“The painter is a compound of a poet and a man of science.”

“It is working within limits that the artist reveals himself.”

This volume is addressed to three classes of readers; to the layman, to the amateur photographer, and to the professional artist. To the latter it speaks more in the temper of the studio discussion than in the spirit didactic. But, emboldened by the friendliness the profession always exhibits toward any serious word in art, the writer is moved to believe that the matters herein discussed may be found worthy of the artist's attention—perhaps of his question. For that reason the tone here and there is argumentative.

The question of balance has never been reduced to a theory or stated as a set of principles which could be sustained by anything more than example, which, as a working basis must require reconstruction with every change of subject. Other forms of construction have been sifted [pg 12] down in a search for the governing principle,—a substitution for the “rule and example.”

To the student and the amateur, therefore, it must be said this is not a “how-to-do” book. The number of these is legion, especially in painting, known to all students, wherein the matter is didactic and usually set forth with little or no argument. Such volumes are published because of the great demand and are demanded because the student, in his haste, will not stop for principles, and think it out. He will have a rule for each case; and when his direct question has been answered with a principle, he still inquires, “Well, what shall I do here?”

Why preach the golden rule of harmony as an abstraction, when inharmony is the concrete sin to be destroyed. We reach the former by elimination. Whatever commandments this book contains, therefore, are the shalt nots.

As the problems to the maker of pictures by photography are the same as those of the painter and the especial ambition of the former's art is to be painter-like, separations have been thought unnecessary in the address of the text. It is the best wish of the author that photography, following painting in her essential principles as she does, may prove herself a well met companion along art's highway,—seekers together, at arm's length, and in defined limits, of the same goal.

The mention of artists' names has been limited, and a liberal allusion to many works avoided because to multiply them is both confusing and unnecessary.

To the art lover this book may be found of interest as containing the reasons in picture composition, and through them an aid to critical judgment. We adapt our education from quaint and curious sources. It is the apt correlation of the arts which accounts for the acknowledgment by an English story writer that she got her style from Ruskin's “Principles of Drawing”; and of a landscape painter that to sculpture he owed his discernment of the forest secrets, by daily observing the long lines of statues in the corridor of the Royal Academy; or by the composer of pictures to the composer of music; or by the preacher that suggestions to discourse had come to him through the pictorial processes of the painter.

The poet-philosopher Emerson declared that he studied geology that he might better write poetry.

For a moment the two elements of the proposition stand aghast and defiant; but only for a moment. The poet, who from the top looks down upon the whole horizon of things can never use the tone of authority if his gaze be a surface one. He must know things in their depth in order that the glance may be sufficient.

The poet leaves his geology and botany, his grammar and rhetoric on the shelf when he makes his word picture. After he has expressed his thought however he may have occasion to call on the books of science, the grammar and rhetoric and these may very seriously interfere with the spontaneous product. So do the sentries posted on the boundary of the painter's art protect it from the liberties taken in the name of originality.

“The progressive element in our art,” says the author of “The Law of Progress in Art,” “is the scientific element. . . . Artists will not be any more famous for being scientific, but they are [pg 15] compelled to become scientific because they have embraced a profession which includes science. What I desire to enforce is the great truth that within the art of painting there exists, flourishes and advances a noble and glorious science which is essential and progressive.”

“Any one who can learn to write can learn to draw;” and every one who can learn to draw should learn to compose pictures. That all do not is in evidence in the work of the many accomplished draughtsmen who have delineated their ideas on canvas and paper from the time of the earliest masters to the present day, wherein the ability to produce the details of form is manifest in all parts of the work, but in the combination of those parts the first intention of their presence has lost force.

Composition is the science of combination, and the art of the world has progressed as do the processes of the kindergarten. Artists first received form; then color; the materials, then the synthesis of the two. Notable examples of the world's great compositions may be pointed to in the work of the Renaissance painters, and such examples will be cited; but the major portion of the art by which these exceptions were surrounded offers the same proportion of good to bad as the inverse ratio would to-day.

Without turning to serious argument at this point, a superficial one, which will appeal to most art tourists, whether professional or lay, is found in the relief experienced in passing from the galleries of the old to those of the new art [pg 16] in Europe, in that one finds repose and experiences a relief of mental tension, discovering with the latter the balance of line, of mass and of color, and that general simplicity so necessary to harmony, which suggests that the weakness of the older art lay in the last of the three essentials of painting; form, color and composition. The low-toned harmonies of time-mellowed color we would be loath to exchange for aught else, except for that element of disturbance so vague and so difficult of definition, namely, lack of composition.

In the single case of portrait composition of two figures (more difficult than of one, three or more) it is worthy of note how far beyond the older are the later masters; or in the case of the grouping of landscape elements, or in the arrangement of figures or animals in landscape, how a finer sense in such arrangement has come to art. Masterful composition of many figures however has never been surpassed in certain examples of Michael Angelo, Rubens, Corregio and the great Venetians, yet while we laud the successes of these men we should not forget their lapses nor the errors in composition of their contemporaries.

Those readers who have been brought up in the creed and catechism of the old masters, and swallowed them whole, with no questions, I beg will lay aside traditional prejudice, and regarding every work with reference to neither name nor date, challenge it only with the countersign “good composition.” This will require an [pg 17] unsentimental view, which need not and should not be an unsympathetic one, but which would bare the subject of that which overzealous devotion has bestowed upon it, a compound accumulation of centuries.

The most serious work yet written on composition, Burnet's “Light and Shade,” was penned at a time when the influence of old masters held undisputed sway. The thought of that day in syllogism would run as follows: The work of the Old Masters in its composition is beyond reproach. Botticelli, Raphael, Paul Potter, Wouvermans, Cuyp, Domenichino, Dürer, Teniers et al., are Old Masters. Therefore, we accept their works as models of good composition, to be followed for all ages. And under such a creed a work valuable from many points of view has been crippled by its free use of models, which in some cases compromise the arguments of the author, and in others, if used by artists of the present day, would only serve to administer a rebuke to their simple trust, in that practical manner known to juries, hanging committees and publishers.

The slight advance made in the field of painting during the past three centuries has come through this channel, and strange would it seem if the striving of this long period should show no improvement in any direction.

Composition is the mortar of the wall, as drawing and color are its rocks of defence. Without it the stones are of little value, and are but separate integrals having no unity. If the [pg 19] reader agrees with this, then he agrees to throw out of the category of the picture all pictorial representations which show no composition. This classification eliminates most of the illustrations of scientific work; such illustrations as aim only at facts of incident, space or topography, photographic reproductions of groups wherein each individual is shown to be quite as important as every other, and which, therefore, become a collection of separate pictures, and such illustrations as are frequently met with in the daily papers, where opportunities for picture-making have been diverted to show where the victim fell, and where the murderer escaped, or where the man drowned—usually designated by a star. These are not pictures, but perspective maps to locate events. Besides these, in the field of painting, are to be found now and then products of an artist's skill which, though interesting in technique and color, give little pleasure to a well-balanced mind, destitute as they are of the simple principles which govern the universe of matter. Take from nature the principles of balance, and you deprive it of harmony; take from it harmony and you have chaos.

A picture may have as its component parts a man, a horse, a tree, a fence, a road and a mountain; but these thrown together upon canvas do not make a picture; and not, indeed, until they have been arranged or composed.

The argument, therefore, is that without composition, there can be no picture; that the [pg 20] composition of pictorial units into a whole is the picture.

Simple as its principles are, it is amazing, one might almost say amusing, to note how easily they eluded many artists of the earlier periods, whose work technically is valuable, and how the new school of Impressionism or Naturalism has assumed their non-importance. That all Impressionists do not agree with the following is evidenced by the good that comes to us with their mark,—“Opposed to the miserable law of composition, symmetry, balance, arrangement of parts, filling of space, as though Nature herself does not do that ten thousand times better in her own pretty way.” The assertion that composition is a part of Nature's law, that it is done by her and well done we are glad to hear in the same breath of invective that seeks to annihilate it. When, under this curse we take from our picture one by one the elements on which it is builded, the result we would be able to present without offence to the author of “Naturalistic Painting,” Mr. Francis Bate.

“The artist,” says Mr. Whistler, “is born to pick, and choose, and group with science these elements, that the result may be beautiful—as the musician gathers his notes and forms his chords until he brings forth from chaos glorious harmony. To say to the painter that Nature is to be taken, as she is, is to say to the player that he may sit on the piano. That Nature is always right is an assertion artistically, as untrue as it is one whose truth is universally taken for [pg 21] granted. Nature is very rarely right to such an extent, even, that it might almost be said that Nature is usually wrong; that is to say, the condition of things that shall bring about the perfection of harmony worthy a picture is rare, and not common at all.”

Between the life class, with its model standing in academic pose and the pictured scene in which the model becomes a factor in the expression of an idea, there is a great gulf fixed. The precept of the ateliers is paint the figure; if you can do that, you can paint anything.

Influenced by this half truth many a student, with years of patient life school training behind him, has sought to enter the picture-making stage with a single step. He then discovers that what he had learned to do cleverly by means of routine practice, was in reality the easiest thing to do in the manufacture of a picture, and that sterner difficulties awaited him in his settlement of the figure into its surroundings—background and foreground.1

Many portrait painters assert that it is the setting of the subject which gives them the most trouble. The portraitist deals with but a single figure, yet this, in combination with its scanty support, provokes this well-known comment.

The lay community cannot understand this. [pg 22] It seems illogical. It can only be comprehended by him who paints.

The figure is tangible and represents the known. The background is a space opened into the unknown, a place for the expressions of fancy. It is the tone quality accompanying the song, the subject's reliance for balance and contrast. An inquiry into the statement that the accessories of the subject demand a higher degree of artistic skill than the painting of the subject itself, and that on these accessories depend the carrying power of the subject, leads directly to the principles of composition.

“It must of necessity be,” says Sir Joshua Reynolds, “that even works of genius, like every other effect, as they must have their cause, must also have their rules; it cannot be by chance that excellencies are produced with any constancy or any certainty, for this is not the nature of chance; but the rules by which men of extraordinary parts, and such as are called men of genius, work, are either such as they discover by their own peculiar observations, or of such a nice texture as not easily to admit being expressed in words, especially as artists are not very frequently skillful in that mode of communicating ideas. Unsubstantial, however, as these rules may seem, and difficult as it may be to convey them in writing, they are still seen and felt in the mind of the artist; and he works from them with as much certainty as if they were embodied upon paper. It is true these refined principles cannot always be made palpable, as the more [pg 23] gross rules of art; yet it does not follow but that the mind may be put in such a train that it still perceives by a kind of scientific sense that propriety which words, particularly words of impractical writers, such as we are, can but very feebly suggest.”

Science has to do wholly with truth, Art with both truth and beauty; but in arranging a precedence she puts beauty first.

Our regard for the science of composition is acknowledged when, after having enjoyed the painter's work from the art side alone, the science of its structure begins to appear. Instead of the concealment of art by art it is the suppression of the science end of art that takes our cunning.

“The picture which looks most like nature to the uninitiated,” says a clever writer, “will probably show the most attention to the rules of the artist.”

Ten years ago the writer took part in an after-dinner discussion at the American Art Association of Paris over the expression “the rules of composition.” A number of artists joined in the debate, all giving their opinion without premeditation. Some maintained that the principles of composition were nothing more than aesthetic taste and judgment, applied by a painter of experience.

Others, with less beggary of the question, affirmed that the principles were negative rather than positive. They warned the artist rather than instructed him; and, if rules were to [pg 24] follow principles, they were rules concerning what should not be done. The epitome of the debate was that composition was like salt, in the definition of the small boy, who declared that salt is what makes things taste bad when you don't put any on.

The Classic Scales—equal weights on even arms, the controlling idea of decorative composition.

A later notion of balance—the Steelyard, a small weight on the long arm of the fulcrum, admitting great range in the placement of balancing measures.

The Scales or Steelyard in perspective, developing the notion of balance through the depth of a picture discoverable over a fulcrum or neutral space.

Of all pictorial principles none compares in importance with Unity or Balance.

“Why all this intense striving, this struggle to a finish,” said George Inness, as, at the end of a long day, he flung himself exhausted upon his lounge, “but an effort to obtain unity, unity.”

The observer of an artist at work will notice that he usually stands at his easel and views his picture at varied distances, that he looks at it over his shoulder, that he reverses it in a mirror, that he turns it upside down at times, that he develops it with dots or spots of color here and there, points of accent carefully placed and oft-times changed.

What is the meaning of this thoughtful weighing of parts in the slowly-growing mosaic, but that he labors under the restraint of a law which he feels compelled to obey and the breaking of which would cause anguish to his esthetic sense. The law under which his striving proceeds is the fundamental one of balance, and the critical artist obeys it whether he be the maker of vignettes for a newspaper, or the painter who declares for color only, or the man who tries hard to produce naivete by discarding composition. The test to which the sensitive eye [pg 26] subjects every picture from whatsoever creed or camp it comes is balance or equipoise, judgment being rendered without thought of the law. After the picture has been left as finished, why does an artist often feel impelled to create an accent on this side or weaken an obtrusive one on the other side of his canvas if not working under a law of balance?

Let any picture be taken which has lived long enough before the public to be considered good by every one; or take a dozen or more such and add others by artists who declare against composition and yet have produced good pictures; subject all these to the following simple test: Find the actual centre of the picture and pass a vertical and horizontal line through it. The vertical division is the more important, as the natural balance is on the lateral sides of a central support. It will be found that the actual centre of the canvas is also the actual pivot or centre of the picture, and around such a point the various components group themselves, pulling and hauling and warring in their claim for attention, the satisfactory picture showing as much design of balance on one side of the centre as the other, and the picture complete in balance displaying this equipoise above and below the horizontal line.

Now, in order that what seems at first glance an exclusive statement may be understood, the reader should realize that every item of a picture has a certain positive power, as though each object were a magnet of given potency. Each has attraction for the eye, therefore each, [pg 27] while obtaining attention for itself, establishes proportional detraction for every other part. On the principle of the steelyard, the farther from the centre and more isolated an object is, the greater its weight or attraction. Therefore, in the balance of a picture it will be found that a very important object placed but a short distance from the centre may be balanced by a very small object on the other side of the centre and further removed from it. The whole of the pictorial interest may be on one side of a picture and the other side be practically useless as far as picturesqueness or story-telling opportunity is concerned, but which finds its reason for existing in the balance, and that alone.

In the emptiness of the opposing half such a picture, when completely in balance, will have some bit of detail or accent which the eye in its circular, symmetrical inspection will catch, unconsciously, and weave into its calculation of balance; or if not an object or accent or line of attraction, then some technical quality, or spiritual quality, such, for example, as a strong feeling of gloom, or depth for penetration, light or dark, a place in fact, for the eye to dwell upon as an important part in connection with the subject proper, and recognized as such.

But, the querist demands, if all the subject is on one side of the centre and the other side depends for its existence on a balancing space or accent only, why not cut it off? Do so. Then you will have the entire subject in one-half the space to be sure, but its harmony or balance will [pg 28] depend on the equipoise when pivoted in the new centre.

The artist gets his picture from two sources. He either goes forth and finds it, or creates it. If he creates it the work is deliberate, and the artist assumes responsibility. If he goes to nature, he and nature form a partnership, she supplying the material and he the experience. In editing the material thus supplied, the artist discovers how great is the disparity between art and nature, and what a disproof nature herself is to the common notion that art is mirrored nature, and that any part of her drawn or painted will make a picture.

The first stage of the art collector is that in which his admiration dwells on imitation such as the still-life painter gives him, but soon his art sense craves an expression with thought in it, the imitation, brow-beaten into its proper place and the creative instinct of the artist visible. In other words, he seeks the constructive sense of the man who paints the picture. “The work of art is an appeal to another mind, and it cannot draw out more than that mind contains. But to enjoy is, as it were, to create; to understand is a form of equality.”8 With the horse before the cart and the artist holding the reins, he gets a [pg 64] fresh start, and is in a fair way to comprehend Richard Wagner's assertion that you cannot have art without the man. In the same manner does the student usually develop. With the book of nature before him he is eager to sit down anywhere and read, attracted by each separate item of the vast pattern, but he finds he has opened nature's dictionary and that to make poetry or even good prose he must put the separate words and phrases together.

After the first roll of films has been printed and brooded over, the kodac person is apt to ask in a tone of injured and deceived innocence, “Well, what does make a picture?”

He with others has supposed it possible to go to nature and, taking nothing with him, bring something back. Though one does not set out with the rules of composition, he must at least present himself before nature with fixed notions of the few requirements which all pictures demand. Having looked at a counterfeit of her within four sides of a frame and learned to know why a limited section of her satisfied him by its completeness he approaches her out of doors with greater prospects of success than though he had not settled this point. Good art, of the gallery, is the best guide to a trip afield. Having seen what elements and what arrangements have proved available in the hands of other men, the student will not go astray if he seek like forms in nature. Armed with defininite convictions he will see, through her bewildering meshes the faithful lines he needs. The star gazer with a [pg 65] quest for the constellations of the Pleiades or the Great Bear, must close his eyes to many irrelevant stars which do not fit the figure. Originality does not require the avoidance of principles used by others. Pictorial forms are world's property. Originality only demands “the causing to pass into our own work a personal view of the world and of life.”9 Personality in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred is a graft. The forms of artistic expression have been preempted long ago. The men who had the first chances secured the truest forms of it and in a running glance through a miscellaneous collection of prints one's attention is invariably arrested by the force of the pictures by the older masters; so dominating is the first impression that we concede the case upon the basis of effect before discovering the many obstacles and omissions counting against their greater efficiency. But the essence is of the living sort. With this conceded and the fact that nature's appeal is always strongest when made through association with man it is for us to cultivate these associations.

“Study nature attentively,” says Reynolds, “but always with the masters in your company; consider them as models which you are to imitate, and at the same time as rivals, with whom you are to contend.”

A wise teacher has said the quickest road to originality is through the absorption of other men's ideas.

Before going forth therefore with a canvas or [pg 66] plate holder, it behooves us first to know what art is. Certainly the most logical step from the study of constructive form is through the practical technique of work which we would emulate. To copy interpretations of outdoor nature by others is commendable either at the experimental period, when looking for a technique, or as an appreciation.

Besides this mental preparation, the next best equipment for finding pictures is a Claude Lorraine glass, because, being a convex mirror, it shows a reduced image of nature in a frame. The frame is important not only because it designates the limitations of a picture, but because it cuts it free from the abstracting details which surround it. If one has not such a glass, a series of small pasteboard frames will answer. The margin should be wide enough to allow the eye to rest without disturbance upon the open space. Two rectangular pieces that may be pushed together from top or side is probably the most complete device. The proportion of the frame is therefore adaptable to the subject and the picture may be cut off top, bottom or sides as, demanded.

Many artists reduce all subjects to two or three sizes, which they habitually paint. The view-meter may in such cases be further simplified by using a stiff cardboard with such proportions cut out. By having them all on a single board a subject may be more rapidly tested than by the device of the collapsible sides. A light board, the thickness of a cigar-box cover, 4×5 inches, [pg 67] and easily carried in the pocket, will enable one to land his subject in his canvas exactly as he wants it, and avoid the grievance of reconstruction later. By leaving a broad margin about the openings, one obtains the impression of a picture in its mat or frame, and may judge of it in nature as he will after regard it when completed and on exhibition.

The accompanying photograph was produced by a revolving camera encompassing an area of 120 degrees. As a composition it is not bad, but unfortunate here and there. It has a well-defined centre, and the two sides balance well, the left clogging the vision and thus giving way to the right, which allows the eye to pass out of the picture on this side beyond the fountain and across the stretch of sunlight. At a glance, however, one may see three complete pictures, and with the aid of the view-meter a number of other combinations may be developed. Its construction is that of Hobbema's “Alley near Middelharnes,” in the National Gallery, London, of so pronounced formality that a number of such construction in a gallery, would prove monotonous.

Beginning on the left, we may apply the view-meter first to exclude the unnecessary branch forms and sky space on the top; second, to cut away the tree on the right, which, in that it parallels the line of the margin, is objectionable, and is rendered unnecessary as a side for the picture by the two trees beyond in the middle plane; and, third, to limit the extent of the picture on [pg 69] the bottom, tending as it does to force the spectator back and away from the subject proper. The interest is divided between the white building and rustic bridge and the pivot of this composition adjusts itself in line with the centre tree. In the next picture the first tree on left of avenue is cut away for the same reason as in the previous arrangement, and although one of a line of trees in perspective, the trunk as an item is unserviceable, as its branches start above the point where the top line occurs, and can therefore render no assistance in destroying an absolute vertical as has been done in the left tree by the bifurcation, and the first on the right by the encroaching masses of leaves. The eye follows the receding lines of roadway beneath the canopy and is led out of the picture by the light above the hill. The last arrangement is more formal than either of the others but gives us the good old form of composition frequently adopted by Turner, Rousseau, Dupré, and others, namely of designing an encasement for the subject proper, through which to view it. For that reason after the arch overhead has been secured all else above is cut away as useless. The print has been cut a little on the right, as by this means the foreground tree is placed nearer that side and also because the extra space allowed too free an escapement of the eye through this portal, the natural focus of course being the fountain where the eye should rest at once. It has been cut on the bottom so as to exclude the line where the road and the grass meet—an [pg 69] especially bad line, paralleling the bottom of the picture and line of shadow upon the grass. This shadow is valuable as completing the encasement of the subject on the bottom and in starting the eye well into the picture toward its subject.

Our natural vision always seeks the light. Shadows are the carum cushions from which the sight recoils in its quest for this. Letting the eye into the picture over a foreground of subdued interest, or better still, of no interest is one of the most time-honored articles of the picture-maker's creed. If the reader will compare the first and last of these three compositions he will see how in this respect the first loses and the last gains. The element of the shaded foreground in the first was cut out in preserving a better placement for the subject proper, which lay beyond.

The photographer comes upon a group of cows. “Trees, cattle, light and shade—a picture surely!” Fearful of disturbing the cows he exposes at a distance, then stalks them, trying again with a different point of sight and, having joined them and waited for their confidence, makes the third attempt. On developing, the first one reveals the string-like line of road cutting the picture from end to end, the cattle as isolated spots, the tree dividing the sky space into almost equal parts. In the second, the lower branch of tree blocks the sky and on the other side there is a natural window, opening an exit into the distance. This is desirable but unfortunately the bending roadway on the right [pg 72] accomplishes the same purpose and so two exits are offered, always objectionable. With this out, the value of the rock and foreground cow is also better appreciated as leading spots taking us to the natural focus, the white cow lying close to the tree. The rock in left corner having no influence in a leading line should be suppressed. The cattle now swing into the picture from both sides and one of them opposes the horizontal of her back to the vertical of the tree, thus easing the force of its descent.

In the last there is much more concentration. The road does not parallel the bottom and though passing out of the picture the vision is brought back again along the distant line of trees. The objection to this arrangement lies in the equal division of the subject by the tree-trunk. The white cow focalizes the vision but the sky and the more graceful branches soon capture it. The cow in the right foreground is only valuable as an oppositional measure to the line of cows stretching across the picture which it helps to divert, otherwise she carries too much attraction to the side.

The best arrangement for the subject would have been the tree one-third from the left side, the white cow touching its line, one or two of those lying on the ground working toward the foreground in a zigzag, little or no diversion from the distance on the left of tree. The swing of the picture would then have been from the foreground to the focus, the white cow and tree, thence to the group under the tree and out [pg 73] through the sky. This would have divided the picture-plane into thirds instead of halves, bringing it into the form elsewhere recommended as being the arrangement of Claude's best pictures.

The entrance into a picture and obstacles thereto, as applied to landscape, has already been considered, from which it is evident that wisdom renders this as easy as possible for the vision, not only negatively, but through positive means as well. An obstruction through which penetration must be forced, diverting the attention, is like the person who claims us when we are trying to listen to someone else.

When in nature we observe a scene that naturally fits a frame and we find ourselves gazing first at one object and then at another and returning again to the first, we may be sure it will make a picture.

But when we are tempted to turn, in the inspection of the whole horizon (though this be circular observation), it proves we have not found a picture. Our picture, on canvas, must fit an arc of sixty degrees. The other thing is a panorama. The principle is contained in the illustration of the athletes. This picture has the fascination of a continuous performance and so in degree should every picture have.

In the foreground, or figure subject the same principles apply. The main point is to capture [pg 85] the observer's interest with the theme, which to his mental processes shall unfold according to the artist's plan. With twenty objects to present, which one on the chessboard of your picture shall take precedence and which shall stand next in importance, and which shall have a limited influence, and which, like the pawns, shall serve as little more than the added thoughts in the game?

In “The Slaying of the Unpropitious Messengers,” a picture of great power and truly sublime in the simplicity of its dramatic expression, the vision falls without hesitation on the figure of Pharaoh, easily passing over the three prostrate forms in the immediate foreground. These might have diverted the attention and weakened the subject had not they been skillfully played for second place. Their backs have been turned, their faces covered, and, though three to one, the single figure reigns supreme. Note how they are made to guide the eye toward him and into the picture and discover in the other lines of the picture an intention toward the same end, the staircase, the river, the mountain, the angular contour of the portico behind tying with the nearer roof projection and making a broken stairway from the left-hand upper corner. See, again, the lines of the canopy composing a special frame for the master figure.

Suppose a reconstruction of this composition. Behold the slain messengers shaken into less recumbent and more tragic attitudes, arranged along the foreplane of the picture; let all the [pg 88] leading lines be reversed; make them antagonistic to the principles upon which the picture was constructed. The subject indeed will have been preserved and the story illustrated, but the following points will be lost and nothing gained: A central dominating point of interest; the disparity between monarch and slave; the sentiment of repose and quietude suggested by a starlit night and the coordination of recumbent lines; the pathos of the lonely vigil, with the gaze of the single figure strained and fixed upon, the distant horizon whence he may expect the remnants of his shattered army.

The artist's first conception of this subject was doubtless that of a pyramid; the head of Pharaoh is the apex and the slaves the base and side lines. The other lines were arranged in part to draw away from this apparent and very common form of composition. One has but to look through a list of notable pictures to find evidence of the very frequent use of these concentric lines drawing the vision from the lower corners of the picture to an apex of the pyramid.

Now, herein lies the analogy between the simplest form of landscape construction and the foreground or figure subject. The framework of both is the pyramid, or what is termed the structure of physical stability. In the landscape the pyramid lies on its side, the apex receding. It is the custom of some figure painters to construct entirely in pyramids, the smaller items of the picture resolving themselves into minor pyramids. In the single figure picture—the portrait, [pg 89] standing or sitting—the pyramidal form annihilates the spaces on either side of the figure, which, paralleling both the sides and the frame, would leave long quadrilaterals in place of diminishing segments.

Whether the pyramid is in perspective or one described on the foreplane of a picture, the principle is, leading lines should carry the eye into the picture or toward the subject, a point touched upon in the preceding chapter.

When reverie begins in a picture, one's vision involuntarily makes a circuit of the items presented, starting at the most interesting and widening in its review toward the circumference, as ring follows ring when a stone is thrown into water. The items of a picture may arrange themselves in elliptical form, and the circuit may bend back into the picture; or the form may be described on a vertical plane, but the circuit should be there, and if two circuits may be formed the reverie will continue that much longer. The outer circuit finished, the vision may return to the centre again. If in a landscape, for instance, the interest of the sky dominates that of the land, the vision will centre there and come out through the foreground, and it is important that the eye have such a course marked out for it, lest, left to itself, it slip away through the sides, and the continuous chain of reverie be broken.

It is interesting to note in what cycles this great wheel of circular observation revolves, directing the slow revolution of our gaze.

In one picture it takes us from the corner of [pg 90] the canvas to the extreme distance and thence in a circuit back; in another it moves on a flat plane like an ellipse in perspective. Again, first catching the eye in the centre, it unfolds like a spiral.

Much of a painter's attention is given to keeping his edges so well guarded that the vision in its circuit may be kept within the canvas. A large proportion of the changes which all pictures pass through in process of construction is stimulated by this consideration—how to stop a wayward eye from getting too near the edge and escaping from the picture. When every practical device has been tried, as a last resource the centre may be strengthened.

In order to settle this point to the student's satisfaction no better proof could be suggested than that he paint in black and white a simple landscape motif, with no attempt to create a focus, with no suppression of the corners and no circuit of objects—a landscape in which ground and sky shall equally divide the interest. He may produce a counterfeit of nature, but the result will rise no higher in the scale of art than a raw print from the unqualified negative in photography. The art begins at that point, and consists in the production of unity, in the establishment of a focus, in the subordination of parts by the establishment of a scale of relative values, and in a continuity of progression from one part to another. The procedure will be somewhat as follows: Decision as to whether the sky or ground shall have right of way; the production [pg 93] of a centre and a suppression of contiguous parts; the feeling after lines which shall convey the eye away from the focal centre and lead it through the picture, a groping for an item, an accent, or something that shall attract the eye away from the corner or side of the picture, where, in following the leading lines, it may have been brought, and back toward the focus again. Here then, will have been described the circuit of which we speak. In the suppression of the corners the same instinct for the elliptical line has been followed, for the composition, by avoiding them, describes itself within the inner space.

A composition in an oval or circle is much more easily realized than one occupying a rectangular space, as the vexing item of the corners has been disposed of, and the reason why these shapes are not popularly used is that hanging committees cannot dispose of them with other pictures. The attempt in the majority of compositions, however, is to fit the picture proper to the fluent lines of the circle or oval. In “Huntsman and Hounds,” a picture which is introduced because the writer is able to speak of points in its construction which these principles necessitated, the pyramidal form of composition is apparent, and around this a circuit is described by the hand, arm, crop, spot on dog's side, elbow of dog's foreleg, line of light on the other dog's breast, the light on table and chair in background—all being points which catch the eye and keep it moving in a circuit. In the first arrangement of this [pg 94] composition a buffet occupied the space given to the indication of chair and table. This did not assist sufficiently in diverting the awkward line from the left shoulder, down the arm, into the dog's head and out of the picture. Judgment here lay between filling the space with the dog's head, which would have separated it too far from the man, or striving to divert it as noted. The space between this line and the side of the canvas was the difficult space of the picture. There is always a rebellious member in every picture, which continues unruly throughout its whole construction, and this one did not settle itself until several arrangements of the part were tried. In order to divert the precipitate line a persistence of horizontals was necessary—the table, the chair and the shadow on the floor. The shadows and the picture on the wall block the top and sides, and the shadow from the fender indicated along the lower edge complete the circuit and weaken the succession of verticals in the legs of dog and man.

Starting with a single idea represented by a single unit the coexistent thought must be the frame or canvas circumference. Supplying this we may then think of the unit as a matter of proportion. When the amount of space allowed the unit has been decided, the space between its circumference and the dimensions of the canvas, or what may be called the surplus or contributing area is the only thing that remains to engage us. Let the unit be a standing figure, or a portrait, head and shoulders.

The unification of a unit, enclosed in four sides, with those sides can only be accomplished by either having the mass of the figure touch the sides of the canvas, or stretch toward them with that intent. According to the strength or number of such points of attachment will the unit be found to maintain a stable existence amid its surroundings. In the case of the single figure standing within the frame where no chance of contact occurs, the background should show an oppositional mass or line attaching at some point the vertical sides of the figure to the sides of the canvas. An equivalent of such a line is a gradation, often the shadow from the figure serving to effect this union. If the shadow unites the outline with the background in such a tone as to subdue or destroy this [pg 133] outline, the attachment becomes stronger and at the same time the positiveness of outline on the light side finds its contrast and balance in this area of mystery and envelopment.

A development by chiaroscuro is a necessity to the pictorial unity of the single figure.

In the portrait of Olga Nethersole (see “The Pose in Portraiture”), the photographer presents the section of a figure; not a picture. The spaces in the background form no scheme with the figure and have not been used to relieve the lines of the skirt. The sacrifice in half-tone of the lower part would have given prominence to the upper and more important part. Owing to the interest and attraction of the triplicated folds of the dress the vision is carried all the way to the lower edge, where it is irritated by the sudden disappearance. The picture has no conclusion. It is simply cut off, and so ended.

It is the opinion of some artists that the portrait having for its purpose the presentation of a personality should contain nothing else. With the feeling that the background is something that should not be seen, more art is often expended in painting a space with nothing in it than in putting something there that may not be seen. In doing nothing with a background a space may be created that says a great deal that it should not.

There is nothing more difficult than the composition of two units especially when both are of equal prominence. The principle of Principality sets its face sternly against the attempt.

One must dominate, either in size, or attraction, either by sentiment or action.

Art can show distinguished examples of two figures of equal importance placed on the same canvas, but pictorially they lack the essential of complete art,—unity. The critical study of this problem by modern painters has secured in portraiture and genre much better solutions than can be found in the field of good painting up to the present. We may look almost in vain through old masterdom and through the examples of the golden age of portraiture in England, discovering but few successes of such combination in the works of Gainsborough, Reynolds and others.

The foreplacement of one figure over another does not always mean prominence for it. Light, as an element, is stronger than place. On this basis where honors are easy with the two subjects one may have precedence of place and one of lighting.

The difficulty in the arrangement of two is in their union. If, for instance, they are opposed in sentiment as markedly as two fencers there yet must be a union secured in the background. If placed in perspective, perspective settles most of the difficulty.

The accompanying pictures are examples at both ends of the scale. “The Lovers,” in construction, shows what all pictures demand, the centripetal tendency. All the elements consist. As a picture it is complete; another figure would spoil it for us and them. Not so the [pg 135] “Poulterers”; persons could come and go in this picture without effecting it. It is but a section at best. One can imagine a long row of pickers, or we could cut it through the centre and have two good studies. There is no union. The other contains principality, transition of line, balance of light and shade, circular observation, opposition of color values and the principle of sacrifice.

In Mr. Orchardson's “Mother and Child” the first place is given to the child in white; the background carries the middle tint and the mother has been reserved in black. Greater sacrifice of one figure to another, the mother to the child, is seen in Miss Kasebier's picture of a nude infant held between the knees of the mother whose face is so abased as to be unseen; or in John Sargent's portrait of a boy seated and gazing toward us into space while his mother in the half-shadow of the background reads aloud. The greatest contributing force to contrast is sacrifice. The subject is known to be important by what is conceded to it.

The portrait of two gentlemen by Eastman Johnson is one of the most successful attempts at bringing two figures of equal importance on to one canvas. They are in conversation, the one talking and active, the other listening and passive, and the necessary contrast is thus created.

In the combination of three units the objection of formal balance disappears. If one be opposed by two, the force gained by the one through [pg 136] isolation commensurates the two. In such arrangement the two may be united by overlapping so that though the sense and idea of two be present it is shown in one mass as a pictorial unit. This general disposition, experience shows to be the best. Two other good forms are two separated units joined by other items and opposed to one, or the three joined either directly or by suggestion, the units balanced like a triangle by opposition. The Madonna and St. John with the Infant Christ is a sample of the first. In the “Connoisseurs” by Fortuny we have the second form, and in the “Huntsman and Hounds” the third. A most original and commendable arrangement of three figures by W. L. Hollinger appears in “The Pose in Portraiture,” the members of a trio, violin, cello and piano. The pianist is designated by the suggestion of her action which is completed out of the picture. In her position however she accomplishes the balancing of two figures against one.

In the statuesque group the outline is important because this is seen against the background of wall, or sky, and frequently in silhouette. Any fault in its contour as a mass is therefore emphasized. This consideration applies pictorially to groups which are complete in themselves and have no incorporation with backgrounds, such for instance as the photographic group of a number of people. Here personality is the first requirement, but harmony of arrangement and picturesqueness may be united thereto. The two best shapes are the oval and the pyramid. In either of these outlines there is opportunity for a focal centre, always important. In forming such an arrangement the focus should be the first consideration, item by item being added. As the group approaches the outline it must be governed according to the form desired. A more artistic combination of figures will be found to be a separation into a large and a small group, the principal figure placed in either. If in the former, the figures of the smaller group must be sacrificed to this figure, either in pose or lighting. If the principal figure is in the smaller group or entirely separate, this isolation will prove sufficient for the distinction.

Where greater liberties may be taken and the intention is for a purely artistic composition, the curvilinear S shape will be found a good line to build upon. When this is too apparent a single oppositional figure will destroy its formality.

The possibilities of the single figure as a reserve, kept to be placed at the last moment where something is necessary, are worth noting. If the group be too formal in outline, lateral arrangement, or expression, the reserve may be played as a foil to create a diversion.

In all successful groups the principle of sacrifice must play havoc. Here the artist should expect to pay for his art scruples. Rembrandt was the first painter sacrificed to these instincts. When the order to paint the “Municipal Guard” came to him he saw in it an opportunity toward the pictorial. Knowing what this entailed he persevered, despite the mutterings of his sitters, the majority of whom were ill pleased with their respective positions. When finally the canvas was finished, full of mystery and suggestiveness and those subtle qualities, such as before had never been seen in Dutch art, those for whom it had been executed expressed their opinion by giving an order for the same to a rival. His picture is a collection of separate individuals, each having an equal importance. Here was the sudden ending of Rembrandt's career as a painter of portraits, only one canvas of an important group being painted thereafter—the “Syndics.” A certain reason in this popular criticism cannot be denied. The composition is unnecessarily [pg 142] scattered and the placements arbitrary, though through the radial lines of pikes and flag pole the scattered parts are drawn together. The composition partakes of the confusion of the scene depicted, yet in its measure of parts one can doubt not that the comparative values of his sitters have been considered.

The democracy of man in his freedom and equality is the despair of the artist who knows that the harmony of the universe is conditional on kingship and principalities and powers, and the scale of things from the lowest to the highest.

Says Mr. Ruskin: “The great object of composition being always to secure unity—that is, to make 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 others shall group with it in subordinate position.”

Principality may be secured either by attraction of light as in a white dress or by placing the figure as the focus of leading lines as are supplied by the architecture of a building, or such lines as are happily created by surrounding figures which proceed toward the principal one, or by including such a figure in the most important line. Again the figure for such a position may be the only one in a group which exhibits unconcern or absolute repose, the others by expression or action acknowledging such sovereignty.

The summer time out-of-door group which is [pg 143] so frequently interesting only to “friends,” in many cases affords opportunities for pictures attractive to all. The average photographer is concerned only with his people; the background is brought to mind when he sees the print. Although little or no interest may be found in the background it should be appropriate, and should play a reserve part, serving the chiaroscuro and therefore the illumination of the subject and creating an opportunity for the exit which always gives depth and an extended interest. A mass of foliage with little penetration by the sky except in one or two places and at the side, not the centre, may always be found safe. If the attraction is too great the group suffers. Appreciating the importance of his setting for groups the photographer must select these with three points in view; simplicity, uninterest and exit in background; simplicity, uninterest and leading line or balancing mass or spot (if required) in foreground. When looking for backgrounds he may feel quite sure he has one if it is the sort of thing he would never dream of photographing on its own account. Besides being too interesting, most backgrounds are inappropriate and distracting. The frequent commendations and prizes accorded to good subjects having these faults and therefore devoid of unity tell how little even photographic judges and editors think on the appropriate and essential ensemble in composition.

With the background in unobjectionable evidence the photographer should rapidly address [pg 144] his posers a little lecture on compositional requirements and at the end ask for volunteers for the sacrificial parts, at the same time reminding them that the back or side view is not only characteristic of the person but often very interesting. He should maintain that a unity be evident in the group; of intent, of line, and of gradation. The first is subjective and must be felt by the posers. The other two qualifications are for the artist's consideration. At such a time his acquaintance with examples of pictorial art will come to his aid. He must be quick to recognize the possibilities of his material which may be hurriedly swept into one of the forms which have justified confidence.

When a continuity of movement has been secured, a revisionary glance must be given to determine if the whole is balanced; background, foreground and focus, one playing into the other as the lines of a dance, leading, merging, dissolving, recurring.

Mindful of the distractions of such occasions, the wise man has done his thinking beforehand, has counted his figures, has noted the tones of clothing and has resolved on his focal light. With this much he has a start and can begin to build at once. His problem is that of the maker of a bouquet adding flower to flower around the centre.

To make a rough sketch from the models themselves posed and thought over, with the opportunity for erasures of revisions before leading them out of doors, often proves economy of time.

It is a custom of continental painters to compose extensive groups and photograph them for study in arrangement. The author has seen numerous compositions in photography in which artists have posed as characters of well-known paintings.

Much can be learned of good grouping from the stage, especially the French stage. The best managers start with the picturesque in mind and are on the alert to produce well arranged pictures. The plays of Victorien Sardou and the classic dramas of the state theatre are studies in the art of group arrangements.

It will be noticed in most groups that there is an active and a passive element, that many figures in their reserve are required to play second to a few. The active principle is represented by these to whom a single idea is delivered for expression.

In “The Return of the Hunting Party” the group of hounds, huntsman and deer is such an element of reserve, contrasting its repose with the bustle and activity of the visitors. It is a diversion also for the long line stretching across the picture. This is the more evident through the repetition of it in the line of the second-story and roof and below in the line of game which unnecessarily extends the group of hounds. A relief for the insistent line of the figures could have been supplied by lighter drapery back of the table. This then would have created a cross tone connecting the hounds in a curve with the upper centre panel. It is a picture in five [pg 146] horizontal strips, and is introduced for the warning it contains in its treatment of a group which is in itself a line. The well-known “Spanish Marriage” by Fortuny also shows the reserve group, but the contrast is more positive both in repose and color. The main and more distant group is well centralized and there is a clever diminuendo expressed in its characters.

In “The Reapers” this idea has apt illustration. The figure in the foreground is in contrast with the remaining three, both as an oppositional line and in his action, the three being in repose. The single figure, though active, does not attract as much as the child who receives importance from the attention of the two figures. Her position, opposed to the two, turns the interest back into the group. In all the compositions by this master one is impressed by the grace and force of the arrangement. A small portfolio of his charcoal reproductions or a few photographs of his pictures should be a part of the print collection of every artist. No better designer of small groups ever lived.

With the amount of good art now coming from the camera it is strange that no groups of note have been produced.12 In the field of pure portraiture the attempt may as well be abandoned. The photographer can at best but mitigate conditions. The picture group can only apply when sacrifice and subordination are possible.

A study of famous groups will settle this and other points mentioned, beyond question. In the [pg 149] religious group, where the idea of adoration was paramount, the principal figure was usually, though not always, given place in the upper part of the picture toward which by gestures, leading lines or directed vision our attention is drawn at once. Note the figures which sacrifice to this effect in the “Transfiguration,” “The Immaculate Conception,” “The Sistine Madonna,” “The Virgin Enthroned,” “The Adoration of the Magi,” and in fact all of the world famous compositions of the old religious art.

In one of the most famous of modern groups “The Cossacks Reply to the Sultan of Turkey,” by the greatest of Russian painters Elias Repine, the force given to the hilarious frenzy of the group by the occasional figure in repose is easily apparent.

The answer to a summons for surrender is being penned upon a rude table around which press close the barbaric leaders of the forces gathered in the distance. Some are lolling on wine casks, others indifferently gaze at the fingers of the clerk as he carefully pens the document, others smoke silently, one is looking out of the picture as though unconcerned. Yet life and movement are instinct in every part, for though the action is consigned to but a few,—these form a series of small climaxes through the entire circumference of the group and we feel in another moment that the passive expressions will in their turn be exchanged for the mad ribaldry of laughter which has seized their brethren. The group is a triumph for several æsthetic realities [pg 150] produced and heightened by contrast and subordination.

The principality of repose is well illustrated in the group of “The Chant” where the inaction of the woman dominates through its contrast with the effort expressed by the other members of the group.

There are three types of group composition; first, where the subject's interest is centred upon an object or idea within the picture as in “The Cabaret” or Rembrandt's “Doctors” surrounding a dissecting table; second, where the attraction lies outside the picture as in the “Syndics” or the “Night Watch,” and third, where absolute repose is expressed and the sentiment of reverie has dominated the group, as in “The Madonna of the Chair,” and the ordinary family photograph.

The spiritual or sentimental quality of the theme should have first consideration and dictate the form of arrangement. A unity between the idea and its form of expression constitutes the desideratum of refinement in composition.

It is the experience of all picture makers that under the limitations which special subjects [pg 173] impose they are often obliged to search for an equivalent with which to comply with the requirements of composition.

If, for instance, in the arrangement of a picture it is found necessary to move an object—a tree, figure or other item of importance, instead of obliteration and repainting, the result is attained by creating an attraction on the side from which it is to be moved.

By so doing the range of the picture is increased and its space seems to take in more than its limits presupposed: If an isolated tree standing against a mass of trees, by opening the sky through that mass or by creating attraction of color or form therein, the vision is led to the far side of the object to be moved, which is thereby crowded out of its position in the balancing scheme.

An object upon a surface may frequently give place to a dark or light variation of the surface itself which becomes an equivalent of attraction.

Several objects may be made to balance without rearrangement though the marginal proportions of the picture are altered. The ship and moon compose as an upright, but not in long shape without either the following line which indicates the ship's course; or an object of attraction in the opposing half either in the distance or foreground, much less being required in the latter than the former. The equivalent therefore of the leading line is the object on the farther shore.

The necessity of either the one or the other is more clearly shown when the line from the boat swings in the opposite direction.

An object may be rendered less important by surrounding it with objects of its own kind and color.

An abrupt change in the direction of a line may have attraction equal to an object on that line.

With two spaces of equal size, importance may be given to one of them by increasing its light; by using leading lines toward it, by placing an accent upon it, by creating a gradation in it.

Spots often become the equivalent of lines in their attractive value.

A series of oppositional lines has more picturesqueness than the tangent, its equivalent.

A gradation may have the equivalent attraction of an object.

A line in its continuity is more attractive than a succession of isolated objects.

The attractive value of an object in the scale of balance may be weakened by moving it toward the centre or extending the picture on that side.

Motion toward, either in intention or by action, is equivalent to balancing weight in that space of the picture to which the action is directed.

Light is increased by deepening contiguous tones; dark, by heightening contiguous tones.

A still-life may be constructed on the same lines as any form on the vertical plane and many of the perspective plane of composition. See Fundamental Forms.

Since the time that photography laid its claim to be reckoned among the fine arts the attention of artists has been attracted first by the claim and thereafter, with acknowledgments, to the performance.

The art cry of the newly baptized had the vehement ring of faith and determination. Like the prophecy of the embryo premier it sounded: “My lords, you will hear me yet.”

The sustained interest of the “Photographic Salon” and the utterance of its exhibitors in the language of art, has long since obtained concession to the claim for associate membership. To make this relationship complete became the effort of many writers of the photographic circle. “The whole point then,” writes Prof. P. H. Emerson, B. A., M. D., of England, “is that what the painter strives to do is to render, by any means in his power, as true an impression of any picture which he wishes to express as possible. A photographic artist strives for the same end and in two points only does he fall short of the painter—in color and in the ability to render so accurately the relative values, although this is to a great extent compensated by the tone of the picture. How then is photography superior to etching, wood-cutting, charcoal drawing? The [pg 178] drawing of the lens is not to be equalled by any man. There is ample room for selection, judgment and posing, and, in a word, in capable hands a finished photograph is a work of art. Thus we see that the art has at last found a scientific basis and can be rationally discussed, and I think I am right in saying that I was the first to base the claims of photography as a fine art on these grounds and I venture to predict that the day will come when photographs will be admitted to hang on the walls of the Royal Academy.”

Since the appearance of the above which comes as close to the real reason in question as its logic might intimate, but which is worth quoting from the prophecy which it contained, there have been many expressions of opinions by photographers. None, however, are more to the point than the following from the pen of Mr. F. H. Wilson: “When, fifty years ago, the new baby, photography, was born, Science and Art stood together over her cradle questioning what they might expect of her, wondering what place she would take among their other children. Science soon found that she had come with her hands full of gifts and her bounty to astronomy, microscopy and chemistry made her name blessed among these, her elder sisters. Art, always more conservative, hung back. But slowly jealous Art who first frowned and called the rest of her brood around her, away from the parvenue, has let her come near, has taken her hand, and is looking her over with questioning eyes. Soon, [pg 179] without doubt, she will have her on her lap with the rest.”

“Why has she been kept out so long? Almost from the beginning she claimed a place in the house beautiful of art. In spite of rebuffs she knocked at its doors, though the portrait painter and the critic flung stones at her from the house-top, and the law itself stood at the threshold denying her entrance. Those early efforts were not untinctured with a fear that if she should get in she would run the establishment, but the law long since owned her right, and instead of the crashing boulders of artistic dislike and critical indignation the volleys they drop at her feet now are mere mossy pebbles flung by similarly mossy critics or artist-bigots. Still, the world at large hears them rattle and does not give her the place and estimation she has won.”

“Art began with the first touch of man to shape things toward his ideal, be that ideal an agreeable composition, or the loftiest conception of genius. The higher it is the more it is art. Art is head-and-hand work and a creation deserves the name of art according to the quality and quantity of this expended on it. Simply sit down squarely before a thing and imitate it as an ox would if an ox could draw, with no thought or intention save imitation and the result will cry from every line, ‘I am not art but machine work,’ though its technique be perfection. Toil over arrangement and meditate over view-point and light, and though the result be the rudest, it will bear [pg 180] the impress of thought and of art. I tell you art begins when man with thought, forming a standard of beauty, commences to shape the raw material toward it. In pure landscape, where modification is limited, it begins when the artist takes one standpoint in preference to another. In figure composition, where modification is infinite, it begins with the first touch to bring the model into pose. When he bends a twig or turns a fold of drapery the spirit of art has come and is stirring within him. What matters the process! Surely it is time that this artistic bigotry was ended.”

The kernel lies in the sentence “when he bends a twig,” etc., “the spirit of art has come.” In other words when he exhibits choice and preference, when, in short, he composes.

Recognizing that composition was the only portal through which the new candidate for art recognition could gain an entrance into the circle of Art, the single effort of the past photographer, viz.; the striving for detail and sharpness of line, has been relegated to its reasonable place. A comprehension of composition was found to demand the knowledge of a score of things which then by necessity were rapidly discovered, applied and installed. Composition means sacrifice, gradation, concentration, accent, obliteration, replacement, construction of things the plate does not have, destruction of what it should not have.

Supplied with such a magician's wand no effect was denied: all things seemed possible.

Gratified by recognition in a new realm the new associations should be strengthened. Whereas photography had been spanned by the simple compass of Mr. and Mrs. A. and their daughter, in figures; or topographical accuracies in landscape, revellers in the new art talked of Rembrandt and Titian, Corot and Diaz. To do something which should put their art in touch with these, their new-found brethren, was the thing! A noble ambition, but only a mistaking of the effect for the cause. These men composed. The blurred outline, the vacant shadow, the suppressed corners, the clipped edges. This all means composition in the subduing of insistent outline, in the exchange of breadth for detail, in the centralization of light, in the suppression of the unnecessary.

But no, the employment of these devices of the painter from the photographer's point of view of composition is not sufficient. Photography is now busy complimenting every school of painting under the sun. Yesterday it was Rembrandt's school. Now that is passed, and Carrière is better and to-morrow, perchance, it will be Raphael or Whistler or some Japanese, why not?

The one and only good sign which marks imitation is that it shows appreciation, and this of the standards is a good thing. Let each have its turn. Their synthesis may be you.

But to a man of the professions or business whose time for study in these vast fields of the classics is so disproportionate to their extent [pg 182] and who, though supplied with search warrants and summons, still fails to make a capture, how ineffectual and wearying this chase after ideals—subjective. Why not shorten your course? Why not produce Rembrandts and Corots because you apprehend the principles on which they work and anticipate a surprise in discovering, as by chance, that you have produced something which recalls them. In this way and by these means there will be meaning in your claim of brotherhood.

One may scarcely call an estimate in art matters complete without an opinion from Mr. Ruskin. “In art we look for a record of man's thought and power, but photography gives that only in quite a secondary degree. Every touch of a great painting is instinct with feeling, but howsoever carefully the objects of a picture be chosen and grouped by the photographer, there his interference ends. It is not a mere matter of color or no color, but of Invention and Design, of Feeling and Imagination. Photography is a matter of ingenuity: Art of genius.”

On these lines however the philosopher of Coniston hardly proves his case.

Invention and design, feeling and imagination, are all a part of the photographer's suite. He employs them all. And these too are qualities the most artistic. Technique, which is manual and not spiritual, is the one point at which art and photography cannot coalesce. To Art's sentient finger-tips, Photography holds up only steel, [pg 183] wood and glass. Art therefore holds the winning cards.

P. G. Hamerton, England's safest and surest critic of art, writing a generation ago on the “Relation between Photography and Painting,” says: “But all good painting, however literal, however pre-Raphaelite or topographic, is full of human feeling and emotion. If it has no other feeling in it than love or admiration for the place depicted, that is much already, quite enough to carry the picture out of the range of photography into the regions of real art.”

“And this is the reason why good painting cannot be based on photography. I find photographic data of less value than hasty sketches. The photograph renders the form truly, no doubt, as far as it goes, but it by no means renders feelings and is therefore of no practical use (save for reference) to a painter who feels habitually and never works, without emotion.”

It is very much to be questioned if Mr. Hamerton in the face of what has since been done with the camera by men who feel and are led by the emotional in art, would claim a distinction to the painter and deny that the photographic product was unaffected by the emotional temperament.

A friend shows us a group of his pets, either dogs, horses or children, done by an “artist photographer.” We find it strongly composed, evincing a clear knowledge of every point to be observed in extracting from the subject all the picturesqueness there was in it. We notice a soft painter-like touch, shadows not detailed—simply [pg 184] graded—aerial envelopment everywhere suggested.

It would be pedantry for the painter to correct the expression of his friend and suggest that the man who produced the picture was not an artist. It is the product of a man who felt exactly as an artist would have felt; an expression of views upon a subject entirely governed by the principles of art, and the man who made it, by that sympathy which he exhibits with those principles, is my brother in art to a greater degree than the painter who, with youthful arrogance, throws these to the winds “mistaking,” as has been cleverly said, “the will-o'-the-wisp of eccentricity for the miracle working impulse of genius.” In whatsoever degree more of the man and less of the mechanics appear, in that degree is the result a work of art.

The reliance of photography on composition has provoked an earnest search for its principles. The photographer felt safe in going to the school of painting for these principles and accepted without question the best book written for painters, that by John Burnet, penned more than a century ago at a time when the art of England was at a low imitative ebb, and unduly influenced by imitation. This has been abundantly quoted by photographic teachers and evidently accepted, with little challenge, as final.

The best things, discoverable to the writer, in the field of composition, have been by the photographers themselves—the best things as well as the most inane; but in the face of so many [pg 185] results that earnest workers with the camera produce and continue to put forth, which cannot find a place in the categories of Art, it would seem that these preachments have been unheeded, or were not sufficiently clear to afford practical guidance for whom they were intended. Mr. P. H. Robinson14declares most strenuously for composition. “It is my contention,” he says, “that one of the first things an artist should learn is the construction of a picture.” On a par with this is the opinion of Mr. Arthur Dow, the artist, who declares that “art education should begin at composition.”

It is for lack of this that the searcher for the picturesque so frequently returns empty handed.

Subjectively the painter and the photographer stretch after the same goal.

Technically they approach it from opposite directions.

The painter starts with a bare surface and creates detail, the photographer is supplied therewith.

Art lies somewhere between these starting points; for art is a reflection of an idea and ideas may or may not have to do with detail.

According to the subject then is the matter of detail to serve us. In the expression of character a certain amount of detail is indispensable; by the painter to be produced, by the photographer saved. But detail is often so beautiful in itself! and is not art a presentation of the beautiful, pleads the photographer. And the reply in the Socratic method is: “Look at the whole subject: does the idea of it demand this detail?”

The untutored mind always sees detail. For this reason most education is inductive, but [pg 188] though the process is inductive, the goal is the eternal synthesis. It is the reporter who gathers the facts: the editor winnows therefrom the moral.

The artist must—in time—get on top and take this survey. Looking at any subject with eyes half closed enables him to see it without detail, and later, with eyes slowly opening, admitting that much only which is necessary to character.

The expression of character by masses of black and white proves this. Bishop Potter is unmistakable, his features bounded by their shadows. From such a start then it is a question of procedure cautiously to that point where the greatest character lies, but beyond which point detail becomes unnecessary to character.

The pen portrait of Thackeray by Robt. Blum is a careful delineation of the characteristic head of the novelist set on shoulders characteristically bent forward and the body characteristically tall. What more can be told of Thackeray's [pg 189] personality? Would the buttons and the wrinkles of the clothing help matters! No, as facts they would not, and when art has to do only with character, the simplest statement is the most forcible.

Millet, at one time, was known as “the man who painted peasants without wrinkles in their breeches.” Not because wrinkles were too much for him, nor because they were not thought worth while, but because, in his effort to prune his picture of the unessentials, the wrinkles were brushed aside.

When, however, art has to do with filling an entire space with something, and the clothing occupies a considerable part of it, what shall be done? This changes the details of the question. Yet all portraits that hit hard in exhibitions are those conceived in simplicity, those in which the personality is what stops and holds us.

There are certain large organic lines of drapery which the character demands, but beyond this point opinion divides authoritatively from the complete silence of obliteration to the tumultuous noisiness of “the whole truth”

In the portraits by Carrière all detail is swept away, and the millinery artists are shocked. Simplicity should never compromise texture and quality. This side of the truth cannot prove objectionable.

“You have made my broadcloth look like two-fifty a yard and it really cost four,” was a criticism offered by a young lady who posed in a riding habit. Such practical criticism is [pg 190] frequently necessary to bring the artist down from the top height observatory where he is absorbed with “the big things.”

Breath does not signify neglect of detail or neglect of finish; it means simplification where unity had been threatened. It is seeing the big side of small things, if the small things cannot be ignored.

The lighting of a subject has much to do with its breadth. A light may be selected that will chop such a well organized unit as the body into three or four separate sections, or one that produces an equal division of light and shade—seldom good. Shadows are generally the hiding-places for mystery; and mystery is ever charming. None better than Rembrandt knew the value of those vague spaces of nothingness, in backgrounds, and in the figure itself, a sudden pitch from light and positiveness into conjecture. We hear in photography much of the “Rembrandt-esque effect,” which when produced, proves to be just blackness. There can be no shadow without light, and Rembrandt's effort was to obtain this, rather than produce darkness.

The feeling of light may also be broadly expressed by a direct illumination. Here the shadow plays a very small part, and the subject is presented in its outline. Under such an effect we lose variety but gain simplicity. This brings us close to the region of two dimensions, the realm of Japanese art and mural decoration. The portraits of Manet, the decorations of Puvis de Chavannes, and the early Italians, display the [pg 191] quality of breadth because of the simplicity of lighting which these subjects received.

Breadth in the treatment of the figure may be obtained by graded light. If a shadow be produced at the bottom of the picture sufficiently strong to obliterate both the light and shade of detail, and thence be made to weaken as it proceeds upward and finally give place to light, where light is most needed, great simplicity as well as the element of variety will be the result.

Thus, in the most effective treatment in mural decoration, one sees only the grand forms, the movement, the intention, those things which most befit the inner surface of the building being also those which bear the greater importance. The fact is used as an argument for the assumption that painting should, after all, be an art of two dimensions, length and breadth, reserving thickness and its representation, for sculpture. This robs painting of the quality of natural aspect, except under the single effect of absolutely direct lighting and ignores its development beyond the flatly colored representations of the ancient Egyptians, our American Indians and the Japanese, a development inaugurated by the Greeks and since adhered to by all occidental nations.

The student who goes to nature and sees mass only, discarding all detail, will run the chance of being a colorist as well as a painter of breadth, two of the most important qualifications; for if he refuses to be stopped by detail his intelligence will crystallize upon that other thing which attracts him. He will think the harder upon the [pg 192] simple relations of tones and the exact color. Slowly dexterity will add a facility to his brush and he will, while aiming at character, through breadth, unconsciously introduce characteristic detail. This is the hope of the new method which is now being introduced into the system of public school instruction.

The scheme as developed by Mr. Dow is decorative rather than naturalistic, the aesthetic side with “Beauty,” as the watchword being in greatest point. The filling of spaces in agreeable and harmonious arrangement does not demand strict acknowledgment to natural aspect. Indeed this is denied in most cases where the limitations of decoration are enjoined. With the first principle, truth, upon which all education rests, as the basis of such study, the nature part of this system will fall into its logical channels. If nature's largeness and simplicity contributes to its value, then nature should be consulted when she is large and simple. Studies of trees in gray silhouette, should be made at twilight, either of evening or early morning, when the detail, which is useless to the decorative scheme, is not seen. Under such conditions no slight or sacrifice is necessitated. Nature then contributes her quantity directly and the student has no warrant in assuming to change her. There are times also when the face of nature is so varied that the most fantastic schemes of Notan15 are observed; a harbor filled with sails and sea-gulls, a crowd of people speckling the shore, the houses of a village dotted over a hillside. Under a direct [pg 193] light these become legitimate subjects offered by nature herself to the scheme which, however, she only now and then honors.

The system therefore accompanies the student but part way and leaves him still knocking at the door of the complete naturalistic presentation of pictorial art, a development which stretches into limitless possibilities by the use of the third dimension.

Work in two dimensions by reason of its greater simplicity should naturally precede the complications involved in producing the completely modelled forms of nature, and therein the argument for its use in the early stages of the student's development is a strong one.

“Art is a middle quality between a thought and a thing—the union of that which is nature with that which is exclusively human.”16

For the every-day critic much of the secret lies in the proposition art is nature, with the man added; nature seen through a temperament. Nature is apparent on the surface of pictures. We see this side at a glance. To find the man in it requires deeper sight.

If a painter of portraits, has he painted the surface, or the character? Has he gone halting after it, or has he nailed it: has he won with it finally? Is he a man whose natural refinement [pg 212] proved a true mirror in which his sitter was reflected or has the coarse and uneven grain of the artist become manifest in the false planes of the character presentation? With respect to portraits less than other subjects, can we expect to find them reflections of the artist's personality. But some of the ablest, while interpreting another's character, frequently add somewhere in it their own. The old masters rarely signed, feeling that they wrote themselves all through their works.

The sure thing regarding the great portraitist is that he is a man of refinement. This all history shows.

Is our artist a genre painter: then does his mind see small things to delight in them, or to delight us—if this, he is our servitor or little better,—does he go at the whole thing with the sincerity of an artistic purpose and somewhere place a veritable touch of genius, or only represent one item after another until the whole catalogue of items is complete, careful that he leave behind no just cause for reproach? Has the man dignified his subject and raised it to something above imitative art, or does he clearly state in his treatment of it that imitation is the end of art?

Is he a painter of historic incident; then does he convince you that his data are accurate, or allow you to conjecture that his details are makeshifts? Is the scene an inspiration or commonplace? Has he been able to put you into the atmosphere of a bygone day, or do his figures look like models in hired costume and quite [pg 213] ready to resume their own clothes and modern life?

Is he a painter of flowers; then is he an artist or a botanist? Is he a marinist; then, as a landsman has he made you feel like one, or has he painted for you water that can be walked on without faith? Has he shown you the dignity, the vastness, the tone, and above all the movement of the sea?

Is he a landscape painter? Then is he in a position to assert himself to a greater degree than they all? The farther one may remove himself from his theme, the less of its minutiae will he see. The process of simplification is individual. What he takes from nature he puts back out of himself. The landscape painter becomes an interpreter of moods, his own as well as nature's, and in his selection of these he reveals himself. Does he show you the kingdoms of the world from some high mount, or make you believe they may be found if you keep on moving through the air and over the ground such as he creates? Does he make you listen with him to the soft low music when nature is kindly and tender and lovable, or is his stuff of that robust fibre which makes her companionable to him in her ruggedness and strength?

As the hidden forces of nature control man yet bend to his bidding—electricity, air, steam, etc.—so do the open and obvious ones which the painter deals with. They dictate all the conditions and yet somehow—he governs. The different ways in which he does this gives to art its [pg 214] variety and enables us to form a scale of relative values.

The work of art which attracts us excites two emotions; pleasure in the subject; admiration for the artist. Exhibitions of strength and skill claim our interest not so much for the thing done, which often perishes with the doing, as for the doer. The poet with a hidden longing to express or a story to tell, who binds himself to the curious limitations of the Italian sonnet, in giving evidence of his powers, excites greater admiration than though he had not assumed such conditions.

It is the personal element which has established photography and given it art character. Says J. C. Van Dyke, “a picture is but an autobiographical statement; it is the man and not the facts that may awaken our admiration; for, unless we feel his presence and know his genius the picture is nothing but a collection of incidents. It is not the work but the worker, not the mould but the moulder, not the paint but the painter.”

Witness it in the work of Michel Angelo, in both paint and marble. How we feel the man of it in Franz Hals, in Rembrandt, in Rubens, Van Dyck, Valasquez, Ribera and Goya, in Watteau and Teniers, in Millet and Troyon, in Rousseau and Rico, in Turner, Constable and Gainsborough, in Fildes and Holl, in Whistler, in Monet, in Rodin and Barnard, in Inness, in Wyant and Geo. Fuller.

Like religion, art is not a matter of surfaces.

Its essence is to be spiritually discerned. It is the spirit of the artist you must seek;—find the man.

If we recognize the manly qualities in a picture, the work has at least a favorable introduction. Farther than this point it may not please us, but if not, it should remain a question of taste between the artist and yourself; and, concerning taste there is no disputing. It is just at this point that the superficial critic errs. Dislike for the subject, however ably expressed, is never cause for condemnation. The fair question to ask is, what was the artist's intention? Its answer provokes your challenge; “Is it worth the expression!” If conceded, the real judgment begins. Has he done it; if not wholly—in what degree?

The question of degree will demand the patience of good judgment. There may be much or little sanity in condemning a picture owing to a single fault. It depends on the kind. There are errors of selection, of presentation (technique) of natural fact, and of art principle. We can excuse the first, condone the second, find small palliation for the third, but he for whom art principles mean nothing, is an art anarchist.

Errors of selection are errors of judgment. A man may choose a subject which is unprofitable and which refuses to yield fruit; and yet in his [pg 217] effort at reediting its elements he may have shown great skill and knowledge and may have expended upon it his rarest gifts—fine technique and good color. The critic must read between the lines and blame the judgment, not the art. Feeble selection and weak composition will be more easily specified as faults than bad drawing and unworthy color.

To the profession, the epithet “commonplace” weighs heavily against a work of art. Selection of what is fitting as an art subject means experience. The “ungrateful” subject and bad composition are therefore likely to mark the nouveau in picture making—the student fresh from the atelier with accurate drawing and true color and who may be full of promise, but who has become tangled with what the French term the soujet ingrat. Every artist has studies of this sort which contain sufficient truth to save them from being painted over as canvas, and most painters know the place for such—the storeroom. Exhibition of studies is interesting as disclosing the means to an end, and the public should discern between the intention of the “study” and of the picture.

Herein lies the injustice of acquiring the posthumous effects of an artist and exposing for sale every scrap to be found. The ravenous group of dealers which made descent upon the Millet cottage at the death of that artist effected as clean a sweep as an army of ants in an Indian bungalow. In consequence we see in galleries throughout Europe and this country many trifles [pg 218] in pastel which are not only incomplete but positively bad as color. Millet used but a few hard crayons for trials in color suggestion, to be translated in oil. Some were failures in composition and in most the color is nothing more than any immature hand could produce with such restricted means. To allow these to enter into any estimate of Millet or to take them seriously as containing his own estimate of art, or as intrinsically valuable, is folly.

The faults of selection may also be open to difference of opinion. “Who would want to paint you when no one wants to look at you?” said an old epigrammatist to a misshapen man. “Not so,” says the artist; “I will paint you though people may not like to look at you and they will look at my portrait not for your sake but for my art, and find it interesting.”

The cult that declares for anything as a subject, its value dependent upon that which the artist adds, stands as a healthy balance to that band of literary painters which affected English art a generation ago, the school of Rossetti, Burne-Jones, and Maddox-Brown, who strove to present ideas through art. With them the idea was paramount, and the technical in time dwindled, the subject with its frequently ramified meaning, proving to be beyond their art expression.

Again, the popular attempt to conceive in pictures that which the artist never expected us to find is as reprehensible in graphic as in musical art. There is often no literary meaning whatever in some of the best examples of [pg 218] both. Harmony, tone, color and technique pure and simple are the full compass of the intention. What this may suggest to the individual he is welcome to, but the glib dictum of certain preachers on art as to hidden intentions would indicate that they had effected an agreement, with the full confidence of the silent partner to exploit him. Beware of the gilt edged footnote, or the art that depends upon it. A writer of ordinary imagination and fluent English can put an aureole about any work of art he desires and much reputation is secured on this wise.

In the presentation of a subject through given pictorial elements, the critic will know whether the most has been made of the opportunity. If the composition prove satisfactory and the theme as presented still fails to move the critic, he must shift from the scientific analysis to those qualities governing the artist subjectively. He is lacking in “temperament,” and without temperament who in art has a chance? With years in the schools and a technique of mechanical perfection he lacks the divine fire and leaves us cold. It is for the critic to say this, and herein he becomes a teacher to public and artist.

The patron who agreed that a picture under discussion had every quality which the salesman mentioned and patiently heard him through but quietly remarked, “It hasn't that,” as he snapped his finger, is the sort of a critic who does not need to know the names of things in art. He felt a picture should have snap, and if it did not, it was lacking.

But beyond the presentation of a theme having in it the mark of genius, is that of workmanlike technique. The demand of the present age is for this. If a subject is not painted it will scarce hold as art. Ideas, composition, even color and harmony plead in vain; the spirit of the times sits thus in judgment.

The presentation also should be individual, the unmistakable sign of distinction. To be able to tell at a glance by this mark puts us on the footing of intimate acquaintance. A difference exists between this and the well-known mannerisms of individuals. The latter applies to special items in pictures, the former to the individual style of expression. An artist may have one way of seeing all trees, or the similarity of one picture with another may be because there is only one sort of tree that interests him, or one time of day when all trees attract his brush. In the first case he is a mannerist, in the other a worker in a chosen groove. It cannot be denied that many artists making a success in a limited range of subject consent to stop, and go no further, under pressure of dealers or the public. The demand for specialists has much more reason in science and mechanics than in art, which is or should be a result of impulse.17

Corot declared he preferred the low sweet music of early dawn and to him there was enough variety in it to keep him employed as long as he could paint; but the thralldom of an artist who follows in the groove of a bygone success because if he steps out of it the dealer [pg 220] frowns and will not handle his work, is pitiable, exposing to view year by year the remonitory canvas with such slight changes as newness demands. It would be a healthier sign in art if the press and public would applaud new ventures when it was clear that an artist, thereby, was seeking to do better things and perhaps find himself in a newer vein. But variety in art it is maintained need not come of variety in the individual but of a variety of individuals. So Van Marke must paint cows, and Jacque sheep and Wouvermanns must be told by the inevitable white horse, and have the mere mention of the artist's name mean the same sort of picture every time. This aids the simplification of a many-sided question. The public, as Mr. Hamerton declares, hates to burden itself with names; to which might be added that it also hates to differentiate with any single name. A good portraitist in England one year exhibited at the Royal Academy a wonderfully painted peacock. The people raved and thereafter he was allowed to paint nothing else. Occasionally it is shown that this discrimination is without reason, as many men rise above the restriction. The Gainsborough portrait and landscape are equally strong, the works of painters in marble, and sculptors who use color, have proved a surprise to the critics and an argument against the “specialty.”

There are two degrees in the subversion of the natural fact.

If, for example, under the rule in physics, the [pg 221] angle of incidence being equal to the angle of reflection, it be found that a cloud in the sky will reflect into water too near the bottom of the picture, a painter's license may move it higher in its vertical line; but if the same cloud is made to reflect at an angle several degrees to right or left, the artist breaks the simplest law of optics. The painter's art at best is one of deception. In the first case the lie was plausible. In the second case any schoolboy could have “told on” the artist.

There are good painters who appear to know little and care less for physical fact. Their business is with the surface of the earth; the whys and wherefores of the universe they ignore, complacent in their ignorance until it leads them to place the evening star within the arc of the crescent moon, when they are annoyed to be told that the moon does not grow from this shape to the full orb once a month. But ofttimes, though the artist may not flout the universe, he shows his carelessness of natural fact and needs the snubbing. It is in this range that the little critic walks triumphantly posing as a shrewd and a discerning one. He holds up inconsistencies with his deft thumb and finger and cries, “what a smart boy am I.” And yet in spite of him Rubens, for the sake of a better line in the foreground of one of his greatest compositions dares to reconstruct a horse with his head issuing from his hind quarters, allowing the tail to serve as the mane, and Turner kept on drawing castles all wrong.

But these critics have their place. Even Ruskin accepted this as a part of his work.

There are occasions, as every artist will admit, when the artless critic with his crude commonplaces is most welcome.

As to the violator of art principles, his range in art must perforce be short, his reward a smile of pity, his finish suicide. Originality may find all the latitude it requires within the limits of Art Principles.

Ruskin in his principles of drawing enumerates these as “Principality, i.e., a chief object in a picture to which others point: Repetition, the doubling of objects gives quietude: Symmetry develops solemnity, but in landscape it must be balanced, not formal. Continuity: as in a succession of pillars or promontories or clouds involving change and relief, or else it would be mere monotonous repetition. Curvature: all beautiful objects are bounded by infinite curves, that is to say, of infinitely changing direction, or else made up of an infinite number of subordinate curves. Radiation: illustrated in leaves and boughs and in the structure of organic bodies. Contrast: of shapes and substances and of general lines; being the complement of the law of continuity, contrast of light and shade not being enough. Interchange: as in heraldic quartering. Consistency: or breadth overriding petty contrast and giving the effect of aggregate color or form. Harmony: art is an abstract and must be harmoniously abstracted, keeping the relations of values.”

With the above principles of composition Mr. Ruskin aims to cover the field of architecture, sculpture and painting, and he declares there are doubtless others which he cannot define “and these the most important and connected with the deepest powers of art. The best part of every work of art is inexplicable. It is good because it is good.”

Mr. Hamerton enumerates the duties of the critic as follows; “to utter unpopular truths; to instruct the public in the theoretical knowledge of art; to defend true living artists against the malice of the ignorant; to prevent false living artists from acquiring an influence injurious to the general interests of art; to exalt the fame of dead artists whose example may be beneficial; to weaken the fame of dead artists whose names have an injurious degree of authority; to speak always with absolute sincerity; to give expression to vicissitudes of opinion, not fearing the imputation of inconsistency; to make himself as thoroughly informed as his time and opportunities will allow, about everything concerning the Fine Arts, whether directly or indirectly; to enlarge his own powers of sympathy; to resist the formation of prejudices.” The above requirements are well stated for critics who, by reason of the authority of their position as press writers, are teachers of art. As to the personnel and qualifications of this Faculty of Instruction, investigation would prove embarrassing. The shallowness of the average review of current exhibitions is no more surprising, than that responsible [pg 225] editors of newspapers place such consignments in the hands of the all-around-reporter, to whom a picture show is no more important than a fire or a function. Mr. Hamerton in his essay urges artists to write on art topics, as their opinions are expert testimony, a suggestion practically applied by a small group of daily papers in America. Says Mr. Stillman, “No labor of any human worker is ever subjected to such degradation as is art to-day under the criticism of the daily paper.” Probably no influence is more responsible for the apathy and distrust of the public regarding art than these reviews of exhibitions for the daily press. The reader quotes as authoritative the dictum of a great journal, seldom reflecting that this is the opinion of one man, who, with rarest exception, is the least qualified of any writer on the staff to speak on his theme. Such is the value which the average manager puts upon the subject. To review the picked efforts of a year, of several hundred men, a scant column is deemed sufficient. Howsoever honest may be the intention toward these, the limitations render the task hopeless, for all efforts to level the scales to a nicety may be foiled by the shears of the managing editor if perchance another petit larceny should require any part of the space.

So the critic gives it up, mounts a pedestal, waves whole walls, aye galleries, to oblivion, and with the sumptuousness of a Nero, adopts the magnificent background, in the light of which for a moment he shines resplendent, as a gilded setting for his oracles.

“Fortunate is he, who at an early age knows what art is.”18

Howsoever eloquent may be the artist in his work, it is convincing only in that degree to which his audience is prepared to understand his language and comprehend his subject.

“The artist hangs his brains upon the wall,” said the veteran salesman of the National Academy, and there they remain without explanation or defense. The crowd as it passes, enjoys or jeers, as the ideas of this mute language are comprehended or confounded. Art requires no apology and asks none; all she requests is that those who would affect her must know the principles upon which she works. An age of altruism should be able to insure to the artist sufficient culture in his audience so that his language be understood and that his speech be not reckoned as an uncertain sound. The public should form with him an industrial partnership, not in the limited sense of giving and taking, but of something founded on comprehensibility.

What proportion of the visitors to an annual exhibition can intelligently state the purpose of impressionism, or distinguish between this and [pg 227] tonal art; what proportion think of art only as it exploits a “subject” or “tells a story”; how many look at but one class of pictures and have no interest in the rest; how many go through the catalogue with a prayer-book fidelity, and know nothing of it all when they come out! How many know enough to hang the pictures in their own houses so that each picture is helped and none damaged?

Could it be safely inferred that every collector of pictures knows and feels to the point of giving a reason for his choice of pictures, or even reasonable advice to a friend who would also own pictures? Is not much of what is bought taken on the word of a reliable dealer and owned in the satisfaction of its being “all right,” and perhaps “safe,” as an investment? Is it unreasonable to ask the many sharers in the passing picture pleasures of a great city to make themselves intelligent in some other and more practical way than by contact, gleaning only through a lifetime what should have been theirs without delay as a foundation and to exchange for the vague impression of pleasure, defended in the simple comfort of knowing what one likes, the enjoyment of sure authority and a reason for it.

The best of all means for acquiring art sense is association; first, with a personality; second, with the product. The artist's safest method with the uninitiated is to use the speech which they understand. In conversation, artists, as a rule, talk freely, and one may get deeper into art from a fortnight's sojourn with a group [pg 228] of artists than from all the treatises ever written on the philosophy of art. The most successful collectors of pictures know this. They study artists as well as pictures. But on the other hand must it not also be conceded that acquaintance with fine examples of art is in a fair way of cultivating the keen and intelligent collector in the pictorial sense to a degree beyond that of those artists whose associations are altogether with their own works or with those who think with them, who must of necessity believe most sincerely in themselves and who are thus obliged to operate in a groove, and with consequent bias. For this reason association should be varied. No one has the whole truth.

Music scores a point beyond painting, in necessitating a personality. We see the interpreter and this intimacy assists comprehension. But howsoever potent is association with art and artist, one may thus never get as closely in touch with art as by working with her. The best and safest critic is of course one who has performed. Experts are those persons who have passed through every branch and know the entire “business.”

The years of toil to students who eventually never arrive are incidentally spent in gaining the knowledge to thus know pictures, and though the success of accomplishment be denied, their compensation lies in the lengthened reach of a new horizon which meantime has been opened to them. Whether the picture be found in nature [pg 229] and is to be rescued, as is the bas-relief from its enveloping mould, cut out of its surroundings by the four sides of the canvas and brought indoors with the same glow of triumph as the geologist feels in picking a turquoise out of a rock at which others had stared and found nothing; or whether it be found, as one of many in a collection of prints or paintings; or whether the recognition be personal and asks the acceptance of something wrought by one's own hand—to know a picture when one sees it—this is art sense. Backed by a judgment presenting a defense to the protests of criticism, it becomes art knowledge.

To find and preserve pictures out of the maze of nature is the labor of the artist: to recognize them when found, the privilege of the connoisseur.

The guileless prostrations which the many affect regarding art judgments evoke the same degree of pity as the assertion of the beggar that he needs money for a night's lodging when you and he know that one is awaiting him for the asking at the Bureau of Charities. The many declare they know nothing about art, the while having an all around culture in the humanities, in literature, poetry, prose composition, music, æsthetics, etc. The principles of all the arts being identical, how simple would it be to apply those governing the arts which one knows to what is unknown. The musician and poet make use of contrast, light and shade, gradation, antithesis, balance, accent, force by opposition, [pg 230] isolation and omission, rhythm, tone-color, climax, and above all unity and harmony.

Let the musician and him who knows literature challenge the work of art for a violation of any of these and the judgment which results may be accepted seriously; and yet the essence lies beyond—with nature herself. It is just here that the stock writer of the daily paper misses it. He may have science enough, but lacks the love, the revelation through communion.

But, with this omitted, critical judgment is safer in the hands of a person of broad culture, who knows nothing of the tools of painting and sculpture, than when wielded by a half-educated student of art with his development all on one side. Ruskin warns us of young critics.

As a short cut, the camera fills a place for the many who feel pictures and wish to create them, but at small cost of time and effort. A little art school for the public has the small black box become, into which persons have been looking searchingly and thoughtfully for the past dozen years. To those who have thus regarded it and exhibit work in competition, revelations have come. Non-composition ruins their chances. Good composition is nine-tenths of the plot. When this is conceded the whole significance of their art is deepened. Then and not until then does photography become allied with art, for this is the only point at which brains may be mixed with the photographic product.

Any one who has experienced a lantern slide exhibition of art, where picture after picture [pg 231] follows rapidly and the crowd expresses judgment by applause, will not long be in doubt what pictures make the strongest appeal. The “crowd” applauds three types; something recognized as familiar, the “happy hit,” especially of title, and, (not knowing why) all pictures, without regard to subject, which express unity. The first two classes are not a part of this argument, but of the last, the natural, spontaneous attraction of the healthy mind by what is complete through unity contains such reason as cannot be ignored. Subjects of equal or greater interest which antagonize unity fall flat before this jury.

There is no opportunity more valuable to the amateur photographer than the lantern slide exhibition, and the fact that even now no more than ten or twelve per cent. of what is shown is pictorially good should provoke a search for the remedy.

For the student, to fill the eye full of good compositions and to know why good, is of equal value with the study of faulty composition to discover why bad.

The challenge of compositions neither good nor bad to discover wherein they could be improved is better practice than either.

This is the constant exercise of every artist, the ejection of the sand grains from his easy running machinery.

Before photography became a fashion it was the writer's privilege to meet a county physician who had cultivated for himself a critical picture sense. The lines of his circuit lay among the [pg 232 ] pleasantest of pastoral scenes. Stimulated by their beauty it became his habit, as he travelled, to mark off the pictures of his route, to note where two ran together, to decide what details were unnecessary, or where, by leaving the highway and approaching or retiring he discovered new ones. After a time he bought a Claude Lorraine glass. It was shortly after this purchase that I met him. His enthusiasm was delightful. With this framing of his views his judgment grew sensitive and as he showed these mirrored pictures to friends who rode with him he was most particular at just what point he stopped his horse. The man for whom picture galleries were a rarity, talked as intelligently upon the fundamental structure of pictures as most artists.

“I buy the pictures of Mauve,” remarked a clergyman in Paris, “because he puts into them what I try to get into my sermons; simplicity, suggestiveness and logical sequence.”

In viewing a picture exhibition the average man, woman and child would be attracted by different aspects of it; the man by the tone of the pictures, the woman by their color, the child almost wholly by the form or subject. The distinction is of course epigrammatic, but there is a basis for it in the daily associations of each of the three, the man with the conventional appointments of his dress and his business equipment, the woman with her gowns, her house decorations and flowers, the child with the world of imagination and fancy in which he dwells.

The distinction has much to do with the method and the degree of one's æsthetic development. That a picture must have a subject is the first pons asinorum to be crossed, the child usually preferring to remain on the farther side. The delight in color belongs to the lighter, freer or more barbaric part of the race. Tone best fits the sobriety of man.

The distinction is the difference in preference for an oak leaf as it turns to bronze, and a maple as it exchanges its greens for yellow and scarlet.

In the latter case two primaries are evolved from a secondary color and in the other a [pg 234] tertiary from a secondary. In the case of the oak bronze there is more harmony, for the three primaries are present.

In the case of the yellow and red, there is contrast and effect, but less harmony, since but two primaries appear.

As the walls are studied that sort of color art is found to be most conspicuously prominent which is in the minority and probably one's unsophisticated choice, from the point of view of color, would be that which has the distinction of rarity, as the red haired woman is at a premium in the South Sea isles. If, however, the tonal and the coloresque art were in even interchange, the former would have much of its strength robbed, to the degree of the excessive color of its neighbors. If, however, the pictures of tone and of color, instead of being hung together were placed apart, it would be found that the former expressed the greater unity and presented a front of composure and dignity and that the varied color combinations would as likely quarrel among themselves as with their former neighbors.

That a just distinction may be had between tonal and coloresque and impressionist art, the purpose of each must be stated. The “tonist” aims primarily at unified color, to secure which he elects a tone to be followed, which shall dominate and modify every color of his subject. This is accomplished by either painting into a thin glaze of color, administered to the whole canvas so that every brushful partakes of some of it; or by modifying the painting subsequently by transparent glazes of the same tone.

The conscientious impressionist, on the contrary, produces harmony by juxtapositions of pure color. Harmony results when the three primary colors are present either as red, yellow and blue or as a combination of a secondary and primary: green with red, orange with blue or purple with yellow.

The impressionist goes farther, knowing that the complementary of a color will tend to neutralize it, supplying as it does the lacking element to unity, he creates a vivid scheme of color on this basis. In representing therefore a gray rock he knows that if red be introduced, a little blue and yellow will kill it, and the three colors together at a distance will produce gray. Instead, therefore, of mixing upon his palette three primaries to produce the tertiary gray, he so places them on the canvas that at the proper distance (though this consideration is of small concern to him) the spectator will mix them—which he often does. The advantage of this method of color presentation lies in the degree of purity which the pigment retains. Its disadvantage appears in its frequent distortion of fact and aspect of nature, sacrificed to a scientific method of representation. An estimate of impressionism is wholly contained in the reply to the question, “Do you like impressions? Yes, when they are good;” and in the right hands they are.

They are good only when the real intention of [pg 236] impressionism has been expressed, when the synthesis of color has actually produced light and air, and an impression of nature is quickened. But the voice from the canvas more frequently cries “nature be hanged—but this is impressionism.”

The little people of impressionism finding it possible to represent more light than even nature shows in very many of her aspects, delight in exhibiting the disparity existing between nature and, forsooth, impressionism. Thus we see attempts to “knock out” with these scientific brass knuckles all those who refuse to fight with them. The rumpus grows out of the different attitudes in which nature is approached.

The one, drawn by her beauty, kneels to her, touching her resplendent garments; the other grasps her with the mailed hand, bedecking her with a mantle of his own. The knights wooing the same mistress are therefore lorn rivals.

For effect, no one can deny that produced by the savage in war paint and feathers is more startling than the man wearing the conventional garb of civilization, or that the stars and stripes have greater attraction than the modified tones of a gobelin tapestry or a Persian rug. We put the flag outside the building but the daily course of our lives is more easily spent with the tapestry and rug.

An “impression”19 among tonal pictures [pg 237] appears as foolish as a tonal picture among impressions and the sane conclusion is that the attempt to combine them should not be made.

The clear singing tones of the upper register are better rendered under this formula than by any other, but the feeling of solidity and the tonal depth of nature are qualities which it compromises. Impressionism expresses frankly by the use of smaller methods what the tonists attain by larger and freer ones. The individual must decide whether he prefers to tell the time as he watches the movement of the works or will take this for granted if he gets the result.

For charm in color no one will deny that in the works of old masters this is found in greater degree than in painting of more recent production, and the reason is, not because the pigments of the fourteenth century are better than ours, but it is to be found in the alterative and refining influences of time and varnish, which have crowned them with the glorious aureole of the centuries.

Guided by this fact the modern school of tonists seeks to shorten the period between the date of production and this final desirable quality, by setting in motion these factors at once. They therefore paint with varnish as a medium, multiplying the processes of glazing with pure color so that under a number of surfaces of varnish the same chemical action may be precipitated which in the earlier art came about with but few exceptions as a happening through the simple necessary acts of preservation. The consequence [pg 238] of this adoption of kindred processes is that the tonal pictures and the old masters join hands naturally and can stand side by side in the gallery of the collector.

This, though a wholly practical reason for the growing popularity of tonal art is one of the powerful considerations for the trend from that sort which is liable to create discord. The simplest illustration of harmony, and unity and tone may be had in nature herself, for though these qualities have their scientific exposition, the divisions of the color scale are not so easily comprehended by many people as the chart which may be conceived in extended landscape. The sky, inasmuch as it spreads itself over the earth and reflects its light upon it, dictates the tone of the scene. The surface of the lake reveals this fact beyond dispute, for the water takes on any tone which the sky may have. The sky's power of reflection is no less potent in the landscape.

Reflection is observable in that degree in which the surface, reflected upon, is rough or smooth. The absorbent surface allows the light to fall in and disappear and under this condition we see the true or local color. Note, for example, the effect of light on velvet or the hide of a cow in winter. When the hair points toward the light the mass is rich and dark, but when it turns away in any direction its polished surface reflects light, which like the lake becomes a mirror to it.

Light falling upon a meadow will influence it [pg 239] by its own color only in those places where the grass is turned at an angle from its rays.

From these few observations it becomes obvious that unity of tone is a simple matter when understood by the painter and that unity, being a most important part of his color scheme, may be increased by additions of objects bearing the desirable color which nature fails to supply in any particular subject. Thus if the day be one in which a warm mellow haze pervades the air, those tones of the sky repeated upon the backs of cattle, a roadway, clothing, or what not, may effect a more positive tonality than the lesser items would give which also reflect it. Herein then is the principle of Tonality: That all parts of the picture should be bound together by the dominating color or colors of the picture.

With the indoor subject the consideration is equally strong. Let the scheme be one as coloresque as the Venetian school took delight in, vivid primaries in close juxtaposition (see small reproduction in Fundamental forms—The Cross). The central figure, that of St. Peter is clothed in dark blue with a yellow mantle. The Virgin's dress is deep red, her mantle a blue, lighter than that of Peter's robe. Through the pillars is seen the blue sky of still lighter degree. Thus the sky enters the picture by graded approaches and focalizes upon the central figure. In like manner do the light yellow clouds repeat their color in the side of the building, in the yellow spot in the flag and the mantle of the central figure. The red of [pg 239] the Virgin's robe and the yellow mantle together form a combination of a yellow red in the flag, the blue and red of the central figures become purple and garnet in the surplices of the kneeling churchmen and doges. The repetition of a given color in different parts of the figure is pushed still further in the blue gray hair of the kneeling figures, the red brown tunics of the monks and the yellow bands upon the draperies.

In the picture by Henry Ranger (the crossing of horizontals effected without a line), a canvas in which the color is particularly reserved and gray, the tone is created by precisely the same means. The cool gray and warm white clouds are reflected into the water and concentrated with greater force in the pool in the foreground, the greens and drabs of the bushes being strikingly modified by both of the tones noted in the sky. In landscape a cumulative force may be given the progress of the sky tones by the use of figures, the blue or gray of the sky being brought down in stronger degree upon the clothing of the peasant, his cart or farm utensils. Just here inharmony easily insinuates itself through the introduction of elements having no antiphonal connection.

Fancy a single spot of red without its echo. Our sense of tonal harmony is unconsciously active when between two figures observed too far away for sight of their faces we quickly make our conclusions concerning their social station, if one be arrayed in a hat trimmed with purple [pg 241] and green, a garnet waist and a buff skirt, while the other, though dressed in strong colors expresses the principles of coloration herewith defined. The purple and green hat may belong to her suit if their colors be repeated by modification, in it; or the garnet and buff become the foundation for unity if developed throughout the rest of the costume.

The purchaser of a picture may be sure of the tone of his new acquisition if he will hang it for a day or two upside down. This is one of the simplest tests applied by artists, and many things are revealed thereby. Form is lost and the only other thing remains—color.

Harmony being dependent only on the interrelations of colors, their degree or intensity are immaterial.

On this basis it is a matter of choice whether our preference be for the coloresque or the more sober art.

It must however be borne in mind that the danger lies in the direction of color. Inharmony is more frequently found here than in the picture of sober tone.

Precisely the same palette is used to produce an autumnal scene on a blue day, when the colors are vivid and the outline on objects is hard and the form pronounced, as on an overcast day with leaden clouds and much of the life and color gone from the yellow and scarlet foliage.

The reason why chances for harmony in the first are less than in the second is that the synthetic union of the colors is not as obvious or [pg 241] as simple as in the latter, in which to produce the gray sky, red and yellow have been added to the blue, and the sky tones are more apparently added to the bright hues by being mixed into dull colors upon the palette. The circle of harmony is therefore more easily apparent to our observation.

It is for this reason that tonality is more easily understood when applied to the green and copper bronze of the oak tree against a cool gray sky than the red and yellow hillside and the blue sky.

Allied to values is the idea of envelopment: of a kindred notion to this is aerial perspective. On these two depends the proper presentation of a figure in air.

If at any place on the contour of a figure the background seems to stick, the detachment from its surroundings, which every figure should have, is wanting.

The reason for it is to be found in a false value which has deprived it of rotundity of envelopment.

The solid object which resists the attempt to put one's hand around it or to stretch beyond into the background, lacks this quality. A fine distinction must be here drawn between simple envelopment and relief, which is a more positive and less important quality.

However flatly and in mass figures may be conceived, the impression of aerial envelopment must be unmistakable. Here a nice adjustment of values or relative tones will accomplish it.

Naturally, the greater space between the spectator and an object, the more air will be present. To the painter the color of air is the color of the sky. This then will be mixed with the local color of the object, giving it atmosphere.

Envelopment is unmistakably represented by the out of door Dutch painters, for in the low countries atmosphere is seen in its density, and at very short range. Holland is therefore an ideal sketching ground for the painter and the best in the world for the student, since the ideas of values and envelopment are ever present. In this saturated air the minute particles of moisture which, in the case of rain or fog can affect the obliteration of objects, partially accomplishes it at all times, with the result that objects seem to swim in atmosphere.

In such a landscape perspective of value and color is easily observed, making positive the separation of objects. The painter, under these conditions, is independent of linear perspective to give depth to his work, which being one of the cheap devices of painting he avoids as much as possible.

It is because aerial perspective is paintable and the other sort is not that artists shun the clear altitudes of Colorado where all the year one can see for eighty miles and, on the Atlantic border, wait the summer through for the fuller atmosphere which the fall will bring, that by its tender envelopment the vividness and detail which is characteristic of the American landscape may give place to what is serviceable to the purposes of painting.

It is because of misunderstanding on this point that we of the Western Hemisphere may wrongly challenge foreign landscape, judging it upon the natural aspect of our own country. The [pg 246] untravelled American or he who has “been there” without seeing things, is not aware that distinctly different conditions prevail in Europe than with us, especially above latitude 40°.

Advantage in the paintability of subject therefore lies distinctly with the European artist, and it may be because he has to labor against these odds that the American landscapist has forged to the front and is now leading his European brethren. It must, however, be acknowledged that he acquired what he knows concerning landscape from the art and nature of Europe—from Impressionism with its important legacy of color, which has been acknowledged in varying degree by all our painters, and from the “school of 1830,” on which is based the tonal movement of the present.

Other than perspective of values, no importance should be attached to that which, with the inartistic mind, is regarded so important a quality. The art instruction which the common school of the past generation offered was based on perspective, its problems, susceptible of never ending circumventions, being spread in an interminable maze before the student. Great respect for this “lion in the path” was a natural result and “at least a two years' study” of these problems was thought necessary before practical work in art could commence. (See Appendix.)

Mr. Ruskin's fling at the perspective labyrinth would have been more authoritative than it proved, had he not too often lessened our faith by the cry of wolf when it proved a false alarm.

There is a single truth which, though simple, was never known to Oriental art, namely; that in every picture there must be a real or understood horizon—the level of the painter's eye,—that all lines above this will descend and all lines below will rise to it as they recede.

But upon aerial perspective depends the question of detail in the receding object and this to the painter is of first importance. To temper a local color so that it shall settle itself to a nicety at any distance, in the perspective scheme, and to express the exact degree of shadow which a given color shall have under a given light and at a given distance are problems which absorb four-fifths of the painter's attention.

If the features of a man a hundred yards away be painted with the same fidelity as though he stood but ten yards distant the aerial balance is disturbed, the man being brought nearer than his place on the perspective plan allows.

At a mile's range a tree to the painter is not an object expressing a combination of leaves and branches, but a solid colored mass having its light and shade and perhaps perforated by the sky. It is with natural aspect and not natural fact that the painter deals.

Pre-Raphaelite art practised this phase of honesty, which, in our own day was revived in England. In this later coterie of pre-Raphaelite brethren was but one painter, the others, men of varying artistic perceptions and impulses. To the painter it in time became evident that he was out of place in this company and the [pg 248] commentary of his withdrawal proved more forcible than any to be made by an outsider.

When, therefore, judgment be applied to a work of painting it must be with a knowledge of natural aspect in mind, not necessarily related, even vaguely, to the scene under consideration, but such as has come by the absorption of nature's moods, whereby, with the cause given, the effect may be known as a familiar sequence. The public too should be sufficiently knowing to catch the code signals of each artist whereby these natural facts are symbolled.

Herein has now been set forth, as concisely as possible, the few considerations which are ever present to the painter. The connoisseur who would judge of his work, either subjectively or technically, must follow in his footprints and be careful to follow closely. He must appreciate the differences in the creeds of workers in color and not apply the formulas of impressionism to works in tone. He must not emphasize the importance of drawing in the work which clearly speaks of color and by its technique ignores all else; nor expect the miracle of luscious, translucent color in a work demanding the minute drawing of detail. He can, however, be sure that the criteria of judgment which under all circumstances will apply are:

Balanced and unified composition, both of line and mass.

Harmony of color, expressed by the correlation of all colors throughout the picture.

Tone, or the unification of all colors upon the basis of a given hue.

Values, or the relation of the shades of an object to each other and the degree of relation between one object and another.

Envelopment, or the sense of air with which objects are surrounded.

With these five ideas in mind the critic of Philistia may enter the gallery, constituting himself a jury of one, assured he is armed with every consideration which influenced the artist in his work and the art committee in its acceptance thereof.

Judgment however does not end here. These constitute the tables of the law, and law finds its true interpretation only in the spirit of the living principle.

If discernment was ours to trace through the maze of fashion and experimental originality the living principle of true art, the caprice of taste would have little to do with the comfort of our convictions or the worth of our investments.

Fallacy has its short triumphs and the persuasive critic or the creator of art values may effect real value but for a day. The limit of the credulity of the public, which Lincoln has immortalized, is the basis of hope.

The public in time rights itself.

Error in discerning this living principle in art is cause for the deepest contrition at the confessional of modern life. Unsigned and unrecognized works by modern masters have been rejected by juries to whom in haste the doors of the Salon or Society have been reopened with apologies. The nation which assumes the highest degree of aesthetic perception turned its back on Millet and Corot and Courbet and Manet and Puvis de Chavannes, rejecting their best, and has honored yesterday what it spurns to-day. The feverish delirium of the upper culture demands “some new thing,” and Athens, Paris, London and New York concede it.

But what has lived? What successive generations have believed in may be believed by us; a [pg 251] thought expressed by the author of “Modern Painters” in one magnificent sentence, containing 153 words and too long for quotation. The argument is based on the common sense of mankind. It has however this objection. Judgment by such agreement is bound to be cumulative. What is good in the beginning is better to-day, still better to morrow, then great, then wonderful, then divine.

This is the Raphaelesque progression, and if fifty persons were asked who was the greatest painter, forty-nine would say Raphael, without discrimination. The fiftieth might have observed what all painters know, that Raphael was not a great painter, either as colorist or technician. The opinion in this contention of Velasquez that of all painters he studied at Rome, Raphael pleased him least, is a judgment of a colorist and a technician, the more valuable because rendered before the ministrations of oil and granular secretion had enveloped his work in the mystery from which it speaks to us. As a painter and draughtsman Raphael is perhaps outclassed by Bouguereau, Cabanel or Lefevre of our own time, and as a composer of either decorative or pictorial design he has had superiors. But the work of Raphael possesses the loving unction of real conviction and nothing to which he put his well trained hand failed of the baptism of genius. Through this mark, therefore, it will live forever. Nor should any work require more than this for continuous life. Each age should be distinctive.

The bias of judgment through the cumulative [pg 252] regard of successive centuries is what has created the popular disparity between the old and modern masters, and it must not be forgotten that the harmony of color and its glowing quality is largely the gift of these centuries, a fact made cruelly plain to those who have restored pictures and tampered with their secrets.

It will be a surprise to the average man in that realm of perfect truth which lies beyond, to mark, in the association of artists of all ages, when the divisions of schools, periods and petty formulas are forgotten, that Raphael will grasp the hand of Abbott Thayer, saying to him in the never dying fervor of art enthusiasm and with the acknowledgment of limitations, which is one of the signs of greatness;

“O, that I had had thy glorious quality of technical subtlety in place of the mechanical directness in which I labored!” and he in turn to be reminded that had he paused for this, the span of his short life were measured long before he had accomplished half his work.

A kindred bias is the eventual acceptance of whatever is persisted in. Almost any form in which a technically good artist may express his idea will in time find acceptance. It has the persuasion of the advertisement, offering what we do not want. In time we imagine we do. Duplications of Cuyp's very puerile arrangement of parts, as in the “Departure for the Chase” to be found in others of his pictures, work in our minds mitigation for those faults. The belief in self has the singular magnetic potency of [pg 253] drawing and turning us. A stronger magnet must then be the living principle. We find it in unity. Originality compromises this at its peril.

And that discrimination against the prophet in his own country! Under its ban the native artist left his home and dwelt abroad; but the expatriation which produced pictures of Dutch and French peasants by native painters was in time condemned. The good of the foreign experience lay in the medals which were brought back out of banishment. These turned the tide of thoughtless prejudice, and international competitions have kept it rising.

But the worth of the foreign signature is now of the lesser reckonings; for with the same spirit in which the native artist would annihilate the tariff on foreign art, have the best painters of Europe declared “there shall be no nationality in art”; for art is individual and submits to the government stamp only by courtesy.

Happy that nation which, when necessary, can believe in its own, not to exclusion, from clannish pride, but on the basis of that simple canon adopted by the world of sport; “Let the best win.”

The commonest bias to judgment is also the most vulgar—price. The reply of the man of wealth to the statement that a recent purchase was an inferior example of an artist's work; “I paid ten thousand for it. Of course it's all right,” was considered final to the critic. The man whose first judgment concerning an elaborate picture of roses was turned to surprise and [pg 254] wonder when told the price, which in time led to respect and then purchase, may find parallels in most of the collections of Philistia. “The value of a picture is what some one will pay for it” is a maxim of the creators of picture values and upon it the “picture business” has its working basis. And so together with the good of foreign art have the Meyer Von Bremens and the Verbeckhovens, the creations of the school of smiles and millinery, and the failures and half successes of impressionism, together with its good, been cornered, and unloaded upon the ingenuous collector.

The most insidious bias of judgment is that developed by the art historian, the man who really knows.

Serene and above the petty matters which concern the buyer of art and perplex the producer, he pours forth his jeremiads upon the age and its art, subjecting them to indefensible comparisons with the fifteenth century and deploring the materialism of modern times.

The argument is that out of the heart the mouth must speak; can men gather figs from thistles: is it reasonable to expect great art when men and messages are transported by steam and electricity, in the face of Emerson's contention that art is antagonistic to hurry? The argument neglects the fact that this present complex life is such because it has added one by one these separate interests to those which it has received as an inheritance, each of which in its own narrowing niche having [pg 255] been preserved under the guardianship of the specialist.

The art instinct has never died out; but art, which aforetime was the only thought of the humanists, has been obliged to move up and become condensed. But mark, the priests who keep alive her fires can still show their ordination from the hands of the divine Raphael. The age may be unsympathetic, but for those who will worship, the fire burns. Whereas art was once uplifted by the joyous acclaim of the whole people, she must now fight for space in a jostling competition. But is it not more reasonable that the prophet lay aside his sackcloth and accept the conditions of the new era, acknowledging that art has had its day in the sanctuary and has now come to adorn the home and that of necessity therefore the conditions of subject and of size must be altered? The impulse which aforetime expressed itself in ideals is now satisfied to become reflective of the emotions. The change which has restricted the range in the grander reaches of the ideal has resulted in the closer and more intimate friendship with nature. The effort which was primarily ideal now turns its fervor into the quality of its means.

If there be a basis of reliance for continuous life and consequent value, a search for the living principle must be made in those works which the world will not let die. And this labor will be aided by the exclusion of such as have had their day and passed. Although the verdict suggested in the fostering care of the people or in its lack, may be wrong, as future ages may show, yet for us in our inquiry in the twentieth century this jury is our only court of appeal and its dictum must be final.

We command a view of the long line of art unfolding as a river flows, in winding course from meagre sources, and through untoward obstructions into a natural bed which awaits it, now deep and swollen, now slender, now graceful, now turbid, here breaking into smaller threads stretching into opposed directions, here again uniting and deepening, and we mark in all of its variety of course and depth, the narrow line of the channel. A slender line there is touching hands through all generations from the painters of the twilight of Art to the painters of the present who have seen all of its light and for whom too much of its brilliancy has proved bewildering. The history of art is perforce full [pg 257] of the chronicles of unfruitful effort and the galleries as replete with unprofitable pictures. Our ardent though rapid quest will, unaided by the catalogue, discover for us the real, and sift it free of the spurious if we have settled with ourselves what art is and what its purpose. If we hold to the present popular notion that art is imitation, the results will come out at variance with the popular opinion of five centuries. If, on the other hand, we delegate to its proper place fidelity to the surface of nature, we must of necessity seek still further for its essence. This is subjective and not objective.

To make apparent a statement the edge of which strikes dull from much use in purely philosophical lingo, let us take the case of a picture representing a laborer with his horse. The idea for the expression of which the few elements of field, man and beast, are employed is Toil. Whether then the man and beast be in actual labor or not, the dominant idea in the artist's mind is that they are or have been laboring; that that is what they stand for, that idea to be presented in the strongest possible way. “The strongest possible way” is the question to be debated. Individual artists interpret this as suits their temperament, the jury therefore sits in judgment upon the temperament as the exponent of “the strongest possible way.” With the idea of toil in mind one artist is moved to present its unadorned force, careful not to weaken the conception by the addition of anything superfluous or extraneous to the idea. Its force is therefore [pg 258] ideal force and the presentation appeals to and moves us on this basis. Another will see in the subject of a landscape, a man and a horse, an opportunity presented of detail and of surfaces and will delight in expressing what he knows to do cleverly. Under this impulse the dexterity of his art is poured forth; the long training of the workshop aids him. He paints the horse and makes it look not only like a real horse, but a particular one. The bourgeois claps his hands exclaiming, “See it is unmistakably old Dobbin, the white spot on his fetlock is there and his tail ragged on the end; and the laborer, I know him at once. How true to life with side whiskers and that ugly cut across the forehead and his hat with the hole in it. The field too is all there, the stones, the weeds, the rows of stubble, nothing slighted. And the action of the light too, what a relief the figures possess, how like colored photographs they stand out, clear, sharp and unmistakable.”

A third artist, without sacrificing the individual character of the horse will yet represent him in such a way that one feels first the idea, of a laboring horse and afterward notes that he is a particular horse, and in like manner with the man of the picture. This artist's conception lies midway between the two extremes and in consequence expresses greater truth than either. He poises himself on the magic line spanning the chasm between these opposing walls, supported by the balancing pole of the real and ideal, lightly gripped in the centre.

But to return to the first in the spirit of nature-love and truth to prove if it be worthy. Judged on this scale does it stand? Coordinately with the idea of toil, does it violate the laws of the universe; do the surfaces thereof reflect the light of day; is the color probable; is the action possible? If under this scrutiny the work fails, its acceptable idealistic expression cannot save it.

It is here that the idealist pleads in vain for the painters of the groping periods of art, or for the pre-Raphaelites of the nineteenth century, who in their spirit beg that we accept their unctuous will for the deed completely wrought. When however they do fill the condition of natural aspect in its fundamental essence, in its condition of non-violation of physical law, when, uncompromised by such discrepancy, the presentment of the idea is complete and this alone engages us, the work by virtue of its higher motive takes higher rank in the scale of art than that in which the idea has been delegated to a place second to the shell which encloses it. It is the art which fulfills both requirements with the idea paramount that has survived in all ages. The reverse order is not sustained by the history of art. Mark the line from the early masters to the present, do you not find the description includes “the idealists” who could paint? The list would be a long and involved one, taking its start in Italy with Botticelli, Giotto, Fra Angelico, Raphael, Leonardo da Vinci, Michael Angelo, Andrea del Sarto, Fra Bartolomeo, [pg 260] Titian, Giorgione, and extending thence to our own time inclusive of Millet, Corot, Watts, Turner, Blake, Rousseau, Mauve, Puvis de Chavannes and Ryder—men of all complexions in art, and typical of many more quite as diverse in their subjects and modes of expression but who place the idea, the motive, the emotion, the type, before the thing depicted. For them the letter of the law killeth, but the spirit giveth life. This of course raises issue with the naturalistic school—a school which believes in rendering Nature as she is, without rearrangement, addition, substraction or idealization; a school presuming the artist to be a copyist, and founded not on the principles of design, but the love of nature.

Says W. J. Stillman in his impassioned polemic on “The Revival of Art”: “The painter whose devotion to nature is such that he never leaves or varies from her, may be, and likely is, a happier man than if he were a true artist...To men of the other type, the external image disturbs the ideal which is so complete that it admits no interference. To them she may offer suggestions, but lays down no law.”

The complaint of Turner that Nature so frequently put him out contains for us what it should have expressed to Ruskin, the real attitude which he held toward nature, but which Ruskin in his enthusiastic love of nature did not, or would not perceive. What the master artist saw and utilized in nature were forms for his designs and sentiment for emotional expression. [pg 261] Yet the recorder of his labors followed after, verifying his findings with near-sighted scrutiny, lauding him with commendations for keen observation in noting rock fractures, the bark of trees, grass, or the precise shape of clouds, undismayed when his hero neglected all these if they interfered with his art.

The point of the argument as stated by the idealists can be understood only save through the element in our nature from which art draws its vitality. Its deduction is thus bluntly expressed; “the nearest to nature, the farther from art,” an apparent paradox paralleled by the epigram, “the nearer the church, the farther from God.”

Both of them, out of their hollow clamor, echo back a startling truth: Not form, but spirit. Thus did Rembrandt work for the spirit of the man and the art to be got from the waiting subject. Thus did Millet reveal in his representation of a single toiler the type of all labor. Thus did Corot stop, when he had produced the spirit of the morning, knowing well his nymphs would have vanished if the mystery of their hiding-places was entirely laid bare, nor ever come to him again had he exposed the full truth of form and feature.

It is the touch of poesy which has glorified these works and those of their kind, the spring of the unwritten law yielding preeminence to the emotional arts. Impulse is the life of it: it dies when short tethered by specific limitations.

On this basis the way seems opened to settle [pg 262] the changeful formulas of taste; why the rejection of what for the moment has held the pinnacle of popular favor; why, for instance, the waning of interest in the detailists of the brilliant French-Spanish School, the school of Fortuny, Madrazzo, Villegas, Rico, or of the work of Meissonier, who as a detailist eclipsed them all. A simple analysis of their work in toto will prove that their best pictures are those in which a sentiment has dominated and in which breadth and largeness of effect is strongest. Thus Meissonier's “Return of Napoleon from Moscow,” is a better picture than his “Napoleon III surrounded by his staff in Sicily,” which latter is only a marvellous achievement at painting detail in the smallest possible size, and lacks entirely the forceful composition of mass and light and shade of the former. Thus does the “Spanish Marriage” of Fortuny outclass his “Academicians Choosing a Model,” which besides lacking the reserve force of the former has its source in flippant imagination; and so may the many other shifts of time and tide in the graphic arts be measured and chronicled upon the basis of the emotions and the formative touch of the poetic, upon the sequence of the artist's regard for the ideal and the real, and the degree of his approach toward either. The concensus of the ages regarding finish, dexterity, cleverness, and chic is that in the scale of art they weigh less than the simple breadth of effect which they so frequently interrupt. The school of Teniers with all of its detail was preservative of this.

It is on the question of detail and the careful anxiety concerning the surface that the art instinct avoids science, refusing her microscope in preference for the unaided impression of normal sight. The living art of the ages is that in which the painter is seen to be greater than his theme, in which we acknowledge the power first, and afterward the product. It is the unfettered mode allowing the greatest individualism of expression; it is, in short, the man end of it which lives, for his is the immortal life.

The first point settled in the making of a picture after the subject has germinated, is the shape into which the items of the concept are to be edited; the second is the arrangement of those items within the proscribed limits; the third is the defining of the dark and light masses. This consideration forces the question whence the light, together with its answer, hence the shadow.

The detail of the direction of light and the action of the shadows cuts the pictorial intention clear of the decorative design. Design is a good basis, its simplicity yielding favorably to the settlement of spaces and the construction of lines, but its chief purpose ends when it has cleared the field of little things and reduced the first conception, which usually comes as a bundle of items, to a broad and dignified foundation into which these little things are set.

A severe, space-filling design in three tones or four will place the student in a position of confidence to proceed with detail which, until the design has settled [pg 266] well into its four sides, should be persistently excluded. It may, however, be found that the essence of certain subjects lies in a small item of detail. This, when known, must be allowed for in the design.

Of first importance in composition is the notion of Light and Dark, to which Line is second. In the tone design line is but the edge of the masses. Line as the basis of the form of the design is reduced to a few forms which with modifications become the framework for all pictorial structure. (See Fundamental Forms.) Line as an element of beauty sufficient of itself to become subjective is rare, an exception in pictorial art. (See Line)

The æsthetics of Line must be comprehended and felt in its symbolism. The form into which lines may lead the subject should have the full knowledge of the composer.

The uplift of the simple vertical is spiritual as well as mechanical. It may carry the thought to higher levels or may support therewith an opposed line. In either case its strength is majestic and in so far as this line dominates does the picture receive its quality.

A group of pines or the columns of the Greek or Egyptian temple alike induce solemnity, quietude and dignity. The horizontal is a line less commanding than the vertical with its upright strength, the symbol of repose, serenity, and reserved motion.

The diagonal being an unsupported line naturally suggests instability, change, motion, transit. Its purpose frequently is to connect the stabler forms of the composition or lead therefrom.

The curvilinear line is the basis of variety and graceful movement. As an adjunct, it assists the sequence of parts. In the latter capacity it is of great importance to the composer. It is of course the basis of the circle as well as the important notion of circular construction and observation.

Given the subject and means of expression the final labor is the restraint or enforcement of parts in the degree of their importance. This requires ingenuity and knowledge and frequently demands a reconstruction of the original scheme.

The most absolute and the most important idea in the production of art is Principality, that one object or idea shall be supreme. Its correlative idea contains in it the hardships of composition, namely, Sacrifice. This forces a graded scale of importance or attraction throughout the entire work.

The idea has complete exposition in the vase or baluster in which the commanding lines of the body find both support and extension through the lesser associated parts. These stand as types of complete art revealing the uncompromising principles of domination and subordination.

In the picture, complete in its chiaroscuro, these principles are as easily apprehended as [pg 268] with the more tangible line and space of the solid form. The “Cow in a Stable,” by Mauve, contains by his management of this rude and simple subject all the possibilities opened to and demanded by compositions involving many elements. It might stand as the light and dark scheme for some of the allegories of Rubens, Wiertz or Correggio, or for many genre interiors, or for an “arrangement” of flowers.

When once the importance of this principle is realized many of the pitfalls into which beginners are so prone to fall are covered, and that forever. Time and regrets are both saved to the student who will pause for the absorption of the few principles on which all the arts are founded.

This idea may seem to disturb the notion of balance across the centre, especially when the object which receives our first consideration occupies one side of the picture. A study of the postulates together with the principle of the steelyard and the knowledge of picture balance will clear any apprehension of conflict.

Above and beyond the object which dominates all others is the idea which dominates the picture. Such may be light, gloom, space, action, passion, repose, communion, humor, or whatever has stimulated and therefore must govern the composition. If with the sentiment of Repose as subjective, the principal object expresses action, there must necessarily be conflict between the idea and the reality.

Action, however, may very appropriately be [pg 269] introduced into a conception of repose, its contrast heightening this emotion; the creeping baby, the frolicking kitten, the swinging pendulum, the distant toilers observed by a nearer group at rest.

The point where a counter emotion weakens and where it strengthens the idea is determined on a scale of degree, many necessary parts taking precedence thereto before the opposed sentiment shall attract us. These ideas, correlative to their principal, have also their scale of attraction, and only in the formal arrangement of allegory and decoration may two units be allowed the same degree of attraction. This is one of the most frequent forms in which weak composition develops, leaving the mind uncertain as to the sequence, and the eye wavering between the equal claims of separated parts. The neglect of leading lines, or of forcing a logical procedure from part to part, so that no part may escape the continuous inspection of all, produces decomposition. The avoidance of inharmony must of course yield harmony.

Harmony, therefore, though a necessary principle in all art, does not push herself to the front as does Principality. She follows naturally, if allowed to.

Of the other principles, Consistency or breadth, Continuity and its complement, Contrast, associate themselves in greater or less degree with Principality and Harmony, which are the must [pg 270] be's; while Repetition, Radiation, Curvature and Interchange are reckoned as the may be's of composition.

The basis of all plane presentation is founded on perspective, an absolute science giving absolute satisfaction to all who would have it. Knowing that a figure must be of a certain height if it occupy a given space is often a shorter road to the fact even though it demand a perspective working plan than feeling for it with the best of artistic intentions. One may feel all around the spot before finding it, and meanwhile the scientist has been saving his temper.

In all compositions demanding architectural environment or many figures, perspective becomes essential, at least as a time saver. Yet if the science never existed such art as embraces many figures and architecture could find adequate expression at the hands of the discerning artist.

The science of perspective does no more than acquaint the artist with any given angle. His knowledge of cause and effect in the universe, with an added art instinct, are equipment sufficient to obtain this.

No part of art expression commands more of the mysterious reverence of the atechnic than perspective. It is that universal art term that includes very much to many people. When, after writing a thorough treatise on the subject, Mr. Ruskin remarked the essence of the whole thing can be known in twenty minutes, it was doubtless [pg 271] in rebuke of the unqualified suppositions of the artless public.

The conception of balance clearly understood in the length, the height and the depth of a picture contains the whole truth of pictorial composition. The elements which war against unity and which we seek to extract, reveal themselves as the disturbers of balance and are to be found when the principles of balance are put into motion.

Does divided interest vex us, the foreground absorbing so much interest that the background, where the real subject may lie, struggles in vain for its right; then we may know that the balance through the depth of the picture has been disturbed. Does the middle distance attract us too much in passing to the distance where the real subject may lie; then we may know that its attachment to the foreground or its sacrifice to the background is insufficient and that its shift in the right direction will restore balance. Do we feel that one side of the picture attracts our entire attention and the other side plays no part in the pictorial scheme, then we may know that the items of the lateral balance are wanting.

It is rare to find apart from formality a composition which develops to a finish in an orderly procedure. Once separated from the even balance the picture becomes a sequence of compromises, the conciliation of each new element by the reconstruction of what is already there or the introduction of the added item which unity necessitates.

The argument reminds the picture maker that he is in like case with the voyageur who loads his canoe, sensible of the exquisite poise which his craft demands. Along its keelson he lays the items of his draught, careful for instance that his light and bulky blanket on one side is balanced by the smaller items of heavier weight in opposed position. The bow under its load may be almost submerged and the onlooker ventures a warning. But again balance is restored when the seat at the other end is occupied as a final act in the calculation.20

The degree of attraction of objects in the balanced scheme must be a matter of individual decision as are many other applied principles in temperamental art.

Color representing the natural aspect of objects, color containing “tone,” and color containing tone quality or “tonal quality,” are three aspects of color to be met with in accepted art.

As with the sentiment of the art idea, whether it incline toward the real or the ideal, so the distinction applies between what is reflective only of nature and what is reflective also of the artist's temperament. It is a simple proposition in the scale of value and it works as truly when applied to color as to the art concept: the more of the man the better the [pg 273] art. Were it not so the color-photograph would have preeminence.

The first degree in the scale of color is represented by that sort which applied to canvas to imitate a surface seems satisfying to the artist as nature-color. The second degree is that in which the color is made to harmonize with all other colors of the picture on the basis of a given hue. This tonal harmony may fail to reveal itself in many subjects in nature or in such arrangements of objects as the still-life painter might and often does collect, and is therefore clearly a quality with which the artist endows his work. Such painters as Whistler and his following see to it that this tonality inheres in all subjects which may be governed in the composition of color (such as his “arrangements” in the studio), so that the production of this harmony results naturally by following the subject.

The color key is given in that selected hue which influences to a greater or less degree all the colors, even when these make violent departures in the scheme of harmony. Solicitous only of the quality of unified color, the majority of these painters (though this frequently does not include Mr. Whistler himself) concern themselves wholly with that thought, employing their pigment so directly that the vibration of color is sacrificed.

The production of this vibration is by agreement on the part of all great colorists impossible through impasted color or that applied flatly to the surface, which they declare cannot be as [pg 274] powerful, as significant or as beautiful as that which vibrates, either by reason of the juxtaposition of color plainly seen, as with the impressionists, or of its broken tone, or by virtue of the influence of a transparent glaze of color which enables two colors to be seen at once.

The last method is that of Titian, the second in combination with the last that of Rembrandt in his latest and best period, the first that of Monet, which contains the principle of coloration in its scientific analysis. The chasm between these men is not known in any such degree as a superficial notion of their respective arts might presuppose. The real disparity in color presentation exists between all such painters and those who paint directly on white canvas, neglecting the influence of the undertone and the enrichment which enters into color by glazes (transparent color).

Such painters may be able to represent most faithfully the true tints of Nature but not the true impression, for Nature is always expressive of that depth and strength which lies far in and which the painter of “quality” insists to render. To him it is that something containing the last word of a thorough statement, and without it the statement is a surface one.

Technically, it may mean the labor of many repaintings, of color glazes, and of procedure from one process to another, so that the first statement on the canvas becomes the general but not the final dictum. Through these the work takes on that unctuousness of depth and strength [pg 275] by which one experiences the same thrill as through the deep reverberations of a musical tone from many instruments, simple tone being producible by one instrument. Practically, it is the pulsation of color in every part of the picture felt by either the play of one color through another or by such broken color as may be administered by a single brush stroke loaded with several colors or by a single color so dragged across another as to leave some of the under color existent.

Such technique produces the highest tonal quality. It cannot be supposed that Rembrandt glazed and repainted on his portraits for a lesser reason than to supply them with a quality which direct painting denied, nor that Frank Holl, of our own times, employed a like method for the sake of being like Rembrandt.

Natural Color; Tonal Color, representing nature; and Tonality plus “Quality” (the last a vague term denoting depth and fullness of color) are three grades represented, the first by Meissonier in his “1807”, a picture devoid of tone; the second by the portraits of Alice, by Chase, and Lady Archibald Campbell, by Whistler; and the last or tonal quality, by the later works of George Fuller and Albert Ryder. Under these specified classes the lists of names in art are now lengthening and shortening, the indications of our present art pointing to a revival of the color quality of a former age.

It was stated in the introduction that the [pg 275] commandments of this book would be the “must nots,” yet for him who apprehends principles, commandments do not exist. A few conclusions from the foregoing arguments may, however, be of service to beginners in the practice of composition.

Structures to be avoided are:—

Those in which the lines all run one way without opposition:

Those especially in which the bottom of the frame is paralleled:

Those in which the perspective of a line or the edge of a mass happens to be a vertical:

Those in which an opposing plane or attractive mass barricades the entrance of the picture:

Those in which two masses in different planes happen to be the same size:

Those in which objects of equal interest occur in the same picture:

Those in which an object awkwardly prolongs a line:

Those in which the line of the background duplicates the lines of the subject:

Those in which the picture is cut by lines too long continued in any direction:

Those in which radial lines fail to lead to a focal object:

Those in which the items of a picture fail to present a natural sequence:

Those in which the subject proper is not dignified by a conspicuous placement or is swamped by too attractive surroundings:

Those in which the most energetic forms of construction are not allied to the principal but to secondary parts of the picture:

Those formal compositions in which greater interest is shown at the sides than in the centre:

Those in which the aesthetic principle of the constructive form is antagonistic to the sentiment of the subject.