Painting and Sculpture of Figures, Portraits, Animals, Flowers,
Still Life, Landscape Painting.
The nature‐imitators hold that accurate representation is a virtue of
highest order and to be attained in the beginning. It is undeniably
serviceable, but to start with it is to begin at the wrong end. It is not
the province of the landscape painter, for example, to represent so much
topography, but to express an emotion; and this he must do by art. His art
will be manifest in his composition; in his placing of his trees, hills
and houses in synthetic relations to each other and to the space‐boundary.
Here is the strength of George Inness; to this he gave his chief effort.
He omits detail, and rarely does more than indicate forms.
This relation among the parts of a composition is what we call Beauty, and
it begins to exist with the first few lines drawn. Even the student may
express a little of it as he feels it, and the attempt to embody it in
lines on paper will surely lead to a desire to know more fully the
character and shapes of things, to seek a knowledge of drawing with
enthusiasm and pleasure.
These things are said, not against nature‐drawing—I should advise more
rather than less—but against putting it in the wrong place.
The main difference between Academic and Structural (Analytic and
Synthetic) is not in the things done, but in the reason for doing them,
and the time for them. All processes are good in their proper places.
The relation of representative drawing to a synthetic scheme is this: One
uses the facts of nature to express an idea or emotion. The figures,
animals, flowers or objects are chosen for the sake of presenting some
great historical or religious thought as in della Francesca’s Annunciation
(No. 36), for decoration of an architectural space (Reims capital, No.
38), because the landscape has special beauty as in Hiroshige’s print (No.
8), or because the objects have form and color suggesting a high order of
harmony, as in Chinese and Japanese paintings of flowers, or Leonardo’s
drawings of insects and reptiles.
Another reason for drawing is found in the use of the shapes or hues in
design. Desire to express an idea awakens interest in the means.
Observation is keen, close application is an easy task, every sense is
alert to accomplish the undertaking. This is quite different from drawing
anything and everything for practice only.
Mere accuracy has no art‐value whatever. Some of the most pathetic things
in the world are the pictures or statues whose only virtue is accuracy.
The bare truth may be a deadly commonplace. Pupils should look for
character; that includes all truth and all beauty. It leads one to seek
for the best handling and to value power in expression above success in
drawing.
Composition is the greatest aid to representation because it cultivates
judgment as to relations of space and mass. Composition does not invite
departure from nature’s truth, or encourage inaccuracies of any kind—it
helps one to draw in a finer way.
[No. 38. Notan Plan, Rhythm of Line, Representation Composed into a
Space.]
[No. 39. Notan VIII. Dark and Light Harmonies from the Masters.]