Edward Armitage
Lectures on Painting, Delivered to the Students of the Royal Acadamy
Published by Good Press, 2019
EAN 4057664605634
Table of Contents
LECTURE II. BYZANTINE AND ROMANESQUE ART.
LECTURE III. ON THE PAINTERS OF THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY.
LECTURE IV. “DAVID” AND HIS SCHOOL.
LECTURE V. ON THE MODERN SCHOOLS OF EUROPE.
LECTURE VIII. ON DECORATIVE PAINTING.
LECTURE X. ON THE CHOICE OF A SUBJECT.
LECTURE XI. ON THE COMPOSITION OF DECORATIVE AND HISTORICAL PICTURES.
LECTURE XII. COMPOSITION OF INCIDENT PICTURES.
PREFACE.
These Lectures are a selection from those delivered by me to the students of the Royal Academy during the term of my professorship—that is, between the years 1876 and 1882.
I have limited the selection to twelve, partly to keep the book of a modest size, and partly because many of the omitted lectures (and especially those which treat of the great masters of the fifteenth, sixteenth, and seventeenth centuries) would hardly be comprehensible without the numerous engravings with which they were illustrated at the time of delivery.
I ought, perhaps, to apologize for the roughness of my explanatory diagrams, but as they only aspire to represent the rude sketches done with white chalk during the actual delivery of the lectures, let us hope they will be leniently dealt with.
It is a common practice with writers who are not yet hardened offenders, to seek some excuse for rushing into print, and the excuse usually offered is the “urgent entreaty of valued friends.” I certainly cannot avail myself of this customary but I fear often uncandid plea.
My only reason for publishing must be looked for in the large and very attentive audiences I have always had. This evident appreciation of my teaching by the Royal Academy students, has led me to think that some of these lectures might be interesting and instructive to other students outside the Academy, and possibly even to those who do not intend to follow art as a profession, but who would be glad to have a little daylight thrown on a subject which, though much written and lectured about of late years, does not seem to have been often treated in a simple, practical manner.
At the same time I am fully aware that the practical part of drawing can only be learned by real work; and I am also inclined to believe that a knowledge of the old masters and their various schools is better acquired by frequent visits to galleries where their works can be seen, than by second-hand description from a lecture.
In my opinion, the special duties of a professor and lecturer on Art ought to be, first, the general pilotage of the schools through the quicksands and mud-banks with which the deep-water channel leading to excellence is beset on every side; and, secondly, the alimentation of that subtle flame without which the architect degenerates into a builder, the sculptor into a statuary, and the painter into a handicraftsman.
E. A.
February, 1883.
Lectures on Painting.
LECTURE I.
ANCIENT COSTUMES.
I do not purpose in this lecture to enter much into detail. Such a course would indeed be impossible, without having a large collection of costumes at hand to explain and illustrate my meaning as I go on. I may attempt something of this kind in a future year, but my object to-night is to make a few general observations on the dress of the ancients.
I will begin with the ancient Jews, from Noah downward. We have no pictorial record of the dress of the patriarchs; we have therefore no fixed data to guide us. We may, however, safely assume that a straight-cut under-garment was commonly worn; that a long, ample drapery or cloak was thrown over the shoulders; and that the head was protected from the sun by a cloth, or possibly by some kind of skull-cap. Turbans are essentially Mahometan, and the painters of the Flemish and Dutch schools were certainly wrong in representing Abraham with a turban.
The costume I have suggested as appropriate to the patriarchal age is identical with the dress of the modern Arabs, and there is no doubt that, if not identical, it really was very similar. I think, however, that in painting Biblical subjects we ought to be careful not to carry the similitude too far. I see no objection to clothing Ishmael or any of the tribes of the desert like modern Arabs; but the Jews, even in the time of Abraham, were a peculiar people, and we may very well suppose that they would modify their dress in such a manner as would distinguish them from the wandering and predatory tribes.
Besides, there is always a danger, in dressing Abraham or Jacob like an Arab chieftain, of importing into your picture that familiarity which breeds contempt. It has often been done in modern times, but I cannot say I approve of this easy way of solving the difficulty.
I should put the cloak on differently to what the Arabs do. I should avoid the camel’s-hair cord which encircles the head, and thus, whilst preserving the simplicity of that early period, my patriarchs would not be mistaken for modern Arabs.
The women of remote Jewish antiquity, the Sarahs, the Rebeccas, etc., should be clothed in similar simple garments. Whatever may be said in favor of dressing the men like Arabs, it would never do to introduce the female Arab fashions into Biblical pictures. Their dress is peculiarly Mahometan.
The women of the patriarchal age wore