Picture writing

“ And he has this advantage over the writer—that a well-done drawing is a volume in itself; in one glance the eye has absorbed the background which a tedious explanation is necessary to convey in [Pg vii] words, and is free to take in the essential meaning of the drawing. A picture appeals as directly to the eye as does a sunset, or as food to the stomach, or a soft bed to the tired body. It uses a natural sense, not a cultivated faculty. ”

“ Thus by the magic of pictorial design our vision is caught and so controlled that a single glance, sweeping the picture in the direction ordained by the artist, gives us a definite feeling of movement. ”

“ In a camera obscura the butcher's cart and the figure of one of our own family amuse us. So a portrait of a well-known face gratifies us. Turn the eyes upside down, by looking at the landscape through your legs, and how agreeable is the picture, though you have seen it any time these twenty years! ”

“ In the whole composition there should be no word written, of which the tendency, direct or indirect, is not to the one pre-established design. And by such means, with such care and skill, a picture is at length painted which leaves in the mind of him who contemplates it with a kindred art, a sense of the fullest satisfaction. ”

“ We are not now speaking of such qualities as unity, emphasis, balance, and rhythm. They are indeed fundamental needs in pictorial composition, and yet a photoplay may have all of those qualities without possessing any strong appeal as art. A motion picture, like a painting, must possess other, more subtle, qualities if it is to make any lasting impression upon our souls. ”

“ You can turn, if you choose, your camera skyward and focus the top of a steeple and only that. It is true, but it is uninteresting, or rather unintelligible, until you focus also the church door, and the gathering groups, and the overgrown pathway that winds through the quiet graveyard. So a picture can be true and yet very much like a slip cut from a newspaper. For some men cut thus into nature, haphazard, without care or thought, and produce perhaps a square containing an advertisement of a patent churn, a railroad timetable, and a fragment of an essay on art. ”

“ In the last quarter of a century our decorative work has improved in the most striking manner; our illustrations, if judged merely for their pictorial qualities, have not advanced. In the eyes of artists the sketches for book-work now being produced in other countries are probably as good as our own. But an illustration is not merely a picture, it is a picture to be placed in a certain position in a printed book, and in due relation to the size of the page and the character of the type. ”

“ Here, then, we have some of the types of picture-work: the picture and the story, the parable in its various forms, and the word-picture—whether of things or actions; illustrations or side-lights, the "likes" with which a skilful teacher illumines his teaching, and the objects, models, maps, and sketches on pad or blackboard, with which he re-enforces the lagging imaginations of his hearers.
What, then, is a picture? A picture is anything that helps us to see more clearly, feel more heartily, and act upon more faithfully the truth which is not or cannot be immediately present to our senses. ”

“ Just as between the two covers of a magazine artistic stories stand side by side with instructive essays, scientific articles, or discussions of the events of the day, the photoplay is accompanied by a kinematoscopic rendering of reality in all its aspects. Whatever in nature or in social life interests the human understanding or human curiosity comes to the mind of the spectator with an incomparable intensity when not a lifeless photograph but a moving picture brings it to the screen. ”

“ But let the mother begin to talk about the picture, and the child fixes eager eyes upon it, and follows every word with breathless attention. And “talking about” a picture is simply letting the picture talk, provided, of course, that it is the right sort of picture. The artist does all the work: one has only to follow his thought. ”

“ If the artist is not the dominant note, and the rules submerged by the personality, there is no value in the object of art. The picture is interesting because the artist expresses through it his appreciation, his interpretation, of a beautiful thought or a lovely thing. This is what puts the most faithful photographs outside of the pale of art, and compels the idealization of the performance of the camera before it can be considered to be artistic. ”

“ Then more details are required and one paints a second portrait, and a third—before long the best lines cancel out—and the secret is exposed at last; the planes of the pictures have intermingled and given us away, and though we paint and paint we can no longer sell a picture. ”

“ I wondered next, how it would work to make a picture of my fancy. I doubted not for a moment that it would not make an ordinary picture. An every-day painting is a mere reproduction, on a piece of silk or canvas of what one sees around, as it is, or else after filtering it [99] through an æsthetic eye. A picture has done its part, when a flower looks the flower it is, the water as it reflects in the eye, and human characters animate as in life. ”

“ Do not call yourself an “artist-photographer” and 255make “artist-painters” and “artist-sculptors” laugh; call yourself a photographer and wait for artists to call you brother.
Falsity of photographic portraits. Remember why nearly all portrait photographs are so unlike the people they represent—because the portrait lens as often used gives false drawing of the planes and false tonality, and then, comes along the retoucher to put on the first part of the uniform, and he is followed by the vignetter and burnisher who complete the disguise.
Amount of landscape to be included in a picture. ”

“ Hitherto the chief aim of the photographer seems to have been a biting sharpness of detail in the negative, which is generally quite fatal to the result from an artistic point of view, for in breadth lies the beauty and sentiment of landscape. To produce a picture the photographer must select his lens and adjust his focus, so as to get an expression as nearly identical with the visual one as possible, and he must print in such good tone as will give the closest approximation to the values in nature. ”

“ A photographic artist strives for the same end and in two points only does he fall short of the painter—in color and in the ability to render so accurately the relative values, although this is to a great extent compensated by the tone of the picture. How then is photography superior to etching, wood-cutting, charcoal drawing? The [pg 178] drawing of the lens is not to be equalled by any man. There is ample room for selection, judgment and posing, and, in a word, in capable hands a finished photograph is a work of art. ”

“ A small portfolio of his charcoal reproductions or a few photographs of his pictures should be a part of the print collection of every artist. No better designer of small groups ever lived.
With the amount of good art now coming from the camera it is strange that no groups of note have been produced.12 In the field of pure portraiture the attempt may as well be abandoned. The photographer can at best but mitigate conditions. The picture group can only apply when sacrifice and subordination are possible. ”

“ The whole of the pictorial interest may be on one side of a picture and the other side be practically useless as far as picturesqueness or story-telling opportunity is concerned, but which finds its reason for existing in the balance, and that alone. ”

“ On rare occasions only, and in the hands of a few artistic workers alone, does photography rise above a certain mechanical and laboured impression, and the rare exceptions are of a character ill-suited for "half-tone" reproduction.
For complete whole-page illustrations a photogram has few drawbacks; but when inserted with letterpress, and required for chapter headings and odd corners, the fact that the picture occupies the whole space enclosed within the boundary lines, and includes a great deal of detail which is not required, makes them less attractive. ”

“ The picture which illustrates a dramatic situation, in other words, the anecdotic or story picture, has undreamed-of possibilities in the way of story entertainment. It furnishes us a subject and puts the story into our very mouths, so to speak. All children take naturally to pictures, and we secure their attention at once when we produce a print or open an illustrated book. Usually, however, their interest quickly flags, unless guided by an older companion. The young mind, untrained to concentration, flits from subject to subject, as a butterfly from one blossom to another. ”

“ TECHNIQUE and rules, idea and action are as chaff on the threshing floor of the photodrama compared to visualization, which is the precious kernel to be sought. Visualization is both the key and the keynote of all photoplay-writing. ”

“ What is a picture meant for? To convey certain ideas to the mind of painters? that is, of one man in ten thousand?—No, but to make them apparent to the eye and mind of all. If a picture be admired by none but painters, I think it is strong presumption that the picture is bad. ”

“ On the whole, it is much better to have a few good things than many inferior prints.
In one sense any and every picture is a story picture. An active imagination may weave a drama out of the most meager material. The figure of an animal, Landseer’s Newfoundland Dog, let us say, may sug- gest all sorts of exploits to form an endless tale. A portrait, like the head of Van Dyck’s Prince Charles, may be the starting-point of the life-story of the Merry Monarch. This story use of the picture is perfectly legitimate, but it is not the original intention of the artist. ”

“ A friendly picture-dealer supplies us with half a dozen beautiful little reproductions of the work of some single artist, term by term. After a short story of the artist’s life and a few sympathetic words about his trees or his skies, his river-paths or his figures, the little pictures are studied one at a time; that is, children learn, not merely to see a picture but to look at it, taking in every detail. ”

“ The use of pictures in language work runs through all the school grades. The picture furnishes something to talk about or write about. It stimulates observation, starts up the thinking apparatus, and arouses the imagination. Among younger children teachers usually prefer story pictures, that is, illustrative or anecdotic compositions embodying a more or less dramatic situation. The pupil is drawn out by a series of questions: “When did the action take place, that is, at what time of the day or season of the year?” ”

“ Picture, at once, is able to imbue the spectator with a kind of spirituality ere it touches the understanding; whereas, in reading, it is the uninformed and grosser imagination supplies the portraiture from scenes of a narrow experience, and personages of a homely familiarity. ”

“ Let your pictures be definite, positive, explicit as to details, for the more careful you are in making a picture real to your mind, the easier it will be recalled.
Now, if you desire to recall the whole course of a book, you will find these vividly-made mental pictures have a natural order of sequence, and one will recall the next following, and so on. There is great joy in learning to make pictorial thought-links, and then in the ability they give to the memory to recall them. ”

“ We must make patterns, and evolve action or rhythm between each object. If we pick up a book, attracted by the first page or the first few chapters, and we find that there is nothing further to hold our interest, what do we do but discard the book? So it is with a picture. We must arrest the eye. But we must also hold the interest pleasantly within the picture. We must not put something down which says "Stop!" and then treat the subject in such a barbarous manner that the eye wanders
Fig. 94. Improving an Empty space dissatisfied out of the picture. ”

“ The picture suffers from want of emphasis, or from emphasis in the wrong place. It is, of course, here that the art of the photographer comes in; and, although he can by careful selection, arrangement, and the regulation of exposure, largely counteract the mechanical tendency, a photograph by its very nature can never take the place of a work of art—the first-hand expression, more or less abstract, of a human mind, or the creative inner vision recorded by a human hand. ”

“ An intelligent lad who has a definite motive like this can learn a great deal by placing iracing-paper over the photograph of a good composition, and outlining in pencil the strongest lines. I am confident that ingenious mothers and teachers can make a great deal of picture-posing or tableaux to show the children how much better the effect is when the figures are properly related. ”

“ My notion of hanging a picture is to put it low enough to be seen. If small it should be placed near the eye. Anybody can hang a picture, but the question should be, is there good painting enough in [Pg 61] this picture to make it acceptable to the public, or to make it just to the artist to show it? And none but artists can quite judge of the workmanship which should entitle it to enter the Academy. ”

“ Picture-posing opens a very interesting class of subjects for the amateur photographer. When his ingenuity is taxed for new ideas, he can find pleasure and profit in reproducing the compositions of the masters. If he has groups of figures to arrange, he may interest his sitters in posing à la some famous portrait group of an old master. ”

“ After the picture has been left as finished, why does an artist often feel impelled to create an accent on this side or weaken an obtrusive one on the other side of his canvas if not working under a law of balance?
Let any picture be taken which has lived long enough before the public to be considered good by every one; or take a dozen or more such and add others by artists who declare against composition and yet have produced good pictures; subject all these to the following simple test: Find the actual centre of the picture and pass a vertical and horizontal line through it. ”