NOTES ON PICTURES IN THE NATIONAL GALLERY.
In the following notes on some of the pictures in the National Gallery, it is not my intention to assume the character of an art-critic, but simply to record the impressions produced on the mind of a photographer while looking at the works of the great old masters, with the view of calling the attention of photographers and others interested in art-photography to a few of the pictures which exhibit, in a marked degree, the relation of the horizon to the principal figures.
During an examination of those grand old pictures, two questions naturally arise in the mind: What is conventionality in art? and—In whose works do we see it? The first question is easily answered by stating that it is a mode of treating pictorial subjects by established rule or custom, so as to obtain certain pictorial effects without taking into consideration whether such effects can be produced by natural combinations or not. In answer to the second question, it may be boldly stated that there is very little of it to be seen in the works of the best masters; and one cannot help exclaiming, “What close imitators of nature those grand old masters were!” In their works we never see that photographic eye-sore which may be called a binographic combination of two conditions of perspective, or the whereabouts of two horizons in the same picture.
The old masters were evidently content with natural combinations and effects for their backgrounds, and relied on the rendering of natural truths more than conventional falsehoods for the strength and beauty of their productions. Perhaps the simplest mode of illustrating this would be to proceed to a kind of photographic analysis of the pictures of the old masters, and see how far the study of their works will enable the photographer to determine what he should employ and what he should reject as pictorial backgrounds in the practice of photography. As a photographer, then—for it is the photographic application of art we have to consider—I will proceed to give my notes on pictures in the National Gallery, showing the importance of having the horizontal line in its proper relation to the sitter or figure.
Perhaps the most beautiful example is the fine picture by Annibale Carracci of “Christ appearing to Peter.” This admirable work of art as nearly as possible contains the proportions of a carte-de-visite or whole-plate picture enlarged, and is well worthy the careful attention and study of every photographer; not only for its proportions and the amount of landscape background introduced, showing the proper position of the horizon and the small amount of sky visible, but it is a wonderful example of light and shade, foreshortening, variety and contrast of expression, purity of colour, simplicity of design, and truthfulness to nature. Neither of the figures lose any of their force or dignity, although the horizontal line is as high as their heads, and the whole of the space between is filled in with the scene around them. In its linear perspective it is quite in keeping with the figures, and the scenery is in harmonious subjection, controlled and subdued by aerial perspective.
The large picture of “Erminia takes refuge with the Shepherds,” by the same artist, is also a fine example of a horizon high in the picture. The figure of Erminia is separated from the other figures, and could be copied or reproduced alone without any loss of beauty and dignity, or any violation of natural laws.
Murillo’s picture of “St. John and the Lamb” suggests an admirable background for the use of the photographer. It consists of dark masses of rock and foliage. Nothing distinct or painfully visible, the distant masses of foliage blend with the clouds, and there is nothing in the background but masses of light and shade to support or relieve the principal objects.
In the picture of “Christ appearing to Mary Magdalene,” by Titian, the water-line is above the head of Christ, but if the figure were standing upright, the head of the Saviour would break the horizontal line.
Titian’s “Bacchus and Ariadne” also has the water-line breast high, almost to the neck of Ariadne. The figure of Bacchus springing from the car, as a matter of course, is much higher in the sky. This picture presents the perspective conditions of the painter having been seated while painting such figures from nature, or similar to the results and effects obtained by taking a group with the lens on a level with the breast or lower part of the necks of figures standing.
In Titian’s portrait of Ariosto there is a dark foliated background which gives great brilliancy to the picture, but no sky is visible. The “Portrait of a Lady,” by Paris Bardone, has an architectural background in which no sky is to be seen. The picture is very brilliant, and the monotony of a plain background is skilfully overcome.
The picture of “St. Catharine of Alexandria,” by Raphael, has a landscape background, with the horizon about as high as the breast, as if the artist had been seated and the model standing during the process of painting.
Raphael’s picture of “The Vision of a Knight” is another example of the fearlessness of that artist in putting in or backing up his figures with a large amount of landscape background.
The proportions of Correggio’s “Venus, Mercury, and Cupid,” are as nearly as possible those of a carte-de-visite enlarged; and that picture has no sky in the background, but a very suitable dark, cool, rocky scene, well subdued, for the rocks are quite near to the figures. This background gives wonderful brilliancy to the figures, and contrasts admirably with the warm and delicate flesh tints.
Correggio’s “Holy Family” has a landscape and architectural background, with a very little sky visible in the right-hand corner.
In the “Judgment of Paris,” by Rubens, the horizontal line of the background cuts the waist of the first female figure, showing that the artist was seated. The other two female figures are placed against a background of rocks and dark masses of foliage. Rubens’ picture of the “Holy Family and St. George” is also a good example of the kind of picture for the photographer to study as to the situation of the horizontal line.
The picture of “The Idle Servant,” by Nicolaes Maes, is also an excellent subject for study of this kind. It shows the due relation of the horizon of an interior in a very marked degree, and its shape and subject are very suitable to the size and form of a carte-de-visite. So are his pictures of “The Cradle” and “A Dutch Housewife.”
The picture of “John Arnolfini of Lucca and his Wife,” painted by John Van Eyck in the fifteenth century, is an excellent specimen of an interior background, with a peep out of a window on one side of the room. This is a capital subject for the study of photographers who wish to use a background representing an interior.
“The Holy Family at a Fountain,” a picture of the Dutch school, painted by Schoorel in the sixteenth century, has an elaborate landscape background with the horizon above the heads of the figures, as if the artist had been standing and the models sitting.
For an example of a portrait less than half-length, with a landscape background, look at the portrait of “An Italian Gentleman,” by Andrea da Solario. This picture shows how very conscientiously the old masters worked up to the truth of nature in representing the right amount of landscape in proportion to the figure; but the background is much too hard and carefully worked out to be pleasing. Besides, it is very destructive to the force and power of the picture, which will be at once visible on going to the portraits by Rembrandt, which have a marvellous power, and seem to stand right before the dark atmospheric backgrounds which that artist generally painted in his portraits.
There are other examples of half-length portraits with landscape backgrounds, wherein the horizontal line passes right through the eyes of the principal figure, one of which I will mention. It is that of the “Virgin and Child,” by Lorenzo di Credi. In this picture the horizontal line passes right through the eyes of the Virgin without interfering with the interest of the chief object.
Several examples of an opposite character are to be seen in the National Gallery, with the horizon of the landscape background much too low in the picture. It is needless to call special attention to them. After carefully examining the works already named, and comparing them with the natural effects to be observed daily, it will be quickly seen which is a truthful picture in this respect, and which is a false one.
SHARPNESS AND SOFTNESS V. HARDNESS.
The discussion on “Sharpness: what is it?” at the meeting of the South London Photographic Society in May, 1861, and the more recent discussion on “Focussing” at the last meeting of the same Society, seem to me to have lost much of their value and importance to photographers for want of a better definition of the term hardness as applied to art, and as used by artists in an artistic sense. Webster, in his second definition of the word “hardness,” gives it as “difficulty to be understood.” In that sense Mr. Wall succeeded admirably when he gave the term concentration, in reply to Mr. Hughes, who asked Mr. Wall what he meant by hardness. Fairholt gives the art meaning of the word as “want of refinement; academic drawing, rather than artistic feeling.” But even that definition would not have been sufficiently comprehensive to convey an adequate idea of the meaning of the term in contradistinction to the word sharpness, and I cannot but think that Mr. Wall failed in his object in both papers, and lost considerable ground in both discussions, by not giving more attention to the nice distinctions of the two terms as used in art, and explaining their artistic meanings more clearly.
Sharpness need not be hardness; on the contrary, sharpness and softness can be harmoniously combined in the representation of any object desired. On the other hand, a subject may possess abundance of detail, and yet convey to the mind an idea of hardness which the artist did not intend. This kind of hardness I should attribute to a miscarriage of thought, or a failure, from want of manipulative skill, to produce the desired effect. For example: one artist will paint a head, model it carefully, and carry out all the gradations of light and shade, and for all that it will be hard—hard as stone, resembling the transcript of a painted statue more than flesh. With the same brushes and colours another artist will paint a head that may be no better in its drawing, nor any more correct in its light and shade, but it will resemble flesh, and convey to the mind of the observer a correct impression of the substance represented—its flexibility and elasticity—that it is something that would be warm and pleasant to the touch, and not make you recoil from it as if it were something cold, hard, and repulsive, as in the former case. Again, two artists will paint a fabric or an article of furniture (say a table) with the same brushes, pigments, and mediums: the one artist will render it so faithfully in every respect that it would suggest to the mind the dull sound peculiar to wood when struck, and not the sharp, clear ring of metal which the work of the other artist would suggest.
Another example: one artist paints a feather, and it appears to have all the feathery lightness and characteristics of the natural object; the other will paint it the same size, form, and colour, and yet it will be more like a painted chip, wanting the downy texture and float-in-the-air suggestiveness of the other. Thus it will be seen that both artists had similar ideas, had similar materials and means at their disposal to render on canvas the same or similar effects. The one succeeded, and the other failed, in giving a faithful rendering of the same subjects; but it was no fault in the materials with which they worked. The works of one artist will convey to the mind an idea of the thing itself; with its texture, properties, weight, and proportions; nothing undervalued; nothing overrated, nothing softer, nothing harder, than the thing in nature intended to be portrayed. The other gives the same idea of form and size, light and shade, and colour, but not the texture; it is something harder, as iron instead of wood, or hard wood instead of soft wood, or stone instead of flesh. This, then, is the artistic meaning of hardness (or concentration, as Mr. Wall said), and that is an apparent packing together, a compression or petrifaction of the atoms or fibre of which the natural materials are composed. This difference in the works of artists is simply the effects of feeling, of power over the materials employed, and ability to transfer to canvas effects that are almost illusions. And so it is with photographers in the production of the photographic image. There is the same difference in feeling and manipulative skill, the same difference of power over the materials employed, that enables one photographer to surpass another in rendering more truthfully the difference of texture. Photographers may and do use the same lenses and chemicals, and yet produce widely different results. One, by judgment in lighting and superior manipulation, will transfer to his plates more texture and suggestiveness of the different substances represented than the other. It is a fact well-known to old photographers that in the best days of the Daguerreotype practice two widely different classes of pictures were produced by the most skilful Daguerreotypists, both sharp and full of exquisite detail; yet the one was hard, in an artistic sense, not that it wanted half-tone to link the lights and shades together, but because it was of a bronzy hardness, unlike flesh from which it was taken, and suggested to the mind a picture taken from a bronze or iron statue of the individual, rather than a picture taken from the warm, soft flesh of the original. The other would be equally sharp as far as focussing and sharp lenses could make it, and possess as much detail, but it would be different in colour and texture; the detail would be soft, downy, and fleshy, not irony, if I may use that word in such a sense; and this difference of effect arose entirely from a difference of feeling, lighting, preparation of the plate, and development of the pictures. They might all use the best of Voightlander’s or C. C. Harrison’s lenses, the favourite lenses of that day. They might all use the same make of plates, the same iodine, bromine, and mercury, yet there would be this difference in the character of the two classes of pictures. Both would be sharp and possess abundance of detail, still one would be soft and the other hard in an artistic acceptation of the word hardness.
Collodion positives exhibited a similar difference of character. The works of one photographer would be cold and metallic looking, while the works of another would be softer and less metallic, giving a better idea of the texture of flesh and the difference of fabrics, which many attributed to the superiority of the lens; but the difference was really due to manipulation, treatment, and intelligence. And so it is with the collodion negative. A tree, for instance, may be photographed, and its whole character changed by selecting a bad and unsuitable light, or by bad manipulation. The least over-development or “piling up” of a high light may give it a sparkling effect that would change it into the representation of a tree of cast iron, rather than a growing tree, covered with damp, soft, and moss-stained bark. Every object and every fabric, natural or manufactured, has its own peculiar form of “high light” or mode of reflecting light, and care must be taken by both artist and photographer not to exceed the amount of light reflected by each particular object, else a hardness, foreign to the natural object, will be represented. But not only should the artist and photographer possess this feeling for nature in all her subtle beauties and modes of expressing herself, to prevent a miscarriage in the true rendering of any object, the photographic printer should also have a sympathy for the work in hand, or he will, by over-fixing, or in various other ways, mar the successful labours of the photographer, and make a negative that is full of softness, and tenderly expresses the truth of nature, yield prints that are crude, and convey to the mind a sense of hardness which neither the natural objects nor the negative really possess.
Now, I think it will be seen that hardness in a painting or a photograph does not mean sharpness; nor is the artistic meaning of the word hardness confined to “rigid or severe drawing,” but that it has a broader and more practical definition than concentration; and that the converse to the art meaning of hardness is softness, tenderness, truthfulness in expressing the varied aspects of nature in all her forms, all of which are coincident with sharpness.— J. Werge (Photographic News).