Robert Genn's Twice Weekly Letter
Insight and inspiration for your artistic career.

Dear Artist,

"Staffage" is a historical term for placing people and animals into landscapes. Like many time-worn conventions, there's more to it than meets the eye.

The population of pictures--mainly views, architectural subjects, natural wonders and other general scenes--was once more widespread than it is now. In the 17th century, some Dutch painters actually employed other artists to put people in. Staffage was used as an aid to composition, a device to show scale, and an opportunity to enliven scenes. Figures were strategically placed, often holding a stick, cane, spear or gun, sometimes together with a lesser person, or a dog or other beast, or even pointing toward the picture's centre of interest. Sometimes a jacket or coat brought colour surprise to a sombre landscape. The Impressionists gave themselves a choice--some went for it, others didn't. These days some photographers dine out on girls in red shorts on foreground rocks. In current landscape painting, Nature is more likely to be unpopulated. This, of course, will change.

Some landscape painters, dead and alive, don't do convincing figures. People are a tough order. But there's more to it than that. With the rise of rugged individualism and the concept of "me first," it is often the viewer who feels the need to supply the figure. Living in someone else's world is not our style anymore. It's not the wealthy lord in the big hat who gazes at the Sphinx, it's us. The wonders of Egypt are now theoretically available to all. The idea of other people enjoying the architecture in Piazza San Marcos in Venice is more the business of illustration. Pennies drop silently in the minds of onlookers. Due to the widespread suspicion of sentiment, anecdote itself has become distrusted and suppressed.

Next time you think about putting in a figure or figures, think about what's pulling you around. Early this morning I painted a tranquil lake in the Western Canadian foothills. I couldn't prevent myself from putting a couple of guys and a dog out there in a yellow rowboat. The devil made me do it. I'll never know whether I made the painting better or worse. Despite the modern plastic boat, this morning's painting looks curiously old fashioned.

Best regards,

Robert

PS: "I'm done with girls on rocks." (Maxfield Parrish, 1950)

Esoterica: I know it's a bit to ask of many artists, but I'm a believer in understanding your "genre." Genre means your kind or art, your style, your times. At first, the human body was the only subject matter worthy of paint. When the grand landscape showed up, figures, clothed and not, were reduced to accessories. Then the figure burst back to prominence and became the main subject again. These days, a lot of honour is being paid to the spirit of Nature herself, bereft of mankind and even the hand of man. Some sort of longing or wish, I'm thinking. Niagara Falls is her own subject again. A few more years and once more it'll be the little guy going over her in a barrel.

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