Complete Works of Wilkie Collins (2149 page)

Thus directing him in choice of subject, his taste united itself to his judgment in presiding over his treatment of that which he selected to paint. Guided by both faculties, he was enabled to preserve a just and distinctive character in the productions of his Art. They instructed him, in landscape, to avoid the coarseness of mere view-painting, but to preserve, while he strove to elevate Nature, by distinguishing those harmonies in a scene which were to be retained, from those discords which were to be rejected — to acquire an original and striking manner of representing natural objects, from close study of the objects themselves, and not from the eccentricities of his own imagination, or from accidental experiments on the practical capabilities of Art, — in short, to endeavour to make his pictures a representation of all that was most beautiful in Nature, expressed through the medium of all that was most real in form.

In the treatment of his figure subjects, whatever the position in which his imagination might place the agents of a scene, his taste and judgment led him always to preserve the true action and the native peculiarities of character, as the firm basis of whatever he attempted. He perceived and felt that the pathetic was natural, and the joyful unaffected, in the rustic life that he studied — that action was to be indicated by expression, as well as attitude; and that simplicity was to be learnt from Nature, and not elabourated by Art. Upon these principles his cottage and coast-scenes were produced; and under their influence they acquired an all-important ingredient of their value as illustrations of character that were interesting as well as true. It was thus his privilege to be able to avoid what was gross or common, without falling into the opposite extremes of false refinement, or unnatural elevation. Throughout the whole range of his cottage and coast subjects, while there is no taint of vulgarity, there is no want of Nature. He saw what was permanently dignified, graceful, or pure, in rustic life, apart from its incidental and passing degradations; and as he saw, so he represented it. His villagers and fishermen are not fine ladies and gentlemen, masquerading in humble attire; but genuine poor people in every line of their countenances, every action of their forms, and every patch in their garments; characters, stamped with the thorough nationality of their class, whether they be viewed on his canvas, as the combined exponents of a rustic story, or as the individual types of a marked and interesting race.

An equally refined adherence to truth and nature distinguished his representations of Italian subjects. They present no false images of romantic beauty in the figures, or of more than oriental brightness in the landscape; but display the real characteristics of the peasantry, and the natural hues of the scenery, under the best aspect of each, as in his English works.

The capacity for preserving the realities with the refinements of Nature, produced by the healthy constitution of Mr. Collins’s taste and judgment, conferred another power upon his Art — this was the gift of rendering the general sentiment of a picture eloquent without affectation, and simple without effort. As instances among his landscape works; in the sea-pieces respectively entitled “Sorrento,” and “Seaford,” it is no artificial contrast of light and shade, no prismatic eccentricity of colour, which produces the effect of magic stillness in the first picture, and of airy buoyancy in the second; but the simple truth with which the pure repose of sky and sea is delineated in the one, and the refined skill with which the shadows of driving clouds, floating over a vast expanse of sandy beach, are caught direct from Nature in the other. The same principle applies to his figure subjects. The fine sentiment of religious tranquillity pervading the departure of the villagers for church, in “Sunday Morning;” the poetic elevation of feeling in the girl singing the evening service to the Virgin, in “Ave Maria;” the genuine humour of the testy old doctor called up suddenly to practise his profession at midnight, in “Fetching the Doctor;” the quaint gaiety of the little Neapolitan ragamuffins amusing themselves with their ball and ring on the beach, in “The Game of Arravoglio,” results, in each picture, from the unaffected discriminating truth of character and incident observed throughout, which at once impresses the mind as forcibly and convincingly as it attracts the eye.

Though practising a branch of painting in which correctness of observation was a main agent, Mr. Collins’s pictures will not be found deficient in such qualities of imagination as were necessary to their completeness as works of Art. Evidences of this will be found in all his works. In “Rustic Civility,” the indication of the approach of the horseman who is about to ride through the gate opened for him by the cottagers, by the pourtrayal of his shadow alone, thrown on the foreground as preceding him, is one among many other examples which might be quoted, were it not sufficient for the purpose of the present remarks, slightly to indicate, instead of regularly to enumerate them.

It was however in the Scripture subjects which Mr. Collins produced after his journey to Italy, that the powers of his imagination were fairly developed. They were then called forth to reflect the sentiment of inspired writings, and to deal with the glory of Divine events; and their resources did not fail them. In “Christ among the Doctors;” in “The Disciples at Emmaus;” in “The Virgin and Child,” that elevated order of imagination presents itself, which avoids violent extremes, which moves in harmony with its subject,, and which, appealing by its vigour to the eye, fails not to penetrate by its refinement to the heart.

Among Mr. Collins’s qualifications for those practical acquirements in Art, on which the ideas of a painter depend for expression to others, his powers as a colourist must be ranked first; in this vitally-important ingredient of pictorial success, he was unsurpassed by any contemporary painter. His intense feeling for the individual beauties and harmonies of hue, was present in everything that he touched in the rough road-side sketch, as in the elabourately finished picture. Let it not, however, be imagined that he was wholly indebted to Nature for this gift, or that his facility in using it was acquired without attention and anxiety. Although, undoubtedly, an eye for colour, like an ear for music, is a natural faculty, which forms the sole basis on which the superstructure of future practical eminence can be founded; it is, nevertheless, equally certain, that such a superstructure is not to be raised, strengthened, and completed, by an act of the will; but by an exertion of the energies. Between the feeling for colour and the art of colouring, as between the feeling for poetry and the art of writing good verses, “there is a great gulf fixed,” which is only to be bridged and passed over, labouriously, anxiously, perseveringly; Mr. Collins’s own works exemplify this. If any of his early pictures, at the time when he first began to exhibit, be examined, though they present nothing discordant, or false in their colour, they will be found wanting in that fine harmony, that powerful combination, that mingled richness, delicacy, and purity of effect, which afterwards distinguished his works, and which arrived at its highest perfection, after his return from Italy. At the outset of his career, he felt that his powers as a colourist were, as yet, hardly disciplined, that his capacity to arrange the general tone of his works into one correct, impressive whole, was undetermined. The predisposition to colour well was apparent in all his pictures; but the ability to make that predisposition practice, throughout, was still wanting. This deficiency he determined to supply. His unremitting diligence in gaining knowledge direct from Nature, by making sketches of the relative arrangement of tints, both with their accompanying forms and without; and his rightly-constituted reverence for the old masters, which led him to consult them, not for purposes of superficial imitation, but with the object of inferring from their works,
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soon produced — aided by his natural capabilities — a striking improvement in his capacity as a colourist. As early as the year 1814, in a little picture called “Blackberry-gatherers,” his truth and grace of colour were remarkably exhibited. Year by year afterwards, in his early sea-pieces, and in the landscape and cottage scenes which accompanied them, his power as a colourist increased; and his pictures acquired — independently of any other merits of subject and composition which they might possess an individuality and an attraction, in tone and tint, which had no small influence in raising them to a high station among the productions of modern Art.

To estimate the distinguishing characteristics of his style of colour, either correctly or comprehensively, is difficult, perhaps impossible, so remarkably is it distinguished by the absence of any noticeable extreme of affectation or trickery, and by that adherence to correctness of effect and simple unity of purpose, which is to be appreciated rather than described. It betrays no evidence of the elabourate care, the intricate Art that produced it, but strikes the eye at once as easy, inartificial, spontaneous. It displays no dull monotony of character, for it varies with the varieties of the subject that it expresses. Exhibiting no glaring brightness in one place, or gloomy obscurity in another, it is original in its very freedom from eccentricity or pretence; eloquent in its very absence of any artifice of appeal; direct in its influence over the humblest and most uncultivated admirer of Nature, because it does not perplex him with any visible display of the mysteries of Art.

Particular examples of Mr. Collins’s knowledge of colour cannot advantageously be produced out of the large mass of his works; for it is hardly possible to distinguish with justice one of his pictures as more deserving of attention for its qualities of tone and tint than another. His English and French sea-pieces, his rustic scenes, his Scripture and Italian subjects, his later landscape and coast scenes, display such varying characteristics of fine colour, as to demand to be noticed consecutively, if noticed at all; a process for which there is no space, and, inasmuch as it would be wearisome to the reader, no necessity. There are three of his pictures, however, which, as forming part of Mr. Vernon’s collection, may be considered exceptions to the difficulty of selection felt in reference to his other works: for through the munificence of their possessor they have now become National property, to be inspected by every one; and occupy, in consequence, a position of peculiar importance. Some notice in detail of the arrangement of colour in the principal picture of the three, may not therefore be misplaced; — every reader will be able to test its correctness for himself.

The work which it is intended to review with the above object, is the well-known rustic scene, called, “Happy as a King.” The manner in which the separate hues in this picture are united to form a harmonious whole is especially worthy of consideration. The light, airy tints of the trees, and the glimpse of sunny sky in the left-hand distance of the landscape background, terminate in the more decided green, and the shadowed hues of the thicker foliage and the strip of meadow to the right. The contrast between the dark on this side of the composition and the light on the other is prevented from becoming too violent by the winding road running down the centre of the picture, which, alternately shadowed and lightened, blends together the opposite characteristics of the landscape on either side of it. Thus managed, the variously tinted details of the background and middle distance produce the necessary singleness and simplicity of effect. The same principle presides over the treatment of the figures in the foreground. The purplish petticoat of the child who has fallen down, brings the dark colour of the right-hand middle distance over to the left-hand foreground, and contrasts at the same time with the light grass beneath it. The flannel jacket of the boy pushing the gate catches up the lights; while his velveteen under-clothing continues the darks, and leads on to his shadow, falling before him. The reddish-purple gown of the girl next him, on the lower rail of the gate, carries on the colour of the fallen child’s petticoat, and her light blue apron answers the tone of the boy’s flannel jacket. The darks are again taken up by the patched brown breeches of the urchin on the top of the gate; the green tints throughout the landscape behind him, are contrasted, brightened, and enforced by his red waist- coat; and every light in the picture is caught up and centralized by the ragged white shirt sleeves which clothe his arms, as he flings them exultingly above his head. The different but harmonizing tints thus carried up into the picture, are directed out of it downwards, towards the right, by the boy on the second rail of the gate, with his back turned towards the spectator; his blue cap and breeches, and shadowed jacket carrying lights and darks soberly downward together, until they meet the gate-posts and dock-leaves which terminate the right-hand extremity of the whole composition. Thus coloured in its parts, the picture, whatever the distance it may be seen from, displays, as a whole, no undue preponderance of individual tints, but is powerful and general in effect, while it is careful and particular in detail.

The few remarks made upon “Happy as a King” apply equally to Mr. Collins’s other works. They may be considered unnecessarily minute; but let those who may see the picture to which they refer, or any others by the painter’s hand, imagine a change in the hue of any particular tint among the many before them, or hide it from the eye altogether, and they will then find that the rich, harmonious effect of the whole work is intimately dependent upon the true and subtle arrangements of its minutest parts; that the most apparently accidental touches of colour have been laid on with a deep purpose and an original skill, and that it is as difficult to omit or alter the position or hue of any one of the individual tints in the picture without deteriorating its effect, as to strike a single epithet out of a finely constructed sentence, without damaging its melody or endangering its sense.