In both effects the treatment is extremely simple, yet in the one, when
the light comes from behind, simplicity and directness are the more
strictly necessary; indeed, in painting a subject with the light from
the back, the energy of the painter should principally be directed to
the gradation of the shadows from misty distance to direct foreground,
having as few lights as can be dispensed with for the sake of form.
In the other, the time of day must be considered with the direction of
the light, so that it may pass directly and consistently throughout all
parts of the picture.
* * * * *
[Illustration: A NEW GUINEA VILLAGE
(_A study of lighting from behind_)]
There is one strict rule I would have you bear in mind when sketching
outside; remember that the whole of your picture only represents a
second of time, the flapping of a drop-shutter over an instantaneous
plate. It will never be like nature if the light upon one part falls
half an hour before the light falls on another portion; so in planning
out the dispositions of your light you must do as the photographic
camera does. Fix one second upon the plate of your memory all over the
scene, and try to work up to this second.
The mechanical worker, who thinks he is a much more conscientious artist
and lover of nature than the impressionist, because he sits down with
his palette and canvas to his easel before nature six or ten hours at a
stretch, is much more unfaithful, even to the image he so patiently
tries to copy, than the impressionist, who, glancing rapidly and
comprehensively round, makes a few swift notes, catches the spirit of
the effect, and depends upon his memory, or a faithful photograph of his
image, for his detail afterwards. We may blink at this as much as we
choose, yet pre-Raphaelitism must come to its proper place in good time,
and be shut in with the antique casts of the schoolroom, with the young
men and women student days, shut in along with their cross-hatchings and
point-stipplings, to be laid carefully in their boxes along with their
gold, silver, and bronze medals, and other school prizes, when they come
out to face flesh and blood, broad daylight, and the world that will not
wait upon the crochet-meshes of meaningless patience.
I would not have a painter work a single line without having a direct
meaning for that line--not only a direct meaning, but a very potent
intention, which cannot be laid aside without injuring all the other
parts of the composition; so in lighting, I wish to impress upon all the
necessity for the strictest economy in the placing of the lights and
shadows; too much protestation will ever weaken an assurance, so also
too many lights will destroy the effect of light.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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