DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.75271#0064
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Of COMPOSITION.
THIS is putting together, for the advantage of the whole, what
ssiall be judged proper to be the several parts of a pidure; and
if need be, of adding something for the common benefit: and more-
over, the determination of the painter, as to certain attitudes, and
colours which are otherwise indifferent.
Every pidure should be so contrived, as that at a distance, when
one cannot discern what figures there are, or what they are doing ;
it should appear to be composed of two, or more great masses,
lighter, and darker, the forms of which must be agreeable to the
eye, of whatsoever they consist, ground, trees, draperies, figures,
&c. and the whole together should be sweet and delightful, lovely
shapes and colours, without a name; of which there is infinite
variety.
Sometimes one mass of light is upon a dark ground, and then the
extremities of the light must not be too near the edges of the pic-
ture, and its greatest strength must be towards the centre; as in the
descent from the cross, and the dead Christ, both of Rubens, and of
both which there are prints, one by Vosterman, and the other by
Pontius.
I have a painting of the holy family, by Rubens, of this strudure ;
where, because the mass of light in one part would else have gone
off too abruptly, and have made a less pleasing figure, he has set
the foot of St. Elizabeth on a little stool; here the light catches,
and spreads the mass so as to have the desired effed. Such another
artifice, Rafaelle has used in a Madonna, of which I have a copy;
he has brought in a kind of an ornament to a chair, for no other end
(that I can imagine) but to form the mass agreeably.
Van
Of COMPOSITION.
THIS is putting together, for the advantage of the whole, what
ssiall be judged proper to be the several parts of a pidure; and
if need be, of adding something for the common benefit: and more-
over, the determination of the painter, as to certain attitudes, and
colours which are otherwise indifferent.
Every pidure should be so contrived, as that at a distance, when
one cannot discern what figures there are, or what they are doing ;
it should appear to be composed of two, or more great masses,
lighter, and darker, the forms of which must be agreeable to the
eye, of whatsoever they consist, ground, trees, draperies, figures,
&c. and the whole together should be sweet and delightful, lovely
shapes and colours, without a name; of which there is infinite
variety.
Sometimes one mass of light is upon a dark ground, and then the
extremities of the light must not be too near the edges of the pic-
ture, and its greatest strength must be towards the centre; as in the
descent from the cross, and the dead Christ, both of Rubens, and of
both which there are prints, one by Vosterman, and the other by
Pontius.
I have a painting of the holy family, by Rubens, of this strudure ;
where, because the mass of light in one part would else have gone
off too abruptly, and have made a less pleasing figure, he has set
the foot of St. Elizabeth on a little stool; here the light catches,
and spreads the mass so as to have the desired effed. Such another
artifice, Rafaelle has used in a Madonna, of which I have a copy;
he has brought in a kind of an ornament to a chair, for no other end
(that I can imagine) but to form the mass agreeably.
Van