For decorative work (for a frieze, for instance) such subjects as the “seven ages of man” are well suited, because each “age” can be treated separately, forming as it were a picture of itself, the only bond of union between the seven being that the figures should be of the same proportion, and should be similar in style and execution.
Another good rule to observe in selecting a subject is to choose one which has illustrative action in it. What I mean by this is that the action of the figures should be sufficient to explain the subject. You cannot put words issuing from their mouths as is done in caricature, you must therefore explain your story by action and expression. We will take as examples two not dissimilar subjects. One shall be a meeting of conspirators, and the other a conference of philosophers. Of course, I don’t mean to insinuate that there is any analogy between philosophers and conspirators, but that in both cases we have five or six figures seated round a table. In the first we should represent our conspirators, in close conclave, leaning over the table with their heads near together, one or two perhaps grasping their daggers, another looking round anxiously—in short, it would be very evident from the expression and attitude of the figures that they were about some villainous work.
If we now turn to the other subject, the conference of philosophers, how are we to express the purport of their conversation? What facial muscles are called into play when men are talking metaphysics or expounding their theories of evolution? It is clear that, however exquisite the execution of the picture may be, the subject of it will be unintelligible, without explanation, and even with the necessary elucidation it will be inferior to the conspirators in dramatic interest.
The subject I gave you in the life-school some time ago (I mean Peter’s denial of Christ) is an eminently good one, because if properly treated it is impossible to mistake the meaning of the figures. The menacing interrogatory of the woman, Peter’s alarm for his personal safety, and the jeers of the soldiers who are sitting round the fire, are all well adapted for pictorial expression. Any one who had never read the New Testament, an unconverted Chinaman for instance, would say at once: “This young woman is taxing a middle-aged man with something he denies, but there is such downright assertion in her action and such fear mixed up with his denial, that the accusation, whatever it is, must be true.”
No subject can be called a really good one which requires a long explanation to make it intelligible. Thus subjects in which the figures are assuming characters which do not properly belong to them are unfit for painting. For example, in the “conspirators” just mentioned, it might very well have happened that to conceal their sinister designs they assumed the mask of joviality, but you should not select this particular phase of the story.
On the stage, this kind of make-believe is managed by an “aside.” The actor takes the audience into his confidence when he says, “Here comes the king, let us dissemble,” and accordingly for the next ten minutes or so you are to understand that he is not the obsequious sycophant he pretends to be, and lest by chance you should forget that he is dissembling, he will come forward and frown, clench his fist or point contemptuously over his shoulder at his fellow-actor, who, strangely enough, never seems to see these ominous gestures.
All this is understood and accepted on the stage, but it does not do in a picture. I would, therefore, advise you as much as possible to choose subjects which can be understood at a glance. Let your personages appear in their natural characters, and not assuming parts which do not belong to them.
Acts of mercy, such as clothing the naked, feeding the hungry, visiting the sick, etc., are all good subjects, because the meaning is explained directly by the action of the figures.
Speaking for myself, I have but little sympathy with subjects taken from works of fiction.
The artist who selects them for pictorial treatment seems to me to abnegate whatever creative power he may possess, and to become an illustrator or translator of other men’s thoughts. Homer, Dante, and Milton are of course exceptional poets. Their creations are heroic, and the personifications of their heroes would be either nude or sternly classical. Besides, they never descend to minute particulars, and the artist is left very much to his own invention. The more detail an author gives, and the more picturesque the detail, the less fitted are his works for figure-pictures. Scott and Dickens are eminently unpaintable; that is, it is a hopeless task to illustrate them. Pictures taken from their works are always disappointing. The Ivanhoes, the Mrs. Gamps, and the Pecksniffs of our imagination are always superior to their effigies on canvas, and this is more or less the case with the personages of Shakespeare, Cervantes, and Molière.