In nature there is always movement and sound. Even on those rare days when the wind has ceased and the air seems still and dead, there is motion with noise of some kind. A brook trickles by, insects buzz their zigzag way, and shadows vary as the sun mounts or descends. But most commonly there is a breeze to rustle the trees and shrubs, to ripple the surface of the water, and to throw over the scene evidence of life in its ever charming variety. The painter cannot reproduce these movements and sounds. All he represents is silent and still as if nature had suddenly suspended her work—stayed the tree as it bent to the breeze, stopped the bird in the act of flight, fixed the water, and fastened the shadows to the ground. What is there then to compensate the artist for this limitation? Why, surely he can represent nature as she is at a particular moment, over the hills and valleys, or across great plains, with sunlight and atmosphere to mark the breadth and distance and so produce an illusion of movement to delight the eyes of the observer with bewitching surprise. For the eye as it involuntarily travels from the foreground of the picture to the background, proceeds from sign to sign, each decreasing in definition in conformity with the changes in nature, till vague suggestions of form announce that far distance has been reached. The effect is precisely that of the cinematograph, except that the eye moves instead of the picture. The apparent movement corresponds closely with the opening of distance in nature when one proceeds in a fast moving vehicle along a road from which a considerable stretch of country may be observed. Very rarely is the illusion so marked that the apparent movement is identified to the senses. When it is so marked the distance seems to come forward, but is instantaneously stayed before consideration can be brought to bear upon it. Clearly if one specially seek the illusion, it becomes impossible because search implies reason and an examination slow out of all proportion with the rapidity of the sensorial effect. Accident alone will bring about the illusion, for it can only arise when the eye travels at a certain rate over the picture, the minimum of which rate is indeterminable.
Arcadian Landscape, by Claude Lorraine
(National Gallery, London)
(See [page xii])
It is evident that any landscape of fair size in which considerable depth is indicated must necessarily produce an illusion of opening distance if the varying signs are sufficiently numerous and properly painted in accordance with the aerial perspective; and this illusion is undoubtedly the key to the extraordinary beauty observed in the works of the great masters of landscape since Claude unveiled the secrets of distance painting. That the apparent movement is rarely actually defined is immaterial, for it must be there and must act upon the eye, producing an involuntary sensation which we interpret as pleasure arising from admiration of the skill of the artist in giving us so good a representation of distance in his imitation.
As will presently be seen there are other kinds of illusion of motion which may be produced in landscape, but this illusion of opening distance is the most important, and it should be produced wherever distance is represented. In nature the effect of the unfolding of distance is caused by a sequence of signs apparently diminishing in size and clearness as the eye travels back, and a sequence of this kind should be produced by the artist in his picture. It is not sufficient that patches of colour of the tone and shape of sections of vegetation, trees, varied soils, and so on, be given, for while these may indicate distance as any perspective must do, yet an illusion cannot be produced by such signs because they are not sufficiently numerous for the eye to experience a cinematographic effect when passing over them. It is not distance that gives the beauty, but an illusion of opening distance, without which, and presuming the absence of any other illusion, only simple harmonies of tone and inanimate forms are possible. Moreover the patches of colour do not properly represent nature either as she appears to the eye, or as she is understood from experience. If one were to take a momentary glance at a view specially to receive the general colour impression, he might conceivably retain on his mind a collection of colour masses such as is often put forward as a landscape, but natural scenes are not observed in this way, and the artist has no right to imply that a view should be painted as it is observed at an instantaneous glance. One cannot be supposed to keep his eyes closed, except for a moment, when in front of nature, and he cannot be in front of nature for more than a moment without involuntarily recognizing thousands of signs. There must necessarily be a certain clearness of the atmosphere for distance to be represented, and in the minimum clearness, trees, bushes, rivulets, and buildings of every kind, are well defined at least to the middle distance. These can and should be painted, and there can be no object whatever in omitting them, except the ignominious end of saving trouble.
And it is necessary that the signs, whether shadow or substance, should be completely painted as they appear to the eye in nature when observed with average care by one inspecting a view for the purpose of drinking in all its beauties, for this is how a painted landscape is usually examined. There is no place in the painter's art for a suggestive sign in the sense that it may suggest a required complete sign. A sign must be painted as completely as possible in conformity with its appearance as seen from the presumed point from which the artist sketched his view, for the reason that its value as a sign depends upon the readiness with which it is understood.[63] This is incontrovertible, otherwise the art of painting would be an art of hieroglyphics. In poetry suggestion is of great importance, and it may be so glowing as to present to the imagination a higher form of beauty than can be painted; but the signs of the painter cannot suggest beauty in this way, because the exercise of the imagination in respect of them is limited by their form. A sign painted less distinctly than as it is seen in nature is obviously removed from its proper relative position, or else is untrue, and in either case it must have a weakening effect upon the picture.
The successful representation of aerial perspective depends upon the careful and close gradation of tones in conformity with the varying atmospheric density. This is difficult work because of the disabilities arising from the reduction of the scene into miniature form, which necessitates the omission of many tones and effects found in nature, just as a portrait in miniature involves the exclusion of various elements of expression in the human countenance. But fortunately in landscape the variableness of nature greatly assists the artist. Only rarely is the atmosphere of equal density over a considerable depth of ground, and this fact enables the painter to simplify his work in production of the illusion without appearing to depart from nature. Thus he may deepen or contract his foreground within wide limits. The changes in the appearance of the atmosphere in nature have to be greatly concentrated in a painting, and as this concentration becomes more difficult as distance is reached, it follows that the artist has a better chance of success by making the foreground of his picture begin some way in front of him, rather than near the spot where he is presumed to stand when he executes his work. He may of course maintain some very near ground while materially shortening his middle distance, but this method must obviously lower the beauty of the painting as a distance landscape, and make the execution vastly more difficult. Claude adopted this plan sometimes, but it is seen in very few of his important works. In his best time Turner was careful to set back his foreground, and to refrain from restricting his middle ground.
If a scene be taken from the middle distance only, as in many Barbizon works, the labour is much simplified because neither the close delineation of foliage, nor any considerable gradation of atmosphere is required, but then the beauty resulting from either of these two exercises is missing. It is equally impossible for such a scene to indicate growth and life, or the charm of a changing view. Some modern artists have a habit of blotting out the middle and far distance by the introduction of a thick atmosphere but this is an abuse of the art, because however true the aspect may be in the sense that a natural view is sometimes obscured by the atmosphere, the beauty of the scene as a whole is hidden, and the picture consists largely of an imitation of the mist, where an illusion of movement is impossible. The painter should imitate the more beautiful, and not the less beautiful aspects of nature. Jupiter has been sometimes painted as an incident in a picture, nearly wholly concealed by a cloud, but to exhibit a separate work of the god so concealed, would only be regarded as an excuse for avoiding exertion, however well the cloud may be painted; yet this would not be more reprehensible than to hide the greater part of a view by a dense atmosphere.