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Table of Contents

Terminology.

It were better at the outset to define our terms, for nothing leads more certainly to confusion in studying a subject than a hazy conception of the meanings of words and expressions. Perhaps in no branch of writing have words so many meanings as in writings on Art, where every expositor seems intent upon having his own word or expression. For this reason we wish clearly to define the words and art expressions in use in this book. Not, be it understood, that we claim in any way for any definitions that they are the rigid and final definitions of the expressions used, but we define what we mean by certain words and terms so that the reader may understand clearly the text in which such words occur, our aim being to be clear and to avoid all empty phraseology.

Analysis.

Seizing the impression of natural objects, and rendering this impression in its essentials has been called analyzing nature; and the impression so rendered is an analysis.

Art.

Art is the application of knowledge for certain ends. But art is raised to Fine Art when man so applies this knowledge that he affects the emotions through the senses, and so produces æsthetic pleasure in us; and the man so raising an art into a fine art is an artist. Therefore the real test as to whether the result of any method of expression is a fine art or not, depends upon how much of the intellectual element is required in its production. Thus Photography may be, and is, in the hands of an artist, a method of expression producing works of fine art, because no such works can be produced in photography by a man who is not an artist; whereas organ-grinding is a mode of expressing music, but the result is not a fine art, because no intellect, and therefore no artist, is required to produce the expression; a monkey might produce as good music on a hand-organ as could a Beethoven.

Art-science.

A compound term applied by some writers to photography, and by others to all crafts founded upon science. It is an absurd term, and its use should be strongly discouraged. It is to be found in no good dictionary. It is an unmeaning expression, because photography is an art founded upon science, just as is etching, and to call photography an “art-science” is to show imperfect knowledge of the English language, and especially of the meaning of the two words of which the compound is formed—art and science.

Artistic.

A word greatly misused by photographers. When applied to a person, it means one trained in art, and when applied to a work, it means leaving the impression of an artist’s handiwork; and this photographers should not forget, neither should they forget that an artist has been trained in art. This should especially be borne in mind by those who dub themselves “artist-photographers,” whatever they may mean by that compound. Photographers should wait for other people to call them artists, and when artists call a photographer a brother artist, he will probably deserve the title, and not before. In the same way they should refrain from calling things artistic or inartistic, for it must be remembered that to use these words aright implies that the speaker possesses a knowledge of art.

Breadth.

Is a term used to describe simple arrangements of light and shade of colour, which produce a sense of the largeness and space of nature. All great work has breadth, all petty work is devoid of it; for petty minds cannot see the breadth in nature, so they are naturally unable to get it into their work.

Colour.

“This theory of what constitutes fine colour is one of the peculiar traits of the old-time painters, and of the landscape critic who studies nature in the National Gallery. If one may judge by their remarks or by the examples they worship, a painting to be fine in colour must first of all be brown, or at least yellow; the shadows must all be hot and transparent; lakes and crimsons must be used freely, while a certain amount of very deep blue should be introduced somewhere, that the rest of the picture may appear the warmer by the contrast. Above all things it must not be natural, or it ceases to be fine and sinks to the level of the commonplace. In fact, these colourists appear to admire a picture from just the same point of view they would an Indian carpet, a Persian rug, old tapestry, or any other conventional design, and seem to judge of it by similar standards; if one suggests that it has no resemblance to what it claims to represent, they reply, ‘Ah, but it is a glorious frame, full of colour!’ But colour in painting can only be really fine so far as it is true to nature. A grey picture may be just as fine in colour as the most gorgeous. Beauty in colour, as in form, depends on its fitness and truth.”—T. F. Goodall.

The vulgar view of fine colour is easily explained on evolutionary grounds, it is but a harking back to the instincts of the frugivorous apes—our ancestors.

Creative artist.

There is much misconception as to the use of the word “creator” in the arts. Some think only those gentlemen who paint mythological pictures, or story-telling pictures, are creators. Of course such distinction is absurd; any artist is a creator when he produces a picture or writes a poem; he creates the picture or speech by which he appeals to others. He is the author, creator, or whatever you like to call him, he is responsible for its existence.

Fine art.

Versifying, Prose-writing, Music, Sculpture, Painting, Photography, Etching, Engraving, and Acting, are all arts, but none is in itself a fine art, yet each and all can be raised to the dignity of a fine art when an artist by any of these methods of expression so raises his art by his intellect to be a fine art. For this reason every one who writes verse and prose, who sculpts, paints, photographs, etches, engraves, is not necessarily an artist at all, for he does not necessarily have the intellect, or use it in practising his art. It has long been customary to call all painters and sculptors artists, as it has long been customary in Edinburgh to call all medical students doctors. But in both cases the terms are equally loosely applied. Our definition, then, of an artist is a person who whether by verse, prose, sculpture, painting, photography, etching, engraving, or music, raises his art to a fine art by his work, and the works of such artist alone are works of art.

High art.

In a word, high and low art are absurd terms, no art is high or low. Art is either good or bad art, not high or low, except when skied or floored at exhibitions. “High art” and “higher artistic sense” we shall not use because they are meaningless terms, for if they are not meaningless then every picture falls under one or other category, high or low; if so let some one classify all pictures into these two divisions and he will find himself famous—as the laughing-stock of the world.

Ideal.

A volume might be written on this word, but it would be a volume of words with little meaning. As applied to art, the meaning of “ideal” has generally been that of something existing in fancy or in imagination, something visionary, an imaginary type of perfection. G. H. Lewes says, “Nothing exists but what is perceived;” we would say, nothing exists for us but what is perceived, and this we would make a first principle of all art. A work of pictorial art is no abstract thing, but a physical fact, and must be judged by physical laws. If a man draws a monster which does not exist, what is it? It is but a modified form of some existing thing or combination of things, and is after all not half so terrible as many realities. What is more terrible than some of the snakes than the octopus, than the green slimy crabs of our own waters? Certainly none of the dragons and monsters drawn from the imagination is half so horrible. Did the great Greek artist, Æschylus, describe a dragon as gnawing at the liver of Prometheus? No, he simply drew the picture of a vulture as being sufficiently emblematic. But let us assume, for the sake of argument, that the dragon is more dreadful than any reality, even then the pictorial and glyptic artist cannot use it, for as he has no model to work from, the technique will necessarily be bad, there will be no subtleties of tone, of colour, of drawing, all which make nature so wonderful and beautiful. The dragon will be a pure caricature, that is all. Again, some people consider it wonderful that a painter takes a myth and renders it on canvas, and he is called “learned” and “scholarly” for this work. But what does he do? Let us say he wishes to paint the Judgment of Paris. He, if he is a good painter, will paint the background from physical matter, shaped as nearly like the Greek as possible, and he will paint the Paris and the ladies from living models. The work may be perfect technically, but where is the Greek part of it; what, then, does the painter rely upon? Why, the Greek story, for if not why does he not call it by a modern name? But no, he relies upon the well-known story—the Judgment of Paris—in fact he is taking the greater part of the merit that belongs to another man. The story of the Judgment of Paris is not his, yet it is that which draws the public; and these men are called original, and clever, and learned. Jean François Millet, in one of his scenes of Peasant Life, has more originality than all of these others put together. Many people, not conversant with the methods of art, think artists draw and paint and sculpt things “out of their heads.” Well, some do, but no good artist ever did. We have in our possession a beautiful low relief in marble, done from a well-known Italian model in London. The work is as good as any work the Greeks did, the type is most admirable, and it was done by one of the sternest naturalistic sculptors of to-day.

A highly educated friend, an old Oxford man, called on us not long ago, and was greatly taken with the head; after looking at it a long while, he turned to us and said, “An ideal head, of course!” So it is the cant of “idealism” runs through the world. But we have heard some of the most original and naturalistic artists use the word “ideal,” and on pressing them, they admitted it was misleading to others for them to use the word; but they meant by it simply intellectual, that is, the work of art had been done with intelligence and knowledge, but every suggestion had been taken from nature. The word ideal, to our mind, is so apt to mislead that we shall not use it.

Imaginative work.

Ideal work (q.v.).

Impressionism.

To us Impressionism means the same thing as naturalism, but since the word allows so much latitude to the artist, even to the verging on absurdity, we prefer the term Naturalism, because in the latter the work can always be referred to a standard—Nature. Whereas if impressionism is used, the painter can always claim that he sees so much, and only so much, of Nature; and each individual painter thus becomes a standard for himself and others, and there is no natural standard for all. A genius like Manet tried to work out new ways of looking at nature, and that was legitimate, but when weak followers took up his “manner” and had not his genius, the result was eccentricity. For these reasons, therefore, we prefer and have used the term “naturalism” throughout this work. But, as we have said, we regard the terms “impressionism” and “naturalism” as fundamentally synonymous, although we think the work of many of the so-called modern “impressionists” but a passing craze.

Interpreting.

The method of rendering a picture as it appears to the eye has been called interpreting nature. Perhaps interpreting is as good an expression as any, for the artist in his language (for art is only a language) interprets or explains his view of nature by his picture.

Local Colour.

“The local or proper colour of an object (Körper-farbe) is that which it shows in common white light, while the illumination colour (Licht-farbe) is that which is produced by coloured light. Thus the red of some sandstone rocks, seen by common white light, is their proper local colour, that of a snow mountain in the rays of the setting sun is an illumination colour.”—E. Atkinson, Ph.D., F.R.S.

Low art.

See high art.

Naturalism.

By this term we mean the true and natural expression of an impression of nature by an art. Now it will immediately be said that all men see nature differently. Granted. But the artist sees deeper, penetrates more into the beauty and mystery of nature than the commonplace man. The beauty is there in nature. It has been thus from the beginning, so the artist’s work is no idealizing of nature; but through quicker sympathies and training the good artist sees the deeper and more fundamental beauties, and he seizes upon them, “tears them out,” as Durer says, and renders them on his |Durer.| canvas, or on his photographic plate, or on his written page. And therefore the work is the test of the man—for by the work we see whether the man’s mind is commonplace or not. It is for this reason, therefore, that artists are the best judges of pictures, and even a trained second-rate painter will recognize a good picture far quicker than a layman, though he may not be able to produce such a one himself. Of course Naturalism premisses that all the suggestions for the work are taken from and studied from nature. The subject in nature must be the thing which strikes the man and moves him to render it, not the plate he has to fill. Directly he begins thinking how he can fill a certain canvas or plate, he is no longer naturalistic, he may even then show he is a good draughtsman or a good colourist, but he will not show that he is naturalistic. Naturalistic painters know well enough that very often painting in a tree or some other subject might improve the picture in the eyes of many, but they will not put it in because they have not the tree before them to study from. Again, it has been said that arranging a foreground and then painting it might improve the picture, but the naturalistic painter says no, by so doing “all the little subtleties are lost, which give quality to the picture!” Nature, is so full of surprises that, all things considered, she is best painted as she is. |Aristotle.| Aristotle of old called poetry “an imitative art,” and we do not think any one has ever given a better definition of poetry, though the word “imitative” must not in our present state of knowledge be used rigidly. The poetry is all in nature, all pathos and tragedy is in nature, and only wants finding and tearing forth. But there’s the rub, the best work looks so easy to do when it is done. |Burns.| Does not Burns' poem “To a mouse” look easy to write? This, then, is what we understand by naturalism, that all suggestions should come from nature, and all techniques should be employed to give as true an impression of nature as possible.

Original.

This is a mightily misused word. Only those artists can be called original who have something new to say, no matter by what methods they say it. A photograph may be far more original than a painting.

Photographic.

Some of the best writers and journalists of the day have adopted the use of the word “photographic,” as applying to written descriptions of scenes which are absolutely correct in detail and bald fact, though they are lacking in sentiment and poetry. What a trap these writers have fallen into will be seen in this work, for what they think so true is often utterly false. And, on the other hand, photography is capable of producing pictures full of sentiment and poetry. The word “photographic” should not be applied to anything except photography. No written descriptions can be “photographic.” The use of the word, when applied to writing, leads to a confusion of different phenomena, and therefore to deceptive inferences. This cannot be too strongly insisted upon, as some cultured writers have been guilty of the wrong use of the word “photographic,” and therefore of writing bad English.

Quality.

Quality is used when speaking of a picture or work which has in it artistic properties of a special character, in a word, artistic properties which are distinctive and characteristic of the fineness and subtlety of nature.

Realism.

By Naturalism it will be seen that we mean a very different thing from Realism. The realist makes no analysis, he is satisfied with the motes and leaves out the sunbeam. He will, in so far as he is able, paint all the veins of the leaves as they really are, and not as they look as a whole. For example, the realist, if painting a tree a hundred yards off, would not strive to render the tree as it appears to him from where he is sitting, but he would probably gather leaves of the tree and place them before him, and paint them as they looked within twelve inches of his eyes, and as the modern Pre-Raphaelites did, he might even imitate the local colour of things themselves. |Pre-Raphaelites.| Whereas the naturalistic painter would care for none of these things, he would endeavour to render the impression of the tree as it appeared to him when standing a hundred yards off, the tree taken as a whole, and as it looked, modified as it would be by various phenomena and accidental circumstances. The naturalist’s work we should call true to nature. The realist’s false to nature. The work of the realist would do well for a botany but not for a picture, there is no scope for fine art in realism, realism belongs to the province of science. This we shall still further illustrate in the following pages.

Relative tone and value.

Relative tone or value is the difference in the amount of light received on the different planes of objects when compared with one another.

Sentiment.

Artists speak of the “sentiment of nature” as a highly desirable quality in a picture. This means that naturalism should have been the leading idea which has governed the general conception and execution of the work. Thus the sentiment of nature is a healthful and highly desirable quality in a picture. Thus “true in sentiment” is a term of high praise. “Sentiment” is really normal sympathetic “feeling.”

Sentimentality.

As opposed to sentiment, is a highly undesirable quality, and a quality to be seen in all bad work. It is an affectation of sentiment, and relies by artificiality and mawkishness upon appealing to the morbid and uncultured. It is the bane of English art. The one is normal, the other morbid.

Soul.

Soul = Vis medicatrix = Plastic force = Vital force = Vital principle = O. The word is, however, used by some of the most advanced thinkers in art, and when asked to explain it they say they mean by it “the fundamental.” From what we can gather, the word “soul” is the formula by which they express the sum total of qualities which make up the life of the individual. Thus a man when he has got the “soul” into a statue, has not only rendered the organic structure of the model, but also all the model’s subtleties of harmony, of movement and expression, and thought, which are due to the physical fact of his being a living organism. This “life” is of course the fundamental thing, and first thing to obtain in any work of art. In this way, then, we can understand the use of the word “soul” as synonymous with the “life” of the model. The “soul” or life is always found in nature, in the model, and the artist seizes upon it first, and subdues all things to it. “Soul,” then, to us is a term for the expression of the epitome of the characteristics of a living thing. The Egyptians expressed the “soul” or life of a lion, Landseer did not.

Technique.

By technique is meant, in photography, a knowledge of optics and chemistry, and of the preparation and employment of the photographic materials by the means of which pictures are secured. It does in no way refer to the manner of using these materials, that is the “practice.”

Tone.

To begin with, as this book is for photographers, we must tell them they invariably use the word tone in a wrong sense. What photographers call “tone” should properly be colour or tint, thus: a brown tint, a purple tint, or colour.

The correct meaning of tone is the amount of light received upon the different planes of an object.

Transcript of nature.

“‘A mere transcript of nature’ is one of the stock phrases of the art critic, and of many artists of a certain school. The precise meaning attached to it puzzles us; were it not always used as a term of reproach, we should believe it the highest praise that could be bestowed upon a picture. What adds to our perplexity is that the phrase is generally applied by the critic to work which has nothing in common with nature about it: and is used by artists who themselves have never in their lives painted a picture with the simplest values correct, as though transcribing nature to canvas were a stage in the painter’s development through which they had passed, and which was now beneath them. The critic must have but a very superficial acquaintance with nature who applies this term, as is frequently done, to work in which all the subtleties of nature are wanting. We have heard of pictures in which no two tones have been in right relation to one another, in which noisy detail has been mistaken for finish, and the mingling of decision and indecision in fine opposition—the mysterious lost and found, the chief charm of nature—has been utterly unfelt, described as ‘transcripts of nature.’ Those artists who use the phrase, adopt it as a convenient barricade behind which they may defend their own incompetence.”—T. F. Goodall.

Da Vinci.

All photographers would do well to lay these remarks to heart. Instead of it being an easy thing to paint “a mere transcript of nature,” we shall show it to be utterly impossible. No man can do this either by painting or photography, he can only give a translation, or impression, as Leonardo da Vinci said long ago; but he can give this impression truly or falsely.