The Art Spirit

By Robert Henri and Margery A. Ryerson

"I would give anything to have come by this book years ago. It is in my opinion comparable only to the notes of Leonardo and Sir Joshua . . . One of the finest voices which express the philosophy of modern men in painting." — George Bellows
A well-respected American artist, Robert Henri was also a gifted and influential teacher who attracted a large and devoted group of disciples. The Art Spirit, compiled by one of his former students, offers an unparalleled record of Henri's thoughts and theories. Essays, lectures, and notes not only embody the practical techniques of his approach to painting, but also articulate his belief that the joy and wisdom of the creative process are vital and accessible to everyone.
The Art Spirit presents the entire system of Henri's teaching, complete with technical advice and critical comments, and will appeal to readers who delight in all forms of the arts. This classic guide offers information and inspiration for students, teachers, and professionals.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Dover Publications
• Release date: Feb 13, 2019
• ISBN: 9780486837635

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Robert Henri

Compiled by

Margery A. Ryerson

DOVER PUBLICATIONS, INC.

Mineola, New York

Bibliographical Note

This Dover edition, first published in 2019, is an unabridged republication of the work originally published by J. B. Lippincott Company, Philadelphia and New York, in 1923.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Henri, Robert, 1865-1929, author. | Ryerson, Margery, editor.

Title: The art spirit / Robert Henri ; compiled by Margery A. Ryerson.

Description: Mineola, New York : Dover Publications, Inc., 2019. | This Dover edition, first published in 2019, is an unabridged republication of the work originally offered by J. B. Lippincott Company, Philadelphia and New York, in 1923.

Identifiers: LCCN 2018011855| ISBN 9780486826738 | ISBN 0486826732

Subjects: LCSH: Art.

Classification: LCC N7445.2 .H46 2019 | DDC 700—dc23

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2018011855

Manufactured in the United States by LSC Communications

82673201 2019

www.doverpublications.com

CONTENTS

Foreword by the Author

Notes, Articles, Fragments of Letters and Talks to Students

Notes Taken by M. R. from Robert Henri's Criticisms and Class Talks

Index

Foreword by the Author

MANY students have asked for this book, and that is the reason the fragments which are its composition have been brought together. No effort has been made toward the form of a regular book. In fact the opinions are presented more as paintings are hung on the wall, to be looked at at will and taken as rough sketches for what they are worth. If they have a suggestive value and stimulate to independent thought they will attain the object of their presentation. There are many repeats throughout the work, many times the same subject is taken up and viewed from a different angle or seen in relation to other matters. At the end there is a complete index which will make up for the absence of chapters and sections and the general scarcity of headings. There is no idea that anyone should agree with any of the comments or that anyone should follow the advice given. If they irritate to activity in a quite different direction it will be just as well. The subject is beauty—or happiness, and man's approach to it is various.

R. H.

June, 1923

¶ There are moments in our lives, there are moments in a day, when we seem to see beyond the usual. Such are the moments of our greatest happiness. Such are the moments of our greatest wisdom. If one could but recall his vision by some sort of sign. It was in this hope that the arts were invented. Sign-posts on the way to what may be. Sign-posts toward greater knowledge.

ROBERT HENRI

¶ART when really understood is the province of every human being.

It is simply a question of doing things, anything, well. It is not an outside, extra thing.

When the artist is alive in any person, whatever his kind of work may be, he becomes an inventive, searching, daring, self-expressing creature. He becomes interesting to other people. He disturbs, upsets, enlightens, and he opens ways for a better understanding. Where those who are not artists are trying to close the book, he opens it, shows there are still more pages possible.

The world would stagnate without him, and the world would be beautiful with him; for he is interesting to himself and he is interesting to others. He does not have to be a painter or sculptor to be an artist. He can work in any medium. He simply has to find the gain in the work itself, not outside it.

Museums of art will not make a country an art country. But where there is the art spirit there will be precious works to fill museums. Better still, there will be the happiness that is in the making. Art tends towards balance, order, judgment of relative values, the laws of growth, the economy of living—very good things for anyone to be interested in.

¶THE work of the art student is no light matter. Few have the courage and stamina to see it through. You have to make up your mind to be alone in many ways. We like sympathy and we like to be in company. It is easier than going it alone. But alone one gets acquainted with himself, grows up and on, not stopping with the crowd. It costs to do this. If you succeed somewhat you may have to pay for it as well as enjoy it all your life.

Cherish your own emotions and never undervalue them.

We are not here to do what has already been done.

I have little interest in teaching you what I know. I wish to stimulate you to tell me what you know. In my office toward you I am simply trying to improve my own environment.

Know what the old masters did. Know how they composed their pictures, but do not fall into the conventions they established. These conventions were right for them, and they are wonderful. They made their language. You make yours. They can help you. All the past can help you.

¶AN ART student must be a master from the beginning; that is, he must be master of such as he has. By being now master of such as he has there is promise that he will be master in the future.

A work of art which inspires us comes from no quibbling or uncertain man. It is the manifest of a very positive nature in great enjoyment, and at the very moment the work was done.

It is not enough to have thought great things before doing the work. The brush stroke at the moment of contact carries inevitably the exact state of being of the artist at that exact moment into the work, and there it is, to be seen and read by those who can read such signs, and to be read later by the artist himself, with perhaps some surprise, as a revelation of himself.

For an artist to be interesting to us he must have been interesting to himself. He must have been capable of intense feeling, and capable of profound contemplation.

He who has contemplated has met with himself, is in a state to see into the realities beyond the surfaces of his subject. Nature reveals to him, and, seeing and feeling intensely, he paints, and whether he wills it or not each brush stroke is an exact record of such as he was at the exact moment the stroke was made.

¶THE sketch hunter has delightful days of drifting about among people, in and out of the city, going anywhere, everywhere, stopping as long as he likes—no need to reach any point, moving in any direction following the call of interests. He moves through life as he finds it, not passing negligently the things he loves, but stopping to know them, and to note them down in the shorthand of his sketchbook, a box of oils with a few small panels, the fit of his pocket, or on his drawing pad. Like any hunter he hits or misses. He is looking for what he loves, he tries to capture it. It's found anywhere, everywhere. Those who are not hunters do not see these things. The hunter is learning to see and to understand—to enjoy.

There are memories of days of this sort, of wonderful driftings in and out of the crowd, of seeing and thinking. Where are the sketches that were made? Some of them are in dusty piles, some turned out to be so good they got frames, some became motives for big pictures, which were either better or worse than the sketches, but they, or rather the states of being and understandings we had at the time of doing them all, are sifting through and leaving their impress on our whole work and life.

¶DONT worry about the rejections. Everybody that's good has gone through it. Don't let it matter if your works are not accepted at once. The better or more personal you are the less likely they are of acceptance. Just remember that the object of painting pictures is not simply to get them in exhibitions. It is all very fine to have your pictures hung, but you are painting for yourself, not for the jury. I had many years of rejections.

Do some great work, Son! Don't try to paint good landscapes. Try to paint canvases that will show how interesting landscape looks to you—your pleasure in the thing. Wit.

There are lots of people who can make sweet colors, nice tones, nice shapes of landscape, all done in nice broad and intelligent-looking brushwork.

Courbet showed in every work what a man he was, what a head and heart he had.

Every student should put down in some form or other his findings. All any man can hope to do is to add his fragment to the whole. No man can be final, but he can record his progress, and whatever he records is so much done in the thrashing out of the whole thing. What he leaves is so much for others to use as stones to step on or stones to avoid.

The student is not an isolated force. He belongs to a great brotherhood, bears great kinship to his kind. He takes and he gives. He benefits by taking and he benefits by giving.

¶THROUGH art mysterious bonds of understanding and of knowledge are established among men. They are the bonds of a great Brotherhood. Those who are of the Brotherhood know each other, and time and space cannot separate them.

The Brotherhood is powerful. It has many members. They are of all places and of all times. The members do not die. One is member to the degree that he can be member, no more, no less. And that part of him that is of the Brotherhood does not die.

The work of the Brotherhood does not deal with surface events. Institutions on the world surface can rise and become powerful and they can destroy each other. Statesmen can put patch upon patch to make things continue to stand still. No matter what may happen on the surface the Brotherhood goes steadily on. It is the evolution of man. Let the surface destroy itself, the Brotherhood will start it again. For in all cases, no matter how strong the surface institutions become, no matter what laws may be laid down, what patches may be made, all change that is real is due to the Brotherhood.

¶IF THE artist is alive in you, you may meet Greco nearer than many people, also Plato, Shakespeare, the Greeks.

In certain books—some way in the first few paragraphs you know that you have met a brother.

You pass people on the street, some are for you, some are not.

Here is a sketch by Leonardo da Vinci. I enter this sketch and I see him at work and in trouble and I meet him there.

Letter to the Class, Art Students League, 1915:

¶AN INTEREST in the subject; something you want to say definitely about the subject; this is the first condition of a portrait. The processes of painting spring from this interest, this definite thing to be said. Completion does not depend on material representation. The work is done when that special thing has been said. The artist starts with an opinion, he organizes the materials, from which and with which he draws, to the expression of that opinion. Every material he employs has become significant of his emotion. The things have no longer their dead meaning but have become living parts of a coördination. A prejudice has existed for the things useful for the expression of this special idea, only things essential to this idea have been used. Nature is there before you. A particular line has been taken through nature. A special and particular vision is making itself clear. The lace on the lady's sleeve is no longer lace, it is part of her, and in the picture stands as a symbol of her refinement and her delicacy. The color in her cheek is no longer a spot of red, but is the culminating note of an order which runs through every part of the canvas signifying her sensitiveness and her health.

To start with a deep impression, the best, the most interesting, the deepest you can have of the model; to preserve this vision throughout the work; to see nothing else; to admit of no digression from it; choosing only from the model the signs of it; will lead to an organic work. Every element in the picture will be constructive, constructive of an idea, expressive of an emotion. Every factor in the painting will have beauty because in its place in the organization it is doing its living part. It will be living line, living form, living color. Because of its adjustment, it is given its greatest power of expansion. It is only through a sense of the right relation of things that freedom can be obtained.

As different as ideas and emotions are, there can be no set rule laid down for the making of pictures, but for students found working in a certain line suggestions may be made. There is a certain common sense in procedure which may be basic for all, and there are processes safe to suggest, if only to be used as points of departure, to those who have not already developed a satisfying use of their materials.

It is on this ground that I offer you the following: With your model posing as he does in the same position every day of a week you have choice of differing modes of study, and it is up to you to decide well which will be the most profitable, which will carry you further. Some will work the entire week on the same canvas and others will find it an advantage to make an entirely new start every day, preserving as far as possible the canvases of the early days to compare with the work in hand, and making these comparisons, sitting in judgment on them and coming to decision as to what to do next. Some will find it advisable to start a canvas number one on the first day, and a canvas number two on the second, and alternating these two canvases for the rest of the week, they will in a sort of duel teach each other much. I myself have found it useful to work on two canvases, alternating them with every rest of the model. One does not sleep in this kind of work, there is an excitement in it that can improve the sometimes dying energies in a classroom in the later days of the week. Every mode has its virtues and its vices, but the student who is a student and attending to his own case will in the mode just described crowd into a week a lot of experience in commencing a work, and he will come to a very great knowledge of his understanding and his possible visions of the subject. The value of repeated studies of beginnings of a painting cannot be over-estimated. Those who cannot begin do not finish.

And for all who continue to work on the same canvas let me suggest that your struggle throughout the week should be to perfect the beginning of your painting. If you are thinking and seeing your own work and the work about you, you must observe how general is the failure in the progress of works. The fact is, finish cannot be separated from a perfect commencement.

Insist then, on the beauty of form and color to be obtained from the composition of the largest masses, the four or five large masses which cover your canvas. Let these above all things have fine shapes, have fine colors. Let them be as meaningful of your subject as they possibly can be. It is wonderful how much real finish can be obtained through them, how much of gesture and modeling can be obtained through their contours, what satisfactions can be obtained from their fine measures in area, color and value. Most students and most painters in fact rush over this; they are in a hurry to get on to other matters, minor matters.

In dealing with these four or five masses in portraiture, the mass of the face is the most important and should be considered as principal to the other masses, even though the other masses be more brilliant or striking in themselves. Also the mass of the head should be considered as principal to any feature of the head. The beauty of the larger mass is primary to and is essential to the lesser mass.

Paint over and over, scrape and re-commence in your effort to find out and establish the beauty of color and design possible in the larger masses. When you scrape, do it like a good mechanic. Paint thin over proper light surfaces, but paint either thin or thick to get your desired effect. Permit no hurrying on to the lesser masses before all has been done that is possible with the larger masses.

Determine to get in these larger masses all that is possible of completion, all the drawing, color, design, character, construction, effect. Remember that the greatest beauty can be expressed through these masses, that the distinction of the whole canvas depends on them.

When later you come to the painting of the features of the face, consider well the feature's part in relation to the idea you have to express. It will not be so much a question of painting that nose as it will be painting the expression of that nose. All the features are concerned in one expression which manifests the state of mind or the condition of the sitter.

No feature should be started until you have fully comprehended its character and have established in your mind the manner of its full accomplishment. To stop in the process of drawing the lines of a feature to inquire what next is surely to leave a record of disconnection.

No feature should be drawn except in its relation to the others. There is a dominating movement through all the features. There is sequence in their relationship. There is sequence in the leading lines of the features with the movements of the body. This spirit of related movement is very important in the drawing or painting of hair. Hair is beautiful in itself, this should not be forgotten, but it is the last position of importance it takes in the make-up of a portrait. The hair must draw the grace and dignity—perhaps the brains—of the head. The lights on the hair must be used to stress the construction, to vitalize, accentuate and continue movement. The outline of the hair over the face must be used as a principal agent for the drawing of the forms of the forehead and temples, and must at the same time partake of the general movement of the shoulders and of the whole body. The hair is to be used as a great drawing medium. It is to be rendered according to its nature, but it is not to be copied. Think well on this; it is very important.

The eyebrows are hair in the last instance. To a good draftsman they are primarily powerful evidences of the muscular actions of the forehead, which muscular actions are manifestations of the sitter's state of being. The muscles respond instantly to such obvious sensations as surprise, horror, pain, mirth, inquiry, etc., and the actions of the muscles are most defined in their effect on that strongly marked line of hair, the eyebrow. However subtle the emotion, the eyebrow by its definiteness marks the response in the muscular movement.

In certain heads, the eyebrow, while normal, still holds a very positive gesture. There are those, therefore, who carry in repose an expression of sadness, boredom, surprise, dignity, and some accentuate the force or direction in the action of looking. To a good draughtsman the eyebrow is a living thing. It develops a habit which it expresses in repose and it flashes intelligence of every changing emotion. It draws the shape of the lower forehead and temples—the squareness, curve and bulk. After all that, it is a series of small hairs growing out of the skin.

The eyebrow must not be drawn hesitatingly. It must be conceived as a whole; your conception, your brush, the quantity of paint in right fluidity must be all ready before you touch the canvas.

By the spring in the drawing of the eyelash the quick action of the eye may be suggested. The upper eyelid and lash generally cast a shadow scarcely observed yet very effective on the eyeball. The white of the eye is more often the same color as the flesh about it than the average painter is likely to think it to be. The pupil is larger in quiet light, becoming very small by contraction when looking into brilliant light. The highlight in the pupil is a matter of drawing although best done with one quick touch. Its direction, shape, edges, and its contrast in color and value to the pupil give shape, curve, brilliancy or mark the contrary. The right brush, the right paint, a perfect control of the hand are necessary for this. For some, a maul stick to steady is of great value here. (There is a time and place for all things, the difficulty is to use them only in their proper time and places.)

The highlight on the end of the nose is likewise a matter of important drawing, although generally executed in a simple quick touch. By its shape it defines the three angles of the end of the nose.

The lines and forms in the clothes should be used to draw the body in its sensitive relationship with the head. The wrinkles and forms of the clothes are building material not for tailoring in your hands but for established basic lines rising to the head. There is an orchestration throughout the whole

Reviews for The Art Spirit

[ashryan_1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

"Art when really understood is the province of every human being."Thus begins one of the most remarkable books ever written on the subject.The Art Spirit is comprised of various letters, articles, speeches, notes, and fragments of artist and art teacher Robert Henri. Ranging from several pages to single sentences and arranged somewhat haphazardly, these teachings nevertheless add up to a fairly comprehensive view of the purpose of art and the nature of the artist. He discusses technique, but emphasizes that technique is only a means to the end of artistic expression, not an end or expression in itself. Being an artist is about having a certain relationship to existence, a unique perspective on reality. Art is value-laden, and that's what makes it meaningful. Art isn't about simply making the best copy of nature, it's about seeing beyond the surface impressions and finding the deeper meaning of things, and selectively using what's given in nature to express that meaning: "The great artist has not reproduced nature, but has expressed by his extract the most choice sensation it has made upon him...The artist who does not use his imagination is a mechanic."Even when he's discussing technique, Henri's teaching will greatly enhance anyone's appreciation of art. And much of what he says about technique is applicable at least by analogy to other art forms (such as literary expression or musical composition), and some of it to any kind of creative work.The book's form makes it perfect for reading straight through, or for dipping in at random. A truly remarkable book.

[meredy_1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Six-word review: The seeing and doing of art.Extended review:You won't see many unqualified raves from me, but here is one. This book is wonderful and amazing. If you have any interest in art, whether it be Art or simply the art of doing something--anything--well, this book is rich with treasures for you. It grants insight as summer rain grants refreshment, as surrender grants grace.The Art Spirit is not a conventional book in the sense of a sustained and integrated argument conceived as a unified whole. Rather, it's a compilation of articles, talks, correspondence, critiques, class notes, and other words of an inspiring teacher who was first of all a renowned and distinguished painter in his time, about a century ago. The whole expresses the understanding of art and the act of creation as he practiced them and as he taught them to a generation of students, among whom many were fanatically devoted to their teacher.It's the sort of book one can open to any page and find something worth reading and worth thinking about. Epigrammatic in style, it makes memorable impressions, whether discussing the meaning of art and the place of art in the world or the importance of the shadow beneath the upper eyelid. At once abstract and concrete, it discusses with equal passion the role of attitude in the life and work of the artist and the technique of creating background space by applying pigment to canvas.Although I ought to have heard of Robert Henri before, his name* was new to me when I began the fall series of adult-education drawing classes on September 8th. The instructor read an excerpt from the book at the first session, and I promptly ordered it from Amazon. I was halfway through reading it--and it's a fun read, calling for lots of underscores and penciled marginalia from an interactive reader like me--when, utterly coincidentally, I received an event notice from the nearby San Jose Museum of Art, where I'm a member: a three-hour portrait-drawing workshop on September 28th in conjunction with a special exhibit of portrait paintings of Robert Henri.I made haste and finished the book by the night before the workshop.On Sunday I went two hours early and saw the exhibit, searching in every painting for the very things he'd talked about in the book. Already my way of seeing was much affected. By the time I sat down in the classroom with a live model before me, my entire approach to drawing had changed. Following Henri's advice, I spent the first five minutes quietly looking at the model without a pencil in my hand, seeking awareness of what was beautiful about him and what excited my interest, and also looking for themes and dominant lines. I thought about the idea that I wanted to capture and convey.While I drew, I sustained conscious attention to such things as that the space behind the model is mostly air; that the chair supports the body and the neck supports the head, solidly, in a weight-bearing way, with bulk and gravity; that the nose is relatively dark except for the highlight at the tip, which reveals the contour; and that I should make the folds of garments and draperies look like a landscape I want to visit. Every stroke of the graphite was informed by what I had read and seen.One of the things I noticed right away was that the model, a grey-bearded man in his sixties with faraway eyes, was very aware of me drawing him. At break time he came over to see what I'd done. Henri's book made me think about an important way in which drawing from life creates a reciprocal relationship between artist and model, something you can't have when you work from a photograph: namely, the model's showing a sense of being seen in some deeper way than just superficial appearance. When I'd finished my first two renderings, the instructor came by and called them "beautiful." I was astonished. Truly, I've always seen what's wrong with my drawings and never once thought they were "good" in any way that a loyal friend or relative wouldn't see. A group of students clustered around and looked, and one of them said, "You must have been doing this for a long time, to draw like that." In fact, until I started that very lightweight adult ed class during the summer, the last formal art instruction I'd had outside of public school--and the last time I'd worked from a live model--was a 10-week museum class when I was 14. I've done a lot of sketching in the past, on my own, though I hadn't drawn anything but random doodles for years; but I never had real help in finding the goodness in my faulty sketches, not until I read the Henri book. Suddenly it all just seems to work differently.That's a powerful lesson.As a retired person, I'm not about to embark on a full-scale art program or even undertake a modest second career. But I find my interest renewed in an activity I enjoyed as a teenager, and for $8.95 plus tax and shipping I've received an education delivered by a master. Whether you're a museum-goer or not, I think you can learn something exciting about whatever you do like to do from the teachings of a man who thoroughly grasped the marriage of knowing and doing.----*A note on the artist's name: despite its French appearance, it's not ahn-REE. It's HEN-rye. Really. Robert Henry Cozad (24 June 1865 – 12 July 1929) was born in Cincinnati. After his father became involved in a fatal shooting in a Nebraska town, he and other family members relocated and changed their names to escape the scandal. Robert chose the spelling and pronunciation of his new name. 

[conceptdawg · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

This is one of those great books that I can read over and over again and never get tired of it. I can also pick it up and read it for 5 minutes at a time and still get something out of it.The book is organized into small snippets/quotes of wisdom about art, life, and all matters in between.