Originality Comes from the Soul

Hi John,

We've published a few things from Thomas Couture and today's selection won't disappoint.

His thoughts on not letting others' negativity hold you back still hold true today.

Enjoy,

BoldBrush Studio Team

Originality Comes from the Soul

Thomas Couture was a history painter, thinker, and educator working in France during the second half of the 19th century. He ran a private atelier where many influential artists studied, including Édouard Manet, Henri Fantin-Latour, John La Farge, and Puvis de Chavannes. A talented educator and communicator, he also wrote a book setting forth his techniques and philosophy of art, translated into English as Conversations on Art Methods in 1879. Conversational and charmingly direct, his book is full of useful information even for today's art student, and is well worth the read (it's entertaining too!). Now in the public domain, you can read it online here - below is an excerpt from his chapter on originality:

DO not listen to those who say to you, 'These rules are useless, and even hurtful to those who have originality.'

There are not two ways of painting, there is but one, which has always been employed by those who understand the art.

Knowing how to paint and to use one's colors rightly, has not any connection with originality.

This originality consists in properly expressing your own impressions. Take for example the most personal and original: Raphael, Rubens, Rembrandt, Watteau; these four great names are sufficient to make you understand.

RAPHAEL.

Raphael expresses beauty in its sweetest form; he embellishes youth in such a way that it captivates us. Everything in his pictures is represented in the springtime of life; men, women, flowers; all are young; elegance, gracefulness, purity, simplicity of lines. This beautiful flesh, firm and round on the slender forms, the reserved bearing, this reminder of the flower which is opening, but not yet fully blown; the green turf enameled with marguerites, the shrubs ornamented with small leaves, showing themselves against the pure morning sky; all is born, all breathes, but has not yet lived. All is perfect with this truly divine painter; here is life without its wear; this is what I wish you to feel, and what gives to the works of Raphael an angelic aspect.

You see he does more than copy, he chooses first, he develops afterwards, then he throws aside all that is not in the domain of youthful beauty; this is what makes his style and originality.

RUBENS.

Rubens loves grandeur and richness above all things. Nature is for him a bouquet of brilliant flowers. His love of red shows itself in all his pictures.

Of a temperament sanguine and strong, his paintings give the idea of a colossus of health. His genius is very great, but it deals only with matter. He inundates his canvas with all the richness of the earth; flowers, fruits, gold, ermine, purple, and light, light, everywhere.

In this magnificence he represents all passions, and all sentiments; youth, love, war, suffering, pleasure, torture, triumph ; he throws all together liberally, a little pell mell, but with admirable energy, and covers all with a slight mantle of purple. This is Rubens.

REMBRANDT.

His is a very different genius from Raphael's, but not less grand; he has the rare gift of never fatiguing you. A profound observer and thinker, he is sad and sombre; it pleases him, to picture man fatigued, tired of life. If Raphael represents man as he comes from the hand of the Creator, Rembrandt, on the contrary shows him to us in a state of wreck, in human rags. The face drawn by suffering, the wrinkles, the eyes full of tears; nothing escapes him; then profound and mysterious shadows envelope all this sadness. Rubens might make an execution cheerful or at least embellish it: Rembrandt saddens all joy and gayety; he is a profound misanthrope; his work takes the impress of what fills his soul; solemn as those who suffer, he seems to paint with tears and with shadow. . . .Not a color, not a flower, a simple ray to brighten the face. But what a head and what eyes! It is life itself; it frightens us and overthrows the idea we have of art; for here there is not development, interpretation, nothing of that, it is simply truth.

This wonderful genius is a mystery. In his depths what intensity! I cannot explain, only admire.

WATTEAU

Is the painter of gallantry, of fickle love. All is amiable in him; his pictures have no angles, his trees are flowing like silky feathers, his colors tender and fleeting. Like the sentiments he represents, nothing is serious and all is charming, all is caressing ; a simple ribbon on the grass, made by this painter, sings of love.

Now I wish to convince you, that the manner of painting, has nothing to do with what constitutes originality. Watteau paints like Rubens; the same freedom, the same methods, and yet we never confound Rubens with Watteau. Van Dyck follows the manner of his master, but his reserved elegance, his grand feminine peculiarities make him an eminently original painter. Rembrandt has, much more than is generally believed, the same manner of working as Rubens.

Let us resume.

There is no manner of working which will give us originality, that comes from the soul.

The artist who feels intensely, throws the love which fills him, into his composition and execution; this is what we call style, and his thought is called originality.

Eager to Learn More?

The BoldBrush Studio Blog is a great way to learn more about art and art history. If you'd like to read other interviews and posts showing great artists and their stories, please click the button below.

BoldBrush Videos are available for unlimited streaming. This is a DIGITAL CONTENT ONLY product. You will not receive a DVD.