Henry Hensche
The Cape School of Art
Provincetown, Massachusetts
Comparing a modern painting exhibition with a gallery of old masters, the immediate and striking contrast that the alert student observes is in the greater vitality and variety of the colors used by present day painters.
The works of the old masters are darker and more somber for two reasons. One, the changes affected by time in the materials they used, and secondly, because of the procedure they followed in their work. Today, the colors developed by the chemical industry have given painters the opportunity to experiment with livelier and more entertaining color combinations and compositions. However, had these colors been available to the old masters, it is certain that they would have used them with superb results. Indeed, when we study the colors available to these craftsmen, and realize the handicaps under which they worked, it is almost a miracle that they accomplished as much as they did. True enough, they were deficient in expressing color combinations, but this was not because they chose to limit so major a descriptive power, but rather because they lacked the materials to represent the color they must have seen. The modern painter works under no such difficulty or limitation, and it is therefore discouraging to realize that they are still not producing the beautiful color combinations which are possible. Chemistry has given us the tools to make this wonderfully possible. We are missing the boat.
During the past century, the whole'range of cadmiums, together with several blues, reds and greens, have been added to the painter's palette. Alizarin now takes the place of the fugitive rose madder,and many more striking colors are in the process of development. Since the old masters did not have these colors available, they were limited to earth colors, the umbers, browns, etc., a blue which was rare, a yellow which was fleeting, and a rose madder which deteriorated much too quickly. Therefore, they were forced to achieve their results with the colors available. They had no other alternative. However, students have overlooked this fact. Instead of realizing that these craftsmen concentrated on drawing because it was their first means of creating form, they have assumed that drawing was the foundation of painting. This type of thinking has done more to cripple the development and usage of color in modern painting than any other fact.
The idea that drawing is the end of painting was held as late as Ingres and is, unfortunately, still held in some academic circles. In academic art schools today, drawing is given primary consideration, and the description of nature through color combinations is relegated to second place. Thus, the student has always been taught drawing first. When he mastered this skill he advanced to the use of pigment, but he still used it to produce form, as he had previously done with charcoal. He used various gradations of black to produce form, even tones to give the illusion of distance, and correct linear perspective combined with tone to create the illusion on a flat surface of form in space. Then, when this much had been learned, he was taught to use a glaze to give his painting color. This procedure resulted in a finished product which could be rivalled by most competently done colored photographs.
The correct use of the full color range has, until recently, been a sacred mystery. Those who could not understand that this effective use of color was based on sound, teachable principles, were convinced that it was some sort of "Mystic gift." The artist who understood the use of color was considered to have an innate "color sense," and this was thought to be a fortunate, but accidental endowment. Nothing could be farther from the truth. The effective use of color is no mysterious gift. It is a facility that can be taught. The modern chemist has given us the pigments with which the art of painting has been revolutionized. Through the use of the vital, striking colors at our disposal, we can bring color forward to its properly important position and, in conjunction with the fine drawing techniques developed by the old masters, we can produce paintings which will be as accurate in color description as had long ago been done in draughtsmanship.
Accuracy in color, it must be noted, is as important as accuracy in drawing. For instance, in a portrait you not only identify the subject through shape, but also by color. For centuries, spectators and painters alike have carelessly accepted any mud, or generalized statement of color. Today the discerning audience is more discriminating, more insistent on accurate color values. There is, however, still a great deal of ignorance in this respect on the part of both artists and audience.
Returning to the consideration of the variety of colors which chemistry has made available, their first revolutionary usage was employed by the great landscape painters whom we know now as the Impressionists. Through their minds and eyes the correct use of color to describe the variety of nature's colors was displayed, and in Monet, in particular, reached its highest and most accurate development. It is a saddening fact that one must go far and wide to find anyone since his time who can equal his descriptive power, as one must travel far to find draughtsmen to equal the masters of long ago. The reason for this distressing situation lies in improper teaching methods and a lack of understanding as to what one should do with paint.
Monet was the first to use color to tell us not only the correct forms of nature, but also the kind of day it was on which these forms were observed. Such accuracy, moreover, tells us also the precise hour of the day and the weather conditions prevailing at that particular hour. This kind of full description was never achieved by the old masters. Rembrandt's Old Mill, for instance, for all its beauty of space composition and tone, is, nevertheless, not true in color as we see nature today. Monet, on the other hand, could present a landscape showing a tree in space, for example, and we would know that it is summertime (not only because the leaves are green, as that had been done before), but he tells us further, through the accuracy of his color, that it is a sunny summer day, and further still, that the time is early morning and that the day is clear.
However, since the Impressionists, their truth has largely been called obsolete and their objectives not considered worth striving for. We have not taken advantage of the pioneer work they did nor understood their contribution. We have not progressed. We have marked time. The future should, under the right conditions, produce a great naturalistic art surpassing the best of the old. To attain this hope will require training and an understanding of the purpose of art in society. And, of course, the intelligent participation of the audience. This cannot be realized, until we, as painters, produce the goods. The painter cannot stir his audience with words. He must do it with colors in beautiful combination, for this is his major descriptive power with which he can transmit the moods of nature to his audience.
From:The Art of Seeing and Painting by Henry Hensche