I now approach the vexed question as to how far the draperies, background, and accessory parts of a picture should be finished without detracting from the heads.
Most of you will doubtless recollect the passage in Sir Joshua’s discourses where, speaking of drapery, he says: “It is the inferior style that marks the variety of stuffs. With the historical painter the clothing is neither woollen, nor linen, nor silk, nor satin nor velvet: it is drapery, nothing more.”
I would fain believe that Sir Joshua meant to say that it was beneath the dignity of high art to trouble itself with surface texture, in which case I should certainly agree with him; but I am afraid this is hardly what he did mean. However that may be, it is certainly not the inferior style which by intelligent arrangement and careful study of the folds expresses the nature and quality of the various stuffs. How is it possible (using Sir Joshua’s own words) to “dispose the drapery with the nicest judgment, and to copy it carefully,” without clearly expressing the material out of which it is made?
Satin and velvet are very seldom wanted in pictures of subjects taken from the Bible, ancient history, or mythology. The figures should be clothed in woollen or linen stuffs, and without descending to minute imitation of texture, the nature of these garments should be clearly expressed.
If in Raffaelle’s frescoes, and in the works of the Roman school generally, we are in doubt as to whether the draperies are meant for wool, linen, or silk, it is because their folds were not “studied with the greatest care,” and often not “disposed with the nicest judgment.” In many of Raffaelle’s works, and particularly in those of Giulio Romano, we feel that the draperies are wholly imaginary, and hence the vague uncertainty as to the material.
This uncertainty, instead of being a quality to be imitated, appears to me as a blemish to be avoided.
In the highest style of landscape-painting, again, although it would doubtless be absurd for the artist to elaborate his foliage leaf by leaf, yet there would be nothing beneath the dignity of his art in faithfully giving the general characteristics of the oak, the beech, the ash, the bay, and the olive, so that each species should be distinctly recognized in the picture.
I am quite aware that in many classical landscapes by Poussin and the old masters, it is difficult to specify the kind of trees they contain, but the botanical uncertainty in which we are left, instead of enhancing the merit of the work, rather lessens it.
I remember going through an Italian gallery with a mixed company, and coming upon a magnificent Titianesque landscape.
This arrested the attention of all the party, and was greatly admired, until some botanical Philistine asked what kind of trees the artist had meant to represent. We none of us could tell; I thought they were evergreen oaks, another said they were elms, a third apple-trees, and so on; but we were all in doubt.