These are all well known, and, indeed, rather hackneyed subjects, but they will serve as examples of what I mean. There is a certain dramatic quality about them which fits them for pictorial treatment, independently of the particular history attached to each; and these are, in my opinion, the best kind of historical subjects.
Events which do not concern the life of any particular person are also very pictorial, provided always there is plenty of the dramatic element in them:—“A Man Escaping to a City of Refuge”; “A Departure of Emigrants”; “A Rescue from Fire”; “Launching the Life-Boat”; “Return from Victory,” are all eminently suitable for painting, and yet there are no kings and queens, nor even distinguished statesmen, poets, or philosophers to be introduced. There are human interests of various kinds to be excited, and this is quite enough.
War episodes are always interesting. We do not care to know the exact spot or date of the engagement, we have no curiosity about the names of the combatants, nor even much about their nationality. The scene itself is sufficiently exciting without any accompanying explanation. It is true that there are plenty of highly uninteresting battle-pictures, but the fault lies with the treatment and not with the subject.
In selecting a subject, no matter whether from mythology, Scripture, history, fiction, or every-day life, care should be taken to choose one which has unity of action. There ought to be a story in your subject, but not more than one story. In your secondary groups you may have separate action and by-play, but they ought somehow to be connected with the main story of the picture, and instead of distracting the attention from the subject, they ought rather to assist in concentrating it. Where there is more than one centre of interest in a picture, the effect, dramatically speaking, is weakened.
The old masters often disregarded the tolerably self-evident rule.
The famous Transfiguration picture of Raffaelle is a well-known instance in point. The interest is divided between the Transfiguration proper and the demoniac boy. Although some of the figures are pointing upward, yet the faces are all turned toward the demoniac, and he is certainly the principal focus of interest.
This blemish in Raffaelle’s picture is all the more unaccountable, as no mention is anywhere made of a demoniac having been present at the time; but the old masters (especially those of the German schools) abound in incongruities of this kind. I remember seeing somewhere a picture of the “Martyrdom of St. Lorenzo.”
The saint is about to be roasted alive, but the largest and most prominent figure in the picture is one of the executioners, who is making a horrible face, having got some of the smoke in his eye. The introduction of these irrelevant and grotesque episodes cannot be justified, however well they may be painted; and if it be granted that it is undesirable to select a subject in which there is more than one centre of interest, how much more objectionable is it to invent disturbing incidents which are not recorded in the text of the subject.
As an extreme instance of a bad selection of subject, I have always thought that nothing could beat Shakespeare’s “Seven Ages of Man.” The lines suggest seven distinct subjects having no connection whatever with each other. Each is very good of its kind; to attempt to amalgamate them all into one picture is quite absurd. The result is extremely unpleasant; suggesting a company of strolling players, each rehearsing his part, or perhaps the court-yard of a mediæval lunatic asylum.
In justice to Mulready I ought to mention that he did not select “the seven ages of man” as a subject for his picture. He had the impossible task imposed upon him by a liberal but injudicious patron.