Dark-and-light has not been considered in school curricula, except in its limited application to representation. The study of “light and shade” has for its aim, not the creation of a beautiful idea in terms of contrasting masses of light and dark, but merely the accurate rendering of certain facts of nature,—hence is a scientific rather than an artistic exercise. The pupil who begins in this way will be embarrassed in advanced work by lack of experience in arranging and differentiating tones. Worse than that, it tends to cut him off from the appreciation of one whole class of great works of art. As in the case of Line, so again in this is manifest the narrowness and weakness of the scheme of nature-imitating as a foundation for art education. The Realistic standard always tends to the decay of art. The student in an academic school, feeling the necessity for a knowledge of Dark-and-Light when he begins to make original compositions, has usually but one resource, that of sketching the “spotting” as he calls it, of good designs and pictures—an excellent practice if followed intelligently. His difficulties may be overcome (1) by seeing that Notan is an element distinct from Line or Color; (2) by attempting its mastery in progressive stages leading to appreciation.

METHOD OF STUDY.

Line melts into Tone through the clustering of many lines. Direct study of tone-intervals begins with composition in two values—the simplest form of Notan. There may be several starting-points; one might begin by blotting ink or charcoal upon paper, by copying the darks and lights from photographs of masterpieces, or by making scales. Experience has shown that the straight-line design and the flat black ink wash are most satisfactory for earlier exercises in two values. Instead of black and white, or black and gray, one might use two grays of different values, or two values of one color (say light blue and dark blue) according to need. The aim being to understand Notan as something by which harmony may be created, it is best to avoid Representation at first. Notan must not be confounded with Light and Shade, Modelling or anything that refers to imitation of natural objects.

The beginner may imagine that not much can be done with flat black against flat white, but let him examine the decorative design of the world. He will find the black and white check and patterns derived from it, in old velvets of Japan, in the woven and printed textiles of all nations, in marble floors, inlaid boxes and architectural [pg 60]

[pg 61] ornament. The use of these two simple tones is as universal as Art itself. They appear in the black vine on the white marble floor of the Church of the Miracoli at Venice; on the wall of the Arabian Mosque, and the frieze of the Chinese temple. They have come into favor on book covers and page borders. Aubrey Beardsley went scarcely beyond them. R. Anning Bell and other artists have boldly carried them into pictorial work in the illustration of children's books.

These facts will show the beginner that no terms are too simple for artistic genius to use. Moreover a limited field often stimulates to greater inventive activity.

EXERCISE

Choose a simple line-design fine in proportion, and add to it this new kind of beauty,—as much of it as can be expressed by the extremes of Notan, black against white. It is apparent that we cannot reduce Dark-and-Light to simpler terms than these two values. The principle of Variation comes into this exercise with special force, for each line-design admits of several Notan arrangements. The student should be given at first a subject with few lines. Let him use one of his own (chapter V), or draw one from the instructor's sketch, but the essential point is to have his design as good as possible in space-proportion before adding the ink.

Make several tracings, then darken certain spaces with black. A round Japanese brush, short and thick, is best for this work. Nos. 43 and 44. Pupils should be warned against mistaking mere inventive action for art. The teacher must guide the young mind to perceive the difference between creating beautiful patterns, and mere fantastic play.

Those gifted with little aesthetic perception may go far astray in following the two-tone idea. It is very easy and somewhat fascinating to darken parts of designs with black ink. The late poster craze showed to what depth of vulgarity this can be carried. The pupil must be taught that all two-tone arrangements are not fine, and that the very purpose of this exercise is so to develop his appreciation that he may be able to tell the difference between the good, the commonplace, and the ugly. His only guides must be his own innate taste, and his instructor's experience.

FLOWER COMPOSITIONS TWO VALUES

Flowers, having great variety of line and proportion, are valuable, as well as convenient subjects for elementary composition. Their forms and colors have furnished themes for painters and sculptors since the beginning of Art, and the treatment has ranged from abstractions to extreme realism; from refinements of lotus-derived friezes to poppy and rose wall papers of the present time. In the exercise here suggested, there is no intention of making a design to apply to anything as decoration, hence there need be no question as to the amount of nature's truth to be introduced. The flower may be rendered realistically, as in some Japanese design, or reduced to an abstraction as in the Greek, without in the least affecting the purpose in view, namely, the setting of floral lines into a space in a fine way—forming a line-scheme on which may be played many notan-variations.

It is essential that the space should be cut by the main lines. (Subordination, page 23.) A small spray in the middle of a big oblong, or disconnected groups of flowers, cannot be called compositions all the lines and areas must be related one to another by connections and placings, so as to form a beautiful whole. Not a picture of a flower is sought,—that can be left to the botanist—but rather an irregular pattern of lines and spaces, something far beyond the mere drawing of of a flower from nature, and laying an oblong over it, or vice versa.

EXERCISE

The instructor chooses one of the best flower compositions done under Line, or draws a flower in large firm outlines on the blackboard, avoiding confusing detail, and giving the character as simply as possible. The pupil first copies the instructor's drawing, then he decides upon the shape into which to compose this subject—a square or rectangle will be best for the beginner. He makes several trial arrangements roughly, with pencil or charcoal. Having chosen the best of these, he improves and refines them, first on his trial paper, and later by tracing with brush and ink on thin Japanese [pg 63] paper. Effort must be concentrated on the arrangement, not on botanical correctness.

Many line compositions can be derived from one flower subject, but each of these can in turn be made the source of a great variety of designs by carrying the exercise farther, into the field of Dark-and-Light. Paint certain of the areas black, and at once a whole new series suggests itself, from a single line design. To the beauty of the line is added the beauty of opposing and intermingling masses of black and white; see below and p. 64.

In this part of the exercise the arrangement of shapes of light with shapes of dark, occupies the attention, rather than shading, or the rendering of shadows. Hence the flowers and leaves and stems, or parts of them, may be black or white, according to the feeling of the student. Let him choose out of his several drawings those which he considers best. The instructor can then criticise, pointing out the best and the worst, and explaining why they are so. A mere aimless or mechanical blackening of paper, without effort to arrange, will result in nothing of importance.

The examples show the variety of effects produced by flowers of different shapes, and the beauty resulting from schemes of Dark-and-Light in two values.

TEXTILE PATTERNS AND RUGS TWO VALUES

A line-scheme underlies every notan composition, and a notan-scheme underlies every color composition. The three elements have the closest relation one to another. For purposes of study, however, it is necessary to isolate each element, and even the separate principles of each.

In the present instance, Notan can be separated from Line by taking a line-design of acknowledged excellence and making many Notan variations of it; being sure of beauty of line, the only problem is to create beauty of tone. As this brings in historic art, let me note that the works of the past are best used, in teaching, as illustrations of composition, (p. 40).

While the knowledge of a “style” may have a commercial value, it has no art-value unless the designer can make original and fine variations of it, not imitations.

The first essential is to appreciate the quality of historic examples, hence the student should work from the objects themselves, from photographic copies, from tracings, or from casts. The commonplace lithographic plates and rude wood cuts in some books of design are useless for our purpose. They give no hint of the original. If the actual painting on an Egyptian mummy case is compared with a page of one of these books, the poor quality of the latter is instantly apparent. Chinese and Japanese “ornament” in most of such books is of a flamboyant and decadent sort. The facsimile copies of Greek vases usually belong in this same category.

EXERCISE

Choose a textile of the best period, say Italian of the XVth or XVIth century; copy or trace the line and play upon this several notan-schemes of two values. You will at once discover how superb the spacing is in these designs, but your main thought is the creation of new dark-and-light ideas upon the fine old pattern; p. 65.

The Oriental rug affords an excellent line-scheme for practice in notan. As composition it is a combination of two principles: Subordination and Repetition. Copying a part or the whole of some good rug—in line and color—is the best way to become aquainted with the spacing, motives and quality. Then design a rug with border and centre, the shapes to be pure inventions or symbols. Border and centre must differ, and there are many ways of doing this even in two values, for instance: Border: Black figures on white ground. Centre: White figures on black ground. Border: White figures on black ground. Centre: Black figures on white ground. Border: Small figures. Centre: One large figure. The illustrations, pp. 65, 66, give some idea of the possibilities of tone-composition in textiles and rugs. The exercise points to one good way of using museum collections and art books.