How to Study Pictures.
By Charles H. Caffin.
A series of articles for the older girls and boys who read “St. Nicholas.”[1]
Introduction.
“Having eyes, see ye not?”
The world is full of beauty which many people hurry past or live in front of and do not see, There is also a world of beauty in pictures, but it escapes the notice of many, because, while they wish to see it, they do not know how.
The first necessity for the proper seeing of a picture is to try to see it through the eyes of the artist who painted it. This is not a usual method. Generally people look only through their own eyes, and like or dislike a picture according as it does or docs not suit their particular fancy. These people will tell you: “Oh, I don’t know anything about painting, but I know what I like”; which is their way of saying: “If I don’t like it right off, I don’t care to be bothered to like it at all.”
Such an attitude of mind cuts one off from growth and development, for it is as much as to say: “I am very well satisfied with myself and quite indifferent to the experiences and feelings of other men.” Yet it is just this feeling and experience of another man which a picture gives us, If you consider a moment you will understand why. The world itself is a vast panorama, and from it the painter selects his subject—not to copy it exactly, since it would be impossible for him to do this, even if he tried. How could he represent, for example, each blade of grass, each leaf upon a tree? So what he does is to represent the subject as he sees it, as it appeals to his sympathy or interest; and if twelve artists painted the same landscape the result would be twelve different pictures, differing according to the way in which each man had been impressed by the scene; in fact, according to his separate point of view or separate way of seeing it, influenced by his individual experience and feeling.
It is most important to realize the part which is played by these two qualities of experience and feeling, Experience, the fullness or the deficiency of it, must affect the work of every one of us, no matter what our occupation may be, And if the work is of the kind which appeals to the feelings of others, as in the case of the preacher, the writer, the actor, the painter, sculptor, architect, or art-craftsman, the musician or even the dancer, then it must be affected cqually by the individual's capacity of feeling and by his power of expressing what he feels.
Therefore, since none of us can include in ourselves the whole range of possible experience and feeling, it is through the experience and the feeling of others that we deepen and refine our own. It is this that we should look to pictures to accomplish, which, as you will acknowledge, is a very different thing from offhand like or dislike. For example, we may not be attracted at first, but we reason with ourselves: “No doubt this picture meant a good deal to the man who painted it; it embodies his experience of the world and his feeling toward the subject. It represents, in fact, a revelation of the man himself, and if it is true that ‘the noblest study of mankind is man,’ then possibly in the study of this man, as revealed in his work, there may be much that ought to interest me.”
I am far from wishing you to suppose that all pictures will repay you for such intimate study. For instance, we may quickly discover
that an artist's experience of life is meager, his feeling commonplace and paltry, There are not a few men of this sort in the occupation of art, just as in every other walk of life, and their pictures, so far as we ourselves are concerned, will be disappointing. But among the pictures which have stood the test of time we shall always find that the fruits of the artist’s experience and23
- ↑ See page 94.
