HOW A PICTURE IS MADE.

Otago Witness, Issue 2785, 31 July 1907, Page 77

HOW A PICTURE IS MADE.

The idea' comes, as do all ideas, in a oloud, some written word, _some song, a phrase of everyday life. I "am speaking-, of course, of those artists who use their, art to express ideas and emotions, and not of mere illustrators of history or gossip, and this, if you please, without taking away from thesa excellent craftsmen. The idea, once born, is translated roughly, to paper. Rough notes in pencil,- ink, charcoal, or, indeed, any handy medium are made. So the inspiration first becomes fixed. Those notes, so distressing to the lay mind, vague blots and scratches, confused; outlines of figures, black smears of trees, are the first urgings of the artist's mind towards a definite plan.. The position* of figures are changed; tha grouping of heads and hands, most difficult of treatment, is -tried; ihe lighting of the picture, the composition of light being the most essential factor, is varied again and again! At' last a satisfactory basis is come at which seems to best express the idea. Those who have never painted have never experienced the joy of seeing colour mentally. In the artist's inner vision there are dreams of colour, shifting and changing nebulously, and the inspiration for a picture grows in form and colour at one and the same time. The colour scheme, then, is put down and criticised, altered, twisted, comes sud« denly to approach that first idea—halts. You may picture, if you care, Ford Maddox Brown searching the History ofEngland for a subject connected with the history of this country—"of a general and comprehensive Nature." He thinks vaguely of "Our first navaJf victory." Then of "The origin of our native language." As he reads, with his brain simmering; with the idea which will not express itself, he turns over a page or so and- lights upon* a phrase about Chaucer. From that moment the idea leaps into life, and it is but a -step or so further irh-en we may sco him buying six yards of German velvet for Chaucer^ gown at 10$ d a yard. We see him pacing the Strand to, seek costumes, see him at it in the studio, curling hair on the lay figure, and oiling it to suit the figure of Alice Perrers. From the colour scheme to the canvac is a step to be deeply thpugßt over. Somehow or another the shape of the picture has defined itself —square, oblong, circular:) and, almost as vaguely, the actual size —. one foot or 10ft high, or long—suggests itself to the artist's mind. He orders hie canvas. The world knows that canvases are of all sorts and textures, but it does not realise that the canvas for the picture- it loves has been chosen for some subtle quality of paint, to suit and* hold the artist's particular method, to induce great smoothness or the reverse, or for some quality of his pruning.—Dioar Clayton Caxthorp, in the Pall Mall Magazine.