ART.
JOHN PYE AND CHIAROSCURO.
IT is not enough to say of the late Mr. John Pye that he was the most complete engraver of Turner's paintings, and therefore the most complete engraver of landscape that ever lived. This would be quite true, but it would fall far short of a true definition of the man, or of his rank and position in the Art-world, wherein he moved and had his being. John Pye was not merely a prac- titioner of consummate skill. He was the apostle, and latterly one of the few remaining representatives, of a great principle in Art. " All my friends keep dropping away," the old man was wont to say, " but the Arts are always with me;" and now that he is gone, there is too much reason to fear that the gospel he preached will be forgotten, and the faith he lived in be buried in his grave. It is the fashion now-a-days among our young artists to think and speak lightly of principles ; and no wonder, when their Art-education is confined to the mere imitation of objects. The idea that there can be anything in the nature of Law in the Fine Arts has become unpopular ; and there is only too ready an excuse for ignorance in the common and stupid assertion, that "you do away with all poetry, if you bind yourself by rules." No doubt it is so, if you bind yourself; and " rules," as Sir Joshua Reynolds truly said, " are trammels only to the weak." But surely there is nothing either slavish or prosaic in being bound by rules of Art which one knows and feels to be, or to be founded on, the laws of Nature ; and it is as much beyond the power of fashion, or school-teachings, or idle-
ness even, to alter the effect produced on the mind by a beautiful work, whether of Art or Nature, as it is to interfere with the force of gravity, or to influence the latitude by " speaking evil of the equator." Rules of this sort belong to the domain of science as
well as art, and such are the principles of Chiaroscuro, which John Pye spent his long life in illustrating and expounding, but which are little more than a terra incognita to most Art-students of our day. To judge by their works, there must be even artists of repute who would now be sorely puzzled to draw an intelligible distinction between chiaroscuro in its highest, and " black and white " in its lowest sense.
Mr. Pye's works and his teaching were, from first to last, an exposition of• the essential difference, or rather the complete diversity between these two ideas. Black and white were to him but the raw material with which he had to deal. His black was printers' ink, and his white was paper ; while his chiaroscuro comprised the whole resources of a subtle language, in which he employed these simple elements to express and to describe the wondrously illuminating quality of light. Observ- ing how many of the modern school are inclined to regard white paint as light, he would exclaim, " White is not light, but light is made by gradation." These are weighty words, and they contain a statement of one of the most important and fundamental truths of Art. It is only by the true series of these gradations that sunlight can be fully suggested, and only by their presence in every part of his picture that the painter can express its universal suffusion. After long study, and the highest success in its results, Mr. Pye maintained that there was a complete scale of light, with as many delicate modulations in it between the two extremes of white and black as there are in a scale of music. To the thoroughly educated eye a picture seems incomplete when certain notes of the scale are omitted ; and Turner's eye was so perfect in this respect, that when he saw a proof of an engraving in progress, lying on the other side of the table the wrong way upwards, he would say at a glance, " Don't you see that such a tone is wanted to complete the effect ?" and he would then go away without turning the proof round, being quite satisfied that, on the omission being supplied, the whole scale would be correct, and the work be virtually finished. Not actually finished, however ; for (as no one has ever shown more fully than these two great artists in their respective works) after the first proportions have been made true and complete, there remains almost infinite scope for more delicate scales of gradation, one within another, like small ripples on the surface of larger waves, every dark having, subordinate to it, an inner series of shades, and every light its minor play of more subtle gradations. And Turner would sometimes walk into Pye's room when the plates were in progress and say, "That is all right, but it is not up to the pitch of real light." Then came a screwing-up of all the gradations, as one might screw up a piano to concert pitch, until the temperament was adjusted throughout. John Pye used to say that a perfect picture should be so complete in barmouy of accord, that if you were to put a light the size of a pin's head anywhere on the work, it would upset all the effect. It would be a curious experinient on moat of our modern paintings to try how large a light could be introduced without being lost
in the confusion already prevailing.
John Constable, ILA., used to cite as of special value to the
landscape-painter two wise saws which he received in early life from the lips of Benjamin West, though, as an artist, the Presi-
dent was certainly not fit to hold a pair of snuffers to him, or still less to the great masters of light of whom we are now speaking. 4' Always remember, Sir," said West, " that light and shadow never stand still ;" and "in your skies always aim at brightness, although there are states of the atmosphere in which the sky itself is not bright." The first of these sayings was accounted by Con- stable as the most practical lecture on chiaroscuro that he ever beard; the second is like unto it ; and each has its counterpart in the teaching of John Pye. To define the impression of light in which he most gloried, he had in constant use the last two words of Byron's description :- "Slow sinks, more lovely are his race be run, Along Morea's hills, the setting vim ; Not, as in Northern climes, obscurely bright, But one unclouded blaze of living light ! "
And again, when artists remarked that there was a great charm in a quiet grey effect without direct light,—" Yes," Pye would say, " but if you can paint light, you can easily subdue it."
In Pye's opinion, the one great aim in landscape art is to enable the spectator to see, as it were, into space ; " and this," he said, "" can only be done by a perfect knowledge of light." To gaiu this knowledge, he himself would lie for hours on Hampstead Heath, -studying the spaces, and the gradations required to express them. Although, however, a mastery of the principles of chiaroscuro thus 'involves assiduous study and full appreciation of the quality of light, and, so far, belongs to natural science as much as to Art, the artist's business does not cease, but only begins, with the acquisition of this scientific knowledge. Chiaroscuro, as an art, involves the use as well as the possession of the treasure thus -obtained. " Black-and-white," even in its higher sense of per- • fect translation of all the tones produced either by shade or colour, is but the machine-view of the subject ; while chiaroscuro is the view seen through the artist's mind, with equal truth as to pos- sible light and shade, but with an arrangement of consummate art, which will at once take the eye of the spectator to the -points of interest. This was what John Pye would call " govern- sment," and this be was for ever preaching to any young painter who was wise enough or modest enough to care to listen. " My 'friend William Havell used to say" (we quote from a letter of Mr. Pye's) " that the knowledge which Girtin and Turner had acquired of sunlight was so completely developed in their works, that it seemed to have been held in band and thrown into the :subject at pleasure." And this was with him a favourite idea.
Although it is impossible to sever the names of the two joint- workers, Turner and his translator John Pye, the title of the latter to be regarded as a great original artist is beyond question. 'There was often scope enough for the play of his own un- aided genius in his interpretation of the designs of other artists. The same unpromising kind of task, in the performance of which the English school of landscape was first formed, was sometimes set before Pye in the little topographical engravings, not two square inches in size, which it was formerly the fashion to publish in pocket-books. " I had often," he said, in reference to the uninteresting and incomplete drawings sent him to engrave, • " to make a silk purse out of a sow's ear." But this was rarely, if ever, the case with Haven's drawings, from which many df these luminous little gems are taken. Havell was a good artist, and one of the founders of the Water-colour School. But next to nature, Pye's greatest idol was his friend and patron, Turner. In speaking of him, the old man's voice would seem to alter to a tone of reverence, as towards a being somewhat above the race of man. But for all that, there is little doubt that Turner was much in- debted to Pye for his assistance and advice, and it is well known in what high estimation he held him as an engraver. In personal character, however, these two fellow-interpreters of light were nearly as different as light and darkness. Turner was close and chary of giving advice to other artists, and when asked to show some young painter how he pro- duced an effect, he said, surlily, " Do you think I am going to -cut my own throat ?" But Pye was ever willing to impart the lessons he had taught himself, and he had no secrets in his art. His great aim in life was to instil his true principles into others, and if any serious difference arose between him and his brother artists, they were generally to be traced to Pye's high-minded horror of the shop-element in his profession. It was in this generous desire to impart all the knowledge he could, that he sold to the British Museum his carefully-selected set of the Liter Studiorum, with proofs in different stages, his object being to give to all lovers of Art an opportunity of seeing the best works, without expense. He would often write to some young artist with whose painting he had been pleased in an exhibition, and invite him to come and talk with him about Art ; and he did much valuable service in this way, though there may have been students too headstrong to profit by, or even to accept his proffered advice. Living engravers would probably join in one chorus of acknowledgment of what they have learnt from John Pye, and among the many painters who have reaped the benefit of his advice, it may be sufficient to name the late Sir Edwin Landseer, as one who was always ready to allow the great assistance he derived therefrom. This may in some degree account for Landseer's paintings engraving so well, and contrasting as strongly as they do with the mass of pictures now-a-days, which are. not worth engraving at all, except for the sake of the incidents they portray. Unhappily, the influence of the engraver's upon the painter's art is not what it was in John Pye's day, or in that of the mezzotint men whom ho survived and succeeded. What influence there is comes from the manufacturers of woodcuts, and this is simply subversive of true Art ; destroying gradation, making completeness impossible; re- sulting in coarse work, hard outlines, and cutting edges ; and substituting fragments for pictures, and, for chiaroscuro, mere black and white. Pye used to say, " If the separate parts are too exclu- sively worked at, it is almost impossible that a picture should be complete as a whole. You should never work at one part separately, but at every touch see how it affects the whole." It is impossible to do this when a design is taken to pieces, as it is at the woodcut factories, and given piece-meal to half a dozen different cutters to work at. Instead of the engraver refining, as John Pye did, upon the work of the painter, we now see the painter actually abstaining from refined work in order to suit the mere mechanical convenience of the engraver.
We understand that all Mr. Pye's collection of pictures and engravings will come before the public at Christie's sale-rooms next May, and we advise all who care to see some of the most perfect landscape engravings that this country has ever produced to go there and examine those executed by Pye himself, with others by the most accomplished engravers of his time.
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