VI.—LANDSCAPE COMPOSITION
The modern arbitrary division of Painting into Representative and Decorative has put composition into the background and brought forward nature-imitation as a substitute. The picture-painter is led to think of likeness to nature as to the most desirable quality for his work, and the designer talks of “conventionalizing”; both judging their art by a standard of Realism rather than of Beauty.
In the world's art epochs there was no such division. Every work of space-art was regarded as primarily an arrangement, with Beauty as its raison d'etre. Even a portrait was first of all a composition, with the facts and the truth subordinate to the greater idea of aesthetic structure. Training in the fundamental principles of Composition gave the artists a wide field—they were at once architects, sculptors, decorators and picture-painters.
Following this thought of the oneness of art, we find that the picture, the plan, and the pattern are alike in the sense that each is a group of synthetically related spaces. Abstract design is, as it were, the primer of painting, in which principles of Composition appear in a clear and definite form. In the picture they are not so obvious, being found in complex interrelations and concealed under detail.
The designer and picture-painter start in the same way. Each has before him a blank space on which he sketches out the main lines of his composition. This may be called his Line-idea, and on it hinges the excellence of the whole, for no delicacy of tone, or harmony of color can remedy a bad proportion. A picture, then, may be said to be in its beginning actually a pattern of lines. Could the art student have this fact in view at the outset, it would save him much time and anxiety. Nature will not teach him composition. The sphinx is not more silent than she on this point. He must learn the secret as Giotto and della Francesca and Kanawoka and Turner learned it, by the study of art itself in the works of the masters, and by continual creative effort. If students could have a thorough training in the elements of their profession they would not fall into the error of supposing that such a universal idea as Beauty of Line could be compressed into a few cases like the “triangle,” “bird's-wing,” “line of beauty,” or “scroll ornament,” nor would they take these notions as a kind of receipt for composing the lines of pictures.
Insistence upon the placing of Composition above Representation must not be considered as any undervaluation of the latter. The art student must learn to [pg 45] represent nature's forms, colors and effects; must know the properties of pigments and how to handle brushes and materials. He may have to study the sciences of perspective and anatomy. More or less of this knowledge and skill will be required in his career, but they are only helps to art, not substitutes for it, and I believe that if he begins with Composition, that is, with a study of art itself, he will acquire these naturally, as he feels the need of them.
Returning now to the thought that the picture and the abstract design are much alike in structure, let us see how some of the simple spacings may be illustrated by landscape.
Looking out from a grove we notice that the trees, vertical straight lines, cut horizontal lines,—an arrangement in Opposition and Repetition making a pattern in rectangular spaces. Compare the gingham and landscape on page 22. This is a common effect in nature, to be translated into terms of art as suggested in the following exercise.
EXERCISE
No. 34 is a landscape reduced to its main lines, all detail being omitted.
Make an enlarged copy of this, or design a similar one. Then, in the attempt to find the best proportion and the best way of setting the subject upon canvas or paper, arrange this in rectangles of varying shape, some nearly square, others tall, others long and narrow horizontally as in No. 35. To bring the whole landscape into all these will not, of course, be possible, but in each the essential lines must be retained.
Draw in ink after preliminary studies with pencil or charcoal, correcting errors by tracing.
Then find in nature other similar subjects; sketch and vary in the same way.
[pg 46]
The art of landscape painting is a special subject, not to be treated at length here, but I believe that the true way to approach it is through these or similar exercises.
First study the art, then apply it, whether to landscape or any other kind of expression.
PICTURES COMPOSED ON RECTANGULAR LINES.
Great architects and designers were not the only ones to use this simple line-idea; the masters of pictorial art have based upon it some of their best work; (opposite page).
These tracings from a variety of compositions, old and new (No. 36), show that this combination was chosen either to express certain qualities and emotions,—majesty, solemnity, peace, repose, (Puvis de Chavannes)—or because such a space division was suited to tone-effects (Whistler's Battersea Bridge), or to color schemes (Hiroshige). These should be copied exactly in pencil, then drawn enlarged. Find other examples in museums, illustrated books, or photographs, and draw in the same way.
The student must, however, be warned against mistaking a mere geometric combination of lines for an aesthetic combination. There is no special virtue in a rectangular scheme or any other in itself; it is the treatment of it that makes it art or not art. Many a commonplace architect has designed a tower similar to Giotto's, and many a dauber of oil paint has constructed a wood interior on a line-plan resembling that of Puvis. So the mere doing of the work recommended here will be of little value if the only thought is to get over the ground, or if the mind is intent upon names rather than principles. The doing of it well, with an artistic purpose in mind, is the true way to develop the creative faculties.
LANDSCAPE ARRANGEMENT,—VARIATION.
Leaving now the rectangular scheme, take any landscape that has good elements, reduce it to a few main lines and strive to present it in the most beautiful way—for example one from No. 61, or one drawn by the instructor, or even a tracing from a photograph. Remember that the aim is not to represent a place, nor to get good drawing now; put those thoughts out of the mind and try only to cut a space finely by landscape shapes; the various lines in your subject combine to enclose spaces, and the art in your composition will lie in placing these spaces in good relations to each other. Here must come in the personal influence of the instructor, which is, after all, the very core of all art teaching. He can bring the pupils up to the height of his own appreciation, and perhaps no farther. The best of systems is valueless without this personal artistic guidance.
At this stage of landscape composition, the idea of Grouping (Subordination) can [pg 48] be brought in, as a help in arranging sizes and shapes. There is a certain beauty in a contrast of large and small. It is the opposite of Monotony. For instance, compare a street where there is variety in the sizes of buildings and trees, with another of rows of dull ugly blocks. Ranges of hills, spires and pinnacles, clumps of large and small trees, clusters of haystacks, illustrate this idea in landscape.
EXERCISE
To discover the best arrangement, and to get the utmost experience in line and space composition, the landscape should be set into several boundaries of differing proportions, as in Chapter V, and as shown in the examples, keeping the essential lines of the subject, but varying them to fit the boundary. For instance, a tree may be made taller in a high vertical space than in a low horizontal space, (No. 37 below). After working out this exercise the pupil may draw a landscape from nature and treat it in the same way. Let him rigorously exclude detail, drawing only the outlines of objects.
VII.—COMPOSITION IN REPRESENTATION
In academic art teaching representation is the starting-point. This means that one must first of all “learn to draw”, as power in art is thought to be based upon ability to represent accurately and truthfully either nature's facts or historic ornament. I use the word “academic” to define all teaching founded upon representation. The theory may be summed up in two points:
| 1. | Store the mind with facts, to be used in creative work later on. |
|---|---|
| 2. | Technique is best acquired by the practice of object and figure drawing. The first is a purely scientific process, a gathering up of data, with no thought of harmony or originality; hence drawing with such an end in view is not strictly art-work. Nor does the artist need to lumber up his mind; nature is his storehouse of facts. The second point has more reason, but when the aim is for mere accuracy, only a limited amount of skill is acquired and that often hardly more than nice workmanship—not art-skill. The powerful drawing of the masters is largely derived from other masters, not from copying nature. It is an interpretation with the purpose of attaining a high standard. Such drawing aims to express character and quality in an individual way—a thing quite different from fact-statement. |
Nature-drawing, wrongly placed and misunderstood, has become a fetich in our modern teaching. Our art critics talk of “just” rendering, “true” values, “conscientious” painting and the like; terms that belong to morals, not art, and could not be applied to Architecture, Music or Poetry. These stock-phrases are a part of that tradition of the elders—that eighteenth century academism still lingering. Representation has but a small place in the art of the world. This is roughly shown in the two lists below:
NON-REPRESENTATIVE
| Architecture—Furniture. | |
|---|---|
| Wood carving. | |
| Pottery. | |
| Modelling,—mouldings and pattern. | |
| Metal work. | |
| Inlay,—mosaic, etc. | |
| Geometric design, including Egyptian, Peruvian and Savage. | |
| Ginghams, plaids and much textile pattern. | |
| Mohammedan art (one great division) etc. |
REPRESENTATIVE
| Painting and Sculpture of Figures, Portraits, Animals, Flowers, Still Life, Landscape Painting. |
|---|
The nature-imitators hold that accurate representation is a virtue of highest order and to be attained in the beginning. It is undeniably serviceable, but to start with it is to begin at the wrong end. It is not the province of the landscape painter, for example, to represent so much topography, but to express an emotion; and this he must do by art. His art will be manifest in his composition; in his placing of his trees, hills and houses in synthetic relations to each other and to the space-boundary. Here is the strength of George Inness; to this he gave his chief effort. He omits detail, and rarely does more than indicate forms.
This relation among the parts of a composition is what we call Beauty, and it begins to exist with the first few lines drawn. Even the student may express a little of it as he feels it, and the attempt to embody it in lines on paper will surely lead to a desire to know more fully the character and shapes of things, to seek a knowledge of drawing with enthusiasm and pleasure.
These things are said, not against nature-drawing—I should advise more rather than less—but against putting it in the wrong place.
The main difference between Academic and Structural (Analytic and Synthetic) is not in the things done, but in the reason for doing them, and the time for them. All processes are good in their proper places.
The relation of representative drawing to a synthetic scheme is this: One uses the facts of nature to express an idea or emotion. The figures, animals, flowers or objects are chosen for the sake of presenting some great historical or religious thought as in della Francesca's Annunciation (No. 36), for decoration of an architectural space (Reims capital, No. 38), because the landscape has special beauty as in Hiroshige's print (No. 8), or because the objects have form and color suggesting a high order of harmony, as in Chinese and Japanese paintings of flowers, or Leonardo's drawings of insects and reptiles.
Another reason for drawing is found in the use of the shapes or hues in design. Desire to express an idea awakens interest in the means. Observation is keen, close application is an easy task, every sense is alert to accomplish the undertaking. This is quite different from drawing anything and everything for practice only.
Mere accuracy has no art-value whatever. Some of the most pathetic things in the world are the pictures or statues whose only virtue is accuracy. The bare truth may be a deadly commonplace. Pupils should look for character; that includes all truth and all beauty. It leads one to seek for the best handling and to value power in expression above success in drawing.
Composition is the greatest aid to representation because it cultivates judgment as to relations of space and mass. Composition does not invite departure from nature's truth, or encourage inaccuracies of any kind—it helps one to draw in a finer way.
