The Crown of Wild Olive
away; the rose colour of sunset on snow is pale on the snow at your
feet, deep and full on the snow in the distance; and the green of a
Swiss lake is pale in the clear waves on the beach, but intense as an
emerald in the sunstreak, six miles from shore. And in any case, when
the foreground is in strong light, with much water about it, or white
surface, casting intense reflections, all its colours may be perfectly
delicate, pale, and faint; while the distance, when it is in shadow, may
relieve the whole foreground with intense darks of purple, blue green,
or ultramarine blue. So that, on the whole, it is quite hopeless and
absurd to expect any help from laws of "aerial perspective." Look for
the natural effects, and set them down as fully as you can, and as
faithfully, and _never_ alter a colour because it won't look in its
right place. Put the colour strong, if it be strong, though far off;
faint, if it be faint, though close to you. Why should you suppose that
Nature always means you to know exactly how far one thing is from
another? She certainly intends you always to enjoy her colouring, but
she does not wish you always to measure her space. You would be hard put
to it, every time you painted the sun setting, if you had to express his
95,000,000 miles of distance in "aerial perspective."
There is, however, I think, one law about distance, which has some
claims to be considered a constant one: namely, that dullness and
heaviness of colour are more or less indicative of nearness. All distant
colour is _pure_ colour: it may not be bright, but it is clear and
lovely, not opaque nor soiled; for the air and light coming between us
and any earthy or imperfect colour, purify or harmonise it; hence a bad
colourist is peculiarly incapable of expressing distance. I do not of
course mean that you are to use bad colours in your foreground by way of
making it come forward; but only that a failure in colour, there, will
not put it out of its place; while a failure in colour in the distance
will at once do away with its remoteness: your dull-coloured foreground
will still be a foreground, though ill-painted; but your ill-painted
distance will not be merely a dull distance,--it will be no distance at
all.
I have only one thing more to advise you, namely, never to colour
petulantly or hurriedly. You will not, indeed, be able, if you attend
properly to your colouring, to get anything like the quantity of form
you could in a chiaroscuro sketch; nevertheless, if you do not dash or
rush at your work, nor do it lazily, you may always get enough form to
be satisfactory. An extra quarter of an hour, distributed in quietness
over the course of the whole study, may just make the difference
between a quite intelligible drawing, and a slovenly and obscure one. If
you determine well beforehand what outline each piece of colour is to
have; and, when it is on the paper, guide it without nervousness, as far
as you can, into the form required; and then, after it is dry, consider
thoroughly what touches are needed to complete it, before laying one of
them on; you will be surprised to find how masterly the work will soon
look, as compared with a hurried or ill-considered sketch. In no process
that I know of--least of all in sketching--can time be really gained by
precipitation. It is gained only by caution; and gained in all sorts of
ways: for not only truth of form, but force of light, is always added by
an intelligent and shapely laying of the shadow colours. You may often
make a simple flat tint, rightly gradated and edged, express a
complicated piece of subject without a single retouch. The two Swiss
cottages, for instance, with their balconies, and glittering windows,
and general character of shingly eaves, are expressed in Fig. 30., with
one tint of grey, and a few dispersed spots and lines of it; all of
which you ought to be able to lay on without more than thrice dipping
your brush, and without a single touch after the tint is dry.
Here, then, for I cannot without coloured illustrations tell you more, I
must leave you to follow out the subject for yourself, with such help as
you may receive from the water-colour drawings accessible to you; or
from any of the little treatises on their art which have been published
lately by our water-colour painters.[244] But do not trust much to works
of this kind. You may get valuable hints from them as to mixture of
colours; and here and there you will find a useful artifice or process
explained; but nearly all such books are written only to help idle
amateurs to a meretricious skill, and they are full of precepts and
principles which may, for the most part, be interpreted by their
_precise_ negatives, and then acted upon, with advantage. Most of them
praise boldness, when the only safe attendant spirit of a beginner is
caution;--advise velocity, when the first condition of success is
deliberation;--and plead for generalisation, when all the foundations of
power must be laid in knowledge of specialty.
And now, in the last place, I have a few things to tell you respecting
that dangerous nobleness of consummate art,--COMPOSITION. For though it
is quite unnecessary for you yet awhile to attempt it, and it _may_ be
inexpedient for you to attempt it at all, you ought to know what it
means, and to look for and enjoy it in the art of others.
Composition means, literally and simply, putting several things
together, so as to make _one_ thing out of them; the nature and goodness
of which they all have a share in producing. Thus a musician composes an
air, by putting notes together in certain relations; a poet composes a
poem; by putting thoughts and words in pleasant order; and a painter a
picture, by putting thoughts, forms, and colours in pleasant order.
In all these cases, observe, an intended unity must be the result of
composition. A paviour cannot be said to compose the heap of stones
which he empties from his cart, nor the sower the handful of seed which
he scatters from his hand. It is the essence of composition that
everything should be in a determined place, perform an intended part,
and act, in that part, advantageously for everything that is connected
with it.
Composition, understood in this pure sense, is the type, in the arts of
mankind, of the Providential government of the world.[245] It is an
exhibition, in the order given to notes, or colours, or forms, of the
advantage of perfect fellowship, discipline, and contentment. In a
well-composed air, no note, however short or low, can be spared, but the
least is as necessary as the greatest: no note, however prolonged, is
tedious; but the others prepare for, and are benefited by, its duration;
no note, however high, is tyrannous; the others prepare for and are
benefited by, its exaltation: no note, however low, is overpowered, the
others prepare for, and sympathise with, its humility: and the result
is, that each and every note has a value in the position assigned to it,
which by itself, it never possessed, and of which by separation from the
others, it would instantly be deprived.
Similarly, in a good poem, each word and thought enhances the value of
those which precede and follow it; and every syllable has a loveliness
which depends not so much on its abstract sound as on its position. Look
at the same word in a dictionary, and you will hardly recognise it.
Much more in a great picture; every line and colour is so arranged as to
advantage the rest. None are inessential, however slight; and none are
independent, however forcible. It is not enough that they truly
represent natural objects; but they must fit into certain places, and
gather into certain harmonious groups: so that, for instance, the red
chimney of a cottage is not merely set in its place as a chimney, but
that it may affect, in a certain way pleasurable to the eye, the pieces
of green or blue in other parts of the picture; and we ought to see that
the work is masterly, merely by the positions and quantities of these
patches of green, red, and blue, even at a distance which renders it
perfectly impossible to determine what the colours represent: or to see
whether the red is a chimney, or an old woman's cloak; and whether the
blue is smoke, sky, or water.
It seems to be appointed, in order to remind us, in all we do, of the
great laws of Divine government and human polity, that composition in
the arts should strongly affect every order of mind, however unlearned
or thoughtless. Hence the popular delight in rhythm and metre, and in
simple musical melodies. But it is also appointed that _power_ of
composition in the fine arts should be an exclusive attribute of great
intellect All men can more or less copy what they see, and, more or
less, remember it: powers of reflection and investigation are also
common to us all, so that the decision of inferiority in these rests
only on questions of _degree_. A. has a better memory than B., and C.
reflects more profoundly than D. But the gift of composition is not
given _at all_ to more than one man in a thousand; in its highest range,
it does not occur above three or four times in a century.
It follows, from these general truths, that it is impossible to give
rules which will enable you to compose. You might much more easily
receive rules to enable you to be witty. If it were possible to be witty
by rule, wit would cease to be either admirable or amusing: if it were
possible to compose melody by rule, Mozart and Cimarosa need not have
been born: if it were possible to compose pictures by rule, Titian and
Veronese would be ordinary men. The essence of composition lies
precisely in the fact of its being unteachable, in its being the
operation of an individual mind of range and power exalted above others.
But though no one can _invent_ by rule, there are some simple laws of
arrangement which it is well for you to know, because, though they will
not enable you to produce a good picture, they will often assist you to
set forth what goodness may be in your work in a more telling way than
you could have done otherwise; and by tracing them in the work of good
composers, you may better understand the grasp of their imagination, and
the power it possesses over their materials I shall briefly state the
chief of these laws.
1. THE LAW OF PRINCIPALITY.
The great object of composition being always to secure unity; that is,
to make out of many things one whole; the first mode in which this can
be effected is, by determining that _one_ feature shall be more
important than all the rest, and that the others shall group with it in
subordinate positions.
This is the simplest law of ordinary ornamentation. Thus the group of
two leaves, _a_, Fig. 31., is unsatisfactory, because it has no leading
leaf; but that at _b_ _is_ prettier, because it has a head or master
leaf; and _c_ more satisfactory still, because the subordination of the
other members to this head leaf is made more manifest by their gradual
loss of size as they fall back from it. Hence part of the pleasure we
have in the Greek honeysuckle ornament, and such others.
Thus, also, good pictures have always one light larger or brighter than
the other lights, or one figure more prominent than the other figures,
or one mass of colour dominant over all the other masses; and in general
you will find it much benefit your sketch if you manage that there shall
be one light on the cottage wall, or one blue cloud in the sky, which
may attract the eye as leading light, or leading gloom, above all
others. But the observance of the rule is often so cunningly concealed
by the great composers, that its force is hardly at first traceable; and
you will generally find that they are vulgar pictures in which the law