Nothing can be finer than his “School of Athens,” his “Parnassus,” and his “Theology.”
Here we find variety of line combined with a dignified simplicity. It is the arrangement and composition of these grand frescoes which in my opinion justifies the position Raffaelle holds in the history of art, rather than the beauty of his Madonnas or the bold drawing of his somewhat over-rated cartoons.
Later artists of the Roman school overdid the picturesque element, and lost the stately simplicity which characterizes the second manner of Raffaelle.
In modern times, Ingres’ “Apotheosis of Homer” is a good example of what a mural painting should be. Severe in drawing and dignified in composition, it is yet by no means deficient in those more attractive qualities which are commonly expressed by the word “picturesque.”
Flandrin’s frieze at St. Vincent de Paul is another magnificent specimen of an exquisite sense of fitness. There is hardly a figure in the whole procession of apostles, saints, and martyrs, which could be improved. I know of no modern work which is so perfect of its kind.
It is, of course, preposterous to suppose that good composition can be taught in a couple of evenings; but if I succeed in impressing on you the importance of this rather neglected branch of study, I shall not have lectured in vain.
We will begin with the simplest problem, namely, how to fill up with figures an elongated rectangular space or frieze.
The most obvious method is to set up a row of figures of the same size and all in profile, as was done by the ancient Egyptians. Now this mode of treatment, though suitable enough for the Nile temples, would obviously be unfit for buildings of the nineteenth century.
The figures should preserve a certain regularity, a certain frieze-like arrangement, and yet the attitudes should be varied, and the work should not look as if it had been done by machinery.
The first improvement on the Egyptian method would be to break the monotony by here and there grouping two or even three figures together. As in these groups of two or three one figure must be behind the others, and therefore farther off from the spectator, it would be smaller, the head would be lower, and you would at once get a little variety in the line of heads. To vary your line of heads simply by arguing that some people are six feet high whilst others are only five, does not answer in decorative painting. You may assume that the male figures are bigger than the female, but you must proceed as if your men were all of the same (or very nearly) of the same height, and your women ought also to vary very little in stature. Children you may introduce of any size, from the infant in arms to the youth or maiden of fifteen; but let them be unmistakably children, and not little men and women.