with and without special draperies, of the right action of your drawing, you must do your painting from the draped model.

The Model. — Never paint without nature before you. If you paint the figure, never paint without the model. For the sake of the study of it, it goes without saying that you can learn to paint the figure only by studying from the figure. But [350] beyond that, for the sake of your picture, you can have no hope of doing good work without working from the actual object represented. The greatest masters have never done pictures “out of their heads.” The compositions and æsthetic qualities came from their heads it is true, but they never worked these things out on canvas without the aid of nature. And the greater the master, the more humble was he in his dependence on nature for the truth of his facts.

Much more, then, the student needs to keep himself rigidly to thé guidance of nature; and this he can only do by the constant use of the model.

One Figure or Many. — Whether you have one or more figures, the problem may be kept the same. The canvas must balance in mass and line and in color. When you decide to make a picture with several figures, study the composition first as if they were not figures, but groups of masses and line. Get the whole to balance and compose, then decide your color composition. Simplify rather than make complex. The more you have of number, the more you should consider them as parts of a whole. Keep the idea of grouping; combine the figures, rather than divide them. Have every figure in some logical relation to its group, and then the group in relation to the other parts. Don't string them out or spot them about. Study [351] the spaces between as well as the spaces they occupy. And don't fill up these spaces with background objects. That will not bind the group together, but will separate it. Fill the spaces with air and with values — even more important! All this arranged, paint each group and each figure as if it were one thing instead of many. As you treat the head, the body, the dress, and the chair as all parts of a whole in a single sitting figure, so treat the various heads, bodies, dresses, etc., in a group as parts of a whole, by studying always the relations of each to each. And then study to keep the different groups as parts of whole canvas in the same way.

Simplicity of Subject. — But do not be too ambitious in your attempts. Keep your subjects simple. Don't be in a hurry to paint many figures. Paint one figure well before you try several.

You will find plenty of scope for your knowledge and skill in single figures. Practise with sketches and compositions, if you will, in grouping several figures, and try to manage them so that the whole shall be simple in mass and effect; but do not attempt, as a student, without experience and skill in the painting of one figure, to paint pictures containing several. By the time you can really paint a single figure well, you can dispense with a manual of painting, and branch out as ambitiously as you please. In the meantime, [352] everything that you have knowledge enough to express well, you can express with the single figure.

With the model, the background, the pose and occupation, the clothing and draperies, and whatever accessories may be natural to the thing as elements, it is possible to work out all the problems of line and mass and color. If a really fine thing cannot be made with one figure, more figures will only make it worse.

Look again at Whistler's portrait of his mother. Consider it now, not as a portrait, but as a single figure. What are the qualities of it which would be helped if there were more in it? The very simplicity of it makes the handling of it more masterly.

Look also at the one simple figure of Millet's “Sower;” all the great qualities of painting that are likely to get themselves onto one canvas you will find in this.

See what movement and dignity there are in it. How statuesque it is! It is monumental. It has scale; it imposes its own standard of measurement. There are air and envelopment and light and breadth. Are. these not qualities enough for one canvas?

Nature the Suggester. — Take your suggestions, your ideas, for pictures from nature. Keep your eyes open. Observe all poses which may hint of [353] possible schemes of light and shade, of composition, or of color. It is marvellous how constantly groupings and poses and effects of all kinds occur in every-day life. Humanity is kaleidoscopic in its succession of changes; one after another giving a phase new and different, but equally suggestive of a picture if you will take the hint. The picture which originates in a natural occurrence is always true if it is sincerely and frankly painted. Truth is more various than fiction. It is easier to see than to invent. And in the arrangement of the material which nature freely and constantly furnishes to him there is scope for all the invention of man.

Action and Character. — The picture comes from the action — resides in it. The action comes from the act, and is natural to it, expressive of it. Any gesture or position which is the natural and unaffected result of an essential action will be true and vital, suggestive of nature, and beautiful because it will inevitably have character — be characteristic. The beauty of the picture is not something external to the costumes, occupations, and life which surround you, but is to be found, contained in it, and brought out, manifested, made visible, by the mere logical working out of the need, the custom, or the occasion.

Emphasis is only the salience of the most natural movement. [354]

Daily life swarms with pictures. You do not need to go to other places and other times for subjects. If you are awake to what is going on around you, if you see the essential line of the occupation, or the mass and color which is incidental to every least activity, you will have more suggested to you than you have time to do justice to. And it is your business to see the beautiful in the commonplace. Everything is commonplace till you see the charm in it. The artistic possibility does not lie in the unusual in any subject, but in the fact that the thing cannot get done without action and grouping and color and contrast; and these are the artist's opportunities. Keep your eyes open for them; learn to recognize them when you see them; look for these rather than for the details of the accidental fact which brings them out. See the movement of it, and the relation of it to what surrounds it, and you will hardly avoid seeing the picture in it.

Here is a composition which is an almost literal rendering of the movement and light and shade effect of a position quite accidentally seen.

The whole effect of lighting and of line, the grouping and the pose, resulted purely from the musician's desire to get a good light on his music. There was no need to add to it. It was simply necessary to recognize the charm of it, and to represent that charm through it as frankly as it could be done. [355]