Landscape painting : with twenty-four reproductions of representative pictures

Foreword

This little book represents the fulfilment of a promise to put into permanent form certain impromptu talks on landscape painting given before the Art Students’ League of New York at its summer school at Woodstock, N. Y. No effort has been made to elaborate the themes treated, the writer feeling that what might be gained in literary form might very well be lost in spontaneity and conciseness of statement. It is hardly necessary to say that these little talks make no claim to infallibility of judgment. They simply represent the present beliefs and convictions of a painter who is himself still a stu- [vii]

FOREWORD dent ; but they are sincere, at least, and “straight from the shoulder.”

It is to be regretted that the art of color printing has not yet reached a stage of development where it can be trusted with the reproduction of a masterpiece of landscape, which often depends for its beauty on color-tones and color-transitions of extreme delicacy. In the present volume it has been judged best to confine the reproductions to simple half-tones in black and white — to give no color rather than color which is false and misleading; and the illustrations here included are therefore presented, not as adequate representations of the works themselves, but as hints and suggestions only of the qualities which give to those works their distinction and their beauty.

Thanks are due to the editors of Scribner's Magazine, The North Amer-

[j viii ]

FOREWORD

ican Review , The International Studio , and Palette and Brush for permission to reprint here certain of the chapters which have already appeared in the publications mentioned.

B. H.

Woodstock, N. Y., 1909.

[ix]

Contents

CHAPTER PAGE

I. Landscape Art in General . . 1

II. Color 12

II

We are all born color-blind. The most perfect eyes in the world cannot see one-quarter of the colors which are known to exist in nature. Those of us who are fortunate, it is true, are able to differentiate with reasonable exactness the three primary colors which go to make up our limited human color-scale — but what about the tones which certainly exist above the ultra-violet band and below the infra-red ?

For convenience, the full color-scale of nature may be divided into four octaves, of which less than one-quarter is taken up by the prismatic scale of the rainbow, which includes all the colors visi- [12]

ble to the human eye. Immediately below the line of infra-red, at the point where the human vision ceases to record color-impressions, there begins a series of vibrations which we can only feel as warmth; and still lower down the scale is another series which the human ear records in the form of sound. Yet we know of a certainty that these vibrations are also potential color-waves, that each note of music carries its own special color-note, whose quality and beauty, alas! may never be known to man, owing to the limited range of his vision.

However, no one can with certainty affirm that this may not be one of the joys that await future generations. Nothing is beyond the range of possibility. Already, by means of the fluoroscope, we are able to extend our vision somewhat, and peer over a little into the realm of the ultra-violet. And, if it is held that a wise providence, at the beginning of things, limited our sensory nerves to the record of such impressions as were essential to the physical existence of the primal creature, thereby confining our later aesthetic activities to the exploitation of a given range of sensations, a certain regret is nevertheless permissible when one thinks of the bewildering color-feast that might await us in a Wagner overture or a Beethoven sonata. What a fascinating problem it would be, for instance, to work out the color probabilities of some great masterpiece of music, and fling them glowing upon the translucent page of a vast cathedral window. If the time ever comes when man is able, by means of some miraculous transformer, to gaze upon music-color, it is safe to venture the prediction that it will be found to [14]

be harmonious and beautiful in proportion to the harmony and beauty of the music upon which it is based.

This is guesswork, of course, but it rests upon a strong basis of probability. Our actual knowledge of the subject is at present limited to mathematics. The velocity of the impulses has been noted and the number of the vibrations has been counted. We know those of sound to be comparatively slow, there being but 4,000 vibrations to the inch in the highest treble note of the piano. Above this on the ascending scale comes a long series of vibrations of which we know little or nothing; and it is not until we reach 36,000 vibrations to the inch that we come again within the range of human sensory consciousness. This number represents the rate of vibrations in the red note of our prismatic scale. The rate of vibration increases [15]

throughout the scale until with the ultra-violet it reaches 61,000 to the inch. Here we step out once more into the unknown.

Yet color has no actual existence. It is only by courtesy that we can use the word. Nature is a monochrome save when there are living eyes to see it. The trees are not really green, nor are the flowers red and yellow and blue. Each object simply reflects rays of light which vibrate at a given rate of speed; and these rays, smiting upon the sensitive retina of the eye, produce the impressions which we know as color. Were it not for the retina there would be no color; and when the sensory nerves of the retina are partially paralyzed or deficient, as in the case of the color-blind, nature appears to the eye in her true monochromatic garb.

The human eye resembles closely the [16]

photographic camera, both in structure and in its manner of functioning. At the front in both is placed the lens, with its diaphragm to control the quantity of light which enters the recording chamber, this function being performed in the human eye by the elastic iris, which contracts and expands automatically as the light waxes or wanes. At the back of the camera is the sensitized plate, and at the back of the eye is the infinitely more sensitive retina, overlaid by the optic nerve, with its millions upon millions of minute tentacles, reaching out to seize upon every fleeting color and form that passes before the lens. These little transparent filaments (so infinitely minute that the point of the finest needle is like a fence-post in comparison) are divided into two distinct varieties, known respectively as rods and cones. The rods are straight and pointed like needles, and the cones are somewhat blunt at the extremity.

We are told that the number of these nerve filaments reaches the astonishing total of about 137,000,000, of which only 7,000,000 are cones; but it is with this comparatively insignificant number of 7,000,000 cones that we artists have particularly to do. It is the function of the cones to record color, while the needles take care of the light.

If each of us had only received the 7,000,000 cones which are his just due, all would be well. Unfortunately, this is not the case. Nature abhors a duplicate, and no two human beings are similarly endowed in this respect. To the favored few she has given an unfair share of the precious cones, and others she has deprived of their birthright. The fortunate ones are the great colorists of the world, while those bereft are the color-blind.

Now we, as artists, could afford to ignore all this scientific side of the color question, were it not for the fact that it makes clear certain things which it is well for us to know. In the first place, it shows us the futility of any serious attempt to cultivate the sense of color. We are born with a certain given number of color-cones, and with just’ that allotment we must be content to go through life, for there is no known way of increasing their number, or of augmenting their efficiency. This efficiency may be decreased, however, either by a sudden shock, by paralysis, or by abuse of tobacco. In partial compensation for the depression born of the knowledge of this ruthless law, is the further knowledge that the artistic personality of a painter must be chiefly credited to [19]

the working of this same law — for our sense of color is primarily due to the varying number of color-cones with which each of us is endowed. It is in color, more than in any other artistic attribute, that the temperamental quality of a painter’s product shows itself most clearly.

In more than the strictly scientific sense heretofore noted, color is very closely allied to music. Both are sensuous and passional, playing directly upon the emotions and producing their effects by some mysterious appeal to the subconscious, whose ways have as yet eluded us. Both, in their highest expression, come nearer to the perfect ideal of beauty as felt and understood by humanity than any other form of art. Finally, both are stimulating and mentally suggestive, while attempting no direct intellectual expression; and [20]

this is the test of the highest form of art — that it should stimulate the imagination and suggest more than it expresses. This emotional attribute of color is keenly felt even in a work of art as devoid of any intellectual appeal, as a Turkish rug or a Japanese ceramic; but when color is used purposely to enhance and offset some poetic mood of nature, as in a Venetian sunset by Gedney Bunce, or a spring morning by Corot, its poignant charm is overpowering and irresistible. It is hardly necessary to say, however, that it requires the intuitive genius of the master to accomplish this result with certainty. Those of us who are gifted only with the average, normal color-sense, cannot hope to rise to similar heights; but we can nevertheless learn something from the great ones — if not how to climb the heights, at least how to avoid the pitfalls. Where the color-sense is not infallible, for instance, it is safe to avoid the brilliant tones, to deal in a gamut of quiet and delicate hues. I have a friend who, though color-blind, is a clever and successful painter. His pictures sell well, and I doubt if one of his patrons has ever guessed that he must label the red and the green on his palette in order to tell them apart. Discovering his misfortune only after several years of study, he determined to see if by limiting his palette to the scale of yellows, blues, and grays in which his sight was normal, adding only a little touch of red or green here and there to heighten the effect, he might not still produce creditable pictures. He was, fortunately, a good draughtsman, with a fine sense of the picturesque in his arrangement of mass and values. For his specialty he wisely chose town-scapes and street- [22]

From a 'photograph, copyright 1906, by Braun, Clement & Co.

Anton Mauve — “A Flock of Sheep scenes, thus eliminating altogether the dangerous problems of the greens ; and his success (for he has taken many medals and received many honors) shows at least how much may be accomplished by pure intelligence in the avoidance of insurmountable obstacles and difficulties.

Another useful point that we may learn is the emotional effect of the different colors. The warm colors, the yellow, red, and orange, are always exciting, stimulating, sometimes irritating, and in the end fatiguing. Red, as is well known, always enrages a bull; and in a lesser degree it affects other animals and birds in the same way. A red skirt floating in the wind is the best protection to the poultry-yard, for the chickenhawk will never approach it. With man the stimulating effect of this color appears to be pleasantly exciting rather than disagreeable when taken in moderation; but did a wrathful deity desire to punish mankind with a specially hideous form of torture, I could imagine nothing more dreadful than that he should change all the green in the world into screaming scarlet. Imagine a bright vermilion world under a brilliant sun, and tell me how long it would be before all the inhabitants would be raving maniacs.

The cool colors — blue, green, mauve, violet, and all the delicate intervening grays — are, on the contrary, restful colors in the emotional sense; and the wisdom of the choice of these tones for the landscape scheme of the world is hardly open to question. Moreover, it is well known to all expert household decorators that these tones are always the most satisfactory for the walls and all large spaces in interior decoration;

and that the powerful notes of red, yellow, and orange should come in only as a spot here and there to enliven the effect. If we carry the same idea into the domain of purely pictorial art, we shall see how the restful beauty of a gray-green landscape by Corot is enhanced by the tiny red bonnet of his peasant woman.

While it is, alas ! only too true that any personal and individual progress in the domain of color is debarred by physical law, it is nevertheless a fact that in the broad and world-wide sense, most of the progress made in art in the past two centuries has been made in the domain of color. For one thing, we have in the meantime moved out of doors. From the quiet, subdued, and restful light of the studio, we have stepped out into the gay and palpitating sunlight; and in so doing we have had to meet and conquer many new and fascinating problems, problems whose fundamental colorscheme is the reverse of the one which had for a thousand years engrossed the attention of the older artists. In the quiet north light of the studio, illumined only by the sky, the lights were cool and the shadows warm ; in the open air, on the contrary, the lights are warm and the shadows cool, for out here in the open the gay yellow sunlight is the source of illumination, while the shadows catch only the cool reflections of the sky. At the present time it is hard to conceive how difficult it was for the first landscape painters to make this simple change in their point of view, how tenacious the old tradition of the studio proved to be, and how very slowly it was abandoned to make room for the simple truths of out-of-door nature. Even after the new law had been fully recognized and accepted, the methods of the older masters were adhered to. So great and true a colorist as Corot, even, continued to “rub in” his shadows in the warm browns of the sixteenth century painters. Of course, this “rub in” was later painted over with the violet and pearl-gray tones of out-door nature, but the brown underlay has begun to “strike through” in many of his pictures, and it may in the end seriously impair some of them. It was not until the “luminarists” came along with their gay and militant iconoclasm that the old tradition was wholly cast aside, and the pearly stream of out-door color at last flowed pure and free and undefiled. And if it happens (as it very well may) that we shall also cast aside the luminarists’ patchwork system of prismatic spots and splashes, we shall nevertheless be eternally their debtors [27]

in that they freed us from the fetters that bound us to the old system of in-door painting, and gave us a fresh palette of pearl and opal and lapislazuli, in place of the old snuff-colored affair of our fathers. Thanks to them, it is not possible for the worst of our modern landscapists to use such distressing color as is to be found in the best of the Hobbemas and Cuyps and Ruysdaels of the sixteenth century.

What developments in the direction of color the future may hold in store for us, it is of course difficult to say. One thing, however, is sure; the mathematics which govern the laws of color will be worked out and tabulated, as have those relating to music; so that it will be possible and easy for any one, either expert or layman, to produce a harmony in color by the simple application of the prescribed formula. But beyond this the mathematicians’ contributions to art will have little value. Its direct benefits will be found to be negative rather than positive. While it may prevent the perpetration of jarring discords, it will hardly make possible the creation of masterpieces; for here again the personal equation comes into play. Lacking the note of personality, no real art is possible. A musician of my acquaintance, having discovered that when the law of mathematics was applied to a sonata by Beethoven, the theme worked out faultlessly to a seemingly inevitable conclusion, decided that the process could be reversed, and that a given theme, if correctly figured out, would undoubtedly produce a musical number of faultless beauty. He put his theory into practice and made a sonata according to this system. His production was [29]

impeccable — and absolutely worthless. When will the world learn that art cannot be manufactured ?

Ill

The most splendid achievement of the nineteenth century in painting, and its best legacy to the future, was the discovery of the technical means by which the scintillating effect of living light could be transferred to the dead and rigid surface of a canvas. Of this the old masters had absolutely no conception. The discovery belongs to our generation, and is a distinction of which any age might well be proud — for it is the only important step in advance made since the great Renaissance of the fifteenth century. Without it landscape art had hardly been possible — landscape art, that is, in the modern sense [31]

in which we know it. There were indeed many landscape painters among the older masters — Ruysdael and Cuyp, Hobbema, Salvator Rosa, Claude, and even Rembrandt on occasion. But, owing to a curious psychological phenomenon, none of these men were able to see straight out of their eyes once they were in the open air. They painted landscape, but landscape in which the fields and the hills and the trees bore no relation to the skies that overhung them, in which the shadows were warmer in color than the lights, in which browns took the place of violets, and in which (owing to ignorance of the laws of vibration) the surface of the canvas nevei entirely disappeared from view.

As I have previously stated, the dawn of the new movement was seen in England, when Constable and his confreres carried their easels into the open, and [32]

brought back studies wherein the pearly tones of out-of-door nature were for the first time accurately seen and noted.

A few of these pictures finding their way to France, were eagerly studied by a group of young Frenchmen, who, tired of the hide-bound conventions of David and Delaroche, were quick to recognize and absorb the new light. Armed with this fresh knowledge, these men in their turn went out into the fields, and looked and studied and painted; and thus grew up the great school of Barbizon.

A little later the artistic world was startled by the appearance of the French impressionists or luminarists. According to them, nature had spread her palette upon the heavens in the form of the rainbow, where all who looked might see and understand it. And everywhere and always, on hill [33]

and dale, on rock and tree, so long as light endured there must also be the rainbow — attenuated and diminished in power, it is true, but with its three primary and prismatic colors, locking and interlocking, shifting and shimmering and playing across one another in an iridescent dance of color that was, or should be, always clearly visible to the eye of the trained artist. And as they saw nature so these men painted their pictures, laying the pure pigments side by side upon the canvas in strokes and dots or dashes of red and yellow and blue which, seen at the proper distance, were supposed to fuse into the desired tones and masses, while at the same time retaining a luminous quality of their own never before seen upon canvas.

I can remember the first exhibition which these men gave in Paris in the

From a photograph by Durand- Ruel & Fils little rotunda behind the Palais de Tlndustrie; and the bewilderment and scorn with which it was received by the critics and the older painters. I can remember also the heroic struggle which they made against apparently hopeless odds ; and we all know how they finally won the long fight, proving their point so conclusively that no one to-day thinks of questioning it.

But while all painters now admit that the prismatic theory of light as applied to the art of painting is both scientifically correct and artistically admirable — that it is practically impossible to secure luminosity in a picture without some sacrifice to the principle, it is nevertheless open to question if the crude and primitive method invented by the French Impressionists is necessarily the last word on the technical side of the matter. We must have [35]

“vibration” in a picture, it is true, because without vibration there can be no light, but may it not be possible to secure the necessary vibration without loss of “quality,” that charm of surface with which we would not willingly part ?

There are many, many paths by which the problem may be approached. Indeed, one of the chief delights of the art of painting lies in the fact that each artist does, and of necessity must, invent his own technique; for his personal technique is an inalienable part of the personal vision which makes his art his own. Nevertheless there are in a broad sense only four general methods of painting with oil colors, from which (used either in their direct and simple expression or infinitely varied and compounded) all of our personal technical methods must be drawn. First we may mention the method used by so many of the old masters, which consisted in a solid underpainting in black and white with a slight admixture of red. In this method the whole scheme of the picture was built up with these three pigments, and all of the drawing and modelling was accomplished without any attempt at color. Then, after a very thorough drying, the work was completed and the color obtained by a series of very thin glazes drawn over the dried and hardened surface. This method, although wonderfully sound in itself and lasting in its results, must of course be discarded by the modern painter for the reason that it precludes all possibility of vibration.

Of the three remaining systems one other is entirely bad for the same reason — it does away with vibration. This system consists in mixing the tones evenly and applying them to the canvas in smooth flat masses in much the same manner as a house painter paints his door or cornice. There remain then practically but two systems from which the modern painter is at liberty to choose. The first of these is the spot and dash method used by the Impressionists and their school. It must be clear to any one that this system, while giving beautiful results in the way of luminosity, does not logically follow the forms of nature, or reproduce her surfaces, and it must therefore be regarded as an imperfect and a temporary manner which is destined to be superseded in time by some more supple and expressive technique.

The last of the four systems mentioned and one which has gradually v come to be adopted by the vast majority of our best landscape painters is one in which vibration is obtained by means [38]

of a cool overtone painted freshly into a warm undertone, care being taken not to mix or blend the two coats and not to cover up completely the undertone, rather letting it show through brokenly all over the canvas; the vibration being secured, naturally, by the separate play of the warm and the cold notes. Neither alone would accomplish this purpose, nor would the neutral gray that would result from a too thorough mixing of the tones in the final brush-work.

This method has first of all the great advantage of being thoroughly logical; for in nature herself the undertones are represented by the local color of the various units — leaves, grass, rocks, and good rich earth; and these are always warmer and more vivid in color than the lights dropped upon their surfaces by the over-arching sky. But the method [39]

has the still greater advantage of being

o o o

wonderfully supple and responsive — lending itself not only to the infinite variations of technique demanded by differing temperament in the artist, but allowing endless latitude for any and all desired changes in composition or mass after the picture is placed on the canvas; for all of these changes can be made in the undertone itself before the overtone is applied, and therefore before any attempt to secure vibration has been made. Indeed the whole picture in all its exact values can and should be built up in this preliminary covering of the canvas, for the value of the overtone must in every case exactly match the value of the undertone. While we wish to secure broken color, we must avoid broken values, for they utterly destroy atmosphere. Any one who wishes to prove this to his own satisfaction can readily do so by making the following experiment. Paint a sunny sky in two simple tones, using, say, delicate gray pink for the underlay and blue green or green blue for the overlay, varying the color from the horizon up as it occurs in nature. In the first experiment mix the overlay with extreme care until its value exactly matches that of the underlay. Then mix another lot to the green blue either slightly darker or slightly lighter than the underlay. Apply these tones each to one-half of the prepared sky, and you will find that the sky painted with the perfectly matched tone will fly away infinitely, will be bathed in a perfect atmosphere, while the other half of the canvas will remain merely paint and canvas, and will have no atmospheric quality whatever. The explanation of this is very simple — nature deals in broken color [41]

everywhere, but she never deals in broken values. The color dances, but the values “stay put.”

As to the general tint of color of the undertone no rule can be given, for it can never in any two pictures be alike. It will vary infinitely, according to the effect to be painted, and also according to the temperament of the artist. There would seem to be only two rules that cannot be broken: first the undertone must be warmer than the overtone, and second it must never be brown ; and this for the excellent reason that out-of-door nature abhors brown, and never uses it. Even the house-painter’s most venomous effort in this direction is generally met by kindly and all-forgiving mother nature with some gray reflection from the sky to mitigate its worst virulence. The one weak spot in the technical armor of the Barbizon painters was their tenacity in clinging to the traditional recipe of the brown rub-in. And although this was allowed to dry thoroughly and was then completely painted over with pearly tones that were true to nature, the browns are now beginning to strike through to the surface — to the serious detriment of some of the finest pictures on earth.

Now when the fullest acknowledgment has been made of our stupendous indebtedness to the discoverers of prismatic painting, it will be wise for us to recognize the limitations of the system; to admit that there are very many effects in which it must be used with extreme caution, and others in which it had best not be employed at all. If we frankly envisage the fact that its chief function is to endow our dead pigments with life, with the power to convey in a picture the joyous impression of dancing light, we shall understand where these limitations begin. As the system gives its best results in the translation of brilliant sunlight, so, as the light decreases its value decreases, until in a low-toned moonlight it may become positively detrimental. It can easily be seen that in this subdued light the sibilant vibration of powerful color-tones would be fatally out of place and their use detract seriously from the brooding sense of mystery which gives to night its most poignant charm.

We must not forget, moreover, that another weakness inherent to the system lies in the physical impossibility of securing with pigments and brushes any approximation to the infinitely fine and delicate color vibration of nature — where no spot or dash or stroke of pure color is anywhere visible; and that our best efforts in this direction are there-

Winslow Homer — “The Fog Warning fore only a compromise — that owing to this compromise our best technique of vibration remains at the present time more or less obtrusive, and that any technique which obtrudes itself is to that extent bad technique; for technique, as Millet so truly said, “should always hide itself modestly behind the thing to be expressed.”

Finally let us frankly admit the fact that vibration has little to do with atmosphere in a picture (in spite of much wordy argument to the contrary). A Whistler nocturne, for instance, which is painted without the slightest vibration, or any attempt at broken color, may swoon in the most exquisite bath of atmosphere, while a vibrant Monet, with a jew hard edges , may lack all atmospheric quality.