All merely outlined drawings are bad, for the simple reason, that an
artist of any power can always do more, and tell more, by quitting his
outlines occasionally, and scratching in a few lines for shade, than he
can by restricting himself to outline only. Hence the fact of his so
restricting himself, whatever may be the occasion, shows him to be a bad
draughtsman, and not to know how to apply his power economically. This
hard law, however, bears only on drawings meant to remain in the state
in which you see them; not on those which were meant to be proceeded
with, or for some mechanical use. It is sometimes necessary to draw pure
outlines, as an incipient arrangement of a composition, to be filled up
afterwards with color, or to be pricked through and used as patterns or
tracings; but if, with no such ultimate object, making the drawing
wholly for its own sake, and meaning it to remain in the state he leaves
it, an artist restricts himself to outline, he is a bad draughtsman, and
his work is bad. There is no exception to this law. A good artist
habitually sees masses, not edges, and can in every case make his
drawing more expressive (with any given quantity of work) by rapid shade
than by contours; so that all good work whatever is more or less touched
with shade, and more or less interrupted as outline.
[Illustration: FIG. 12.]
97. Hence, the published works of Retzsch, and all the English
imitations of them, and all outline engravings from pictures, are bad
work, and only serve to corrupt the public taste. And of such outlines,
the worst are those which are darkened in some part of their course by
way of expressing the dark side, as Flaxman's from Dante, and such
others; because an outline can only be true so long as it accurately
represents the form of the given object with _one_ of its edges. Thus,
the outline _a_ and the outline _b_, Fig. 12, are both _true_ outlines
of a ball; because, however thick the line may be, whether we take the
interior or exterior edge of it, that edge of it always draws a true
circle. But _c_ is a false outline of a ball, because either the inner
or outer edge of the black line must be an untrue circle, else the line
could not be thicker in one place than another. Hence all "force," as it
is called, is gained by falsification of the contours; so that no artist
whose eye is true and fine could endure to look at it. It does indeed
often happen that a painter, sketching rapidly, and trying again and
again for some line which he cannot quite strike, blackens or loads the
first line by setting others beside and across it; and then a careless
observer supposes it has been thickened on purpose: or, sometimes also,
at a place where shade is afterwards to inclose the form, the painter
will strike a broad dash of this shade beside his outline at once,
looking as if he meant to thicken the outline; whereas this broad line
is only the first installment of the future shadow, and the outline is
really drawn with its inner edge.[21] And thus, far from good
draughtsmen darkening the lines which turn away from the light, the
_tendency_ with them is rather to darken them towards the light, for it
is there in general that shade will ultimately inclose them. The best
example of this treatment that I know is Raphael's sketch, in the
Louvre, of the head of the angel pursuing Heliodorus, the one that shows
part of the left eye; where the dark strong lines which terminate the
nose and forehead towards the light are opposed to tender and light ones
behind the ear, and in other places towards the shade. You will see in
Fig. 11 the same principle variously exemplified; the principal dark
lines, in the head and drapery of the arms, being on the side turned to
the light.
[Illustration: FIG. 13.]
98. All these refinements and ultimate principles, however, do not
affect your drawing for the present. You must try to make your outlines
as _equal_ as possible; and employ pure outline only for the two
following purposes: either (1.) to steady your hand, as in Exercise II.,
for if you cannot draw the line itself, you will never be able to
terminate your shadow in the precise shape required, when the line is
absent; or (2.) to give you shorthand memoranda of forms, when you are
pressed for time. Thus the forms of distant trees in groups are defined,
for the most part, by the light edge of the rounded mass of the nearer
one being shown against the darker part of the rounded mass of a more
distant one; and to draw this properly, nearly as much work is required
to round each tree as to round the stone in Fig. 5. Of course you cannot
often get time to do this; but if you mark the terminal line of each
tree as is done by Dürer in Fig. 13, you will get a most useful
memorandum of their arrangement, and a very interesting drawing. Only
observe in doing this, you must not, because the procedure is a quick
one, hurry that procedure itself. You will find, on copying that bit of
Dürer, that every one of his lines is firm, deliberate, and accurately
descriptive as far as it goes. It means a bush of such a size and such a
shape, definitely observed and set down; it contains a true
"signalement" of every nut-tree, and apple-tree, and higher bit of
hedge, all round that village. If you have not time to draw thus
carefully, do not draw at all--you are merely wasting your work and
spoiling your taste. When you have had four or five years' practice you
may be able to make useful memoranda at a rapid rate, but not yet;
except sometimes of light and shade, in a way of which I will tell you
presently. And this use of outline, note farther, is wholly confined to
objects which have edges or limits. You can outline a tree or a stone,
when it rises against another tree or stone; but you cannot outline
folds in drapery, or waves in water; if these are to be expressed at
all, it must be by some sort of shade, and therefore the rule that no
good drawing can consist throughout of pure outline remains absolute.
You see, in that wood-cut of Dürer's, his reason for even limiting
himself so much to outline as he has, in those distant woods and plains,
is that he may leave them in bright light, to be thrown out still more
by the dark sky and the dark village spire: and the scene becomes real
and sunny only by the addition of these shades.
[Illustration: FIG. 14.]
99. Understanding, then, thus much of the use of outline, we will go
back to our question about tree-drawing left unanswered at page 48.
[Illustration: FIG. 15.]
We were, you remember, in pursuit of mystery among the leaves. Now, it
is quite easy to obtain mystery and disorder, to any extent; but the
difficulty is to keep organization in the midst of mystery. And you will
never succeed in doing this unless you lean always to the definite side,
and allow yourself rarely to become quite vague, at least through all
your early practice. So, after your single groups of leaves, your first
step must be to conditions like Figs. 14 and 15, which are careful
facsimiles of two portions of a beautiful wood-cut of Dürer's, the
"Flight into Egypt." Copy these carefully,--never mind how little at a
time, but thoroughly; then trace the Dürer, and apply it to your
drawing, and do not be content till the one fits the other, else your
eye is not true enough to carry you safely through meshes of real
leaves. And in the course of doing this, you will find that not a line
nor dot of Dürer's can be displaced without harm; that all add to the
effect, and either express something, or illumine something, or relieve
something. If, afterwards, you copy any of the pieces of modern tree
drawing, of which so many rich examples are given constantly in our
cheap illustrated periodicals (any of the Christmas numbers of last
year's _Illustrated News_ or others are full of them), you will see
that, though good and forcible general effect is produced, the lines are
thrown in by thousands without special intention, and might just as well
go one way as another, so only that there be enough of them to produce
all together a well-shaped effect of intricacy: and you will find that a
little careless scratching about with your pen will bring you very near
the same result without an effort; but that no scratching of pen, nor
any fortunate chance, nor anything but downright skill and thought, will
imitate so much as one leaf of Dürer's. Yet there is considerable
intricacy and glittering confusion in the interstices of those vine
leaves of his, as well as of the grass.
[Illustration: FIG. 16.]
100. When you have got familiarized to his firm manner, you may draw
from Nature as much as you like in the same way; and when you are tired
of the intense care required for this, you may fall into a little more
easy massing of the leaves, as in Fig. 10 (p. 55). This is facsimilëd
from an engraving after Titian, but an engraving not quite first-rate in
manner, the leaves being a little too formal; still, it is a good enough
model for your times of rest; and when you cannot carry the thing even
so far as this, you may sketch the forms of the masses, as in Fig.
16,[22] taking care always to have thorough command over your hand;
that is, not to let the mass take a free shape because your hand ran
glibly over the paper, but because in Nature it has actually a free and
noble shape, and you have faithfully followed the same.
101. And now that we have come to questions of noble shape, as well as
true shape, and that we are going to draw from Nature at our pleasure,
other considerations enter into the business, which are by no means
confined to first practice, but extend to all practice; these (as this
letter is long enough, I should think, to satisfy even the most exacting
of correspondents) I will arrange in a second letter; praying you only
to excuse the tiresomeness of this first one--tiresomeness inseparable
from directions touching the beginning of any art,--and to believe me,
even though I am trying to set you to dull and hard work,
Very faithfully yours,