Or the Pictorial View of Life

I would love to paint but I can't draw a straight line! How often has one heard that. The fact that there is the wish to paint is the thing that matters. Painting is not difficult if one just drops the self-consciousness that makes one feel incompetent. Take courage and make a start. Try not to be too self-critical, too anxious to do wonders, too proud, to be just a beginner. Even the greatest masters of painting were never satisfied, for the amount to learn is always more than the amount learned.

To practice painting or sketching is undoubtedly soothing to the nerves, for you are usually out in the open air in front of nature, and the smallness and petty foibles of your daily life are forgotten. In these difficult days it is more than ever a benefit to practice an art that takes you outside yourself and gives refreshment to your inner self, which so needs sustenance.

There are those who visit the great art galleries, such as the Metropolitan Museum in New York, the Chicago Art Institute, the National Gallery in Wash­ington, or the famous galleries in cities such as San Francisco, Minneapolis, Cincinnati, Boston, and Phila­delphia, and who come away with the feeling that they also would like to draw and paint—to produce works of art. That is one important function of all these great exhibitions of pictures in the national collections and in the small local exhibitions: to show those who have eyes to see what beauty they can behold and how to attempt a creative response to beauty in their own lives. They open the eyes and encourage a desire to paint. It has been said that all good paintings create new painters, that there is a creative germ living in the picture which by some means or other becomes in­jected into the life stream of the beholder and makes him or her long to go and do likewise. It is really only the sad lack of courage, of self-confidence, that stops most of these aspirants from going out and getting brushes and paints and starting straightaway to por­tray their own particular view and vision of the things they see.

There are many who wish to have a greater under­standing of the details of nature's wonder but who do not realize that by sketching and painting out of doors they will come by this real knowledge in a most inter­esting way. Facts are easy to gather, but an intimate understanding is come by only with close and attentive observation—and that is most easily accomplished when one is painting out of doors, quietly poised be­fore nature, and in a receptive mood.

There are those who love color, all sorts of color, from bright orange, red, and scarlet to deep green and blue and purple. For these people, to paint is to ex­press their mood about color, to transfer their emo­tional response to paper or canvas, to add one color to another or by the side of another, in order to make a joyous pattern.

One of the greatest art teachers I knew always gave encouragement and never adverse criticism when look­ing at a beginner's work. It is by receiving encourage­ment that the artist in you grows. Just suppose you had never drawn a teapot before and you make a brave effort, putting down on paper the curve of the spout and the corresponding curve of the handle; then you fill in the round bowl and then—alas—you make a mess of the lid and the base—what does it matter? The es­sentials of what you have seen are there and you will find that there is life and vitality in your sketch, rather than accuracy of detail. It is the gift of the art teacher to inspire the vision and not to criticize the lack of imitative ability. Any photograph can give the precise details of a teapot, but see Figure 1.

There is no intention in these pages to help you to increase your income or make a second business string to your bow. In fact, although the amateur painter may occasionally be lucky and sell one of his efforts, he would do well to regard his drawing and painting en­tirely as a form of self-expression and not expect finan­cial reward. Such a rule gives a freedom from ties of any sort. The fact of working for a given audience or with the hope of selling what you create, is invariably a deterrent to your real self-expression.

figure 1. Catching the essentials of an ornamental teapot.

There is no doubt that you attain a more enlight­ened view of the work of the old and modern masters of painting that you see in galleries and exhibitions after having tried your own hand at drawing and paint­ing. There is nothing like a little practical knowledge to awaken sympathy with, and understanding of, works of art. Many critics of modern art would not have writ­ten half the nonsense they have put into print, had they themselves had some practical experience in painting. Those who love looking at paintings should see to it that they try their hand at producing some­thing themselves.

THE PICTORIAL VIEW OF LIFE

Life can be seen from many aspects. There is the ordi­nary common-or-garden view, where everything has its purpose: an egg is to eat, a house is to live in, a street is to walk down, a bus is to travel on, and so on—this is the utilitarian view; and for most of us, for most of the time, this is the only view we take.

There is the musician's view in which life becomes sound and all things are a series of related sounds and chords. There is the poet's view in which life is a series of ideas, concepts, images, forming themselves into words that have rhythm and sequence.

And there is the painter's view in which the world is a series of shapes, colors, lines, related into ever-changing visual patterns. Those who desire to paint what they see around them have to acquire the habit of seeing life in this pictorial way. They have to dismiss from their minds, temporarily, the matter-of-fact, day-to-day view and to begin instead to visualize in terms of shape, in terms of line, in terms of color. This, may­be, is the first hurdle to jump, for those who wish to paint life. It is not always easy to see things apart from their practical use, to see things in a fresh pictorial way, but that is what must be done from the outset, and once the new outlook is acquired it will open up unlimited possibilities for new visual impressions of even the most stale and familiar things. Life will be renewed.

SEEING AND LOOKING

It is easy to look but not so easy to see. When you be­gin to take an interest in the shape of things—the out­line of a vase, or the actual formation of a face, eyebrows related to nose, nose to chin, cheekbones to forehead—then you realize that for the most part you do not see at all, but just take in vague impressions, re­lating nothing to its surroundings, and having only the foggiest notion of shape, color, or line.

It is wise, when beginning to search for shape and color, to start with some easy thing that you can see often and yet might usually overlook. Let us take a table set for tea, or perhaps one that has just been left after tea is finished. Let us sit and look at the table quietly and with affection for everything on it, from cloth to breadboard. Let us see the outstanding things first, the large teapot, the milk jug, the loaf of bread then the cups and saucers, the plates, the knives, the jam pot and butter dish. Let us find the shapes of these things in simple outline and relate them one to an­other. Once you have discovered the shape in your mind's eye it is easy to draw its outline, so now take a pencil and define a space on a piece of paper, an oblong say 5 inches by 3 inches, and draw in the outline of the chief objects as they are related one to the other. Then look again for the tone and color arrangement of these things, light or dark, white or blue, and see how in the merest chance setting of a tea table you can find order and pattern. A design begins to emerge where before one saw only a jumble of used crockery and the untidy remains of a meal. I have illustrated this in Figure 2.

The casual arrangement is always better than a grouping which has been carefully planned. If you look long enough and deeply enough at the most seem­ingly jumbled array of objects, gradually you will be­gin to see design and order in the chaos. If you start rearranging things to put them in what you think is a better order they will, in nine cases out of ten, become much stiffer and more stilted and will lose natural design.

Keep on looking closely at things wherever you are, in bus, train, street, at a baseball game or a dance. See the relationships of shapes and colors, how reds will grow up with reds or blues with blues, with a splash of black or white to serve as foil. It is a good idea to half-close one's eyes when searching out the masses of things so that the details do not obtrude. Especially is this true of looking at landscape. Try deliberately to see the large mass-shape of trees against the sky, not the de­tails of the foliage.

figure 2. Table after luncheon.

Always bear in mind that the space of the canvas or paper or board, or the page in the sketch book, is your world inside which you are creating your design, your picture. You are not, of necessity, copying the things before you; you are using the shapes and lines they suggest to you and re-creating them to fit in with your own feelings, your emotions, your thoughts: remem­bering of course that nature, in all its multiplicity, is your never-failing guide at all times, everywhere.

It is as well to be simple, receptive, and modest in front of nature rather than bombastic or too self-asser­tive, but on the other hand it does not do to be nervous or hesitant. Courage is certainly necessary; a stout heart, a willingness to take risks and never mind spoil­ing paper or canvas or wasting paint. If you think a color is pink, make it pink, and never mind what any­one else would say. Always be definite rather than vague about your shapes and colors.

THE IMPERSONAL ATTITUDE

Perhaps it would be as well to enlarge upon this ques­tion of the attitude of the artist to his work. It is the acquisition of this attitude which is of such great bene­fit to those who begin to draw and paint for their own pleasure.

Detachment from one's little day-to-day anxieties— from intense personal preoccupation with, and worry over, things—is good for everyone. To observe things instead of glancing at them, to note exact shapes, par­ticular colors, the light and shade on objects, means that one is detached from their everyday use and mean­ing. They become the ingredients of pictures—not the things that perplex or worry.

Suppose you see a person holding a wine glass. In­stead of thinking about what sort of liquid is in the glass—whether sherry or ginger ale, or whether the per­son's fingers need manicuring—concentrate on defining the shape of the glass and noting the twinkle of light on it, the curve of the fingers grasping the stem, the rela­tion of thumb to palm and wrist. These are impersonal observations that lead directly to the desire to draw and paint the things so observed. To be able to make these observations you have to be detached from all other considerations, and this gives the relief of mind which is so necessary. You lose consciousness of your­self—forget the clothes you wear, how you look in the mirror—and become attentive to things outside yourself.

How do you cultivate this detached attitude? By seeing instead of merely looking. By making notes in pen, pencil, or chalk in a small book, always carried, as necessary as a purse (Figure 3). You have to be "above the battle." And life is so often of necessity a battle. But when once this attitude is grasped and adopted it becomes a great benefit and relief and gives new life. The world is so full of riches for the observer, so full of wonders. It is a small step from the observer to the creator, and those who wish to paint have only to be­come familiar with the tools and then accumulate suf­ficient pictorial observations: these will then find their own inevitable outlet like steam from the kettle.

figure 3. Making notes in a sketch book.

SIMPLE DEFINITIONS OF SOME OF THE TERMS AND PHRASES USED BY PAINTERS

form: This is a word that is always cropping up in studio talk or in any book about the art of drawing or painting. It is not easy to make a simple definition of the word as it indicates a complicated concept. Form in painting is the solidity of objects, the front and sides of things in space, with also the indication that there is a back, that the objects are standing in a space, an area, with air behind them as well as in front. Painting is two-dimensional, because it is the application of color on a flat surface, so the illusion of the third dimension of solid objects must be achieved by shading. Of course painting .need not strive to give this illusion of solidity; it can consist of flat spaces of color laid on to give a pat­tern, as in most primitive painting and in some modern work that has been influenced by Eastern pat­tern painting. But usually the Western artist has a wish to express "form" by giving an illusion of the third dimension, and this is chiefly done by shading.

planes: Following on from the word form there is the word planes which denotes all the facets of an object-its front and back and sides; the solid form is realized because the eye is able to see some of the planes into which it divides. Take a square box: there is the front (which is in the same plane as the picture space), then there are the side planes, and if the box were made of glass the back plane could be seen. It is where one plane ends and the other begins that has to be noted when drawing or painting an object, be it a face or a box. Round objects also have their planes, which are harder to detect because the transition from "front" to "side" is not obvious. The highlight on a round sur­face often gives the hint as to where one plane divides from another.

shape: This is more or less self-evident. Shape, for a painter, is determined by observing where one thing contacts another. Shapes must always be seen in rela­tion to what is behind them, or what is beside them— not isolated, on their own. Keen observation of shape is essential before good landscape or still life painting can be done. When you can define a shape, in relation to the shapes surrounding it, you have begun your painting in earnest.

local colors: Color is baffling to try to describe in words. Local color is the actual color of a substance or object seen at close quarters and in ordinary daylight. Naturally local colors are those seen only in the im­mediate forefront of your vision, for with any distance the atmosphere gives a grayness to the color and thus diminishes its force. Local color is the color of the thing as you see it when matching up a color in a shop; it is the pure color without any admixture.

tone and half-tones: Tone is one of the most im­portant factors in any kind of representational paint­ing, but it is difficult to define. Every color, apart from purely local color, has gray mixed in with it, from a light gray to a near-black: tone is the weight of a color in this sense—the degree of darkness in it. It sets the "key" to the picture—whether it is in a light key or a dark. To register tone out of doors it is essential to half-shut your eyes. Then the tone-depth of local colors gives way to the overall tone of the colors in any given part of the view, and your eye registers the degree of darkness in it as compared with the adjacent areas. Toneless painting, like toneless singing, is too light in its register; it makes insipid pictures.

handling: This is the way you work your brush or other tools. It is strictly personal to the individual and gives to his work much of its unique character. Loose, dashing handling gives a sense of energy, and tight, hard handling gives finish and precision. Always re­member that using the brush is like using a pen—let your personality express itself in the way you handle your tools.

perspective: Perspective can best be explained by a diagram and in Figure 4 you can see the rudiments of pictorial perspective. It is the process (or technique) of reproducing on a flat surface solid objects in space so as to give a correct impression of their relative position and magnitude—a sense of "recession." It is sometimes helpful to draw lightly an "eye-line," level with your own horizontal line of sight (which is, in fact, your horizon line).

figure 4. The elements of pictorial perspective.

All parallel lines in the landscape before you appear to converge toward a given point on this eye-line—those above your eye level seem to converge downward and those below to converge upward. All parallel lines to your left or right converge to the same point—the "vanishing point," as it is called. There are all sorts of complications in advanced perspective, but this is the simple keynote to the whole thing. The basis of it all is the simple, observable fact that the size of any given object appears to decrease as it gets further away from the eye.

recession: Referring to the view before you, this means its "going away" from your eye to the further­most distance. Plane succeeds plane as the object you see "goes back" toward the horizon. The further away from you an object is, the greater is the amount of atmosphere between you and it. So pictorially reces­sion results in both diminution in size and decrease of local color, with corresponding increase of atmospheric color (usually grayness or blueness). In relation to the canvas, recession means the "going back" from the base line to the sky line—which will be fairly low on the canvas if the subject is a flat landscape and high on the canvas if the subject is mountains.

FOREGROUND, MIDDLE DISTANCE, and BACKGROUND:

From what we have just seen, these words simply de­note that which is (a) nearest to you, (b) midway be­tween you and the horizon, and (c) furthest away— usually near or actually on your horizon line. Usual­ly the foreground is in intense colors (chiefly local color), the middle distance has a certain amount of gray mixed with the colors, and the distance or back­ground has still more gray or blue-gray—or even pure blue, mixed with the colors.

contour: The contour of an object is just the outline or bounding line where its shape meets that of another, and this defining line is extremely important in paint­ing. "Look after the contours and the picture will look after itself" was probably the constant thought of Ce­zanne, and how right he was. The contours must be fol­lowed inch by inch (look at Illustration 1) with the most extreme sensitivity.

composition: The arrangement of shapes in the pic­ture space is the composition of the picture. Artists speak of composition of line, of color, and of mass. Balance is essential—but not necessarily symmetry. To compose a picture well you must organize all the com­ponent parts into a unity. A large light mass can be balanced by a small dark one, or vice versa. Artists also recognize composition inside the space of the picture from foreground to distance as well as from left to right. The shape of the pyramid was frequently cited in the past as being the "classical" basis for composi­tion—especially of portraits—but during the past eighty years or so painters have gradually broken away from most rules and there are now no commonly accepted formulas. Many painters rely solely on their own sense of balance and proportion. Skill in composition is probably one of the last things one acquires for it needs experience to compose a picture well, and this is won only by constant trial and error.

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