DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.68796#0168
148 Effect in the Arts of Form part ii
in oriental textiles, a feast of colour of the most delightful
kind without any hint of form. This cannot, however (see
§ iii), be held to constitute a form of painting as a fine
art. On the one hand the colours are not so subtly broken
and blended as in advanced oil painting, and on the other,
there is none of that representation of nature which is an
essential element in the graphic art. There are modern
painters, such as Monticelli, who execute studies in colour
with very little reference to the forms of nature. Here we
have colour artistically broken and blended and perhaps a
suggestion of nature, but the slightness of the suggestion pre-
cludes such works from ranking as fully developed painting.
§ 95. Texture in the Graphic Art.
The effect of texture in painting is a necessary adjunct
to the effect of mingled tone and colour that we enjoy in the
finest manifestations of the art. Texture, as it appears to
the eye, results from surface modulations of light-and-shade
so minute as to blend together in one single impression.
This effect can be rendered perfectly by a very skilful use
of the brush, achieving what Sir Charles Eastlake has
termed the combination of ‘ solidity of execution with
vivacity and graces of handling, the elasticity of surface
which depends on the due balance of sharpness and soft-
ness, the vigorous touch and the delicate marking—all sub-
servient to the truth of modelling.’1 When oil-pigment is
handled in this supreme fashion its own texture upon the
canvas is lovely and delightful. Alfred Stevens even
remarks that ‘ the execution of a fine piece of painting is
pleasing to the touch ’;2 even the way in which it cracks
reveals its quality.3 Painting which has in itself this
1 Materials for a History of Oil Painting, ii. p. 261.
2 Impressions sur la Peinture, Paris, 1886, No. cciv. 3 Ibid. No. xci.
in oriental textiles, a feast of colour of the most delightful
kind without any hint of form. This cannot, however (see
§ iii), be held to constitute a form of painting as a fine
art. On the one hand the colours are not so subtly broken
and blended as in advanced oil painting, and on the other,
there is none of that representation of nature which is an
essential element in the graphic art. There are modern
painters, such as Monticelli, who execute studies in colour
with very little reference to the forms of nature. Here we
have colour artistically broken and blended and perhaps a
suggestion of nature, but the slightness of the suggestion pre-
cludes such works from ranking as fully developed painting.
§ 95. Texture in the Graphic Art.
The effect of texture in painting is a necessary adjunct
to the effect of mingled tone and colour that we enjoy in the
finest manifestations of the art. Texture, as it appears to
the eye, results from surface modulations of light-and-shade
so minute as to blend together in one single impression.
This effect can be rendered perfectly by a very skilful use
of the brush, achieving what Sir Charles Eastlake has
termed the combination of ‘ solidity of execution with
vivacity and graces of handling, the elasticity of surface
which depends on the due balance of sharpness and soft-
ness, the vigorous touch and the delicate marking—all sub-
servient to the truth of modelling.’1 When oil-pigment is
handled in this supreme fashion its own texture upon the
canvas is lovely and delightful. Alfred Stevens even
remarks that ‘ the execution of a fine piece of painting is
pleasing to the touch ’;2 even the way in which it cracks
reveals its quality.3 Painting which has in itself this
1 Materials for a History of Oil Painting, ii. p. 261.
2 Impressions sur la Peinture, Paris, 1886, No. cciv. 3 Ibid. No. xci.