DOI Heft:
No. 285 (December 1916)
DOI Artikel:The lay figure: on discretion in colour
DOI Seite / Zitierlink: https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.24575#0170
The Lay Figure
THE LAY FIGURE: ON
DISCRETION IN COLOUR.
" I wish our decorators would pay more
attention to the management of colour," said the
Art Critic. " Colour is a very important factor in
design and the use of it is subject to certain rules
which ought to be studied and respected."
" Rules again ! How you do harp on rules .' "
cried the Young Artist. " Why must we always be
hedged round by restrictions and limitations ? "
" Because without what you call restrictions and
limitations there can be neither coherence nor
order," returned the Critic. " Without rules Art
lapses into anarchy and becomes entirely unstable.
Its meaning goes and its purpose disappears."
" But how can colour ever be subject to rules ? "
asked the Young Artist. " It is an emotion, and
the expression of it is wholly personal. You
cannot regulate emotions by red tape."
" If our emotions were not restrained by laws
and regulations the world would be a funny place
to live in," laughed the Man with the Red Tie.
" I do believe in liberty : but I think all the same
that if we were all to give way to our emotions
without any check whatever the result would be
anarchy in its most unpleasant form."
" Yes, and in Art the result would be the
destruction of all standards of accomplishment,"
agreed the Critic. " A purely emotional Art would
be as impossible as a purely emotional condition
of society. It would express nothing but the
momentary sentiment of the artist, and would be
cut off entirely from all tradition and principle."
" That is all very well," protested the Young
Artist; "but it seems to me that you are denying
all scope to individuality. If everyone is to work
by rule there is no chance for fresh ideas and
there is no possibility of progress."
" There are some kinds of individuality that are
better suppressed," suggested the Man with the
Red Tie. "I am grateful sometimes for the rules
which put the ideas of certain artists outside the
pale. I should be sorry to see some men I could
name permitted to make Art what they think it
ought to be."
" Exactly ! That is just the point," declared the
Critic. "The individuality of the master is a thing
to welcome and enjoy ; but strangely enough it is
always the master who is most scrupulous in his
respect for rules : it is in the way he applies them
that his individuality is most triumphantly dis-
played. It is the small man, the bungler and the
crank, who finds rules irksome and thinks that
160
eccentricity is the only possible expression of
individuality."
" Yet even the small man may have a distinct
colour emotion, and I cannot see why he should
not be allowed to express it," argued the Young
Artist. " Why should he suppress his emotion to
please people who are less sensitive than he is ? "
" If he has a real colour emotion, a definite
colour sense, and a knowledge of the way in which
it should be used, I should say that in that respect
at all events he ceased to be a small man," broke
in the Man with the Red Tie.
" There you are right," agreed the Critic.
" The man with a definite colour sense and the
knowledge how to use it would always have a claim
to consideration, and the emotion by which he was
guided would have its measure of greatness. But
a man like that would not defy sane rules, his
instinct would keep him in the right track."
" Then what are you afraid of ?" demanded the
Young Artist. " If these men have such sound
instincts, why will you not let them alone ? "
" I am quite content to leave alone anyone who
can be trusted," replied the Critic. "My objections
are to the men who, having no sound instincts,
claim that their extravagances represent a genuine
emotion. This type of artist thinks that he can
best prove his originality by offending the taste of
all people who are more sensitive than he is, and
by breaking all the laws of colour management
that the masters observe. If you object to his
blatancy he whines at once about your want of
respect for his individuality and about your in-
capacity to appreciate a new point of view, when
really your only desire is to evolve some order out
of the chaos that he seeks to force upon you."
" But are there many artists of that sort ?" asked
the Young Artist.
"Yes, far too many," said the Critic. " If you
look round the work that is being done at the
present time you will find that a vast amount
of it is either wilfully aggressive and unpleasant
or is merely an evasion of colour—it is either
offensively vulgar and inharmonious or unpleasantly
dull and depressing. There is little discretion in
the use of colour, little understanding of the science
of arrangement, and little study of subtleties of
combination. And as in decoration particularly
the right management of colour is of supreme im-
portance, all forms of decorative art are, as a
consequence, suffering very seriously. Moreover,
I see no hope of improvement until our decorative
artists learn that undisciplined emotion is a curse
rather than a blessing." The Lay Figure.
THE LAY FIGURE: ON
DISCRETION IN COLOUR.
" I wish our decorators would pay more
attention to the management of colour," said the
Art Critic. " Colour is a very important factor in
design and the use of it is subject to certain rules
which ought to be studied and respected."
" Rules again ! How you do harp on rules .' "
cried the Young Artist. " Why must we always be
hedged round by restrictions and limitations ? "
" Because without what you call restrictions and
limitations there can be neither coherence nor
order," returned the Critic. " Without rules Art
lapses into anarchy and becomes entirely unstable.
Its meaning goes and its purpose disappears."
" But how can colour ever be subject to rules ? "
asked the Young Artist. " It is an emotion, and
the expression of it is wholly personal. You
cannot regulate emotions by red tape."
" If our emotions were not restrained by laws
and regulations the world would be a funny place
to live in," laughed the Man with the Red Tie.
" I do believe in liberty : but I think all the same
that if we were all to give way to our emotions
without any check whatever the result would be
anarchy in its most unpleasant form."
" Yes, and in Art the result would be the
destruction of all standards of accomplishment,"
agreed the Critic. " A purely emotional Art would
be as impossible as a purely emotional condition
of society. It would express nothing but the
momentary sentiment of the artist, and would be
cut off entirely from all tradition and principle."
" That is all very well," protested the Young
Artist; "but it seems to me that you are denying
all scope to individuality. If everyone is to work
by rule there is no chance for fresh ideas and
there is no possibility of progress."
" There are some kinds of individuality that are
better suppressed," suggested the Man with the
Red Tie. "I am grateful sometimes for the rules
which put the ideas of certain artists outside the
pale. I should be sorry to see some men I could
name permitted to make Art what they think it
ought to be."
" Exactly ! That is just the point," declared the
Critic. "The individuality of the master is a thing
to welcome and enjoy ; but strangely enough it is
always the master who is most scrupulous in his
respect for rules : it is in the way he applies them
that his individuality is most triumphantly dis-
played. It is the small man, the bungler and the
crank, who finds rules irksome and thinks that
160
eccentricity is the only possible expression of
individuality."
" Yet even the small man may have a distinct
colour emotion, and I cannot see why he should
not be allowed to express it," argued the Young
Artist. " Why should he suppress his emotion to
please people who are less sensitive than he is ? "
" If he has a real colour emotion, a definite
colour sense, and a knowledge of the way in which
it should be used, I should say that in that respect
at all events he ceased to be a small man," broke
in the Man with the Red Tie.
" There you are right," agreed the Critic.
" The man with a definite colour sense and the
knowledge how to use it would always have a claim
to consideration, and the emotion by which he was
guided would have its measure of greatness. But
a man like that would not defy sane rules, his
instinct would keep him in the right track."
" Then what are you afraid of ?" demanded the
Young Artist. " If these men have such sound
instincts, why will you not let them alone ? "
" I am quite content to leave alone anyone who
can be trusted," replied the Critic. "My objections
are to the men who, having no sound instincts,
claim that their extravagances represent a genuine
emotion. This type of artist thinks that he can
best prove his originality by offending the taste of
all people who are more sensitive than he is, and
by breaking all the laws of colour management
that the masters observe. If you object to his
blatancy he whines at once about your want of
respect for his individuality and about your in-
capacity to appreciate a new point of view, when
really your only desire is to evolve some order out
of the chaos that he seeks to force upon you."
" But are there many artists of that sort ?" asked
the Young Artist.
"Yes, far too many," said the Critic. " If you
look round the work that is being done at the
present time you will find that a vast amount
of it is either wilfully aggressive and unpleasant
or is merely an evasion of colour—it is either
offensively vulgar and inharmonious or unpleasantly
dull and depressing. There is little discretion in
the use of colour, little understanding of the science
of arrangement, and little study of subtleties of
combination. And as in decoration particularly
the right management of colour is of supreme im-
portance, all forms of decorative art are, as a
consequence, suffering very seriously. Moreover,
I see no hope of improvement until our decorative
artists learn that undisciplined emotion is a curse
rather than a blessing." The Lay Figure.