I went into technical details of lines, angles and motion, with help from Virginia, to show how color might express mood and action, as well as did the figures, and so would make the whole harmonious. Virginia spoke of “curly clouds” in a picture of a burial, made at the art school, where the lines of the clouds were too gay, and spoiled the solemn effect of vertical lines.
From balance of line we went on to balance of light and shade and color. First I explained to them—what most of them knew—the complementary colors, and the cycle of color; that a picture containing blue and orange, or green and red, has within itself all the color there is. Think of the hideousness of a blue and yellow or red and blue picture! “It would have to be toned down with the third color,” said Virginia.
I spoke of the literary intrusion into painting, of the necessity of a complete idea in the picture itself; the difference between illustration and art. A picture may have an illustrative name, but if it be complete, beautiful and satisfying without any name, it is not illustration.
What is excellent craftsmanship might be bad art.
Virginia and Marian spoke of some pictures in the Metropolitan Museum, which they had been told to admire, and could not; some of them pictures by Meissonnier, in which satins, silks and velvets were done to perfection. Henry spoke, too, of certain pictures of German monasteries which were painted for the purpose of picturing the life, with precise detail, and were not beautiful. I told them of the difference between art and craft. Art is a complete expression of life by one man. Craft is part of a big completeness, the work of one man which has a purpose in relation to the work of others; as a craftsman may make the cornice in a palace which an artist designed. The craftsman does a part, the artist plans the whole.
Marian said: “Sometimes some one says to me, ‘that picture is perfectly beautiful,’ and I can’t see it so. Then again I may think a picture beautiful, and another person will not. Why is that?”
“Because,” I said, “your taste, your standard, is different.”
“Is it just taste?” she asked.
“Taste with a reason,” I said, “even if you don’t know the reason.”
“I think,” said Virginia, “that when an artist expresses himself well, every one must realize it.”