Where Art Begins

et I have tried to make it as terse as a subject so crammed with incident, and so exhaustless in m

while in reality the painters of to-day hang on to them as a drunken husband is apt to hang on to his good-templar wife during the festive New Year season, or, to be more poetic in

become realists, and photogr

out a good photograph, whether he knows the mixing of the chemicals, or length of exposure, or process of focussing, &c., or not; although, to be able to compete, the t

irection of talent, are already united; only it may be of a little service to hear a pa

originators-buyers of brains, who imagine that their cash gives them full liberty to find all sorts of faults, or suggest improvements upon the worker's designs; who will not

state-viz. the seeking how we may put as much as possible of the soul of nature, with her innate force of feeling and motion, into our pictures; the men, modern and ancient, who may best aid us by the examples and teachings they have left as a

ard form and appearances of nature, the body, in fact, of that mystic Deity whom all men wo

nce touches us, as we look upon her in the wealth and loveliness of her c

it is here that, if those workers in light and shade can keep the sentiment as well as the painter in colours, they gain a

ns of Nature. There both in photographer and painter the man himsel

t matchless creation toward which we must all constantly turn (as the sun-flower turns

rkers, be plain painters and photographers, never heeding the comforts of our surroundings, having only to do with objects as accessories to our work, thinking only upon the utility of every nick-nack we may have, aiming only at the result without considering the trouble or the inconvenience to the animal w

ll action, the rushing of waterfalls, and the contortions of muscles in moments of great excitement. How many of the old masters knew what a horse at full speed was like! and what eye-openers to battle painters those photographs have been! None of the sea painters were able to draw a wave in all its subtleties a

ied, with hardly any disguise, from the photographic studies suspended in the shop windows: clear photographic studies, faithfully drawn out, and in the painting knocked about a little, sometimes not so true as the original to nature, blurr

ng. The winds are against it, and the waves. The hours flying along and tearing down the sun-shadows before we have fixed one line of them on our paper or canvas join in the protest, jeering at our

ties. Why should we not correct our sketches-done for the sake of the colour and feeling, and not for the form-from faithful photographs? It does not hinder us from being original i

y, and so went down to sea-boards and meadows, catching rheumatics and toothache, and wasting hours upon hours, and many valuable sheets of Whatman's hand-made paper, trying to draw out all the riggings of ships, and the shape

orrectly; take and develop a dry plate, and afterwards fix a print; for I can perceive plainly that Time is coming on with rapid strides to the point when, alo

lete. To illustrate my meaning, look at even the most careful outline pencil drawings of Turner, one of the most delicate of outline draughtsmen when he liked, or the scrupulous and untiring delicacy of his admirer, Professor John Ruskin, with his pencil, and compare those efforts with the lines about even the most commonplace photograph of a bu

recognise this plain fact of artistic necessity; but we do, and if we hav

lt of your photographic studies in the realism of to-day hanging all round

-viz., 'The Exact Imitation of Nature,' as s

l appeal, and I do not know a more

es to prove them wrong, for if they are strong upon any point, it is upon that particular point. I have proved it dozens of times in cases of partial sun-stroke and colour-blindness. I mean, just a slight wipe-out of the mental slate, a blurring, or, as it were, a Dutch effect, in the case

little nerve gone aglee, through partial paralysis or an accident before birth, and everything is different to him from what it is to anyone else; or it may be th

ops in and makes the eleventh, like none of the ten, but wonderfully like the original,

d find out different faults, each praising

, with the exception of the tenth, whom he may have chosen, and yet they will all unite in agreeing that s

fied to gratify. To note down a scene, or describe an emotion, by the aid of its most minute outer symbolism, as fai

e those names which, by engravings and etchings, are best known to us,

qualities have been so long unseen by critics such as Pilkington, who says of him, 'He was a man of extreme ingenuity, without being a genius-in c

lso because he seems to be the model chosen, but in few cases followed

f naturalism without much straining after force o

e easily penetrated, and because, while I am describing characteristic works by them, and explaining as well as I can how they may be followed ou

es, Rembrandtists, or Tenierians, with a little of their own personalities thrown in, to make them masters. Dürer flung in and mixed up a part of himself (which he could not keep out) along with the training of Michael Wohlgemuth. Re

ence between a bad artist and a good is that the bad artist seem

that they lose all freedom of action, freedom of thought, and produce nothing;-that is the rubbish they are turning out of the Government schools nowadays; students who labour five years at freehand outline, ten years at

shed with delicacy.... But he didn't get it in a day. Hercules may have strangled a serpent when he was a baby, but there was a time when he couldn't. "Dürer worked in his own way!" No! nor did anybody else at first. They all worked in

re the engravings by Albert Dürer which represent his clear, concis

in front and slanting in unison with the folds of the lady's drapery; a plant at right side with split top, growing straight so far, yet inclining towards the direction of dress, sword, and figures; a tree-trunk at left wing with gnarli

nterest. As a sample of unaffected masterly ease of management and restraint I do not know its equal; nor have I yet seen a photograph treated (although it might easily be so) in the same possessed way, except perhaps the first efforts of the amateur before he had learned how to manage his lighting up. If experienc

uch filled with symbolic objects to describe just now, and the great point of interest is the glitter upon the folds, the broken lines which make up these folds, and the universal gloom

at her side, chained prisoner like the struggling dove in the grasp of the mischievous Baby Christ-the dove, symbol of captured truth, and the infant with his humanity only as yet made manifest! I wish we could have a photograph with this subtlety of realism, this absence of shadow, this clear depth of transparency. It seems to me as if photographers could do it if they liked, and were n

of medi?val chivalry; of demons and spirits, solemn, truth-loving souls beset by false decoys; knights sore tempted and yielding just for a moment, to fill out long

e work, and the want, and the woe unutterable, with us ever, and for ever, and we who can will rush from it as the steam-engine rushes on iron lines, d

to a nature rugged and strong, as from a woman to a man, whose firm

photography, who when better understood will benefit us all more than a

ess, one of many which either he or his disciples painted often, st

e ruffled collar, open at the neck. Satin-textured body, with dull red sleeves, and amber lining on the upturned skirt; this is very dark green or black. She holds the fowl with one hand, plucking with the other, while between her feet rests the basket to catch the feathers. At t

ortality sure-in a hen-coop particularly. Without any pathos, save the pathetic tracing of those hard scorings of care on that matron's face; not much to make sentiment out of in an ordin

his master which strike us as we probe the breadth and extreme simplicity of his accessories. He is content with a bunch of carrots when they serve his purpose. The gigantic copper stew-pan would have been enough if he could have hidden a part of the exact circle; but he wanted the woman to stand out

eet or in the close, or as she squats down inside the half-darkened doorway of her own little shop. She can neither have too little nor too much about her if she struck you distinctly while you passed as being picturesque. Never mind the lighting, and

hs, yet I am inclined to think that it is here where the genius of the photographer may be brought out. If I were a photographer I'd never for a second leave a plate while it was printing. I'd try all sorts of dodges upon the sun with pieces of paper having little eccentric holes torn out where I wanted an artificial shadow to fall across my plate, by exposing the print altogether at times, so as to mellow any extreme lights, painting touches of white on it to bar out

up of the tricks of Rembrandt; if it is the foreground which is too plainly marked, why not take another foreground plate, and, clearing off all not required, place it over the other plate, and so let the sun strike through both and blurr that corner?[2] or make a dark shower cloud as in the engraving 'The Thr

eates, but he takes advantage of circumstances and loc

e in every tragedy of daily life-a clock striking at the tensioned second; or a mouse peering out of its hole; or the crack of a distant whip; the rumbling of a cart; a laugh or a careles

purpose, so that in choosing our accessories we may so choose that the link is carried on, yet nothing uselessly put in to distract the attentio

e of his novels, 'La Belle Lisa,' describes the return

ondition, but, being proud, will not tell the woman about his wants, and, leaving her, gets into company with a hard-up artist called Claude, who, although also

he sees, and as he sees it. Now, look there. Is this

from a basket covered with a napkin, and then filled up the bowl with soup. There were clean market-gardeners in blouses; dirty porters with their shoulders soiled by the burdens they had carried; poor devils in rags-in short, all sorts of people-e

of hunger and endurance, with all

ces Walt Whitman, the American Michael Angelo of words, presents to us as grim and gruesome a picture as I know anywhere. It has more of the loose but massive work of our English realist, Millais, about

e tragedy by the aid of animate or inanimate objects not at all connected, except by association, with the murder; and this I wish you to remember strictly-how, by the placing and building up of objects, chairs, tables

s within the lines leading up to the climax the incidents of the verses going before, and because it is here that you see distinctly surrounding the pr

falls upon block, axe, and headsman; the rest is in shadow, the carved woodwork and tapestry hangings of the hall fading off towards the distant door; as the royal victim and her dog near, she comes from the shadow which covers he

flowers in the left hand and the symbolic vine-twisted staff in the right, we must conclude that the honeymoon has been for a considerable time passed, and that another joy awaits the expectant husband. It is a p

ke to call your attention particularly to

than his 'Jewish Bride,' who might have any oth

subdued by toil, sullenised by hardship, with early hours when the frost-breath

l of the street. It is thankless toil which does this sort of painting and carving-a spring-time of labour and lust, a summer-time of labour and curses, an aut

much of it as she can upon the delicate shoulders of her young offspring; and that toothless old hag stooping down amongst the shadows, square, gaunt, hopeless

its low, sad tones, has painted an obscure interior and an old woman sitting brooding in the cold and dark, clad in a dirty white-grey cloak, with a dirty grey skirt faded to grim black-grey

at Teniers was before Wilkie, because Teniers was by no means the first in that line of business. If you can recall the delicate and silvery half-tones and open composition of 'La Tourneuse,' and compare this with the hot colouring, slushy handling, and forced composition of 'The Penny Wedding' and 'Blind Man's

like young flesh and fresh blood, quick-beating pulses, and impetuous motions. I would rather have a living mistake than a dead perfection

kes exactly the same line of direction, and the eye is no more troubled with details; we can all laugh without let. In the 'Queen of Swords,' a more crowded composition, the ground lines are the same, with the queen forming the point of the angle and a clear foreground, with the exception of a fan that carries on the same lines. In that scene from 'Henry IV.,' Part I., Prince Henry, Poins, and Falstaff, we have one of the simplest, openest, and most refined specimens of humorous composition on record. A straight, horizontal line of tapestry, broken up at the exact limit by the burly hind-part view of Sir John, the buffoonery expressed in that capa

istence of Mr. Chester of 'Barnaby Rudge'; but one thing I do think, which is, that Orchardson is the pai

dt's 'Night Watch,' one dark, one light, the dark one put in by Rembrandt first; and the child with its cart even before the lighted-up woman and child who come before 'The Blind Fiddler,' by Wilkie. There is too much in this composition, particularly that group of foreground objects, which bear such evident traces of having been so carefully selected and placed in such a variety of artificial carelessness-watering-pan, cabbage, box and utensils, basin, stool, with little bat, and knife, placed so exactly as they ought to be, like the hills of Borrowdale-all being, after consideration, painty improvements, never dropped upon accidentally and not at all required. You will find nothing of this sort in Rembrandt's pictures, or in Rubens' (lav

ing of light and shadow, as well as form-one minute centre of light round which the half-lights range, and the deepest shadow where you can b

elp your picture than upon what you may k

nice arm, or good hand; they will reveal it to you unconsciously before you have sighted

e which is the most useful, and take that;

s your eye pleasantly is the point upon which to make your centre of vision, and around which you will arrange the rest

before long, a peculiar habit which they are not aware of, but by which many of their friends know them. Fix on that as your character keynote, and work up features, position, and accessories, so as not to lose sight of this peculiarity; and with this borne always in mind and

-sighting, to those who still practise these abominations. No natural expression or easy posture can ever be gained until instantaneous plates are used for everyone.

blotches, and character traces. I never can see a real har

e to hold it straight up, like a soldier at 'attention.' Again, my nose is neither of a Greek nor Roman caste, and yet I never do get that nose put in as I see it in a mirror, or as its humpy shadow is cast upon the wall; or, as a gentleman o

e it came home a splendid Roman, with the light upon it so intensified by pencil-work that it stood out in bold enough relief to have won a Waterloo, if big noses could have done that. I have one portrait, whic

ator's right hand is the loveliest in expression I ever saw in a photograph.' Also some by my friend Mr. John Foster[5] of Coldstream cattle-pieces, and landscapes breathin

revolution in art. They aim at giving the impression, effect, or sensation of an instantaneous action or emotion or phase; not the phase exactly, but the swift impression which it leav

addest mind that ever writhed neglected and found its reward so late, the soul now free and stirring up a crowd with its pathetic activity, to be like it pure and true-I mean Jean-Francois Millet, the French peasant painter. Mr. Hunt says of him, 'For years Millet painted beautif

ter's verdict

t of it in that wonderful illustrated magazine, 'Scribner's Month

ing his apron filled with embryo life in the other. In the distance, and lighted up by the sun, a team of bullocks a

embodiment of all which I have tried to explain, the

otograph done like that! and it can be done if

rit which has left along with the delicate aroma of its departing wings a portion of its own personality, its own immortal

lutches at my heart-sinews as it reveals the parables of Christ, accompanied by sobbing notes o

75[6], past the dying man's window, and ruthlessly slaughtered under the eyes of the dying man-yielding up its noble life for a bit of sport; the hot-red blood sinking through the cold, white snow, and soaking into the covered hearts of th

HALL: THE FEAST

ia sketch b