The Crown of Wild Olive
tiles being seen on their slopes. Both these groups being couples, there
is enough monotony in the series to make a change pleasant; and the last
battlement, therefore, is a little higher than the first two,--a little
lower than the second two,--and different in shape from either. Hide it
with your finger, and see how ugly and formal the other four battlements
look.
There are in this figure several other simple illustrations of the laws
we have been tracing. Thus the whole shape of the wall's mass being
square, it is well, still for the sake of contrast, to oppose it not
only by the element of curvature, in the ring, and lines of the roof
below, but by that of sharpness; hence the pleasure which the eye takes
in the projecting point of the roof. Also because the walls are thick
and sturdy, it is well to contrast their strength with weakness;
therefore we enjoy the evident decrepitude of this roof as it sinks
between them. The whole mass being nearly white, we want a contrasting
shadow somewhere; and get it, under our piece of decrepitude. This
shade, with the tiles of the wall below, forms another pointed mass,
necessary to the first by the law of repetition. Hide this inferior
angle with your finger, and see how ugly the other looks. A sense of the
law of symmetry, though you might hardly suppose it, has some share in
the feeling with which you look at the battlements; there is a certain
pleasure in the opposed slopes of their top, on one side down to the
left, on the other to the right. Still less would you think the law of
radiation had anything to do with the matter: but if you take the
extreme point of the black shadow on the left for a centre and follow
first the low curve of the eaves of the wall, it will lead you, if you
continue it, to the point of the tower cornice; follow the second curve,
the top of the tiles of the wall, and it will strike the top of the
right-hand battlement; then draw a curve from the highest point of the
angle battlement on the left, through the points of the roof and its
dark echo; and you will see how the whole top of the tower radiates from
this lowest dark point. There are other curvatures crossing these main
ones, to keep them from being too conspicuous. Follow the curve of the
upper roof, it will take you to the top of the highest battlement; and
the stones indicated at the right-hand side of the tower are more
extended at the bottom, in order to get some less direct expression of
sympathy, such as irregular stones may be capable of, with the general
flow of the curves from left to right.
You may not readily believe, at first, that all these laws are indeed
involved in so trifling a piece of composition. But as you study longer,
you will discover that these laws, and many more, are obeyed by the
powerful composers in every _touch_: that literally, there is never a
dash of their pencil which is not carrying out appointed purposes of
this kind in twenty various ways at once; and that there is as much
difference, in way of intention and authority, between one of the great
composers ruling his colours, and a common painter confused by them, as
there is between a general directing the march of an army, and an old
lady carried off her feet by a mob.
7. THE LAW OF INTERCHANGE.
Closely connected with the law of contrast is a law which enforces the
unity of opposite things, by giving to each a portion of the character
of the other. If, for instance, you divide a shield into two masses of
colour, all the way down--suppose blue and white, and put a bar, or
figure of an animal, partly on one division, partly on the other, you
will find it pleasant to the eye if you make the part of the animal blue
which comes upon the white half, and white which comes upon the blue
half. This is done in heraldry, partly for the sake of perfect
intelligibility, but yet more for the sake of delight in interchange of
colour, since, in all ornamentation whatever, the practice is
continual, in the ages of good design.
Sometimes this alternation is merely a reversal of contrasts; as that,
after red has been for some time on one side, and blue on the other, red
shall pass to blue's side and blue to red's. This kind of alternation
takes place simply in four-quartered shields; in more subtle pieces of
treatment, a little bit only of each colour is carried into the other,
and they are as it were dovetailed together. One of the most curious
facts which will impress itself upon you, when you have drawn some time
carefully from Nature in light and shade, is the appearance of
intentional artifice with which contrasts of this alternate kind are
produced by her; the artistry with which she will darken a tree trunk as
long as it comes against light sky, and throw sunlight on it precisely
at the spot where it comes against a dark hill, and similarly treat all
her masses of shade and colour, is so great, that if you only follow her
closely, every one who looks at your drawing with attention will think
that you have been inventing the most artifically and unnaturally
delightful interchanges of shadow that could possibly be devised by
human wit.
You will find this law of interchange insisted upon at length by Prout
in his "Lessons on Light and Shade:" it seems, of all his principles of
composition, to be the one he is most conscious of; many others he obeys
by instinct, but this he formally accepts and forcibly declares.
The typical purpose of the law of interchange is, of course, to teach us
how opposite natures may be helped and strengthened by receiving each,
as far as they can, some impress or imparted power, from the other.
8. THE LAW OF CONSISTENCY.
It is to be remembered, in the next place, that while contrast exhibits
the _characters_ of things, it very often neutralises or paralyses their
_power_. A number of white things may be shown to be clearly white by
opposition of a black thing, but if you want the full power of their
gathered light, the black thing may be seriously in our way. Thus, while
contrast displays things, it is unity and sympathy which employ them,
concentrating the power of several into a mass. And, not in art merely,
but in all the affairs of life, the wisdom of man is continually called
upon to reconcile these opposite methods of exhibiting, or using, the
materials in his power. By change he gives them pleasantness, and by
consistency value; by change he is refreshed, and by perseverence
strengthened.
Hence many compositions address themselves to the spectator by aggregate
force of colour or line, more than by contrasts of either; many noble
pictures are painted almost exclusively in various tones of red, or
grey, or gold, so as to be instantly striking by their breadth of flush,
or glow, or tender coldness, these qualities being exhibited only by
slight and subtle use of contrast. Similarly as to form; some
compositions associate massive and rugged forms, others slight and
graceful ones, each with few interruptions by lines of contrary
character. And, in general, such compositions possess higher sublimity
than those which are more mingled in their elements. They tell a special
tale, and summon a definite state of feeling, while the grand
compositions merely please the eye.
This unity or breadth of character generally attaches most to the works
of the greatest men; their separate pictures have all separate aims. We
have not, in each, grey colour set against sombre, and sharp forms
against soft, and loud passages against low; but we have the bright
picture, with its delicate sadness; the sombre picture, with its single
ray of relief; the stern picture, with only one tender group of lines;
the soft and calm picture, with only one rock angle at its flank; and so
on. Hence the variety of their work, as well as its impressiveness. The
principal bearing of this law, however, is on the separate masses or
divisions of a picture: the character of the whole composition may be
broken or various, if we please, but there must certainly be a tendency
to consistent assemblage in its divisions. As an army may act on several
points at once, but can only act effectually by having somewhere formed
and regular masses, and not wholly by skirmishers; so a picture may be
various in its tendencies, but must be somewhere united and coherent in
its masses. Good composers are always associating their colours in great
groups; binding their forms together by encompassing lines, and
securing, by various dexterities of expedient, what they themselves call
"breadth:" that is to say, a large gathering of each kind of thing into
one place; light being gathered to light, darkness to darkness, and
colour to colour. If, however, this be done by introducing false lights
or false colours, it is absurd and monstrous; the skill of a painter
consists in obtaining breadth by rational arrangement of his objects,
not by forced or wanton treatment of them. It is an easy matter to paint
one thing all white, and another all black or brown; but not an easy
matter to assemble all the circumstances which will naturally produce
white in one place, and brown in another. Generally speaking, however,
breadth will result in sufficient degree from fidelity of study: Nature
is always broad; and if you paint her colours in true relations, you
will paint them in majestic masses. If you find your work look broken
and scattered, it is, in all probability, not only ill composed, but
untrue.
The opposite quality to breadth, that of division or scattering of light
and colour, has a certain contrasting charm, and is occasionally
introduced with exquisite effect by good composers.[261] Still, it is
never the mere scattering, but the order discernible through this
scattering, which is the real source of pleasure; not the mere
multitude, but the constellation of multitude. The broken lights in the
work of a good painter wander like flocks upon the hills, not
unshepherded; speaking of life and peace: the broken lights of a bad
painter fall like hailstones, and are capable only of mischief, leaving
it to be wished they were also of dissolution.
9. THE LAW OF HARMONY.
This last law is not, strictly speaking, so much one of composition as
of truth, but it must guide composition, and is properly, therefore, to
be stated in this place.
Good drawing is, as we have seen, an _abstract_ of natural facts; you
cannot represent all that you would, but must continually be falling
short, whether you will or no, of the force, or quantity, of Nature.
Now, suppose that your means and time do not admit of your giving the
depth of colour in the scene, and that you are obliged to paint it
paler. If you paint all the colours proportionately paler, as if an
equal quantity of tint had been washed away from each of them, you still
obtain a harmonious, though not an equally forcible statement of natural
fact. But if you take away the colours unequally, and leave some tints
nearly as deep as they are in Nature, while others are much subdued, you
have no longer a true statement. You cannot say to the observer, "Fancy
all those colours a little deeper, and you will have the actual fact."
However he adds in imagination, or takes away, something is sure to be
still wrong. The picture is out of harmony.
It will happen, however, much more frequently, that you have to darken
the whole system of colours, than to make them paler. You remember, in
your first studies of colour from Nature, you were to leave the passages
of light which were too bright to be imitated, as white paper. But, in
completing the picture, it becomes necessary to put colour into them;
and then the other colours must be made darker, in some fixed relation
to them. If you deepen all proportionately, though the whole scene is