In the determination of all these points, as also in settling the height of your horizon, you must allow yourselves to be guided by the nature of your subject.
What is right in one case is wrong in another.
In a “Prometheus Bound” you might with great propriety place your horizon below the picture altogether. Here, quite at the bottom of the canvas, you see the peaks of high mountains; the real horizon would therefore be a long distance below.
It would not be impossible to suggest subjects where the horizon should be above the picture, but I have probably said enough to show that exceptional subjects must be exceptionally dealt with.
Beginners (when they have a subject of several figures to paint) will often find it of great assistance to make a small clay model of the whole design, and to clothe their little figures with rags of different shades, until they get an effect which they think will do. The figures would be mere rough clay sketches, just enough to give an idea of the proportions and attitudes. The rags should be wetted with clay water, and then the folds when dry will become quite stiff, so that the figures can be moved about without disturbing the arrangement of drapery.
This plan is particularly applicable whenever the scene of the picture is a confined room or cell, with a strong concentrated light.
Over the board on which your little figures are standing, you put an empty box or packing case, and you cut a hole in the side of the case, to represent the window. If you find the light on your group too concentrated, you can enlarge the hole, or cut a small aperture on the opposite side, so as to diffuse the light. In lamp or fire-lit subjects, this “maquette” method is most valuable. You admit no daylight into the box, but you place a small lamp or night-light wherever you wish the fire to be, and you have nothing to do but to copy the effect.
You must, of course, bore a small spy-hole at the point of sight.
In my early days in Paris, when pictures were painted, and not single figures for the market, almost every young artist had his little puppet-show, into which he was continually peeping during the progress of his work. Some of the pictures thus painted were badly composed, some were clumsily executed, some were crude in color, but all had a truthful look about them as far as light and shade were concerned.