the best things in an artist's work are so much a matter of intuition, that there is much to be said for the point of view that would altogether discourage intellectual inquiry into artistic phenomena on the part of the artist. intuitions are shy things and apt to disappear if looked into too closely. and there is undoubtedly a danger that too much knowledge and training may supplant the natural intuitive feeling of a student, leaving only a cold knowledge of the means of expression in its place. for the artist, if he has the right stuff in him, has a consciousness, in doing his best work, of something, as ruskin has said, "not in him but through him." he has been, as it were, but the agent through which it has found expression.
talent can be described as "that which we have," and genius as "that which has us." now, although we may have little control over this power that "has us," and although it may be as well to abandon oneself unreservedly to its influence, there can be little doubt as to its being the business of the artist to see to it that his talent be so developed, that he 18may prove a fit instrument for the expression of whatever it may be given him to express; while it must be left to his individual temperament to decide how far it is advisable to pursue any intellectual analysis of the elusive things that are the true matter of art.
provided the student realises this, and that art training can only deal with the perfecting of a means of expression and that the real matter of art lies above this and is beyond the scope of teaching, he cannot have too much of it. for although he must ever be a child before the influence that moves him, if it is not with the knowledge of the grown man that he takes off his coat and approaches the craft of painting or drawing, he will be poorly equipped to make them a means of conveying to others in adequate form the things he may wish to express. great things are only done in art when the creative instinct of the artist has a well-organised executive faculty at its disposal.
of the two divisions into which the technical study of painting can be divided, namely form and colour, we are concerned in this book with form alone. but before proceeding to our immediate subject something should be said as to the nature of art generally, not with the ambition of arriving at any final result in a short chapter, but merely in order to give an idea of the point of view from which the following pages are written, so that misunderstandings may be avoided.
the variety of definitions that exist justifies some inquiry. the following are a few that come to mind:
"art is nature expressed through a personality."
19but what of architecture? or music? then there is morris's
"art is the expression of pleasure in work."
but this does not apply to music and poetry. andrew lang's
"everything which we distinguish from nature"
seems too broad to catch hold of, while tolstoy's
"an action by means of which one man, having experienced a feeling, intentionally transmits it to others"
is nearer the truth, and covers all the arts, but seems, from its omitting any mention of rhythm, very inadequate.
now the facts of life are conveyed by our senses to the consciousness within us, and stimulate the world of thought and feeling that constitutes our real life. thought and feeling are very intimately connected, few of our mental perceptions, particularly when they first dawn upon us, being unaccompanied by some feeling. but there is this general division to be made, on one extreme of which is what we call pure intellect, and on the other pure feeling or emotion. the arts, i take it, are a means of giving expression to the emotional side of this mental activity, intimately related as it often is to the more purely intellectual side. the more sensual side of this feeling is perhaps its lowest, while the feelings associated with the intelligence, the little sensitivenesses of perception that escape pure intellect, are possibly its noblest experiences.
pure intellect seeks to construct from the facts brought to our consciousness by the senses, an accurately 20measured world of phenomena, uncoloured by the human equation in each of us. it seeks to create a point of view outside the human standpoint, one more stable and accurate, unaffected by the ever-changing current of human life. it therefore invents mechanical instruments to do the measuring of our sense perceptions, as their records are more accurate than human observation unaided.
but while in science observation is made much more effective by the use of mechanical instruments in registering facts, the facts with which art deals, being those of feeling, can only be recorded by the feeling instrument—man, and are entirely missed by any mechanically devised substitutes.
the artistic intelligence is not interested in things from this standpoint of mechanical accuracy, but in the effect of observation on the living consciousness—the sentient individual in each of us. the same fact accurately portrayed by a number of artistic intelligences should be different in each case, whereas the same fact accurately expressed by a number of scientific intelligences should be the same.
but besides the feelings connected with a wide range of experience, each art has certain emotions belonging to the particular sense perceptions connected with it. that is to say, there are some that only music can convey: those connected with sound; others that only painting, sculpture, or architecture can convey: those connected with the form and colour that they severally deal with.
in abstract form and colour—that is, form and colour unconnected with natural appearances—there is an emotional power, such as there is in music, the sounds of which have no direct connection with 21anything in nature, but only with that mysterious sense we have, the sense of harmony, beauty, or rhythm (all three but different aspects of the same thing).
this inner sense is a very remarkable fact, and will be found to some extent in all, certainly all civilised, races. and when the art of a remote people like the chinese and japanese is understood, our senses of harmony are found to be wonderfully in agreement. despite the fact that their art has developed on lines widely different from our own, none the less, when the surprise at its newness has worn off and we begin to understand it, we find it conforms to very much the same sense of harmony.
but apart from the feelings connected directly with the means of expression, there appears to be much in common between all the arts in their most profound expression; there seems to be a common centre in our inner life that they all appeal to. possibly at this centre are the great primitive emotions common to all men. the religious group, the deep awe and reverence men feel when contemplating the great mystery of the universe and their own littleness in the face of its vastness—the desire to correspond and develop relationship with the something outside themselves that is felt to be behind and through all things. then there are those connected with the joy of life, the throbbing of the great life spirit, the gladness of being, the desire of the sexes; and also those connected with the sadness and mystery of death and decay, &c.
the technical side of an art is, however, not concerned with these deeper motives but with the 22things of sense through which they find expression; in the case of painting, the visible universe.
the artist is capable of being stimulated to artistic expression by all things seen, no matter what; to him nothing comes amiss. great pictures have been made of beautiful people in beautiful clothes and of squalid people in ugly clothes, of beautiful architectural buildings and the ugly hovels of the poor. and the same painter who painted the alps painted the great western railway.
the visible world is to the artist, as it were, a wonderful garment, at times revealing to him the beyond, the inner truth there is in all things. he has a consciousness of some correspondence with something the other side of visible things and dimly felt through them, a "still, small voice" which he is impelled to interpret to man. it is the expression of this all-pervading inner significance that i think we recognise as beauty, and that prompted keats to say:
"beauty is truth, truth beauty."
and hence it is that the love of truth and the love of beauty can exist together in the work of the artist. the search for this inner truth is the search for beauty. people whose vision does not penetrate beyond the narrow limits of the commonplace, and to whom a cabbage is but a vulgar vegetable, are surprised if they see a beautiful picture painted of one, and say that the artist has idealised it, meaning that he has consciously altered its appearance on some idealistic formula; whereas he has probably only honestly given expression to a truer, deeper vision than they had been aware of. the commonplace is not the true, but only the shallow, view of things.
plate ii.
drawing by leonardo da vinci from the royal collection at windsor
copyright photo, braun & co.
23
fromentin's
"art is the expression of the invisible by means of the visible"
expresses the same idea, and it is this that gives to art its high place among the works of man.
beautiful things seem to put us in correspondence with a world the harmonies of which are more perfect, and bring a deeper peace than this imperfect life seems capable of yielding of itself. our moments of peace are, i think, always associated with some form of beauty, of this spark of harmony within corresponding with some infinite source without. like a mariner's compass, we are restless until we find repose in this one direction. in moments of beauty (for beauty is, strictly speaking, a state of mind rather than an attribute of certain objects, although certain things have the power of inducing it more than others) we seem to get a glimpse of this deeper truth behind the things of sense. and who can say but that this sense, dull enough in most of us, is not an echo of a greater harmony existing somewhere the other side of things, that we dimly feel through them, evasive though it is.
but we must tread lightly in these rarefied regions and get on to more practical concerns. by finding and emphasising in his work those elements in visual appearances that express these profounder things, the painter is enabled to stimulate the perception of them in others.
in the representation of a fine mountain, for instance, there are, besides all its rhythmic beauty of form and colour, associations touching deeper chords in our natures—associations connected with its size, age, and permanence, &c.; at any rate we have more feelings than form and colour of themselves 24are capable of arousing. and these things must be felt by the painter, and his picture painted under the influence of these feelings, if he is instinctively to select those elements of form and colour that convey them. such deeper feelings are far too intimately associated even with the finer beauties of mere form and colour for the painter to be able to neglect them; no amount of technical knowledge will take the place of feeling, or direct the painter so surely in his selection of what is fine.
there are those who would say, "this is all very well, but the painter's concern is with form and colour and paint, and nothing else. if he paints the mountain faithfully from that point of view, it will suggest all these other associations to those who want them." and others who would say that the form and colour of appearances are only to be used as a language to give expression to the feelings common to all men. "art for art's sake" and "art for subject's sake." there are these two extreme positions to consider, and it will depend on the individual on which side his work lies. his interest will be more on the aesthetic side, in the feelings directly concerned with form and colour; or on the side of the mental associations connected with appearances, according to his temperament. but neither position can neglect the other without fatal loss. the picture of form and colour will never be able to escape the associations connected with visual things, neither will the picture all for subject be able to get away from its form and colour. and it is wrong to say "if he paints the mountain faithfully from the form and colour point of view it will suggest all those other associations to those who want them," unless, as is possible with a simple-minded painter, he 25be unconsciously moved by deeper feelings, and impelled to select the significant things while only conscious of his paint. but the chances are that his picture will convey the things he was thinking about, and, in consequence, instead of impressing us with the grandeur of the mountain, will say something very like "see what a clever painter i am!" unless the artist has painted his picture under the influence of the deeper feelings the scene was capable of producing, it is not likely anybody will be so impressed when they look at his work.
and the painter deeply moved with high ideals as to subject matter, who neglects the form and colour through which he is expressing them, will find that his work has failed to be convincing. the immaterial can only be expressed through the material in art, and the painted symbols of the picture must be very perfect if subtle and elusive meanings are to be conveyed. if he cannot paint the commonplace aspect of our mountain, how can he expect to paint any expression of the deeper things in it? the fact is, both positions are incomplete. in all good art the matter expressed and the manner of its expression are so intimate as to have become one. the deeper associations connected with the mountain are only matters for art in so far as they affect its appearance and take shape as form and colour in the mind of the artist, informing the whole process of the painting, even to the brush strokes. as in a good poem, it is impossible to consider the poetic idea apart from the words that express it: they are fired together at its creation.
now an expression by means of one of our different sense perceptions does not constitute art, or 26the boy shouting at the top of his voice, giving expression to his delight in life but making a horrible noise, would be an artist. if his expression is to be adequate to convey his feeling to others, there must be some arrangement. the expression must be ordered, rhythmic, or whatever word most fitly conveys the idea of those powers, conscious or unconscious, that select and arrange the sensuous material of art, so as to make the most telling impression, by bringing it into relation with our innate sense of harmony. if we can find a rough definition that will include all the arts, it will help us to see in what direction lie those things in painting that make it an art. the not uncommon idea, that painting is "the production by means of colours of more or less perfect representations of natural objects" will not do. and it is devoutly to be hoped that science will perfect a method of colour photography finally to dispel this illusion.
what, then, will serve as a working definition? there must be something about feeling, the expression of that individuality the secret of which everyone carries in himself; the expression of that ego that perceives and is moved by the phenomena of life around us. and, on the other hand, something about the ordering of its expression.
but who knows of words that can convey a just idea of such subtle matter? if one says "art is the rhythmic expression of life, or emotional consciousness, or feeling," all are inadequate. perhaps the "rhythmic expression of life" would be the more perfect definition. but the word "life" is so much more associated with eating and drinking in the popular mind, than with the spirit or force or whatever you care to call it, that exists behind consciousness 27 and is the animating factor of our whole being, that it will hardly serve a useful purpose. so that, perhaps, for a rough, practical definition that will at least point away from the mechanical performances that so often pass for art, "the rhythmic expression of feeling" will do: for by rhythm is meant that ordering of the materials of art (form and colour, in the case of painting) so as to bring them into relationship with our innate sense of harmony which gives them their expressive power. without this relationship we have no direct means of making the sensuous material of art awaken an answering echo in others. the boy shouting at the top of his voice, making a horrible noise, was not an artist because his expression was inadequate—was not related to the underlying sense of harmony that would have given it expressive power.
plate iii.
study for "april"
in red chalk on toned paper.
let us test this definition with some simple cases. here is a savage, shouting and flinging his arms and legs about in wild delight; he is not an artist, although he may be moved by life and feeling. but let this shouting be done on some ordered plan, to a rhythm expressive of joy and delight, and his leg and arm movements governed by it also, and he has become an artist, and singing and dancing (possibly the oldest of the arts) will result.
or take the case of one who has been deeply moved by something he has seen, say a man killed by a wild beast, which he wishes to tell his friends. if he just explains the facts as he saw them, making no effort to order his words so as to make the most telling impression upon his hearers and convey to them something of the feelings that are stirring in him, if he merely does this, he is not an artist, although the recital of such a terrible incident may be 28moving. but the moment he arranges his words so as to convey in a telling manner not only the plain facts, but the horrible feelings he experienced at the sight, he has become an artist. and if he further orders his words to a rhythmic beat, a beat in sympathy with his subject, he has become still more artistic, and a primitive form of poetry will result.
or in building a hut, so long as a man is interested solely in the utilitarian side of the matter, as are so many builders to-day, and just puts up walls as he needs protection from wild beasts, and a roof to keep out the rain, he is not yet an artist. but the moment he begins to consider his work with some feeling, and arranges the relative sizes of his walls and roof so that they answer to some sense he has for beautiful proportion, he has become an artist, and his hut has some architectural pretensions. now if his hut is of wood, and he paints it to protect it from the elements, nothing necessarily artistic has been done. but if he selects colours that give him pleasure in their arrangement, and if the forms his colour masses assume are designed with some personal feeling, he has invented a primitive form of decoration.
and likewise the savage who, wishing to illustrate his description of a strange animal he has seen, takes a piece of burnt wood and draws on the wall his idea of what it looked like, a sort of catalogue of its appearance in its details, he is not necessarily an artist. it is only when he draws under the influence of some feeling, of some pleasure he felt in the appearance of the animal, that he becomes an artist.
of course in each case it is assumed that the men have the power to be moved by these things, and whether they are good or poor artists will 29depend on the quality of their feeling and the fitness of its expression.
plate iv.
study on tissue-paper in red chalk for figure of boreas
the purest form of this "rhythmic expression of feeling" is music. and as walter pater shows us in his essay on "the school of giorgione," "music is the type of art." the others are more artistic as they approach its conditions. poetry, the most musical form of literature, is its most artistic form. and in the greatest pictures form, colour, and idea are united to thrill us with harmonies analogous to music.
the painter expresses his feelings through the representation of the visible world of nature, and through the representation of those combinations of form and colour inspired in his imagination, that were all originally derived from visible nature. if he fails from lack of skill to make his representation convincing to reasonable people, no matter how sublime has been his artistic intention, he will probably have landed in the ridiculous. and yet, so great is the power of direction exercised by the emotions on the artist that it is seldom his work fails to convey something, when genuine feeling has been the motive. on the other hand, the painter with no artistic impulse who makes a laboriously commonplace picture of some ordinary or pretentious subject, has equally failed as an artist, however much the skilfulness of his representations may gain him reputation with the unthinking.
the study, therefore, of the representation of visible nature and of the powers of expression possessed by form and colour is the object of the painter's training.
and a command over this power of representation and expression is absolutely necessary if he is to be capable of doing anything worthy of his art.
30this is all in art that one can attempt to teach. the emotional side is beyond the scope of teaching. you cannot teach people how to feel. all you can do is to surround them with the conditions calculated to stimulate any natural feeling they may possess. and this is done by familiarising students with the best works of art and nature.
it is surprising how few art students have any idea of what it is that constitutes art. they are impelled, it is to be assumed, by a natural desire to express themselves by painting, and, if their intuitive ability is strong enough, it perhaps matters little whether they know or not. but to the larger number who are not so violently impelled, it is highly essential that they have some better idea of art than that it consists in setting down your canvas before nature and copying it.
inadequate as this imperfect treatment of a profoundly interesting subject is, it may serve to give some idea of the point of view from which the following pages are written, and if it also serves to disturb the "copying theory" in the minds of any students and encourages them to make further inquiry, it will have served a useful purpose.
