Miniatuer painting

“ It should be the task of each successive generation to see that the art of miniature painting is encouraged. Miniatures must be taken seriously, not regarded as mere bric-à-brac or trifles. I repeat, we must insist upon a high standard. We have a goodly heritage of beautiful work of unique historical value handed down to us, and it is a duty to perpetuate this series, so that the "fair women and brave men" of our own days shall not go unrepresented ”

“ After architecture, miniature drawing alone sustained the chief honor of art through a long course of centuries; and, without it, the history of painting could not be written. Born in the disastrous days of barbaric irruptions, miniature grew up within the shadow of the cloister, and contained within itself the germs of all the magnificence which the pencil of Italy finally produced. ”

“ I was surprised to find that it was an exceedingly clever piece of painting. Instead of the conventional product of the miniature maker that I had expected I beheld the handiwork of an able and painstaking artist. Well drawn, well modeled, well handled in respect of color, it presented the exterminator to the life. ”

“ Illumination in the 15th century enters on a new phase. The balance is no longer evenly maintained between the relative values of the miniature and the border as factors in the general scheme of decoration. The influence 15th Century. of a new sentiment in art makes itself felt more and more; the flat treatment of the miniature gradually gives place to true laws of perspective and of figure-drawing, and to the depth and atmospheric effects of modern painting. Miniature painting in the decoration of MSS. now became more of a trade ”

“ The figures of saints occupying niches, which were familiar to the visitants of churches, were the first models that led to the painting of miniatures with the figures in grey tints. It must have been, for a true artist, delightful to triumph over the difficulty of achieving the effects of relief and of modelling with the aid of a single pigment only. To be the master of such an art, and to handle the monochrome in such a way as to run with perfect touch through a gamut of gradations in tone, would surely have been more gratifying than to win success by the splendour of full illumination. ”

“ The conception in Millet’s paintings is always admirable, but never the technique; he makes his appeal as a poet only, and never as a painter. His painting is often anxiously careful, heavy, and thick, and looks as if it had been filled in with masonry; it is dirty and dismal, and wanting in free and airy tones. Sometimes it is brutal and hard, and occasionally it is curiously indecisive in effect. Even his best pictures—“The Angelus” not excepted—give no æsthetic pleasure to the eye. The most ordinary fault in his painting is that it is soft, greasy, and woolly. ”

“ Whoever loves painting for painting’s sake need never visit the museum.
There there are battles, conflagrations, floods, and earthquakes; heaven and earth are in commotion. Giants hurl rocks at one another, and try, like Jupiter, to shake the earth with their frown. All of them delight in force, and bring their muscles into play like athletes. But the painter himself is no athlete, no giant as Thorwaldsen called him, and no genius as he fancied himself to be. ”

“ While love lasts the miniature will always be in vogue, for artists frankly admit that it is so convenient to carry in the pocket. It represents so much in so little. Miniature painting is especially therefore "the lovers' art." Some say that it makes the subject "beautiful for ever," and what more could Romeo want?
Ivory, however, is of comparatively modern use in the art world and the studio. Vellum, gold, silver, and enamel were the things on which miniatures were painted before the days of ivory. ”

“ Take another painter, Nicholas Hilliard. A most prolific artist he would seem to be, judging from the number of examples by him that I have met with; speaking generally, one may say that all his work is marked by flatness in the flesh-painting. This artist was appointed painter of miniatures to Queen Elizabeth, and we are told that he was instructed to paint her royal features without any shadows. ”

“ Thus the miniatura meant the picture painted by the great artist. The word miniature, in its present sense, was born in the 18th century, which was the best period of British miniature painting.
The material on which miniatures have been painted has varied from time to time. To-day ivory cut very thin is almost invariably used.
The elephant is not a graceful or artistic beast, and no particularly sentimental thoughts at first sight attach to him. But artists to-day would be at a loss without his tusks, and much sentiment is lavished on them in the form of lovers' portraits. ”

“ Miniature painting is too often taken up much as ladies take up some new kind of "fancy-work" (as they term it) . Want of success—due to lack of knowledge and lack of experience—soon leads to discouragement. Thus the persistent practice which led to success in other days is wanting, and the artist's powers never reach their full development. ”

“ For the works of Faithorne or Loggan, Flatman or Lens, we must refer our readers to more elaborate books on miniature painting, and hasten forward towards the eighteenth century. Before we do so, however, it may be of interest that we should refer to an illustration in colour of a miniature which has not hitherto been represented in any book on this subject. It is a portrait which has been bequeathed through various owners as a likeness of John Milton (Plate X.) , and there is a good deal of evidence to support this very interesting attribution. ”

“ When, however, we have advanced into the middle ages, we are no longer at a loss; and we can follow the later development of the miniature through all its changes in the various schools of western Europe down to its transition into the modern picture.
The importance of the study of the miniature has perhaps hardly received in the past the recognition which it merits. The history of painting cannot be perfectly understood without a knowledge of the rise and progress of the art of miniature-painting in MSS ”

“ Genre painting followed, and rendered the true spirit of life, illustrating it histrionically, but without surprising it in its unconstrained working. And so trees, mountains, and clouds also were forced to lay aside the innocence of unconscious being and wrap themselves in the cloak of affectation. Simple reality in its quiet, delicate beauty, the homely “mood” of nature, touching the forms of landscape with the play of light and air, had nothing to tell an age overstrained by the heroics of history and the grimaces of genre painting. ”

“ There is one element of Millais’s painting which, I think, has never received a full measure of appreciation. Apart from his superb gifts as a painter, he possessed a distinctive mastery in the rendering of certain phases of human emotion that has left him without a rival among the living or the dead. His fine powers as a draughtsman enabled him to press into a single face a quality of sentiment that, by reason of its exquisite delicacy of expression, was saved from the reproach of any sentimentalism. ”

“ Miniature painting in France I should decidedly say was much inferior to that of England, they are very fond of thick muddy back-grounds, their colouring partakes of the same dirty hue, there is generally a stiffness in the position, and much high finish without effect; there are certainly some exceptions to this rule, at the head of which is Madame Lezinska de Mirbel, whose miniatures are broad, bold, and natural, but always plainer than the originals; there are a few others who have come forward latterly, whose performances are above mediocrity. ”

“ The nature of the medium, however, does not always lend itself to the finishing of the work straight off in one painting; this is the case especially in the flesh tints, or in any elaborate drapery modelling. The method usually adopted was to lay in the tints with a full brush and solid colour, carrying the modelling as far as possible in the first painting. Too much working over the same part is liable to bring up the wax, and to cause the work to dry unpleasantly glossy. ”

“ In reality one cannot venture on more than a swift glance into blinding masses of light, but the impression remained in the painter’s memory. He painted what he saw, and knew how to make his effect convincing. And at the same time his composition became ever freer and easier, the work of his brush ever more fragrant and unfettered, the colouring and total sentiment of the picture ever more imaginative and like those of a fairy-tale. His world is a land of sun, where the reality of things vanishes, and the light shed between the eye and the objects of vision is the only thing that lives. ”

“ After his time and that of his contemporaries Sir William Ross, J. D. Engleheart, Robertson, Newton, and Thorburn, the art of miniature painting died away until its revival in recent times.
The painters who worked in enamel occupy a section of miniature work apart, although in many instances the best known enamellers painted portraits also on ivory or on vellum, but they are especially known for their works in enamel. ”

“ This subject is one of very great importance to the collector, upon whose credulity the forgers appear to be able to reckon to any extent, and it is really remarkable the way in which people, who should know better, will bring out from their cabinets works to which they do not hesitate to attach some of the most eminent names to be found in the annals of the art of miniature painting. If only they have picked them up themselves, that appears to be one of the chief recommendations and guarantees of authenticity. ”

“ Pupil of the Slade School and Royal Academy in London, and of M. Charles Chaplin in Paris in his studio. A miniaturist whose works are much esteemed. Her work is life-like, artistic, and strong in drawing, color, and composition. After finishing her study under masters she took up miniature painting by herself, studying the works of old miniaturists.
Recently she writes me: "I have departed from the ordinary portrait miniature, and am now painting what I call picture miniatures. ”

“ Unfortunately, the day for these very laudable sentiments was passing, and, when men were dependent on their profession, something else had to be thought of. Hence the necessary study of portrait painting.
I remember Millais mentioned his belief in the [143] pre-Raphaelites and their influence upon the young artist; but he considered it important that the student should gradually abandon the influence for a more masterly method of painting and a freer brush. This versatile genius must have puzzled his adorers not a little by his erratic experiments in style ”

“ At one time he renders the morning mist lying over the fields, at another the haze of sultry noon, veiling and as it were absorbing the outlines and colours of all objects, the light of sunset streaming over field and woodland with a tender, tremulous glimmering, the delicate silver tone which veils the landscape on clear moonlight nights.
There is not another artist of the century who renders night as Millet does in his pastels. ”

“ In two countries especially, the art of painting miniatures has flourished, England and France, and in these two countries there have been schools of miniature painters, and a succession of great exponents of the art, while in the other countries of Europe there have only been now and again painters who have devoted especial attention to this branch of their art, and have taken high position in it. ”

“ The use of very large initials was not so usual, but while the initials decreased in size the technique improved. This tendency towards naturalism developed more and more as the century advanced. These natural forms, however, were still considered as decoration and were not mere naturalistic renderings.
Miniature painting was also developed in this century; indeed, the art of illumination is generally considered to have reached its highest point of development in this century. ”

“ Her first portrait of her mother was accepted by the Salon in Paris in 1894, and upon her return to New York she exhibited pictures annually at the National Academy. She believes that the great principles of art that obtain in oil painting should apply to miniature work as well; and she paints her miniatures in the same manner as she would paint in oils—with only the difference in treatment required by the conditions of a small sized picture. ”

“ Miniature painting on ivory, or paintings "in little," as they have been called, gradually developed into a "personal" art, because of their peculiar appeal to the sentiments and affections, and for their "companionable proportions." ”

“ This period, the eighteenth century, marks the introduction of miniature painting into America, where it became popular as an expression of art during and after the Revolution, as large oil portraits had been before. ”

“ The history of miniature painting, however, is not complex—the methods and materials being much the same throughout its development or decline. The art is largely confined to the simple portrayal of heads, with only occasional contributions of fanciful subjects. ”

“ The miniatures which occasionally contain evident attempts at portraiture, are painted in the manner of the school of Cimabue and the earlier Italian painters, more particularly that of Simone Memmi. It is substantially the Byzantine manner, but improved and enlivened by attention to natural attitude and expression. The greenish under-painting of the flesh-tints is often noticeable. The decorative portions are very skilful and elaborate, as well as extremely neat and symmetrical; the gold profuse and brilliant. Indeed, the whole production may be studied as a typical example of its time. ”