CHAPTER XXXIII: FIGURES
The broadest classification of figure pictures is to consider them as of
two kinds, - those painted in an out-door or diffused light, and those
painted in an in-door or concentrated light. The painting of figures
out-of-doors will find more difficult if you have had no experience in
painting them in the studio. The problems of light and shade and color
are more complex in the diffused light, and the knowledge of structure
and modeling, as well as of special values gained by studio study, will
be most helpful to you when you paint out-of doors. I should say,
then, don’t attempt any serious painting of the human figure in the
open air till you have had some experience with its special problems in
the house.
The Nude.- No good figure-work has ever been done which was not founded on a
knowledge of the nude. Whether the figure is draped or not, the nude is the basis of
form. The best painters have always made their studies of pose and action in the nude,
and then drawn the draperies over that. This insures the truth of action and structure
true, which is almost sure to be lost when the drawing of the form is made through
drapery or clothing. The underlying structure is as essential here as in portrait. It is the
more imperative that the body be felt within the clothes from the fact that it cannot be
seen. There must be no ambiguity, no doubt as to the anatomy underneath; for without
this there can be no sense of actuality.
I do not say paint the nude. On the contrary, if you want to go so far as that in the
study of the figure, you must not attempt to do it with the aid of a book. Go to a good
life class. But I wish to emphasize the principle that when you undertake to paint
anything involving the figure, you must know something of the structure of what is
more or less hidden, and must make allowance for the disguising of form which the
draping of it will inevitably cause.
And when you draw your figure, you should lay in your main lines, at any rate, from
the nude figure if you can. If you cannot command a professional model for this
purpose, you can only be more careful about your study of the underlying lines and
forms as they are suggested by the saliencies of the draperies.
If this is the case, be most accurate in those measurements which place the
proportions of the parts which show through the covering, and try to trace out by the
modeling, where the lines would run. By mapping out these proportions, and drawing
the lines over the drapery masses wherever you can make them out, you can judge to a
certain extent of the truth of action in your drawing.