The Painter in oil

space of canvas to be proportioned to light and to dark. The gradations of light and dark
spread over the canvas was calculated upon, so that the less space of light and the
greater the space of dark, the more brilliant would be the main spot of light in the
picture. They wrought with the quality of light and shade as an element, just as they
would with the quality of light and of color, considered apart from objects or facts they
might represent.
Arbitrary Lighting. - This is the arbitrary light and shade spoken of in the chapter
on “Values”; and although the older painters included what we now call values in their
word chiaroscuro, it is this fact of arbitrary lighting as opposed to accepting the light as
it does fall, or selecting those places or times where it does naturally fall as we would like
it to, that makes the difference between modern painting generally and the older
method, and has made chiaroscuro as a word and as a quality of painting so much a
thing of the past.
Light and Shade. - But we may use the old word with a more restricted meaning. If
we use it to mean literally light and shade, the way light falls on objects and the relief
due to the light side and the shadow side of them, we get a use which implies a very
important and practical matter for present study.
Objects Visible by Light and Shadow. - If you will put a white egg on a piece of
white paper, with another white paper back of it, you will see that it is only because the
egg obstructs the light, the side of it towards the light preventing the light rays from
touching the other side, and so casting a shadow on itself and on the paper, that the egg
is visible. You will also see, if you manipulate the egg, the according as the light is
concentrated or diffused, or according to the sharpness of the shadow and light, is the
egg more or less distinct.
Contrast. - Apply these facts to other objects, and you will see how important the
principle of contrast is to the representation of nature. Not only contrast of light and
shade, but contrast of color. And you should make a study, both by setting up groups of
objects in different lights, and by studying effects of lights wherever you are, of the
possibilities and combinations of light and shadow.
Constant Observation. - The painter is constantly studying his eyes. It is not
necessary always to have the brush in your hand in order to be always studying. Keep
your brain active in making observations and considering the relations in nature around
you. The amount of material you can store up in this way is immense, to say nothing of
the training it gives you in the use of your eyes, and in the practice of selection of motives
for work. Schemes of color or composition are not usually deliberately invented within
the painter’s brain. They are in most cases the result of some suggestion from a chance
effect noticed and remembered or jotted down, and afterwards worked out. Nature is the
greater suggester. It is the artist’s business to catch the suggestion and make it his own.
For nature seldom works out her own suggestions. The effect as nature gives it is either
not complete, or is so evanescent as to be uncopyable. But the habit of constant
receptivity on the part of the artist makes nature an infinite mine of possibilities to him.
Perception. - Only by continually observing and judging if contrasts and relations
can the eye be trained to perceive subtle distinctions; yet it must be so trained, for all
good work is dependent on these distinctions.