Pictorial Composition and the Critical Judgment of Pictures

by Henry Rankin Poore

The impressionist goes farther, knowing that the complementary of a color will tend to neutralize it, supplying as it does the lacking element to unity, he creates a vivid scheme of color on this basis. In representing therefore a gray rock he knows that if red be introduced, a little blue and yellow will kill it, and the three colors together at a distance will produce gray. Instead, therefore, of mixing upon his palette three primaries to produce the tertiary gray, he so places them on the canvas that at the proper distance (though this consideration is of small concern to him) the spectator will mix them—which he often does. The advantage of this method of color presentation lies in the degree of purity which the pigment retains. Its disadvantage appears in its frequent distortion of fact and aspect of nature, sacrificed to a scientific method of representation. An estimate of impressionism is wholly contained in the reply to the question, “Do you like impressions? Yes, when they are good;” and in the right hands they are.

They are good only when the real intention of [pg 236] impressionism has been expressed, when the synthesis of color has actually produced light and air, and an impression of nature is quickened. But the voice from the canvas more frequently cries “nature be hanged—but this is impressionism.”

The little people of impressionism finding it possible to represent more light than even nature shows in very many of her aspects, delight in exhibiting the disparity existing between nature and, forsooth, impressionism. Thus we see attempts to “knock out” with these scientific brass knuckles all those who refuse to fight with them. The rumpus grows out of the different attitudes in which nature is approached.

The one, drawn by her beauty, kneels to her, touching her resplendent garments; the other grasps her with the mailed hand, bedecking her with a mantle of his own. The knights wooing the same mistress are therefore lorn rivals.

For effect, no one can deny that produced by the savage in war paint and feathers is more startling than the man wearing the conventional garb of civilization, or that the stars and stripes have greater attraction than the modified tones of a gobelin tapestry or a Persian rug. We put the flag outside the building but the daily course of our lives is more easily spent with the tapestry and rug.

An “impression”[19] among tonal pictures [pg 237] appears as foolish as a tonal picture among impressions and the sane conclusion is that the attempt to combine them should not be made.

The clear singing tones of the upper register are better rendered under this formula than by any other, but the feeling of solidity and the tonal depth of nature are qualities which it compromises. Impressionism expresses frankly by the use of smaller methods what the tonists attain by larger and freer ones. The individual must decide whether he prefers to tell the time as he watches the movement of the works or will take this for granted if he gets the result.

For charm in color no one will deny that in the works of old masters this is found in greater degree than in painting of more recent production, and the reason is, not because the pigments of the fourteenth century are better than ours, but it is to be found in the alterative and refining influences of time and varnish, which have crowned them with the glorious aureole of the centuries.

Guided by this fact the modern school of tonists seeks to shorten the period between the date of production and this final desirable quality, by setting in motion these factors at once. They therefore paint with varnish as a medium, multiplying the processes of glazing with pure color so that under a number of surfaces of varnish the same chemical action may be precipitated which in the earlier art came about with but few exceptions as a happening through the simple necessary acts of preservation. The consequence [pg 238] of this adoption of kindred processes is that the tonal pictures and the old masters join hands naturally and can stand side by side in the gallery of the collector.

This, though a wholly practical reason for the growing popularity of tonal art is one of the powerful considerations for the trend from that sort which is liable to create discord. The simplest illustration of harmony, and unity and tone may be had in nature herself, for though these qualities have their scientific exposition, the divisions of the color scale are not so easily comprehended by many people as the chart which may be conceived in extended landscape. The sky, inasmuch as it spreads itself over the earth and reflects its light upon it, dictates the tone of the scene. The surface of the lake reveals this fact beyond dispute, for the water takes on any tone which the sky may have. The sky's power of reflection is no less potent in the landscape.