The first thing to be done, even before a stroke of charcoal sullies the spotless purity of our cartoon paper, is to get an idea of the kind of arrangement which it will be best to adopt. This pursuit of an idea for the general arrangement of our subject is of course entirely brain-work, but as soon as an idea is got, the hand comes into play; not, however, with charcoal on the big cartoon, but with pen and ink or pencil in the scrap-book.
I always think the clearest way of describing any process is to take an example. We will therefore take an example, and suppose that we are lucky enough to have the decoration of a town-hall or some similar building in a large seaport town entrusted to us, and that it has been suggested to us by our employers that groups of figures representing all countries would be appropriate.
Very well, we don’t at once seize a stick of charcoal and begin drawing promiscuously. We think first how we can best fit our subject into the space allotted to us.
How are we to arrange our personages? Shall we group them irrespective of their nationality, like the figures in Delaroche’s “Hemicycle”; or shall we adopt a kind of geographical arrangement? Shall we have a centre figure or group? Shall we introduce architecture into the background, as Raffaelle has done in the “School of Athens”?
These and a dozen other questions of vital importance to our design have all to be settled before the cartoon is begun, and we must be guided in our settlement very much by the nature of the building, the shape of the panel, the height of the work from the ground, etc. The decorative painter ought always to bear in mind that his work is supplementary to that of the architect. Inattention to this self-evident truism has been the cause of many failures. In an easel picture we order the frame to suit the picture. We don’t paint the picture to suit the frame; but in mural painting the reverse ought always to be the rule. Of course, there are cases—as, for instance, in museums and picture galleries—where the works of art are the jewel and the building the setting; but these works of art are not decorative. The very word decorative implies subserviency to that which has to be decorated.
To return to our imaginary work; I will suppose we have decided that a central group of figures is desirable, and that England, as the greatest maritime power in the world, ought to occupy the place of honor. Moreover, not being of the “Perish India” school, we think that she ought to be supported by her colonies. We will, therefore, surround her with figures representing Canada, India, Australia, etc.
Having so far settled our scheme of composition, we must abandon our idea of a geographical arrangement. We find that it is more logical to arrange our figures according to the importance of the countries they represent, than according to their latitude and longitude. We will accordingly place in the immediate vicinity of our central group, representatives of France, the United States, Germany, Italy, etc. We then gradually descend to less civilized countries, until finally we reach the remote corners, which we reserve for barbarians like our late enemy King Coffee.
The next point for our consideration would be, ‘How are we to represent England?’ Certainly not as a pseudo-classical Minerva with a trident in her hand, and the British lion at her feet; still less as an obese, ill-tempered John Bull. We may leave this venerable joke to the comic press.
We must try and invent something new, which shall be characteristic of England, and yet neither commonplace nor grotesque.
We may, however, leave the costume and action of our Britannia for future consideration. We have made up our minds that Britannia must be typified by a female figure, but farther than this we need not go at present. Having got the key-note (as it may be called) of the composition, we shall have no difficulty in determining that all the other civilized countries must also be represented by female figures.