Picture

“ For if we can not see a picture in a fine piece of music or hear the strains of a distant song in a picture,—if we can not drink of the beauty of both with the eye as well as the ear,—we had better seek entertainment in a picture gallery, where hang many a visible palpable specimen of colors rioting in quadrangles of gilded mouldings, of colors clamoring for recognition in the little square horizons of the artist's soul. ”

“ Out of these few elements the artist has constructed a picture which it is impossible to forget, of which the most striking characteristic is its simplicity, and yet which overflows with perfection. Painted with extraordinary breadth and freedom, so that surface and texture are interpreted by the lightest hand, it glows with life, character and distinction, and strikes us as the most complete—with one exception perhaps—of the author’s productions. ”

“ 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! ”

“ It is strange to think how a scene, in itself uninteresting, becomes agreeable to look at in a picture, from the truth with which it is depicted, and a perfection of colouring which at once contrasts and harmonises the hues of sky and water. ”

“ The picture, as a work of art, is remarkable for its simplicity of idea and treatment, the severity of its manner, and the gloomy awfulness everywhere breathing from it. It seems to gather darkness as you gaze at it ”

“ No two sunsets are the same. Fairy-stories tell of a marvellous picture book, the pages of which one may turn forever without weariness, for the instant the picture has been looked upon and the page turned, its place is taken by a new picture. ”

“ But pass on to another picture which may or may not have the same exact likeness, and we are possessed with quite another feeling; instead of being merely surprised by the cleverness of the imitation, we feel a thrill of delight at a reproduction of nature. In this picture there are not only the clouds we remember, but we can almost feel the shadows which they cast, and the air which stirs them. ”

“ By what art or mystery, what craft of selection, omission or commission, does a given picture of life appear to us to surround its theme, its figures and images, with the air of romance while another picture close beside it may affect us as steeping the whole matter in the element of reality? It is a question, no doubt, on the painter's part, very much more of perceived effect, effect after the fact, than of conscious design—though indeed I have ever failed to see how a coherent picture of anything is producible save by a complex of fine measurements. ”

“ People look at the pictures which hang round their walls, and have an awakening suspicion that there is more in them than meets the eye—more than mere connoisseurship can interpret; and that they have another, a deeper, significance than has been dreamed of by picture dealers and picture collectors, or even picture critics. ”

“ What is the picture, collectively seen, you ask, but the portrait, more or less elaborated, of a multitudinous People, of a social and political order?—so that the effect is, for all the world, as if, with the body and the limbs, the hands and feet and coat and trousers, all the accessories of the figure showily painted, the neat white oval of the face itself were innocent of the brush. ”

“ 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. ”

“ It is true that in looking at this huge composition you look at many pictures; it has not only a multitude of figures but a wealth of episodes; and you pass from one of these to the other as if you were "doing" a gallery. Surely no single picture in the world contains more of human life; there is everything in it, including the most exquisite beauty. ”

“ In fact, I wished to help you to look at a picture first and foremost as a work of art; a thing beautiful in itself because of its composition of form and color; beautiful in an abstract way, that is to say, apart from the ideas suggested by the subject. My aim has been to try to teach you to admire a picture in an abstract way, as you admire a Japanese or Chinese vase, simply and solely for its beauty of form and color.
This is not the usual way. Most people begin by taking interest in the subject of a picture, and very many never get any further in their appreciation. ”

“ Has my reader not often noticed that in a picture-gallery the slightest change of place, a move to the left or right, a chance approach or retreat, suffices to make what seemed a hazy confusion of color and gloss a rich and beautiful picture? ”

“ 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. ”

“ We all own a mental picture-gallery which we carry about with us till death. Some of the pictures are ours by deliberate choice, printed on memory by loving intent; others, pain has stamped in undying lines; a few have gained their place as it were by accident. ”

“ How they are all tilted by the inclination of the ground, how each stands out in delicate relief against the rest, what manifold detail, and play of sun and shadow, animate and accentuate the picture, is a matter for a person on the spot, and turning swiftly on his heels, to grasp and bind together in one comprehensive look. ”

“ De pictura.—Whosoever loves not picture is injurious to truth and all the wisdom of poetry. Picture is the invention of heaven, the most ancient and most akin to Nature. It is itself a silent work, and always of one and the same habit; ”

“ The eye is the royal road to the mind, and most people are eye-minded; and the moving picture is a wonderful agency to convey to the mind, through the eye, accurate pictures of the world around us, natural and social. ”

“ Well, if you have carefully studied your portrait in the mirror, I think you must have discovered how large a part the contrast of light and shadow plays in the appearance of the figure, and therefore, what an equally important part it plays in producing an illusion of reality in the picture. I do not forget that an artist by simply drawing an outline with a pen or pencil can also suggest to us the appearance of an object. ”

“ The picture, the whole picture, and nothing but the picture, is thrown on the mind rapidly and directly; so rapidly that the movement of the brush is scarcely discernible, and so simply that not a thought is required for its elucidation. ”

“ To the attentive eye, each moment of the year has its own beauty, and in the same field, it beholds, every hour, a picture which was never seen before, and which shall never be seen again. ”

“ For tho’ a lively picture of the manners may in some sort be said to affect us, yet certainly not as coming under the consideration of what is terrible, pitiable, tender, or ridiculous, but simply of what is natural. The picture is pleasant or otherwise, as it chances; but is always the source of entertainment to the observer. ”

“ 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. ”

“ And so we sit and refresh the inner man, while the soul revels in the world of beauty around us, and picture after picture passes before the mental vision, connecting these scenes with famous historic characters, or wonderful events of legendary lore. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ To judge the image as a picture is judged, would, as we have seen, be absurd; and what is sought in poetry by those painters and others whose interest in the world is primarily visual is not pictures but records of observation, or stimuli of emotion. ”

“ A real story picture differs from one upon which a story may be based as the Adoration of the Shepherds differs from a simple Madonna, or Boughton’s Pilgrims going to Church from Stuart’s portrait of George Washington. The real story picture is dramatic in character and contains a story by implication, the story the artist meant to tell, and to draw this out is quite another matter than building one of our own upon a picture not designed for the purpose. ”

“ In photography one man delights in the etching point and cannot stop until he has made a net work all over his plate and led us to look at this instead of his picture, which, if good, would have been let alone—a clever device of throwing dust into our eyes. ”

“ In fact it represents a mixture of the classical and the naturalistic motive.
Firstly, the naturalistic. We know at a glance what the man is doing. The forms in the picture, the colors, the light and shade, make an impression on the eye which is immediately telegraphed to one of the centers of the brain. The result is that we know the picture represents a man in a field sowing{97} grain, while from the color and light in the sky, and the shadows creeping over the field, we know that it is twilight. ”

“ A picture wants solidity, a statue wants colour. But we see the want of colour as a palpably glaring defect, and we do not see the want of solidity, the effects of which to the spectator are supplied by light and shadow. A picture is as perfect an imitation of nature as is conveyed by a looking-glass; which is all that the eye can require, for it is all it can take in for the time being. A fine picture resembles a real living man; the finest statue in the world can only resemble a man turned to stone. The one is an image, the other a cold abstraction of nature. ”

“ A picture is a convention—an illusion. We take a few crude materials, a square of canvas, some earthy pigments, and by a sort of artistic legerdemain we propose to make those materials disappear and to persuade the spectator that he is looking through the frame and out over the sunny landscape beyond. If the magician is clever enough, if he observes carefully the laws of color, of values, and of refraction, he may succeed fairly well. ”

“ 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. ”

“ A picture is truly perfect, with many and most sublime beauties and delicate and subtle illuminations, and some of its beauties are so fine and subtle that they cannot be completely realized, because of their delicacy and excellence. ”

“ CHAPTER XVI - COLOR, HARMONY, TONE In viewing a picture exhibition the average man, woman and child would be attracted by different aspects of it; the man by the tone of the pictures, the woman by their color, the child almost wholly by the form or subject. ”

“ Between nine and ten, at last, in the high clear picture—he was moving in these days, as in a gallery, from clever canvas to clever canvas—he drew a long breath: it was so presented to him from the first that the spell of his luxury wouldn’t be broken. ”

“ Others, on the contrary, utter the word realistic before a picture strongly felt representing a scene of ordinary life, while they apply that of symbolic to another picture that is but a cold allegory. ”

“ When in nature we observe a scene that naturally fits a frame and we find ourselves gazing first at one object and then at another and returning again to the first, we may be sure it will make a picture. ”

“ The picture writing, which prevailed among them, and in which they had attained so high a degree of perfection, was precisely the material on which to build traditionary lore, and cultivate a taste for it among the common people. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Well, she said, that picture is the kind of picture that gives pleasure to the kind of people who like that kind of picture. ”

“ There is enough in the picture which is familiar to your actual senses through experience to brace your imagination for a grasp of the unfamiliar elements. The wide plain, the river hurrying between green banks—no apperceptive background fails thus far in the picture. What do we mean by apperceptive background? Let us investigate for a moment the psychology involved in the art of "making pictures." ”

“ 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. ”