10. Relation
THE other day at coffee with a group of young painters I talked upon the importance ofrelation. I went so far as to say that no picture could have any sense of dignity without the quality I have named. Everything in the work should, in some special degree, contribute to the first idea. Nothing should be introduced for the sake of variety. No; it is better to letsamenessbe the principle.
I have seen sheep grazing in a meadow with all their heads turnedone way, all quietly pursuing the same course, as though led by a sympathetic spirit, and I have felt that the peace of all the pastures was undisturbed by their presence. I once saw a group of rustics with all their faces so nearly alike as to represent a distinct type; all bent upon the same work, pursuing the task with natural ease and unconscious order, and I felt the nobility of their occupation, the blessedness of labour. And when I have seen such people kneel before the crucifix with their heads bowed towards the east and have noted from behind the simplicity in their manners, thesamenessin all their clothes, I have felt the fervour of their religion, the divinityof poverty that makes them all unconsciouslyrelative!
But if I want humour I get into a motor-bus and watch the mixed types, the short and the long, the fat and the thin, the hook nose and the snub; and I get it. But does not the motor-bus show the painter the confusion of ideas he must always avoid in his work?
I sometimes think there is humour in trees when cultivated by people who, from an insatiate love of variety, plant one of every kind around their lawns. No artist, unless he was mad, would record such a confusion of things as this.
Of a truth trees can only be painted by the sympathetic hand, one that canmake a simple group out of all around him, selecting only those that, by their forms, shall contribute to the artistic senserelation! In a word, the painter must never aim for likeness; the material sense should never be transferred to canvas: more than anything else trees have superb rhythmic tendencies: inspired by these, he should paint a rhythmic picture.