VI.—CARPACCIO, St. Ursula and Prince of England (detail). Academy, Venice.
We may as well conclude then, without further illustration, that the exact portrayal of nature known as realism falls somewhat short of its mark. It may report and report, but it cannot realize. Light, air, hills, mountains, human beings and their habitations cannot be reproduced, but they may be translated through the medium of pigment and thus rendered intelligible to us. You may translate them “realistically” or you may translate them suggestively, but in either case it is the translation that you will have, and not the original. Each art—music, poetry, painting—has its peculiar method of translation, and we have called the result in each case a sign—a convention which we have agreed to recognize as meaning thus and so; but of course the signs in painting are not quite so arbitrary as in language or chemistry. The painting of a wave certainly looks more like a wave than the word “water,” or the symbol H2O. The sign has a certain resemblance to the original which gives a reason for the existence of realism and also adds to the confusion of those who would spin a theory of art; but the resemblance should not mislead us. The sign is still a sign, though in the one case it is representative and in the other case symbolic. Its meaning has not changed in any way. The all-seeing eye of Osiris is not like those speaking eyes in Van Dyck’s portrait of “Cornelius Van der Geest” (Plate [3]). One is more conventional than the other, but both are conventions.
It is not necessary that we should deny value to this realistic art, even though we do not wholly accept it. The very endeavor to make the work faithful to the original in every detail, though it may hurt its deeper sentiment, cannot but result in good workmanship; and that in itself is always acceptable and pleasurable. Indeed, bald realism, with nothing else back of it, is seldom seen in art. The man, the material, and the method are inextricably mixed together, so that the product always has more or less individuality about it, or is decorative in form or color, or expresses some thought or feeling of the painter, or stands for something in subject. In any event the well-made sign—even as a sign—is not to be scorned. We shall see hereafter how it is distorted by the personal element, how it is twisted by the imagination, how it is warped by the decorative instinct; but we are not to forget at any time that it is but a symbol, merely a means of suggesting reality, and not reality itself.
CHAPTER II
INDIVIDUALITY OR THE PERSONAL ELEMENT
The fact that “the report about nature” which we have called “truth” varies with the reporter is of vital importance to us in comprehending the measure of exactness in the result. It is something that must be reckoned with in every thought, deed, and utterance, for its presence is potent in all human endeavor. Two astronomers, to use the accepted illustration, taking the time of the passage of a series of stars over the same meridian, will not precisely agree in their arithmetical results. However accurate, unbiassed, and mechanical in action they may seek to be, it happens that one takes the time earlier or later than the other. Consequently there is always a variation in the product, which has to be rectified by adding a constant. This is what is called the personal equation—a something we have heard about in literature and art as well as in science.
Perhaps you may remember that in the writing class of our youth when the motto, “Evil communications corrupt good manners,” was given us as an example to copy, we all wrote the motto, and we all tried to follow the exact form of the copper-plate pattern before us; but somehow our performances differed one from another. In some the letters were large, in others they were small; the angle was flatter, the line was firmer, or the shading heavier. We used to think it merely a matter of practice, and fancied if we kept at it long enough we could ultimately write exactly like the copper-plate pattern. But I wonder if we thought quite correctly about that. Certainly there are thousands of people who have been writing all their lives and have had practice enough, but these are the ones that show the most marked variations from the model. Each one writes in a manner peculiarly his own. And these handwritings that vary so radically interest us very much. We see all sorts of striking peculiarities in them suggestive of their authors, and we even have so-called scientists who read character out of them, or into them, I will not say which. The cause of the variation is not far to seek. It is the personal element appearing in the work and influencing it. If we would get the same result in all handwritings we must eliminate the personal element or, if you please, reckon with the personal equation.
This quality which creates the variance in handwriting is met with even more positively in painting. For painting is, after all, only an elaborated picture-writing, more flexible, perhaps, than letter-writing, and, therefore, more easily bent by a personality; but in the main influenced by the same principles as regards the variation of the characters. We all write the letter “A” and they are all “A’s,” but each is different from the other, just as all landscape painters paint hills and trees and they are all hills and trees, yet each is different again. If three painters, say Turner, Rousseau, and Claude Monet, could be brought together and induced, each for himself, to paint a given tree, there can be no doubt that all three of the paintings would represent the tree and be true enough representations into the bargain; but they would not be at all like one another. The Turner would undoubtedly give the height, the branching outline, the grace and grandeur of the tree; but in flattened form, perhaps in silhouette against a yellow evening sky. In any event and under any circumstances we may be sure that it would be a Turnerian tree. And the Rousseau would be correspondingly true to Rousseau’s peculiar point of view. It would probably have an emphasis of mass and volume; it would be as deep through as broad across, it would be firm in its rooting, massive in its trunk and branches, heavy in its foliage, rich in its coloring. But Claude Monet, painting the same tree, would not see the things that appealed to Turner and Rousseau, or if he did he would disregard them. He would overlook form and line and body, perhaps lose them entirely in studying the sunlight falling upon the foliage, in painting the colored reflections cast by sky and ground and water, in surrounding the tree with colored air and giving it a setting in an atmospheric envelope. Undoubtedly we should be able to recognize the original tree in any one of the three counterfeit presentments. Each would differ from the other and yet no one of them be false. There would be three different truths about the one tree—three different phases of the one fact. And undoubtedly we should be able to say just which painter painted each picture. How? Because we should recognize in each the point of view peculiar to its maker—we should recognize the individuality of the painter.
If we consider this same tree as part of a landscape—consider it in connection with foreground, background, and sky—we shall see that the chance for the display of individuality is even greater. The choice of the painter as to how the tree shall be seen determines at the very start the character of the representation. If it is placed in the foreground and spreads in a pattern of branches and leaves high up against the sky, we have one phase of tree-truth, one kind of picture which may perhaps resemble, in a way, the work of Harpignies, if it is placed in the middle distance, a shadowy form against a pale morning sky, with a feeling of heavy air and rising mists, we have another phase of truth, something which may represent Corot; if it is seen in the far background against a yellow twilight sky, tall, dark, motionless, we have still another phase of truth which may stand for Daubigny. Any change in the position of the tree, any change in foreground or sky-line, in light or reflection or atmosphere, would represent a new angle of vision and hence a new truth. And the preference of the painter for any particular phase of the manifestation, any particular truth, would exhibit what we have called his individuality.[[2]]
[2]. This matter of personality and choice is well illustrated by Mr. La Farge in his “Considerations on Painting.” He says (p. 71): “I remember myself, years ago, sketching with two well-known men, artists who were great friends, great cronies, asking each other all the time how to do this and how to do that! but absolutely different in the texture of their minds and in the result that they wished to obtain, so far as the pictures and drawings by which they were well known to the public are concerned.