Part 3 (1/2)
III
COLOR
61 The distinctions between schools of art which I have so often asked you to observe are, you must be aware, founded only on the excess of certain qualities in one group of painters over another, or the difference in their tendencies; and not in the absolute possession by one group, and absence in the rest, of any given skill But this i need never interfere with the distinctness of our conception of the opponent principles which balance each other in great minds, or paralyze each other in weak ones; and I cannot too often urge you to keep clearly separate in your thoughts the school which I have called[11] ”of Crystal,” because its distinctive virtue is seen unaided in the sharp separations and prislass, and the other, the ”School of Clay,” because its distinctive virtue is seen in the qualities of any fine work in uncolored terra cotta, and in every drahich represents them
[Footnote 11: ”Lectures on Art, 1870,” -- 185]
62 You know I soenerally as the Gothic and Greek schools, sometimes as the colorist and chiaroscurist All these oppositions are liable to infinite qualification and gradation, as between species of animals; and you must not be troubled, therefore, if so special points Nay, the reatest h in themselves clear
Thus you know in your study of sculpturethat the essential aim of the Greek art was tranquil action; the chief aim of Gothic art was passionate rest, a peace, an eternity of intense sentio into detail, I shall continually therefore have to oppose Gothic passion to Greek teidity, [Greek: stasis] of [Greek: ekstasis], to Greek action and [Greek: eleutheria] You see how doubly, how intimately, opposed the ideas are; yet how difficult to explain without apparent contradiction
63 Now, to-day, I ainst a misapprehension of this kind I have told you that the Greeks as Greeks made real and material as before indefinite; they turned the clouds and the lightning of Mount Ithole upon the extended ars set upon absolute veracity and realization, they perceive as they work and think forward that to see in all things truly is to see in all things di of cloud and fire
So that the schools of Crystal, visionary, passionate, and fantastic in purpose, are, in method, trenchantly formal and clear; and the schools of Clay, absolutely realistic, temperate, and simple in purpose, are, in method, mysterious and soft; sometimes licentious, sometimes terrific, and always obscure
[Illustration: MADONNA AND CHILD
Fro by Filippo Lippi]
64 Look once irl, which is from a terra cotta, and therefore intensely of the school of Clay; look at her beside this Madonna of Filippo Lippi's: Greek ainst Gothic absolute quietness; Greek indifference--dancing careless--against Gothic passion, the mother's--ord can I use except frenzy of love; Greek fleshliness against hungry wasting of the self-forgetful body; Greek softness of diffused shadow and ductile curve, against Gothic lucidity of color and acuteness of angle; and Greek siainst Gothic rapture of trusted vision
65 And now I o into our work of to-day without confusing you, except only in this You will findof four men--titian, Holbein, Turner, and Tintoret--in almost the same terms They unite every quality; and so to them as colorists, sometimes as chiaroscurists Only remember this, that Holbein and Turner are Greek chiaroscurists, nearly perfect by adopted color; titian and Tintoret are essentially Gothic colorists, quite perfect by adopted chiaroscuro
66 I used the word ”pris iridescent By being studious of color they are studious of division; and while the chiaroscurist devotes hi--unseparated light, the colorists have for their function the attainht And therefore, primarily, they must be able to divide; so that elementary exercises in color must be directed, like first exercises in music, to the clear separation of notes; and the final perfections of color are those in which, of innumerable notes or hues, every one has a distinct office, and can be fastened on by the eye, and approved, as fulfilling it
67 I do not doubt that it has often been ave to the University, as characteristic of Turner's work, the sis of the Loire series My first and principal reason was that they enforced beyond all resistance, on any student whoportions of distinct hue side by side Some of the touches, indeed, when the tint has been mixed with much water, have been laid in little drops or ponds, so that the pige And one of the chief delights which any one who really enjoys painting finds in that art as distinct fro or joiner's work of it, the fitting of edge to edge with a manual skill precisely correspondent to the close application of crowded notes without the least slur, in fine harp or piano playing
68 In e scale there is even soiven to a paintedby the dark lead bars between the pieces of glass Both Tintoret and Veronese, when they paint on dark grounds, continually stop short with their tints just before they touch others, leaving the dark ground showing between in a narrow bar In the Paul Veronese in the National Gallery, you will every here and there find pieces of outline, like this of Holbein's; which you would suppose were drawn, as that is, with a brown pencil But no! Look close, and you will find they are the dark ground, _left_ between two tints brought close to each other without touching
[Illustration: THE LADY WITH THE BROOCH
Fro by Reynolds]
69 It follows also from this law of construction that any master who can color can always do any pane of histhat he likes, separately from the rest Thus, you see, here is one of Sir Joshua's first sittings: the head is very nearly done with the first color; a piece of background is put in round it: his sitter has had a pretty silver brooch on, which Reynolds, having done as much as he chose to the face for that ti the dress between to be fitted in afterwards; and he puts a little patch of the yellon that is to be, at the side And it follows also from this law of construction that there must never be any hesitation or repentance in the direction of your lines of limit So that not only in the beautiful dexterity of the joiner's work, but in the necessity of cutting out each piece of color at once and forever (for, though you can correct an erroneous junction of black and white because the gray between has the nature of either, you cannot correct an erroneous junction of red and green which make a neutral between thereen): thus the practice of color educates at once in neatness of hand and distinctness of will; so that, as I wrote long ago in the third volume of ”Modern Painters,” you are always safe if you hold the hand of a colorist
70 I have brought you a little sketch to-day froround of a Venetian picture, in which there is a bit that will show you this precision of method It is the head of a parrot with a little flower in his beak from a picture of Carpaccio's, one of his series of the Life of St George I could not get the curves of the leaves, and they are patched and spoiled; but the parrot's head, however badly done, is put doith no ave it, and it will show you exactly his round had been laid over the whole canvas, which Carpaccio wanted as an under-current through all the color, just as there is an under-current of gray in the Loire drawings Then on this he strikes his parrot in verlaze of lake; but attending et the character of the bird by the pure outline of its forlass
Then he coround beneath is left, for the most part; one touch of black is put for the holloo delicate lines of dark gray define the outer curve; and one little quivering touch of white draws the inner edge of the mandible There are just four touches--fine as the finest penmanshi+p--to do that beak; and yet you will find that in the peculiar paroquettishaction of it, and all the character in which this nibbling beak differs froo farther or be more precise And this is only an incident, ree picture
71 Let ing Venetian pictures above the line of sight There are very few persons in the roo of this bird's beak without a allery such a picture would be hung thirty feet froain, is a little bit to show Carpaccio's execution It is his signature: only a little wall-lizard, holding the paper in its mouth, perfect; yet so small that you can scarcely see its feet, and that I could not, with my finest-pointed brush, copy their stealthy action
72 And now, I think, the members of my class will more readily pardon the intensely irksome work I put them to, with the compasses and the ruler Measures; just because, though myself trained wholly in the chiaroscuro schools, I know the value of color; and I want you to begin with color in the very outset, and to see everything as children would see it
For, believe me, the final philosophy of art can only ratify their opinion that the beauty of a cock robin is to be red, and of a grass-plot to be green; and the best skill of art is in instantly seizing on the ht, which you can only seize by precision of instantaneous touch Of course, I cannot do so myself; yet in these sketches of h to show you the nature and the value of the method