Leaving now the rectangular scheme, take any landscape that has good
elements, reduce it to a few main lines and strive to present it in the
most beautiful way—for example one from No. 61, or one drawn by the
instructor, or even a tracing from a photograph. Remember that the aim is
not to represent a place, nor to get good drawing now; put those thoughts
out of the mind and try only to cut a space finely by landscape shapes;
the various lines in your subject combine to enclose spaces, and the art
in your composition will lie in placing these spaces in good relations to
each other. Here must come in the personal influence of the instructor,
which is, after all, the very core of all art teaching. He can bring the
pupils up to the height of his own appreciation, and perhaps no farther.
The best of systems is valueless without this personal artistic guidance.
At this stage of landscape composition, the idea of Grouping
(Subordination) can be brought in, as a help in arranging sizes and
shapes. There is a certain beauty in a contrast of large and small. It is
the opposite of Monotony. For instance, compare a street where there is
variety in the sizes of buildings and trees, with another of rows of dull
ugly blocks. Ranges of hills, spires and pinnacles, clumps of large and
small trees, clusters of haystacks, illustrate this idea in landscape.
[No. 37. A Landscape in Three Proportions.]