A Child's Guide to Pictures

by Charles H. Caffin

WE have seen that the characteristic of nature is abundance, while that of art is selection. Now let us note another difference between the two—nature is haphazard, art is arrangement.

I do not forget that nature works by laws; that the workings of nature are not accidental, but the result of certain causes which produce certain effects; so that the operations of nature produce an endless chain of cause and effect. Thus in the fall, because the sap flows downward in the tree, the fiber of the leaf’s stalk is gradually weakened, until the leaf by degrees loses its hold on the branch, and, because everything obeys the law of gravitation, falls to the ground. But where will it fall? That may depend upon the force and direction of the wind. It may happen that the wind is from the north or from the west; that its breath is soft, or that it blows a gale. I say it “may happen” so or so; for this is our habit of speech. When we don’t understand the cause from which an effect springs, we use the word “happen,” as if the affair were an accident or chance.

But a scientific man would say that such words as “accident” and “chance” are inaccurate, and would tell us why the wind was blowing from a certain direction at a certain moment, and tell us why it was soft or fierce. And yet, why should the tiny leaf have been ready to let go just at the moment when the breeze came? Upon what particular spot will the dandelion seed, after floating far in the air, alight? We may believe that the moment and the place are controlled by one Great Mind to whom everything is plain. But to our finite minds, whose capacity to understand is limited, such things are not plain. They seem to us like chance, and their results appear to our eyes haphazard.

Compare, for example, the appearance of nature with that of a well-kept garden. The latter has straight paths, intersecting one another; trim borders with rows of lettuces and radishes; separate plots, reserved for peas, corn, spinach, potatoes, and other crops. Even the straggling vines of the cucumbers are kept within certain bounds. Everywhere is an appearance of order and arrangement, beside which the tangle of growth in the woods, or even the dotting of trees on the hillside, seems haphazard. Or look out into the street, which, as you remember, in the painter’s sense of the word is a part of nature. The city authorities have laid out the lines of the street, but the buildings vary in size and style; each one according to what happened to be the need and the taste of the man who built it. And the appearance of the sidewalk and roadway will vary from day to day and hour to hour, according to what may be the number and the character of the people and of the vehicles, as they happen to move or stand still. Compared with that garden, the appearance of the street is haphazard.

Compare two parlors. One is a medley of furniture and bric-a-brac, of all sorts of sizes and shapes and colors, picked up at auction sales, or in the shops, each because it happened to be a bargain or to strike a moment’s whim, and then set in the parlor where there happened to be room for it. The other parlor, on the contrary, shows signs of order and arrangement. There are fewer objects in it, and they have been carefully chosen and arranged for the double purpose of making the room comfortable and agreeable to the eye. It is an illustration of good taste in selection and arrangement.

The haphazard of nature we enjoy. But the confusion of the parlor distresses us, if we have any sense of selection and arrangement. This sense the artist possesses in a marked degree, and on it he bases the making of his picture.

We have already noticed how he selects, but may have to mention it again in describing how he arranges, since the two acts are mixed up together, as when you select some flowers and then arrange them in a vase.

When we first made the acquaintance of the artist in the previous chapter, he had already, you will remember, “roughed in” with his charcoal the objects he was going to paint. We were so interested in what he had selected, that we paid little attention to the arrangement of the objects. It is this that we are now going to study.

His canvas is on the easel, its bare white surface inclosed within the four sides. He is going to fill this space, not only for the purpose of suggesting to us the appearance of the scene he has selected, but in such a way that the actual arrangement of the objects—the pattern which they make upon the canvas—shall give us pleasure. This he calls his composition. The word, as you know, if you have studied Latin, means simply “putting”, or “placing together.” But, as the artist uses it, it always means that the placing together shall produce an effect that is pleasing to the eye. It is only when it does, that the result can properly be called a work of art. For you will recall what we said in the first chapter, that the artist is one who fits his conception with a beautiful form. And this form is his composition.

Now, before we go any farther with the artist’s method of composition, let me invite you to do a little composing on your own account. That wall in your special room or den where you hang your favorite photographs—how is it arranged? Are the photographs pinned up higgledy-piggledy, so as to crowd as many as possible on the wall? Is your only idea just to hang them up where you can see them? Or have you placed them together in such a way that their actual arrangement, as they spot the open space of your wall, is agreeable to your eye? For, in a way, your wall, before you hung the photographs, was like the bare canvas of the artist. The four edges inclosed it; the space is yours to do with it what you wish.