The accompanying page of sketches has been produced in the spirit of this recommendation.
Turning from examples of figure art, to outdoor nature, it will be found that these principles apply with equal force to landscape composition. No better advice could be offered the beginner [pg 160] in landscape than to resolutely select and produce three, four or five distinct and separate tones in every study. The incoherency of beginner's work out of doors is largely due to its crumbling into a great number of petty planes, a fault resulting from observation of detail instead of the larger shapes. For this reason the choice of subjects having little or no detail should be insisted on: sky and land, a chance for organic line and a division of light and shade, such as may be found in an open, rolling country where the woodland is grouped for distant masses.
PRINCIPALITY BY EMPHASIS, SACRIFICE, AND CONTRAST.
Under the discussion of Balance it was shown that a small measure often became the equivalent of a larger measure by reason of its particular placement. The sacrifice of many measures to one, also is often the wisest disposition of forces. Upon the stage, spectacular arrangement is constructed almost entirely on this principle. The greater the number of figures supporting, or sacrificing to the central figure, the greater its importance. The sun setting over fields or through the woods though covering but a very limited measure of the picture is what we see and remember, the remaining space serving this by subordination. Note how masters of landscape reach after such a point either by banking up abruptly about it as in the wood interior, or by vast gradations toward it. The muzzle of the [pg 161] cannon is the only place where the fire and smoke are seen, but how much weight is necessitated back of this for the recoil, and how much space must be reckoned on for the projectile of the gun. A terrific explosion takes place; but we do not realize its power until it is noted that sound reverberated and the earth trembled for miles around. For its full realization the report of the quiet miles is important. The lack of this support in the light and shade scheme, whereby the principal object is made to occupy too much space is one of the commonest of faults in photography and illustration.
One familiar with woodland scenery knows well how often a subject is lost and found as the sun changes in its course. At one moment a striking composition is present, the highest light giving kingly distinction to one of the monarchs of the forest. Passing on to return in a few minutes one looks in vain for the subject. He is sure of the particular spot, but the king stands sullen in the shadow, robbed of his golden mantle which is now divided to bedeck two or three striplings in the background. For the painter the only recourse is to make a pencil note of the original scheme of light and shade and hold resolutely to it. The photographer must patiently wait for it.
Says Reynolds:
“Every man that can paint at all can execute individual parts; but to keep these parts in due subordination as relative to a whole, requires a comprehensive view of art that more strongly [pg 164] implies genius than perhaps any quality whatever.”[13]
No more forcible examples of this truth may be had than the art of Claude Lorraine. Claude whose nature painting Ruskin berates but whose composition is strong, had two distinct arrangements, both based on the principle of Principality. In the first he created sides for the centre which were darkened so that the light of the centre might gain by contrast. It is the formal Raphaelesque idea; the other and much better one shows a division of the picture into thirds. The first division is given to the largest mass but usually not the most important. This, if trees or a building, is shadow covered, reserving the more distant mass, which is the most attractive, to gain by the sacrifice of the foreground mass.
