The Painter in oil

”Impressionism.” - It is not possible to speak of landscape and plein air
without mention of the “Impressionists.” You should understand what
“impressionism” really is, and what it is not, and what the impressionist stands for.
Whether we like it or not, this work is not to be ignored. It has tried for certain
things, and has shown that they can be much more justly represented than had
before been believed to be possible, and fad or no fad, that result stands.
In the first place, impressionism does not mean “purple and yellow.” Anyone who
says “purple and yellow” and throws the whole thing aside, is a very superficial
critic. The purple and yellow are incidental to the impressionist, not essential. It is
only one of the ways of handling color by means of which it was found possible to
express certain qualities of light.
Before everything else the real impressionist stands for the representation of the
personal conception and method as against the traditional. He believes that if a man
has anything of his own to say, he must say it in his own way; and that if he cannot
find that nature has anything to say to him personally, if nature cannot give him a
persona1 message, if he can only paint by giving another man’s ideas and another
man’s method, then he had better not paint at all; so that whatever he may see to
paint, and however he finds a way to express it, the value of it and the truth of it lie
in the fact that it is his, his way of seeing, and his way of expressing, - that it is
“personal.”
Luminosity. - The impressionist is imbued with the fact that all the light by
means of which things are at all visible is luminous - that it vibrates. He does not
think that living light can be represented by dead color. He strives to make his color
live also. This is the secret of the purple and yellow. By the contrast of these two
colors, by the combination and contrast and juxtaposition of the complementary
colors and the use of pure pigments, he can make his colors more vibrant, and so
give more of the pitch of real sunlight. He actually applies on his canvas the laws
which are known to hold with light and color scientifically. He applies practically in
his work those laws which the scientist furnishes him with theoretically. The result
in some hands is garish, crude. But the best men have shown that it is possible to use
the means so as make a subtle harmony and a luminous brilliancy that have never
before been attained. The crudity is the result of the man, not of the method.
The Application. - The application of all this to your own work is that when you
want pitch and sunlight you can get it through the observance of the laws of color
contrast, and such a laying on of pigment as will bring this about. Try to study the
actual contrasts of color, not as they seem, but as they are in nature. Study the facts
which have been observed as to colors in their effects on each other, and then try to
see these in nature and to paint the results.
The Luminists. - This is the principle of all “loose painting” carried out
scientifically. It is the cause of the peculiar technique of those impressionists who
paint in streaks and spots of pigment. The manner of putting on paint does interfere
with the continuity of outline in the drawing necessarily, but there is a marked gain
in the quality of light; and as these men are “luminists,” and light is what they want
primarily, the sacrifice is justifiable, or at any rate explicable.