Fine art, by its very name, implies fine relations. Art study is the
attempt to perceive and to create fine relations of line, mass and color.
This is done by original effort stimulated by the influence of good
examples. As fine relations (that is, harmony, beauty) can be understood
only through the appreciations, the whole fabric of art education should
be based upon a training in appreciation. This power cannot be imparted
like information. Artistic skill cannot be given by dictation or acquired
by reading. It does not come by merely learning to draw, by imitating
nature, or by any process of storing the mind with facts.
The power is within—the question is how to reach it and use it.
Increase of power always comes with exercise. If one uses a little of his
appreciative faculty in simple ways, proceeding on gradually to the more
difficult problems, he is in the line of natural growth. To put together a
few straight lines, creating a harmony of movement and spacing, calls for
exercise of good judgment and appreciation. Even in this seemingly limited
field great things are possible; the proportions of the Parthenon and
Giotto’s Tower can be reduced to a few straight lines finely related and
spaced.
Effective progress in composition depends upon working with an organized
and definite series of exercises, building one experience upon another,
calling for cultivated judgment to discern and decide upon finer and finer
relations. Little can be expressed until lines are arranged in a Space.
Spacing is the very groundwork of Design. Ways of arranging and spacing I
shall call