The Relation of Art to Nature

Homer’s love for and appreciation of those rugged, elemental qualities in nature resulted in the production of forceful works of great beauty. In the selection of subjects he expressed his individual taste.

Henry W. Ranger

I recall an opinion expressed by the late Henry W. Ranger to the effect that Tolstoi’s definition of art had never been excelled. He referred to Tolstoi’s definition of art as the power to pass on a sensation. Ranger maintained the opinion that art is the expression of the individual’s feeling, that the artist uses the facts of nature to express his own sensation and that no great landscape was ever painted directly from nature. “The technical difficulties,” he said, “and the rapidly changing effects made it hard to paint out of doors. He could do better by depending upon his memory.” It was his opinion that the deeper qualities were secured in the studio; that nature only furnishes the hooks upon which the painter hangs his work; that he in reality expresses his own feeling, the poetry or sentiment which is in himself. Ranger here describes a vague or not clearly defined quality which is referred to as personal temperament. His opinion is in direct contradiction to the almost universal testimony of painters and sculptors, and Ranger himself in his practice failed to maintain it. Although he did not complete his works in the presence of nature, he made many sketches from nature and copied his larger canvases from these.

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.”