The Relation of Art to Nature

I think Ranger at the end of a long career had the power of discovering beautiful qualities in nature and of seeing them profoundly. I knew him well, and many times we discussed art and artists. I found his knowledge broad and intimate. His view that a painter simply passes on a sensation was repeated to me many times. I think one may frankly agree with this opinion, but I do not think a painter originates or creates a sensation. In the presence of nature he simply receives it and then transmits it, the result being dependent upon his natural or acquired power of perception, his memory, and his technical ability.

Ranger’s paintings are characterized by an understanding of nature, and this was the result of a lifetime of the most earnest, patient, and persistent study. Probably no modern artist was more industrious, for his studio was filled with studies in colour and many thousands of pencil drawings. Indeed, so familiar was he with the colours and characteristic forms of nature that he frequently reproduced these with much delicacy, relying solely upon his memory and a few accurate pencil notes. In discussing his method, I recall his remark that he painted in the studio because he could get closer to nature that way than by painting out of doors. Painters universally understand the difficulties of painting in the open because of conflicting lights. They also realize the more certain judgment of the experienced eye when painting in a quiet or more subdued light; but to do this requires great knowledge and a retentive memory.

As illustrating Ranger’s method of study and his reliance upon memory, I recall an occasion when he studied long and patiently the union or combination of two colour notes, the sky and water – for we were sailing at the time. He remarked upon the beautiful harmony expressed by these colours. He studied them intently, evidently with the thought of reproducing them later. I also remember a painting expressive of the charm and beauty of a moon-light night. It was painted at his Noank home. I believe this picture was painted almost wholly in his studio. I think it was the result of an infinite number of impressions received as he studied, evening after evening, the ocean and the sky. By this I mean that while Ranger in this painting was passing on a sensation, he was only passing on the truth and beauty of nature as realized by him night after night, and recorded in his memory.

The point here raised is one of vital importance with reference to the subject under consideration. It is that the painter does not express anything he has not received. He pursues one of two methods: he either secures beautiful qualities in the presence of nature or he reproduces qualities stored in his memory.

John La Farge

John La Farge referred to these two methods, the one by which the painter works directly from nature and the other by which he depends upon his memory, and his opinion bears directly upon the point raised. La Farge wrote: “He [the painter] will then go again to nature, perhaps working directly from it, perhaps only to his memory of sight, for remember, that in what we call working from nature – we painters – we merely use a shorter strain of memory than when we carry back to our studios the vision that we wish to note. And more than that, the very way in which we draw our lines, and mix our pigments, in the hurry of instant record, in the certainty of successful handling, implies that our mind is filled with innumerable memories of continuous trials.”

As La Farge points out, the difference between painting in the presence of nature and painting from memory is only a different span of memory. One painter pursues one way, another a different method. The end sought is the same.

Segantini

Giovanni Segantini’s method was to go to nature finally. He began his paintings in the studio, working from studies, and finished them in the presence of nature. I recall a delightful visit with this able Italian painter at his home at Maloja, and also his interesting description of his method. His art was little known at that time, some twenty years ago. His works are now well known to art lovers throughout the world.

I had but recently seen his “Ploughing in the Engadine” at an exhibition in the Bavarian capital. It impressed me as possessing a very vital quality. The technical manner seemed at that time strange and unusual. Like worsted, the colours stretched across the sky. The earth clods were small strands of colour, revealing, on close examination, a rarely prodigal palette. This phase of Segantini’s art interested me on the purely technical side. The effect of the picture was startling. It was like a breath of fresh and fragrant air from the mountains of Switzerland.

It was following this impression received from his painting that I visited the painter at Maloja. Leaving Chiavenna early one morning, the coach slowly climbed the mountainside and, presently, crossed the apex of the range. There lay at our feet the beautiful valley of the Engadine. I carried away from Maloja many delightful impressions, but the two dominating all others were these: the earnestness of the painter, and his unwavering dependence upon nature.

He showed me large drawings or cartoons of some of his well known subjects representing the arrangement of the compositions and the balancing of the various parts of his pictures. The drawings were made in crayon and suggested in line the technical treatment of his paintings. From these sketches he transferred the drawings to canvas. In this way he saved time and labor. When a drawing was thus transferred to a canvas he carried the canvas to the scene of his subject, where he painted invariably directly from nature. When I asked if he ever completed a picture in the studio, he said: “Absolutely no! I always finish my pictures in the presence of nature.”

Segantini spoke his last word, if I may adopt this form of expression, in the very presence of and under the influence of nature. This to him was the supreme moment in the execution of his work.

Anton Mauve

Another illustration of the method of a great painter in relying upon his memory for the truths and facts of nature is found in Anton Mauve. Mauve’s power is unquestioned. He was one of the great modern Dutch painters. His pictures are always direct and forceful. His knowledge of nature was profound. This knowledge was the result of effort and study. Among his early drawings are found studies from nature which, in spirit, are wholly unlike his later productions. They reveal Mauve as a student of nature who was untiring in his effort to draw minute details with unflinching accuracy. I recall pencil studies of sheep, horses, cows, and plants which have rarely ever been excelled in the delineation of detail, not even by a master draughtsman like Barque. Mauve’s knowledge of nature acquired by this method was intimate and deep. His later manner was based upon a solid foundation. It was by this knowledge he was enabled to depict the more characteristic forms with a few hastily drawn lines. He knew well how important are broad, essential masses in art and he rendered these, eliminating non-essentials and trivial details. His sense of design or appropriate balance of parts was keen and sure; nearly all his pictures possess the distinguishing quality of simplicity. Like Ranger, he preferred to paint his pictures in the studio, but his reliance was, in the highest sense, upon nature.

I recall a visit to Mauve’s country, a country of sand dunes and pastures. These he loved and painted. One of Mauve’s students, an able etcher, was probably more familiar with the artist’s method than any other person. “His [Mauve’s] best pictures, before Laren,” he wrote me, “were all made in his studio from memory, aided with sketches in chalk. Then he went every day, if possible, to the spot he had sketched, to study the effect, the ‘moment,’ and he tried to fix that impression on his canvas when back home.”

Rodin

Let us turn from the art of the painter to the art of the sculptor. Probably no modern sculptor has taken a higher place in the estimation of his fellow artists than has Rodin. As expressions of his art, his “Thinker” stands at one extreme end of the scale and such graceful and beautiful forms as “Eternal Spring” at the other. It is interesting, therefore, to know that Rodin has acknowledged his absolute dependence upon nature for the widely divergent expressions of character rendered by him. He is quoted as saying: “Seeker after truth and student of life as I am, … I obey Nature in everything, and I never pretend to command her. My only ambition is to be servilely faithful to her.”

“I have not changed it [nature]. Or, rather, if I have done it, it was without suspecting it at the time. The feeling which influenced my vision showed me nature as I have copied her.”

“If I had wished to modify what I saw and to make it more beautiful I should have produced nothing good.”

“The only principle in Art is to copy what you see. Dealers in aesthetics to the contrary, every other method is fatal. There is no recipe for improving Nature.”

“The only thing is to see.”

“The ideal! The dream! Why, the realities of Nature surpass our most ambitious dreams.”

Opinions of Philosophers and Writers

The opinions here referred to are those of masters who have produced works of art. They seem to be supported by the opinions of able writers and philosophers who have dealt with this subject. If the opinions of these writers are less authoritative, they are nevertheless important as representing the thought of profound scholars. They cover practically the entire period of writing upon art. While diversified in the manner of approach, they will be found to unite in a common theory. These writers naturally deal with mental processes; with the attributes of the mind; with the philosophy of the subject.

Schopenhauer

Schopenhauer defines genius as pre-eminent capacity for contemplation which ends in the object. “Now,” he says, “as this requires that a man should entirely forget himself and the relations in which he stands, genius is simply complete objectivity, i.e., the objective tendency of the mind, as opposed to the subjective, which is directed to one’s own self – in other words, to the will. Thus genius is the faculty of continuing in the state of pure perception, of losing one’s self in perception, and of enlisting in this service the knowledge which originally existed only for the service of the will; that is to say, genius is the power of leaving one’s own interests, wishes, and aims entirely out of sight, and thus of entirely renouncing one’s own personality for a time, so as to remain pure knowing subject, clear vision of the world – and this not merely at moments, but for a sufficient length of time and with sufficient consciousness to enable one to reproduce by deliberate art what has thus been apprehended, and ‘to fix in lasting thoughts the wavering images that float before the mind.’”

Schopenhauer’s definition of genius is probably more accurate and more logical than that of any other writer. In his opinion, genius is the power of pre-eminent perception. The artist only exceeds his fellows in that his perception is keener; that he is able to see and understand more perfectly than others. When an able painter approaches nature in this spirit, forgetting all else, as Schopenhauer suggests, the result is usually a masterpiece. To such a painter is attributed the quality known as genius.

Taine

Taine defines art as the power of perceiving the essential character of an object. Taine says: “The character of an object strikes him [the artist] and the effect of this sensation is a strong, peculiar impression… But art itself, which is the faculty of perceiving and expressing the leading character of objects, is as enduring as the civilization of which it is the best and earliest fruit… To give full prominence to a leading character is the object of a work of art. It is owing to this that the closer a work of art approaches this point the more perfect it becomes; in other words, the more exactly and completely these conditions are complied with, the more elevated it becomes on the scale. Two of these conditions are necessary; it is necessary that the character should be the most notable possible and the most dominant possible… The masterpiece is that in which the greatest force receives the greatest development. In the language of the painter, the superior work is that in which the character possessing the greatest possible value in nature receives from art all the increase in value that is possible… It is essential, then, to closely imitate something in an object; but not everything.” After defining the essential quality by two illustrations – the illustration of the lion and the illustration of the dominant characteristics of a flat country like Holland, Taine continues: “Through its innumerable effects, you judge of the importance of this essential character. It is this which art must bring forward into proper light, and if this task devolves upon art it is because nature fails to accomplish it. In nature this essential character is simply dominant; it is the aim of art to render it predominant… Man is sensible of this deficiency, and to remove it he has invented art.”

Froude

Froude touches upon this point in his reference to the art of the writer. He said he would turn to Shakespeare for the best history of England because of his (Shakespeare’s) absolute truth to character and event. “We wonder,” Froude wrote, “at the grandeur, the moral majesty, of some of Shakespeare’s characters, so far beyond what the noblest among ourselves can imitate, and at first thought we attribute it to the genius of the poet, who has outstripped Nature in his creations. But we are misunderstanding the power and the meaning of poetry in attributing creativeness to it in any such sense. Shakespeare created, but only as the spirit of Nature created around him, working in him as it worked abroad in those among whom he lived. The men whom he draws were such men as he saw and knew; the words they utter were such as he heard in the ordinary conversations in which he joined. At the Mermaid with Raleigh and with Sidney, and at a thousand unnamed English firesides, he found the living originals for his Prince Hals, his Orlandos, his Antonios, his Portias, his Isabellas. The closer personal acquaintance which we can form with the English of the age of Elizabeth, the more we are satisfied that Shakespeare’s great poetry is no more than the rhythmic echo of the life which it depicts.”

Baumgarten

Baumgarten concluded, from Leibnitz’ theory of a pre-established harmony and its consequence, that the world is the best possible, that nature is the highest embodiment of beauty, and that art must seek as its highest function the strictest possible imitation of nature.

Leibnitz

Bosanquet says: “The greatest degree of perfection was to be found, according to Leibnitz, in the existing universe, every other possible system being as a whole less perfect.”

Kant

Kant deals with a phase of this subject which is of great interest. In many strong works of art there remain incomplete and often unsatisfactory details. These are permitted to remain because the artist knows that to remove them would weaken or affect the strength of the whole. These, Kant says, are “only of necessity suffered to remain, because they could hardly be removed without loss of force to the idea. This courage has merit only in the case of a genius. A certain boldness of expression, and, in general, many a deviation from the common rule becomes him well; but in no sense is it a thing worthy of imitation. On the contrary it remains all through intrinsically a blemish which one is bound to try to remove, but for which the genius is, as it were, allowed to plead a privilege, on the ground that a scrupulous carefulness would spoil what is inimitable in the impetuous ardor of his soul.”

The genius here referred to by Kant is well understood and his power is fully recognized, but he is not separated from his fellow craftsmen except in the degree of his knowledge and ability. He is a man of superior ability and power who, driving straight to the object of his labor, represents character in a direct and forceful way. To this end he brings to his assistance his superior technical skill, but often in the very impetuosity of his ardor, as Kant suggests, he leaves unfinished parts because he well understands that to labor over these parts would be to reduce the force or power of the whole. This impetuous manner which strives to render the character of the object or person, or of the scene, or of the ephemeral effects of nature, quickly and directly, is well understood by the painter. I recall a large sketch of Daubigny’s owned by Mesdag, probably purchased from the painter. This sketch represents a green hillside with a canal and horses in the foreground. For absolute power and truth of beautiful quality and colour it was probably never surpassed by Daubigny, but it is what the public would call an unfinished picture. In truth, force, and beauty, it might fairly be considered “inspired” as compared with Daubigny’s finished or carefully painted pictures so widely known. In this painting there are many unsatisfactory parts, such as are referred to by Kant as “deformities,” but Daubigny well understood that to remove them or to work over this sketch, which was doubtless made rapidly in the presence of nature and under the influence of the particular mood expressed by nature, would have weakened its power.

I recall another painting that will illustrate this point – a study by Anton Mauve. This study was found among Mauve’s possessions after his death, and was probably never offered for sale during his lifetime because, in minor parts, it is incomplete. Rough lines of the original drawing were permitted to remain. These are the kind of blemishes to which Kant refers, but they do not detract from the supreme beauty and power of the study. Indeed, this picture is considered by many painters to be one of Mauve’s masterpieces, so true and just is it in the representation of a momentary effect in nature. Mauve doubtless recognized the importance of the study and refused to make corrections of minor defects. I have been told that he replied to Weissenbrouck, a fellow painter who urged him to finish this work: “I will leave it as God made it in nature. It is finished.” Mauve had secured the broad, essential truth of nature and with this he was content.

Maeterlinck

Maurice Maeterlinck tersely expressed the same thought when he said: “I myself have now for a long time ceased to look for anything more beautiful in this world, or more interesting, than the truth…”

The reader will not have failed to observe the significant note of agreement running through these opinions touching the importance of selection, the power to perceive and select from among the multitude of forms those which are exceptional or dominant.

“Pure perception”; “the faculty of perceiving and expressing the leading character of objects”; “In nature this essential character is simply dominant; it is the aim of art to render it predominant …”; these expressions of philosophers are in perfect accord with the expressions of painters, as for instance, “The only thing is to see”; or “our only chance lies in selection and combination.”

Symmetry

If what has been written is true, if art is but the revelation of grace and beauty inherent in nature, the making plain that which is revealed to the artist and obscure to the less observant, or to those with less power, it still remains to account for the universal distinction in form which characterizes all great works of art. Reference has been made to the common factor of truth, but there is a second factor or quality possessed by works of art, that of symmetry. This attribute lifts a work above the commonplace and, combined with truth, places it among the masterpieces of art.

There are certain fundamental laws of symmetry existing in nature and these, consciously or unconsciously, govern the masters of art in the production of their works. These undefined laws have been recognized from the earliest time, and the artist who is governed by them in the selection of his subjects and controlled by them in the execution of his work makes a universal appeal to which the aesthetic sense in man responds. These laws are not of man’s creation. They belong to nature. They exist in form and colour. They also exist in sound. Whether or not the Greeks had reduced these laws to definite principles or rules, and were governed by them in the construction of their temples and in the creation of their masterly works in sculpture, is a doubtful question; but certain it is that Hambidge has shown quite conclusively that certain fundamental proportions existing in natural forms are repeated in the Parthenon and in other great architectural structures belonging to the Grecian period.

This does not mean that every great work of art must of necessity be based upon clearly defined, rigid rules of proportion, on what is called Dynamic Symmetry, but rather that works made to conform to these rules do possess a degree of distinction and that the result is an orderliness of arrangement or an agreeable disposition of spaces with relation to each other which produces an aesthetic effect upon the human mind.

Therefore, while truth is essential, it is conceded that symmetry must be added to secure distinction. Commonplace expressions of nature, while satisfying the ignorant, have never been accepted as art by those who have given this subject serious thought.

The quality of design, of pattern, of appropriate and harmonious arrangement, must be taken into account in any discussion touching the philosophy of art. The universal appreciation and enjoyment of design as revealed in rugs, in tapestries, and in a hundred other art forms, may only be accounted for upon the theory of the existence of a universal law of nature governing the judgment of man with reference to these things.

This law is found in nature just as certainly as is found the law of gravitation. The art of design when not literally transcribed from the beautiful forms presented by nature herself is found to rest upon some adaptation of this universal law of symmetry and harmony. With symmetrical forms in nature we become familiar even in our childhood. Take for instance the symmetrical forms of leaves. The grace and symmetry of the leaf of the elm tree is well known, as is also the character of the oak leaf and its almost invariable symmetrical form. When a form that is not symmetrical appears, such, for instance, as that of the leaf of the sassafras tree – one of the three leaf forms borne by this tree being shaped like a mitten – we instantly recognize this exception to the almost universal rule and reject it as unsymmetrical and inharmonious. Illustrations of symmetry might be multiplied, because they are found in flower and animal forms everywhere. With harmony and colour we are made familiar by the passing seasons. Spring, summer, autumn, and winter are successive expressions of harmony.

How far this universal law of symmetry extends throughout nature and what influence it has upon the human mind in its appreciation of the beautiful in nature it would be difficult to estimate. It is sufficient for our purpose to know that it is universal and far reaching in its application and influence.

J. Henri Fabre It is interesting in this connection to note that J. Henri Fabre, the eminent French naturalist, makes reference to this law in describing the uniformity with which certain bees act, their actions seeming to be governed by a mysterious law. In his book on “Bramble Bees and Others” Fabre says: “The first time that I prepared one of these horizontal tubes [for bramble bees] open at both ends, I was greatly struck by what happened. The series consisted of ten cocoons. It was divided into two equal batches. The five on the left went out on the left, the five on the right went out on the right, reversing, when necessary, their original direction in the cell. It was very remarkable from the point of view of symmetry; moreover, it was a very unlikely arrangement among the total number of possible arrangements, as mathematics will show us.” Fabre elucidates this fact by mathematical calculation proving that there had been a spontaneous decision, one half in favor of the exit on the left, one half in favor of that on the right, when the tube was horizontal and gravity ceased to interfere.