The Painter in oil

Let us understand what direct painting is first, and then consider varieties of handling.
For whatever may be the subsequent manipulations, the picture is generally “laid in”
with the most direct possible manner of laying on paint, and the other processes are
mainly to modify or to further and strengthen the effect suggested in the first painting.
And generally, also, in all sketches and studies which are preliminary preparations for
the picture, the most direct painting is used, and the various processes are reserved for
working out more subtle effects on the final canvas.
Old Dutch Painting. - Probably they are no better examples of frank painting than
the works of the old Dutchmen. You should study them whenever you have a chance.
Waiving all discussion as to the aesthetic qualities of their work, — as painters, as
masters of the craft of laying on paint, they are unexcelled. And in most cases, too, they
possessed the art of concealing their art. You will have to use the closest observation to
discover the exact means they used to get the subtle tones and atmospheric effects.
The only obvious qualities is the perfect understanding and skill of their brush-work. In
the smoothest as well as in the roughest of their work, you can not how perfectly the
brush searches the modeling, and with the most exquisite expressiveness and perfect
frankness, follows the structural lines.
No doubt there were often paintings, glazings, and scumblings; but they always
furthered the meaning of the first painting, and never in the least interfered with or
obscured the effect of naïveté, of candor of workmanship.
It is, however, the simple and sincere brush-work that you should strive to attain as
the basis of your painting. Learn to express drawing with your brush, and to place at
once and without indecision or timidity the exact tone and value of the color you see in
nature at that point. Until you are enough of a master of your brush to get an effect in
this way, do not meddle with the more complex methods of after-painting. You will
never do good work by subsequent manipulation, if you have a groundwork of feebleness
and indecision. Direct painting is the fundamental process of all good painting.
Let me take the type of old Dutch painting to represent to you this quality of direct
painting. First of all notice a basis of perfect drawing, — a knowledge, exactness, and
precision which admits of no fumbling, no vagueness, but only of a concise and direct
recognition of structure.
Note that this drawing is as characteristic of the brush-work as of the drawing which is
under it. Observe that the handling of the whole school, from the least to the greatest, is
founded on a similar and perfect craftsmanship, - the same use of materials; the same
deliberateness; the same simple yet ample palette; the same use of solid color candidly
expressing the planes of modeling, freely following the lines of structure; the absence of
affectation or invention of individual means. Whatever the individuality of the artist, it
rests on something else than difference of technique. From the freest and most direct of
painters, Frans Hals, to the most smooth and detailed, Gerard Dou, the directness and
ingenuousness of means to ends is the same, and founded on the same technical basis of
color manipulation. The one is more eager, terse, the other more deliberate and
complete; but both use the same pigments, both use the same solid color, are simple,
lucid, both occupied solely with the thing to be expressed, and the least degree in the
world with the manner of it. That manner comes from the same previous technical
training which each uses in the most matter-of-course way, with only such change from
the type, as his temperament unconsciously imposes on him.