Sign painter

“ The wide distances at which they are situated prevented personal examination in every case, and local histories fail to give such small particulars.
The rude unattractive woodcuts inserted in the work are in most instances fac-similes, which have been chosen as genuine examples of the style in which the various old signs were represented. The blame of the coarse and primitive execution, therefore, rests entirely with the ancient artist, whether sign painter or engraver. ”

“ Sign Painters. Sign painting requires a long, steady, and regular apprenticeship. It requires also a correct eye and a steady hand. In large cities, sign and ornamental painting can be made a distinct branch of painting; but in a town or village it is combined with carriage or house painting, as one individual seldom has enough sign and ornamental painting to keep him constantly occupied. ”

“ The question in that ease, becomes how to make one more striking than the other, and in this some of the placards succeed admirably. It is in fact impossible to speak too highly of the progress made in this respect by wood-letter cutters, some of whose works may truly be taken as models by the sign-painter. ”

“ And it is necessary that the signs, whether shadow or substance, should be completely painted as they appear to the eye in nature when observed with [Pg 200] average care by one inspecting a view for the purpose of drinking in all its beauties, for this is how a painted landscape is usually examined. There is no place in the painter's art for a suggestive sign in the sense that it may suggest a required complete sign. ”

“ The Society of Sign-Painters take this Opportunity of refuting a most malicious Suggestion, that their Exhibition is designed as a Ridicule on the Exhibitions of the Society for the Encouragement of Arts, &c., and of the Artists. They intend theirs as only an Appendix, or (in the Stile of Painters) a Companion to the others. There is nothing in their Collection, which will be understood by any Candid Person as a Reflection on any Body, or any Body of Men. ”

“ Let us suppose that a piece of pottery or porcelain has been painted, and that the action of the fire has made the coloring perennial, so that we find on it a portrait or a landscape everlasting as the ware itself. Let us suppose, further, that the tints are natural, that, in short, the portrait is all that we now understand by the word, and that in the landscape nature is displayed as on canvas—then we should have a specimen of the perfect union of the potter’s and painter’s art. ”

“ Your heart warms towards him as it would towards a poet who addresses you in an ode of panegyric, the kindling terms of which—a little astonishing to your friends—you believe in your heart of hearts to be the simple truth, and, in the matter of expression, not over-coloured in the very least. The portrait-painter has a shrewd eye for character, and is usually the best anecdote-monger in the world. His craft brings him into contact with many faces, and he learns to compare them curiously, and to extract their meanings. He can interpret wrinkles; he can look through the eyes into the man ”

“ The light and pleasing in form and color, in design and execution, distinguish the numerous works of our artist. No living painter excels her in dignity or in the delicate taste with which she handles the pencil. ”

“ Now, that is childish.”
“Harry,” said Basil Hallward, looking him straight in the face, “every portrait that is painted with feeling is a portrait of the artist, not of the sitter. The sitter is merely the accident, the occasion. It is not he who is revealed by the painter; it is rather the painter who, on the coloured canvas, reveals himself. ”

“ Oh, painter! still your heart's wild throb and cry,
You cannot paint this sunset tough you try;
The canvas cannot rival Nature's skies,
Before her hand each human effort dies.
Oh! you must dip your brush in waves of gold
If you would paint for me that amber fold.
Oh! poet, seize your pen—'tis all in vain,
You cannot paint in words that crimson stain;
Though all your soul in quivering rapture lies,
Your pen brings not those clouds to other eyes.
Though Art has power, still Nature is the queen,
Her hand alone commands this glorious scene. ”

“ So with almost every pursuit—there is opportunity to exercise it in the world of spirits. The painter finds nobler themes for his pencil, more angelic faces for his canvas; and the desire to reproduce them as they appear is as intense there as it is here. ”

“ The portrait painter makes us feel all this in his picture. The attitude is so dignified, the gesture so forcible, the countenance so expressive, that we are impressed at once with the dignity of his character. ”

“ The artist was rewarded for his labour with smiles, money, compliments, a most affectionate squeeze of the hand, and a pressing invitation to dinner; in a word, he was overwhelmed with recompenses. The portrait made much noise in the town. The lady showed it to all her acquaintance. Every body admired the skill with which the painter had succeeded in preserving the resemblance, and at the same time in giving beauty to the original. ”

“ The sculptor is only too glad if his bronze effigies are hidden in leafy thickets, in parks, and out-of-the-way places. He has not learned the commercial value of exhibitions. He does not every few months place on view a lot of marbles and bronzes, the work of as many weeks. He has not caught from the shop-keeper the trick of displaying his wares in a window. But the “portrait-painter”——!
“Portrait-painting” pays,—that is the worst of it all. It is the one branch of the art of painting that can be followed as methodically as the making of clothes. ”

“ But at length, as the labor drew nearer to its conclusion, there were admitted none into the turret; for the painter had grown wild with the ardor of his work, and turned his visage from the canvas rarely, even to regard the countenance of his wife. And he would not see that the tints which he spread upon the canvas were drawn from the cheeks of her who sate beside him. And when many weeks had passed, and but little remained to do, save one brush upon the mouth and one tint upon the eye, the spirit of the lady again flickered up as the flame within the socket of the lamp. ”

“ For him, a portrait, even as a still-life piece or a landscape, is a piece of temperamental art, a problem in colour, so much so that he is unable to start upon his portrait, has no inclination to do so, before all the conditions of tonality in the face of his model and in the environment selected by him are such that they respond in a measure to the painter's own sense of colour. ”

“ It really matters very little to any of us what the handwriting of an author may be, and so it should matter very little how an artist touches the canvas.
It is true that a picture containing and expressing an idea the most elevated can be painted either in mass or detail, at the pleasure of the painter. ”

“ Portrait-painting is the biography of the pencil, and he who gives most of the peculiarities and details, with most of the general character,—that is of keeping,—is the best biographer, and the best portrait-painter. ”

“ The attitude of the “portrait-painter” may be likened unto that of the “poet laureate,” whose verse is at the command of conditions he does not{245} control; who may, by accident, write a good thing,—but the rule is otherwise, with even the best.
To rightly place a human being on canvas, or in stone, or in marble, or in poetry, is the noblest achievement of art. On the technical side it exhausts the resources of the art; on the spiritual side it exhausts the genius of the artist. But “portrait-painting” as a profession, as an industrial and a commercial proposition, is a degradation of art. ”

“ A picture, however admirable the painter's art, and wonderful his power, requires of the spectator a surrender of himself, in due proportion with the miracle which has been wrought. Let the canvas glow as it may, you must look with the eye of faith, or its highest excellence escapes you. There is always the necessity of helping out the painter's art with your own resources of sensibility and imagination. ”

“ The little man, with the cunning of his race, knew this peculiarity, and he also knew that ten chances to one the great painter would receive him with a frigid look, and perhaps bow him out of the door. So he had studied out and arranged a little game. Only the day before he had obtained an order for a portrait to be painted by the best man-painter of his time. ”

“ The problems the artist may set himself to solve are two. “How shall I adorn this church, this clerestory, this chancel, this window, with stained glass?”—that is distinctly a problem of the decorator; “How shall I realise, on canvas or what not, this thought of mine, this fact in nature, this effect seen or imagined?”—that is distinctly a problem of the painter. Each, it is granted, may be swayed more or less by the other consideration also, but according as a man starts with the one problem or the other, and seeks primarily to solve that, he is painter or decorator. ”

“ Sometimes a portrait painter will create a face on canvas, of pleasant expression, which is not like his sitter, and it is as if with every touch he could change the thoughts as he changes the expression in the face he is creating. ”

“ But precisely as the painter throws around his figures draperies of ample volume, to fill up the space of his picture richly and gracefully, to arrange its several parts in harmonious masses, to give due play to color, which charms and refreshes the eye—and at once to envelop human forms in a spiritual veil, and make them visible—so the tragic poet inlays and entwines his rigidly contracted plot and the strong outlines of his characters with a tissue of lyrical magnificence, in which, as in flowing robes of purple, they move freely and nobly, with a sustained dignity and exalted repose. ”

“ The stranger, taking his snuff out of a gold box, named a name at which the painter started. It was that of one of the greatest art-dealers in the whole of Europe; one who at a word could make or mar an artist's reputation; one whose accuracy of judgment was considered infallible by all connoisseurs, and the passport to whose galleries was to any unknown painting a certain passport also to the fame of men.
"You are a man of singular genius," repeated the great purchaser, taking his snuff in the middle of the little bare chamber. ”

“ One profitable branch of common painting is that of painting and lettering signs. In performing this kind of work, the sign is first covered with two or three uniform coats of paint. The letters are next slightly sketched with chalk or a lead-pencil, and then formed in colors with a camels'-hair brush. When the letters are to be gilt, the process, so far, is precisely the same. The leaf is laid upon the letters, while the paint is in a tenacious state, and is suffered to remain untouched, until the oil has become dry, after which the superfluous gold is removed. ”

“ The excellence of portrait-painting, and we may add even the likeness, the character, and countenance, as I have observed in another place, depend more upon the general effect produced by the painter, than on the exact expression of the peculiarities, or minute discrimination of the parts. The chief attention of the artist is therefore employed in planting the features in their proper places, which so much contributes to giving the effect and true impression of the whole. ”

“ Can it be that the painter has seen a new wonder in nature, a new significance in human life? The spectator's previous experience of pictures has familiarized him in some measure with the means of expression which the painter employs. More sensitive now to the appeal of color and form, he sees that what the artist cares to present on his canvas is just his peculiar sense of the beauty in the world, a beauty that is best symbolized and made manifest through the medium of color and form. ”

“ The portrait waxes apace. Our host's daughter is in her very best looks. The painter's hand is inspired not merely by the love of art—great, though that love undoubtedly is with all artists—but spurred on by another, perhaps more powerful feeling, which lends such temper to our artist's ordinary faculties, as to render the painter himself, a rare occurrence, utterly amazed at his own powers. The first hour passes away like five minutes. Scarce a word has been spoken on either side. To those who feel they love, few words are necessary, and in many cases, perhaps the fewer the better. ”

“ They used paints and precious minerals of all kinds, according to the contrast of their colours, red and green and blue and yellow and what not else of all manner tincts; and each artisan wrought at his craft and each painter at his art, whilst the rest of the folk busied themselves with transporting thither vari-coloured stones. One day, as the Master-painter wrought at his work, there came in to him a poor man, who looked long upon him and observed his mystery; whereupon quoth the artist to him, “Knowest thou aught of painting?” Quoth the stranger, “Yes;” ”

“ The representation, the "Interior" in itself, has no value for him, except in so far as its space can be exhibited as the recipient of tone and colour: the pictorial symbol, as the medium of his need for expression, is everything to him; the object, the thing and its shape, are nothing. Thus the cautious painter of "The Frosty Morning" becomes an artist; thus the thing [Pg 161] he paints is transformed into spiritual significance, its shape becomes pictorial symbol; and the technique, which before was carefully veiled, changes to the boldest impressionism. ”