The Painter in oil

does not count for, our composition. The things we have here are enough, but they
are not right as they are now. They injure rather than help the last arrangement. The
bottle and glass are in the composition, but not of it; a composition must be one
thing, no matter how many objects go to the making of it. This is two things. Draw a
line down between the bottle and glass and the other things, and you get two
compositions, both good, instead of one, which we must have for good arrangement.
Let’s change them again. This is worse, if anything. We have now got two groups
and a thing. The coffee-pot and cup and saucer alone, the bottle and glass alone, and
the pitcher; the drapery tries to pull them together, but can’t. The plaque has no
connection with anything. They are all pulled apart. In the last group at least there
was some chief mass, the first complete composition. Now everyone is for himself;
three up and down lines and a circle- that’s about what it amounts to.
Let’s group them,- push them together. Place the bottle near the coffee-pot.
Because they are about the same height, one cannot dominate the other in height;
then make them pull together as a mass.
Place the cup about as before, and the mass pretty well towards the centre of the
plaque. Put the pitcher where it will balance, and the glass where it will count
unobtrusively, and help break the line of the bottoms of the objects. The drapery
no\v helps in line also, and gives more unity, as well as mass and weight and color,
to the whole. This group is about as well placed as these objects will come. There is
balance, mass, proportion, dignity, unity.
Of course you may make a paintable and interesting composition with only two
things. But you must give them some relation both as to fact and as to position. The
same elements of unity and balance and line come in, no matter how many or how
few are the objects which enter as elements in your group.
In this way study composition with still life. Move things about and see how they
look; use your eye and judgment. Get to see things together, and apply the principles
spoken of in the chapter on “Composition” to all sorts of things in nature.
Scope of Study. - Drawing is always drawing, whatever the objects to which it is
applied, and you can study all the problems of drawing and values with still life. The
drawing is not so severe as that of the antique, nor so difficult as study from the life,
but you can learn to draw and then apply it to other things, and advance as far as you
please; and as I said at first, you need never lack an amiable model.
All sorts of effects of lighting you can study easily with still life; and of color and
texture also. The study of surface and texture is most important to you. If you were
to undertake to paint a sheep or a cow the first time; if you were to paint without
previous experience a background which contained metal and glass, or a model with
1 a velvet or satin dress, you would not succeed. These all involve problems of skill
and facility of representation. When you paint a portrait or figure picture, or a
landscape with animals, you should not have to deal with, as new, problems of this
sort. You should have arrived at some understanding of this sort of thing in studies
which are not complicated by other problems of greater difficulty. This is where still
life comes in again to make the study of painting easier.