In the representation of a fine mountain, for instance, ther

THE

PRACTICE & SCIENCE

OF

DRAWING

BY

HAROLD SPEED

Associé de la Société Nationale des Beaux-Arts, Paris; Member of the

Royal Society of Portrait Painters, &c.

* * * * *

With 93 Illustrations & Diagrams

* * * * *

LONDON SEELEY, SERVICE & CO. LIMITED 38 GREAT RUSSELL STREET 1913

* * * * *

[Illustration: Plate I.

FOUR PHOTOGRAPHS OF SAME MONOCHROME PAINTING IN DIFFERENT STAGES

ILLUSTRATING A METHOD OF STUDYING MASS DRAWING WITH THE BRUSH]

* * * * *

PREFACE

Permit me in the first place to anticipate the disappointment of any

student who opens this book with the idea of finding "wrinkles" on how

to draw faces, trees, clouds, or what not, short cuts to excellence in

drawing, or any of the tricks so popular with the drawing masters of our

grandmothers and still dearly loved by a large number of people. No good

can come of such methods, for there are no short cuts to excellence. But

help of a very practical kind it is the aim of the following pages to

give; although it may be necessary to make a greater call upon the

intelligence of the student than these Victorian methods attempted.

It was not until some time after having passed through the course of

training in two of our chief schools of art that the author got any idea

of what drawing really meant. What was taught was the faithful copying

of a series of objects, beginning with the simplest forms, such as

cubes, cones, cylinders, &c. (an excellent system to begin with at

present in danger of some neglect), after which more complicated objects

in plaster of Paris were attempted, and finally copies of the human head

and figure posed in suspended animation and supported by blocks, &c. In

so far as this was accurately done, all this mechanical training of eye

and hand was excellent; but it was not enough. And when with an eye

trained to the closest mechanical accuracy the author visited the

galleries of the Continent and studied the drawings of the old masters,

it soon became apparent that either his or their ideas of drawing were

all wrong. Very few drawings could be found sufficiently "like the

model" to obtain the prize at either of the great schools he had

attended. Luckily there was just enough modesty left for him to realise

that possibly they were in some mysterious way right and his own

training in some way lacking. And so he set to work to try and climb the

long uphill road that separates mechanically accurate drawing from

artistically accurate drawing.

Now this journey should have been commenced much earlier, and perhaps it

was due to his own stupidity that it was not; but it was with a vague

idea of saving some students from such wrong-headedness, and possibly

straightening out some of the path, that he accepted the invitation to

write this book.

In writing upon any matter of experience, such as art, the possibilities

of misunderstanding are enormous, and one shudders to think of the

things that may be put down to one's credit, owing to such

misunderstandings. It is like writing about the taste of sugar, you are

only likely to be understood by those who have already experienced the

flavour; by those who have not, the wildest interpretation will be put

upon your words. The written word is necessarily confined to the things

of the understanding because only the understanding has written

language; whereas art deals with ideas of a different mental texture,

which words can only vaguely suggest. However, there are a large number

of people who, although they cannot be said to have experienced in a

full sense any works of art, have undoubtedly the impelling desire which

a little direction may lead on to a fuller appreciation. And it is to

such that books on art are useful. So that although this book is

primarily addressed to working students, it is hoped that it may be of

interest to that increasing number of people who, tired with the rush

and struggle of modern existence, seek refreshment in artistic things.

To many such in this country modern art is still a closed book; its

point of view is so different from that of the art they have been

brought up with, that they refuse to have anything to do with it.

Whereas, if they only took the trouble to find out something of the

point of view of the modern artist, they would discover new beauties

they little suspected.

If anybody looks at a picture by Claude Monet from the point of view of

a Raphael, he will see nothing but a meaningless jargon of wild

paint-strokes. And if anybody looks at a Raphael from the point of view

of a Claude Monet, he will, no doubt, only see hard, tinny figures in a

setting devoid of any of the lovely atmosphere that always envelops form

seen in nature. So wide apart are some of the points of view in

painting. In the treatment of form these differences in point of view

make for enormous variety in the work. So that no apology need be made

for the large amount of space occupied in the following pages by what is

usually dismissed as mere theory; but what is in reality the first

essential of any good practice in drawing. To have a clear idea of what

it is you wish to do, is the first necessity of any successful

performance. But our exhibitions are full of works that show how seldom

this is the case in art. Works showing much ingenuity and ability, but

no artistic brains; pictures that are little more than school studies,

exercises in the representation of carefully or carelessly arranged

objects, but cold to any artistic intention.

At this time particularly some principles, and a clear intellectual

understanding of what it is you are trying to do, are needed. We have no

set traditions to guide us. The times when the student accepted the

style and traditions of his master and blindly followed them until he

found himself, are gone. Such conditions belonged to an age when

intercommunication was difficult, and when the artistic horizon was

restricted to a single town or province. Science has altered all that,

and we may regret the loss of local colour and singleness of aim this

growth of art in separate compartments produced; but it is unlikely that

such conditions will occur again. Quick means of transit and cheap

methods of reproduction have brought the art of the whole world to our

doors. Where formerly the artistic food at the disposal of the student

was restricted to the few pictures in his vicinity and some prints of

others, now there is scarcely a picture of note in the world that is not

known to the average student, either from personal inspection at our

museums and loan exhibitions, or from excellent photographic

reproductions. Not only European art, but the art of the East, China and

Japan, is part of the formative influence by which he is surrounded; not

to mention the modern science of light and colour that has had such an

influence on technique. It is no wonder that a period of artistic

indigestion is upon us. Hence the student has need of sound principles

and a clear understanding of the science of his art, if he would select

from this mass of material those things which answer to his own inner

need for artistic expression.

The position of art to-day is like that of a river where many

tributaries meeting at one point, suddenly turn the steady flow to

turbulence, the many streams jostling each other and the different

currents pulling hither and thither. After a time these newly-met forces

will adjust themselves to the altered condition, and a larger, finer

stream be the result. Something analogous to this would seem to be

happening in art at the present time, when all nations and all schools

are acting and reacting upon each other, and art is losing its national

characteristics. The hope of the future is that a larger and deeper art,

answering to the altered conditions of humanity, will result.

There are those who would leave this scene of struggling influences and

away up on some bare primitive mountain-top start a new stream, begin

all over again. But however necessary it may be to give the primitive

mountain waters that were the start of all the streams a more prominent

place in the new flow onwards, it is unlikely that much can come of any

attempt to leave the turbulent waters, go backwards, and start again;

they can only flow onwards. To speak more plainly, the complexity of

modern art influences may make it necessary to call attention to the

primitive principles of expression that should never be lost sight of in

any work, but hardly justifies the attitude of those anarchists in art

who would flout the heritage of culture we possess and attempt a new

start. Such attempts however when sincere are interesting and may be

productive of some new vitality, adding to the weight of the main

stream. But it must be along the main stream, along lines in harmony

with tradition that the chief advance must be looked for.

Although it has been felt necessary to devote much space to an attempt

to find principles that may be said to be at the basis of the art of all

nations, the executive side of the question has not been neglected. And

it is hoped that the logical method for the study of drawing from the

two opposite points of view of line and mass here advocated may be

useful, and help students to avoid some of the confusion that results

from attempting simultaneously the study of these different qualities of

form expression.

* * * * *

CONTENTS

I. INTRODUCTION

II. DRAWING

III. VISION

IV. LINE DRAWING

V. MASS DRAWING

VI. THE ACADEMIC AND CONVENTIONAL

VII. THE STUDY OF DRAWING

VIII. LINE DRAWING: PRACTICAL

IX. MASS DRAWING: PRACTICAL

X. RHYTHM

XI. RHYTHM: VARIETY OF LINE

XII. RHYTHM: UNITY OF LINE

XIII. RHYTHM: VARIETY OF MASS

XIV. RHYTHM: UNITY OF MASS

XV. RHYTHM: BALANCE

XVI. RHYTHM: PROPORTION

XVII. PORTRAIT DRAWING

XVIII. THE VISUAL MEMORY

XIX. PROCEDURE

XX. MATERIALS

XXI. CONCLUSION

APPENDIX

INDEX

LIST OF PLATES

I. SET OF FOUR PHOTOGRAPHS OF THE SAME STUDY FROM THE LIFE IN

DIFFERENT STAGES

II. DRAWING BY LEONARDO DA VINCI

III. STUDY FOR "APRIL"

IV. STUDY FOR THE FIGURE OF "BOREAS"

V. FROM A STUDY BY BOTTICELLI

VI. STUDY BY ALFRED STEPHENS

VII. STUDY FOR THE FIGURE OF APOLLO

VIII. STUDY FOR A PICTURE

IX. STUDY BY WATTEAU

X. EXAMPLE OF XVTH CENTURY CHINESE WORK

XI. LAS MENINAS. BY VELÁZQUEZ

XII. STUDY ATTRIBUTED TO MICHAEL ANGELO

XIII. STUDY BY DEGAS

XIV. DRAWING BY ERNEST COLE

XV. FROM A PENCIL DRAWING BY INGRES

XVI. STUDY BY RUBENS

XVII. A DEMONSTRATION DRAWING AT THE GOLDSMITHS' COLLEGE

XVIII. STUDY ILLUSTRATING METHOD OF DRAWING

XIX. ILLUSTRATING CURVED LINES

XX. STUDY FOR THE FIGURE OF "Love"

XXI. STUDY ILLUSTRATING TREATMENT OF HAIR

XXII. STUDY FOR DECORATION AT AMIENS

XXIII. DIFFERENT STAGES OF THE PAINTING FROM A CAST (1)

XXIII. DIFFERENT STAGES OF THE PAINTING FROM A CAST (2)

XXIV. DIFFERENT STAGES OF THE PAINTING FROM A CAST (3)

XXIV. DIFFERENT STAGES OF THE PAINTING FROM A CAST (4)

XXV. ILLUSTRATING SOME TYPICAL BRUSH STROKES

XXVI. DIFFERENT STAGES OF THE SAME STUDY (1)

XXVII. DIFFERENT STAGES OF THE SAME STUDY (2)

XXVIII. DIFFERENT STAGES OF THE SAME STUDY (3)

XXIX. DIFFERENT STAGES OF THE SAME STUDY (4)

XXX. A STUDY FOR A PICTURE OF "ROSALIND AND ORLANDO"

XXXI. ILLUSTRATIONS FROM BLAKE'S "JOB" (PLATES I., V., X., XXI.)

XXXII. ILLUSTRATIONS FROM BLAKE'S "JOB" (PLATES II., XI., XVIII., XIV.)

XXXIII. FÊTE CHAMPÊTRE

XXXIV. BACCHUS AND ARIADNE

XXXV. LOVE AND DEATH

XXXVI. SURRENDER OF BREDA

XXXVII. THE BIRTH OF VENUS

XXXVIII. THE RAPE OF EUROPA

XXXIX. BATTLE OF S. EGIDIO

XL. THE ASCENSION OF CHRIST

XLI. THE BAPTISM OF CHRIST

XLII. PORTRAIT OF THE ARTIST'S DAUGHTER

XLIII. MONTE SOLARO, CAPRI

XLIV. PART OF THE "SURRENDER OF BREDA"

XLV. VENUS, MERCURY, AND CUPID

XLVI. OLYMPIA

XLVII. L'EMBARQUEMENT POUR CYTHÈRE

XLVIII. THE ANSIDEI MADONNA

XLIX. FINDING OF THE BODY OF ST. MARK

L. FROM A DRAWING BY HOLBEIN

LI. SIR CHARLES DILKE

LII. JOHN REDMOND, M.P.

LIII. THE LADY AUDLEY

LIV. STUDY ON BROWN PAPER

LV. FROM A SILVER POINT DRAWING

LVI. STUDY FOR TREE IN "THE BOAR HUNT"

LIST OF DIAGRAMS

I. TYPES OF FIRST DRAWINGS BY CHILDREN

II. SHOWING WHERE SQUARENESSES MAY BE LOOKED FOR

III. A DEVICE FOR ENABLING STUDENTS TO OBSERVE APPEARANCES AS A

FLAT SUBJECT

IV. SHOWING THREE PRINCIPLES OF CONSTRUCTION USED IN OBSERVING

MASSES, CURVES, AND POSITION OF POINTS

V. PLAN OF CONE ILLUSTRATING PRINCIPLES OF LIGHT AND SHADE

VI. ILLUSTRATING SOME POINTS CONNECTED WITH THE EYES

VII. EGG AND DART MOULDING

VIII. ILLUSTRATING VARIETY IN SYMMETRY

IX. ILLUSTRATING VARIETY IN SYMMETRY

X. ILLUSTRATING INFLUENCE OF HORIZONTAL LINES

XI. ILLUSTRATING INFLUENCE OF VERTICAL LINES

XII. ILLUSTRATING INFLUENCE OF THE RIGHT ANGLE

XIII. LOVE AND DEATH

XIV. ILLUSTRATING POWER OF CURVED LINES

XV. THE BIRTH OF VENUS

XVI. THE RAPE OF EUROPA

XVII. BATTLE OF S. EGIDIO

XVIII. SHOWING HOW LINES UNRELATED CAN BE BROUGHT INTO HARMONY

XIX. SHOWING HOW LINES UNRELATED CAN BE BROUGHT INTO HARMONY

XX. THE ARTIST'S DAUGHTER

XXI. THE INFLUENCE ON THE FACE OF DIFFERENT WAYS OF DOING THE HAIR

XXII. THE INFLUENCE ON THE FACE OF DIFFERENT WAYS OF DOING THE HAIR

XXIII. EXAMPLES OF EARLY ITALIAN TREATMENT OF TREES

XXIV. THE PRINCIPLE OF MASS OR TONE RHYTHM

XXV. MASS OR TONE RHYTHM IN "ULYSSES DERIDING POLYPHEMUS"

XXVI. EXAMPLE OF COROT'S SYSTEM OF MASS RHYTHM

XXVII. ILLUSTRATING HOW INTEREST MAY BALANCE MASS

XXVIII. PROPORTION

* * * * *

THE PRACTICE AND SCIENCE OF DRAWING

I

INTRODUCTION

The best things in an artist's work are so much a matter of intuition,

that there is much to be said for the point of view that would

altogether discourage intellectual inquiry into artistic phenomena on

the part of the artist. Intuitions are shy things and apt to disappear

if looked into too closely. And there is undoubtedly a danger that too

much knowledge and training may supplant the natural intuitive feeling

of a student, leaving only a cold knowledge of the means of expression

in its place. For the artist, if he has the right stuff in him, has a

consciousness, in doing his best work, of something, as Ruskin has said,

"not in him but through him." He has been, as it were, but the agent

through which it has found expression.

Talent can be described as "that which we have," and Genius as "that

which has us." Now, although we may have little control over this power

that "has us," and although it may be as well to abandon oneself

unreservedly to its influence, there can be little doubt as to its being

the business of the artist to see to it that his talent be so developed,

that he may prove a fit instrument for the expression of whatever it

may be given him to express; while it must be left to his individual

temperament to decide how far it is advisable to pursue any intellectual

analysis of the elusive things that are the true matter of art.

Provided the student realises this, and that art training can only deal

with the perfecting of a means of expression and that the real matter of

art lies above this and is beyond the scope of teaching, he cannot have

too much of it. For although he must ever be a child before the

influence that moves him, if it is not with the knowledge of the grown

man that he takes off his coat and approaches the craft of painting or

drawing, he will be poorly equipped to make them a means of conveying to

others in adequate form the things he may wish to express. Great things

are only done in art when the creative instinct of the artist has a

well-organised executive faculty at its disposal.

* * * * *

Of the two divisions into which the technical study of painting can be

divided, namely Form and Colour, we are concerned in this book with Form

alone. But before proceeding to our immediate subject something should

be said as to the nature of art generally, not with the ambition of

arriving at any final result in a short chapter, but merely in order to

give an idea of the point of view from which the following pages are

written, so that misunderstandings may be avoided.

The variety of definitions that exist justifies some inquiry. The

following are a few that come to mind:

"Art is nature expressed through a personality."

But what of architecture? Or music? Then there is Morris's

"Art is the expression of pleasure in work."

But this does not apply to music and poetry. Andrew Lang's

"Everything which we distinguish from nature"

seems too broad to catch hold of, while Tolstoy's

"An action by means of which one man, having experienced a feeling,

intentionally transmits it to others"

is nearer the truth, and covers all the arts, but seems, from its

omitting any mention of #rhythm#, very inadequate.

* * * * *

Now the facts of life are conveyed by our senses to the consciousness

within us, and stimulate the world of thought and feeling that

constitutes our real life. Thought and feeling are very intimately

connected, few of our mental perceptions, particularly when they first

dawn upon us, being unaccompanied by some feeling. But there is this

general division to be made, on one extreme of which is what we call

pure intellect, and on the other pure feeling or emotion. The arts, I

take it, are a means of giving expression to the emotional side of this

mental activity, intimately related as it often is to the more purely

intellectual side. The more sensual side of this feeling is perhaps its

lowest, while the feelings associated with the intelligence, the little

sensitivenesses of perception that escape pure intellect, are possibly

its noblest experiences.

Pure intellect seeks to construct from the facts brought to our

consciousness by the senses, an accurately measured world of phenomena,

uncoloured by the human equation in each of us. It seeks to create a

point of view outside the human standpoint, one more stable and

accurate, unaffected by the ever-changing current of human life. It

therefore invents mechanical instruments to do the measuring of our

sense perceptions, as their records are more accurate than human

observation unaided.

But while in science observation is made much more effective by the use

of mechanical instruments in registering facts, the facts with which art

deals, being those of feeling, can only be recorded by the feeling

instrument--man, and are entirely missed by any mechanically devised

substitutes.

The artistic intelligence is not interested in things from this

standpoint of mechanical accuracy, but in the effect of observation on

the living consciousness--the sentient individual in each of us. The

same fact accurately portrayed by a number of artistic intelligences

should be different in each case, whereas the same fact accurately

expressed by a number of scientific intelligences should be the same.

But besides the feelings connected with a wide range of experience, each

art has certain emotions belonging to the particular sense perceptions

connected with it. That is to say, there are some that only music can

convey: those connected with sound; others that only painting,

sculpture, or architecture can convey: those connected with the form and

colour that they severally deal with.

In abstract form and colour--that is, form and colour unconnected with

natural appearances--there is an emotional power, such as there is in

music, the sounds of which have no direct connection with anything in

nature, but only with that mysterious sense we have, the sense of

Harmony, Beauty, or Rhythm (all three but different aspects of the same

thing).

This inner sense is a very remarkable fact, and will be found to some

extent in all, certainly all civilised, races. And when the art of a

remote people like the Chinese and Japanese is understood, our senses of

harmony are found to be wonderfully in agreement. Despite the fact that

their art has developed on lines widely different from our own, none the

less, when the surprise at its newness has worn off and we begin to

understand it, we find it conforms to very much the same sense of

harmony.

But apart from the feelings connected directly with the means of

expression, there appears to be much in common between all the arts in

their most profound expression; there seems to be a common centre in our

inner life that they all appeal to. Possibly at this centre are the

great primitive emotions common to all men. The religious group, the

deep awe and reverence men feel when contemplating the great mystery of

the Universe and their own littleness in the face of its vastness--the

desire to correspond and develop relationship with the something outside

themselves that is felt to be behind and through all things. Then there

are those connected with the joy of life, the throbbing of the great

life spirit, the gladness of being, the desire of the sexes; and also

those connected with the sadness and mystery of death and decay, &c.

The technical side of an art is, however, not concerned with these

deeper motives but with the things of sense through which they find

expression; in the case of painting, the visible universe.

The artist is capable of being stimulated to artistic expression by all

things seen, no matter what; to him nothing comes amiss. Great pictures

have been made of beautiful people in beautiful clothes and of squalid

people in ugly clothes, of beautiful architectural buildings and the

ugly hovels of the poor. And the same painter who painted the Alps

painted the Great Western Railway.

The visible world is to the artist, as it were, a wonderful garment, at

times revealing to him the Beyond, the Inner Truth there is in all

things. He has a consciousness of some correspondence with something the

other side of visible things and dimly felt through them, a "still,

small voice" which he is impelled to interpret to man. It is the

expression of this all-pervading inner significance that I think we

recognise as beauty, and that prompted Keats to say:

"Beauty is truth, truth beauty."

And hence it is that the love of truth and the love of beauty can exist

together in the work of the artist. The search for this inner truth is

the search for beauty. People whose vision does not penetrate beyond the

narrow limits of the commonplace, and to whom a cabbage is but a vulgar

vegetable, are surprised if they see a beautiful picture painted of one,

and say that the artist has idealised it, meaning that he has

consciously altered its appearance on some idealistic formula; whereas

he has probably only honestly given expression to a truer, deeper vision

than they had been aware of. The commonplace is not the true, but only

the shallow, view of things.

[Illustration: Plate II.

DRAWING BY LEONARDO DA VINCI FROM THE ROYAL COLLECTION AT WINDSOR

_Copyright photo, Braun & Co._]

Fromentin's

"Art is the expression of the invisible by means of the visible"

expresses the same idea, and it is this that gives to art its high place

among the works of man.

Beautiful things seem to put us in correspondence with a world the

harmonies of which are more perfect, and bring a deeper peace than this

imperfect life seems capable of yielding of itself. Our moments of peace

are, I think, always associated with some form of beauty, of this spark

of harmony within corresponding with some infinite source without. Like

a mariner's compass, we are restless until we find repose in this one

direction. In moments of beauty (for beauty is, strictly speaking, a

state of mind rather than an attribute of certain objects, although

certain things have the power of inducing it more than others) we seem

to get a glimpse of this deeper truth behind the things of sense. And

who can say but that this sense, dull enough in most of us, is not an

echo of a greater harmony existing somewhere the other side of things,

that we dimly feel through them, evasive though it is.

But we must tread lightly in these rarefied regions and get on to more

practical concerns. By finding and emphasising in his work those

elements in visual appearances that express these profounder things, the

painter is enabled to stimulate the perception of them in others.

In the representation of a fine mountain, for instance, there are,

besides all its rhythmic beauty of form and colour, associations

touching deeper chords in our natures--associations connected with its

size, age, and permanence, &c.; at any rate we have more feelings than

form and colour of themselves are capable of arousing. And these things

must be felt by the painter, and his picture painted under the influence

of these feelings, if he is instinctively to select those elements of

form and colour that convey them. Such deeper feelings are far too

intimately associated even with the finer beauties of mere form and

colour for the painter to be able to neglect them; no amount of

technical knowledge will take the place of feeling, or direct the

painter so surely in his selection of what is fine.

There are those who would say, "This is all very well, but the painter's

concern is with form and colour and paint, and nothing else. If he

paints the mountain faithfully from that point of view, it will suggest

all these other associations to those who want them." And others who

would say that the form and colour of appearances are only to be used as

a language to give expression to the feelings common to all men. "Art

for art's sake" and "Art for subject's sake." There are these two

extreme positions to consider, and it will depend on the individual on

which side his work lies. His interest will be more on the aesthetic

side, in the feelings directly concerned with form and colour; or on the

side of the mental associations connected with appearances, according to

his temperament. But neither position can neglect the other without

fatal loss. The picture of form and colour will never be able to escape

the associations connected with visual things, neither will the picture

all for subject be able to get away from its form and colour. And it is

wrong to say "If he paints the mountain faithfully from the form and

colour point of view it will suggest all those other associations to

those who want them," unless, as is possible with a simple-minded

painter, he be unconsciously moved by deeper feelings, and impelled to

select the significant things while only conscious of his paint. But the

chances are that his picture will convey the things he was thinking

about, and, in consequence, instead of impressing us with the grandeur

of the mountain, will say something very like "See what a clever painter

I am!" Unless the artist has painted his picture under the influence of

the deeper feelings the scene was capable of producing, it is not likely

anybody will be so impressed when they look at his work.

And the painter deeply moved with high ideals as to subject matter, who

neglects the form and colour through which he is expressing them, will

find that his work has failed to be convincing. The immaterial can only

be expressed through the material in art, and the painted symbols of the

picture must be very perfect if subtle and elusive meanings are to be

conveyed. If he cannot paint the commonplace aspect of our mountain, how

can he expect to paint any expression of the deeper things in it? The

fact is, both positions are incomplete. In all good art the matter

expressed and the manner of its expression are so intimate as to have

become one. The deeper associations connected with the mountain are only

matters for art in so far as they affect its appearance and take shape

as form and colour in the mind of the artist, informing the whole

process of the painting, even to the brush strokes. As in a good poem,

it is impossible to consider the poetic idea apart from the words that

express it: they are fired together at its creation.

Now an expression by means of one of our different sense perceptions

does not constitute art, or the boy shouting at the top of his voice,

giving expression to his delight in life but making a horrible noise,

would be an artist. If his expression is to be adequate to convey his

feeling to others, there must be some arrangement. The expression must

be ordered, rhythmic, or whatever word most fitly conveys the idea of

those powers, conscious or unconscious, that select and arrange the

sensuous material of art, so as to make the most telling impression, by

bringing it into relation with our innate sense of harmony. If we can

find a rough definition that will include all the arts, it will help us

to see in what direction lie those things in painting that make it an

art. The not uncommon idea, that painting is "the production by means of

colours of more or less perfect representations of natural objects" will

not do. And it is devoutly to be hoped that science will perfect a

method of colour photography finally to dispel this illusion.

What, then, will serve as a working definition? There must be something

about feeling, the expression of that individuality the secret of which

everyone carries in himself; the expression of that ego that perceives

and is moved by the phenomena of life around us. And, on the other hand,

something about the ordering of its expression.

But who knows of words that can convey a just idea of such subtle

matter? If one says "Art is the rhythmic expression of Life, or

emotional consciousness, or feeling," all are inadequate. Perhaps the

"rhythmic expression of life" would be the more perfect definition. But

the word "life" is so much more associated with eating and drinking in

the popular mind, than with the spirit or force or whatever you care to

call it, that exists behind consciousness and is the animating factor

of our whole being, that it will hardly serve a useful purpose. So that,

perhaps, for a rough, practical definition that will at least point away

from the mechanical performances that so often pass for art, "#the

Rhythmic expression of Feeling#" will do: for by Rhythm is meant that

ordering of the materials of art (form and colour, in the case of

painting) so as to bring them into relationship with our innate sense of

harmony which gives them their expressive power. Without this

relationship we have no direct means of making the sensuous material of

art awaken an answering echo in others. The boy shouting at the top of

his voice, making a horrible noise, was not an artist because his

expression was inadequate--was not related to the underlying sense of

harmony that would have given it expressive power.

[Illustration: Plate III.

STUDY FOR "APRIL"

In red chalk on toned paper.]

Let us test this definition with some simple cases. Here is a savage,

shouting and flinging his arms and legs about in wild delight; he is not

an artist, although he may be moved by life and feeling. But let this

shouting be done on some ordered plan, to a rhythm expressive of joy and

delight, and his leg and arm movements governed by it also, and he has

become an artist, and singing and dancing (possibly the oldest of the

arts) will result.

Or take the case of one who has been deeply moved by something he has

seen, say a man killed by a wild beast, which he wishes to tell his

friends. If he just explains the facts as he saw them, making no effort

to order his words so as to make the most telling impression upon his

hearers and convey to them something of the feelings that are stirring

in him, if he merely does this, he is not an artist, although the

recital of such a terrible incident may be moving. But the moment he

arranges his words so as to convey in a telling manner not only the

plain facts, but the horrible feelings he experienced at the sight, he

has become an artist. And if he further orders his words to a rhythmic

beat, a beat in sympathy with his subject, he has become still more

artistic, and a primitive form of poetry will result.

Or in building a hut, so long as a man is interested solely in the

utilitarian side of the matter, as are so many builders to-day, and just

puts up walls as he needs protection from wild beasts, and a roof to

keep out the rain, he is not yet an artist. But the moment he begins to

consider his work with some feeling, and arranges the relative sizes of

his walls and roof so that they answer to some sense he has for

beautiful proportion, he has become an artist, and his hut has some

architectural pretensions. Now if his hut is of wood, and he paints it

to protect it from the elements, nothing necessarily artistic has been

done. But if he selects colours that give him pleasure in their

arrangement, and if the forms his colour masses assume are designed with

some personal feeling, he has invented a primitive form of decoration.

And likewise the savage who, wishing to illustrate his description of a

strange animal he has seen, takes a piece of burnt wood and draws on the

wall his idea of what it looked like, a sort of catalogue of its

appearance in its details, he is not necessarily an artist. It is only

when he draws under the influence of some feeling, of some pleasure he

felt in the appearance of the animal, that he becomes an artist.

Of course in each case it is assumed that the men have the power to be

moved by these things, and whether they are good or poor artists will

depend on the quality of their feeling and the fitness of its

expression.

[Illustration: Plate IV.

STUDY ON TISSUE-PAPER IN RED CHALK FOR FIGURE OF BOREAS]

The purest form of this "rhythmic expression of feeling" is music. And

as Walter Pater shows us in his essay on "The School of Giorgione,"

"music is the type of art." The others are more artistic as they

approach its conditions. Poetry, the most musical form of literature, is

its most artistic form. And in the greatest pictures form, colour, and

idea are united to thrill us with harmonies analogous to music.

The painter expresses his feelings through the representation of the

visible world of Nature, and through the representation of those

combinations of form and colour inspired in his imagination, that were

all originally derived from visible nature. If he fails from lack of

skill to make his representation convincing to reasonable people, no

matter how sublime has been his artistic intention, he will probably

have landed in the ridiculous. And yet, #so great is the power of

direction exercised by the emotions on the artist that it is seldom his

work fails to convey something, when genuine feeling has been the

motive#. On the other hand, the painter with no artistic impulse who

makes a laboriously commonplace picture of some ordinary or pretentious

subject, has equally failed as an artist, however much the skilfulness

of his representations may gain him reputation with the unthinking.

The study, therefore, of the #representation of visible nature# and of

#the powers of expression possessed by form and colour# is the object of

the painter's training.

And a command over this power of representation and expression is

absolutely necessary if he is to be capable of doing anything worthy of

his art.

This is all in art that one can attempt to teach. The emotional side is

beyond the scope of teaching. You cannot teach people how to feel. All

you can do is to surround them with the conditions calculated to

stimulate any natural feeling they may possess. And this is done by

familiarising students with the best works of art and nature.

* * * * *

It is surprising how few art students have any idea of what it is that

constitutes art. They are impelled, it is to be assumed, by a natural

desire to express themselves by painting, and, if their intuitive

ability is strong enough, it perhaps matters little whether they know or

not. But to the larger number who are not so violently impelled, it is

highly essential that they have some better idea of art than that it

consists in setting down your canvas before nature and copying it.

Inadequate as this imperfect treatment of a profoundly interesting

subject is, it may serve to give some idea of the point of view from

which the following pages are written, and if it also serves to disturb

the "copying theory" in the minds of any students and encourages them to

make further inquiry, it will have served a useful purpose.

II

DRAWING

By drawing is here meant #the expression of form upon a plane surface#.

Art probably owes more to form for its range of expression than to

colour. Many of the noblest things it is capable of conveying are

expressed by form more directly than by anything else. And it is

interesting to notice how some of the world's greatest artists have been

very restricted in their use of colour, preferring to depend on form for

their chief appeal. It is reported that Apelles only used three colours,

black, red, and yellow, and Rembrandt used little else. Drawing,

although the first, is also the last, thing the painter usually studies.

There is more in it that can be taught and that repays constant

application and effort. Colour would seem to depend much more on a

natural sense and to be less amenable to teaching. A well-trained eye

for the appreciation of form is what every student should set himself to

acquire with all the might of which he is capable.

It is not enough in artistic drawing to portray accurately and in cold

blood the appearance of objects. To express form one must first be moved

by it. There is in the appearance of all objects, animate and inanimate,

what has been called an #emotional significance#, a hidden rhythm that

is not caught by the accurate, painstaking, but cold artist. The form

significance of which we speak is never found in a mechanical

reproduction like a photograph. You are never moved to say when looking

at one, "What fine form."

It is difficult to say in what this quality consists. The emphasis and

selection that is unconsciously given in a drawing done directly under

the guidance of strong feeling, are too subtle to be tabulated; they

escape analysis. But it is this selection of the significant and

suppression of the non-essential that often gives to a few lines drawn

quickly, and having a somewhat remote relation to the complex appearance

of the real object, more vitality and truth than are to be found in a

highly-wrought and painstaking drawing, during the process of which the

essential and vital things have been lost sight of in the labour of the

work; and the non-essential, which is usually more obvious, is allowed

to creep in and obscure the original impression. Of course, had the

finished drawing been done with the mind centred upon the particular

form significance aimed at, and every touch and detail added in tune to

this idea, the comparison might have been different. But it is rarely

that good drawings are done this way. Fine things seem only to be seen

in flashes, and the nature that can carry over the impression of one of

these moments during the labour of a highly-wrought drawing is very

rare, and belongs to the few great ones of the craft alone.

It is difficult to know why one should be moved by the expression of

form; but it appears to have some physical influence over us. In looking

at a fine drawing, say of a strong man, we seem to identify ourselves

with it and feel a thrill of its strength in our own bodies, prompting

us to set our teeth, stiffen our frame, and exclaim "That's fine." Or,

when looking at the drawing of a beautiful woman, we are softened by its

charm and feel in ourselves something of its sweetness as we exclaim,

"How beautiful." The measure of the feeling in either case will be the

extent to which the artist has identified himself with the subject when

making the drawing, and has been impelled to select the expressive

elements in the forms.

Art thus enables us to experience life at second hand. The small man may

enjoy somewhat of the wider experience of the bigger man, and be

educated to appreciate in time a wider experience for himself. This is

the true justification for public picture galleries. Not so much for the

moral influence they exert, of which we have heard so much, but that

people may be led through the vision of the artist to enlarge their

experience of life. This enlarging of the experience is true education,

and a very different thing from the memorising of facts that so often

passes as such. In a way this may be said to be a moral influence, as a

larger mind is less likely to harbour small meannesses. But this is not

the kind of moral influence usually looked for by the many, who rather

demand a moral story told by the picture; a thing not always suitable to

artistic expression.

One is always profoundly impressed by the expression of a sense of bulk,

vastness, or mass in form. There is a feeling of being lifted out of

one's puny self to something bigger and more stable. It is this splendid

feeling of bigness in Michael Angelo's figures that is so satisfying.

One cannot come away from the contemplation of that wonderful ceiling of

his in the Vatican without the sense of having experienced something of

a larger life than one had known before. Never has the dignity of man

reached so high an expression in paint, a height that has been the

despair of all who have since tried to follow that lonely master. In

landscape also this expression of largeness is fine: one likes to feel

the weight and mass of the ground, the vastness of the sky and sea, the

bulk of a mountain.

On the other hand one is charmed also by the expression of lightness.

This may be noted in much of the work of Botticelli and the Italians of

the fifteenth century. Botticelli's figures seldom have any weight; they

drift about as if walking on air, giving a delightful feeling of

otherworldliness. The hands of the Madonna that hold the Child might be

holding flowers for any sense of support they express. It is, I think,

on this sense of lightness that a great deal of the exquisite charm of

Botticelli's drawing depends.

The feathery lightness of clouds and of draperies blown by the wind is

always pleasing, and Botticelli nearly always has a light wind passing

through his draperies to give them this sense.

As will be explained later, in connection with academic drawing, it is

eminently necessary for the student to train his eye accurately to

observe the forms of things by the most painstaking of drawings. In

these school studies feeling need not be considered, but only a cold

accuracy. In the same way a singer trains himself to sing scales, giving

every note exactly the same weight and preserving a most mechanical time

throughout, so that every note of his voice may be accurately under his

control and be equal to the subtlest variations he may afterwards

want to infuse into it at the dictates of feeling. For how can the

draughtsman, who does not know how to draw accurately the cold,

commonplace view of an object, hope to give expression to the subtle

differences presented by the same thing seen under the excitement of

strong feeling?

[Illustration: Plate V.

FROM A STUDY BY BOTTICELLI

In the Print Room at the British Museum.]

These academic drawings, too, should be as highly finished as hard

application can make them, so that the habit of minute visual expression

may be acquired. It will be needed later, when drawing of a finer kind

is attempted, and when in the heat of an emotional stimulus the artist

has no time to consider the smaller subtleties of drawing, which by then

should have become almost instinctive with him, leaving his mind free to

dwell on the bigger qualities.

Drawing, then, to be worthy of the name, must be more than what is

called accurate. It must present the form of things in a more vivid

manner than we ordinarily see them in nature. Every new draughtsman in

the history of art has discovered a new significance in the form of

common things, and given the world a new experience. He has represented

these qualities under the stimulus of the feeling they inspired in him,

hot and underlined, as it were, adding to the great book of sight the

world possesses in its art, a book by no means completed yet.

So that to say of a drawing, as is so often said, that it is not true

because it does not present the commonplace appearance of an object

accurately, may be foolish. Its accuracy depends on the completeness

with which it conveys the particular emotional significance that is the

object of the drawing. What this significance is will vary enormously

with the individual artist, but it is only by this standard that the

accuracy of the drawing can be judged.

It is this difference between scientific accuracy and artistic accuracy

that puzzles so many people. Science demands that phenomena be observed

with the unemotional accuracy of a weighing machine, while artistic

accuracy demands that things be observed by a sentient individual

recording the sensations produced in him by the phenomena of life. And

people with the scientific habit that is now so common among us, seeing

a picture or drawing in which what are called facts have been expressed

emotionally, are puzzled, if they are modest, or laugh at what they

consider a glaring mistake in drawing if they are not, when all the time

it may be their mistaken point of view that is at fault.

But while there is no absolute artistic standard by which accuracy of

drawing can be judged, as such standard must necessarily vary with the

artistic intention of each individual artist, this fact must not be

taken as an excuse for any obviously faulty drawing that incompetence

may produce, as is often done by students who when corrected say that

they "saw it so." For there undoubtedly exists a rough physical standard

of rightness in drawing, any violent deviations from which, even at the

dictates of emotional expression, is productive of the grotesque. This

physical standard of accuracy in his work it is the business of the

student to acquire in his academic training; and every aid that science

can give by such studies as Perspective, Anatomy, and, in the case of

Landscape, even Geology and Botany, should be used to increase the

accuracy of his representations. For the strength of appeal in

artistic work will depend much on the power the artist possesses of

expressing himself through representations that arrest everyone by their

truth and naturalness. And although, when truth and naturalness exist

without any artistic expression, the result is of little account as art,

on the other hand, when truly artistic expression is clothed in

representations that offend our ideas of physical truth, it is only the

few who can forgive the offence for the sake of the genuine feeling they

perceive behind it.

[Illustration: Plate VI.

STUDY IN NATURAL RED CHALK BY ALFRED STEPHENS

From the collection of Charles Ricketts and Charles Shannon]

How far the necessities of expression may be allowed to override the

dictates of truth to physical structure in the appearance of objects

will always be a much debated point. In the best drawing the departures

from mechanical accuracy are so subtle that I have no doubt many will

deny the existence of such a thing altogether. Good artists of strong

natural inspiration and simple minds are often quite unconscious of

doing anything when painting, but are all the same as mechanically

accurate as possible.

Yet however much it may be advisable to let yourself go in artistic

work, during your academic training let your aim be #a searching

accuracy#.

III

VISION

It is necessary to say something about Vision in the first place, if we

are to have any grasp of the idea of form.

An act of vision is not so simple a matter as the student who asked her

master if she should "paint nature as she saw nature" would seem to have

thought. And his answer, "Yes, madam, provided you don't see nature as

you paint nature," expressed the first difficulty the student of

painting has to face: the difficulty of learning to see.

Let us roughly examine what we know of vision. Science tells us that all

objects are made visible to us by means of light; and that white light,

by which we see things in what may be called their normal aspect, is

composed of all the colours of the solar spectrum, as may be seen in a

rainbow; a phenomenon caused, as everybody knows, by the sun's rays

being split up into their component parts.

This light travels in straight lines and, striking objects before us, is

reflected in all directions. Some of these rays passing through a point

situated behind the lenses of the eye, strike the retina. The

multiplication of these rays on the retina produces a picture of

whatever is before the eye, such as can be seen on the ground glass at

the back of a photographer's camera, or on the table of a camera

obscura, both of which instruments are constructed roughly on the same

principle as the human eye.