ART.

HANDLING: A REPLY.

CERTAIN remarks in this column on Mr. Steer's manner of painting have called forth a criticism from "G. M." in the Speaker on the ground of their obscurity and dangerous tendency. The obscurity must be taken as proved if they have puzzled one so versed in the discussion of things pictorial ; but I cannot plead the excuse suggested by "G. M.," that they were obscure to myself, and an explanation is likely only to aggravate the danger in his eyes. But the explanation is demanded, and the point at issue is one of real importance. The reference to Romney need not detain us. That was intended to be strictly limited, and it may be freely allowed that, in Mr. Steer's portrait, neither the "gaiety nor the glazes" are exactly those of Romney. It is the question of "handling" that deserves further discussion. It arose in connec- tion with the other two pictures, and the question is whether Mr. Steer's handling is a heresy outside the proper limits of varia- tion, or is a natural development of the resources of pleasure in paint and means of expression in painting. I argued, in the latter sense, that this handling is an allowable variation on a more flowing technique, both because it gets other and pleasing effects out of the paint, and expresses other and beautiful facts about thinga. It is the fitting technique, then, for a particular temperament,—certain aptitudes and likings, that is, in the matter of plying a brush and applying paint; but it is also justified as an expression for qualities of things which the other technique cannot express. The quarrel, I

suggested, comes in when those qualities are so insisted on that the thing itself seems to disappear under one of them, as where the continuous substance of the air is sacrificed to the broken pulsations of light ; and the moot point is,—Which quality is the more important? but the method, I hold, is, when used with intelligence, an addition to the painter's

means of expression. By the word "symbol," I wished to,

convey that this broken handling is not an imitation of the texture of the sky, but a suggestion of the active beating of light ; the texture of the paint is used symbolically to stand for something that is not texture, as much as when an engraver varies his textures to hint at differences of colour, or a musician symbolises, by a rippling effect of sound, the motions of water that his medium can translate but not imitate : "metaphor," better than "symbol," would express my meaning.

Now, "U. M.," as I understand him, is against this broken handling altogether. He considers it a caprice and eccen- tricity adopted to conceal ignorance. He represents himself as "an old classic." I should suggest instead of "classic " the word "academic ; " for while the classics are continually being added to by the fresh developments of an art, the academics are those who, at every stage, desire to close the tradition, to impose a uniformity of procedure, to believe that there is only one good way of painting, and that that way can be taught. The masters, says "U. M.," do not contradict one another so violently in their use of the material as do the moderns. One of the masters he names is Gainsborongh What does a contemporary master, and an academic master, Reynolds, say about him and his handling ? He is divided,. speaking to his students, between his dislike and fear of an heretical procedure, and his admiration for its results, and his judgment, while conclusive as to the variation from academic uniformity in Gainsborough's handling, is doubly conclusive, in its half reluctance, as to the excellence in effect of a novel means of expression :—

" The peculiarity of his manner or style, or, as we may call it, the language in which he expressed his ideas, has been con- sidered by many as his greatest defect However, it is certain, that all those odd scratches and marks, which, on a close examination, are so observable in Gainsborough's pictures, and which, even to experienced painters, appear rather the effect of accident than of design,—this chaos, this uncouth and shape- less appearance, by a kind of magic, at a certain distance, assumes form, and all the parts seem to drop into their proper places ; so that we can hardly refuse acknowledging the full effect of dili-

gence, under the appearance of chance and hasty negligence.

His handling, the manner of leaving the colours, or in other words, the methods he used for producing the effect, had very much the appearance of the work of an artist who had never learned from others the usual and regular practice belonging to the art ; but still, like a man of strong intuitive perception of what was required, he found out a way of his own to accomplish

his purpose I think some apology may be made for his manner, witlu.ut violating truth, or running any risk of poisoning the minds of the younger students, by propagating false criticism, for the sake of raising the character of a favourite artist. It must be allowed that this hatching manner of Gains- borough did very much contribute to the lightness of effect which is so eminent a beauty in his pictures, as, on the contrary, much smoothness and uniting ef the colours is apt to produce heaviness.

Gainsborough, having truly a painter's eye for colour- ing, cultivated those effects of the art which proceed from colours ; and sometimes appears to be indifferent to or to neglect other excellencies. Whatever defects are acknowledged, let him still experience from us the same candour that we so freely give upon similar occasions to the ancient masters ; let us not encourage that fastidious disposition, which is discontented with everything short of perfection ; and unreasonably require, as we sometimes do, a union of excellencies not, perhaps, quite compatible with each other."

Perhaps those words of the old academic will weigh more with the new than any I could use ; even so might an appre- ciative academic of to-day speak of M. Steer. I proceed to hint out the triple sources of variation there are in this matter of handling for personal aptitude and liking. These sources will be obvious enough to "U. M.," but his line is to exclude variation under the first two, and limit it under the last, to the example of the master.

Handling is a variable, because it is a function, to use a mathematical term, of three elements, each of which is a variable, namely of Touch, Quality, and Image. That is to say, the kind of interpretation given to a thing in paint is in- fluenced first by the natural muscular and nervous constitu- tion of the hand, second by the chosen character of the brush and paint and canvas, these being sources, and variable sourcee, of pleasure, quite apart from the representation of anything ; and, third, the preferences of the eye in looking at things, what it takes out of them as their amusing or impressive elements, and proposes to the hand and paint to render. In each of these elements there is a large range, surely, for per- sonal choice, and the final balance of interest among them established by handling may consequently vary a great deal.

Touch.—Drawing is at bottom a kind of gesture. It depends on the sort of movement natural to the hand and arm ; if that be large and free, so will be the drawing; if sharp and short, so with the drawing. The action, the pressure, the speed of touch with the brush, are as intimately characteristic and as different in individuals, as touch on an instrument ; and the hand we can recognise through the stiff mechanism of a bell-wire, and that signs itself in every stroke of hand- writing, signs itself also in every touch of painting. The " flourish," the free movement of the hand, is the fundamental element out of which painting is built.

Quality.—But the natural gesture is limited by the medium it works in. Paint, to take only one particular, may be of the most different consistencies ; and here natural preferences come in to decide a fundamental element of the picture. One man prefers a texture like butter, another a texture like putty, another will have his paint oily and fluid. This at once reacts on Touch. Just as touch must differ for the same hand on the keys of an organ and a piano, so must it differ with a varying consistency in the paint,--consistencies which each have beauties of their own. It is here that "G. M.'s" simile of the dancer breaks down. All good dancers, he says, agree about the step,—they dance the same step. Yes ; but suppose the medium is altered—suppose you have ice and skates, instead of a floor and pumps—the step is necessarily altered. With the skates and ice, you can glide along unbrokenly ; on the floor there is more friction, the action must be more broken. So in painting, with a fluid medium, a sweeping brush is possible ; with a less fluid, a staccato touch is necessary. But if preferences in con- sistency limit the freedom of touch, still more do considera- tions of colour, as colour is affected by texture, It is here that painting borrows a procedure from mosaic, just as, in the hatched work of Gainsborough, it borrowed from pastel. By building up your colour from broken touches of its con- stituents put side by side, you can obtain effects of vivacity and of bloom that it would be hard to come at by mixing up the tints into one slab of colour, or even by fusing them with a fluid technique on the canvas. Broken touch and colour, then, are justified as beautiful in themselves, even before we regard them as Handling—that is, as means to an image.

The Image —But Handling is the application of these resources of Touch and Quality to the rendering of an image. And if the eloquence of the free hand is checked and sophisti- cated by considerations of texture and of the colour that depends on texture, still more is it complicated by the demands for expression that a natural effect makes on these resources. How to get a maximum of pleasure out of touch and texture and image is the problem of the painter, which he must solve by the play of his brush called Handling, distributing, according to his will, turns of affording plea- sure to the three competitors in the entertainment. To assert that there are images that the broken handling best expresses would be to repeat what has been said in the pre- vious article; but it may be added here that not only qualities of things, but feelings about them, may be rendered by a change from the more tranquil to the more agitated handling. He will undoubtedly be the greatest master of handling who can turn, as the image and the feeling prompt, from one expedient to another. The hand that can stroke and caress, or rain blows and buffets as the case requires, is the apter tool, and bespeaks the larger temperament. But let us not encourage "that fastidious disposition, which is discontented with every- thing short of perfection, and unreasonably require, as we sometimes do, a union of excellencies, not, perhaps, quite com- patible with each other." Let us be glad when by any means of handling, new or old, we get the stuff of paint to be so pleasing in itself, so nearly to express the riot and rain of sunlight, and yet to play so well in tune as in the Boulogne Sands ; for surely if that atmosphere de tableau, of which " G. M." speaks, means anything, as opposed to an atmos- phere of Nature, it means using the facts of light and air and shadow like the facts of form and of colour as free tools in the painter's hand for that complex and variable equilibrium of;the pleasures of material, of image, and of pattern that we call_a:picture.

D. S. M.