Front Matter

Preface

It has been the endeavor of the author to fix the attention of the reader upon the painting itself—to tell something of its qualities as a picture and to impart some little idea of the painter's art. Besides this, there is much collateral interest in the pictures selected—interest directly related to things which every one must sooner or later know. The original paintings have touched the hearts and interested the minds of all classes and conditions of men; and they form one of the great magnets that annually draw a vast army of travelers across seas and continents.

Introductory

A Word About Pictures

Many young people who have a natural love for pictures are discouraged by their elders and by other young people who care nothing for such things.

Yet it is a pathway to true and high pleasure, and it is the person who sees nothing in good pictures for whom we should be sorry. The one who has a natural appreciation of the beautiful should make the most of this gift. Like nearly everything else worth having, a knowledge and love of pictures mean time and study. Yet a very little thought will relieve any one of the necessity of gazing foolishly and ignorantly at a picture, like a baby gazing at a bright object, as some one has described it.

If you see a beautiful lake or sunset or a spot in the country that takes you out of yourself for the time, it will give you much more pleasure if you think of it and try to recall it the next day and for many days, and go and see it again and again.

It will give you still more pleasure if you take notice of the colors and forms as you would if you were going to draw or paint them from memory or as though you expected to describe them to another.

A great picture, like a fine scene in the country, will reveal to us something new each time we look at it and study it. And it is surprising how, by trying to draw or remember or describe either pictures or nature, our impressions will become more accurate and our appreciation stronger.

At first, however, the surprise may be to find, upon going back to a scene or picture, how many things are not as we thought they were.

It is excellent practice to take little notes with pad and pencil of the scene or picture as it looks to you. This will fix the general lines and perhaps the general character of what you wish to remember, and if two or more do this together it becomes a fascinating amusement.

President Eliot said, in an address not long ago: "The main object of every school should be, not to provide the children with the means of earning a livelihood, but to show them how to live a happy and worthy life, inspired by ideals which exalt and dignify both labor and pleasure. To see beauty and to love it is to possess large securities for such a life." And the same authority also said: "It is undeniable that the American democracy, which found its strongest and most durable springs in the ideals of New England Puritanism, has thus far failed to take proper account of the sense of beauty as means of happiness and to provide for the training of that sense."

It is said that good music often heard will give pleasure even to those who did not like it at first; but heard in the light of some explanation as to its meaning, the pleasure will be doubled. It is much the same with pictures. If we study carefully even such reproductions as can be given in a book or the pages of a magazine and learn something about what they mean and how they were produced and the ideas they represent, we shall be well started toward some real appreciation of great paintings. Every true and vital thing we learn about any good picture helps us to judge correctly all other pictures.

Color is, of course, the life of paintings, but there are so many things that can be truly observed in prints that by looking at them aright we may learn much that will help us to understand the masterpieces even before we have seen any of the originals.

In reading the lives and anecdotes of the painters we must be struck by the fact that in addition to having the divine gift of genius, these men were great in other respects. They were, for the most part, men whose daily lives are worthy of study and emulation. They were orderly and useful as citizens. Some laid their brushes aside to fight for country. Some took up high public office and discharged their duties with great credit. Some were mayors, diplomats, engineers, builders of great works, and nearly all were good husbands and fathers, kind and helpful to their fellow men, lovable, gentle and honorable in their dealings. Generous they all seem to have been and when wealth became their portion they were philanthropists.

Their greatest gift to the world, however, must ever be the work of their brushes, which remains for centuries to uplift mankind.

How A Painting Is Made.

It will be helpful in thinking about famous pictures if we have some idea of how a painting is made. People who have known a great deal about pictures and who had first visited many galleries have said, nevertheless, that what they learned the first time they visited a studio and saw an artist really at work came to them as a revelation.

The materials are simple. Before the artist is his easel, on which, let us say, rests a large blank canvas; that is, a piece of linen cloth stretched and tacked upon a wooden frame, and prepared to receive the colors.

Usually the artist stands at his work, so that he can readily walk back and forth and view the picture as it will look from some little distance. For this reason the room should be large. The light should come from above.

Near at hand are his colors, put up in tubes; and on his palette, which he usually holds in his left hand, he has squeezed enough of some fifteen or twenty colors to last him through the day. In a dish is a small quantity of turpentine or oil, and very likely a little varnish or some other liquid suitable for "thinning" the colors. Now he has but to take one or more of his brushes, and begin to work.

But you must not suppose that he will begin to paint without any previous thought, even if the picture is to be a portrait and the model is seated before him. There is one important thing he has to do, and that is to think.

We can follow the artist at least a little way in his thoughts, for there are two important things he has always to consider.

Whatever the result is to be, he cannot paint everything in sight. So he must select. Some painters occasionally use a card with a small rectangular hole cut in it through which they look. Whether they are in the studio or out of doors, they look through this small hole until what they see seems to be about what they wish to paint. They determine in this way how much or how little of the entire scene they will include in their picture. But even from this selected fragment much must be left out. No artist could paint every blade of grass or every leaf on the trees or every hair of a head. He must find a way to suggest the whole without trying literally to put it all in—that is, in every detail. One of the best qualities of an artist is knowing what to leave out.

Another important thing our artist will decide is the arrangement of his scene. If a model is before him, he will seat him in different positions until the result will make a satisfactory picture. If it is a landscape, it may be that a tree or other object must be placed in a different position from the one it occupies in the real scene in order to appear best in the picture. If he followed nature exactly he would not have a picture, but by leaving out much and combining what is harmonious, he produces the effect of nature and makes what is called an artistic picture.

These two principles of selection and arrangement make up "composition." Before beginning to paint, the artist has nearly always settled upon the composition. Usually he makes one or more preliminary drawings for this purpose. If the picture is to be a portrait, a careful drawing of the same size as the canvas is usually made in charcoal, perhaps on the canvas itself, perhaps on a separate sheet for reference.

We cannot follow our artist further in his work just now, but we may return to him while we are looking at some of our famous pictures to see what he does under certain conditions. For the better acquaintance we get with his ways of working, the better we shall understand the pictures.

Silhouette of J. M. W. Turner. Done at the National Academy while he was viewing a picture. For chapter on Turner see pages 94-102. For mention of silhouettes see page 14.