CHAPTER VII

PAINTING-MATERIALS-COLOURS

BY the system of apprenticeship that obtained during the Renaissance and in those now regretted days when the decorative arts flourished in Europe, the knowledge of our craft was handed on from master to pupil. Those valuable traditions are to-day but a faded memory ; but such is the spirit of the age, that even did the unbroken chain of tradition reach back to the fifteenth century, when oil-painting first came into general use, its sanction would probably be questioned and its teaching neglected.

I shall have cause to refer throughout these pages to some of the many forces that are at work and have inspired this breaking away from all workman-like traditions.

Chief among these disintegrating influences are the modern cult of realism, the multiplicity of art exhibitions, the not unmixed blessing of the advance in chemical science, and the superstition that because of the opacity of pigments corrections can be ventured upon without due preparation. The thoughtful among us have for some time past felt anxious about the methods, or rather [67] want of method, by which so much modern work is produced.

Teachers have been too superior, perhaps too uncertain themselves about their craft, to do aught but, teach and criticise æsthetically, and have left the student to shift for himself and learn his trade as best he might.

No one about to take up painting as a profession should be left in ignorance of the dangers that beset him. He will be saved much heartburning and many futile experiments if he but know at the outset what is detrimental and what should be avoided.

Let us see how far the cult of realism has affected modern practice.

Painting is begun with little forethought as to the method to be pursued. A settled plan would hamper the painter who is willing to fall in with nature's ever-varying and wayward moods, so that after an attempt partially to paint one aspect, he is induced to make the changes invited by the passing fascinations of another. Little harm might come to the work were each succeeding variation studied apart, and one of them eventually selected, put in something like artistic order, and completed. But no ! with an utter carelessness of eventual results, one painting is imposed upon another, until the desired realistic feeling is achieved.

I have referred to the supposed advantages that oil-painting has over other mediums, insomuch as [68] changes can be effected without erasing or making preparation for the passage over which the change is to occur. This fallacy ought to be exploded. The practice is most pernicious, the more so because the mischief is delayed and not apparent.

To begin with, it is almost impossible to get away from the moral influence either of the colour, tone, or drawing of the existing surface. And also, physically, in the course of time these make themselves felt through the superimposed layers of pigment. You may take it for granted that no sense of freshness can be preserved after three, or at the utmost four, coats of a similar tint have been laid solidly over each other on the canvas. Besides, the grain or texture of the canvas is your best friend, and when this is gone (that is to say, when the pores have been filled up with solid paint) all attempts to regain clearness or freshness are hopeless. If we resort to the scraping of the paint with a razor or knife the surface becomes slippery, and no tooth remains to help us with our modelling. I shall, however, add to the list of materials by advising you to use a scraping tool called steel plush mat. I know of nothing better to enable you to erase your painted errors and to renew a texture. But the wisest course, when a canvas is loaded in the wrong places, is to take up a fresh one, trace on to it whatever is worth preserving, and paint on it de novo. This really saves time, and gives you fresh hope.

[69] Let us now inquire into the effect resulting from our oft-recurring exhibitions of painting, and see how they influence the painter. So many of the qualities considered essential by our masters are sacrificed for effect. An obtrusive coarseness is now preferred to the velvety surface of the Dutch masters. Scene painting, effective enough on the stage, and perhaps telling on the great walls of our exhibitions, is taking the place of precious workmanship ; and, worst of all, these exhibitions engender a never-ending restlessness and love of change for the sake of change. Anything with which to astonish the native ! Fashions in painting come and disappear like Paris hats, so that last year's methods are as out of date as the headgear that went with them. Many bids for fame are made by men who, having nothing to say, invent a new language to say it in, and hope that their jargon may be mistaken for originality, as it not infrequently is by the immature critic and the modish amateur.

There is no end to the possibilities of what is known as imagination-that is, the power to make fresh combinations of existing facts and ideas. But there comes a time when the language, either literary or graphic, in which ideas are clothed may be considered fully developed, and the purity of it must suffer by the introduction of unsanctioned changes or a breaking away from its accepted law.

There is, however, ample scope for the manifestation [70] of distinctive personality within its fairly defined boundaries.

Painting may now be said to have reached its full development.

From Van Eyck to Velazquez, from Titian to Gainsborough, from Rubens to Ingres, from Watteau to Bastien Lepage, is indeed an enormous field. There is little need to seek further for models on which to base artistic expression (that is the language of the artist). Abundance of scope is to be found within this field for every personality to assert itself, for every worker to preserve his identity. Gainsborough was buoyed up in his last moments by the thought that he would meet Van Dyck, his hero, face to face in another world. What could be more personal than Gainsborough's delightful expression, in spite of his hero-worship and the inspiration he sought from the work of the master he loved? Why need we paint in imitation of Berlin wool needlework, put our colours down in marked variegated spots, try every trick hitherto untried, if not with the hope of augmenting the pages of the artistic slang dictionary, and writing large our name across them ?

There is perhaps a curious fascination in novelty ; but let us count the cost of "rushing in where angels fear to tread," for we may be branded with the appropriate epithet. Leave the poseurs severely alone, and see to it that your methods are sane though modest. Your tether is a very [71] liberal one ; don't strain it to snapping point by trying to realise effects that are beyond the limits of legitimate expression.

Remember too that the " modernity " so beloved by some of the critics is the last thing to strive for ; it is of necessity the first thing to pass away.

This does not mean that you are to stand still. There must be signs of evolution in all art that is living ; but surprising novelty is not necessarily a virtue. Originality is not affectation, but the frank expression of a personality.