Buckwheat Harvest Millet. [on page 368]

All this means that you must study and paint the figure from a new point of view. You do not make so much of what the model is as how the model looks in these surroundings. You must not look for so much decision, and you must study [368] values closely. Look more for the modelling of the mass than for the modelling of surface. Look more for the vibration of light and air on the flesh and drapery colors than for these colors in themselves. Look for color of contours in the model. Study the subtleties of values of contours, and make your figure relieve by the contrast of value in mass rather than by the modelling within the outline. See how the figure “tells” as a whole against what is behind it first, and keep all within that first relation. [369]

It is possible to look for and to find many of the qualities which distinguish the figure in the studio light; sometimes you may want to do so. The telling of a story, the literary side of the picture, if you want that side, sometimes needs help that way. But in this you lose larger characteristics, and the picture as a whole will not have the spirit of open air in it.

What has been said of the painting of landscape applies to the painting of figures in landscapes. Pose your figure out-of-doors if you would represent it out-of-doors. Then paint it as if it were any other out-door object. If the figure is more important to the composition than anything else in the landscape, as it often will be, then study that mainly, and treat the rest as background, but as background which has an influence which must be constantly recognized.

Never finish a figure begun out-doors by painting afterwards from a model posed in the house. Leave the figure as you bring it in. If it is not finished, at least it will be in keeping with itself; and this will surely be lost if you try to work it from a model in different conditions.

Animals. — Animals should be considered as “figures out-of-doors.” There is no essential difference in the handling one sort of a figure or another. The anatomy is different, and the light falls on different textures, but the principle is not [370] changed. You must consider them as forms influenced by diffused light and diffused color, and paint them so. You will find that often, especially in full sunlight, the color peculiar to the thing itself is not to be seen at all. The character of the light which falls on it gives the note, and controls. In the shade the effect is less marked, but the constant flicker makes the same sort of variation, though not to the same extent.

There is no secret of painting animals either in the house or out-of-doors which is not the same as the secret of painting the human figure. If you would paint an animal, get one for a model and study it. Work in some sort of a house-light first, in a barn or shed, or, if it be a small animal, in your studio. Study as you would any other thing, from a chair to a man. The principles of drawing do not change with the character of anatomy. The animal may be less amiable a poser, but you must make allowance for that.

When you have got a knowledge of the form, and the character of color and surface, take the animal out-doors, get some one to help hold him, and apply the same principles that would govern your study of a rock or a tree in the open air.

As for fur, and all that sort of thing, treat it as you would any other texture-problem in still life. [371]

CHAPTER XXXIV

PROCEDURE IN A PICTURE

SOME pictures, particularly those begun and finished in the open air, may be frankly commenced immediately on the canvas from nature as she is before the painter, and without any special processes or methods of procedure carried on to completion. But many pictures are of a sort which renders this manner of work unwise or impossible. There may be too many figures involved. The composition, the drawing, or other arrangement may be too complicated for it, and then the painter has to have some methodical and systematic way of bringing his picture into existence. He must take preliminary measures to ensure his work coming out as he intends, and must proceed in an orderly and regular manner in accordance with the planning of the work. It is in this sort of thing that he finds sketches and studies essential to the painting of the picture as distinguished from their more common use as training for him, or accumulation of general facts.

Study of Fortune. Michael Angelo. [on page 373]

Preliminaries. — There must be made numbers of sketches, first of the slightest and merely suggestive, [372] and then of a more complete, kind, to develop the general idea of composition from the first and perhaps crude conception of the picture. All the great painters have left examples of work in these various stages. It is a part of the training of every student in art schools to make these composition sketches, and to develop them more or less fully in larger work. In the French schools there are monthly concours, when men compete for prizes with work, and their success is influenced by a previous concour of these composition sketches.

This preliminary sketch in its completed stage gives the number and position and movement of the figures and accessories, with the arrangement of light and shade and color. There is no attempt to give anything more than the most general kind of drawing, such details as the features, fingers, etc., being neglected. The light and shade on the single figures also is not expressed, but the light and shade effect of the whole picture is carefully shown, and the same with the color-scheme. It is this first sketch that establishes the character of the future picture in everything but the details. Sometimes this work is done on a quite large canvas, but usually is not more than a foot or two long, and of corresponding width.

Studies. — After this there must be studies made for the drawing of the single figures, and for more [375] exactness of line and action in the bringing of all together into the whole. This work is usually done in charcoal, from the life, and sometimes on a piece of drawing-paper stretched over the same canvas that the picture will be painted on, or otherwise arranged, but of the same size. Often, however, this work, too, is done on a smaller scale than that of the picture, especially when the picture is to be very large. This is based on the preliminary sketch as composition, and is intended to carry that idea out more in full, and perfect the drawing of the different figures, and to harmonize the composition. The composition and relation of figures both as to size and position on the final canvas depend on this study.

Corrections. — In making these studies and in transferring them to the canvas, corrections are of course often necessary. The correction may or may not be satisfactory. To avoid too great confusion from the number of corrections in the same place, they are not made always directly on the study or canvas, but on a curtain of tissue paper dropped over it. The figure may be completely drawn, and is to be modified in whole or in part. The tissue paper receives the new drawing, and the old drawing shows through it, and the effect of the correction can be compared with that of the first idea. The study itself need not then be changed until the alteration which is satisfactory [376] is found, as the process may be repeated as many times as necessary on the tissue paper, and the alterations finally embodied in the completed study.

Figure Studies. — The studies for the various single figures are now made in the nude from the model, generally a quarter or half life size -a careful, accurate light and shade drawing of every figure in the picture, the model being posed in the position determined on in the study just spoken of. Sometimes further single studies are made with the same models draped, and generally special studies of drapery are made as well; these studies are afterwards used to place the figures in position on the canvas before the painting begins.