Lectures on Painting, Delivered to the Students of the Royal Acadamy

by Edward Armitage

I may here note that the color of neither of these pictures is in any way remarkable. Indeed, that of the “Princes” is positively bad, being very purple and inky; but their enduring popularity rests on a more solid foundation than mere color. It rests entirely on their truthful and poetic treatment. I call the treatment “poetic,” because a dull prose reading of both these subjects would have represented the murders as actually being committed, whereas by choosing the moment in the one case immediately after the murder, and in the other just before, the artist avoids all the stabbing, hacking, and smothering business, and increases rather than diminishes our interest in the victims. Gerome’s “Death of Cæsar” is another example of novel treatment of a hackneyed subject. He also represents the deed as done. The conspirators have sneaked off. The benches of the senate-house are all but deserted, the only occupant being a very fat senator, who is fast asleep on one of the benches, somewhere near the centre of the amphitheatre. How much more empty the senate-house looks, with this portly old Roman snoring on his bench, than it would do if entirely deserted!

I do not wish to lecture on modern pictures, but I mention this “Death of Caesar” by Gerome as an instance of a happy departure from the usual treatment of the subject. Indeed, it appears to me that all assassinations, martyrdoms, executions, and such-like subjects, if painted at all, should be approached in some roundabout way.

The action of stabbing, cutting a head off, or sending a bullet through a man’s body, is instantaneous; and although an executioner, with his drawn sword and uplifted arm about to decapitate his victim, may be startling and sensational at first sight, yet after a time the feeling of horror or of pity gives place to a sort of impatience that he is so long before striking the blow.

One of the Orleans princes had a picture of a military execution, which he admired very much at first. By and by, however, he got tired of it, and ultimately sold it or gave it away, not because it was too much for his feelings, but because he was heartily sick of seeing the squad taking aim day after day and month after month, and never firing.

Although the best modern masters of dramatic composition have probably been guided by sentiment rather than by rule, still a few observations on the treatment of certain subjects may not be out of place in this lecture. Thus, if the subject be a departure of pilgrims or emigrants, the figures should be placed on that side of the canvas which is opposed to the direction in which they are going. If it be an arrival, they should be placed on the side opposed to the direction whence they came. In both these cases, the large portion of canvas without figures is not wasted; it assists materially in telling the story.

In the first case, it represents the journey to be undertaken, and in the second the journey just performed. If we had to paint a shipwrecked sailor who has just reached the shore, we ought to let very little of the shore be seen, but plenty of raging sea. Here the interest of the subject lies in the formidable dangers he has escaped, so we ought to devote the greater portion of our canvas to the breakers, and relegate our mariner and the bit of slippery rock to which he is clinging to a corner.

If, on the other hand, we wished to represent our shipwrecked man clinging to a spar in the open sea, with no land visible, we ought to place him right in the middle of the canvas, so as to give the impression of hopeless isolation; and if we wished to convey the idea that he might possibly be rescued, we would paint a sail on the horizon, and near the edge of the picture. I should place it near the edge, in order that it might appear to have just come in sight, and that hope of rescue was dawning. If we were to put the same vessel in the middle of the picture, and bearing down upon the drowning man, we might feel equally certain that he would be saved, but the effect would hardly be as dramatic.

Again, let us suppose that we have an elongated space to fill, and that the subject is a “fugitive escaping.” Where ought we to place him on the canvas? If we place him in the middle, he will look too much like a professional runner doing his ten miles within the hour, and we should feel inclined to pull out our watches and time him. Supposing him to be running from right to left, if we place him near the right side of the picture we shall not know whether his pursuers are not close at hand, and as our sympathies are always with the fugitive, whether he be a prisoner of war, a convict, or a fox, we should be glad to see him safe over to the other side of the picture.

If we place him near the left edge our wish is gratified. There is now the whole width of the picture intervening between him and any sign of pursuit, and we feel naturally, though perhaps illogically, that he has a better chance of escape.

The word “artful” has come to signify cunning, and is always taken in a bad sense, but I suppose that originally it meant literally “full of art,” full of that curious compound of observation, good-sense, and poetic feeling which is so noticeable in Raffaelle, Poussin, and all the great masters of composition.