Panel painting

“ Of course the cylindrical canvas is necessary for panoramas; but we have, as a rule, to paint our pictures and wall-decorations on flat surfaces, and therefore must adapt our work to these conditions.
In all cases the artist must exercise his own judgement both in the arrangement of his design and the execution of the work, for there is perspective even in the touch—a painting to be looked at from a distance requires a bold and broad handling; in small cabinet pictures that we live with in our own rooms we look for the exquisite workmanship of the best masters. ”

“ What a host of masterpieces in the great gallery! And here were artists, male and female, copying them. Some, with little easel and chair, were merely sketching a single head from a group in some grand tableau. Others, with huge framework, and mounted up many feet from the floor, were making full copies of some great painting. Students were sketching in crayon, upon crayon paper, portions of designs from some favorite artist. Ladies were making cabinet copies of paintings, and others copying celebrated heads upon tablets of the size of miniatures ”

“ Indeed it would be easy to demonstrate that no present-day painter begins upon an oval, a square, a triangle of wood or canvas, without first planning how to fill that space gracefully with forms, lights, and colors. These nineteenth-century painters have had few wall-spaces to fill, but it has already been suggested that the decorative tradition has descended to them, and that they are as considerate about filling a panel or canvas as ever the old men were considerate about filling an apse or spandrel. ”

“ You should have beautiful sculpture in the middle of the room, with dark walls round it to throw out its profile, and you should have all the arrangements made there [Pg 22] so as to harmonize with it, and to set forth every line of it. So the painting gallery, I think, might be made a glorious thing, if the pictures were level, and the architecture above produced unity of impression from the beauty and glow of color and the purity of form. ”

“ Methods of handling oil color may be reduced to two general classes: (a) the paint is used thin, as a wash, on a prepared canvas, or (b) it is put on in thick opaque touches. In either case the aim is the same—to paint for depth, vibration, illusion of light and color. If brush strokes are to be left intact, each of them must have shape and meaning,—that is, line; if color is put on in a thin wash, then its value, gradation, hue and texture are the main points,—and these belong to structural harmony. Mural painting is the highest form of the art, demanding perfect mastery of Composition. ”

“ A representation of a painter's studio. Scattered about the room are works of art, fine paintings, portraits, statuary, vases of ancient form, and flowers. A guitar and flute hang from the wall, and at the left of the stage is a large picture, with a crimson curtain partially drawn across it. The painter's easel stands at the right of the stage; on it is an unfinished por [Pg 246] trait of a lady. A small table, sofa, and three ancient chairs complete the furniture of the room. The artist is seated in one of the chairs, engaged in painting the lady's portrait. ”

“ The singularity of this is that we have here [Pg 118] a panel painted in tempera, belonging at the latest to the early years of the fourteenth century, which is not only untouched, but in complete preservation, and which for brilliance and intensity of colour and the perfection of its enamel-like smalto can scarcely be surpassed by works of the succeeding century. It is a small panel in which the figures are drawn with miniature-like precision. The prevailing tone is the pale brown in which the rocky landscape is rendered. ”

“ Of all the scenes in which to moralize and meditate, a picture gallery is to me the most impressive. With the most intense feeling of the beauty of painting, I cannot help thinking with Dr. Johnson, that as far as regards portraits, their chief excellence and value consist in the likeness and the authenticity, 61 and not in the merit of the execution. When we can associate a story or a sentiment with every face and form, they almost live to us—they do in a manner speak to us. ”

“ The value of an art gallery depends, therefore, on its size and representative nature so far as art students are concerned, and on the appeal which fine paintings make to the higher feelings and perceptions of mankind for its influence as a creator of taste and stimulator of a love of the beautiful. When an art collection takes the form of a special exhibition illustrative of a subject, rather than a particular school of painting, its value and interest are enormously increased. ”

“ In all these decorations one finds colour and composition as original as bizarre, harmonious yet forcible. All students of modern painting should not fail to see these works, the most striking in execution of the last few years. The artist’s atelier is also always open to connoisseurs, and it will be found to be crowded with sketches and pictures in progress, each one unmistakably the handiwork of a master craftsman. ”

“ Draw the panels, shut the sashes glazed with paper, and you have only a poor effect, giving the idea neither of beauty nor solidity. The interiors are divided into rooms, by folding screens, or light sliding partitions often filled with paper decorated with painting, as a substitute for glass, which was not known. ”

“ A picture is painted in a certain environment of light, color, and tone,—and to Whistler this environment was a vital consideration. For the time being the canvas is the one conspicuous thing in the studio, of even greater importance than subject or model. From this environment of creation, and with which it is in perfect harmony, it is violently forced into conjunction with great squares of atrocious gilt frames and expanses of clashing canvases.
A gallery of pictures is the slaughter-house of art; annual exhibitions are the shambles of beauty. ”

“ It is but flashy landscape-painting and lowers the taste it appeals to, for the taste it appeals to has been formed by a more delicate art. Decorative scene-painting would be, on the other hand, as inseparable from the movements as from the robes of the players and from the falling of the light; and being in itself a grave and quiet thing it would mingle with the tones of the voices and with the sentiment of the play, without overwhelming them under an alien interest. ”

“ These two larger panels are more pleasing than the eight representing the Seasons, both in coloring and in figure composition; and they make pleasing spots of bright color in the dome. But again the artist is tediously careful to make his meanings plain. Not only does each figure hold its obvious symbol prominently in view, but there are labels naming the figures. To the art student the painter's stipple-and-line method, producing vibration of light and a certain freshness of atmosphere, will be of interest, as being out of the usual run of mural technique. ”

“ Thus, in the most effective treatment in mural decoration, one sees only the grand forms, the movement, the intention, those things which most befit the inner surface of the building being also those which bear the greater importance. The fact is used as an argument for the assumption that painting should, after all, be an art of two dimensions, length and breadth, reserving thickness and its representation, for sculpture. ”

“ The color scheme of the whole room was left to me and I did the best I could with it, also outlining the panels with gold bands. Alas! as years went on, some politician, instead of leaving time to mellow it to a beautiful tone, has seen fit to retint the walls and—worse and worse—he has large plates with labels to each picture. You may as well write “horse” under a drawing of the animal as to put “Justice” under my panel. If a decoration is not intelligible to a Chinaman, there is no reason for putting it up. ”

“ After the Civil War, when the first large crop of millionaires was made, all ornamentation, whether in picture frames, furniture or wall decorations, assumed a garish and bizarre effect. Gold and brilliant colors were used liberally, and to this day, many pictures are so badly framed that the effect of the picture itself is lost.
Many painters have only one exhibition frame, in which they show their paintings to prospective buyers and others, and some painters will not sell a painting without a frame, believing that they know best the kind of a frame best suited for the painting. ”

“ The part where the artist decides to begin his work is uncovered, that is to say, a portion of the paper is turned down and cut away, but in such a manner that it may be replaced. Then the plasterer puts fresh plaster, about an eighth of an inch thick, upon the uncovered portion of the wall, and the plasterer’s work is of the utmost importance in fresco painting. ”

“ Occasionally a shade painted on convex glass is found with a flat composition card or plaster background, upon which, standing away behind the rounded glass on which the portrait is painted, a beautiful shadow is cast by the painting. ”

“ There is no better way to study painting historically than in the cabinet of an engraving collector. Furthermore, divested of bad or mediocre paint—many famous pictures by famous names are mere cartoons, the paint peeled or peeling off—the student and amateur penetrates to the very marrow of the painter's conception, to the very skeleton of his technical methods. ”

“ It is not only that the draughtsman has learnt to draw, and the painter to paint; they work on quite a different system. It was explained (page 44) how in early days the glazier conceived his design as mosaic, how he first thought it out in lead lines, and only relied on paint to help him out in details which glazing could not give him. Now, it is easy to see that the painter begins at the other end. He thinks out his picture as a painting, and relies upon glazing only for the colour which he cannot get without it. ”

“ Too much light will be sure to interfere with the proper control of light and shade on your model, and too little will make your painting too dark. The position of the window with reference to the shape of the room has to do with this. The most probable form of a room is long and narrow. For painting it is better that the window be in the middle of the end wall, high up, rather than in the middle of the side wall. You will find that you can more easily get distance from your model, and at the same time get the light both on him and on your canvas. But a painting-room should not be too narrow. ”

“ This “vernis,” - 102 - as the French call it, one finds constantly among the women here, for their days are passed among men of intelligence and ability, whose lives and energy are surrounded and encouraged by an atmosphere of art.
In an hour, the sculptor and his Juno-like model will stroll back to the studio, where work will be resumed as long as the light lasts.
A TRUE TYPE
The painter breakfasting at the next table is hard at work on a decorative panel for a ceiling. It is already laid out and squared up, from careful pencil drawings. ”

“ For the sake of the visitor who comes to the gallery with practically no knowledge of art, a word may profitably be said about critical standards. First remember that there are many qualities which may make a painting worth while: pleasing design, beautiful color, a compelling expression of emotion or thought, or a poetic suggestion of a fleeting aspect or mood. It is necessary to judge each particular work by the artist's intention, and not by untrained personal tastes. ”

“ A scene-painter’s palette is a strange affair; it is like a large wooden tray fixed to a table, and that table is on wheels; along one side of the tray are divisions like stalls in a stable, each division containing the different coloured paints, while in front is a flat piece on which the powders can be mixed. The thing that strikes one most is the amount of exercise the scenic artist takes. He is constantly stepping back to look at what he has done, for he copies on a large scale the minute sketch he has previously worked out in detail. ”

“ In a large and richly furnished studio that was the splendid workshop of a fashionable portrait-painter there stood before an easel a handsome fair-bearded man—handsome, though the head was small—a fellow who held himself with self-reliance, straight and satisfied. And with the calculated stroke of one who has mastered the technique of his craft, he set down the loaded brush on the embrowned canvas, yielding a touch of colour that told like living flesh on the portrait of the pretty woman whose likeness he was building up into life. ”

“ This, together with the presence of many black and heavy shadows, which appear to have gone darker, if possible, with age, combine to throw the painting out of tone. In composition and drawing they are not without grandeur of style, but if they had been more simple in treatment, and less violent in colour and light and shade effects, they would be more pleasing as wall decorations. ”

“ I would strongly deprecate the habit of painting pictures up to exhibition pitch. Paint them up to the pitch you see in nature, and you will have quite enough to do. Exasperation is not force, and although a soberly-colored work may be eclipsed on the exhibition walls by a dazzling neighbor, yet it will more than hold its own when removed from the glare and glitter of its surroundings.{201}
Color, as understood by many people, means violent contrasts of reds, blues, and yellows. ”