The Painter in oil

There is nothing like it elsewhere. Study it; notice the unaffectedness of brush-stroke
in Rembrandt. See how it is the same as Hals, but less perfunctory. See how the
brush piles up paint again and again along the same ridge of flesh, taking no notice
of its revelation of the insistence of attempt at the right value, nor of its roughness or
surface. To get that drawing and that color in the freeest, frankest, most direct way:
that is the aim. The absolute conviction of it: that is the essence of this technique of
the old Dutch masters. And whatever else it may have or may not have, you will find
in it all that you can find anywhere of suggestion of direct and frank and sincere
painting, and nothing I can say will give you any such clear idea of what you should
strive for as the basis of all the different sorts of brush-work necessary or useful in
the production of an oil painting.
Detail. - The question of detail may well come in here. How far are you to carry
detail in your painting? The Dutch painters went to both extremes. Gerard Dou
worked two weeks on a broom-handle, and hoped to finish it in a few days more.
Frans Hals would paint ahead in an hour. The French painter Meissonier paints the
high light on every button of a trooper’s coat, and De Neuville barely paints the
button at all. What way are you to turn? Which are you to choose? We have a great
deal said nowadays against detail in painting. Much is set of breadth and broad
painting. Which is right?
True Breadth. - The answer lies in the central idea of the picture. There are
times when detail may be very minute, and times when the greatest freedom is
essential. True breadth is compatible with much even minute detail in the same
canvas. For breadth does not mean merely a large brush. It never means slap-dash.
It is the just conceptions of the amount of detail necessary (and the amount
necessary to be left out) in order that the idea of the picture may be best expressed.
Detail is out of place in a large canvas always, and in proportion to its size is
allowable. A decorative canvas, a picture which is to be seen from a distance, or is to
fill wall space, wants effect, much justness of composition and color. Largeness of
conception and execution, and only so much detail as shall be necessary to the best
expression compatible with that largeness. On the other hand, a “cabinet picture,” a
small panel, will admit of microscopic detail is all you can see. And just here is the
heart of the whole matter. Whether you use much or little detail, it is not for the sake
of the detail, not for what power of expression may lie in it. If the picture, large or
small, be largely conceived, and its main idea as to subject and those qualities of
aesthetic meaning I have spoken of are always kept in view, and never allowed to lose
themselves in the search for minuteness, then any amount of detail will take its place
in true relation to the whole picture. If it does not do this it is bad.
The relations of parts to the whole are the key to the situation always.
Nothing is right which interferes with the true relations in the picture. This is
where the working for detail is most likely to lead you astray. It takes great ability
and power to keep detail where it belongs. Detail is always the search for small
things, and they are almost sure to obtrude themselves to the neglecting of the more
important things. Details which do not stay in their places had better be left out of
the picture. There is such a thing as values in fact as well as other parts of your
work. And this applies to breadth as well as to detail.