The Art Spirit By Robert Henri

1.

Mary Rogers’ approach to nature was purely a spiritual one. Her technique in every instance was evoked by the spirit of the things that she wished to express.

There are moments in our lives, there are moments in a day, when we seem to see beyond the usual—become clairvoyant. We reach then into reality. Such are the moments of our greatest happiness. Such are the moments of our greatest wisdom.

It is in the nature of all people to have these experiences; but in our time and under the conditions of our lives, it is only a rare few who are able to continue in the experience and find expression for it.

At such times there is a song going on within us, a song to which we listen. It fills us with surprise. We marvel at it. We would continue to hear it. But few are capable of holding themselves in the state of listening to their own song. Intellectuality steps in and as the song within us is of the utmost sensitiveness, it retires in the presence of the cold, material intellect. It is aristocratic and will not associate itself with the commonplace—and we fall back and become our ordinary selves. Yet we live in the memory of these songs which in moments of intellectual inadvertence have been possible to us. They are the pinnacles of our experience and it is the desire to express these intimate sensations, this song from within, which motivates the masters of all art.

Mary Rogers was one of those who had the simple power to listen to the song and to create under the spell of it. She knew the value of revelation and her spirit had that control over mentality which was the secret of her gift for employing at all times in her work that specific technique evoked by the song. She was master. Her work is a record of her life’s great moments.

Her statement is joyous and clear.*

*International Studio, May, 1921

2.

I want to see these houses solid, I want them to feel like houses. I don’t care about your drawing and your values—they are your affair. They will be good if you make me sense the houses and they will be bad, however “good” they are, if you do not make those houses live.

I want more than the outline of houses and I want more than the frames of windows. It is impossible for me to see only what the eye takes in, for the surfaces are only symbols. The look of a wall or a window is a look into time and space. The wall carries its history, what we see is not of the moment alone.

Windows are symbols. They are openings in. To draw a house is not to see and copy its lines and values, but to use them.

3.

At noonday the landscape is just as fine, just as mysterious and just as significant as it is at twilight.

By one with perception to grasp it there is as little seen of the unessential at noon as the obscurity of night can blot out from the casual observer.

It is true that obscurity may assist selection, may at times force it.

Perhaps we delight in evening because we have had the day.

It is seldom that the appearance of night can be produced by a very black drawing. The beauty of night is not so much in what you cannot see as in what you can see. It is a fine thing, after the brilliant reds and blues and yellows of daylight, to see the close harmony of evening and night. Night can be painted so that it will be beautiful and true with a palette that does not drop into black but has instead a surprising richness of tone.

4.

There is nothing in all the world more beautiful or significant of the laws of the universe than the nude human body. In fact it is not only among the artists but among all people that a greater appreciation and respect for the human body should develop. When we respect the nude we will no longer have any shame about it.

5.

The painting of hair. By the hair I mean the head or that part of the head which is under the hair—for in art hair is only important as hair after it has performed another very expressive function. The hair is used to give shape to the head. A beautifully shaped head with poor hair is more important to us than a poorly shaped head and beautiful hair. The hair is used to draw the head. Therefore the terms of hair should be very simple as befits the dignity of a well-shaped head. Hair also is a wonderful means of vitalization. That is, by a wise use of hair the spirit of a facial expression, or a whole body expression, may be greatly enhanced. The features of the face have an anatomical responsibility, they must be in their places; hair has a certain irresponsibility. It may of itself do many things. You can make a constructive use of it. It is a great instrument in the hands of a wise draftsman or a wise colorist. Perhaps you recall George Moore’s story how an Irish editor, Gill, whose beard was trimmed through the whim of a French barber to the style of Henry IV, developed a latent character along the line which his new appearance suggested.

Sometimes, is it not better to make a form turn by changing the color value rather than by changing the black and white value? I am not, however, one of those who totally repudiate black and white value in favor of color value. All the means that are possible are ours to use. Under some circumstances a change in black and white value produces the sense of a change in color. The constant hatching of new colors is the procedure of one who has become academic, who has a receipt. There are times to hold a note and there are times to change it. Some painters, addicted to the habit, change their notes with the ticking of the clock. It is all a matter of measures of silence, measures of noise, measures of color; some broad, expansive, and others quick and short, lines which move swiftly, fluently, softly, scratch, halt, jump—all kinds of lines for all kinds of purposes. The thing you have in hand is a construction. The means are used in the measures the subject demands. The value of a picture rests in its constructive beauty. Its story, the fact that it is about a man, a boy, a landscape, an event which transpires, is merely incidental to its creation. The real motive, the real thing attained is the revelation of what you can perceive beyond the fact.

In nature it is the delicate yet strong turn of the whole neck which occupies us. We merely sense the minor variations of form in the muscles and bones. Sometimes, however, the sterno-clido becomes the dominant interest. In a spirited movement of the head that muscle grips our whole attention because it is a great sign of will in the gesture. In such cases the rotundity of the neck—its sure solidity—must exist, but as a secondary consideration.

The wise draftsman brings forward what he can use most effectively to present his case. His case is his special interest—his special vision. He does not repeat nature.

In the sleeve there is an arm, well shaped, shoulder-joint, elbow, wrist-joints, a unified running movement through all; a gesture in perfect harmony with the head. The body is a solid. Like the arm but larger. Paint the drapery to make one know the dignity and the beauty of these shapes in their very largest sense. The collar must go around the neck, must tell of its trip around the beautiful form. The collar rests on the fullness of the shoulder and chest. Its function is to define the graciousness and the strength of these. Later it can be a collar, have its own incidental whims, but first of all it must accomplish its greater function. It had better define the human form even if it never gets to the point of being very much of a collar. The arm, even if the drapery looks so, must never become flat. The drapery must speak first of the shape, direction and the beautiful volumes of the arm. Drapery, like hair, is to be used—not copied; rhythms, echoes, continuations—not wrinkles for the sake of fact, but these things selected and used for their constructive value only.

When a fine dancer appears before you in a very significant gesture, you are caught only by the folds of her drapery which respond to the great will in her movement. She has established in you a trend of interest. What enters your vision is only the sequences of this established interest. When gamblers play in luck, when they continue to win, seem to have a knowledge of how the card will turn, they may be said to have fallen in with one of the courses nature takes. They do not know it, but there are sequences and sequences, untold numbers of them overlaying, intermingling. Every movement in nature is orderly, one thing the outcome of another, a matter of constructive, growing force. We live our lives in tune with nature when we are happy, and all our misery is the result of our effort to dictate against nature. In moments of great happiness we seem to be with the universe; when all is wrong we seem to be alone, disjointed. Things are going on without us.

The effect of sensing the gesture of the master dancer, hearing music, seeing the greater works of creative masters, is extension.

The art student of these days is a pioneer. He lives in a decidedly colorless, materialistic age. The human family has not yet come out of the woods. We were more barbarian, we are still barbarians. Sometimes in the past we shot ahead, in certain ways, ahead of where we are now. We gave flashes of what is possible in man. We have yet as a body to come up to the art of living. The art student of today must pioneer beyond the mere matters of fact.

There is nothing in the juggler’s skill of copying things. It is a question of seeing significances and apprehending the special forms and colors which will serve as building materials. A good picture is a well-built structure. There is material in the model before you for all kinds of structures. All these structures will be like the model, but beyond likeness there will be a manifestation of something more real, more related to all things, and more unique in itself. Infinite simplicity. A direct purpose and most exacting choice of the terms of expression. I believe the great artists of the future will use fewer words, copy fewer things, essays will be shorter in words and longer in meaning. There will be a battle against obscurity. Effort will be made to put everything plain, out in the open. By this means we will enter into the real mystery. There will be fewer things said and done, but each thing will be fuller and will receive fuller consideration. Now we waste. There is too much “Art,” too much “decoration,” too many things are made, too many amusements wasted. Not enough is fully considered.

We must paint only what is important to us, must not respond to outside demands. They do not know what they want, or what we have to give.

I think I have made it apparent that the model as he stands before you, however still he may appear to be, is not static.

During the time of posing he drifts through many moods.

While his body occupies practically the same place there is constant change. A flow runs through his body. The forms reorganize, new dominances occur.

Every emotion has its expression throughout the body. The door opens, someone comes into the room. The look of the eye has its correspondence in every part of the body. The model sinks into reverie, every gesture of the body, externally and internally, records it.

I refer you again to Rembrandt’s drawings. In them Rembrandt seems to have drawn states of being. He expressed with the flow of movement through forms which are in response to states of being. Hence the intimate life of his work.

6.

Solidity

If I hold any object up in front of you, you have a very positive sense of its solidity. Your estimate of it as a matter of bulk is, most likely, very exact. You have also a very fair judgment of its weight. You know about how far it is from your eyes and about how far it is from the background, and from any other objects in its vicinity.

If the object happens to be a human head you are highly sensitive to its progressions and regressions of form. Knowing heads so familiarly, you immediately remark any absences of the normal in its shape. If a head were only half thick through you would know it and you would be shocked by it. If it were flat it would horrify you. We are very appreciative of the solid. Yet, most paintings and most drawings produce the appearance of flatness. Backgrounds often crowd forward and take their places on the same plane with the head, and an ear will not stay back on the side of the head, but contests with the nose for first-plane prominence. Distances across the canvas are generally very nearly correct, but distances in, following the line of vision, hardly exist. It is a question to solve. The old sentimental idea that an artist does not use his brains prohibits an investigation, and as this old sentimental idea still holds great sway there are as yet only a comparative few who risk falling from the clouds by setting to work that dangerous and earth-earthy machine, the brain.

I have heard it very often said that an artist does not need intelligence, that his is the province of the soul. All very lovely, but heads painted by such artists are generally very flat and a great medium of expression is lost to them. They recognize and make much of the measures across their flat surfaces, but miss all the wonder of depth. If flat across the canvas there are to be found beautiful compositional measures, then deep in there are other measures, more mysterious and meaningful, and which complement the flat measures and make even these more beautiful.

If a man has the soul of an artist he needs a mastery of all the means of expression so that he may command them, for with his soul in activity he has much to say. If he refuses to use his brain to find the way to signify the meaningful depth of nature on his flat canvas with his colors, he should also refuse to use his hands and his brushes and his colors, and the canvas itself. However, all these, the canvas, paints, brushes, hands and brains are but tools to be guided by the soul of man. The brain can prove to be a wonderful tool, can be a willing slave, as has been evidenced by some men, but of course it works poorly when it has not the habit of usage. An automobile can become a source of delight, but the first time you drive you are as apt to go up a tree as to go up the road.

It seems absurd that one should argue the use of the brain in art or anything else, but absurd as it seems, there are yet excellent grounds for continuing the argument. Every day I am meeting someone who regards the advent of Jay Hambidge or Denman Ross, or Maratta or any student of the laws of nature in construction, as dangerous to our art. Indeed they are dangerous to art as it is today, for what they propose is that there should also be some common horse-sense along with a strengthening of the soul, and this may result in a considerable change. The whole fact is that art and science are so close akin that they might very well be lumped together. They are certainly necessary to each other and the delights of either pursuit should satisfy any man. I am naturally not speaking of commercial science or commercial art in saying this.

Well, suppose we use our brains. We see things solid. Solidities are important to us in nature. In solidities there are measures that greatly affect us. There are rhythms in the ins and outs of form. Music, the freest and to many the most impressive of arts deals in measures which seem to go in every direction. They combine, they move together, they deflect and they oppose. Music is a structure of highly mathematical measures. According to the selection and relative value of these measures the music is great or small in its effect on us.

The mind is a tool, it is either clogged, bound, rusty, or it is a clear way to and from the soul. An artist should not be afraid of his tools. He should not be afraid to know.

If the painting appears flat, if only the crosswise measures are of value, if the measures in are nonexpressive, then it is time to investigate; to use the mind, to experiment, to find a way, with flat paint on a flat canvas, to use this third dimension so that the mysterious fourth may be sighted.

I am certain that we do deal in an unconscious way with another dimension than the well-known three. It does not matter much to me now if it is the fourth dimension or what its number is, but I know that deep in us there is always a grasp of proportions which exist over and through the obvious three, and it is by this power of super-proportioning that we reach the inner meaning of things.

A piece of sculpture, a painting or the gesture of a hand may have all the simple measurements, but the artist may have so handled these as to make us apprehend quite others. The Sphinx is a demonstration of this. The great Greek and Chinese art and in fact art everywhere and at all times has to greater or less degree demonstrated this. Everywhere there are glimmers of it in all art, in all expression. Isadora Duncan, who is perhaps one of the greatest masters of gesture the world has ever seen, carries us through a universe in a single movement of her body. Her hand alone held aloft becomes a shape of infinite significance. Yet her gesture in fact can only be the stretch of arm or the stride of a normal human body.

What measures are apprehended in the glance of an eye?

If then our pictures are flat and lacking in the approach to significant dimensions, would it not be well to investigate our means? First, there must be the will for it. The absolute need for solidity must be felt before solidity can be attained.

Painters, through thought and study and association with their brothers, the scientists, have learned the power of color values in form modeling, and they have added this power to black and white values. If you look at a Sung period drawing you will see that the Chinese master has effected a tremendous solidity in the use of a line.

If you want to know how to do a thing you must first have a complete desire to do that thing. Then go to kindred spirits—others who have wanted to do that thing—and study their ways and means, learn from their successes and failures and add your quota. Thus you may acquire from the experience of the race. And with this technical knowledge you may go forward, expressing through the play of forms the music that is in you and which is very personal to you.

Receipts are for slaves.