The meaning of pictures

by John C. Van Dyke

XXII. —HALS, The Jolly Man. Rijks Museum, Amsterdam.

The distinction which I would make is the old one between art as representation and art as decoration. The Arabic numeral 8, for example, conveys an abstract idea to the mind; but if you draw a series of linked 8’s thus: 888888888888888888 you will have something that conveys no idea and yet looks to the eye very like a graceful pattern for an architectural frieze. The art which the “average person” seeks in a picture-gallery represents an idea and has an expressive meaning, the art which the painter seeks in a gallery looks something and has a decorative meaning. It need not be inferred that the two kinds of art are incompatible with each other. On the contrary, they are closely united, for great art is both expressive and decorative, and all art is more or less decorative even when not expressive. Nor is it necessary to say that one is better than the other. Perhaps it is the thing said rather than the manner of saying that counts most with us; but what I wish to insist upon just here is that the painter is first of all devoted to the manner of saying, he is devoted to the decorative. We look at his pictures and think how long he toiled over that conception, how he walked the town, like Raphael, searching for that pretty face, how he must have studied to verify all his archæological facts. But, no. His greatest effort has perhaps gone out in the endeavor to make his tones harmonize, to get his drawing right, to hold his picture together in its planes, and make it one united impression of beautiful form and color.

You perhaps fancy that this contention for the decorative on the part of the painter is some fad of modernity. If you have that idea pray dismiss it, for it has no basis in fact. The decorative sense goes back to the dawn of history. It was the very first sign of the art instinct in Primitive Man. Just how it originally came to the surface would be difficult to determine. Years ago Schiller put forth a theory which has been accepted by Mr. Herbert Spencer and others to the effect that it arose through the play-impulse; and that art in its early significance was merely the result of man’s superfluous energy—something done for pleasure in an idle hour. That is to say, the Stone Age man ornamented his weapons of the chase and his domestic utensils with color and line because he had too great a supply of animal spirits. And the safety valve where his spirits blew off was art! We are to infer then that the decorative came into existence through man’s delight in form and color and because he had nothing better to do. The theory is ingenious but not wholly convincing. It is quite as reasonable to argue with Mr. Whistler that when the so-called Primitive Man set out for the chase in the morning there was some weak or crippled brother of the tribe who had not enough animal spirits to join the band, and was left behind with the women to do camp work. He could not draw bow or fight and so it is possible that he was put to work at making weapons, carving implements, moulding, decorating, and baking pottery. He was at first no doubt an awkward workman; but as his hands became more deft and his senses more acute he rounded shapes and forms with growing grace, and put patterns upon bowls and knife-handles with more justness of balance and appropriateness of design.

It is interesting to observe that almost at the start this primitive artist recognized the problem of adapting design and color to a given space—a problem that is to-day continually up for solution in every studio in the country. He recognized that the body of an ordinary vase, for instance, was capable of receiving one sort of a design—an open, free pattern perhaps,—the neck of it required something like a narrow-band pattern, the top or cover required a circular pattern. It was not long before our primitive artist found that the secret of good decoration lay in filling given spaces symmetrically; and that the sense of order, harmony, and proportion were necessities of his craft. He found the same problem staring him in the face when he left his pottery and its geometrical designs and began scratching the outlines of animals and men upon weapons or flat surfaces of stone. He had to adapt his figures to his space—adapt them rhythmically, decoratively. If the space happened to be a dagger-handle then the figures were necessarily of diminutive size or represented in horizontal attitudes; if the space were a shield then the figures had to carry the action around the centre in rows perhaps; if it were an upright panel of clay or stone then the figures were required to stand at full length and fill the space from bottom to top. The adaptation of design and color to prescribed space was (and is) the primary requisite of good decoration; and the early artist was accounted a success or a failure just in proportion as he accepted or rejected this requisite.

XXIII.—BONIFAZIO VERONESE, Moses Saved from the Nile. Brera, Milan.

Centuries after the period of Primitive Man—no one knows how many centuries—when civilization had become established on the banks of the Nile, we find pottery, household utensils, weapons of warfare, furniture, embroideries, walls of temples and walls of tombs, all covered with patterns, figures, and colors. The carvings and paintings are better in execution, but not unlike those of more barbaric times. And the artist here in Egypt, like his predecessor in the Stone Age, is concerned with filling spaces decoratively. To be sure the king in his chariot surrounded by his bowmen, the flying enemy, the files of prisoners bearing tribute, the convocation of the gods, the scenes from royal and humble life, are all records of history, religion, or custom. The painter is saying something, illustrating something, with his figures and groups and colors; but how careful he is that he shall say it gracefully, pleasing the eye as well as the mind. The composition usually runs in long tiers or bands and the spaces are filled with standing or moving figures. The open spots about the figures are dotted with accessory objects, such as palms, fruits, implements, cartouches—all decorative in form or color. Everywhere in the Egyptian temple the hieroglyphs appeared in bands and rows—a text explanatory of the subject, but introduced in such a manner that no space in the picture should look empty or wanting in balance.

Assyrian art tells us the same tale. The alabaster slabs that lined the palace walls of Nineveh were all cut of one size, and the colored bas-reliefs upon them picturing warriors, chariots, horses, dogs, hunting scenes, battle scenes, and sacred scenes conformed to that size. Trees and city ramparts and rivers were used as accessory objects, and often the cuneiform inscriptions ran across them and held them together like a veil of atmosphere. With Greek art this decorative filling-of-space reached its highest point in the ancient world. You cannot to-day take up a red-figured vase, a silver coin, or an engraved gem without being conscious that the artist’s first thought was how to fill the given space effectively. There is little attempt at fitting a round stone into a square hole. The whole surface of the vase, the coin, or the gem is covered with a regard for the general form of the space decorated. A Greek coin almost always shows good decorative effect, because the disk is completely filled with a round profile; an American coin usually shows poor decorative effect because the space is not filled with one large object, but is huddled full of small dates, figures, stars, liberty-caps, and shields. The Greek die-sinker is influenced solely by decorative appearance, whereas the American die-sinker or his employer wants to tell you on a ten-cent piece all about the constitution, the flag, and the magnificent freedom and general excellence of the greatest republic on earth.

Not alone with small objects was the Greek a decorative workman. The wall-paintings, the sculpture, the architecture, all exemplified his skill in space-filling. It was no mere accident that the figures in the highest part of a Parthenon pediment were shown standing, and that they were seated or reclining in the lower angles. There was a pedimental form to fill with figures, and Pheidias would not have been Pheidias had he not placed the figures so that they would fill the space gracefully, easily, and with no loss of dignity in their attitudes. Just so with the Parthenon frieze of Athenian youths on horseback. How gracefully they ride! And how well adapted the moving train of horsemen to the long, lane-like frieze that conducts them around the temple. It is obvious enough that the sculptor had to consider the field upon which he worked, and he had to fill it so that it would first of all be beautiful to the eye.