A Child's Guide to Pictures

by Charles H. Caffin

In this picture, you will observe, we have been discussing the Academic point of view applied to the representation of an incident that really happened. The painter undertook a real subject, but has not rendered it as it would have really appeared to us, had we been there to see the event. This is a charge that can be brought against many so-called historical pictures, and against those smaller ones, the genre pictures, which are supposed to represent incidents of actual everyday life. When painted in the Academic manner they are not true to life, but artificially concocted.

On the other hand, as I have said, many Academic pictures, choosing classical or idealistic subjects, make no pretence of representing life. They try to improve on life by making their forms more beautiful than they actually are in nature; and build up compositions which must not be compared with the way in which people group themselves in real life. In such pictures we do not look for natural beauty but for that of the artist’s own invention.

So, to bring the subject to a finish, we must bear in mind that there are two distinct ways of painting a picture. If the artist has tried to represent nature, we must learn to compare it with nature; if on the contrary, he has tried to paint a subject of “ideal perfection,” we must not find fault with its unnaturalness. We may prefer the one or the other kind; but should not let our preference interfere with our judgment of the different merits of each. Until we recognise the “Great Divide” between the Academic and the Naturalistic points of view, we shall not get very far in our appreciation of pictures.

CHAPTER XIII
COLOR

IT was mentioned in the previous chapter that artists may be divided into two classes: those who are particularly interested in the shape or form of what they see, and those who see the world as an arrangement of “colored masses.” It is the latter way of seeing things that we are now going to consider.

We know that everything visible to the eye has color. When we think of a garden lawn, an impression of green comes into our mind. Green, an artist would say, is the local color of the lawn—the general hue which distinguishes it from the paths and flower beds. There may be dandelions spotted about the grass; indeed it is a lucky lawn that is not overrun with them; yet, notwithstanding the yellow patches, the local color of the lawn is green. And this is true, although here and there the grass may appear yellow in the warm sunshine, or, where the shadows of the trees lie, may have a bluish tinge; or again, in the distance may appear to be almost gray. You see then, that when we begin to talk about color, we do not think only of the general hue or local color, but also of the changes which take place in its appearance, according as it is subject to light and shadow or is seen near or further off.

Now let us take another case. A woman, we will suppose, has a quantity of white cotton material which she proposes to dye blue. She buys some indigo, and puts it in a tub of water. Into this dye-bath she plunges the cotton, and then hangs it on a line to dry. When she has taken it down and ironed it, it presents a uniform hue of blue, its local color. But what happens when she has made it up into a dress? The local color remains the same; but the appearance is no longer of a uniform hue. In some parts the blue is paler or whiter than the local color, in other parts darker; for now the material is not spread out smoothly, the light no longer falls upon every part of it in the same way. The skirt, for example, hangs in folds; and the full light strikes directly only on the raised edges of the pleats. Into the hollow of the fold less light penetrates, and at different angles.

Just what do we mean by angle of light? We must remember that the rays of light coming from the sun, radiate or travel outward in straight lines, as the spokes of a wheel radiate from the hub; except that the spokes of light are not confined to a flat circle, but radiate in all directions from every part of the sun’s orb. But to return to the wheel. Let us suppose that it is a buggy’s wheel, and that the buggy is jacked up, so that we can turn the wheel easily. We will do so until one of the spokes is pointing straight down to the ground, and, to make sure that it is exactly vertical, we will suspend in front of it a string with a weight attached to its lower end. If the spoke follows exactly the direction of this plumb line, then we know that it is pointing down directly to the surface of the ground. We know, in fact, that the direction of the spoke is at right angles to the surface of the ground; or, which amounts to the same thing, we may say that the surface of the ground is at right angles to the direction of the spoke.

But what about the direction of the other spokes of the wheel? With them the plumb line will not help us. We must get a straight stick, say the handle of the stable broom. If we hold this along the direction of either of the spokes, nearest to the center one, we shall find that when the handle touches the ground, it will be at a point further off from the hub, and not at a right angle to the ground but at an acute angle. If we try the same experiment with the next spoke, we may need a longer stick, for the point where it reaches the ground will be still further from the hub, and the angle of direction will be still more acute. If we follow on to the next spoke, we shall probably find that its direction, when extended, does not reach the ground. It points above it. Perhaps it hits the barn wall; and then again comes the question: does it hit the wall at a right angle or at an acute angle? The answer to this, if you think a moment, will depend upon the position, not only of the spoke, but also of the wall. For example, the spoke may point directly at the wall, so that when you stand at the corner of the barn and run your eye along the wall, the spoke will make a right angle with the wall’s vertical direction. But the wall has another direction—a horizontal one; and this may slope away from the direction of the spoke, so that if you stand in front of the wall, your stick makes with it an acute angle. Evidently under some circumstances a single direction may make with the surface of the wall both an acute and a right angle.

By this time our experiment, which started out so simply, has become perhaps a little puzzling to follow. But I don’t mind if it has; for I wish you to realise that, although this matter of direction and angles is simple in principle, it works out in a very complicated way. The more we realise this, the more we shall realise the wonderful effects of light upon color. As a beginning, let us imagine that the hub of the wheel is a center of heat, white-hot, and that the spokes are rays of light, not stationary like the woodwork but travelling outward at great speed. The shaft of light that runs straight down and strikes the ground at right angles to the surface, would make the spot where it touches very bright. The second shaft, however as it reaches the ground further off from the hub will illumine the spot with less light. Moreover, since it hits an acute angle and is travelling fast, some of it will glance off the spot. It will be reflected from the surface back and forth, somewhat as a ball is tossed backwards and forwards from the hands of a group of children.