Outdoor Sketching / Four Talks Given before the Art Institute of Chicago; The Scammon Lectures, 1914

by Francis Hopkinson Smith

And just here it might be well to consider this question of technic, especially its value in obtaining the results desired. While it has nothing to do with either selection, composition, or mass, it has, I claim, much to do with the way a painter expresses himself—his tone of voice, his handwriting, his gestures in talking, so to speak—and therefore becomes an integral part of my discourse. It may also be of service in the striking of a note of compromise, some middle ground upon which the extremes may one day meet.

To make my point the clearer, let me recall an exhibition in New York, held some years ago, when the bonnets were five deep trying to get a glimpse of a picture of half a dozen red prelates who were listening to a missionary's story. Many of these devotees went into raptures over the brass nails in the sofa, and were only disappointed when they could not read the monogram on the bishop's ring. Later on, a highly cultivated and intelligent American citizen was so entranced that he bought the missionary, story and all, for the price of a brown-stone front, and carried him away that he might enjoy him forever.

One month later, almost exactly in the same spot hung another picture, the subject of which I forget, or it may be that I did not understand it or that it had no subject at all. If I remember, it was not like anything in the heavens above, or the earth beneath, or the waters under the earth. In this respect one could have fallen down and worshipped it and escaped the charge of idolatry. With the exception of a few stray art critics, delighted at an opportunity for a new sensation, it was not surrounded by an idolatrous gathering at all. On the contrary, the audience before it reminded me more of Artemas Ward and his panorama.

"When I first exhibited this picture in New York," he said, "the artists came with lanterns before daybreak to look at it, and then they called for the artist, and when he appeared—they threw things at him."

For one picture a gentleman gave a brown-stone front; for the other he would not have given a single brick, unless he had been sure of planting it in the middle of the canvas the first shot. The first was Vibert's realistic picture so well known to you. The other was an example of the modern French school or what was then known as advanced impressionists.

I shall not go into an analysis of the technic of the two painters. I refer to them and their brush work here because of the undue value set upon the way a thing is done rather than its value after it is done.

Speaking for myself, I must admit that the value of technic has never impressed me as have the other and greater qualities in a picture—namely, its expression of truth and the message it carries of beauty and often tenderness. I have always held that it is of no moment to the world at large by what means and methods an artist expresses himself; that the world is only concerned as to whether he has expressed himself at all; and if so, to what end and extent.

If the artist says to us, "I scumbled in the background solid, using bitumen as an undertone, then I dragged over my high lights and painted my cool color right into it," it is as meaningless to most of us as if another bread-winner had said, "I use a Singer with a straight shuttle and No. 60 cotton." What we want to know is whether she made the shirt.

Art terms are, however, synonymous with other terms and in this connection may be of assistance. To make my purpose clear we will suppose that "technic" in art is handwriting. "Composition," the arrangement of sentences. "Details," the choice of words. "Drawing," good grammar. "Mass, or light and shade," contrasting expressions giving value each to the other. I hold, however, that there is something more. The author may write a good hand, spell correctly, and have a proper respect for Lindley Murray, but what does he say? What idea does he convey? Has he told us anything of human life, of human love, of human suffering or joy, or uncovered for us any fresh hiding-place of nature and taught us to love it? Or is it only words?

It really matters very little to any of us what the handwriting of an author may be, and so it should matter very little how an artist touches the canvas.