SCIENCE AND ART DEPARTMENT 
 OF THE COMMITTEE OF COUNCIL ON 
 EDUCATION. ‘ 
 
 SCHOOL OF ART 
 
 
 Presented to 
 
 for success in the Advanced Section of the Course of 
 Instruction m Art. 
 
 BY ORDER OF THE LORDS OF THE COMMITTEE OF 
 PRIVY COUNCIL ON EDUCATION. 
 MDCCCLXXIV. 
 
 GEORGE’S 
 
 Park Street^ Bristol 
 
 
 

 
 Iflllll 
 
 ?«?►'' I'.x 
 
Clarendon presig ^en'es 
 
 PICTORIAL ART 
 
 TYR WHITT 
 
EonDon 
 
 MACMILLAN AND CO. 
 
 PUBLISHERS TO THE UNIVERSITY OF 
 
 0xforti 
 
Digitized by the Internet Archive 
 in 2017 with funding from 
 Getty Research Institute 
 
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 https://archive.org/details/handbookofpictorOOtyrw 
 
Clarention ^resisi Series 
 
 M IV A 
 
 A HANDBOOK OF 
 
 PICTORIAL ART 
 
 BY THE 
 
 Rev. R. St. JOHN TYRWHITT, M.A. 
 
 FORMERLY STUDENT AND TUTOR OF CHRIST CHURCH 
 
 WITH A CHAPTER ON PERSPECTIVE 
 BY A. MACDONALD 
 
 SCHOOL OF ART, OXFORD 
 
 AT THE CLARENDON PRESS 
 M DCCC LXVIII 
 
 [All rights 7'esen'ccl.'\ 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 TT seems unlikely that any one will expect much original in- 
 , formation in a practical treatise on Art, nor have I much 
 to offer; though I trust some fresh information and instruction 
 may be found here and there in this Manual. The main object 
 of this Preface is to render acknowledgment to the various gentle- 
 men by whom I have been assisted, either personally or through 
 written works. 
 
 Mr. Puskin'^s works are referred to, or quoted, or they have 
 suggested my statements, almost throughout the book. I owe 
 everything to his writings and personal advice and teaching; 
 and I believe his Art instructions form a considerable part of the 
 mental stock-in-trade of most competent painters or critics in 
 our generation. 
 
 I have to thank Messrs. Smith and Elder for their kindness 
 in allowing me to make lavish use of his books, and even for 
 supplying me with electro-blocks of some quite unique woodcuts; 
 and I cannot thank them too strongly. 
 
 The work of Messrs. Crowe and Cavalcaselle has also been laid 
 largely under contribution ; it is probable that its authors were 
 aware in publishing it, that its value as a book of reference would 
 necessarily subject it to extensive quotation. At all events, I have 
 left masses of interesting information behind in it untouched ; and 
 
VI 
 
 PREFA CE. 
 
 it is a good result of my own work to myself that I have had 
 to read theirs. 
 
 But I have to acknowledge that this hook could not have ap- 
 peared at all hut for the assistance of Mr. Alexander Macdonald^ 
 Master of the Oxford Art School in the Randolph Gallery Oxford. 
 Its practical part is of course its most important division_, and 
 of that, the chapter on Perspective and the greatest part of that 
 on Water-colour are both his. The substance of the first two 
 chapters is derived in great part from his instructions. I have 
 read the whole book to him, and taken his advice on it; and his 
 favourable opinion makes me feel an amount of confidence, in 
 putting it forth, which I should certainly be very far from ex- 
 pressing without his approval. We hope the book may be found 
 a progressive and coherent system of instruction, in which one 
 step < may lead properly into another, and the earlier processes 
 or exercises be a consistent preparation for the later and more 
 elaborate ones. The Dissections of Statues, and the Water-colour 
 Landscape in three stages, are Mr. Macdonald^s work. Instruction 
 by such means is no new idea^; but, I think, in both our examples 
 impersonal teaching is carried almost to the bounds of present 
 possibility. 
 
 Some illustrations by Miss Alice Owen, a pupil of the Oxford 
 Art School, will bo found to do credit to her master and 
 herself — especially the Durer facsimiles. And I have to thank 
 Mr. Bunker, Assistant-Master at the same place, for a beautiful 
 and instructive illustration of the finer processes of shading. 
 
 The plan of the whole work, in so far as it has a plan, will be 
 seen to follow the schools or masters of Florence. The Historical 
 Sketches, and their reference, will take the reader to as far as the 
 
 ^ There is a dissection of part of the Laocoon in Dr. Fan’s ‘ Anatomy and pro- 
 gressive landscapes are in constant use. 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 vii 
 
 student-works and sketches of Rafael and Michael Ang-elo : and 
 it seems possible that a steady use of the Lessons in Part II. may 
 enable a modern pupil to study such earlier and unfinished works 
 of both masters as are to be found in University or Metropolitan 
 collections. Copying finished pictures by great men is work for 
 masters rather than pupils : in any case it is beyond our range. 
 One of the best sets of accurate reproductions of Rafael Drawings 
 is the work of Joseph Fisher^^ Esq.^ Curator of the Randolph 
 Galleries in Oxford ; whom I have also to thank for some instruc- 
 tions in etchings "which have been added to the chapter on 
 Sketching in this book. 
 
 Though Venice contains the greatest examples of Colour in the 
 world_, Florence is the great school of Drawing. Solid study of 
 accurate form must come firsts because it can be taught to any 
 person : and when that is learnt may come the delight and excite- 
 ment of colour j power in which is incommunicable_, and which, 
 taken by itself, would be mere intoxication. It is in Florence 
 that the Gothic, or Lombard, or Western study of Painting and 
 Sculpture advanced from the unknown Romanesque carvers to 
 Nicolo Pisano, and from him to Michael Angelo ; and their torch 
 was so carried forward in Gothic schools, that the recovered 
 antiques of the Renaissance were no more than technically in- 
 structive models, which never dominated the spirit or the hand 
 of the great Florentines ; though Michael Angelo willingly called 
 the Torso of the Vatican his master. The progress of systematic 
 study from Pisano to Michael Angelo is easily traceable in 
 Florence ; and there only : though a master may g’ain I know 
 not what by contemplating the supreme glories of colour and 
 form in Venice. The clearness and heat, the labour and burden 
 of the day must go before the splendour and peiisiveness of sunset, 
 although that hour seems worth all the others to a painter ; and 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 viii 
 
 so it is with the great Gothic Art-period of the Middle Ages. 
 Its progress in Florence must be understood before its consum- 
 mation on the Adriatic. 
 
 This book has been written in fragments and at uncertain 
 intervals^ such as I could obtain, having the care of a large 
 town parish; but it has passed under able inspection. I do 
 not know how many and various methods, in oil and water- 
 colour, may be said to be preferable to the course herein sug- 
 gested ; but I feel sure that he who goes through it fairly will 
 have little to unlearn or retrace, and will be far enough advanced 
 in the end to take his own line, and to modify or relinquish 
 our rules in his own way. The book will then have answered 
 its purpose to him, and made itself useless, as such works ought 
 to do. 
 
 The progress of English water-colour painting has been very 
 great within the last twenty years, and great changes have 
 attended it. So much white is now mixed with distance-tints, 
 and so much transparent medium with nearer colours, that many 
 so-called water-colour drawings are, in fact, pictures in tempera. 
 No doubt they are often very beautiful. Still, I think we are 
 right in telling the student to use transparent tints for his 
 first studies in colour and sketches from Nature. The use of 
 solid water-colours, and all the processes of ‘ painting up ^ a 
 drawing with them, are perhaps best learnt by practice in 
 oils. Something will be found in our short chapter on Tempera 
 and Fresco, as to the combination of oil-colours with other 
 media. 
 
 I do not think, as a rule, systematic drawing is to be enforced 
 before the age of thirteen or fourteen, unless in cases where 
 natural intelligence and feeling produce, as they should, enough 
 energy and docility in the pupil to make him really aim at 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 IX 
 
 correctness. At first, let all children be encouraged to draw 
 all things, and paint them after their fashion : they may try 
 whatever they like. I have found that soldiers and cherries 
 are on the whole very favourite beginnings for infant Art, partly 
 from association and patriotism, and chiefly because both subjects 
 involve the use of red pigments. Early works by our young 
 masters should be moderately cpmmended, and corrected as to 
 ^ keeping within lines : but too much ought not to be said about 
 them. Children’s progress will be almost a certainty if a parent, 
 governess, elder brother or sister will draw things in pencil 
 outline for them, and encourage them to imitate. Much is 
 done whenever the faintest feeling of self-expression by drawing 
 is moved in a child : he comes under the influence of the spirit 
 of observation and imitation from that day forward, and a source 
 of originality and vigorous inner life is opened for him. - 
 
 Many of us could say much of the strange comfort which 
 Art affords all who recognize their own spiritual life; and I 
 do not see why it should not be made an important means of 
 promoting that sweetness and culture, which has been of late 
 so eloquently commended to us. 
 
 The introductory chapters of this book were written before 
 the opening of the late French Exhibition. They ought, I think, 
 to have contained some attempts at answering the inevitable 
 question about profits. It is no use recommending Art as a 
 pursuit in this country unless one can hold out some kind of 
 promise that it will pay : and though it is difficult to do so 
 to the individual artist, the great trade-exlnbition of this year 
 enables us to make out a serious case in favour of popular study, 
 even of the higher branches of Drawing’ and Colour. It has 
 been at least very generally asserted, and it has never been 
 denied, that in all constructive and ornamental trades, French 
 
X 
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 and other continental workmen have great advantage over our 
 own artizans, from their skill in design^ acquired through public 
 Art-education, If they have^ and keep this advantage^ it must 
 tell : that is to say^ trade^ work^ and bread must go away from 
 England to France and Germany; not to return until English 
 design shall rival or excel French and German design. Now 
 it has been repeatedly pointed out, especially by Mr. Ruskin 
 in his lecture at Bradford, March 1859 (^The Two Paths,^ p. 90), 
 that all the best decorative design which has hitherto existed 
 has been that of men well trained in the highest known forms of 
 Drawing, and skilled in delineating the human figure and animal 
 forms of all kinds. He also shews the almost-impossibility of 
 beautiful decoration to men who are unaccustomed to the sight of 
 beauty, artistic or natural. Therefore, when we recommend means 
 of popular instruction in high Art, so called, i. e. when we sug- 
 gest that good teaching in figure- drawing should be put within 
 the artizan^s reach, we recommend the best means of giving the 
 artizan true power of design. Without saying anything of 
 general culture, or education and development, it is clear that 
 good original design pays, and is good for trade : and it is certain 
 that you cannot have it without high training in correct drawing, 
 in the first place; nor in the second, without giving the artizan 
 free access to pictures and statues of real merit, and, where it 
 is possible, to the sight of natural beauty. Born painters of 
 the stamp of Turner and Blake will find both, 'somehow, for 
 themselves; but for the sake of those who are not sons of the 
 giants, open workmeiFs galleries and schools, and large wall- 
 paintings, rapid but true in execution, are very much wanted 
 in all our large towns. I daresay good primary schools are 
 wanted still more. But the teaching above mentioned need not 
 clash with them ; it need not begin, except in special instances. 
 
PREFA CE, 
 
 XI 
 
 till the age when workmen’s sons have left their schools. The 
 sight of good colour and form will be better understood by 
 men than boys. Parisian workmen may be seen sketching the 
 statues of the Place de la Concorde : and we may depend upon 
 it^ that as soon as the skilled artizan has easy access to pictures 
 rightly drawn and coloured^ He will know how to get hints 
 from them in designing furniture-patterns or carving capitals. 
 The fact is_, a great and remunerative means of popular culture 
 has long been^ so to speak^ loose among us^ and praying to be 
 used for the benefit of the people; and it will be wise to leave 
 it no longer unemployed. 
 
 Since this book was printed I have found Giotto^s ^ Canzone ^ 
 on Poverty, in ^Pumohr^s Italianische Porschungen/ ii. 51 
 (see p. 88), which I could not at first obtain. It is placed 
 in an Appendix. 
 
 Cheist Chuech, Aiwil , 1868, 
 
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Third Stage of Water-colour Landscape Frontispiece 
 
 Byzantine Lion 64 
 
 Frankish Warrior 65 
 
 ^Lombard-Gothic Grotesque Warrior ..... 65 
 
 ^ CocK, OF Realist Character ...... 65 
 
 Angel from Psalter of Eighth Century . . . . 66 
 
 Serpent Beguiling Eve 67 
 
 Durer Woodcut . . . 176 
 
 Durer Woodcut . .177 
 
 — Mer de Glace . .179 
 
 Glacier-block Photograph and Outline . . . . 181 
 
 Curves Figures 1-4 ....... 192-196 
 
 Back Muscles of the Human Body 222 
 
 \ 
 
 Bones of the Human Body with Photograph . . . 229 
 
 Front Muscles of the Human Body with Photograph . 231 
 
 Lithograph of Pomegranate 243 
 
 First Stage of Water-colour Landscape .... 259 
 
 ^ Second Stage of Water-colour Landscape . . . 275 
 
 '^Coloured Grapes 312 
 
 j Photograph of Turner’s ‘Cephalus and Procris’ . . 405 
 
 Diagrams illustrating Perspective Figures 1-13 . 431-462 
 
 Iffley Mill 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 PART I. THEORY. 
 
 CHAP. PAGE 
 
 I. Introduction 1 
 
 IL lUd 21 
 
 III. Historical :™ 
 
 i. Earliest Christian Art 40 
 
 ii. Symbolism and the Grotesque . . . . 55 
 
 iii. Giotto ........ 82 
 
 iv. Orcagna and Angelico 105 
 
 V. Masaccio 129 
 
 vi. Ghirlandaio . . . . . . .143 
 
 vii. On the Study op Finished Works of Art . 158 
 
 PAET II. PRACTICE. 
 
 I. Free-hand Drawing in Line . . . . .165 
 
 II. Drawing from the Cast 206 
 
 III. Use of Water-colours. — Introductory . . . 253 
 
 IV. i. On Finish 289 
 
 ii. Copying 318 
 
 V. First Lessons in Oil-painting 330 
 
 VI. Composition 358 
 
 VII. Landscape Sketching 377 
 
 VIII. Tree-drawing 405 
 
 IX. Processes of Wall-painting 419 
 
 X. Perspective 429 
 
A HANDBOOK OF 
 
 PICTORIAL ART 
 
PICTORIAL ART. 
 
 PAET I. THEORY. 
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 Chapter L 
 
 1 this Manual is intended to be both practical and 
 
 theoretic, it must necessarily take the form partly 
 of a series of essays in as popular language as is 
 possible, and partly of a set of rules, or even recipes. 
 It is quite as certain that every artist must learn his 
 work by strictly following out severe rules, as it is that 
 mere diligent obedience to rules by itself will not make 
 an artist, in the higher and narrower sense of the word. 
 And though this book is written for publication in a 
 place of general and not special education, so that Art 
 will have to be considered in it rather as a means of 
 liberal education for the many than as an end or object 
 to educate a few men for ; — the necessity for strict com- 
 pliance with its elementary rules is no less absolute and 
 complete on that account. To say that we will treat 
 Pictorial or other Art only as a means of educating the 
 eye and hand and powers of observation, means, prac- 
 tically speaking, that we will only insist on its study to 
 
INTRODUCTION. 
 
 a certain extent ; or, that we will only teach a certain 
 quantity of it. That quantity then, however small, 
 ought to be taught with the highest accuracy : and the 
 smaller the advance made by our pupils, the safer their 
 grounding ought to be. Man may no doubt want but 
 little painting here below ; but he does not want that 
 little wrong. And this is the first delusion with which 
 most teachers have to contend. The pupil always says 
 he ‘ only wants to draw a little,^ and thinks that a little 
 bad drawing is as well worth his acquiring as a little 
 good. The fact is, it is not the want of time and effort 
 which makes amateur work so weak as it often is. It 
 is waste of time, and misdirection of effort, because the 
 pupil will try to avoid proper study of line and light 
 and shade at first. People do not fall into contemptibly 
 bad style because they only want to draw a little, but 
 because they want to produce great effect with little 
 attention. In every serious study, and indeed in what 
 are considered lighter pursuits — music, for instance — it 
 is understood that nothing can come of nothing, and 
 that all success must be won by hard and systematic 
 exertion. This discovery has scarcely been made yet 
 as to drawing — at least the necessity of steady and 
 accurate work is not generally felt. One hears people 
 talk of the accuracy of the artist's eye, and the firmness 
 or delicacy of his touch, as if both accuracy and manual 
 skill were to be taught them by a spell or communicated 
 like infection. It takes them some time to realize that 
 these powers are gained by slow degrees, and by use of 
 the same means which are put in their own reach : that 
 if they take those means they certainly will gain some 
 power, and if not, probably not : that the workman they 
 
GRAMMAR OF ART. 
 
 3 
 
 admire began to learn his art by drawing and bisecting 
 straight lines, and that they must do the same. Most 
 learners, till lately, have refused to do the same. They 
 have not given up the hope of doing a great deal with- 
 out any trouble. They have an idea that great painters 
 were born with an instinctive knowledge of how to 
 draw the figure with anatomical correctness, and that 
 Giorgione woke one morning and found himself pos- 
 sessed of his scale of flesh tints, and skill to mix them 
 and lay them on. They argue much in this way : ‘As 
 Rafael and Titian (probably) became able to paint the 
 Madonna di San Sisto or the Assumption without any 
 hard work, so shall we be able to paint pretty land- 
 scapes, or portraits of our friends, or illustrations of our 
 favourite poets, without any hard work. At least we 
 may learn to wash in and wash out colour, and produce 
 landscape sketches to show our friends, and to remind 
 ourselves of scenes we have enjoyed; and that is all we 
 want.’ The fact that it sometimes brings this wish to 
 partial and feeble fulfilment is the great attraction of 
 the modern English Water-colour School, if that can be 
 called a School which teaches so very little of any 
 grammar of Art. A few years back the name of the 
 Blottesque or Washy Style was a sadly well -merited 
 one. And pictures were painted, by amateurs and pro- 
 fessed artists alike, which were, like their producers, full 
 of good spirit and bad drawing, and keen feeling and 
 abundance of idleness, and waste of time, and life, and 
 effort, and good colour and paper. A decided change 
 for the better has taken place ; and we think it may be 
 said that the works of all first and second-rate water- 
 colourists are now carried out with an accuracy of 
 
4 
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 drawing and honourable attempt at realization which 
 was very rare ten years ago. Much of this is due 
 to the advance of photography, which has called the 
 popular eye to beauty of simple form and familiar detail 
 in a remarkable manner. And, undoubtedly, the South 
 Kensington Art Schools, and the many others which 
 have arisen from them, or along with them, have pro- 
 duced important effects, which we may hope are destined 
 to rapid increase. But it is still common to see both 
 young and full-grown people begin the pursuit of Art 
 at the wrong end, and try to copy pictures before they 
 can draw straight lines, take up colour before form, and 
 not only colour but complicated colour. All this is 
 done ; and it can lead to no educational result. Adult 
 pupils, in particular, recoil from free-hand drawing with 
 amusing contempt. One of the great difficulties of a 
 conscientious master in a modern school is the con- 
 tinued struggle with ladies and gentlemen who think 
 that accuracy is ‘ niggling,' that it will ‘ spoil their 
 touch' to be able to draw a straight line, and that it 
 will ‘ check their children's natural genius' if they are 
 not let loose on the whole colour-box to begin with. We 
 hold that the term Education means the ‘ bringing out' 
 or development of the natural or original powers of the 
 intellect, soul, and senses of man or woman. And to 
 educate in Art is to develope the sense of colour and 
 form, and the powers of the hand and eye. And these 
 are very imperfectly developed, if at all, by the use of 
 washes of colour, where the attention is directed only 
 to tints, and withdrawn from anything like accurate 
 representation of form. It is hard to get any one to see 
 how surely confidence and power in the use of colour 
 
STYLE. 
 
 5 
 
 will result from real knowledge of form ; and how 
 especially this is the case in water-colour, where so 
 much depends on confidence and rapidity, and so many 
 great things are really done at speed. But there is the 
 unmeaning confidence of ignorance, and the very dif- 
 ferent confidence of knowledge, which is alike rapid and 
 unerring. 
 
 Many landscape painters, no doubt, have memories 
 well stored with tolerably accurate conventional repre- 
 sentations of mountain or other form; the use a man 
 makes of such representations in the detail of his pic- 
 ture is often called his ‘ touch' or his ‘ style.' We have 
 heard persons, totally unable to draw, say that they 
 meant to take a few lessons of Frederick Taylor, or of 
 T. M. Richardsonj ‘just to learn his style;' supremely 
 unconscious that a man's touch or style is the way he 
 has gradually acquired of expressing the facts he cares 
 most for, and that it has taken him years of observation, 
 and wandering by moor and glen, to learn to make the 
 rapid touches which they think they can imitate by the 
 eye, without understanding them. They forget, more- 
 over, that the painter they wish to imitate, probably 
 went through severe technical education as a boy before 
 he began to draw from nature, and that he has been 
 drawing from nature ever since. And accordingly we 
 see much time wasted in producing copies or imitations 
 of the slighter work of popular water-colourists, which 
 are not only totally valueless and nugatory as pictures, 
 but represent so much waste of tiine^ and that kind of 
 indolent half-effort the wrong way, which never can, 
 and never ought to, end in anything but vexation and 
 failure. 
 
6 
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 Most persons, however, to do them justice, wish to do 
 something more than copy other men’s work, and dis- 
 play the copies. They wish, as they say, to he able to 
 make telling and graphic sketches of scenery or action 
 by way of record, to assist their memory of pleasant or 
 striking events or places. This is altogether right. And 
 they have two things to consider. First, how great a 
 thing they wish for; — how very important an advantage 
 it is to have the power of pictorial expression; — whether 
 it be not worth some toil to be able to save and store 
 up impressions of beauty which perhaps never can be 
 seen more than once : and secondly, if to this end they 
 will avail themselves of those plain elementary means 
 of instruction in Art which are perfectly well- ascer- 
 tained to be best for them, which are a safe foundation 
 for every kind of superstructure, and which, once mas- 
 tered, will never leave them. 
 
 Lord Bacon says that ‘he who has a wife and 
 children has given hostages to fortune.’ I have often 
 thought, that to have won oneself any skill in or 
 attachment to Pictorial Art is, in an important sense, 
 to have taken hostages from fortune. This is literally 
 true of those who have advanced far enough in the 
 study of Art to be able to produce works which are 
 either sublime or instructive, or affecting, or even 
 saleable. In the last case, as in the others, the artist 
 can produce a thing which has a market value; and, 
 except under improbable or distant contingencies, he 
 has secured a livelihood. But we are engaged at 
 present with Art as a branch of liberal education. 
 In other words, we are considering what we may expect 
 the study of Art to do for the man, even were he to 
 
VALUE OF AMATEUR ART. 
 
 7 
 
 produce no works of Art at all. It will be an after- 
 consideration, what we may expect the man to do for 
 us, supposing him to have taken our education kindly, 
 and to have learnt to produce works above a certain 
 standard. This subject will be considered when we go 
 into the question of how much may be taught all 
 classes of men by paintings exhibited in public, or 
 done in fresco on public buildings; and what office 
 such works might hold in national education. At 
 present we have to answer the question. What is the 
 function of Art in ordinary liberal education? What 
 does the careful amateur gain by practising it ? What 
 will teaching and practice in drawing do for a person 
 who does not expect or intend ever to make pictures 
 to sell? What good will he get while he is learning, 
 and what will it be worth to him to have learned, 
 more or less about Art? 
 
 We say, it will do him good mentally, morally, and 
 physically. Mentally, it will train his mind to grasp 
 at ideas of Beauty ; morally, it will make him thankful 
 for them, save him from lower desires, and open to him 
 the way of aspiration; physically, it will teach him 
 how to make the hand obey the eye with a perfect 
 service, and give him a vast advantage in accom- 
 plishments, or sports, or serious Avorks of accuracy and 
 skill, which depend for success on perfect union in 
 action of eye and hand. It is our object just noAv to 
 point out some of the benefits Avhich the study of Art 
 may probably confer on persons of ordinary quickness, 
 feeling, and capacity. There seems no practical neces- 
 sity for much distinction between the intellectual and 
 moral benefits to be derived from it, if it be rightly 
 
8 
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 pursued. They may be distinguished, no doubt. Art 
 may be skilfully and wrongly practised. There have 
 been many bad men who were good painters, as there 
 have probably been undevout astronomers, who were 
 not mad. Still there can be no doubt that, prac- 
 tically speaking, the powers of the mind, and the higher 
 qualities of the heart, are trained and improved to- 
 gether, through right study of Nature by Art, and of 
 Art as a means of interpretating Nature. There are no 
 human faculties where development can be better for 
 our own generation than those of observation and admi- 
 ration. Habits of scientific observation are formed, 
 no doubt, by the special training which men have to go 
 through while preparing for certain professions. But a 
 good foundation for them may be laid, and help, which 
 will be valuable hereafter, may be acquired in earlier 
 life, by any young person who acquires the habit of ob- 
 serving structure, and form as it indicates structure, and 
 of learning to understand, and prize, and seek for the 
 beauty which always accompanies perfection of struc- 
 ture. Mentally, the discovering and reasoning powers, 
 the general intelligence, must gain greatly from that 
 close accuracy of eye which is the result of careful 
 drawing from Nature. Morally, there is what we may 
 call the great sixth sense of admiration, which the 
 proper study of outer Nature seems of all things the 
 best calculated to draw out in men of our own time, 
 and which is beyond all others needed in our own 
 time, because it supplies a fund of enjoyment for the 
 many which is almost inexhaustible. Structural beauty 
 is one of the objects of the scientific analyst, and he 
 may find it in the dissected organs of animals or 
 
THE GIFT OF ADMIRATION. 
 
 9 
 
 flowers. The painter would rather record their out- 
 ward appearance than dissect them. Yet few men 
 of science would not be well pleased to have become 
 good draughtsmen from nature early in life ; and such 
 men would not deny that their eyes had gained quick- 
 ness of observation in the inside structures of things, 
 from faithful attempts to represent their outsides. We 
 need not speak of the advantages of clear or ac- 
 curate drawing in most professions, nor do we propose 
 to do so. For, in the first instance, Art must minister 
 and appeal to enjoyment of visible nature, and to 
 the sense of admiration. This, from its entire unselfish- 
 ness, is one of the highest forms of human pleasure. 
 And the chief office of Art for all people is really 
 to show them how this great function of enjojunent 
 is within reach of all. It would be almost new ground 
 for an essayist, to go thoroughly into the nature 
 of what we call Admiration, and show how it involves 
 delighted recognition of something superior to oneself. 
 Perhaps it is the great self-consciousness of most persons 
 of our time, which makes it specially valuable for them 
 to have the free and habitual use of a faculty which 
 enables them to forget themselves. We may just notice 
 how important, and yet how easy to make, is the step 
 between admiration and aspiration. But the fact is, 
 that the mere enjoyment of natural beauty is of great 
 consequence for all our middle and lower classes at this 
 time, simply because it is a strong and innocent enjoy- 
 ment. That they cannot generally appreciate it now is 
 no reason for our supposing that they are incapable of 
 being taught to appreciate. That a person cannot see 
 the beauty of natural objects till he is told of it, does 
 
10 
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 not make it less beneficial to him to be told. Having 
 once learnt to see it, he will, in all human probability, 
 make progress : he will find that a new path of observa- 
 tion and enjoyment is opened to his mind, and will soon 
 come, as we all do, to take more pleasure in the little 
 store of facts and feelings he has obtained for himself, 
 than in all he may have learnt from other men's 
 teaching. By setting any person to draw from Nature 
 or from good models, we withdraw him from the sphere 
 of lesson-learning, and enable him to find out some- 
 thing for himself; and all thoughtful persons will 
 see that this is an important step in his education, 
 although many other people may have taken it before, 
 and discovered the same fact for themselves. It is a 
 new and important fact, when a new learner becomes 
 aware of an old fact. The truth is, that persons who 
 say they do not see the beauty of common things, mean 
 almost always that they do not think it worth their 
 while to see it, and very generally, that they do not 
 believe in its existence. Many such persons, however, 
 are kind-hearted and acute enough to allow that others 
 may do with advantage what they do not care to 
 do ; and that though it is not in their way to consider 
 ravens and lilies with any particular attention, it may 
 be of use to a poor or hard-worked man to do so, 
 because it gives him some freshness and interest in life, 
 and occupies him harmlessly and pleasantly. 
 
 We put aside, for a few pages only, the important 
 fact of how the exercise of the faculty of Imitation by 
 Drawing invariably interests the mind in the object 
 drawn : so that a person who never looked at, say 
 even ‘ a cat or a fiddle' before, would pay attention to 
 
SENSE OF BE A UTF. 
 
 11 
 
 both cats and fiddles if he had seen Rafaefs painting of 
 the latter and Veronese's of the former ^ The pleasure 
 which results from merely imitative drawing is, how- 
 ever, not a high one. Art is, after all, the pursuit of 
 Beauty, a means of learning to produce it or appreciate 
 it; and on this matter it has something like a prejudice 
 to contend with in our own time and country. We 
 cannot help noticing a strange preference on the part of 
 the British mind for ugliness, plainness, or absence of 
 outward interest. It is now so far disturbed, that we 
 see the strength of its hold on the vulgar of all 
 classes. It is exactly the same in fine people, who 
 vote Art a bore, as it is in untaught religionists, who 
 have a notion that Art is carnal and sinful, more ex- 
 cusably and conscientiously. Indeed, educated people 
 are not much to be blamed for sometimes using con- 
 temptuous expressions about Art, when they have 
 been annoyed by foolish or insincere raptures on the 
 subject. But it is worthy of our attention that the 
 faculty of Admiration needs cultivation among educated 
 people quite as much as it does among the uneducated. 
 In the first place, thought and leisure for thought 
 are necessary to its development, and our own days are 
 both idle and busy: and in the next, those who are 
 making marked progress in other studies leave them- 
 selves too little time for it. Knowledge puffeth up, 
 and the natural tendency of a person who is fast 
 acquiring information from books is rather to uiider- 
 
 1 Comp. Browning, ‘ Fra Lippo Lippi — 
 
 ‘ For, don’t you mark, we’re made so, that we love 
 First when we see them painted, things we have passed 
 Perhaps a hundred times, nor cared to sec,’ itc., &c. 
 
12 
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 value than to admire what he does not find in his 
 books. Book-knowledge is rapidly gained, and is self- 
 conscious : it is almost the very contrary with knowledge 
 of nature. Indeed we think that when that is acquired 
 in some degree, and the workman knows that his eye 
 can see new things, and his hand record them, he is 
 rather inclined to enjoy himself than to be proud of 
 himself. And though, no doubt, young persons may be 
 as foolishly vain of their drawings as of anything else, 
 there is no doubt that if good models, natural or other, 
 are kept before them, they ought not to fall into temp- 
 tations of that kind, seeing that with their skill, their 
 appreciation of the greater beauty before them must 
 necessarily increase. 
 
 It is surprising how recent the general taste for 
 beauty of natural scenery is. A feeling on the subject, 
 which is now almost national, has been awakened by 
 the various works of Mr. Ruskin. His inspirations seem 
 to have been partly, as he himself says, drawn from the 
 great works of Turner. They could not have been his, 
 however, without the most devoted study of all the 
 outer aspects of nature, the closest, perhaps, ever be- 
 stowed by any man on record. Without him, landscape 
 Art would probably have remained at the point to 
 which Stanfield, Creswick, Harding, and Cople}^ Field- 
 ing brought it twenty years ago. Pre-Rafaelitism, by 
 which we mean correct drawing, and the English do- 
 mestic School of Art, would certainly have had less 
 rapid success. The effect of his works on Art will 
 probably not be appreciated during his lifetime : but 
 nothing can be more strangely true than his remarks 
 on the eighteenth-century feeling about scenery. It 
 
NOVELTY OF HIGH LANDSCAPE. 
 
 18 
 
 is surprising how entirely the life of towns seems to 
 have sufficed at that time to men who really possessed 
 great feeling, besides all their masculine power of in- 
 tellect. Thinkers or writers, wits as they called them- 
 selves, were content with their own resources and their 
 books, and lived as if their only game was man. The 
 life of the Club, the Mall, the coffee-house, and the 
 theatre, with the full enjoyment of each other's con- 
 versation at a time when personal intercourse stood in 
 the place of light reading, sufficed them for work and 
 rest. Nor is much to be said against them for following 
 the ways of their time. But they could and did dis- 
 pense with sources of change and repose, and pensive 
 or active pleasure, which we could not part with for 
 ourselves, and hope to extend to others. To the man 
 of letters, from Dryden's time to Pope's, and thence 
 till well into the long life of Turner, all that was not 
 the Town was the Country; and was looked on as a 
 region mainly productive of cream. Innocence was sup- 
 posed to be another of its staple products; its inha- 
 bitants all carried crooks (probably none of their urban 
 describers ever formed a conception of the uses of that 
 instrument), and performed a good deal on pipes. As 
 for wild, or silvan, or rugged scenery, if it was believed 
 in at all, it seems to have been looked on much as if it 
 was in the other world ; that is to say, with the feeling 
 that no one in his senses would go there while he could 
 possibly avoid it. Conventional descriptions of cool 
 glades and purling brooks, and mountains which lifted 
 their horrid peaks above the clouds, seem to have suf- 
 ficed for the imagination : and two or three proverbial 
 sayings will tolerably well express all we know about 
 
14 
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 men’s feelings concerning any scenery, except town 
 scenery. One is the mythic Frenchman’s ‘ Aimez voiis 
 les heautes de la Nature? Pour moi, je les abhorre.’ 
 Another comes from no less a man than the great Blake 
 — ‘ I find Nature abominably in my way!’ And a third 
 is the ironical question and answer of Christopher 
 North, ‘ What is the motive with which a thinking 
 being should undertake a pilgrimage to the Lakes? 
 Why, the eating and drinking, to be sure 1 ’ 
 
 Habits of thought of this kind, or something like it, 
 as many of us will remember, lasted up to our own 
 youth h The love of sport of course modified this view 
 of nature to men : the hunter is the hunter in all ages 
 and times, and has often formed a link between the 
 regular town-wit and the regular countryman. In the 
 days of Addison, however, we know that such people 
 were only admitted into society like Sir Roger de Co- 
 verly, under proper guidance, and, so to speak, with a 
 ring through their noses. Latterly the taste for moun- 
 tain adventure has arisen as a kind of compromise be- 
 tween field-sports and contemplative enjoyment of the 
 loftier scenery of nature. But it is obvious that, till 
 quite lately, all the appeal of nature was simpl}^ lost to 
 the minds of able men. Art-study, if they undertook 
 
 ^ The Diary and Conversations of Miss Berry give some curious illus- 
 trations of inability to give real attention to natural beauty. There 
 was no want of sensibility, as it seems : she speaks of being fairly 
 overcome by the pass between Sallenches and Chamonix, and owns the 
 impossibility of describing it. But she makes no attempt whatever at 
 natural description anywhere else from London to ISTaples. Beautiful, 
 truly romantic, good roads, and fleas, sum up all her country pictures. 
 On towns and galleries she is voluble and intelligent. 
 
GOETHE^S FAILURE, 
 
 15 
 
 it at all, was scholastic from beginning to end. Casts 
 and skeletons to draw froni, ancient masters to draw 
 after ; landscape really as conventional and fixed in its 
 rules as Byzantine Mosaic: no domestic subject, except 
 Dutch subject; the old Renaissance-classic enthusiasm, 
 fast perishing,— these things were all the ordinary stu- 
 dent had to look to. And men are not first moved to 
 wish to paint by beauties of abstract form, but by trees, 
 and clouds, and flowers, and sunsets. And when they 
 were wont to find that the rules of Art would only let 
 them paint trees brown, and took no notice of clouds at 
 all, they felt unable to connect Art with Nature. This 
 accounts for a fact in the biography of one of the 
 greatest men in modern times^ which seems almost to 
 have baffled his very able biographer. Goethe (see 
 Lewis' life of him), with every wish to pursue Art, 
 never had any success in it, though he made consider- 
 able exertions. Failing in perhaps nothing else he 
 attempted, he failed in that. It is natural enough. He 
 was not taught to look for Beauty in the free field 
 and on the hill-side, but in the studio : he did not 
 feel the perpetual solicitation of outer Nature : — not 
 to say that he had countless other ways of express- 
 ing Thought continually pressing upon him, and that 
 ‘non omnia possumus omnes.' When he looked on 
 beautiful scenes, it was generally in the company of 
 other persons, male, or probably female, to whose 
 forms Nature was only a background. And to one who 
 claimed prompt success as a right, severe and plodding 
 study of line must have been intolerable. It is useless 
 to set up Painting against Poetry to one who has the 
 highest powers of Poetry, and greatest command of 
 
16 
 
 I NTR OD UC TION. 
 
 ideas and language ; because he has the readier means 
 of self-expression prepared for his hand. So great a 
 name in the Romantic as the author of Goetz von 
 Berlichingen can hardly have had much sympathy 
 with the classicism of the studios of 1770-1800. 
 
 There is no doubt that the strong feeling for all 
 Pictorial Art which is experienced and expressed by our 
 own generation, originated in the love of Landscape. 
 And it is quite possible that there may be persons 
 capable of finding instruction and enjoyment of the 
 highest character in landscape Art, who nevertheless 
 shrink from severe free-hand drawing in the first 
 instance. We think on the whole that there is an 
 alternative for them, which will be stated at length in 
 our more practical chapters. Speaking in the fewest 
 possible words, let them study and copy with real 
 exactness the woodcuts of Albert Durer, and the mezzo- 
 tints of Turner’s Liber Studiorum. We have known 
 instances where whole years of eager and useless at- 
 tempts at water-colour landscape have been utilized 
 in the end; by the mere fact of their bringing the 
 impatient student to his senses, and sending him at 
 last to methodical work in line. The haste and im- 
 patience which are derived from genuine eagerness to 
 reproduce keenly-felt images of beauty, may be tamed 
 and systematized into a kind of success. Not that it 
 will ever satisfy. In all cases of true artistic feeling 
 the pursuit is the reward, not the result. But the 
 vulgar impatience of idleness or indifference, which is 
 always demanding large results from slight exertions, 
 is as hopeless in painting as in any other pursuit 
 whatever. 
 
EDUCATION BY ART, 
 
 17 
 
 It is for what are called the upper working-classes of 
 oiir own time that the study of Art may do the most. 
 Whatever definition of Art we may come to, its office is 
 the pursuit of Beauty; and its educational function must 
 be to create and gratify the desire of Beauty wherever it 
 is needed. And it is sadly needed in our own time and 
 country. No thinking person who is at all acquainted 
 with the habits and surroundings of English lower- 
 middle life, in town or country, can help feeling how 
 great is its need of freshness, of interest, of the sense of 
 innocent enjoyment by the eye, of appreciation of natural 
 beauty when seen, or of any hope or desire of it at 
 any time. There is painful truth in the saying that the 
 English middle-classes are drugged with business, and 
 incapable of at least many rational enjoyments, and the 
 poorer classes blinded with labour, and hopeless of any 
 but the lowest pleasures. No one, who has not seen 
 it, can have a conception of how unvaried, monotonous, 
 unthoughtful, weary, and undeveloped is the life of 
 large masses of our own people ; and how the mere 
 wish for change, variety, play of mind and relief of 
 new idea, constantly solicits men to vicious pleasures, 
 because they are without access to harmless ones. 
 Nor will any one who is acquainted with the subject 
 deny, that cheap Art Schools, well supplied with natural 
 models, would open a path of pleasure and security, 
 to many, at least, of the respectable working- classes. 
 It may take much time and exertion before carpenters 
 and bricklayers are taught to enjoy themselves in 
 drawing from nature : but many have been taught it 
 in the last ten years, and its effect is already visible 
 in our architecture. 
 
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18 
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 This University may take not unjust pride in having 
 been one of the foremost institutions in the country 
 to demand and encourage the labours of artist work- 
 men. Those who taught and organised the class of 
 men who execute the flower carvings of modern 
 buildings in Oxford and London may say at least 
 that they have called out the energies of an artist- 
 class in a short time, and created a real feeling for 
 Beauty exactly among the men who wanted it most. 
 It remains to be seen how far the Workman's School 
 of Art will advance; whether, and how soon, figure 
 sculpture and original groups may succeed simply 
 floral decoration. And we may hope for the best : for 
 though hardly any truly original works have yet been 
 produced, much has been done in little time ; a large 
 number of men have been led to faithful study of 
 nature, and their example and teaching will not fail 
 among their companions. It is idle to say that a large 
 majority of the working-classes never will accept any 
 teaching from Art Schools. The same remark applies 
 to model lodgings, to baths and washhouses, and to 
 every remedial experiment, and attempt at improve- 
 ment. In all these matters the real question is 
 about the benefits conferred on those who will avail 
 themselves of the advantages offered. Supposing these 
 advantages to be anything tangible, one may expect 
 that the numbers of those who seek them will increase 
 in geometrical proportion. Nobody expects that the 
 whole of the working-classes will at once take to 
 drawing and entirely renounce strong liquor : what is 
 hoped is that a fair per-centage of them may be partly 
 secured from temptation to excess by having a finer 
 
EDUCATION BY ART. 
 
 19 
 
 mental stimulus put in their reach, instead of the 
 coarser physical one. And it is hoped that the ad- 
 vantages of such a change will be proclaimed by those 
 who share in them : and that they will bear witness to 
 each other of that great and keen enjoyment of the 
 beauty of His works which God has set within every 
 man’s reach, and whose intensity and boundlessness is 
 best known by those who have laboured for it the 
 longest 
 
 There is a tale in which a variety of gifts are bestowed 
 on a Prince at his birth. Last of all it is given him 
 by his uncle, an eminent and well-disposed enchanter, 
 that for the term of his natural life he shall be able 
 to see the Fairies. ‘ He shall see all the hidden beauty 
 and latent life which other men’s eyes are not fine 
 enough to see. He shall know the fretful spirits which 
 live under the holly leaves and in the curls of the 
 young ferns ; and beneath the scarlet agarics ; and on 
 Oxfordshire brick walls, all crimson and green ; and 
 in the orange -and -grey lichens of winter oak roots. 
 He shall know all about the dwellers in the Alpine 
 rose, and meet face to face “ the Brown Men of the 
 Moors, that stay beneath the heather bell.” He shall 
 understand the life that is in the leaves, and how they 
 faint under heat of noon, and drink deep of summer 
 rain. He shall know the spirits of structure and 
 growth, and the toughness of old yews and thorns, 
 and the sad strength of the fir and cypress. Also he 
 shall be on terms with the spirits of fire and light, 
 and the living rays which make colour of sky and 
 cloud and distance ; and with all the underground 
 tribes who stain earths and metals and jewels, and 
 
INTRODUCTION, 
 
 SO 
 
 dole out the elements of man’s frame with all its 
 beauty ; and its fearfulness and wonder, — seeing to this 
 day it is made of the substance of the earth and dust 
 of the ground. And having all these gifts, he will 
 care little for what vulgar men strive for, and nothing 
 for what evil men desire ; and the common troubles 
 of life will touch him lightly, for he will have that 
 within him which they cannot touch. And because 
 of the friends he sees, and who see him, he shall always 
 bear himself gently and stoutly among men, with an 
 high heart and an humble.' 
 
 Something like this was the gift to the fairy Prince, 
 as we remember it ; and to have one's eyes opened to 
 the beauty of common things is at least an analogous 
 gift. In any case, every possible means of refinement, 
 and every possible access to harmless enjoyment, and 
 every possible encouragement to the sense of Beauty, 
 seems to be the thing most needful at this moment 
 for the inner life of our respectable middle and lower 
 classes. Music does something for them, we know not 
 how much; and Pictorial Art may do we know not 
 how much more. An excellent system is fairly at 
 work almost throughout the country ; we have but 
 to add interest and vigour to its working. Practical 
 questions as to the possibility, or, in other words, the 
 value as compared with the cost, of general Art 
 Education, must be considered in another chapter. 
 
EDUCATION FOR ART, 
 
 21 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 TN the first chapter Art has been viewed rather as 
 a means of general education, than as an end with 
 an education of its own, or an object of special training. 
 The latter way of contemplating it is of course the mosb 
 proper for such a Manual as this. It will he necessary, 
 however, to look at our subject both ways, and con- 
 sider how high and well diffused Art Instruction might 
 react on national character and education, and how it 
 might be made a powerful means of teaching, as well 
 as a valuable thing to he taught. 
 
 Generally speaking, the Objects of Art Education 
 will be — 
 
 1. To provide for the few, in every class of life, 
 who are capable of producing original or impressive 
 works, such training as shall best acquaint them 
 with their own especial gifts, and best enable them, 
 by discipline and encouragement, to do themselves 
 full justice. In their education Art is considered as 
 an end or object. 
 
 2 . Our second object will he to place within reach of 
 the people generally such an education in form and 
 colour as shall enable any person to ascertain and de- 
 velope whatever powers he may possess of Observation 
 and Imitation, or of Pictorial Expression, direct or 
 symbolic. 
 
22 
 
 INTRODUCTION, 
 
 This part of our treatise seems also the proper place 
 for attempting some such tentative definition of Art, 
 as shall at least explain what we understand by it, as 
 a thing for men to teach and to learn. We may define 
 it as ' That exercise of their faculties by which men 
 express thoughts or ideas of beauty, or truth, or noble- 
 ness, by means of Colour and Form. We also say of 
 their thoughts and ideas, that they may be referred 
 to Nature as their source, and to the imagination, or 
 other mental operation, for the shape in which the man 
 expresses or presents themh' 
 
 Our first purpose, if successful, would result in a 
 School of Painters well trained in technical operations, 
 accumulating knowledge in the use of materials and 
 tools, and trained in accuracy of hand and eye. They 
 will produce works of more or less originality and 
 importance, which will bear their part in popular 
 education, by appealing through the eye to thought, 
 imagination, and feeling. 
 
 The success of our second object amounts to a national 
 and popular advance in various branches of Art, from 
 
 ^ This definition is in accordance with Mr. Euskin’s account of all 
 true Art as the testimony of man’s delight in God’s work. Nature 
 is His work, and from observation of Nature man obtains all types 
 of beauty. He is enabled to impress his own thought or character on 
 them when he reproduces them ; and in proportion as they are impressed 
 by the power and brilliancy of the producer, we call them Ideal, Sublime, 
 Original, Imaginative, and so on. As for the nature of Beauty, it seems 
 to defy all real analysis ; and this, and its universal presence, and the 
 intensely powerful feeling it evokes, seem to point to its being a direct 
 manifestation of Divine Power. Again, the fact that Man can produce 
 it in high perfection, but cannot analyze it, or clearly say how he pro- 
 duces it, seems to throw some light on the expression that man was 
 made in the Image of God. 
 
NECESSARF TRAINING. 2S 
 
 the numbers and emulation of those who will take 
 interest in them. By advance in Art, as regards these, 
 we mean greater appreciation of it, which is one form 
 of mental improvement ; and greater skill in producing 
 minor works of conventional or applied Art — copies, pat- 
 terns and designs, for example. These will, in time, be 
 produced and multiplied with sufficient skill and in 
 sufficient quantity to bring them within easy reach 
 of those who need them most, that is to say, of our 
 lower classes. Of course, if general taste and intelli- 
 gence as to Painting be improved, the Arts of Design, 
 Etching, Engraving, Architectural Carving, and indeed 
 Photography, will advance in a corresponding way. 
 
 To propose either of these branches of Art as a part 
 of liberal or of ordinary education at once raises the 
 question. How far persons of average or inferior capa- 
 city, or with only a common amount of leisure and 
 energy, can learn, or be taught. Drawing? for on accu- 
 rate drawing of forms all Art of course depends. In 
 answering this question the old difficulty recurs, that 
 Art requires as real application as any other study, 
 and that people will not pursue it in earnest. They 
 still think of it only as what they call an accomplish- 
 ment, that is to say, an ornamental addition to educa- 
 tion, which gives a finish, whether it be good or not. 
 In short, because they want but little of it, they do 
 not care about the value of that little. We submit that 
 no part of education ought to be trifled with, and that 
 no pupil ought to be encouraged to begin anything 
 which he is not to follow out in a way which will give 
 him either development or grasp, range of thought, 
 or accuracy. A single course of freehand drawing, 
 
24 
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 thoroughly and faithfully worked through by the 
 pupil, will give him an amount of patience, fineness 
 of hand, and accurate ocular calculation, which will 
 last him his life. The same time, spent in water-colour 
 washes, will only debauch his power of attention, and 
 expose him to contempt from the rapidly increasing 
 number of those who know a little of Avhat Drawing 
 really is. The usual and right line of argument in 
 favour of our classical education is based on the ad- 
 mission that such education is a training in accuracy 
 and proper habits of thought and work. And such 
 training may he found in grammar of Art as well as 
 in grammar of language. It should be remembered, 
 again, now that Art Schools are working to some pur- 
 pose, that the profession and practice of indifferent 
 drawing and colour, as an accomplishment, is seen to 
 be more foolish as the public eye, that is to say, the 
 eyes of a large per-centage of the educated public, ac- 
 quire ideas about right forms and wrong forms; and 
 when such knowledge is once gained, it becomes rather 
 difficult and disagreeable to look over portfolios of 
 the present day. As to the question of power to learn 
 to draw rightly, it is simply one of time and attention ; 
 of a little time and a little real attention. Make it 
 really a part of education, and boys and girls will be 
 educated by it. To imagine that the hand and eye 
 which can stop a strongly-hit cricket ball, and then 
 perhaps ‘ shy ' down a distant wicket, are really unable 
 to draw any form their owner pleases, is absurd. Con- 
 ceive, again, the dexterity, the prompt, perfect and 
 harmonious action of hand and eye which are re- 
 quired to cut down a grouse whirring away before 
 
NATURAL POWERS, 
 
 25 
 
 the wind, or n ‘rocketing' pheasant. Fine em- 
 broidery requires quite as much eye as the best 
 etching; so does making a small nail or rivet on the 
 anvil, or good cabinet work, or even planing a board 
 to a true surface. Think of the power which is daily 
 shown on bodily dexterities, or operations of ordinarily 
 skilled labour, and you cannot fail to see how small 
 a share of it, bestowed fairly on study of form, would 
 give man or woman a continually increasing interest 
 and sense of enjoyment all through life. 
 
 There is no doubt that some persons, almost from 
 childhood, show inclination for drawing, or propensity 
 to express themselves in lines and colours. But they 
 do not do so accurately or rightly from childhood. They 
 require teaching like other people, and if they will not 
 submit to be taught, their efforts will be as contemptibly 
 clever as other people's are contemptibly stupid. Those, 
 however, who have real feeling for nature will generally 
 be led, from impotent efforts to record their favourite 
 scenes, to something like systematic training, in order 
 to learn to do their perceptions justice. Thus, even 
 Turner, if one may judge from his earliest known 
 works, went through a stage of frank unsuccessful 
 efforts at colour and realization, before he began 
 that course of plain architectural drawing and exact 
 mechanical labour which gave his hand its certainty. 
 Genius for drawing, it has been said with perfect truth, 
 is genius for taking an unusual amount of trouble to 
 learn it;— or power of concentrating intense attention 
 on the subject. There may be great difference between 
 people's natural powers and faculties. What we say is, 
 that that difference is not great enough either to enable 
 
26 
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 I 
 
 the naturally gifted person to draw without proper 
 teaching, or to prevent the ordinary student from learn- 
 ing to draw to good purpose, if he really wishes it. 
 No desperate efforts of will are needed ; only steady 
 attention and patience in drawing and bisecting 
 straight lines. 
 
 There is no doubt that what we call a taste for 
 drawing depends on development of the faculties of 
 observation and imitation, or representation, and that 
 it can hardly exist without them. In many children 
 the habit of observing, or seeking enjoyment from 
 natural objects, is early formed; and these will be 
 our best pupils : but any obedient boy or girl of twelve 
 or thirteen may master elementary difficulties with 
 little addition to the course of daily lessons : and in 
 all, the first sense of success or advancing skill will 
 almost secure further advance. The necessary faculties 
 exist in all; but no doubt every person's use of his 
 faculties will be modified by the access he may or 
 may not obtain to beautiful objects. Art Schools thrive 
 in smaller towns or country places where men can 
 really see what nature is. But the disadvantages 
 under which the inhabitants of great cities labour 
 may be steadily contended with. Excursion trains 
 — galleries of good copies, open rather on week-day 
 evenings than on Sundays — cheap Art instruction 
 and prizes — these things will do much; and w’e have 
 not yet seen all that they may do. Nor must it be 
 forgotten that every successful pupil will call out 
 rivals. But to assist in providing means and oppor- 
 tunities of this kind is, in all probability, a good work 
 of real importance. One cannot help remembering 
 
HAND AND EYE, 
 
 27 
 
 how Blake lived his life without any sight of the 
 higher beauties of nature, and how Turner spent a 
 fourth of his in searching hard for landscape subject 
 within reach of Old Maiden Lane. His case, described 
 with touching eloquence in ‘Modern Painters,’ vol. v., 
 is a not unfair illustration of the great difficulty of 
 Art teaching for the lower classes of our own people. 
 They have so little access to natural beauty of any 
 kind; and it is by the sight of it that the mind is 
 first stimulated into effort to record its impressions. 
 Beauty is in the eye of the gazer, it is said; but 
 the eye must be taught and encouraged to look 
 for it : and when once the habit of looking for it is 
 established, the habit becomes a want, and begins to 
 gratify itself, and react on itself, and to gather powers 
 for fresh seeking and fresh gratification. The great 
 Poet of Nature was said to have created the faculties 
 by which his works can be enjoyed, and the saying is 
 almost literally true. It is certain that Wordsworth 
 did teach a large part of his generation to look on 
 natural objects with far more careful and searching 
 eyes than before, and that they did see far more in 
 nature in consequence ; and that a great amount of 
 high and pure enjoyment was in consequence thrown 
 open to them and their descendants. And something 
 like the same method may be applied generally in 
 education. Draw common natural objects, and 3^011 
 will see them as Wordsworth saw them; i.e. with some 
 sense of the beauty that is in them, and of the enjo}"- 
 ment which is to be drawn from them. Our Schools 
 of Art are in a measure teaching this ; but more might 
 be attempted, and this great means of self-cultivation 
 
28 
 
 INTRODUCTION, 
 
 might be set in all men's way. For, as every person 
 knows who has ever tried to make a careful copy of 
 any object or picture he really liked, there is nothing 
 like the imitative faculty to excite and train the ob- 
 serving faculty. The eye guides the hand, but the 
 use of the hand trains the eye. It is not till one has 
 tried to imitate a picture touch for touch that one 
 really sees its touches. No one can understand the 
 difficulty or the pleasure of Art till he has tried what 
 it is to produce a likeness of something, and learnt 
 that, for long and perhaps for ever, study and practice 
 only discover fresh difficulties. It is so ordered, and 
 we have reason to be thankful for it, that very slight 
 success gives very great pleasure. 
 
 There is a passage in Mr. Browning’s ‘Fra Lippo 
 Lippi’ which bears so forcibly on the pleasures of 
 using the imitative power, and puts what we wish 
 to express so pithily, that we cannot help quoting 
 it here, though we have partly anticipated it : — 
 
 ^ For, don^t you mark, web^e made so^ that we love 
 First when we see them painted, things we have passed 
 Perhaps a hundred times, nor cared to see. 
 
 And so they are better, painted : better to us. 
 
 Which is the same thing. Art was given for that : 
 
 God uses us to help each other so 
 Lending our minds out.^ 
 
 Real progress is constantly made by pupils whose 
 efforts are not much appreciated by themselves or 
 others. They appreciate better, they draw harder, they 
 gather determination, patience, accuracy; until at last 
 their time comes, and power begins to wait on feeling : 
 
SUBJECTS FROM NATURE. 
 
 29 
 
 and from that time, whatever they produce, they are 
 artists at heart. 
 
 But in our great towns, and for a sadly great part 
 of our population, natural beauty is hard to reach. 
 There are few who live among mountains and rivers, 
 and have the continual appeal of Nature before them. 
 Yet those who have it very generally neglect it : and 
 much may be done with little means. An artisan who 
 has a few flowers in his room may perhaps learn to 
 draw their leaves— and if he does so, the day on which 
 his first efforts have a little success is likely to be 
 a happy one for him. And here is the importance 
 of Art Schools and open museums and collections, by 
 which fit types and forms of natural beauty may be 
 made accessible to those who cannot go to Nature for 
 themselves k The Douglas ' loved better to hear the 
 lark sing than the mouse squeak.' So does the land- 
 scape painter. But for all that, if a few Creswicks, or 
 Hardings, or Stanfields, could be hung in public view 
 in all our towns, they would have no small effect on 
 men's minds—and would form a silent school of land- 
 scape in themselves. 
 
 Accordingly, the importance of copies and multipli- 
 cations of works of Art, and of simple studies, is very 
 great just now, and such work might employ more 
 persons than it does. Any real transcript of Nature 
 which will interpret her to the popular eye has its 
 value. -The taste or want by which Nature is enjoyed 
 has to be created. The first step is to set the right 
 
 1 Casts of blackberries, primroses, and wayside beauties in general, 
 are of great value in this way, and illustrate Fra Lippo Lippi’s view 
 remarkably well. 
 
30 
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 representations of Nature before men ; the next, to get 
 them to study by using the hand, and learn to see 
 by the attempt at imitation. 
 
 Of course, exposing good pictures to public view is 
 one great means, the first step which is really possible. 
 As to how this should be effected, we may begin with 
 the testimony of the first, or one or two of the first, 
 painters of our time and country in the higher scale 
 of Art. We give no opinion, at present, about attempts 
 at landscape frescoes; we only say that means might 
 be found for gratuitous exhibition of all kinds of Art- 
 works. And we must here quote some important 
 evidence given by Watts, and Armitage, and Sir C/ 
 Lindsay, to the Royal Academy Commission : — 
 
 Evidence of G. F. Watts, Esq^., hefore the Royal Academy Commission, 
 (Blue-booJc, p. 333, sq.) 
 
 ^ A. 34. The E/oyal Academy should, by way of developing 
 taste, do something towards placing before the eyes of the public 
 at large the best specimens of Art. * The students of the 
 Royal Academy who made good designs and gained medals should 
 be given a set of designs, perhaps by Mr. Herbert or Mr. Hyce, 
 and, with a certain small allowance, required to carry them out on 
 the walls of some public building. 
 
 ^ Q. For instance, the School at Eton, perhaps St. PauPs, and 
 railway stations ? 
 
 ^ A. Yes ; wherever there is a bare wall. I do not think there 
 would be any great difficulty in finding artists quite capable of 
 directing such works.’’ 
 
 ‘ Q. 3174. You have led the way in what you suggest by paint- 
 ing the great hall at Lincoln’s Inn ? 
 
 ^ A. Yes ; and years ago I offered to paint the great hall at the 
 Euston Square Station ^ ^ receiving the bare outlay of my 
 
 expenditure in scaffolding and colours. * * * (In the then state 
 
EVIDENCE ON WALL-PAINTING. 
 
 81 
 
 of railway property even that expense was not considered justi- 
 fiable.) 
 
 ^ Q. 3179. Would not this involve too great sacrifice of time 
 and money on the part of the artist * * * ? 
 
 ^ A. No, I do not think so. Mr. Maclise^ if he were 
 
 requested to furnish a series of designs for the Royal Academy^ 
 to be executed under the supervision of a competent man_, would^ 
 
 I am sure^ make them with great pleasure ; and if the Academy 
 were to pay him something for doing them he would not probably 
 charge a great deal for a public purpose. 
 
 ^ Q. 3180. Do you think the taste for these mural decorations 
 is increasing in the country ? 
 
 ^ A. Not so much as would be desirable ; but that is mainly 
 because they are not enough seen. They are only executed - 
 where the public at large do not see them. I think also they 
 are much too expensive. I should first em])loy students upon 
 them ; and scatter them abroad as much as possible! 
 
 See also Sir Coutts Lindsay's evidence, p. 410, 
 Q. 3827 : — 
 
 ^ With few exceptions, the frescoes which our artists have painted 
 have been too much finished in detail, and much too little con- 
 sidered in the mass— -they have painted them like easel pictures ; 
 the consequence is the works have cost more time than the artist 
 could afibrd to expend; and fresco painting has been a losing 
 concern.^ 
 
 For confirmation of Mr. Watts's view on mural paint- 
 ing, see Answers 3834, 3835, where the advantage, for 
 advanced students, of working under the supervision of 
 a thorough painter, and from his designs, is noticed. 
 
 With this corresponds Mr. Armitage's evidence, which 
 strongly commends the French principle of teaching pur- 
 sued by great painters like Delaroche, Coignet, or Picot, 
 who admitted a large number of students into their own 
 ateliers. 
 
32 
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 P. 540. ^ A. ^o%o. Oui' Academy should take that sort of edu- 
 cation in hand/ 
 
 P. 54T. ^ A. 5029. I worked at the large oil-painting in the 
 Ecole des Beaux-Arts^ under Delaroehe^s superintendence/ 
 
 ^ A. 5030. There is not a sufficient demand for historical Art 
 in England to create such schools (in private ateliers) ; but I think 
 that one head school at the Academy would be of the greatest 
 possible benefit to the future generation of artists/ 
 
 ‘A. 5031. The demand for serious Art (Art involving good 
 draughtsmanship) is not sufficiently large to induce great painters 
 to undertake the training of students. A thorough course of 
 drawing would be of great advantage both to portrait-painters 
 and landscape-painters ; but they are generally of a different 
 opinion^ and the public eye is not yet sufiiciently educated to 
 detect their weakness in drawing.^ 
 
 It has been said in praise of the Roman Church 
 that she has made Art the handmaid of Religion. 
 This is no doubt true in a sense ; it is not to be 
 denied that music, painting, and sculpture have 
 been made auxiliary in various ways to religious 
 teaching and religious emotion in Roman churches 
 and convents. But the distinction between the two 
 ways of using Art as the handmaid of religion is to 
 be noticed : we think in this country that it is as 
 desirable to make use of Painting for religious instruc- 
 tion through the imagination, as it is useless and 
 wrong to try to excite religious feeling by ideal per- 
 sonifications of beauty and sanctity. Pictures of the 
 events of Holy Scripture, whether on glass, in mosaic, 
 or in fresco, have been used from the time of the early 
 paintings in the Catacombs for instruction ; to teach 
 simple people the facts of their faith, to enable them 
 to realize, to aid their belief by giving them some 
 
RELIGIOUS SYMBOLISM, 
 
 conception of how events and men did actually look 
 at the time of action. Also, for the same purpose, 
 symbolism has been made great use of to convey 
 ideas, necessarily imperfect, of persons and events 
 which are practically and literally inconceivable : 
 as of Divine Presence, of the Last Judgment, &c. 
 Again, it has been used to lead partly instructed per- 
 sons into useful trains of thought: as the Good Shep- 
 herd, the Ark representing the Church, the Fish as 
 representing the believer, and others. So many of the 
 receptive faculties of our minds find delightful employ- 
 ment in noticing and following out analogies, that the 
 value of these symbolisms can hardly be overrated : 
 to this day both educated and uneducated people might 
 follow out the train of ideas suggested by the Ark, as 
 representing the great company of believers on earth, 
 with pleasure and advantage. And to this day careful 
 historical frescoes, boldly, perhaps roughly done \ de- 
 signed by men like Watts and Armitage, and painted by 
 their pupils, after proper antiquarian and topographical 
 study, would be an incalculable help to all classes in 
 realizing the actual character of events which have 
 often lost their vividness as facts, and seem facts 
 no longer, only narratives dimly remembered and 
 passively believed. But the emotional use of Beauty 
 by Religion, that is to say, the setting up images 
 and pictures of saints in churches, in any position or 
 action, except that of fellow-worshippers with the con- 
 gregation, will not be tolerated in our time and country. 
 Sooner or later, it is felt, that the beautiful image set 
 
 ^ As Paul Uccello’s in the Cloisters of Santa Maria Novella. 
 
 D 
 
34 
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 up to stimulate devotion of simple minds, attracts it 
 to itself, and becomes simply an idol. But nobody ever 
 would worship before Tintoret’s Paradise, or Michael 
 Angelo's Last Judgment; though the thoughts both 
 pictures would call up in his mind might make his 
 worship more earnest for a whole lifetime. Still less 
 danger of anything like image-worship would follow 
 from straightforward representations of Old and New 
 Testament history, where Mount Sinai should be painted 
 like Mount Sinai, and Moses and Joshua according to 
 some careful conception of their actual form, dress, 
 and presence ; or, again, from pictures of our Lord's 
 Life with His Apostles, in which Gennesaret, and its 
 soft hills, and knots of palm, and fringe of oleanders 
 should be faithfully drawn, and the sacred persons 
 represented as they appeared and walked on earth, not 
 in senatorial togas and the trappings of Pagan digni- 
 taries. Mr. Herbert's picture of Moses, as Father of the 
 Law, is no unworthy example of proper treatment of 
 a historical subject in pictures for national instruction. 
 Without discussing his ideal of Moses, or entering 
 into the question whether his Hebrews should wear 
 Ninevite, or Egyptian, or modern Arab dresses, there 
 is no doubt that there is an amount of historical 
 realization about his picture which will give any 
 attentive spectator, taught or untaught, something like 
 an inward vision of the scene and the facts. There 
 is suggestive landscape background, drawn with almost 
 absolute local accuracy. And, with the exception of 
 Hunt's Scapegoat and the Finding in the Temple, his 
 may perhaps be called the only modern picture of 
 note whose impressiveness is greatly aided by union 
 
NATURALIST TREATMENT. 
 
 S5 
 
 of correctness and imaginative power in its land- 
 scape. Compare the pale red granite of Sinai, all 
 glowing with yellow sunrise, as Mr. Herbert gives 
 it in literal truths with the following true descrip- 
 tion of Claude's ‘Golden Calf Modern Painters,' 
 voL V. p. 251 
 
 ^ The scene is nearly the same as that of the St. George (wood, 
 a river side, a fountain, and rich foreground vegetation) ; but, 
 in order better to express the desert of Sinai, the river is much 
 larger, and the trees and vegetation softer. Two people, unin- 
 terested in the idolatrous ceremonies, are rowing in a pleasure-boat 
 on the river. The Calf is about sixteen inches long (perhaps we 
 ought to give Claude credit for remembering that it was made 
 of earrings, though he might as well have enquired how large 
 Egyptian earrings were) . Aaron has put it on a handsome pillar, 
 under which five people are dancing, and twenty-eight, with 
 several children, worshipping. Refreshments for the dancers are 
 provided in four large vases under a tree on the left, presided over 
 by a dignified person, holding a dog in a leash. Under the distant 
 group of trees appears Moses, conducted by some younger per- 
 sonage (Nadab or Abihu). This younger personage holds up his 
 hands ; and Moses, in the way usually expected of him, breaks the 
 tables of the Law, which are as large as an ordinary octavo 
 volume.'^ 
 
 This kind of Art is obviously and altogether nuga- 
 tory, as far as historical instruction goes. But really 
 historical representations of events will be of great 
 value in teaching any history. And the value of such 
 means is admitted by historians, not only in word, but 
 by example. Word-painting is used to the utmost in all 
 
 ^ The actual scene of that event is, in all human probability, at least 
 within sight of the spot which our countryman has chosen. 
 
36 
 
 INTRODUCTION, 
 
 modern histories since Carlyle : works like ‘ Smith's 
 Dictionary/ and Rawlinson's ‘ Herodotus/ cannot dis- 
 pense with woodcut illustration, though it certainly 
 is of a mild and general character: Mr. Fronde and 
 Professor Kingsley strain every nerve in descriptions 
 of gesture, emotion, facial expression, minor but sig- 
 nificant detail of dress or manners: they are felt to 
 be right so far, in spite of keen criticism. And yet 
 painters will not take the hints so broadly given, and 
 apply themselves to teach history on canvas, or, better 
 still, in fresco. Of course it is because they cannot get 
 a chance of remuneration — scarcely can they find an 
 opportunity of shewing what they can do. Mr. Watts' 
 offer to a Railway Company is mentioned in his evi- 
 dence; nor was that the only offer generously made 
 by him, and rejected, with or without thanks. And 
 all the while the railway-stations are adorned with 
 illustrations of the good effects of Thorley’s Cattle 
 Food, Milner's Patent Safes, and some other gentle- 
 man's Perambulators, Warranted to make Home 
 Happy. 
 
 These great works are paid for; and advertising 
 Art does something, in that it pays for itself. Still, the 
 spaces of wall in railway-stations are very large and 
 dreary. And every one who has waited for the train 
 at Coventry or elsewhere, will, we think, agree with 
 us that, allowing the rights of Thorley's Food and 
 Milner's Safes to places on the line, large spaces above 
 are still left, to be covered, we trust, by bold and rapid 
 fresco in time to come. Our own generation, of all 
 things, most needs high thought, and especially to be 
 reminded of its own past. It has certainly forgotten its 
 
HISTORICAL FRESCO, 
 
 37 
 
 own history; — to an extent utterly undreamed of by 
 any Western race which ever had such a story of glory 
 by land and sea to tell. It is not only the Sacred 
 Histories which men doubt of : though it is about them 
 only, from their paramount importance, that men ex- 
 press their doubts. On secular history their minds are 
 quiescent, and rest in the scepticism of oblivion. Almost 
 everybody has read the history of England, to a certain 
 extent, in his youth ; and everybody, without exception, 
 may be supposed to have read the ‘ Arabian Nights' 
 and ‘Robinson Crusoe.' And most men in English 
 middle life, if they examined their own minds, and 
 told us the results ‘sans phrase/ would confess that 
 the three histories in question seem about equally real 
 to them. One main reason is, that the fictions are as- 
 sociated in their minds with illustrative pictures, while 
 the true histories, probably, are not. Perhaps more of 
 us have had in the imaginations of our childhood 
 a better idea of what a genie may be like than we 
 ever had or shall have of what an English archer 
 of Crecy or Agincourt really was like: and it is on 
 representations of the ordinary facts of history that 
 popular Historical Art, such as Messrs. Watts and Ar- 
 mitage propose for us, will take its stand. They have 
 shewn that it is practicable : our own concern with it is, 
 that of all means of general education, it is easiest 
 and most elevating. The most careless eyes are daily 
 opening more widely to the necessity of finding some 
 means of raising the hearts and spirits of those who 
 suffer morally by continual labour of trade or pro- 
 duction. It is felt more and more how grievously the 
 worlds of Thought and Feeling are closed to so many 
 
38 
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 of the middle and lower classes, 'who live stupified 
 between gain, labour, and want, all without fault 
 of their own. No means of instruction should be 
 neglected; and to instruct laborious, distracted, or de- 
 pressed people, one must take the easiest means, or 
 none — means, if possible, which are pleasant and in- 
 teresting to use. We have tried to point to the study 
 of Pictorial Art as a means of popular education in 
 two ways : by its practical training, and by its results ; 
 by the interest, the enjoyment, and the mental and 
 spiritual development it affords, when studied for its 
 own sake, or even when used, among other means 
 of education, for training of mind, hand, and eye. 
 Further, we have pointed, on better authority than 
 our own, to the way in which works done by ordinarily 
 good students of Art may react on education ; shewing 
 that people really can be informed by means of the 
 imagination through the eye, by pictures which consist 
 of painted symbols, independently of books which con- 
 sist of written symbols: and we have said something 
 of the need of such teaching in our own time. 
 We do not describe the indescribable, and conse- 
 quently we have nothing to say, after all, of the 
 real delight of the pursuit of Truth and Beauty ; 
 that is to say, of the effort to set on canvas or paper 
 some true and beautiful image of one’s own. Perhaps 
 it is not a delight, but an effort: at all events, he 
 who has once had any share of success in it will 
 hardly give up the thought of more. True observers 
 * and imitators are like Tennyson’s enchanted crew : 
 they cannot exactly say what they follow ; or they 
 will not commit themselves before men whose wit 
 
THOUGHT THROUGH THE EYE. 
 
 39 
 
 is too trenchant for them ; or they scorn to speak 
 except by deeds. They are a taciturn or incoherent 
 body. 
 
 ^But each man murmurs^ O my Queen^ 
 
 I follow^ till I make thee mine.^ 
 
 And sometimes they keep their word. 
 
CHAP. III. 
 
 HISTOEICAL. 
 
 I. 
 
 EARLIEST CHRISTIAN ART. 
 
 A REGULAR History of Art must, we suppose, be 
 always in danger of becoming an immense series 
 of biographies. It has been said of all history, that 
 it consists of the lives of the great men who have 
 moulded the destinies of mankind, and have, so to 
 speak, made and modified the course of events. What- 
 ever may be said in favour of this view of the records 
 of mankind in general, human progress in Art is evi- 
 dently marked by the names, and dependent on the 
 thoughts, of the great painters or sculptors who have 
 arisen at different periods. Their influence over men 
 is more subtle and lasting than the rule of kings or 
 tetrarchs, and their special characteristics are of more 
 importance to the Art- historian. But in a small 
 volume intended for practical purposes it is quite 
 impossible to give an abridgment of Vasari ; and the 
 only names we can mention are those of men who 
 may be said to survive, in their principles and fol- 
 lowers, to the present day. At the same time there 
 are tracts of the history of Art which are, so to speak, 
 unmarked by great names, but which are of the greatest 
 importance to both painters and critics, because they 
 indicate national character rather than individual 
 genius. It would not add much to the value of the 
 
BEAUTY BY ANALOGY. 
 
 41 
 
 carvings in S. Ambrogio at Milan, or San Fermo at 
 Verona, if we knew the rough Lombard names of their 
 designers. Yet they are the most important monu- 
 ments in existence of the early artistic or represen- 
 tative energy of the Gothic mind. The fact that all 
 the paintings and bas-reliefs of the Catacombs are the 
 work of hands unknown and unthought of, adds not 
 a little to their impressiveness. These are the begin- 
 nings of Christian Art, Gothic and Roman ; the Gothic 
 Schools of course deriving much from Greek or Italian 
 instructors, but having a life and energy of their own, 
 which soon carried them to a level with their masters 
 in skill of execution, while from the first they had 
 been greatly superior in power and ability of con- 
 ception. 
 
 Christian Art we describe as the Art of Christian men ; 
 Art itself we define as the pursuit of Beauty and of 
 Truth, or that continued attempt to express and pro- 
 duce and multiply ideas of Truth and Beauty which 
 seems to be natural to all well-developed races of men. 
 The representative Arts of Painting and Sculpture pro- 
 duce true ideas, with the adjunct of Beauty, by lines 
 and colours. Poetry creates them by means of words, 
 which are invested with what we call Beauty by 
 analogy. The term Beauty may be applied, by nearer 
 or more distant analogies, to anything which is well- 
 developed, complete, or excellent in its kind. Pug-dogs 
 are capable of perfection, and a sort of charm attaches 
 to various kinds of china. ‘ Surgeons,’ saj^s De Quince}", 
 ‘may speak of a beautiful cut, or a beautiful ulcer, 
 superbly defined and running regularly through all its 
 stages and he himself, with immense humour, inves- 
 
42 
 
 HISTORICAL, 
 
 tigates the aesthetic perfections of Murder ‘considered 
 as one of the Fine Arts/ 
 
 But to whatever subject the term Beauty may be 
 applied, properly or improperly, we deal only with the 
 history of those who have practically tried to produce 
 something beautiful to the sight in a creative way : 
 these are painters and sculptors. A history of the 
 analytic pursuit of the right definition of Beauty, or of 
 the right way of accounting for it, would lead into a 
 series of the most difiicult metaphysical discussions that 
 have ever been recorded, from Plato to M. Joufifroy. 
 
 Creative, or practical. Art begins with Egypt and 
 Ass3Tia, though the name which marks its speedy 
 rise to what is in many respects its greatest height, 
 is that of Phidias, the friend of Pericles and of 
 ^schylus. However derived from their first sources 
 on the Nile and the Euphrates, our technical know- 
 ledge, and many of our inspirations in all Drawing, 
 Carving, and Colour, come to us from Greece through 
 Rome. Our history of Art here means the history of 
 that kind of Art w^hich we ought to pursue ourselves, 
 or rather of the highest and best and most progressive 
 lines of Art-work which are now possible for us to 
 pursue. Practically, as will be seen in our Second Part, 
 all elementary instruction centres in the correct draw- 
 ing of the human figure : and as the Greek exemplars 
 of the form of man and woman are never likely to be 
 superseded or dispensed with, the Art-training of our 
 own days is derived from Phidias absolutely. But the 
 impulse to the pursuit of Art, the painter’s tempera- 
 ment in our own days, is not derived from the study 
 of ancient models, so much as from the love of Nature. 
 
BYZANTINE RENAISSANCE. 
 
 43 
 
 The keenest student still knows in his heart, or remem- 
 bers a time when he felt, that it is pleasanter to draw 
 leaves or flowers than casts of statues. Goethe's failures 
 were caused, in all probability, by his having betaken 
 himself to academical study, rather than to the attempt 
 to make records of that natural beauty of which his 
 mind was full. And some comparison of the two forms 
 and systems of Art, Greek and Gothic, is necessary to 
 the sketch we are undertaking. 
 
 The Teutonic or Western races received instruction 
 from the Eastern (the Greeks having the roots of their 
 learning struck in Egypt and Assyria) through two 
 Renaissances, Recoveries, or Rediscoveries of ancient 
 knowledge or works of beauty. The first of these, 
 which was purely Christian, may be called the Byzantine 
 Renaissance. It may be said to have been the gradual 
 reproduction and progressive imitation of such means 
 and works of Art as had been preserved in convents, 
 catacombs, sacred MSS, and elsewhere, during the long 
 desolations of Greece and Italy, when the whole civili- 
 zation of the old races perished with the later Empire. 
 And as the principal refuge for those who kept some 
 traditions of the painter's knowledge was at the centre 
 of the surviving Eastern Empire of Rome, the School 
 of Art so preserved was called Byzantine, or of Con- 
 stantinople, when it revived again in Italy. ‘ The early 
 and total decay of Art,' says the Marquis of Lothian, 
 ‘ seems to have followed that of the Roman Empire in 
 Italy at the distance of about fifty years ; and there 
 came a time, at the close of the sixth century, when 
 the lamp of Art seemed to have entirely gone out. 
 It had been kept up by the Cluirch long after tlio 
 
44 
 
 HISTORICAL. 
 
 Empire had fallen. The requirements of religion for 
 churches, baptisteries, &c, which the old temples could 
 not satisfy, gave birth to somewhat of a new order of 
 architecture, and painting and sculpture were supplied 
 with a new class of subjects, and animated with a new 
 spirit.' Some late discoveries^ in the Roman Catacombs 
 illustrate the latter part of this observation very re- 
 markably. Not only were Christian painters filled with 
 a new energy in the desire to dedicate their Art to the 
 Faith, but they seem to have struck out new lines of 
 thought in representing the mj^hs of the earlier days 
 as symbolical of the events of the Gospel history. They 
 made use, without scruple or ceremony, of Pagan 
 emblems in aid of Christian symbolism. They knew 
 by their own memories that other men's were pre- 
 occupied by the old myths, and their new-found faith 
 might rule their wills and hopes, but did not sponge 
 out the recollections of their childhood ; nor did they 
 feel anxious that it should, or less Christians in heart 
 if it did not. 
 
 For aught we know, men like St. Paul may have seen 
 in the heroic legends a kind of witness to the heathen 
 of God's care for them. But that Christian painters 
 copied or used remembrances of Pagan figures for 
 Christian purposes there can be no doubt. They 
 sought by every means to set before men's eyes the 
 facts of the Faith or the images of its founders ; and 
 they did their best, calling all means to their aid. 
 They used Pagan emblems and ideals as freely as they 
 
 ^ By De Kossi. The works of Raoul Rochette and Didron are well 
 known. For other authorities, see an Article in the Contemporary 
 Review, vol. iii. p. 153. 
 
EARLY CHRISTIAN ART, 
 
 45 
 
 used Pagan paint and brushes. M. Raoul Rochette 
 instances a figure of the Madonna, from a very early 
 sarcophagus, much superior, as a work of Art, to 
 Christian paintings of the same date. It so closely 
 resembles some ancient figures of Penelope, as to seem 
 almost taken from them. The earlier Christian work 
 seems to have been the work of men desirous to make 
 progress. They not only dedicated their labour in the 
 spirit of the believer, but sought to make it ever more 
 and more worthy of dedication in itself, in the spirit 
 of the artist. Whether Christian artists looked on the 
 tales of Deucalion and Hercules as foreshadowings 
 of the truth in heathen minds, or not, they made use 
 of them. The pictures of Noah in the Catacombs pre- 
 sent an exact analogy with the medals of Septimius 
 Severus, stamped with the deluge of Deucalion. The 
 history of Jonah is perhaps the most frequently chosen 
 subject of all the types of the Old Testament. No doubt 
 our Lord’s reference to it, as a type of the Resurrection, 
 accounts for this. But the history and its representations 
 are strangely connected with those of Hercules, Jason, 
 Hesione, and Andromeda. Of these fables, the last in 
 particular had for its scene the coast and city of Joppa, 
 and was thus on common ground with Jonah’s history. 
 Those who were actually under persecution and in 
 danger of life seem to have had no scruple in adapting 
 the ideals and emblems of well-taught Paganism, the 
 better to represent the actual deeds of saints and pro- 
 phets, and the facts of Holy Scripture. Such emblems 
 and myths were matters of Art, and part of the painter’s 
 stock-in-trade : and, all Christian as he was, he used 
 them like the tools of his craft. 
 
46 
 
 HISTORICAL. 
 
 As has been implied, in the present attempt at Art- 
 history, we are only trying to give a sketch of the 
 successive applications of Painting to its highest 
 function of instruction, and of the effects produced by 
 some of the great men who have advanced it by their 
 personal genius, and guided their successors in its pur- 
 suit. Now Modern Art, chronologically at least, begins 
 with Christian Art : and we find sculpture and painting 
 specially applied to religious instruction from the very 
 first ; religious instruction forming the chief part of edu- 
 cation. We may suppose, of course, that Art was used 
 in the same way for all manner of record and teaching : 
 but all Art, from the time of Egypt and Assyria, con- 
 sisted mainly in either historical or symbolic repre- 
 sentations of the spiritual history and relations of man ; 
 and the temples of man's worship were the centres of 
 sculpture and colour. 
 
 Before great names were known in Christian Art, we 
 find it used either to teach the history of the Faith and 
 of man by direct representation, or by symbolic repre- 
 sentation. And we look upon Art as a means of teaching 
 and part of right education at this day, and think 
 that its old and continually employed way of instruc- 
 tion by fresco ought to be revived. So that it is part 
 of our purpose to call attention to the frank realism 
 and naturalism, and free use of all attainable means 
 of Art-teaching, which are found from the very begin- 
 nings of Christian work. The relics of two such 
 beginnings are partly preserved for us : one, the work 
 of the Catacombs and early Christian sepulchres; the 
 other, the first productions of Gothic or Northern hands 
 in Lombard churches. In both of them, as is usual, 
 
LATER ASCETICISM. 
 
 47 
 
 sculpture was in advance of painting, its early stages 
 being easier than those of painting, and its materials 
 rougher and more permanent. Some of the earliest 
 Lombard carvings in S. Ambrogio at Milan are, indeed, 
 as Mr. Ruskin has called them, drawings in marble, 
 depending on deeply-cut outlines : just as in the far- 
 distant ages, Egyptian sculpture owes so much of its 
 power to extraordinary skill in outline form ; while 
 the shallow cutting and consequent solidity of its bas- 
 reliefs make them almost imperishable. 
 
 The reasons are obvious why Christian Art, as early 
 as the third and fourth centuries, was beginning to as- 
 sume a religious aspect in the narrower sense of the 
 term religious, that is to say, in the conventual or ascetic- 
 sense. The whole Church, the whole Christian mind, 
 was taking an ascetic form, under stress of persecution 
 without and corruption within. Mr. Lecky describes 
 the change of Christian Art from its more cheerful 
 to its severer phases, though he places the time of the 
 modification as late as the tenth century. He speaks 
 of the cheerfulness of early Christian Art as follows : — 
 
 ^ The places that were decorated were the Catacombs ; the 
 chapels were all surrounded by the dead; the altar upon which 
 the sacred mysteries were celebrated was the tomb of a martyr . . . 
 it would seem but natural that the great and terrible scenes of 
 Christian vengeance should be depicted. Yet nothing of this kind 
 appears in the Catacombs ; with two doubtful exceptions, there 
 are no representations of martyrdoms. Daniel unharmed amid 
 the lions, the unaccomplished sacrifice of Isaac, the three children 
 unscathed among the flames, and St. Peter led to prison, are the 
 only images that reveal the horrible persecution that was raging. 
 There was no disposition to perpetuate forms of suffering ; no 
 ebullition of bitterness or complaint ; no tliirsting for vengeance. 
 
48 
 
 HISTORICAL. 
 
 Neither the Crucifixion, nor any of the scenes of the Passion, were 
 ever represented; nor was the Day of Judgment; nor were the 
 sufferings of the lost. The wreaths of flowers, in which Paganism 
 delighted, and even some of the more joyous images of the Pagan 
 mythology, were still retained, and were mingled with all the 
 most beautiful emblems of Christian hope, and with representa- 
 tions of many of the miracles of mercy. 
 
 ^ After the tenth century,"’ he says, ^ the Good Shepherd, 
 which adorns almost every chapel in the Catacombs, is no more 
 seen ; the miracles of mercy ce<ase to be represented, and are re- 
 placed by the details of the Passion, and the terrors of the Last 
 Judgment. The countenance of Christ became sterner, older, and 
 more mournful. About the twelfth century this change becomes 
 almost universal. From this period, writes one of the most learned 
 of modern arch geologists, Christ appears more and more melan- 
 choly, and often truly terrible. It is indeed the E-ex tremendse 
 majestatis of our Dies Irse."’ 
 
 This seems to require some partial limitations. All 
 is perfectly true as to the more cheerful and hope- 
 ful purport of the earlier decorations of the Catacombs ; 
 executed as they were by men under no conventual 
 vows, and before corruption within the Church and 
 wide national ruin had been added to external perse- 
 cution. But the effect on religious Art of the monastic 
 view of life must have begun to be perceptible 
 very soon after the establishment of the earliest con- 
 vents in Egypt and the East. Indeed, and specially 
 as to representations of our Lord, very early Byzantine 
 pictures of Him convey a strong impression of melan- 
 choly and even severity. The view taken of Him by 
 Eastern Art was very early the view of the Eastern 
 Anchorite. This may be proved at Venice, the meet- 
 ing-place of the East and West for many successive 
 
EARLY RENAISSANCE. 
 
 49 
 
 centuries. Torcello, the mother city, still retains the 
 ancient Mosaic of its Duomo : and neither that building 
 nor its original ornaments can be of much later date 
 than the first settlement of the people of Altinum in 
 the islands of the Lagune, on the destruction of that 
 city, with Aquileia and Padua, by Attila in 452 \ The 
 Last Judgment of Torcello will be familiar to many 
 travellers; and its strange representation of the Lake 
 of Fire, as a red stream proceeding from under the 
 throne of the Judge, is a terrible image which points 
 onwards to the tremendous imagination of Orcagna, the 
 Dante of Painting. Byzantine Art, as has been said, 
 is always touched with the spirit of Eastern asceticism, 
 and the same traditional features and treatment may be 
 seen to this day in the mosaics of Mount Sinai, which 
 date from Justinian as in the perhaps yet older works 
 of Torcello. The first restoration of Art to Italy may 
 be said to date from the conquests of Belisarius; and 
 it has infiuenced Cimabue and Angelico, Francia and 
 Perugino, and the early mind of Rafael. It seems to 
 be from the first the work of men, who were conscious 
 of great and deserved punishment in this world, yet 
 were appealing against the reign of earthly evil ; and 
 its typical figure is, perhaps, the Murano mosaic of 
 ‘the sad Madonna, her tears falling as her hands are 
 raised to bless From the ashes of the Empire 
 sprang the first faint ‘Renaissance' of painting in the 
 Western World — preceded by that architecture which 
 sprang into its chief glory at Pisa, as soon as Teu- 
 
 ^ Gibbon, vol. iii. 274, Milman. ^ Began to reign a.d. 527. 
 
 ^ The Stones of Yeniee, vol. ii. 2. 
 
 E 
 
50 
 
 HISTORICAL. 
 
 tonic pupils were found capable of doing justice to 
 the Byzantine sense of beauty. ‘As architecture 
 was the Art which last retained its vitality/ says 
 Lord Lothian, ‘ so it was the first to rise to a new 
 life. As early as the ninth and tenth centuries, the 
 forms of Rome and Byzantium, fused together and 
 touched with the spirit of the Teutonic nations, gave 
 rise to a new style. About a.d. 1050 the Pisan fleet 
 took Palermo. With their spoil they resolved to build 
 a cathedral worthy of the State and the occasion. 
 Buschetto was their architect, and his work stands 
 yet unchanged.’ Within the walls of the Campo Santo 
 the bones of Crusaders rest in the soil they won. 
 They brought the sacred earth of Jerusalem in their 
 galleys year by year, to make therein their place of 
 rest; eyovTa<i e7cpu\|/ei/k as the Trojan soil hides Achilles. 
 Round them stand their cathedral and their bap- 
 tistery, and the leaning Campanile : and on the walls 
 which surround their graves are the frescoes of Giotto, 
 and Orcagna, and Benozzo Gozzoli. In Venice only, 
 if anj^where, are such treasures of beauty and such 
 a mine of study for artist or historian to be found 
 within the same space : and the painter who goes to 
 learn his work at Florence will do well to stay and 
 labour long at Pisa on his way. 
 
 Byzantine Art culminates, in a sense, at Pisa. It 
 still survives in Greek convents, from Athos to Sinai 
 and Mar Saba ^ ; but we cannot seek it there, and 
 
 ^ JSscli. Ag. 455, Bind. 
 
 ^ See Curzon’s ‘ Monasteries of the Levant/ and the Kev. F. Tozer’s 
 Paper in ‘Vacation Tourists / and especially ^ The Stones of Venice/ 
 vol. ii. 
 
THE GROTESQUE. 
 
 rA 
 
 must proceed to the second early revival of Art, in the 
 original work of Teutonic hands. The first Christian 
 Art had to expire with the ancient civilization, which 
 even the Faith could not keep alive. Its faint relics 
 remained in Byzantine temples, and we have to see what 
 its traditions could do when they inspired or guided 
 younger races in later and better days. The actual origin 
 of Modern Art is to be seen in such churches as San 
 Zenone and San Fermo at Verona, or in S. Ambrogio 
 at Milan, or San Michele at Lucca. In these and other 
 like churches are seen the beginnings of Realist Art ; 
 which does not mean, as people generally misunder- 
 stand the terms. Art applied to vulgar and every-day 
 subject, but Art striving to represent a thing as it 
 really is ; as the painter’s mind sees it through the 
 eye or by inner vision to be ; — as he is persuaded that 
 it is, in its essence and nature. In these sculptures 
 all the work is very imperfect in the technical point 
 of view; and, consequently, wherever lofty or impres- 
 sive subject is attempted, they become what is called 
 grotesque. We shall have to go into the various 
 meanings of this word, and the explanations to which 
 it leads. For the present, let us say a subject may be 
 grotesque by reason of the oddity of the subject chosen, 
 or by reason of one of two imperfections of the artist’s 
 mind at the time. 
 
 I. Grotesqueness may depend on want of technical 
 skill, or sheer lack of human poAver. Some subjects 
 cannot be adequately represented, and attempts to 
 do them justice involve either a certain amount 
 of failure; or the use of symbolism, AAdiich confesses 
 imperfection in man’s poAver of conception. Thus, 
 
52 
 
 HISTORICAL. 
 
 to take Mr. Ruskin’s example, nearly all the visions 
 and dreams in Holy Scripture, as those of Jacob and 
 Nebuchadnezzar, are grotesques. 
 
 2. A man may choose to look at his subject on 
 its comic side, supposing it to have one ; or can only 
 dwell on it in a half-attentive, ironical, or humorous 
 way; or through the light of other thoughts; or he 
 is only capable of looking at things on their comic 
 side. In the first case, his work belongs to the grotesque 
 of caricature ; in the second, it is the high grotesque of 
 Dilrer, or the realism of Hogarth ; in the third, he is a 
 buffoon, and his work demands no attention from us. 
 
 But we have here only to notice that the beginnings 
 of Realist Art were grotesque of the first character 
 quite as much as of the second. Eve and the Serpent 
 in S. Ambrogio, or Herodias’ daughter, not only dancing, 
 but turning somersaults before Herod, are exceedingly 
 odd in their appearance to any one who is accustomed 
 to modern technical skill; still they are not comic in 
 intention, but faithful attempts to represent facts be- 
 lieved heartily by the workman. For a principal feature 
 of Gothic Art from the first is its Realism. That is to 
 say, all Gothic workmen from the first wished, as they 
 would probably have put it, to draw or carve every- 
 thing as lihe the real thing as possible. When the real 
 thing was invisible, as in a representation of a past 
 event, the Gothic workman found out what it was like, 
 if he could; or else strove with all his soul to form 
 an idea of it. Also he turned away from nothing: 
 his aims were universal. The carvers of the Lombard 
 churches, who did the earliest work we possess, seem 
 to have wished to represent simply everything. And 
 
EARLY REALISM, 
 
 as Christianity took possession of their minds, they 
 learned to dedicate all their early skill, and to illus- 
 trate all their lives and thoughts, by the carvings of 
 their churches. They wrote there their thoughts of 
 the history and hope of all men, and also their own 
 ways and crafts, tod battles and huntings: and also 
 indulged their imaginations with all kinds of higher 
 symbolisms, and their -fancy with all kinds of sportive 
 and eccentric combination. The germ of this is seen 
 in the paintings of the Catacombs, though the con- 
 ventual or ascetic change passed over Art so entirely, 
 in the ages which intervened between the one class 
 of works and the other. De Rossi says of the earlier 
 works: ‘E uno fatto die ho costantemente notato 
 nei sotteranei cemeteri, avere i Cristiani nei primi 
 scuoli . . . imagine del cielo cosmico, o scene di pas- 
 torizia, de agricolt ura, di cacce, di giuochi. . . . Obvio 
 e notissimo e il senso parabolico dato dei Cristiani 
 alle scene pastorali e d' agricoltura, alle personificazione 
 delle stagioni, ai delfini e mostri marini nuotante 
 nelle onde.' 
 
 Thus such works as the representations and personi- 
 fications of months and seasons, and the labours of 
 men, in St. Mark’s and the Ducal Palace at Venice, 
 are connected with the very first efforts of Christian 
 Art; and the great Realist principle is asserted, of 
 seeing serious and sacred meaning in necessary daily 
 things. In early days, and up to the later Renais- 
 sance, to the middle period of Rafael’s life, there was 
 no specially sacred Art, for all Art was held sacred. 
 Men took their rest in sporting with the grotesque, 
 in sketching, and slighter work ; but all their serious 
 
54 
 
 HISTORICAL. 
 
 works and best efforts went into subjects connected 
 with their Faith. But to speak of Sacred Art is to 
 enter on the subject of religious and other symbolism; 
 and the term grotesque, as has already been shewn, 
 extends over vast divisions of Art-work through all 
 the modern ages. It applies less widely to painting, 
 of course, than to illumination or decorative sculpture 
 used for architectural ornament.- Much good grotesque 
 has been done, since the invention of printing, in steel 
 or wood engraving. 
 
 All beginnings are humble, or they ought to be. But 
 the first principles and practice of the study of Art given 
 in this book, will, it is hoped, if properly used, give the 
 student means of entering fairly on |^he pursuit of 
 Realist Art, that is to say, of drawing things which 
 he sees, as he sees them. If he advance no further 
 than still life, or slight landscape, his time will be well 
 spent if he learns to work in either well. If he has 
 inventive genius, or that power of memory and of 
 rearranging its images which is called Composition, 
 and which is closely akin to Invention, — he may, we 
 trust, still find that the rules here given him may 
 enable him to develope his own powers. But all stands 
 in faithful study of Nature from the first, and we have 
 thought it worth while to notice how early a thing the 
 choice of natural subject really is, even in works 
 intended to adorn sacred things and places. 
 
II. 
 
 SYMBOLISM AND THE GROTESQUE. 
 
 rpHE subjects of symbolism and the grotesque in Art 
 are very closely connected, and appear to have 
 been so from the earliest periods, that is to say, since 
 language was first expressed in visible tokens. A 
 symbol may be defined as a sign, token, or ticket, repre- 
 senting something not producible to the senses at a 
 given moment. Words are defined by logicians as signs 
 of things, or signs of ideas : however, they are held to 
 represent things and ideas in a different way. The word, 
 or spoken noun-substantive, first declares or makes known 
 that the speaker is thinking about an object, and then 
 takes the place of that object in his conversation. In 
 speaking he appeals to the sense of hearing. He may 
 appeal to that of sight, if he will. He may write a 
 document describing circumstances in visible letters. 
 He may make some visible sign or gesture without 
 speaking. Nor is oral communication always the most 
 effective of the three methods. It is perfectly well 
 understood that many kinds of business where precision 
 is required are best transacted on paper by letter- 
 symbols ; and mere gesture is of considerable import — 
 as an artful, or only a highly intelligent, person may 
 
56 
 
 HISTORICAL, 
 
 intensify, or modify, or altogether reverse the meaning 
 of what he says by his manner, or some studied bodily 
 movement. As Mr. Dickens says, in Naples the impor- 
 tant business of personal abuse is carried on by signs, 
 and the Lazzaroni experience what Tennyson calls ‘the 
 delight of low replies ’ — entirely without speaking. ‘ A 
 man raises two fingers in the air to represent asses’ 
 ears; whereby his antagonist is driven to madness 
 Obviously the sense of sight conveys sufficiently vivid 
 ideas to the brain through letter-symbols, symbolic 
 action, or otherwise. What we have first to notice is 
 the relation between phonetic symbols (or letters, or 
 alphabetic symbols) and pictorial symbols, — which 
 latter include all representative Art, from the rudest 
 hieroglyphics to the frescoes of the Vatican. It is not 
 that the hieroglyphic has a right to he spoken of as 
 Art : hut as hieroglyphic is necessarily conPected with 
 the origin of Art and of letters, it is best to give a little 
 time to tracing that original connexion. 
 
 Signs of things, to go hack to our first part of logic, 
 are either manifestative or vicarious; they either re- 
 present their object like pictures, or stand instead of 
 it like words. A bunch of grapes at a house-door, an 
 optician’s spectacles, or a goldbeater’s hammer, represent 
 the business done within symbolically — the gladiatorial 
 pictures outside the taverns of Pompeii represented the 
 favourites of the arena simply. On the other hand, a 
 five-pound-note takes the place of five sovereigns vicari- 
 ously. Words, as we have said, are vicarious signs of 
 things, but they represent or indicate ideas, or the 
 
 ^ ‘ Pictures from Italy.’ 
 
HIER OGLYPHICS. 
 
 57 
 
 presence of conceptions in the speaker’s mind. When 
 I name an ox I indicate that I am thinking about one, 
 and the word takes the place of the quadruped. Now, 
 there was a time when the picture of the ox held the 
 place of the word written; and was the only repre- 
 sentative sign. This is the first stage of hieroglyphics, 
 or picture-alphabets, which were the origin of all writing 
 by letters or phonetic signs, and may be traced in the 
 three first letters of the Hebrew alphabet very easily. 
 Thus— 
 
 K Aleph, ox or bull, was evidently by origin re- 
 presenting that animal with exaggerated horns. 
 
 2 Beth, house or booth, speaks for itself. 
 
 an Gimel (Gamal), camel, indicates the head, and long 
 neck, of the camel b which are its principal points as 
 seen in the Desert at a distance, as the present WTiter 
 has often observed. The foreleg is also marked. 
 
 Of course, as ideas multiply and language grows more 
 copious, picture-hieroglyphics fall short, and some more 
 pliant and generally applicable medium of expression 
 is wanted. This leads to the gradual change of the 
 liierogly'phic, which more or less resembles the object, 
 into phonetic letters, which neither resemble it nor are 
 meant to do so. That change takes place as follows. 
 The hieroglyphic is taken to stand everywhere for the 
 initial sound of the spoken word, which alread}^ re- 
 presents the thing and passes for it in conversation, 
 n stands henceforth for ever for B, the initial sound of 
 the articulate word Beth; ,i for G, initial sound of the 
 
 ^ The dromedary’s trot throws forward his forelegs horizontally in 
 the most extraordinary manner. 
 
58 
 
 HISTORICAL. 
 
 articulate word Gimel, &c. &c. Hence phonetic letters, 
 which resemble the sounds, come to be used instead of 
 written pictures which resemble things. Hence the 
 phonetic letters can of course be used over again to con- 
 struct other Avords and names, and are much reduced 
 in number. Hieroglyphics may also be taken symboli- 
 cally in second and third meanings, as appears from 
 Champollion ; hut we have no means of knowing how 
 rapidly, or with what precision, ideas could be exchanged 
 by such means. It would seem that the symbolic use 
 of hieroglyphic-picture signs was more easy and pliable 
 than may at first appear, as we are assured by Pro- 
 fessor Rawlinson that it Avas not abandoned in Egypt 
 till Christianity introduced the Coptic — a purely alpha- 
 betic compound of Greek and Egyptian character. 
 
 One reason for this was, no doubt, the extraordinary 
 poAver of expressive outline so early attained in Egypt. 
 Properly speaking, there is no archaic Egyptian Art- 
 Avork. The Heliopolitan obelisk, and the four great 
 sandstone tablets ^ which are cut in the rocks of Wady 
 Mughara in the Sinai Desert, are supposed to be of the 
 very earliest times of Egyptian Art : the latter are coeval 
 Avith the Pyramids. For characteristic form they are 
 unsurpassed anywhere. 
 
 ^ They are good work of the oldest known school on this earth, 
 and there are the same unsurpassed and hardly equalled outlines 
 which one notices on the obelisk of Heliopolis — and this was a 
 century old in the days of Joseph. The drawing of the hawks, 
 quails, and other birds, is admirable : outline, and shallow relief, 
 can do no more. The hawks are hawk-like to a degree ; the 
 
 ^ A .fifth is in phonetic characters. 
 
DIVERGING PROGRESS OF HIEROGLYPHICS, 59 
 
 owls are more owlish and the snakes more venomous than any 
 I ever saw. The cobra is cut to a miracle, and the partridges 
 run just as they will run before your camel in the desert; and 
 exactly such cobras may you see any day, dancing on their tails 
 in front of Shepherd^s Hotel, before some half-naked Arab charm- 
 ing wisely I 
 
 It will be seen that the progress from hieroglyphic 
 to phonetic writing is one of conventionality: the 
 earliest sign was like its object, as a picture, the per- 
 fected letter is like nothing on earth : the one appealed 
 to the senses with the intellect, the other calls upon 
 the intellect alone. Such is progress towards letters, 
 or literature, or exchange of thought in written lan- 
 guage. There may he an analogous advance of the 
 " rude original picture, which may become less and less 
 conventional, and more and more like what it stands 
 for in the mind, until strong resemblance is attained, 
 and Realist Art is established. But letters and Realist 
 Art arise together in the infancy of human expression. 
 Again, it is the infancy, or let us rather say the imper- 
 fection, of man’s power of expressing the thought which 
 is in him, which is the chief cause of the use of 
 symbolism everywhere. It is employed alike in speak- 
 ing, writing, and painting. All who are accustomed to 
 teaching can tell us the value of simile, especially in 
 elementary instruction. They well know what numbers 
 of trite comparisons, and cut-and-dry illustrations, they 
 are obliged to keep by them as stock-in-trade. It is 
 remarked, again, how great use is made by savage 
 orators of trope and figure ; and civilized people wlio are 
 
 ’ Article on Sinai, ‘ Vacation Tourists,’ 1862. (Macmillan.) See also 
 luiwlinson’s Herodotus, App. Book II. (vol. ii.) 
 
60 
 
 HISTORICAL. 
 
 unaccustomed to express themselves, or are uneducated, 
 or happen to be dealing with matters which they do 
 not perfectly understand, are always having recourse 
 to similes, if they have ingenuity enough to frame 
 them. In short, symbolism is one great means of 
 expressing imperfect thought or incomplete conception. 
 It is virtually an appeal from one mind to another 
 for assistance or fellowship : the speaker confesses 
 himself unable to unwind a length of thread, and 
 tries to throw the hall over to his friend that he may 
 unravel some more. This gives us a definition of sym- 
 bolism — the attempt to suggest higher, wider, deeper 
 or more complicated ideas by the use of others which 
 are simpler and more familiar. Hence comes the 
 necessary connexion between symbolism and the " 
 grotesque. Symbolic expression (especially by painting 
 and sculpture) confesses imperfection and inability, and 
 imperfection and inability are almost always grotesque, 
 in the popular sense of the word \ At all events, con- 
 trast of the sublime and its contrary, and of higher and 
 lower forms of nature, has a great deal to do with the 
 grotesque; as has also the contrast of humanity in its 
 loftier, or in its more ignoble conditions. But this 
 subject would require a whole treatise on Humour, 
 and its expression in the more serious Caricature. 
 
 The symbolical attempt to represent subjects which 
 
 ^ The word ‘grotesque’ itself, we believe, is an Italian adjective of late 
 origin, connected with the idea of caverns and hollows, in which ancient 
 and strange sculptures may have been found. We are inclined to con- 
 jecture also that it is connected with the traditional shapes of Pan and 
 the Fauns, and other cavern-haunting figures which combined and con- 
 trasted noble and ignoble forms. 
 
GROTESQUES. 
 
 01 
 
 are beyond the possibility of literal representation is 
 almost invariably odd or strange-looking. And the 
 feeling of contrast between the greatness of the sub- 
 ject and the weakness or want of skill shewn by the 
 artist is often amusing, though of course all minds, 
 except those of the coarsest and most contemptiijle 
 frame, will see and sympathize with keen or tumul- 
 tuous feeling in the workman, and will understand 
 that work may be ludicrous to a degree even because 
 of its serious intention, and yet command respect 
 from that quality, if it be pure and genuine. All 
 the attempts made in early Art to represent the 
 visions and the inconceivable events spoken of in 
 Holy Scripture are grotesques; because it is impos- 
 sible to convey to the mind a real impression of what 
 was seen in vision, or often of an event which actually 
 happened. Pharaoh's dreams of the fat and lean kine 
 and the full and blighted ears of wheat have been 
 mentioned, as attempted in early Gothic Art. The 
 result is literal grotesque. The well-known represen- 
 tations of the four Evangelists are symbolic grotesques. 
 All early representations of the Last Judgment, wdiether 
 Gothic or Byzantine, are grotesque, from necessary in- 
 ability to grapple with the subject. That of the Sistine 
 is the Titanic grotesque of surpassing technical skill, 
 and vigour of mind and mood, making a great attempt 
 in its own strength, and succeeding at least in shewing 
 its own power, and the tumultuous emotions of one 
 of the greatest of men in dealing with an inconceivable 
 subject. One picture, Tintoret's Last Judgment in the 
 church of the Madonna dell’ Orto at Venice, may be said 
 to stand before others in tlie vastness of its conception 
 
62 
 
 HISTORICAL, 
 
 of a subject which no human imagination can really 
 approach ; and we are at a loss how to characterize or 
 classify it. We must leave the reader to Mr. Rusldn's 
 great description of this work in the second volume 
 of ‘ Modern Painters ' — and ask every traveller to verify 
 it, while the canvas remains decipherable on the deso- 
 late wall of St. Mary of the Garden. 
 
 Like all other human means of aspiration, Art is 
 imperfect, and falls short, when it seeks its highest 
 objects: and the artist may treat his admitted and 
 necessary inability in one of two ways, when he has 
 to express w^hat is above him : as may also the writer 
 who has to deal with ideas of the incomprehensible. 
 Either of them may try to realize the event or idea, 
 owning his inability ; or may describe his imagination 
 of it, confessing his weakness. Or he may use a purely 
 symbolic and entirely conventional type of his thought 
 in painting or in words. The name of God not being 
 to be used without grave reason, we speak of Him 
 as the Lord, or the Blessed Trinity, using a verbal 
 symbol for ordinary purposes. In older religious paint- 
 ing and sculpture, His presence was always repre- 
 sented by the hand with fingers raised in blessing; or 
 later by the triangle, which points to the fundamental 
 doctrine of the Faith. These are pictorial symbols in 
 their earliest form; distinguishable from hieroglyphics 
 by the facts that they did not originate from mere 
 imitation of visible objects, and are not liable to lose 
 their special significance and become mere letters. 
 
 The earlier Christian symbols most in use were the 
 Good Shepherd, which De Rossi considers the earliest 
 of all ; — also the Fish as typical of the Christian, one 
 
CHRISTIAN SYMBOLS. 63 
 
 of the draught of the Church’s net; the Vine, Lamb, 
 and Olive, and the Lion, Dragon, and Serpent. These 
 are all Scriptural in their origin. Besides these, there 
 are the early non-Scriptural emblems : — the Fish as an 
 anagram, for our Lord : the Ship of Souls, in emble- 
 matic painting and also in Church architecture, as 
 at Torcello: the Dove, Anchor, and Lyre; the Palm- 
 branch, Phoenix, Peacock, and Pelican. The Cross has 
 been of course the emblem of all the Christian life 
 and creed from the earliest times. These and some 
 few similar representations of symbolic persons, as 
 Jonah and other prophets, make up the earlier range 
 of Christian imagery, the fear of Gnosticism and of 
 idolatry alike preventing much more; though, as our 
 quotations in the last Chapter prove, a much wider 
 choice of subject was allowed for pastime, or indeed 
 to adorn buildings or catacombs, and to accompany 
 the more significant pictures. But these remnants 
 of the skill and sense of beauty, which Christianity 
 had inherited from Greece and Rome, either perished, 
 or were preserved in convents and churches; — hence 
 of course the not only Christian, but specially religious 
 or ascetic form which the first revival of Art assumed. 
 We have already spoken of that revival as the Byzan- 
 tine Renaissance, for want of a better title, and men- 
 tioned that the name Byzantine probably dates from 
 the partial recovery of Italy by Belisarius. The archi- 
 tecture of Pisa combines Greek and Teutonic elements, 
 and the frescoes of Orcagna in the same place are im- 
 pressed Avith the severity of Eastern thought. Torcello 
 and Ravenna are the principal seats of Byzantine 
 mosaic. We are speaking, of course, of Italian remains 
 
64 
 
 HISTORICAL. 
 
 only, and setting aside the importance of St. Sophia in 
 architecture, and of the curious mosaics or paintings 
 of Mount Sinai, Mount Athos, and Mar Saba. 
 
 Byzantine Art may be said to have been a sort of 
 training-school for Gothic — a school where Teutonic 
 workmen learnt to read and write from Nature, and 
 from which they broke away early, yet not without 
 
 Fig. 1. 
 
 good early lessons of energy, and often of devotion. 
 There is a beautiful book by M. le Comte Bastard, called 
 simply ‘Peintures des Manuscrits,' published for the 
 Bibliotheque Boyale at Paris. It is a splendid set of 
 copies of MSS. from the eighth century downwards; 
 and we have never before seen a series of examples 
 in which the origin and growth of Gothic Naturalism, 
 
BYZANTINE AND GOTHIC WORK. 
 
 65 
 
 out of the old stock of Roman or Byzantine work, can 
 be so well traced. Some of the earliest eighth-century 
 initial letters seem to be by Byzantine hands, and are 
 strangely formed of birds, animals and fishes, quaintly 
 
 arranged, as on old-fashioned dinner-plates, but without 
 the least sense of Nature. That is the old conventional, 
 and, in fact, degraded work, as in Fig. i b 
 
 ^ Fig. I. Byzantine Lion ; — utterly unprogressive Art, tlioiigh quaint. 
 Fig. 2. No. 3. Frankish Warrior ; — utterly uuinstructed Art. 
 
 „ No. 2. Lombard-Gothic Grotesque observe the seat of the 
 rider. 
 
 ,, No. 4. Cock, of advanced Bealist character ; about fifty years 
 later than No. 3. 
 
 F 
 
66 
 
 HISTORICAL, 
 
 Mr. Ruskin’s more salient and piquant example 
 must follow here, in contrast with the earliest pure 
 Teutonic. 
 
 Fig. 3. 
 
 Angel from R sailer of eighth cenUiry, St. Johls College, Cambridge. 
 
 ^You see the characteristics of this utterly dead school are, 
 first, the wilful closing of its eyes to natural facts; for however 
 ignorant a person may be, he need only look at a human being 
 to see that it has a mouth as well as eyes : and secondly, the 
 endeavour to adorn or idealize natural fact according to its own 
 notions : it puts red spots in the middle 
 of the hands, and sharpens the thumbs, 
 thinking to improve them. You will also 
 admire the exquisite result of the appli- 
 cation of our great architectural principle 
 of beauty — symmetry, or equal balance of 
 part by part. You see even the eyes are 
 made symmetrical— entirely round instead 
 of irregularly oval ; and the iris is set 
 properly in the middle, instead of — as 
 nature has put it- — rather under the upper lid. You will also 
 observe the principle of the Pyramid in the general arrange- 
 ment of the figure, and the value of series^'’ in the placing of 
 the dots. 
 
 ^From this dead barbarism we pass to living barbarism — to 
 work done by hands quite as rude, if not ruder, and by minds 
 as uninformed : and yet work which in every line of it is prophetic 
 of power, and has in it the sure dawn of day. You have often 
 heard it said that Giotto was the founder of Art in Italy. He 
 was not : neither he, nor Giunto Pisano, nor Niccolo Pisano. 
 They all laid strong hands to the work, and brought it first into 
 aspect above ground : but the foundation had been laid for them 
 by the builders of the Lombardic Churches in the valleys of 
 the Adda and the Arno. It is in the sculpture of the round- 
 arched churches of North Italy, bearing disputable dates ranging 
 
 Fig. 3. 
 
EVE AND THE SERPENT. 
 
 67 
 
 from the eighth to the twelfth centurj^, that you will find the 
 lowest-struck roots of the art of Titian and Rafael . . . . 
 
 Remember, therefore, for a moment, as characteristic of culmi- 
 nating Italian Art, Michael Angelo'^s fresco of the Temptation 
 of Eve, in the Sistine Chapel ; and you will he more interested in 
 seeing the birth of Italian Art, illustrated by the same subject, 
 from S. Ambrogio, of Milan,~~the Serpent beguiling Eve, Fig. 4. 
 
 In that sketch, ludicrous as it is, you have the elements of life 
 in their first form. The people who could do that were sure to 
 get on. For observe, the workman's whole aim is straight at 
 the facts, as well as he can get them ; and not merely at the facts, 
 but at the very heart of the facts. A common workman might 
 have looked at nature for his serpent, but he would have thought 
 only of its scales. But this fellow does not want scales, nor coils; 
 he can do without them : he wants the serpenFs heart — malice 
 and insinuation; and he has actually got them to some extent. 
 So also a common workman, even in this barbarous stage of Art, 
 might have carved Eve^s arms and body a good deal better ; but 
 this man does not care about arms and body, if he can only get 
 at Eve^s mind — shew that she is pleased at being flattered, and 
 yet in a state of uncomfortable hesitation. And some look of 
 listening, of complacency, and of embarrassment, he has verily 
 got : note the eyes slightly askance, the lips compressed, and the 
 right hand nervously grasping the left arm. ^^othing can be 
 
68 
 
 HISTORICAL. 
 
 declared impossible to the people who can begin thus; nothing 
 is possible to the man who did the symmetrical angel/ 
 
 But in Count Bastard’s work^ the change from the 
 dying Byzantine to the new-born Lombard work is 
 most interesting. There are plenty of nondescript 
 beasts, but they have a life in them : — there are riders 
 (on horseback rarely, on the back of inconceivable 
 monsters everywhere), and they who painted them 
 knew all which has to do with equitation. The seat 
 of the quaint red and green riders in pointed basnets 
 and mail-shirts is like that of the Knights of Athens 
 in the Elgin frieze. Then there are beasts of chase; 
 in short. Naturalism has fairly set in — accompanied 
 by a great deal of wildness and humour, and so much 
 the more unlike the older Byzantine work which held 
 such power over the minds of Giotto and Orcagna, 
 and whose principal characteristic is ‘ dreadful earnest- 
 ness/ 
 
 For where Byzantine work is grotesque, it is because 
 men had no better knowledge or power of drawing on 
 walls or panels the great and awful subjects which 
 filled and overpowered their minds. We have already 
 quoted Mr. Lecky's important and valuable remarks on 
 the increased severity of their work; arising as it did 
 from the depression of continued suffering, and such 
 views of the dreadful struggles of the times as men of 
 a failing race might take, who saw no hope of victory 
 in this world. Byzantine ornament is better named 
 beautifully or grimly conventional, than grotesque. 
 
 Now that our ornamental trades require constant 
 supplies of models, it seems best that they should 
 
 ^ See pp. 64, 65. 
 
HERALDIC SYMBOLISM, f)9 
 
 be sought in, or rather studied from, good examples 
 of Byzantine work, such as are given in ‘ The Stones 
 of Venice,’ for instance. All admit that ornament 
 should be conventionalized — to a greater or a less 
 degree, it is true; but always in a marked manner: 
 and the tendency of our artist-workmen is perhaps 
 to attempt too direct copying from Nature in their 
 carvings. ‘It is not quite enough to stick two leaves 
 together stalk to stalk and call it a pattern.’ Power 
 of composition may be shewn as much in ornamental 
 design as in anything else, and though that power is 
 to a great extent natural and innate, and though the 
 words ‘power of composition’ almost amount to an 
 expression for general artistic power still there is 
 no doubt that study of good models will expand any 
 kind or amount of natural gift quite indefinitely. 
 
 As has been said, all Northern, or Gothic, or Teutonic 
 work is grotesque in its early stages for two reasons, or 
 for one of them. In the first place, the artist wished to 
 represent almost everything he saw or thought of, and 
 was unequal to the task ; and in the second, he had a 
 strong tendency to laugh at things, either with genuine 
 enjoyment, or with bitterness. In other words, the 
 naturalism and the humour of Gothic Art distinguishes 
 it from Byzantine or earlier Christian work. Before 
 we come to the times when men of great power, like 
 Cimabue and Giotto, advanced Gothic Naturalism in its 
 struggle with nature, to greater success in representa- 
 tion, so leading the way into actual realist Art, we 
 have some further remarks to make on different uses 
 of pictorial symbolism, which retain more or less 
 interest or influence for our own davs. 
 
70 
 
 HISTORICAL. 
 
 I. Heraldic symbolism has little to do with modern 
 Art, though its history is closely connected with that 
 of the earliest works we know. Heraldry takes its 
 origin from the first adoption by men of a symbol- 
 picture, or hieroglyphic, to personify and represent 
 them ; to indicate the qualities they admired, or con- 
 ceived themselves to possess. It was not material 
 whether they attributed them to their gods or to them- 
 selves, since the gods of early and rude ages are always 
 in great measure ideal representations of such human 
 qualities or passions as men of an early period of 
 thought most admired. The hawks and asps of Egypt 
 are symbolic ideals ; still more remarkable, as such, are 
 the Ninevite bulls and eagles : connected as they un- 
 doubtedly are with the typical cherubic forms which 
 were permitted under the Jewish dispensation. These 
 are related again to the Veronese griffins of San Fermo 
 and San Zenone. There can be no doubt of the truth 
 of Mr. Ruskin's view, that their sculptor's mind dwelt 
 on the visions of Ezekiel and the Apocalypse. And 
 there is great interest in comparing his account of the 
 typical griffins of Verona with the able article by 
 Mr. Henry Hayman in Smith's Dictionary, s.v. ‘Cherub' 
 — so great that we cannot well avoid giving some 
 parallel extracts from both writers. Mr. Ruskin's 
 work is the earlier in point of time, but Mr. Hayman 
 evidently has not referred to it, and the coinci- 
 dences in their remarks are striking. ‘ On the whole,' 
 says the latter writer, ‘it seems likely that the word 
 “cherub" meant not only the composite creature- 
 form, of which the man, lion, ox, and eagle were the 
 elements ; but, further, some peculiar and mystical 
 
THE VERONESE GRIFFINS. 
 
 71 
 
 form, which Ezekiel, being a priest, would know 
 and recognize as “the face of a cherub,'' /car' 
 but which was kept secret from all others . . . 
 
 Such were probably those on the ark, (which, when 
 moved, was always covered) — though those on the 
 hangings and panels might be of the popular device.' 
 ‘ The griffin of northern fable watching the gold in the 
 wilderness has been compared with the cherub, both 
 as regards his composite form and his function as 
 guardian of a treasure.’ He goes on to point out the 
 possible affinity between the Greek name ypvir {ypv^, 
 gryps, griffin), and the Hebrew and Arabic derivation 
 of the word ' cherub,' which gives it the original meaning 
 of ‘ carved image,’ and says, that though the exact form 
 is uncertain, it must have borne a general resemblance 
 to the composite religious figures found upon the 
 monuments of Egypt, Assyria, Babylonia, and Persia. 
 
 Mr. Ruskin (in ‘Modern Painters,' vol. iii. ch. 8) gives 
 two examples of ancient and modern grotesque, to 
 illustrate the absence and the presence of vivid imagi- 
 native power in an artist’s mind. He chooses two ideals 
 of the emblematic griffin, the Classical and the Gothic : 
 the former from the frieze of the Roman temple of 
 Antoninus and Faustina, the latter from the front 
 of the Duomo of Verona. His illustrations and his 
 analysis of the two works, shew conclusively that the 
 Lombard carving, though rough and imperfect, is full 
 of meaning and expression, Avhile the Roman is emble- 
 matic of nothing, though very gracefully and skilfull}^ 
 composed, and unexceptionable as work of unmeaning 
 ornament. He then points out that the Lombard carver 
 was enabled to form so intense a conception mainly 
 
72 
 
 HISTORICAL. 
 
 by the fact that his griffin is a great and profoundly- 
 felt symbolism. Two wheels are under its eagle's 
 wings, which connect it with the living creatures of the 
 vision of Ezekiel. ‘ Where they went, the wheels went 
 by them, and whithersoever the spirit was to go, they 
 went, and the wheels were lifted up over against them, 
 for the spirit of the living creatures was in the wheels.' 
 ‘The winged shape thus becomes at once one of the 
 acknowledged symbols of the divine power ; and in its 
 unity of lion and eagle, the workman of the middle 
 ages always meant to set forth the unity of the human 
 and divine nature.' Elsewhere, we think in ‘ The Stones 
 of Venice,' the connexion is pointed out between the 
 Assyrian and the Gothic personifications — nor can any 
 example be more complete, of parallelism in artistic 
 work, used for its most solemn purpose. The presence 
 of the cherubic form in the Temple points to a distinc- 
 tion we shall notice further on. The symbolic use of 
 images of living creatures was permitted under the 
 Mosaic dispensation in that instance. And on this will 
 be found to turn the distinction between symbolic use 
 of painting and sculpture in church architecture and 
 decoration, and its forbidden and dangerous use, as a 
 supposed means of assisting devotion. 
 
 It is evident that personifications of this kind are the 
 origin, first, of the heraldry of human war and power ; 
 then of the higher symbolism of religious Art in all 
 ages ; and finally, of such church decoration as some of 
 us may yet hope to see carried out in our own. The 
 earliest example of pure heraldry, or individual choice 
 of a bearing or device, is probably to be found in JEs- 
 chylus’s ‘Septem contra Thebas.' Telamon and Capa- 
 
HERALDRY OF GREECE. 
 
 73 
 
 neus each have their blazon, and this would seem to 
 shew that iEschylus thought heraldry not inappropriate 
 to the generation before the siege of Troy. We do not 
 remember any heraldry in Homer: at least Priam's 
 dialogue with Helen, when they look forth from above 
 the Scsean gateb would seem to prove that the chiefs of 
 Achaia were not distinguished by their shields, or by 
 any recognizance, so as really to be known from afar ; 
 for of course heraldry in its origin was a matter of war- 
 like service, not of mere sport or pride. A man might 
 choose a device for a tournament, and call himself the 
 Knight of the Bleeding Heart, or Questing Beast, or 
 Rueful Countenance: but in battle his retainers must 
 ride under the banner of his house, and he would be 
 known by his own cognizance ; — by the crest on his 
 helmet, and the rude pictures on his shield and surcoat, 
 which all men knew belonged to his name, and indicated 
 his presence ; which were just as much his propert}^ as 
 his sword or his purse; and which w^ere a matter of 
 military and public convenience to all men, friends and 
 enemies. Both on the march and in line of battle it was 
 highly necessary in the earlier days of personal prowess 
 to see where each leader of men fought ; and that 
 would be known by his broad banner or swallow- 
 tailed pennon ^ We have been of course anticipated 
 
 ^ Horn. II. iii. 165 sqq. 
 
 ^ See Marmioii, Canto vi. 26 [a virtually parallel passage to that 
 in the Iliad] : — 
 
 ‘ At lenoth the freshening western blast 
 
 O O 
 
 Aside the shroud of battle cast ; 
 
 And first the ridge of mingled spears 
 Above the brightening cloud appears ; 
 
74 
 
 HISTORICAL, 
 
 in all this; but it seems to prove that heraldry is 
 really a post-Homeric institution. Perhaps the boast 
 of the Epigoni, that they were far better men than 
 their fathers, the heraldic Seven, who fell before 
 Thebes instead of taking her, may have influenced 
 the besiegers of Troy-Town: in any case, whether it 
 was Homeric or not, a heraldry exactly like that of the 
 middle ages, and employed it would seem for exactly 
 the same reasons, was a familiar idea to ^Eschylush 
 For Teutonic historical symbolisms, the red and the 
 white dragon of Cymry and Saxon, the horse of Hengist, 
 and above all the Danish Raven, the Landeyda or 
 Ravager of the World, will be easily remembered^. 
 The Dean of Westminster refers to Oreh and Zeb, ‘the 
 Raven and the Wolf," as a parallel example in the East; 
 
 And in the smoke the pennons flew, 
 
 As in the storm the white sea-mew. 
 
 Then marked they, dashing broad and far, 
 
 The broken billows of the war. 
 
 And plumed crests of chieftains brave . . . 
 
 . Amid the scene of tumult, high 
 They saw Lord Marraion’s falcon fly ; 
 
 And stainless Tunstall’s banner white, 
 
 And Edmund Howard’s lion bright.’ 
 
 ^ Cf. Hdt. ix. 74, of the anchor borne by Sophanes of Deceleia, which 
 iEschylus had probably seen shaken in the face of the Mede at Marathon 
 and Platsea. 
 
 ^ The curious connexion between bearings and surnames, and the 
 evident derivation of the latter from the former in many cases, is more 
 than familiar to all students of history. Such names as Buller and 
 Corbet speak for themselves ; and the writer of this book cannot help 
 indulging in the inconsiderable vanity of referring to three Tyrwhitts, 
 peewits or lapwings {Vanellus cristatus), borne by his family since 
 a remote Saxon period, and first assumed by a Northman or Dane, on 
 his recovery, after being found wounded in a marsh by means of the 
 hovering flight of those birds. 
 
HERALDRY AND ART. 
 
 75 
 
 and most visitors to the Holy Land must have heard 
 of Abd-el-Aziz, who at present rules beyond Jordan % 
 and who is called ‘ El Nimr,’ the Leopard. 
 
 The connexion of heraldry with the history of Art 
 is far closer than may be generally supposed. The 
 representations of animals, &c, which it involved, were 
 of conrse conventional in the highest degree ; as the 
 typical representation of a lion, once established, was 
 virtually a hieroglyphic all over the heraldic world, and 
 unalterable; and a dragon, once agreed upon, was, as 
 Dr. Reginald Corbet sings, ‘ an example to all dragons.’ 
 But the effects of colour, as used in dresses and armour, 
 can hardly he overrated : and the early MSS. every- 
 where pi-ove, how subtle and vivid an instinct for colour 
 sprang up from the eleventh to the fifteenth century. 
 The custom of quartering knights’ shields, and can-ying 
 light into dark and dark into light has been noticed by 
 Mr. Ruskin for its effect on architectural ornament in 
 colour, as well as a principle of MS. decoration. And 
 great power and play of tints, combined with the 
 highest beauty of personal dress and decoration, must 
 have resulted from the use of mail rather than plate 
 armour, since the mail-shirt would always fall in folds 
 round the warrior’s person, and either surcoat or mantle 
 worn over it would be infinitely more graceful and 
 brilliant than when it hung stiffly over the harsh angles 
 of a suit of plate armour. 
 
 The connexion between heraldic conventionalism, and 
 that of MS. ornament has led us to the above remarks 
 on heraldry, as a science involving much study of 
 coloui’, and so connected with the progress of media'val 
 
 He lias been last heart! of, we think, as Tristram’s ^uido. 
 
76 
 
 HISTORICAL. 
 
 Art. The link between our own subject and ornamented 
 writing is far closer, as there is a connexion between 
 that and our modern landscape Art\ We cannot trace 
 this now ; but before the end of this chapter is closed 
 some remarks must be made on modern symbolism, as 
 it is used, or should be used, in church decoration. 
 They ought, we think, to be introduced here, though 
 they are more germain to the matter of Fresco. Until 
 the English public are satisfied about the safety of 
 pictorial representations in churches, it will be impos- 
 sible to introduce them. It is not easy to understand, at 
 first thought, why pictures should excite alarm in our 
 churches, now that their windows are, by universal 
 consent, and to everybody’s satisfaction, filled with 
 historical and symbolic representations in stained glass. 
 Yet the real distinction which the popular mind draws, 
 rightly, as we think, though unconsciously, may be 
 arrived at by looking into this seeming inconsistency. 
 In the first place, the painted window is generally 
 purely historical, and represents scenes and events 
 rather than single persons. It has nothing of the 
 character of a statue or single figure in a painting, 
 which may seem, and does sometimes seem, as if it 
 were set up to be adored for its beauty. A figure of 
 the Blessed Virgin at the foot of the Cross, or in 
 contemplation of the Crown of Thorns, as in Delaroche’s 
 incomparable work, the greatest picture of its size 
 in the art of our age, can mislead no one. Her figure, 
 however noble' and grandly painted, is only a part 
 of a great history which the picture represents or 
 
 ^ ‘ Modern Painters,’ vol. iii. p. 208 sqq. 
 
SYMBOLS NO IDOLS. 
 
 77 
 
 implies and refers to. But the single figures of the 
 Madonna, seen in countless Roman Catholic churches, 
 whether noble or ignoble in point of Art, are set there 
 for the convenience of the worshippers, that men, in 
 whatever sense and with whatever view, may kneel 
 down before them, and pray to them or through them. 
 From the ‘blue vision' of the sad Madonna at Murano 
 and Torcello, to the wooden-gilt image of a modern 
 church, the principle is the same. Nothing in Art 
 can he more pathetic or beautiful than the one, and 
 we are not aware of any object of contemplation which 
 is much more painful than the other. But both are 
 set there [for signs : because it is held to be easier 
 for the heart of man to pray to what the eyes can 
 see, than to Him whom eye has not seen. Idolatry 
 is in fact the earliest and grossest form of seeking for 
 a sign, or setting up an image (signum) to assist 
 devotion. It is always held that poor and untaught 
 people require special assistance to make them capable 
 of prayer to any invisible Person: and it is asserted, 
 again, that the ‘ simple ’ minds of lazzaroni find it easier 
 to pray to the Blessed Virgin because she was once 
 a woman, as if Her Son had not been made man: 
 and w^ooden images are set up accordingly for these 
 simple ones. All we have to do with them here is 
 to notice that the use of single images representative 
 of Saints, as single objects of worship, is perfectly 
 distinct from that of symbolic images, like that of 
 the Good Shepherd, the Vine, or the Pelican. No 
 one 'worships the Vine, or the Olive^ the Peacock, the 
 Fish, the Rock of Sinai, or the Ship of Souls. Nor 
 has there ever been any inclination shewn among men 
 
78 
 
 HISTORICAL, 
 
 to worship any effigy of Adam, Abraham, Joseph, 
 Moses, David, Isaiah, or any other typical person or 
 prophet. The fact is, that proper use of symbolism 
 has always been one distinction between the right way 
 of decorating churches and the wrong. The wrong 
 way, or abuse of decorative Art, employed without 
 any apparent sense of wrong in the Roman Catholic 
 Church, has always been to set up single figures 
 made as beautiful as possible, in order that a 
 kind of half-erotic devotion may he felt before them. 
 The image or sign is set up to assist devotion, and 
 gradually becomes the object of devotion,* or it is 
 so in some sense from the first. The right form of 
 church picture or historical fresco is to narrate in 
 colour and form, as if it were in words, some great 
 event or work of God for man, directly wrought or 
 indirectly. As has been noticed before, the represen- 
 tation of an event can hardly allow the mind of the 
 spectator to address itself in prayer to the Saint or 
 Apostle who is represented as doing something, and 
 not merely standing to receive adoration. It is not 
 because the works of Tintoret and Michael Angelo 
 are really irreligious, or the work of men without 
 religion, that they are so entirely unlike devotional 
 pictures, so called: it is because they are always 
 either historical representations of actual events, or 
 vivid and powerful imaginations of them ; and because 
 the action of every figure in them is full and marked, 
 so that their Saints are rapt and vigorously employed, 
 and not at leisure, as it were, to receive worship. They 
 are on a journey, or talking, or pursuing : they are 
 painted as servants of God doing His will, not as 
 
CHURCH FRESCO. 
 
 79 
 
 viceroys over men on earth. Were it fully under- 
 stood as a rule that historical fresco representing 
 the actual events of the Old and New Testaments 
 is an absolutely different thing from representative 
 images or personifications, and that symbols of Christ 
 and 0^ His Apostles are not the same thing as idols, the 
 use of fresco would spring up again where it sprang up 
 of old, in all buildings dedicated to religious purposes. 
 Until it is revived in churches we can hardly look for 
 it in other public buildings; and it is our conviction 
 that no great step tow^ards great Art will be made in 
 : the present English Schools till it is restored. There 
 : is no doubt either of the meaning or the truth of 
 Michael Angelo's saying, that oil-colour is work for 
 women and fresco for men; and a better reason still 
 for its study is the publicity of fresco, and the fact 
 that great works always kept before men's eyes make 
 a special and continual appeal to their minds, while 
 easel pictures in a gallery are only to be seen rarely, 
 if at all. 
 
 We have said, that the origin of modern representative 
 Art is in the ancient Lombard churches, and what is 
 more to the purpose, Mr. Ruskin has said it before, 
 and fully proved the statement. The notes to the first 
 volume of 'The Stones of Venice' contain a beautiful 
 account of Lombard Romanesque work at Verona, and 
 Byzantine work at St. Mark’s in Venice, distinguishing 
 between the beauty and conventional grace of the 
 latter, which is rigidly decorative and ornamental, 
 and the energy and vigour of the former, where all is 
 action of man and horse in hunting and fighting. The 
 figures which compose the subject called the Chase of 
 
80 
 
 HISTORICAL, 
 
 Theodric are familiar to all travellers, being described 
 in Murray’s Hand-book : but the crypt of San Zenone, 
 on whose front they occur, should also be visited. 
 All the treatment tends towards representing violent 
 action, and a great deal of humour is combined with 
 it. We may still indulge the hope that the modern 
 flower-work which is now in use everywhere, may be 
 encouraged to develope itself into grotesque flgure- 
 carving. It is quite time for our artist-workmen to 
 get beyond leaves and acorns and ferns, and to put 
 some thought into their capitals and crockets. To 
 this end they should, we think, be left to themselves 
 a little, and have full opportunities of working out 
 selected subjects in their own way. We have seen 
 very great quickness and facility displayed, in stone- 
 carvings done for ourselves, at ten shillings a day, 
 and are quite sure that men like their author would 
 be able to catch and realize almost any suggested idea, 
 and also be able to invent for themselves. The 
 elementary system of our Art Schools is at once 
 simple and complete enough to teach any man to 
 draw fairly correct designs for clothed flgures in relief, 
 if he has already learnt to do leaves and flowers, by 
 careful attention to natural form: and the labours 
 of artisan-sculptors may yet become a valuable means 
 of Art-teaching to many who consider themselves 
 superior to them in education ; — only because they 
 have had, and neglected, superior means of instruction. 
 The early and unskilled spirit of the griflin-porches 
 of Verona culminates in the gates of Ghiberti; and if 
 modern work in bas-relief can teach the modern public 
 to appreciate either end of the scale sincerely, the 
 
IMPERSONAL FAME. 
 
 81 
 
 labour of those who produce it will not be wasted: 
 — nor need the}’' regret it if their names are hardly 
 preserved, or if they depart in the end leaving their 
 deeds behind them, like the workmen of the impersonal 
 schools of unknown masters, from the age of the 
 Catacombs to the lifetime of Giunto and Nicolas of 
 Pisa, of Cimabue and Giotto. • 
 
 a 
 
82 
 
 HISTORICAL, 
 
 III. 
 
 GIOTTO. (1276—1336.) 
 
 rpHE two preceding chapters contain nearly all we 
 have to say about the impersonal schools of modern 
 Art, as they may be called. All the works we have 
 now to refer to as important for a student to dwell on 
 and understand, where he has the opportunity of seeing 
 them or good records of them, will bear the mark of 
 some well-known hand and be associated with familiar 
 names. It is out of the question,^ as we have said, to 
 attempt to abridge Vasari in a work like this, or even 
 to give lists of the painters of the various schools. 
 Mr. Wornum's ‘Epochs of Painting,' or the works of 
 Messrs Crowe and Cavalcaselle, to which latter we 
 are much indebted, are open to all who wish to study 
 the history of painting generally. Our own wish is 
 rather to trace from their first origin, or rather from 
 their earliest revival, those principles of Art which 
 seem to us the fittest to guide the student at the 
 present time. The earliest Christian works are of 
 the date of the gradual disappearance of Roman Art, 
 as has been said, inherited through Greece from 
 Egypt. We have also said something of the first known 
 works of Teutonic Christians, of their force and energy, 
 their humour, and the early and eager faculties of 
 observation and imitation which their unknown pro- 
 
CIMABUE AND GIOTTO. 
 
 8S 
 
 ducers displayed; and have inferred that, whatever 
 instruction they may have received from Byzantine 
 artists, they soon worked out their lessons in a 
 thoroughly original way. 
 
 The name of Cimabue marks the advance of Painting 
 from merely traditional treatment : either he or Giunto 
 of Pisa is named as the first who brought to bear the 
 energies of the Gothic mind on their own branch of 
 Art, and made a strong effort to advance in power of 
 realization and expression. His great pupil, who is 
 known by his Christian name of Giotto, his surname 
 being Bondone, seems to have done more even from 
 ' the first, and to have always observed and worked 
 from Nature, from the days when Cimabue found 
 him drawing the ram on the Apennine pastures. It 
 will be seen that the effort at advance in repre- 
 sentative power, and the constant habit of reference 
 to Nature, go far towards making the principles of a 
 ; school of Realist Art ; — by which, in a general way, is 
 meant, not a school which is opposed to ideal or 
 imaginative subjects or treatment, but one which 
 copies natural things faithfully, and makes out or 
 realizes them thoroughly, and does not reject familiar 
 or every-day subject. Dante, who was Giotto’s con- 
 temporary and friend, gives us in the following lines 
 the judgment of the chief of Gothic poetry upon the 
 leaders of the Gothic sister-arts : — 
 
 ^ Credette Cimabue nella pintura 
 Tener lo campo : Ed bora ha Giotto il grido 
 Si; die la fama di colui e oscurah’ 
 
 ‘ Purgatorio, xiv. 4, quoted by Crowe and Cavaleaselle, vol. ii. 
 
 u 2 
 
 I 
 
84 
 
 HISTORICAL. 
 
 Round, and after, him who won this emphatic praise 
 from Dante, his Art was rising and to rise, until 
 Francia's Angels had something of Paradise in them, 
 and the painter's vision on the walls of the Sistine 
 challenged the written descriptions of the Inferno. 
 
 Giotto's portrait of Dante dates 1300-6, we think; 
 not later, since Dante was at Padua with him, in 
 1305, during the progress of his work at the Arena 
 Chapel ; but his earlier works are to be followed at Assisi 
 alone. It is matter of some doubt whether the frescoes 
 of the Upper Church of S. Francis are Cimabue's and 
 Gaddo Gaddi's, or Cimabue's alone, or Giotto's in part 
 as assistant scholar. Those of the Upper Church 
 shew his full power of thought and invention, and both 
 daring in attempt and a power of execution far beyond 
 anything he can have learned from Cimabue. The 
 progress in all that we are used to consider as artistic 
 power from the celebrated Borgo Allegri^ picture of 
 Cimabue, to Giotto's Marriage of S. Francis to ‘his 
 Lady Poverty' is incalculable. The former picture is 
 doubtless a great advance on Margaritone, or the 
 unknown Greek artists who may or may not have 
 instructed the first Italian master. Vasari’s view that 
 Cimabue was taught by them is controverted by Messrs. 
 Crowe and Cavalcaselle : but at all events the Virgin of 
 the Borgo Allegri proves that he must have followed 
 the Byzantine picture-types of traditional features. 
 The most charming book of travels in existence, ‘Curzon's 
 
 ^ The story of the visit of Charles of Anjou to Cimabue’s studio, and 
 the first sight of the new Virgin and Child, and procession of the picture 
 to the place in Santa Maria Novella, which it occupies to this day, is 
 too well known to require notice. It is probably true. 
 
TRADITIONAL PORTRAIT, 
 
 85 
 
 Monasteries of the Levant,’ gives the plain reason why 
 he did so, and also why such traditional representation 
 remains unchanged to this day. It is matter of church 
 discipline and teaching. ‘ The traditional likenesses of 
 the Saviour and some of the Apostles have been handed 
 down to us from the earliest ages . . . From the re- 
 motest times the figures of the Saints were drawn after 
 a recognized form, from which no variation was made 
 till a late period in the Latin Church, and which 
 continues to be observed in its original exactness in 
 the Greek Church to the present day . . . That no 
 changes might creep in in the lapse of time, the manner 
 in which not only all the Saints and personages, but 
 the scenes of Holy Writ, are to be drawn, is exactly 
 described in a MS. constantly consulted by the Greek 
 artists. This curious book, with various additions 
 which have been made from time to time, serves as a 
 manual for painters employed to this day to ornament 
 churches, &c, with frescoes: a translation of it has 
 been published in French by M. Didron, called Manuel 
 dTconographie Chretienne.'' 8vo. Paris, 1845.’ Cimabue 
 would have followed the Greek types and copies to 
 a great extent, then, whether he received personal 
 instruction from Greek artists or not: and no one 
 who remembers the features of the Greek Madonnas of 
 Torcello and Murano at Venice can help observing that 
 the face is exactly the same as that of the Madonna 
 of the Borgo Allegri. It is distinguished by its long 
 eyes, short upper lip, and the distance from the corner 
 of the eye to the angles of the nose and mouth: still 
 more by the sadness of expression, which the rude Greek 
 work never fails to convey. Francia, and we think 
 
86 
 
 HISTORICAL. 
 
 Cima di Conegliano, both give the Madonna the same 
 features, shewing the same advance in power on 
 Cimabue which he himself shews on the mosaics. As 
 has been hinted above, his great step in advance was 
 in power of eye and hand and realization, in greater 
 sense of beauty, and greater energy and daring in 
 experimental treatment. The Borgo Allegri picture, 
 for instance, is stippled and worked up to a high degree 
 of brilliancy : and it would seem from the early paint- 
 ings at Assisi as if Giotto received his Art like an 
 improved instrument from his master's hand, little 
 aware what use his own vast and unconscious powers 
 would make of it. 
 
 For it is not only improvement in every form of 
 technical skill which we observe in Giotto's work from 
 the first: it is the presence of a mind as fertile, in- 
 ventive, and decisive of view as those of the unknown 
 Lombard workers in stone. A creative power like theirs 
 was now to be employed in the more powerful materials 
 of painting. The Florentine lucco covered a graver 
 man than did the Lombard mail-shirt ; but in humour, 
 vigour of conception, and clearness of inner vision of 
 their work, the Veronese and the Tuscan schools of 
 workmen greatly resembled each other. We do not 
 know how far the term ‘school' applies, in strictness, 
 to the Lombard workmen; but it certainly does to 
 Giotto and his contemporaries, since he received much 
 instruction from Cimabue, and transferred it in turn 
 to all the Giotteschi, or followers of his own. And 
 before pointing out Giotto's technical discoveries and 
 growth in scientific power, there is an important obser- 
 vation to make, or rather quote, as to the spirit and 
 
FRANCISCAN ART. 
 
 87 
 
 frame of mind in which he worked; which seems 
 greatly to resemble, mutatis mutandis, that of some 
 of our best Realist painters of religious and other 
 subject at our own day. 
 
 In the first place, his habits of thought seem to have 
 been simply Christian, rather than ascetic or ecclesias- 
 tical \ From the beginning of his work at Assisi, and 
 probably before it, he was always in contact with 
 religious persons, in the stricter sense of the word. 
 Either secular or regular clergy, or monks and nuns, 
 were his patrons and friends, perhaps his assistants 
 in his work, from beginning to end. He was early 
 made preacher in fresco to the Franciscan order, and 
 preached their view of life and the glories of poverty 
 for them, honourably, and to the best of his ability. 
 Nor does it seem as if his powers were limited by 
 any sense of falsehood or unreality in the principles 
 to which he was giving enduring life; it seems clear 
 that neither mendicant monks nor secular clergy dis- 
 graced the Faith in his eyes. Having undoubtedly had 
 to deal and drive bargains with monks, and findiitg 
 them not very unlike other men in such matters, 
 Giotto has not a word of malice or mockery, or 
 even reproach for them, that we know of. He must 
 have thrown his whole soul into painting the praise 
 of Lady Poverty, and her espousals with S. Francis; 
 and he never expresses or implies a thought that 
 Franciscans were not poor in this world, or otlier- 
 wise than sincerely self-den^dng. Yet he has no 
 more idea of being one of them, or taking their view 
 
 ) 
 
 ' Note A, p. 104. 
 
88 
 
 HISTORICAL. 
 
 of life and course in it, than had Michael Angelo or 
 Benvenuto Cellini. His ‘canzone' on Poverty^ are 
 a not unedifying contrast to the fresco of her glories. 
 He seems in fact to have enjoyed life as frankly and 
 thoroughly as a man can, who has higher aims than 
 enjoyment; and probably his continued industry and 
 prosperity gave him at least the full human share of 
 happiness. But the near friend of Dante must have 
 been a man of many thoughts and inward struggles: 
 and Giotto's immense reputation for saying good things 
 was probably no very decisive indication of a normal 
 state of high spirits. He shews, like Dante, the natural 
 Protestantism or independence of a powerful mind ; yet 
 his clerical and monastic friends seem never to have 
 mistrusted him; nor to have cared, if he took their 
 inner measure as often, and as profoundly well, as he 
 drew their portraits on the wall. It might be the 
 subject of a very charming essay, we think, if any one 
 would compare the works and the spirit of the Fran- 
 ciscan painter of the Court of Poverty, and the great 
 Dominican Brother Angelico. The rivalry of the two 
 orders is well known, as well as their different courses 
 of action ; and there seems a curious unfitness of things 
 in the fact of the great Realist being on the one side, 
 and the chief of all Purists on the other. The fact 
 is, that, as all Giotto's works on Scriptural subject 
 abundantly shew, he held the Christian Faith with a 
 sincerity and depth which made him as much a brother 
 of monks as of all other men. His labour was as much 
 
 ^ K. F. L. F. Von Rumohr, vol. ii. p. 51, Crowe and Cavalcaselle. 
 Giotto enumerates all the evils of poverty, involuntary and voluntary, 
 dwelling on its moral dangers in particular. 
 
ASSISI. 
 
 89 
 
 labour of love as theirs, and its results shew full 
 appreciation of their motives, though he expresses 
 shrewd doubts about the wisdom of their practice. 
 There is the spirit of devout and intense earnestness 
 of representation, striving to realize facts intensely 
 believed, the Gothic sense of incongruity and odd in- 
 cident, which gives its humour to Gothic character^, and 
 also that sense of honour which makes the true work- 
 man strive for every technical excellence. What he 
 attained in the latter way seems to come next, though 
 our observations must be necessarily brief, and are not 
 entirely, or for the most part, original. 
 
 Composition, or artistic arrangement of groups and 
 separate figures, seems to have been determined and 
 fully systematized in Giotto’s mind. He was not a 
 man, nor was his time a suitable period, for analysis 
 of principles or framing of strict rules. The age of 
 grammar was two centuries off at least. But a faudy 
 good treatise on composition, and grammar of such 
 of its rules as are capable of system and expression, 
 might be framed from his works. Regular principles 
 seem to have been carried out in the allegories of the 
 Lower Church at Assisi, with the greatest possible 
 skill, reaching in fact to the Art which hides its art- 
 fulness. Groups are admirably distributed over the 
 space, and connected and bound to each other with 
 
 ^ The two children in the fresco of S. Francis’s Rejection by his 
 Father, who have pebbles ready to pelt the saint, and whose countenances 
 indicate strong anticipatory enjoyment of the proceeding, are clearly a 
 reminiscence of Florentine stone-throwing, a civic habit much piu'sued 
 by almost all classes. See ‘ Romola,’ and especially Mr. Leighton’s illus- 
 tration of the children in the ‘ Conversion of IMonua Brigida.’ See also 
 in the ‘ Lady Poverty.’ 
 
90 
 
 HISTORICAL. 
 
 the greatest subtlety, forming curves and sweeping 
 lines of real beauty all through each picture. It is 
 probable that the painter’s continual employment in 
 covering spaces of regular and graceful shape had much 
 to do with his marked habit of balancing mass against 
 mass. The double arrangement in the Marriage of 
 S. Francis with Poverty, and the triple one in the 
 Allegory of Chastity, are beautiful illustrations of 
 balanced grouping I Every figure, moreover, visibly 
 and at once contributes to the general motive or pur- 
 pose of the picture, so that none can be spared. The 
 unity of action and conception in one of these large 
 compositions is marvellous, and when their great 
 number is considered the power of their author appears 
 quite unearthly. 
 
 Again, all which we call Harmony, or pleasantness 
 of colour-drawing and treatment, takes a new step and 
 development in the work of Giotto’s manhood. Sharp, 
 clear, and unsentimental Florentine faces take the place 
 of Greek ideals, and are treated not traditionally, hut 
 with all the interest of portraiture. Sometimes, how- 
 ever, hard outlines are softened, and cheeks rounded ; 
 limbs are drawn in springing action, and generally 
 in correct form. Round, full, and pillar-like throats, 
 upright and rather portly, and long almond-shaped 
 eyes, prevail everywhere. Where the anatomy of a limb 
 
 ^ The former is a double group, round which the eye is easily carried 
 in two beautiful curves, by an outer and inner circuit. The joined hands 
 of the principal figures are continued by the heads of the angels who 
 stand below down to that of the youth who is giving his cloak to the 
 beggar. Those of the two pelting children bring the eye round to the 
 worldly young men and the avaricious group ; and other heads form 
 an inner circle. 
 
ACTION. 
 
 91 
 
 is wrong, or if it is missed and ignored, still the 
 limb is in right action, as in Hogarth's work ; though, 
 in his case, the dress of the eighteenth century really 
 excused him from much attention to the subject of 
 anatomy, as we apprehend that no human being in 
 a wig and short breeches can ever look ‘in drawing' 
 at all in a picture. On the right of the great door at 
 Assisi, S. Francis stands pointing to a crowned skele- 
 ton, and preaching the same sermon which Orcagna 
 afterwards delivered with such solemn power on the 
 walls of the Campo Santo at Pisa. The painting of 
 the bones, &c, is correct enough to prove that Giotto 
 had at least a competent knowledge of the ground- 
 plan of God's imageb Again, action is never overacted 
 in his works. They are in fact conceptions rather 
 than compositions, in strict statement. Whether he 
 exerts himself on portraits, or events, or outward 
 nature (some slight account of his landscape will follow 
 shortly) — or even if he draws on his imagination, first 
 calls up a scene before his own mind's eye, then 
 ‘bids' its figures stand still ^ until their likeness is 
 fixed in his fresco for ever — he always strives for the 
 truth, for the real event which has been, or for the 
 future thing which shall be real. This, as we have said 
 in other words, makes him the first high example of all 
 Realist painting — that he was really faithful to the 
 truth he saw with his eyes, or the vision he ‘saw 
 
 ^ Crowe and Cavalcaselle, vol. i. I much regret to have missed 
 this in a late visit to Assisi. 
 
 ^ Browning, ‘ Pippa Passes,’ vol. i. p. 19 1, ed. 1849 : — 
 
 ‘ Bid each conception stand, while, trait by trait. 
 
 My hand transfers its lineaments to stone ? ’ 
 
92 
 
 HISTORICAL, 
 
 within his head/ He knew enough anatomy to do 
 justice to action; he either did not know enough of 
 it to look upon it as a motive or purpose of painting, 
 or he cared far more for the facts of Nature, and the 
 true imaginations of the Faith, which he felt to he his 
 real work. He calls no attention to muscles and 
 sinews ; nudity gives him no special pleasure ; he 
 strives to do it justice, but does not insist upon it. 
 There is grand composition of groups and single figures ; 
 but there is no attitudinizing. One passionate motion, 
 that of throwing up the hands, seems to have struck 
 him as a special expression of the wildest and deepest 
 distress. And rightly, for those who have unhappily 
 seen that action know, that, resembling as it does 
 the movement of a drowning person, it is the sign of 
 a sinking and despairing spirit, of loss of earthly hope, 
 and of all hope for the time, and of the wild appeal 
 of one at his wit’s end, who sees no help in his extreme 
 need. Those who know the works of William Blake 
 will remember the marvellous figure of Job, with 
 arms raised high, in his first and awful complaint, ‘ Let 
 the day perish wherein I was born h’ But, generally 
 speaking, Giotto is able to give intense feeling and 
 passion to forms or countenances, without bodily ges- 
 ticulation, only in the natural movements of the scene. 
 His faces are wonderful examples of power of expression, 
 for they no more grimace than his figures attitudinize : 
 they express feeling exactly as keen-featured men and 
 clear-looking women do, when they are thoroughly 
 affected, too much so to disguise expression, or think 
 
 ^ Gilchrist’s Life contains a copy of this plate, vol. i. 
 
FLORENTINE FACES. 
 
 93 
 
 of their own deportment. When his men or women 
 shed tears, they cry in a homely and piteous way, 
 helplessly human, which simply goes to the heart of 
 a tolerably sensitive beholder ^ and which shews that 
 the bold jester who drew them had the softness of a 
 thoroughly humorous character. When they express 
 interest, they do so in a vivid Florentine way. Every 
 one who has looked at Giotto, or his great successor 
 Ghirlandajo, will see the truth of the remark in 
 ‘ Romola’ about the ‘sharp Florentine faces’ which 
 fill the crowded frescoes of the latter, as well as the 
 former. 
 
 The popular idea of old Italian features is formed too 
 much on the portrait of Rafael, and too little to that 
 of Dante or else one’s fancy is apt to stray to dark 
 cheeks and ragged beards of modern Piazza di Spagna 
 models. Or we take up with the ideal of the portraits 
 of Caesar Borgia, forgetting that he was a Spaniard, 
 of a cast of face visible, we believe, in Andalusia to 
 this day. It is a good work to direct any one who 
 is reading modern history to study the Florentine 
 of Dante’s day in Giotto, and of Savonarola’s in 
 Ghirlandajo. The value of the publications of the 
 Arundel Society, which enable the untravelled to 
 form a conception of these men’s powers, and the 
 life of their day, can only be shewn by time and 
 patient attention to them. And the Society’s larger 
 plates from their works do this to intelligent students 
 of history, for they give an idea of the subjects wlio 
 
 ^ See the Entombment, in the Scrovegno Chapel at Padua. 
 
 ^ Note B, p. 104. 
 
94 
 
 HISJORICAL. 
 
 were worked from. All the counsel, decision, and 
 fighting power of the old Florentine is in them. Close- 
 shaven as they almost always are, the youngest of 
 Giotto’s subjects look delicate enough, but their looks are 
 scarcely girlish like Rafael’s. The youthful Dante, for 
 instance, engraved in vol. i. of Crowe and Cavalcaselle, 
 soft as he looks, has a jaw like a boa constrictor; 
 which the rounded face and full lips no-way disguise. 
 Mr. Leighton has rendered valuable service to Art and 
 literature, in common with the authoress of ‘Romola,’ 
 by his well-considered illustrations of old Florence in 
 that work; and it will be noticed in it that Tito’s 
 Greek contours look more like the popular Italian ideal 
 than those of the true-bred inhabitants of ‘ our fine old 
 quarrelsome Florence.’ The latter are not like broad- 
 bearded Germans who lived by the saddle; nor have 
 they the fair recklessness of ancient English features, 
 like Edward IV’s, or Gloucester’s — they are far more 
 thoughtful and active - minded. But they are all 
 hardened and worn, with the looks of men who lived 
 where every house was fortified, and cut on the outside 
 into solid rustication, all gloomy strength. They did 
 not live in a city at peace within itself, among the 
 fair Venetian mosaics, of drinking birds, and signs 
 of the Lord’s presence, where the hand upraised was 
 cut in relief over the doorways, blessing all who 
 entered b In short, the works of the first great Realist 
 contain composition without academical posing, and 
 
 ^ Represented in ‘ The Seven Lamps of Architecture,’ I believe. I 
 cannot find it in ‘ The Stones of Venice.’ The hand in act of blessing, 
 as a symbol of Divine presence, is at Plate xi. vol. ii. p. 138 of that 
 work — on a Byzantine Cross. 
 
THE ARENA CHAPEL. 
 
 95 
 
 unconscious expression instead of consciously-adjusted 
 features. 
 
 There is an old book (we have no doubt it had some 
 reputation in its time,) which we remember seeing in 
 a shop-window somewhere in the Strand. It was de- 
 voted to recipes (accompanied by illustrations) for the 
 expression of the varied passions of the children of men 
 by drawing. When we saw it, it was open at Despair. 
 As far as we remember our peripatetic studies through 
 the glass, the author told his pupils, ex cathedrd, 
 that in Despair the corners of the mouth are violently 
 drawn down, the lines of the cheeks deeply traced, 
 the eyes sunken and strongly wTinkled, the teeth 
 exposed, and the hair disordered. The illustration 
 carried these instructions out to the letter. At first it 
 awakened a vague idea of impossible absurdity: — but 
 a discursive imagination, and rather extended experi- 
 ence, at last enabled us to trace some resemblance to 
 it in continental countenances, observed at critical 
 moments of sea-sickness. If the ingenious artist chose 
 that means of studying Despair from the life, bad 
 sailors will probably consider that he was not far 
 wrong. We daresay the other passions were done like 
 condign justice to, or rather upon. 
 
 Giotto did not work by recipe. But his faces of pain 
 and sorrow are distressing in good earnest; he puts 
 tears and laughter in meiTs eyes, and joy is joy 
 in his hand. His treatment of Despair is stern, rude, 
 and formidable in its earnestness, shewing the spirit 
 of Orcagna and Dante. He has no idea of methodical 
 convulsions of feature. Despair, in his view, is a thing 
 of the soul, shewn by desperate deed. He personifies 
 
96 
 
 HISTORICAL. 
 
 her as the last of the vices, the end of the reprobate 
 — defying and renouncing God — self- strangled and 
 dragged into everlasting punishment. 
 
 Some short account of the Scrovegno Chapel at Padua 
 seems necessary here, as it is easy of access to the tra- 
 veller, and as the Arundel Society has published satis- 
 factory records of its frescoes. We refer our readers to 
 these, and especially to Mr. Ruskin's account of them, 
 which should be carefully studied. Messrs. Crowe and 
 Cavalcaselle also give an admirable description of the 
 whole building. The building now called the Arena 
 Chapel at Padua appears to have been finished by 
 Scrovegno, probably from Giotto's designs or with his 
 advice, in the year 1303. It is uncertain whether 
 Giotto had yet been at Padua. But in that year he 
 is said to have been invited by Benedict XI to 
 execute paintings for him at Avignon. The well- 
 known story of his being asked by Benedict's mes- 
 sengers for a specimen of his powers, and only 
 drawing a circle with brush and colour, is said to 
 be connected with this invitation Northward. The 
 actual migration of the Popedom to Avignon took 
 place two years after, under Clement V; but this seems 
 by no means fatal to the story \ Benedict, however, 
 
 ^ It seems not impossible that Benedict XI may have been preparing 
 for the migration which Clement accomplished. His messenger was 
 sent to Giotto from Treviso. Vasari refers the whole story to Benedict 
 IX, dead 6o years before ; who, as he says, invited Giotto to Borne. 
 Schorn (see note in Mrs. Jonathan Foster’s translation of Vasari) shews 
 that Baldinucci has proved that Boniface VIII was his patron on that 
 occasion, circ. 1295. This falls in with Mr. Crowe’s account, which we 
 adopt. He says : ‘ The fact of Benedict XI’s invitation to Avignon is 
 
ARENA CHAPEL, 
 
 97 
 
 died before Giotto reached Avignon, and it is suggested 
 by Mr. Crowe that the painter betook himself to Padua 
 in consequence. We know that Dante and Giotto were 
 together in Padua in 1305-6; and the Arena paintings 
 must have been proceeding then, and were, perhaps, 
 near their completion. The chapel is a single vaulted 
 aisle with six windows, its choir separated by an 
 arch from the rest of the building. There is a waggon 
 roof with a blue and starred vault. At the East end 
 is a fresco of the Lord in Glory, flanked by the 
 Annunciation and the Betrayal. At the West end is 
 the Last Judgment, Paradise on the Lord's right hand 
 and Hell on His left. The highest or third range of 
 pictures represents the Virtues and Vices — the former 
 have their faces set towards the Paradise on the 
 Western wall, and headed by Hope, who seems about 
 to enter in; and on the other side Despair, the last 
 of the Vices, is being dragged towards the everlasting 
 Are. Six pictures on each side next below these 
 allegorical flgures represent scenes from the Protevan- 
 gelion of the life of the Blessed Virgin. The same 
 number below illustrate the Gospel histories down to 
 the Day of Pentecost. Every student of Italian history, 
 or of painting, ought to read Mr. Ruskin's account of 
 the latter, and look carefully at the record of the 
 frescoes published by the Arundel Society. The 
 present Government of Italy will probably diminish 
 the melancholy importance which at one time seemed 
 
 thus authoritatively stated by Albertiui (Opusculum, p. 51): “Fuitque 
 (Giotto) a Benedicto XI, Pont. Max. in Avenionem, ad pingendum 
 martyrorum historias, accitus ingenti pretio.” There is no ground for 
 thinking that Giotto ever left Italy for France at all.’ 
 
 H 
 
98 
 
 HISTORICAL. 
 
 likely to attach to these copies, by preserving the 
 originals \ But a very short time of patient attention 
 to the former will enable their reader to form such an 
 idea of the character and the work of Giotto, as will 
 be of real avail to him in his studies, even if he is 
 only attending to the subject of Painting as a part 
 of that of History. We may hereafter try to point 
 out how advisable it is to do this, and to illustrate the 
 written records of events by the remaining works of 
 the men who saw and lived through them. Now that 
 every effort is made to enable students to realize facts 
 and to call the imaginative power to their aid, it is 
 obvious that the help of Painting must be called in, 
 as that of Poetry has long been used. It seems 
 unreasonable that Dante's Divine Comedy should be 
 the central work, so to speak, of the Middle Ages, 
 and that the actual MSS. of many colours and thoughts, 
 drawn by the hand of Dante's close friend, should pass 
 unstudied and almost unknown. From these pictures 
 from the New Testament history one may arrive at an 
 accurate understanding of Giotto's intermediate position 
 between the Byzantine and Naturalist schools. ‘As 
 compared with the Byzantine he is a realist, whose 
 power consists in the introduction of living character 
 and various incidents, modifying the formerly received 
 Byzantine symbols,' and also striving for correctness 
 and definition in representing ordinary natural objects. 
 ‘So far as he has to do this, he is a realist of the 
 purest kind ; endeavouring always to conceive events 
 
 ^ We remember, in 1854, seeing the traces of three broad streams of 
 rain from the W. upper window to the floor, which divided the Last 
 Judgment by their three channels of destruction. 
 
DANTE AND GIOTTO. 
 
 99 
 
 precisely as they were likely to have happened, not 
 to idealize them into forms artfully impressive to the 
 spectator. But in so far as he was compelled to retain, 
 or did not wish to reject, the figurative character of the 
 Byzantine symbols, he stands opposed to succeeding 
 realists, in the quantity of meaning which probably 
 lies hidden in any composition, as well as in the 
 simplicity with which he will probably treat it in 
 order to enforce, or guide to, this meaning : the figures 
 being often letters of a hieroglyphic, which he will 
 not multiply lest he should lose in force of suggestion 
 what he gained in dramatic interest.’ Thus in the 
 Marriage in Cana, as a realist he takes note of what 
 nearly all artists passed over after him, that is to 
 say, of the poverty of the entertainers. This is far 
 more than probable, as the want of wine on such an 
 occasion points plainly to narrowed circumstances. 
 The miracle is straightforwardly represented as a deed 
 of Divine kindness and blessing. But Giotto implies by 
 the lifted hand of the Madonna, and the action of the 
 fingers of the bridegroom, as if they held sacramental 
 bread, that there lay a deeper meaning under it ; while 
 the master of the feast, who is drinking deep, not aware 
 of the wonder just wrought, seems to represent the 
 carelessness of the world to present spiritual power. 
 
 The Entombment, the Ascension and the Crucifixion, 
 of the Arena Chapel seem to us to demand special 
 attention : the Saviour’s face in the last is expressionless 
 and mystic, the countenance of one who was God as 
 well as Man. The allegories of Virtues and Vices are 
 wonderful in their power of symbolism and expression 
 of thought without words. One or two examples must 
 
 H 2 
 
100 
 
 . HISTORICAL, 
 
 suffice ; and for the rest we must refer to Mr. Ruskin 
 and the work of Messrs. Crowe and Cavalcaselle. 
 
 Infidelity is a woman, or man, in a flowing Eastern 
 robe, wearing a helmet with a broad rim, which keeps 
 the light from her eyes. She stands infirmly as if 
 falling, carries in her hand an image which holds a 
 cord or noose round her neck, and has flames bursting 
 forth at her feet. A figure above seems to call to her 
 in vain. 
 
 Envy has fingers ending in claws, and raises her 
 right hand with a vague clutching movement : a serpent 
 issues from her mouth and is about to bite her between 
 the eyes: she has long ears, horns on her head, and 
 flames about her body. 
 
 Fortitude is a robust figure standing behind a broad 
 shield which covers her from the shoulders to the 
 feet. Broken darts are deeply driven into it, and it 
 bears a lion's head. She wears a lion’s skin knotted 
 round her neck, and holds what seems to be a mace 
 or heavy four-edged sword in her hand. Hope and 
 Despair have been mentioned. All alike shew the 
 seriousness of mediaeval allegory, that is to say, the 
 quantity of premeditated meaning it conveyed, and 
 its use in men’s eyes as an instrument of teaching- 
 truth and duty. 
 
 The use of symbolism or allegory for the sake of 
 impressiveness is illustrated by all the ancient stories 
 in which riddles are involved, and the Eastern custom 
 of putting forth an enigma as a trial of ingenuity. It 
 seems to have travelled westward from India to Thebes : 
 perhaps the conduct of the Sphinx made the actual 
 riddle unpopular to the Greek mind; but the oracles 
 
SYMBOLISMS AT PADUA. 
 
 101 
 
 must have kept the political acumen of Greek statesmen 
 actively employed on allegorical statements. In Art, or 
 for didactic purposes, the use of allegory is to he attri- 
 buted to the agreeable excitement of the intellect and 
 awakening of the attention and the imaginative power 
 which it produces. But, like the oracles, Giotto always 
 uses allegory for a purpose— with obvious and forcible 
 intent to press a point on the mind. Our modern 
 use of allegory makes it a mere proverb of contempt, 
 simply for want of meaning. No wonder we reject 
 it, when the popular idea of it is in ceilings covered 
 with ancient and aquiline Romans, short swords, scales, 
 and lyres ; or with gods and goddesses apparently en- 
 gaged, as Carlyle says, 'in the infinite conjugation of 
 the verb to sprawl.' 
 
 Giotto's labours in Naples are beyond our reach at 
 present ; nor have we space for any account of Santa 
 Maria Novella in Florence, the great museum of his 
 works, or for the earlier paintings (1300-1302) of the 
 Chapel of the Bargello, or Podesta's Palace. The great 
 Inferno and Paradise there are still intelligible, though 
 the colour of all the work is lost. All has been dravm 
 and 'modelled' in red, and 'glazed over,' the shades 
 being softened into light by stippling. The Lucifer 
 follows Dante's description; but the chief interest is 
 in the Paradise, as it contains portraits of Dante in 
 his youth, of Corso Donati, and Brunetto Latini, and 
 other determined Bianchi or Neri, at peace for a short 
 interval \ 
 
 The landscape of Giotto is rudimentary : life was too 
 
 ’ Note B, p. 104. 
 
102 
 
 HISTORICAL. 
 
 short for him to paint in, and, like all great men of the 
 Middle Ages, he felt that his game was man. Yet he 
 introduces craggy or blue mountain distances with en- 
 joyment ; remembering probably the old Apennine life 
 of Bondone, the shepherd's son, before Cimabue found 
 him drawing by the wayside, and led him away to 
 Florence, to Dante, and to honour only second to his. 
 Mr. Ruskin mentions a beautiful piece of rock incident 
 behind the ‘ Sacrifice for the Friends ' at Pisa, which 
 we regret not to have seen k ' There is a little fountain 
 breaking out at the mountain foot, and trickling away, 
 its course marked by bunches of reeds : the latter 
 formal enough certainly, and always in triplets; but 
 still with a sense of nature pervading the whole.' 
 Giotto’s trees are generally conventionally drawn, the 
 forms of the leaves being given with marked accuracy, 
 which enables one at once to determine what species 
 he means. He enjoys clear open sky and winding 
 streams, as Benozzo Gozzoli, Ghirlandajo, and Perugino 
 afterwards did, until Masaccio stood on the verge of 
 the schools of unconventional mountain design. 
 
 Giotto's last days were crowded with great works. 
 In 1334 he was made Master of Works and Chief 
 Architect of Florence, and his Campanile at the Duomo 
 of Santa Maria dei Fiori began to rise. But in 1336 its 
 architect passed away, fuller of honours than of years, 
 having made and opened the way for such an advance 
 in all man's means of recording thought by colour and 
 form, as no man ever caused before or since. He owed 
 much to the Byzantines through Cimabue ; far more 
 
 It is now quite lost (i86'7). 
 
LAST WORKS OF GIOTTO. 
 
 108 
 
 to the Pisan sculpture generally ^ But he left behind 
 him a greater increase of technical power and of zeal 
 for Art, and faith in it, than can be traced to the 
 labours of any other man. He is the founder of 
 modern Painting, and its history is a tale of glory 
 for centuries after his day; and in all that glory he 
 has a share. All is decay after Michael Angelo and 
 Tintoret, his superiors perhaps in human greatness. 
 And for a time after Giotto's death there was a pause ; 
 no man was left who matched him or approached him, 
 until by degrees his followers drew on to where he had 
 pitched their standard far in front, and once more the 
 goldsmith Ghirlandajo took it up and pressed on, to 
 be the master of Michael Angelo. Those who think 
 all Art comes from the Renaissance or Revival of 
 classical models and literature, will do well to consider 
 the accumulated power and knowledge of the native 
 Italian schools, and how well the labours of their first 
 masters prepared their followers to understand and 
 work from models of Greek beauty. 
 
 ^ Nicolo Pisano finished the great pulpit of the Baptistery at 
 Pisa in 1260. 
 
104 
 
 HISTORICAL. 
 
 NOTE A, TO PAGE 87. 
 
 I HAVE verified most of the descriptions throughout this book, during 
 a visit to Florence, Pisa and Assisi in the summer of 1867 : and must 
 again acknowledge the excellence of Messrs. Crowe and Cavalcaselle’s 
 descriptions and illustrations. Giotto’s powers are perhaps seen at their 
 greatest stretch in the symbolic paintings of the Lower Church of 
 Assisi ; in which the colour also is wonderfully preserved and of exquisite 
 quality. The Giottesque warm white, yellow, blue, and delicate flesh- 
 colour with raw Sienna shades are relieved against very dark skies, 
 with extraordinary effect. I could not find S. Francis and the Crowned 
 Skeleton, in the Upper Church, where the frescoes have suffered 
 severely. But the sacristan still calls one’s attention to the inflexibly 
 obstinate face of S. Francis’s father, in the celebrated ‘ Bejection,’ as 
 ^ duro come pietra.’ The stern and aggrieved parent of Santa Clara 
 is also immortalized. A Madonna and S. John in the Lower Church, 
 by Pietro Cavallini, seem to attain an extreme of pure beauty rarely 
 approached' in any age. 
 
 NOTE B, TO PAGES 93 AND loi. 
 
 ‘Italian Features.’ 
 
 I REMEMBER observing to Mr. Holman Hunt, in his studio at Florence, 
 that Ghirlandajo’s models in the Santa Maria Novella (the Tornabuoni 
 and others) were very English-looking people. ‘ Of course,’ he replied, 
 ‘ the high Gothic countenance is the same everywhere. There are two 
 marked types of face and form in North Italy : that and the old 
 Etruscan. Dante may be taken for chief example of the Gothic ; 
 Napoleon’s is the best-known specimen of the other. One is a large- 
 boned frame with high features \ the other a shorter and broader figure, 
 powerful and statuesque, with dark regular face and eyes, and generally 
 with peculiar beauty in the neck and throat.’ 
 
 The Bargello portrait of Dante in his youth, mentioned at p. 92, 
 has just been repainted (July, 1867). Bather unfortunately, no attempt 
 has been made to reproduce the youthful and rounded original : a 
 modern middle-aged ideal Dante has been substituted. 
 
 The new ‘ Isabel ’ by Mr. Hunt is a very grand ideal of the Etruscan 
 female form, which combines grace and softness with a wonderffd 
 expression of strength. 
 
ORCAGNA AND ANGELICO, 
 
 105 
 
 IV. 
 
 ORCAGNA AND ANGELICO. 
 
 Orcagna .... dead before 1376 : Angelico, 1387 — 1455. 
 
 I T is a circumstance well w^orth notice, though not 
 very difficult of explanation, that the painters of 
 the earlier periods of Italian Art seem to have suffered 
 less than men of other crafts from the distresses of the 
 times they lived in. No doubt they had a share of 
 suffering, as thoughtful spectators, or indeed as citizens 
 compelled to take a side. Giotto’s Paradise in the 
 Palace of the Bargello, with its portraits of Florentine 
 notables, supposed at length to have ceased to trouble 
 each other with the war-cries of Bianchi and Neri, 
 expresses a melancholy thankfulness and subdued 
 humour, which is characteristic both of him and of 
 Florence about a. d. 1300. As has been said, Dante 
 is there in youth; he was in exile with the Bianchi 
 in 1303. We know not how far his features had 
 changed into their fixed look of enduring anger in 
 the days when Giotto and he were together in Verona 
 during the completion of the Arena Chapel in 1306. 
 Their friendship ended only with Dante^s death in 
 1321, and one cannot help comparing the position and 
 career of the exiled poet and the prosperous painter. 
 Perhaps the foremost cause of exemption from political 
 
106 
 
 HISTORICAL, 
 
 troubles enjoyed by the latter was the humility of his 
 position. As all know, a painter of early days, qua 
 painter, was not a gentleman in a studio, but a crafts- 
 man in a bottega (a shop), though of course if he 
 were noble, like Cimabue, he ranked with his family, 
 and took their fortunes. Yet Cimabue lived in the 
 stormy times of Guelfs and Ghibellines, and must 
 have seen all the domestic tragedies of the Floren- 
 tine civic feuds of Buondelmonti and Uberti, without 
 himself suffering exile or loss. The connexions be- 
 tween all the leading painters and the religious 
 houses, and the constant employment of the former 
 on dedicated work, and within walls exempted from 
 plunder and destruction, must have done much to 
 keep them from public affairs and their troubles. 
 Cimabue and Giotto, like their successors, were citizens 
 of the world, employed by popes, cardinals, kings, and 
 nobles, from Verona to Naples; and the latter was to 
 have visited Avignon. But still to the time of Ghir- 
 landajo and afterwards, the painter as such continues 
 to be a simple trading workman of the upper sort, in 
 the same position as a goldsmith or fine metal-worker. 
 In very many instances this latter ‘mystery' was 
 the first which gave employment to the young artist. 
 Orcagna, Verrochio, Ghiberti, Ghirlandajo, and Diirer, 
 are all examples of men who learnt that exactness 
 and precision, which, if not power, are indispensable to 
 right use of power, from dealing early with a precious 
 material, and continual effort to make the work equal 
 in value to that material. We follow or coincide with 
 the views of both Mr. Crowe and Mr. Ruskin, in choosing 
 three names beside that of Ghirlandajo as those of 
 
MASACCIO AND GHIRLANDAJO. 
 
 107 
 
 typical men, whose different characters and lines of Art, 
 as well as their great success in it, give them chief claim 
 on the attention of the student. He who enjoys the 
 advantages of Italian travel must never pass without 
 attention a work of Masaccio, of Fra Angelico, of Or- 
 cagna, or Ghirlandajo; and copies, engravings, and 
 photographs will do something for stayers at home, 
 especially after careful use of the works of the 
 authors above mentioned. They form between them 
 a body of pictorial history, biography, criticism, and 
 natural history which excuses our frequent reference 
 to them. 
 
 As Vasari says, ‘Giotto threw open the gates of 
 painting,' which Cimabue however had done much to 
 unlock, for him and for others. The former stands at 
 the point of divergence between the purist and natu- 
 ralist schools of painting, or rather his character stood 
 between the purist and naturalist character of painters. 
 When the works of Fra Angelico and Orcagna are com- 
 pared with those of Masaccio and Ghirlandajo, the 
 divergence is complete. Angelico's inspiration of the 
 purely religious temper, Orcagna's of the severely 
 religious temper with a tendency to gloom; that of 
 Ghirlandajo, the naturalist painter of men, and that 
 of Masaccio, the naturalist formed to grapple with all 
 nature, — are sharply enough contrasted. It is not that 
 the first two were simply religious painters, and the 
 last two irreligious. The mind of Domenico Ghirlaii- 
 dajo seems to have been simple, pious, and charitable 
 as a monk's: but Angelico withdrew from the world, and 
 the others lived in it. Both Masaccio’s and Ghirlandajo’s 
 Art is willingly dedicated to sacred subject, and they 
 
108 
 
 HISTORICAL. 
 
 faithfully exert themselves in it. But they are painters 
 and fishers of men : their eyes see no monk's visions ; 
 — they have before them the action and the life of 
 God's visible world and its chief creature. Their hope 
 and faith in the world to come is true and undoubting : 
 but while they are here they are called to paint what 
 is here, and to reflect the past in their imaginations 
 for the instruction of their brethren here. The illus- 
 tration of Holy Scripture is the common ground of all 
 these men and their chief work, as they felt it to be 
 in common with the rest of their age. The difference 
 of their treatment is that of their natures and charac- 
 ters ; and as their works remain close to each other 
 in Florence and Pisa to this day, the traveller has ex- 
 cellent opportunities of comparing them. Messrs. Crowe 
 and Cavalcaselle's illustrations, though not perfect, 
 are still of the greatest value in this respect to the 
 student of Art-history: and now that the facilities of 
 travel are so much greater than ever before, and tourists 
 are proportionally more numerous, we may hope that a 
 gradually increasing number of them will be inclined 
 to pay more attention to the works of past inspiration 
 which are still bright on the walls of Assisi, and Padua, 
 and Pisa. The Campo Santo at the latter city has 
 special claim to our attention, as some of the best- 
 known works of Orcagna, or at least, works which 
 till of late have been undoubtingly attributed to him, 
 are there in the immediate neighbourhood of those of 
 Benozzo Gozzoli, the pupil of Angelico. There must 
 have been something like occasional approach to 
 happiness in the painter's half- conventual life in 
 those days. Angelico's labour of rapturous devotion 
 
CLOISTER ART. 
 
 109 
 
 is an example quite literal, and historically certain, 
 of the highest phases of religious ecstasy. Perhaps 
 it was attained only by maintaining a certain ignorance 
 of the thoughts and ways and troubles of the world, 
 and escaping from its responsibilities by submission 
 to a constant rule of passive obedience. The same 
 temperament is exactly described in Sir James Stephen's 
 Life of Mabillon: there are the same anecdotes of 
 solemnly appointed prayers before the beginning of 
 every work, and during its progress, and at its end; 
 of ennobling labours on bent knees, and tears of 
 devout delight and tenderness: and it is difficult to 
 conceive of more beautiful historical pictures of rare 
 character than the lives of both these men afford 
 us. Both are types of the happiest growth of all 
 the monastic virtues; and contemporary Art-history 
 and anecdote shew the rarity of such growth. Not 
 only was an unaffected and special veneration felt 
 for them by their brethren, their partial imitators, 
 and the outer world, which distinguishes them from 
 I others; but their brethren in Art, as well as their 
 ' brethren in the cloister, seem to have taken an entirely 
 different and much more practical view of painting 
 as a matter of business. As a Dominican brother 
 ' beloved and venerated, Angelico was free of the aidistic 
 and conventual world alike. His labour was his 
 reward : he was separated from the world. We cannot 
 say what he lost by it, in necessary narrowness of 
 mind, and inability to conceive of the toils, the strength, 
 the action, and the suffering of his fellows^; but we 
 
 ^ He must have known much of their sufferings, since his love for 
 the poor was proverbial. Nor do we see what good he could have done 
 
110 
 
 HISTORICAL, 
 
 know what Florence and the world have gained by 
 his loss, his isolation and his labours, to this day. 
 Few can walk through the old convent of San Marco 
 and see the frescoes which yet shine in its corridors 
 —with a tender brilliancy in them, like their author's 
 fame in the sight of God and man — and not own 
 the beauty and the worth of contemplative life. It 
 does not take a very lively imagination to call up 
 the image of Savonarola, pacing to and fro in medi- 
 tation on the sermons which bore witness in vain 
 against Alexander VI and the power of evil; we 
 cannot help fancying how often his musing eye must 
 have passed over the well-remembered representation 
 of the Lord's entrance into Hades and the fiend crushed 
 beneath his fallen prison-doors. But while the brother 
 of Fiesole worked on his knees within his cell, scenes 
 of a strictly business-like and worldly character were 
 going on without. Apostles and Madonnas were being 
 chaffered for at so much the braccia. However, during 
 his lifetime it is unlikely that his Prior would think 
 it necessary to employ other painters ; so that Angelico's 
 skill saved himself and his brethren from the necessity 
 of driving hard bargains. But the anecdotes about 
 the brothers Ghirlandajo and their rebellion against the 
 monks of Passignano ; of the strict watch kept over 
 Perugino and his ultramarine; and of Paolo Uccello and 
 the cheese \ — shew us a much humbler phase of artistic 
 and conventual life, and enable us to understand 
 
 by taking his share in the ‘rugging and riving’ of Bianchi and ISTeri, 
 and being exiled with Dante, torn to pieces with Corso Donati, or hanged 
 and burnt with Savonarola. 
 
 ^ See Vasari — sub norainibus. 
 
ORCAGNA AT PISA. 
 
 ill 
 
 the rather impartial and humorous views of Giotto 
 and the severer anger of Orcagna, who in his Infernos, 
 like Dante or Moses, spareth none, monk or cavalier, 
 and knoweth not to have mercy. It is impossible 
 here to discuss the question raised in the history of 
 early Christian Art, as to Orcagna’s authorship of 
 the Triumph of Death and the Last Judgment of the 
 Campo Santo at Pisa. The Inferno is so nearly 
 destroyed by time, sea-winds, and particularly by 
 Solazzino’s restoration, that no one would be inclined 
 to dispute about it. But the name of Orcagna as a 
 painter is as thoroughly identified, with the Triumph 
 of Death, as his architectural reputation is bound up 
 with the Loggia; and in historical sketches like these 
 we may still be . allowed to refer it to his name, under 
 protest. The painter or chief designer of those works, 
 whoever he may have been, is a person to be compared 
 with Giotto and Angelico, whether he be resolved into 
 Andrew and Bernardo, the two Arcagnoli of Florence 
 (transformed into Orcagna’s), or— if we like to take 
 Messrs. Crowe’s hypothesis, and say that it is all 
 Siennese work— into the two Lorenzetti. By any other 
 name the fresco would look as terrible; and though 
 the Strozzi paintings on the same subjects, which are 
 undoubtedly Orcagna’s, are said to differ in important 
 features of treatment from those of the Campo Santo, 
 we must leave the question of their authorship open\ 
 There is no question that their painter came to his 
 work full of the spirit of Giotto; or that he lived 
 
 ^ Our own last view of this fresco inclines us to think that its points 
 of resemblance to the Campo Santo works in faces and forms prevail 
 over all differences. 
 
112 
 
 HISTORICAL. 
 
 in the full current of Italian and Florentine life. But 
 he is also impressed with old tones of thought, and 
 full of that severity of judgment, which came down 
 from Eastern asceticism on the minds of Byzantine 
 mosaicists, and through them into Italy with Beli- 
 sarius’ conquests and the rule of the Eastern Empire, 
 or by way of Torcello and Venice. All the work has 
 the dreadful earnestness of the Judgment of Torcello, 
 and is also carried out in detail with laborious power 
 of realization unknown to Eastern minds or hands. 
 There are the hermits, secured in strong places and 
 holes of ragged rocks from the temptations of the 
 fatal world below, milking the hind, and at peace with 
 all the wild and timid beasts of the field. There is 
 the grim S. Macarius, once hermit of the Thebaid, 
 who dwelt in the marshes of Scete, to enjoy the society 
 of their powerful mosquitoes ; whose convent and rule 
 of discipline remain there to this day (see Curzon), 
 and whose followers fast the whole year, excepting 
 Sundays and the Great Fifty days, speaking to no man 
 without leave. He leads the Dance of Death in 
 Northern Art, or directs men’s thoughts to it, as 
 S. Francis at Assisi points to the crowned skeleton 
 who in this world has his victory. But there is here 
 none of that grotesque Gothic humour which jests with 
 death in sheer combative defiance, or of that general 
 hope of mercy, firm if childlike and illogical, which is 
 here and there suggested in the Swiss or German treat- 
 ment of the subject; as where Death bids the old noble 
 come with him Hike a good sword worn out. Dwelling 
 
 ^ ‘Du edle Degen.^ The German mediaeval lays perpetually call a 
 Knight a Degen or sword ; hence this play on the word in the Dance 
 
THE TRIUMPH OF BE A TH. 
 
 113 
 
 continually on the universal change of Death, and hope- 
 lessness of escape, the Teutonic workmen seem rather 
 to bid men be of good cheer and depart in hope. It 
 is not so with him of the Campo Santo. All is dreadful 
 severity. The Lord is as clearly speaking the words 
 of doom as in Michael Angelo’s painting in the Sistine 
 Chapel. The Madonna sits by Him in helpless distress : 
 Raphael the Archangel hides his face from the sight 
 before him : other angels weep and wring their hands, 
 or strive horribly with the brute-shaped fiends who 
 are tearing away the children of men from the indig- 
 nant Presence. There is no safety or hope except in 
 flight from the world. And the world is below, and its 
 ways. Macarius bids the three kings or nobles look on 
 death and corruption, with a hard unloving expression 
 which has nothing in it except Cras Tibi; and which 
 is as sharply contrasted with RaphaeFs face, as the 
 wrath of Dante with the tenderness of Angelico. Uguc- 
 cione della Faggiuola of Arezzo is there, the kinsman 
 of Corso Donati and hated enemy of Florence, who had 
 used his brief rule over Pisa and Lucca to inflict on 
 her the severe defeat of Montecatini b 
 
 Next to them Death is turning her back on the 
 poor and aged and afflicted who invoke her, and 
 flying furiously on broad black wings upon the young 
 and rich amidst their careless feasting under orange- 
 
 of Death. On this subject see Dr. Woltmann’s ‘ Holbein and his Times,’ 
 an admirable new work. Leipsic, 1867. 
 
 ^ Two thousand men perished there, says Machiavelli, book ii. ch. v. 
 He speaks of Uguccione as having ‘by means of the Ghibelline party 
 made himself master of Pisa and Lucca.’ He reduced Lucca as general 
 or lord of Pisa. 
 
 1 
 
114 
 
 HISTORICAL, 
 
 boughs. With them is another foe of Florence, Cas- 
 truccio Castracani, who succeeded to the power of 
 Uguccione, and had nearly ruined her in the calamitous 
 battle of Allepascio. When this picture was painted 
 Uguccione was in exile with Can Grande, and 
 Castruccio had been hewn down indeed, in a good 
 hour for Orcagna's native city. The broad scythe of 
 Death is raised against him, as he sits among fair 
 luxurious forms, hawk on fist ; and just beyond them 
 lies the harvest of the earth, a heap of corpses with 
 wonderful realization of death on their rigid faces. 
 Angels or devils are drawing their souls from their 
 mouths, as new-born children, the fiends having 
 the greater part, and fearful distinctness being given 
 to the sudden horror of the soul recreated unto de- 
 struction as it finds itself in the claws of the enemy. 
 The flight of Death is all speed and propelling power ; 
 and the side-swing of her body in its course to give 
 the scythe its full reach, shews how true and definite 
 was the painter's inner vision of the forms he drew. 
 The angelic faces are of great expression and beauty; 
 but what is more remarkable is the life of the strange 
 creations which represent the enemies of mankind. 
 They are all types of brutish natures, yet unlike any 
 given brutes: they grin and chatter and snarl, and 
 shew bristly muzzles and beaks and white teeth, and 
 have that peculiarly disgusting effect about them which 
 is always involved in the idea of a hoofed or clawed 
 creature which walks erect and asserts itself humanly. 
 Their expression, so to call it, seems to be composed 
 in the painter's mind partly from the rodent and partly 
 from the canine face. Most of those who have seen the 
 
HORROR IN ART, 
 
 115 
 
 fresco, or a good photograph from it, will remember 
 the beastly expostulation and complaint of the creature 
 who is tugging in vain at the heels of the fat and ton- 
 sured soul whom the angel will have, in spite of him : 
 he has the intensely biting expression of an enraged 
 otter or badger^ — I cannot think of any better com- 
 parison. And it seems as if no one but Orcagna, or 
 some equal of his, I do not care for the name, could 
 give in such an archaic composition the helpless pen- 
 dence and the hideous scream of the poor soul hanging 
 by the heels in the clutches of that other, on the left, 
 near the pit’s mouth. Angelico painted on his knees. 
 I do not see how Orcagna could have painted flat on 
 his face; but certainly, if position has anything to do 
 with subject, he might well have done so. And in fact, 
 the most wonderful thing of all about the mediaeval 
 Infernos, written or painted, by Dante or Orcagna, or 
 earlier Byzantines, — is the question how living men and 
 brethren could have deliberately painted them at all. 
 It is quite a different matter from the questions which 
 may arise to the minds of Christianly-taught men of 
 the present day who have to look at Gustave Dore. 
 His horrors are those of an infidel trader in horror. 
 So much pay from the moral and enlightened English 
 public of the nineteenth century, and he will give 
 them a due quantity of blood, brains, intestines, fire, 
 writhing, howling, and outer darkness, manufactured 
 in a steady business-like way, with an inspiration (or 
 rather a possession) which seems perennial — o-AcwjO aelvcov. 
 But there is something very hard to understand in the 
 methodical and unsparing way in which men of great 
 and thoughtful spirit could consign political enemies 
 
 1 2 
 
 1 
 
116 
 
 HISTORICAL. 
 
 to damnation : and not political foes alone. One need 
 not dwell very much, perhaps, on Vasari's statement 
 that it was Orcagna's invariable habit to put his 
 personal enemies into the hot corners of his Infernos. 
 ‘ Among the condemned,' says the biographer, speaking 
 of the lost Santa Croce fresco, which repeated the 
 subjects of the Campo Santo of Pisa, ‘ Orcagna has 
 placed Guardi, serjeant of the commune of Florence, 
 whom the devil drags along by a hook ; he is dis- 
 tinguished by the three red lilies in his white cap, 
 then the accustomed head-dress of serjeants, beadles, 
 and others of that class. This Andrea did because 
 Guardi had seized his goods for debt. The judge 
 and notary who had acted against him on the same 
 occasion were similarly represented by the painter 
 among the sinners of the Inferno.' This kind of 
 savage jest, or earnest, seems to throw a rather dis- 
 agreeable light on the Faith of the Middle Ages, and 
 inclines one to think that men who handed over their 
 neighbour to eternal fire, or played with the thought 
 of so doing, could not have much conviction of its 
 actual reality, or of the fearfulness of actual judgment 
 of the souls of men. Perhaps it is true that the sharp 
 Florentines were able to nurse, mature, and sustain an 
 intensity of personal hatred which the rougher yet 
 softer Transalpine spirit did not care to be burdened 
 with. It is probably true that civic strife is the worst 
 of all strife. The deadly enmities of Italy were split 
 up and divided over and over again, without losing 
 their intensity in the least, till Florentines sought each 
 other's utter destruction, house against house, as city 
 warred with city all over Italy, and state against 
 
ITALIAN HATRED. 
 
 117 
 
 state; — ^all their divided quarrels, like divided worms, 
 growing into perfect reptilehood again \ As Hallam, fol- 
 lowing Sismondi, remarks of the Italian Republics, they 
 played over again the tragedies of the free states of 
 ancient Greece; and the celebrated eighty-second chapter 
 of Thucydides’ third book applies as exactly to Italian 
 life and character in the Middle Ages as to the Greeks 
 of the Peloponnesian war : ‘ Many troubles and grievous 
 fell upon the cities in their seditions, things such as 
 happen, and will for ever be happening, while the nature 
 of men is what it is Even painters must have shared 
 in the national and civic desperation of spirit which 
 seems to have gone on exciting and exhausting the 
 whole Italian mind till it was spent as with fever. 
 Mr. Hallam does not often permit himself any expres- 
 sion of feeling about character ; but he makes a remark 
 with which it is difficult not to sympathize, when he 
 says that he cannot forgive Dante for placing Farinata 
 Uberti, who had saved his native city from the furious 
 revenge of his party, in one of the worst circles of his 
 Inferno. Orcagna may have had better reason for paint- 
 ing Death about to strike Castruccio Castracani, since he, 
 
 ^ Orcagna died before 1376-7. Two years after that date, broke out a 
 series of desperate popular struggles — first between the Albizzi, heading the 
 Parte Guelfa, and the Uicci and others of the Ammoniti, or families dis- 
 franchised by them ; then of the middle classes against the Minor Arts 
 of Florence and the Ciompi, or populace. The names of Salvestro de 
 Medici, Filippo Strozzi the elder, Benedetto degii Alberti, and, not least, 
 of Michael Lando, are those of the chief actors of the time. All must 
 I have been ripe for savage contest about the end of Orcagna’s days. 
 Angelico, Masaccio, and Ghirlandajo were born clear of the evil time. 
 
 ’E7r€7r€(r6 noWa Ka\ )(a\€7Ta Kara crTaa-iv rais rroXeai, yiyvo^eva fi€v Ka\ afi 
 ecrofieva^ eas av fj avTr) (pvats duBpoanoav >/. 
 
118 
 
 HISTORICAL. 
 
 perhaps, had but lately died to the salvation of Florence. 
 And Dante, again, may plead, in sad excuse, that with 
 the impartial severity of the Byzantine, he condemns 
 his own friends too, and spares Francesca di Rimini 
 no more than Cleopatra, though he falls as one dead 
 on seeing Ifier in hale, whom he had known as child 
 and maiden. However this may be, where blood and 
 wounds were seen continually, and torture was a 
 judicial institution, no doubt men would feel less 
 horror and disgust in representing such things, and 
 might do it innocently : which is, to say the least, 
 extremely difficult now. 
 
 Orcagna’s work (or that of the Lorenzetti) in the 
 Campo Santo is specially important, as that of a true 
 successor of Giotto, who combined vast and intense 
 imagination with technical power and zeal for reali- 
 zation. All the old questions between grand-style 
 and finish. Idealism and Realism, are anticipated and 
 answered by it, in point of fact. If Idealism he 
 great imagination of great things, it is here ; if 
 Realism be the careful carrying out of subject into 
 detail, and of great subject into specially devoted 
 detail, like perfect music set to noble words, it is here. 
 Everything is carried out faithfully to the utmost of 
 the painter’s power, even to the thorny teazles and 
 thistles in the foreground. The ‘intolerably severe’ 
 tone of his mind, perhaps, indicates a certain inferiority 
 to Giotto, who, like most humorous persons, seems 
 always great by reserved force, and Avhose evident con- 
 sciousness of two sides to a question is quite nine- 
 teenth-century English. How infinite is the difference 
 between both these men and Angelico ! If it be true 
 
ANGELICO. 
 
 119 
 
 that time, circumstance, and his century make the 
 man, and that we are all ground out from the wheels 
 of fate like screws out of a lathe, how is it that the 
 same age had these men in it, doing the same thing 
 with all their hearts and minds in such a different way ? 
 However this may be, Angelico represents the milder 
 and more loveable part of the monastic or contem- 
 plative life. The resemblance between his character 
 and that of Mabillon has already been glanced at ; and 
 they may rightly be put together as men who combined 
 great intellectual power with all the best of the pecu- 
 liarly ascetic qualities. There is no occasion to enlarge 
 on the virtues of the cloister — only the history of these 
 men and their contemporaries, secular and monastic, 
 proves sufficiently that those virtues are as rare in their 
 perfection as the virtues of the purely secular life. But 
 Angelico was indeed one of those chosen ascetics, beyond 
 the praise of man, who can give the world up without 
 despising it, resign social life without hostility to 
 society, and hate sin, still loving the sinner. Vasari 
 was doubtless an offender against many rules, including 
 that of historical truth; but he seems to have had a 
 genuine enough feeling of admiration and respect for 
 the brother of Fiesole ; and his sensible platitudes about 
 Angelico’s withdrawal from the world seem to indicate 
 that Florentines, in and about 1550-1568, were not less 
 conscious of the difficulty of making the best of both 
 worlds three hundred years ago than our own good people 
 now, nor less acute or sound in their judgment as to 
 ways and means of so doing. I rather think Vasari 
 has been called the Boswell of many Johnsons : and 
 he has all Boswelfs many good qualities without his 
 
120 
 
 HISTORICAL, 
 
 tendency to display and strong liquors. Above all, he 
 has that one of the biographer's great qualifications 
 which Boswell shewed in such grotesque perfection; 
 he generally thinks his subjects superior to himself, and 
 always forgets himself and his self-consciousness in 
 doing them full justice. Hear him on Angelico : ‘ He 
 might have lived in the world very comfortably, and 
 might have gained whatever he desired over and above 
 what he first possessed: but he seems to have chosen 
 for his content and quiet's sake, being by nature gentle 
 and kind, and especially for the salvation of his soul, 
 to profess religion in the order of the Preaching Friars ’ 
 (the Dominicans of San Marco at Florence and San Do- 
 menico at Fiesole) — ‘ for although it is certain that one 
 may serve God in all conditions of life, nevertheless 
 it appears to some that they can better be saved in 
 monasteries than in the world. And in proportion as 
 this course succeeds well with good men, so great, on 
 the contrary, is the danger of being truly most miser- 
 able and unhappy, to those who become religious per- 
 sons with any other motive.' 
 
 This is exactly parallel to Giotto's verses on Poverty, 
 after long acquaintance with the Franciscans at Assisi — 
 in which he arrives at the conclusion that Poverty is a 
 thoroughly bad thing, after all, for the world in general. 
 Had he known Angelico, he would probably have under- 
 stood and sympathized with him even better than Vasari 
 did. There are fifty-one years between the birth of 
 the one and the death of the other ; and Angelico, says 
 Vasari, began Art- work very early, by missal painting 
 and miniature. A few service-books adorned by his 
 hands still remain in San Marco. His first frescoes in 
 
MEDIAEVAL WHITEWASH. 
 
 121 
 
 Santa Maria Novella perished when the church was 
 altered, and others have been grievously restored. In 
 fact, it seems that a large class of men in all ages and 
 countries care for painting about equally — that is to 
 say, not at all — and are affected also with a kind of 
 dull spite against what they cannot understand. 
 The taste for whitewash indiscriminately applied over 
 fresco and carving has been just as great in Italy as 
 in England, and the destruction it has wrought has 
 been proportionately greater. The Marchese Selvatico ^ 
 makes reasonable and bitter complaints about the 
 frescoes of Andrea Mantegna (or Giotto, as he says) 
 in the Chapter-house of the Friars Minors at Padua. 
 They were whitewashed over many years since, but 
 partly freed with great pains and labour ; when, 
 ‘ who could have imagined it ? ’ says the Marchese, 
 ‘ the friars are mad for the “ candido \ they took 
 the whitening-brush and covered them over again.’ 
 Orcagna’s frescoes in Santa Maria Novella had to be, not 
 restored, but altogether replaced by Ghirlandajo, who 
 did honour to them, however, with all the straight- 
 forward dignity of his character, by avowedly repeating 
 their designs wherever he could. 
 
 Angelico’s works mark the greatest height of excel- 
 lence in Devotional-Purist-Art which has ever been 
 reached: there never has been any such Religious 
 painter before or since, in the more restricted sense 
 of the word Religious. Christian Art, as has been 
 said before, is the Art of Christian men doing their 
 best with high and lofty purpose as teachers or poets ; 
 
 See note to Mrs. Foster’s translation of Vasari. 
 
122 
 
 HISJORICAL, 
 
 Religious or devotional work is that of devout men 
 preaching or praying in form and colour: and such 
 was Angelico's, all through his life of prayer. In these 
 days, when all men are so convinced that work is 
 worship that they neglect prayer altogether, he is 
 in far greater danger of being underrated than over- 
 valued : living altogether in the world as we do, we 
 care for no monk's visions, not even though he be the 
 greatest monk who ever laboured. Yet the same men 
 who think of Angelico as a mere devout rhapsodist, 
 cannot see the spiritual power of Michael Angelo: 
 and we may, perhaps, add in passing, that no man 
 who cannot reverence and delight in the greatest 
 monk of Italy, will see the best of her greatest 
 man — whichever of the three be greatest, Dante, 
 Michael Angelo, or Tintoret. For narrowness, the 
 Brother's works have all the breadth of his great 
 charity: and extraordinary purity and exaltation of 
 aim fully make up for what he may have wanted 
 in mental calibre or stature, so called. ‘He lives 
 in perpetual peace. No seclusion from the world, 
 no shutting out of the world, is needful for him: 
 there is nothing to shut out. Envy, lust, conten- 
 tion, discourtesy, are to him as though they were 
 not; and the cloister walk of Fiesole no penitential 
 solitude, barred from the stir and joy of life, but a 
 possessed land of tender blessing, guarded from the 
 entrance of all but the holiest sorrow In so far as 
 it is possible for any man of our own times to make 
 an unaffected choice of him as a model and master, 
 
 Modern Painters, vol. v. 
 
MOUNTAIN DRA WING. 
 
 125 
 
 his work is the most characteristic of all the Purist 
 school; and could disciples of his be employed to 
 ornament modern churches with painted histories of 
 the Faith, a means of teaching and exhortation would 
 be employed which is now far too much neglected 
 and suspected. Nor do we see why superior science 
 and greater skill in form and natural phenomena, 
 or even greater experience of mankind, or higher in- 
 nate powers of mind, should prevent a student who 
 holds the Christian Creed in earnest from learning 
 very much from him. The great thing for any student 
 of his works to remember is, that when, or if ever, 
 he betakes himself to the highest of all tasks — that 
 is to say, whenever he tries to paint what Angelico 
 painted — he has no right to neglect what Angelico 
 pardonably neglected. Knowledge of and attention to 
 Nature and the outward and inanimate beauty of 
 God's creation, were not to be expected of a conventual 
 painter in those days. It was for Masaccio to point 
 out the path to such sources of beauty, though his 
 early death prevented his leading men far along it; 
 so that Ghirlandajo's backgrounds are often as simply 
 conventional and inattentive as Giotto's. Rock and 
 
 I mountain drawing in particular made little advance 
 from Giotto to Ghirlandajo : although all the Religious 
 painters. North and South of the Alps\ seem to 
 have delighted in craggy and peaked forms, and 
 often in distant snow, as background for their saints 
 and Madonnas. This is of course connected with the 
 mediaeval view of mountains and wildernesses as places 
 
 I ^ Compare especially the great Vaii-Eyck in the Louvre, and Durcr 
 
HISTORICAL. 
 
 of penance and meditation: but for whatever reason, 
 Angelico and his brethren only painted them conven- 
 tionally, with simple pleasure, in bright pure green 
 and blue and purple. When a devout man, never 
 taught to look at Nature as a visible manifestation of 
 God’s work, is painting Saints and Angels from the 
 inner vision, they are in the foreground of his mind 
 to some purpose; and as he gives his greatest powers 
 to imagine and realize them, so he gives not much 
 thought, but conventional care and a different kind of 
 affection, to composing a fit background for them with 
 delicately tufted trees, not very like real trees-; with 
 glittering villages and spires, and delicately shaped 
 peaks and ridges in distance. In short, it must 
 be admitted that the true Purists were wanting 
 in much knowledge of the landscape forms, which 
 seem to be the only things in Art for which we 
 out-of-door ultramontanes at present care. But 
 our narrowness in thinking of Angelico as a mere 
 monk, and quarrelling with Durer for want of aerial 
 perspective, is a worse fault than Angelico’s only 
 thinking about angels, or Ghirlandajo’s only think- 
 ing about men. It is still reserved for modern 
 artists to combine Turner’s knowledge of natural 
 beauty, or some inheritance of it greater or smaller, 
 with devout or lofty figure subject: and great things 
 have already been done in our own schools. For 
 instance, the four square inches of landscape in Holman 
 Hunt’s Finding in the Temple are a concentration 
 of almost every natural feature one can observe on 
 
 ^ See Modern Painters, vol iii, plate xi. p. 320 (from Raphael). 
 
REA LIST BA CKGR 0 UNDS. 
 
 125 
 
 the western side of the Mount of Olives at this day; 
 and the picture would not gain in its impressive- 
 ness by having, instead of them, a Peruginesque river 
 serpentining away into blue distance, with forests and 
 spires upon its banks. So of the Scapegoat and the 
 Light of the World: so of Millais' streaks of daffodil 
 sky and autumnal distances: so with Mr. Herbert’s 
 Desert of Sinai ; with Carl Werner's landscape Purism ; 
 with Mr. Armitage's and Mr. Leighton's higher-aimed 
 works, and with some of Mr. Spencer Stanhope's: — 
 the elaborate realism of the landscape and entourage 
 does not dimmish in the least from the feeling of 
 the figures and their action: whether the motive of 
 the work be devotional or ideal, or didactic, or all 
 three. Mr. Ruskin's illustration (in ‘ Modern Painters,' 
 vol. iii. p. 321) puts this question very fairly and con- 
 clusively. He gives on one page a woodcut of a 
 precipice with tufted trees on its crest, from one of 
 Ghirlandajo's backgrounds, that of the Baptism of 
 Christ. It is copied from a bad engraving, and the 
 picture probably shows more rock -knowledge than 
 the print which represents it. But nothing can be 
 more quaint, absurd, and generally stiff and disagreeable 
 than the whole thing. Opposite it is an etching, after 
 Turner, of a parallel subject— a fragment of one of 
 his cliffs in the drawing of Bolton Abbey, wonderful 
 in its accuracy and the soft severity of its lines. ‘ It 
 does not seem to me,' the author remarks, ‘that, sup- 
 posing them properly introduced in the composition, 
 the substitution of the soft, natural lines for the hard, 
 unnatural ones would make Ghirlandajo’s background 
 one whit less sacred.’ 
 
HISTORICAL. 
 
 This will have to be taken into consideration by every 
 one who looks at the works of Angelico with a wish 
 to obtain lessons from them. The fact is, thoughts 
 are to be obtained from them, but few lessons in 
 form. His use of colour is extremely beautiful, 
 especially in the brightness of hue in his shades; but 
 his feelings led him always to try to dispense with 
 shade and substitute pure and clear colour for it : 
 and it would be an intolerable affectation for any 
 student, or indeed for any modern painter, to think 
 of following him. The student ought to lose no oppor- 
 tunity of examining his works, because they are at 
 the very summit of devotional Art, and their feeling 
 and purpose shew how real a thing it is. But it is 
 impossible to ignore all that has been learnt since 
 his time — I mean not only in the way of technical 
 processes, and grammar of form, colour and perspective, 
 but in that of natural facts and phenomena. And 
 supposing, which we hope is possible, that our young 
 painter were as devout and pure a man as Angelico 
 — and could hope for a life of work from which 
 worldly care, distress, and temptation should be 
 almost excluded, by one painless act of voluntary 
 sacrifice— even then, in order to begin serious disciple- 
 ship, he would have to possess the power of Hunt, 
 Millais, or Rosetti, and to go through the intense 
 labour which enabled them to lead the English Pre- 
 Rafaelite school through its tentative stages. That 
 school was in its origin a discipline of purism and 
 reform : from conventional colour to natural ; in 
 choice of noble subject instead of trivial; and in 
 thoughtful and completed finish instead of inane 
 
LEARNING FROM ANGELICO. 
 
 127 
 
 blotting and sham work. Now that the training 
 of its masters is complete, they have, in some of their 
 work, done almost perfectly what Angelico did to the 
 utmost perfection attainable by the technical know- 
 ledge of his times. In pure beauty or clear thought 
 they have not excelled him, perhaps not equalled 
 him; but in difficulties overcome in pursuit of pure 
 beauty they have done more than he. As was to 
 be expected, none of the leading Pre-Rafaelites of 
 twenty years ago have given themselves to Purist 
 painting, or strained always at religious subject. Of 
 the three we have mentioned, two, we suppose, are 
 Realists, and the third high in the list of Ideal 
 or purely imaginative and fanciful workers: and in 
 fact, if any one were to make an affected choice of 
 Angelico’s subjects and manner, he would, unless he 
 possessed the very highest powers and the greatest 
 devotional beauty of character, combine profanity with 
 I absurdity in a strikingly unpleasant way. 
 
 Yet, like other Religious painters, Angelico shews a 
 1 power of pure brightness of colour, obtained by curiously 
 varied means, which is beyond praise. He uses glories 
 of beaten gold, which change and reflect different lights 
 as the spectator moves, and which therefore throw 
 the purest flesh-colour into dark relief : he enamels 
 , his angels’ wings with wonderful effect of light — his 
 draperies are pale blue, rose, delicate green : his flesli 
 brightly flushed as if penetrated with light. Unless 
 we are prepared to choose his subjects, his hues must 
 not be our model; but much may be learnt from 
 them. One lesson as to flnish is important — that 
 his draperies and ornaments are of a generic and 
 
128 
 
 HISTORICAL, 
 
 abstract character, and that supernatural subject im- 
 poses a limit to realization. Angels in brocaded robes, 
 with traceable patterns, would never do: and where 
 they actually occur in some of Mantegna's and Fillippino 
 Lippi's works, the effect is distressing. It is obvious, 
 of course, that what becomes an earthly King to wear 
 is worth realizing in his portrait, as Titian realizes 
 his Doges’ embroidery : but such detail in super- 
 natural subject is out of the question. 
 
 The same remark as that made in Note B to the 
 chapter on Giotto, applies to Angelico's models and 
 ideal types of feature. They are nearly all of the 
 Lombardo-Gothic type, and the Southern or Etruscan 
 face and form are scarcely represented in his work. 
 
 There is a beautiful comparison in Crowe and 
 Cavalcaselle, vol. i., between the Sistine frescoes and 
 Fra Angelico's painting in Nicolas Vs Chapel in the 
 Vatican, to which the reader will do well to refer. 
 
MASACCIO, 
 
 129 
 
 V. 
 
 MASACCIO. 
 
 E very historical sketch of the progress of Art, 
 however slight it may be, necessarily brings the 
 modern student into contact with enquiries or specu- 
 lation about the laws of such progress, if there he any. 
 Now, in a practical point of view, enquiry about the 
 laws of artistic progress is enquiry about the law by 
 which men of genius are produced upon the earth ; 
 since almost every advance in the different branches 
 of Art may be traced to the virtually unaccountable 
 passion, or genius, or inspiration, or possession, of 
 some well-known person. Men have been found who 
 were capable of delight in the most arid by-ways 
 of Art. Perspective, ‘that delightful thing,’ as he 
 called it, consoled Paolo Uccello in his declining days 
 of life and fame : and after the study of it had passed 
 through his hands and Masaccio's, the whole science 
 of drawing was changed; although the diffusion of 
 their knowledge was of course a matter of long time. 
 Form and anatomical knowledge were afterwards car- 
 ried forward by Rafael and Michael Angelo, like a 
 standard before the host of painters, to a point which 
 no man's strength has since attained. Yet Rafael 
 and Michael Angelo avowedly and faithfully studied 
 from Masaccio's works in the Brancacci Chapel \ as 
 
 ^ In the Carmine Church at Florence. 
 
130 
 
 HISTORICAL. 
 
 their masters had studied before them. Vasari men- 
 tions Perugino and Ghirlandajo, with Leonardo and 
 Fra Bartolomeo, and others of the greatest names in 
 Italian Art, all learners from Masaccio ; and Lanzi con- 
 siders that the wonderful figure of the ‘ Shivering Youth' 
 in the fresco of S. Peter Baptizing, is in itself ‘ an epoch 
 in the history of Art.' It is indeed so, as it displays 
 the right degree of Realism in its right place, subdued 
 to, and labouring for, the perfection of lofty subject. 
 Masaccio did not want to call particular attention to 
 the incident ; he seemed to see it himself, and he 
 wrote it down vividly for others. A vulgar workman 
 would have tried to make the spectator’s teeth chatter ; 
 here there is no effort — the youth's eyes are fixed on 
 S. Peter, and he is not thinking of the cold, but of his 
 baptism. But he is cold, and it is the unconscious 
 crossing of his arms and quiver of his splendid muscles 
 which has made the picture instructive and admirable 
 in the eyes of all painters ever since. But as a part 
 of the composition, he is not meant to be the principal 
 figure ; his broad arms lead the eye to the head of his 
 brother in Christ receiving baptism next before him; 
 and to S. Peter's hand administering, and to the 
 apostle's face and look of invitation towards him. 
 There is no possible law or ‘natural' sequence of 
 causes and effects which can account for the sudden 
 appearance in Art of a young man capable of painting 
 figures like this. M. Taine's comparison of Italy 
 through the Middle Ages to an artistic vineyard, and 
 of all her greatest painters to vines at exactly the 
 right height, soil, and exposure, is a pleasing analogy 
 as far as it goes, and of considerable value ; but it is 
 
GENIUS AND CIRCUMSTANCE. 
 
 131 
 
 valuable because it illustrates the difficulties of Art 
 for Northern races, and shews them the labour which 
 is before them : not because it accounts for Masaccio 
 and Michael Angelo as if they were vegetables. It 
 leaves unnoticed the fact that the latter drew much 
 of his sap and juices from the former; as also that 
 Michael Angelo’s pupils or suckers could never assi- 
 milate Ms genius, or get anything from him except 
 technical science which they had not power to use. 
 Nor does it explain why, on the favoured slope and 
 within the favoured period, men of such different fla- 
 vour as Angelico and Masaccio, Rafael and Michael 
 Angelo, all grew and flourished within reach of each 
 other's influence. 
 
 We do not care to go into the question of the power 
 of circumstances over man, and the spirit that is given 
 to man. Italy, and the teaching of Leonardo, could not 
 ‘ make ' Bandinelli great : and London and no teaching 
 at all ‘ made ' Blake and Turner at least peers of 
 painting, to be named with Buonarotti. At all events, 
 creative genius ought not simply to be treated by 
 science as an intrusive element which defies analysis; 
 or to be exorcised with the common forms of ‘ artistic 
 temperament,' ‘ picturesque national tendencies,' and 
 the like. Nor, indeed, can it be satisfactorily accounted 
 for on materialistic grounds, seeing that such means 
 of explanation are at present quite unequal to its 
 phenomena; and moreover that they give those who 
 hold by them no right to point to any future time, 
 when analysis shall be able to enumerate the con- 
 stituent elements of the soul — of Masaccio, for instance. 
 His contemporaries complained ratlier grievously and 
 
 K 2 
 
132 
 
 HISTORICAL, 
 
 vituperatively, that the elements of order, arrange- 
 ment, series, and method, were omitted entirely from 
 the composition of Tommaso, ‘ son of the notary Ser 
 Giovanni di Simone Guidi, of the family of Scheggia, 
 holding property about the Gastello^ San Giovanni 
 in Val d’Arno/ The nickname Masaccio is decidedly 
 uncomplimentary, the very contrary to such titles as 
 Giorgione or the more respectful Angelico. Masaccio 
 is said to mean Big, Stupid, or Heavy Thomas. Mr. 
 Browning construes it Hulking^. Let us call Masaccio 
 Tardy, or rather Thundering Thomas. Very likely he 
 earned the name. Nothing worse than a consistent 
 determination to paint incessantly, and to do nothing 
 else whatever, is alleged against him. Vasari says he 
 was good and kind-hearted, but utterly negligent and 
 regardless of himself, though willing to do anything 
 for others. Still in sharp Florence we can imagine that 
 a person ‘ whose answers were horribly vague,’ and who 
 assumed all the rights of an absent man in an irre- 
 sistible manner, may have been rather irritating to his 
 friends, and intolerably so to his enemies. Michael 
 Angelo’s supreme forgetfulness of all earthly considera- 
 tions while the brush or chisel was in his hand was 
 of the same character as Masaccio’s ; but his rank and 
 the strong regard of Lorenzo di Medici secured him 
 from the principal consequences of poetic abstraction. 
 We have partly seen how Florence treated the works 
 
 ^ Perhaps only ‘ hill-farm.’ Italian for ‘ chalet,’ ‘ chatelet,’ ‘ chateau - 
 let, &c. ( i*^orica si quis 
 
 Castella in tumulis.’ (Virg. Georg, iii.) 
 
 ^ See the wonderfully thoughtful and instructive poem of ‘ Fra Lippo 
 Lippi,’ 
 
MASACCIO’S DEBTS. 
 
 133 
 
 of her greatest men, and that monks were as prone to 
 whitewash as modern churchwardens. The best work- 
 man did not always find the best patron, even in 
 mediaeval days : and the complaint of painters and 
 painters’ creditors seems to have been an ancient tale 
 of wrong, like that of English authors and artists in 
 the good old Grub-street times. As a rule, Masaccio 
 and his family seem never to have paid or been paid. 
 Messrs. Crowe and Cavalcaselle give a dismal though 
 extremely interesting account of the poor master’s 
 schedule, since even he, they remark, had to give 
 account of his * totum nil ’ to the Publicans employed 
 by Giovanni di Bicci de Medici. He owes so many 
 ducats: against this stand so many more which he 
 cannot get from hk debtors: Ms best mantle is 
 pawned at the sign of the ‘ Cow ’ or the ‘ Lion,’ and 
 he has to pay about thirty per cent, interest on the 
 money lent on it : he is tormented with all the meaner 
 miseries, and paints away endlessly through all. Such 
 a life was probably not so unhappy as it seems. It did 
 not last very long, however, though Vasari’s state- 
 ment that Masaccio only lived twenty-six years is 
 contradicted by dates in his own work. Mr. Crowe’s 
 chronology appears quite satisfactory as follows : — 
 Masaccio is said by Vasari to have returned from 
 Rome on Cosmo de Medici’s return to power in 1434. 
 This is impossible, as his death in 1429 is certain 
 from the documents of the Catasto. See Crowe and 
 Cavalcaselle, vol. ii. p. 547 \ Now so early as 1420 
 Giovanni di Bicci de Medici did return to power at 
 
 Note A, p, 142. 
 
VM 
 
 HISTORICAL, 
 
 Florence; and it appears from documents discovered 
 by M. Cavalcaselle, that in that year or thereabout 
 Masaccio painted Biccfs picture there. The next year 
 came the income-tax, and, as has been said, Masaccio 
 had to give account of his debts, which were almost 
 his whole property. Now one of his Roman pictures, 
 which includes the portraits of Martin V and the 
 Emperor Sigismund, is said by Vasari to have been 
 highly praised by Michael Angelo, in a conversation 
 in which Angelo remarked to Vasari that both Pope 
 Martin and the Emperor lived in Masaccio's day. And 
 Martin was made Pope in November, 1417, a year of 
 plague at Florence ; when Masaccio may have gone to 
 Rome for a time, and may have returned in 1420. 
 And he is now ascertained to have gone to Rome 
 again — to die, no one knew how — in 1429, leaving 
 the great fresco of the King's Son unfinished. His 
 life is divided between his earlier works at Florence 
 (one of which, a Madonna and Child, remains in the 
 Accademia), his labours at Rome (of which the S. Ca- 
 tharine is best known, and drawn by the able hand of 
 M. Scharf in the new edition of Kiigler), and the paint- 
 ings of the church of the Carmine and the Brancacci 
 Chapel therein, executed after his return to Florence in 
 1434, that is to say, in 1420. The patronage of the 
 Medici probably saved him from starvation ; for the 
 rest, he lived entirely in his labours, and when he died 
 (no man seems at the time to have known or cared 
 how) they buried him among them in the Carmine ; 
 and no memorial was placed over his grave, says 
 Vasari, he having been but little esteemed while in life. 
 Like Wren, he had done that pretty well for himself. 
 
LINEAR PERSPECTIVE. 
 
 135 
 
 Thundering Thomas, probably, was not greatly valued 
 by the ordinary population of Florence in his day ; who 
 seem to have been, in all grades of life, neither worse 
 nor better than respectable people without much heart 
 or intellect are in our own time and country : content 
 to let genius take care of itself, and as eager to white- 
 wash a great man's frescoes all over, as if they were his 
 sepulchre. But Brunelleschi's grave remark that Flo- 
 rence had sustained a great loss in Masaccio's death ^ 
 was probably echoed by all living painters, and the ill- 
 remembered name is rich in the praise of Michael 
 Angelo, one of the few men who in their lifetime have 
 not only consciously possessed immortal honour, but 
 been able to bestow it. The long list of other masters 
 who studied Masaccio's works, besides Angelico, who 
 was fifteen years older, and can hardly have studied 
 them as a disciple, includes Fra Filippo Lippi and his 
 son Filippino, Verrochio, Castagna, Ghirlandajo, Landro, 
 Leonardo, Perugino, Fra Bartolomeo, and Rafael, with 
 Andrea del Sarto, and many others named by Vasari, 
 who, like every one else, speaks of the Brancacci 
 Chapel as a great school of painting. The fact is, 
 that besides his power of conception, and the tenacity 
 of mind and rapidity of hand which enabled him 
 to realise his inner visions with unprecedented cer- 
 tainty, Masaccio was the first who really dwelt on 
 the fact that man has two eyes, and sees binocu- 
 larly half round an object; literally not seeing it 
 on a fiat plane, but as in the stereoscope. Whether 
 
 ^ Masaccio probably gained much of the statuesque power of his works 
 from Donatello and Ghiberti, who with Brunelleschi and himself were all 
 at work at the same time in Florence. 
 
im 
 
 HISTORICAL. 
 
 he ever spoke of it or not, in his time, this is probably 
 the best way of accounting for or describing the so- 
 called projection or aerial perspective of his works, 
 which distinguishes them from those of his predecessors. 
 The distinction between aerial and linear perspective 
 seems to us a difficult thing, on the whole, to under- 
 stand or make out. Aerial perspective is really the 
 effect of air made partly visible by means of watery 
 or other vapour suspended in it. This is no doubt con- 
 siderable at a considerable distance. But it cannot be 
 appreciable, nor can it be rightly expressed, except by 
 great subtlety of colour, in pictures where a number of 
 persons and groups are assembled within a room, or in 
 a court, or square. What amount of perceptible dimness 
 can there be, by reason of visible air effect, between 
 the two sides of the Grand Piazza at Florence, except 
 in rain or fog ^ ? The real projection of a near figure 
 depends on drawing; that is to say, on linear perspec- 
 tive ; on the correct modelling of its surface, on well- 
 understood action, on labour and power of foreshorten- 
 ing, on well-digested and expressed knowledge of form. 
 Obscurity without mist or distance is wrong. Flake 
 
 ^ This was written before I had seen the following remarks by Mr. 
 Hamerton, ‘A Painter’s Camp,’ p. 243 : — 
 
 ‘ The fact is that the dimness of objects does not express their mea- 
 surable distance, but only the humidity or impurity of the atmosphere ; 
 and therefore the common theory of aerial perspective is of no use as 
 a test of artistic truth. The houses on the opposite side of any London 
 street in a November fog are a good deal less visible than the detail 
 of a precipice seen in clear weather across an Alpine valley leagues broad. 
 In spite of this, people will have what they call aerial perspective, and 
 painters, if they have to live by their art, must confine themselves to 
 those conditions of the atmosphere when there is haze enough to 
 produce it.’ 
 
AERIAL PERSPECTIVE. 
 
 
 white is not expensive, and mere mist, to ‘ put figures 
 back/ may be scumbled in in any quantity without their 
 being made the least like Masaccio. Masaccio seems, 
 from Mr. Crowe's account, to have combined the use of 
 transparent and body colour in his frescoes. He made 
 a sculpturesque model or relief, first in grey or green, 
 then glazed warm transparent reds, browns, and yellows 
 over, and finally used thick bright colour to ‘ fetch up ' 
 his high lights, as in modern oil-painting. He did not 
 stipple, but painted in a swift predetermined way, fully 
 anticipating Mulready's dictum, ' Know what you have 
 to do, and do it.’ Masaccio is to be imitated by sheer 
 drawing, and by that alone. Careful rounding in chalk 
 or sepia, and the habit of putting down on paper one's 
 natural binocular view of an object, will cost the stu- 
 dent time, labour, and, what is more than all, vigorous 
 attention while he is working. When he has gained it, 
 he will not think of sending his background off* into 
 dimness : his figures will stand forth in truth ; in the 
 undeniable reality of true perspective, with that cer- 
 tainty and power which so delighted Paolo Uccello. 
 This great man’s name is still less remembered than 
 Masaccio's in modern Art ; yet Paolo seems, as Mr. 
 Crowe reminds us, to have run a parallel course to 
 his, and to have worked out and analyzed much of 
 that unconscious science of drawing, which in Ma- 
 saccio was pure invention, or rather discovery. The 
 battle of Sant' Egidio in our National Gallery is a 
 delightful specimen of Uccello's powers; and the dead 
 or supine figure under the horse's feet, grotesque and 
 odd as it looks, gives one an idea of Paolo Uccello 
 labouring at his darling science, which awakens one’s 
 
138 
 
 HISTORICAL. 
 
 personal regard for him, and also a slight sense of 
 amusement at him. 
 
 We cannot now pursue the subject of perspective any 
 farther. Some remarks, which we owe to Mr. Mac- 
 donald, of the Oxford Art School, will be in their place 
 in the Second or Practical Part of this book. 
 
 There is one more remark — a strange and melan- 
 choly one — about Masaccio: that at his early death, 
 at whatever age it took place, he seems to have 
 stood on the verge of great discoveries in Landscape, 
 He did indeed originate a style; that is to say, he 
 just shewed the way to a class of subjects and a 
 form of inspiration which, humanly speaking, would 
 have changed the history of Art altogether, and pro- 
 duced unknown effect for good on human character. 
 Had Ghirlandajo, still more had Michael Angelo, fol- 
 lowed the line of thought pointed out in some of the 
 mountain backgrounds in the Carmine, the work of 
 Turner would have been done in Italy instead of in 
 England, and grand landscape would have been inau- 
 gurated by stronger hands than Claude's, or even Nicolas 
 Poussin's. Mr. Ruskin gives us a beautiful light-and- 
 shade engraving from a drawing of his own after 
 Masaccio, a background in one of the frescoes in the 
 Carmine h It is quite possible, he says, to attribute it 
 to Filippino Lippi. But at all events, the hand of a 
 great innovator is there, who gazed hard and lovingly 
 at mountains as no other man had looked or would 
 look for centuries. It is wonderful to think of the men 
 who were labouring at Florence at one and the same 
 
 ^ See Modern Painters, vol. iii. p. 322. 
 
MASACCIO’S LANDSCAPE. 
 
 139 
 
 I time : certainly Brunelleschi, Ghiberti, Masaccio, and 
 I Donatello must actually have been all to be seen at 
 t their work at one time by any one who would go from 
 I the Duomo to the Carmine. It may be represented 
 as an age of gold, no doubt ; but it was also an age 
 of hard life, dubious patronage, struggle with impostors 
 and their interests (see Life of Brunelleschi, in Vasari), 
 and pre-eminently of hard-dealing abbots and white- 
 washing friars. 
 
 This background of the fresco of the ‘ Tribute Money,' 
 however, is the only faithful record of mountain nature, 
 before Titian studied in Cadore. It represents rounded 
 Apennines, not unlike the lower hills seen from the Val 
 d'Arno ; towards Lucca, and ‘ the oaks whose acorns 
 drop in dark Auser's rilP.' There are wild-looking small 
 trees in the foreground, shattered with storm, and won- 
 > derfully unlike the delicate Purist leaves of Perugino and 
 Rafael. The lower hills are covered with just the same 
 I brushwood of beech or alder, which clothes the lower 
 Alps and Apennines ; their tops are bare and solid sheets 
 iof marble, as at this day. They rise with the long slope, 
 gradual and graceful, which no one but a practised 
 mountain draughtsman will ever give, even in our own 
 time; streaks of bright cloud are wandering round 
 their promontories, and others stand out behind, illu- 
 iminated against a deep blue sky. Except for the dark- 
 ness of tone, especially in the sky, it is a work of simple 
 naturalism, and might be taken for an early Turner : 
 indeed, it reminds one strongly of parts of the Liber 
 Studiorum; and few exercises can be more useful to 
 
 * Serchio. 
 
140 
 
 HISTORICAL. 
 
 a landscape student than that of comparing Masaccio's 
 work with the two impressive sketches of late sunset 
 which Mr. Ruskin has placed beside it for that pur- 
 pose, called ‘ The Lombard Apennine/ and the island 
 church in Venice called ‘ S. George of the Seaweed.' 
 Benozzo Gozzoli and others also seem to have had much 
 feeling for the landscape of valleys and plains, but still 
 to have treated it only as background : nor does Ghir- 
 landajo go further. To counterpoise Masaccio's advance 
 in figure drawing, Mr. Crowe says with justice, that 
 the traditional, and so to speak symbolic countenance 
 of our Lord, derived from Byzantine sources, finally 
 disappears from Art in his pictures b 
 
 This book is intended for students desiring to gain 
 the power of representing Nature ; and afterwards, 
 perhaps, of creating something by composition or inven- 
 tion of their own, when their skill is secured them, and 
 their memories are well-stored. Consequently we have 
 selected our historical examples from the student- 
 masters alone ; from men who shewed all the virtues 
 and powers of progressive search after the Beautiful. 
 Essays on Rafael and Michael Angelo would extend 
 this book far beyond its proper limits : it is better for 
 us to give some idea of the men by whose genius such 
 schools of the painters were formed as could instruct 
 Rafael and Michael Angelo, and freight, arm, and 
 launch their all-seeking and all-conquering genius on 
 the sea which grows ever wider to the end. For the 
 rest, we have one more of the earlier advancing masters 
 
 ^ Note B, p. 142. 
 
GHIRLANDAJO. 
 
 141 
 
 of painting to speak of — one who seems to mark the 
 advance of Art from the days of Giotto, and once more 
 to unite, as he did, all the great gifts of manly piety, 
 humour, and realism, of simplicity and delight in his 
 Art above all earthly things, of endless rapidity and 
 thirst for labour until death, — to possess the broad 
 viguor of Masaccio, mixed with the peace of Brother John 
 of Fiesole. Into such men, above others, it pleases God 
 to breathe what men call, by analogy, the Inspiration 
 of Art. That is to say. He breathes into them the gift 
 of feeling and expressing in form and colour the beauty 
 which He has made. And such a man was Dominic, 
 son of Thomas Bigordi, goldsmith of Florence, called 
 Ghirlandajo, weaver of gold-plate crowns or garlands. 
 
142 
 
 HISTORICAL. 
 
 NOTE A, TO PAGE 133. 
 
 'Death of Masaccio.’ 
 
 'An inexplicable mystery overhangs the last days of Masaccio. His 
 disappearance from Florence gave rise to whispered rumours of poison, 
 which still vibrated in the atmosphere of the sixteenth century. Yet 
 the truth was, nobody knew what had become of him. He left the finest 
 fresco of the Brancacci Chapel unfinished, and abandoned Florence, his 
 mother, and brother. They had to answer for debts he could not pay. 
 His creditor Niccolo di Ser Lapo (another painter) claimed 68 lire. 
 The officer of the Catasto again presented its income-tax paper, but in 
 vain. The paper still exists, filled up in part from Masaccio’s form of 
 1427, but sent back, with these words, in a strange hand: “ Dicesi e 
 morto in Eoma;” — and Niccolo di Ser Lapo, in his return for 1430, 
 despairingly says : " Masaccio died in Borne, and I don’t know whether 
 I shall get any part of my debt, as his brother says he is not the heir.” ’ 
 (Crowe and Cavalcaselle, ch. xxv. vol. ii. p. 547.) 
 
 NOTE B, TO PAGE 140. 
 
 ‘Masaccio’s Models.’ 
 
 The loss of traditional features or types from Keligious painting is 
 certainly to be regretted in some measure. In Masaccio, it seems to 
 have been a necessary consequence of his discoveries in Art, and of 
 his great advance beyond all traditional treatment. The statuesque 
 power of his figures has been noticed, acquired, as it probably was, 
 under Donatello’s infiuence, and by means of severe study from Nature. 
 It is difficult to say how far the beauty of the old Italian, or Etruscan, 
 type of form had impressed Masaccio. The Adam and Eve in Paradise, 
 of the Carmine, are certainly Gothic figures : but in the Expulsion from 
 Paradise his models seem to have been of lower stature and broader 
 form. His S. Peter, too, and others of his figures in the same frescoes, 
 seem to pre-figure the curly and Herculean holiness of the Apostles in 
 Bafael’s Cartoons. The Fallen Adam and Eve of the Carmine were 
 almost literally adopted by Rafael — in fact, as has been so often 
 repeated, the influence of Masaccio over him, as well as over Michael 
 Angelo, seems to have been almost unlimited. 
 
GHIRLANDAJO, . 
 
 143 
 
 VI. 
 
 GHIRLANDAJO. (1449—1493-) 
 
 G HIRLANDAJO and his works mark a period in 
 Florentine, and indeed in Italian Art, which is 
 analogous to that of completed growth in a flowering 
 tree. The stem, or technical frame of scientific know- 
 ledge of drawing and materials, has been built up to 
 maturity: throwing off stronger and greener branches 
 continually as it grows towards the light : Masaccio, 
 Benozzo Gozzoli, and Filippo Lippi are the last power- 
 ful side boughs, and one more leading shoot springs up 
 in Ghirlandajo before the tree hursts into flower and 
 fruit with Fra Bartolomeo, Rafael, and Michael Angelo. 
 The whole growth of Art may be studied in Florence 
 and in the works of the Florentine School, if its final 
 perfection, in colour as well as form, is to be seen 
 in Venice in the works of Titian and Tintoret ; and 
 though the greatness of Leonardo and Luini must never 
 be forgotten (and the influence of the former through- 
 out Italy was no doubt immense) — still, in so slight a 
 sketch as the present, it is sufficient for us to abide by 
 the artistic succession in Florence onl}^ There is no 
 other place in the world where any ordinary visitor, 
 with no more knowledge than ‘ Murray’s Handbook ’ 
 will give him, may at least get an idea — and, so to speak, 
 from the actual documents — of the transition from 
 
144 
 
 * HISTORICAL. 
 
 Cimabue to Rafael and Michael Angelo. It is possible 
 in a few days to observe the whole progress of Art, 
 from the Borgo Allegri picture to the Madonna del 
 Cardellino and the Seggiuola, or to the Fates and the 
 Duke Lorenzo, by inspecting the works themselves. Nor 
 is there any place where the decline and departure of 
 original vigour and noble art is better marked, sinking 
 as they do for ever with the last hopes of Florentine 
 liberty. 
 
 A highly important step has been made of late in 
 Florentine photography, which promises results of the 
 greatest value to students. Not only are negatives of 
 the great frescoes taken, wherever it is possible (and 
 great success has been obtained in most unpromising 
 places by the aid of large mirrors and reflected light), 
 but numbers of drawings by the great masters, in 
 sepia, chalk, and pen-and-ink, are now photographed, 
 and accessible in copy at a very low price. Mr. Philpot ^ 
 has, we believe, undertaken this work ; and it seems 
 to be one of great value to English Art. Nothing can 
 be of greater value for the student than continual 
 looking at great models, even though they be such 
 as he cannot fully understand. All of us indeed 
 are pretty much in this position with regard to 
 the works of the great painters, since their actual 
 processes are lost. The technical handling and use 
 of materials which produced the Assumption and 
 the smaller Paradise of Tintoret, which hang side 
 by side in the Accademia of Venice, are probably 
 
 ^ Mr. Philpot’s studio is at No. 17, Borgo Ognissanti ; and his 
 photographs can there be obtained for the small sum of i franc 30 
 centimes each. 
 
RUDIMENTARY WORK. 
 
 145 
 
 unknown to our ablest painters. But the merest 
 student would gain much by simply looking hard 
 at those works for two hours a -day. And if 
 he were taught meanwhile to pursue the course of 
 labour which Titian and Tintoret went through, 
 and encouraged by the sight of their rudimentary 
 work, in which he can see ever}^ line and touch, he 
 would certainly advance rapidly and solidly. In a 
 students' manual like this we have little to say, after 
 all, about the finished works of great men; nor have 
 we any idea of writing essays on Rafael, or analyzing 
 Angelo, A few pictures will be named which are 
 accessible in this country to almost every one, and 
 which we should say ought to be looked at, thought 
 over, and even studied from. But copying whole 
 pictures is a dubious method of study, not suitable 
 to every one, or to be required of every one \ 
 
 It is very different with clearly and simply-worked 
 sketches and studies in sepia or pen-and-ink, such 
 as are found in the Rafael Gallery at Oxford and in 
 the various metropolitan collections. The commonest 
 spectator can judge from them with what extraordinaiy 
 workmanlike steadiness Rafael's hand worked: and 
 see how’ his shades are expressed by steady lines, with 
 the precision and evenness of fine engraving. Very 
 little practice, too, will enable him to see that Michael 
 Angelo's speed was never hurried, and that his rapid 
 rightness of execution was founded on endless labour 
 
 ^ Broad studies representing the light and shade of the whole picture 
 are most valuable practice ; as also studies of the parts in exactly-copied 
 colour. But the whole work of a great master can only be well 
 copied by a man of nearly equal powers. 
 
 I. 
 
146 
 
 HISTORICAL, 
 
 and habitual precision. We may have to return to 
 this — at present we recommend every artist or amateur, 
 who is able to do so, to form a small collection of 
 photographs from pen or pencil drawings, such as 
 we presume are now being imported from Florence 
 and elsewhere by Mr. Philpot and the gentlemen who 
 are multiplying them. First thoughts and sketches 
 for great works are of course profoundly interesting — 
 but the student ought to look particularly for studies 
 of parts, and careful line sketches whose touches he 
 can follow : first, if he will, with tracing paper ; then 
 by fair copying. 
 
 In Florence, in July 1867, we bought, among many 
 others, two photographs from drawings by Ghirlandajo, 
 Nos. 690 and 692 in Mr. PhilpoFs list — one of a girl’s 
 head, the other of a piece of drapery, both works of 
 extraordinary beauty, and the latter quite a typical 
 or representative example of his wonderful drawing, 
 in its simplicity and power and unsurpassed beauty 
 of severe line. They seemed to us excellent speci- 
 mens of his work, and instructive as to his way of 
 working. 
 
 The name of Ghirlandajo belongs to a whole family — 
 to Thomas Bigordi, the goldsmith or crown-maker; to 
 Domenico, most famous of his sons ; and the two others, 
 David and Benedetto. Ridolfo Ghirlandajo was the 
 grandson: son of Domenico, and heir of much of his 
 power. Domenico’s life was passed in Florence — ‘ Spartam 
 nactus est, hanc exornavit’ — and he seems hardly 
 ever to have left his native city, except on a visit 
 to Rome before 1484, when he painted the great fresco 
 of the Calling of S. Peter and S. Andrew, in the 
 
GHIRLA NBA JO REP A I NT ED, \ 47 
 
 Sistine Chapel. For a full account and description of 
 his countless works, given with a rare combination 
 of antiquarian and artistic knowledge and feeling, 
 we must refer to Messrs. Crowe and Cavalcaselle's 
 second volume. Here, as in the life of Masaccio, 
 Mr. Cavalcaselle’s local knowledge, and industrious 
 search for original sources of information, give the 
 book a something of the charm of Vasari, with far 
 greater accuracy. But recent study of some of the 
 principal frescoes in Florence enables us to indulge 
 in some brief description and comment of our own. All 
 was well in July 1867 with the histories of S. Francis 
 in Santa Trinita ; but we saw the hand of the re-painter 
 stretched out over Ghirlandajo in the choir of Santa 
 Maria Novella — though, as it seemed, not unnecessarily 
 or injudiciously. Still, when the process of renewal once 
 begins, though it be on actually blank and oblite- 
 rated passages of a fresco, one never can tell what 
 changes it will work. As Ghirlandajo is said to have 
 treated Orcagna in Santa Maria Novella, so may it 
 be done unto him at this day\ What splendours 
 of form and colour, of thought and devotion, and 
 human power, so called, have come like shadows, 
 and so departed, from those walls ! How Orcagna 
 first painted the principal chapel of the great Church 
 of the Preaching Friars; how that body paid about 
 as much attention to his work as they did to 
 their vows of poverty, and let the rain stream down 
 the walls and wash the frescoes out (exactl}^ as we 
 saw it doing to Giotto’s Last Judgment, at Padua, 
 
 ^ He is said to have followed Orcagna’s composition in the Ricci 
 Chapel or choir, behind the altar of Santa IMaria Novella. 
 
148 
 
 HISTORICAL. 
 
 in A. D. 1858); how the Ricci, the Tornabuoni, and the 
 Tornaquinci combined to repaint the Chapel, to their 
 own honour and glory; how the Tornabuoni utterly 
 jockied and victimized the Ricci in the bargain; — all 
 this is only our concern at present thus far, that it 
 leads us to notice how freely Ghirlandajo introduces 
 portraits into all his great works. He seems to have 
 had no small share of Angelico’s simplicity of mind, 
 and, like him, to have enjoyed portraiture from 
 natural regard for well-known faces and men he 
 was ‘used to.’ Living in the world, Ghirlandajo 
 had greater variety of subjects for portraiture; and 
 the deep-marked faces of Lorenzo, Politian, and 
 Marsilio Ficino look down from more than one fresco 
 of his. They are surrounded in the Ricci Chapel, 
 with numerous Tornabuoni and Tornaquinci. His 
 own face, with his father’s and the ‘big brother’ 
 David’s, who took his part and very literally fought 
 for him^ and would not let the monks slight him 
 with bad soup and black bread \ are on the northern 
 wall. The brothers are very like each other; of the 
 Etruscan type of Italian rather than the Gothic, except 
 in David’s lofty stature and more pretentious look; 
 with small well -shaped mouths, down -turned and 
 rather mournful, and dark neatly-trimmed moustaches. 
 On the southern side, in strong contrast to Politian and 
 
 ^ See Vasari. The brothers were treated with systematic neglect by 
 the monks, until David violently assaulted the brethren who brought 
 them their food, with one of their long-shaped loaves — which, if stale, as 
 it probably was, must have been a very efficient weapon. Every feeling 
 mind will be glad to be assured by Vasari, that the brothers got better 
 dinners ever after. 
 
SANTA MARIA NOVELLA. 
 
 149 
 
 Lorenzo, is the small Gothic head and noble slender form 
 of Ginevra de Benci, turning her long throat and straight 
 face to the spectator, and challenging, while the fresco 
 lasts, the admiration which all men gave her in life. 
 One of the youths of the Tornabuoni family, and a 
 woman's face and figure in the Birth of John the 
 Baptist, are, if possible, more beautiful still. Like nearly 
 all Ghirlandajo’s subjects, these are, without exception, 
 faces and figures of the Northern type; and the Northern 
 ideal is insisted on in his works as in other mens. 
 Fair hair and bright cheeks and lips, long slender necks, 
 small hands and feet, and tall forms prevail every- 
 where, corresponding to a certain sinewy look about 
 his men which borders on leanness. It may also be 
 observed in Donatello s S. George, and Michael Angelo's 
 statue of Giuliano de Medici. But the statuesque effect 
 of many of Ghirlandajo's figures is a chief characteristic 
 of his work. There can be no doubt of his having 
 received many impressions from the various details 
 of his father's trade. He must have been emplo^^ed 
 in designing and modelling for him; and doubtless, 
 like Orcagna, Verrochio, and others, received advantage 
 from such practice, and from the habitual effort of 
 the true artist in precious metal to make his work- 
 manship as valuable as his material. Domenico’s 
 draperies are wonderful examples of modelling and 
 drawing, falling as they do in severe and almost 
 parallel lines, with broad shallow folds. Probably no 
 painter, either of those who went before him or 
 succeeded him, ever drew the. form beneath the drapery 
 and the relation of folds to under-form with more 
 complete mastery. Like all the painters of his time 
 
150 
 
 HISTORICAL. 
 
 he was a careful student of Masaccio. The Brancacci 
 Chapel in the Carmine, as has been said above, was 
 literally the chief school of Florentine Art for centuries. 
 But Ghirlandajo’s mind seems to have turned in the 
 direction of purely historical work, as we may call it, 
 in which the draped form takes the place of the nude. 
 Masaccio is the predecessor of Michael Angelo. In 
 such figures as those of the Shivering Youth, and even 
 more of Adam and Eve in the Expulsion from Paradise, 
 one sees the foreshadowings, and indeed the models, 
 of the great works of the Sistine. There is the same 
 relation between these works as between Perugino's 
 and the earlier productions of Rafael. Not to speak 
 now of ancient sculpture, these works are the great 
 models of human beauty for modern Art, and deserve 
 as much attention in our own days as of old. For 
 there is in them the highest degree of reverence for 
 the beauty of men and women, without the least 
 fiavour of sensual feeling. It may be said of Masaccio 
 and of his mighty grandson in Art, that they com- 
 bine the most intense force with purity of mind 
 and purpose; and their works are of the greatest 
 importance now, when study of the human form is so 
 much needed in this country, and when the necessity 
 for it is beginning to be understood. That it is the 
 principal, in fact the only means of right study and 
 training, is a certainty; that it is the worthiest and 
 final object for the painter is by no means evident: 
 for, if real historical painting be the chief walk of 
 Art, it is entirely out of the question to represent 
 men naked, who made history clothed and armed. 
 Ideal history of classical days, as of a golden age 
 
DRAPED FORMS. 
 
 151 
 
 when nobody wore any clothes, may be accepted 
 and passed by. We have had enough of it: not 
 but that it was of great use in the last generation. 
 The principles and inspirations of David and the 
 French Revolution had this great value for French 
 Art, that they threw men on the study of the 
 nude with high historical purpose; since he and his 
 school at least selected subjects chiefly from Roman 
 history, though their treatment was ideal rather than 
 realistic^. But we do not desire to furnish students 
 to a purely Nuditarian school who have no further 
 object than flesh-painting, because we conceive that 
 such a school, at least in England, would be the 
 most grievous obstacle in the way of anything like 
 widely diffused Art-education which can possibly be 
 imagined. 
 
 Ghirlandajo, at all events, clings to the draped form, 
 and he is perhaps the last of the ancient masters who 
 did so. It is not that his nude figures indicate want 
 of knowledge in anatomy, or deficient study of the 
 outward form ; but that his taste and feeling led him 
 to represent historical action in a straightforward 
 manner, and that he considered the study of muscles 
 and bones a necessary preparation for historical subject, 
 not the real object of Art. More accurate science, 
 formed on knowledge of structure, gained by dissection 
 and practical anatomy, was to come with his great 
 pupil. 
 
 They are said not to have worked together on 
 good terms: perhaps the goldsmith's son thought the 
 
 ^ We may refer to the great beauty and perfect purity, in conception 
 and execution, of the nude works of Ingres, the pupil of David. 
 
152 
 
 HISTORICAL. 
 
 young Michael Angelo too poor and proud ; — though 
 it is pretty clear that the youth deserved his salary, 
 24 florins, from the first. As the elder Buonarotti’s 
 objection to his son’s undertaking so humble a trade 
 is matter of history, it is quite possible that he may 
 thus have given Ghirlandajo more offence than he 
 ever did b3^ direct slight or ill treatment. The 
 veteran master, nearly his pupil’s equal in power, 
 quite matching him in the painter^s thirst of labour, 
 full of gathered knowledge, and recognized prince of 
 his art, must have early recognized one fact in his 
 pupil — that he meant to take his own line and Masac- 
 cio’s. These considerations, with that of Michael 
 Angelo’s occasional sharpness of temper and expression 
 in early days, may have turned his master’s mind 
 against himb What is said of Ghirlandajo’s early 
 jealousy of him is said even more invidiously of Titian 
 with regard to Tintoret ; and the more honourable 
 anecdote of Verrochio and Leonardo is confirmed by the 
 picture now in the Academy of Florence Perhaps in 
 the two first cases each master may have felt that his 
 pupil was strong enough to make his own way on prin- 
 ciples of his own ; and that for the sake of less able 
 followers who needed implicit obedience, he could suffer 
 no rival near his throne. We have heard of two knights 
 on one horse, but never of two masters in one studio. 
 If Ghirlandajo did really keep Michael Angelo in the 
 
 ^ Torrigiano’s flattening his nose with hammer or flst will be remem- 
 bered. 
 
 ^ No. 43, catalogue of 1866. Verrochio gave up painting on seeing 
 the superior beauty of an angel’s head painted by Leonardo in his picture 
 of Our Lord’s Baptism. (See Vasari.) The head is exquisite. 
 
^ WIFT EXEC UT ION. 
 
 153 
 
 background, it only shews, first, what any master 
 in his senses would do to a promising pupil; and 
 secondly, it indicates his early perception that an am- 
 bition, principles, and feelings were at work in his 
 studio different from those he honestly thought the 
 best. Masters, like parents, may often expect their 
 children to be precise copies of themselves, or to take 
 up their work with exact imitation ; and no amount of 
 experience in either case seems to teach them that they 
 look for either an impossibility or a disappointment. 
 It is certainly curious, if true', that the pupil of the 
 great master of broad fresco should have practised it 
 so little as to find the Sistine paintings a new, and at 
 first an Uncertain, kind of labour. But grandeur and 
 breadth in covering a space with marshalled compo- 
 sition of numerous figures was clearly learnt, in some 
 degree, by Michael Angelo from his master; and he 
 seems along with it to have inherited his master’s 
 rapidity and decision in execution. Though there is 
 often much stippling and hatching in Ghirlandajo’s 
 work, it is done rapidly and with decisive purpose ; the 
 hatched lines being drawn in different directions ac- 
 cording to the surface required, and rapidly and beau- 
 tifully modelled. One of the photographs to which we 
 have referred, that of the giiTs head, illustrates this in 
 a remarkable way. His drapery and broad forms seem 
 to have been painted in with all the sweeping power 
 of Masaccio, only in severer lines ; the higher lights 
 kept till last, and painted on in thick body colour : 
 and throughout the work he seems to have known 
 
 See Duppa’s Life of Michael Angelo. 
 
154 
 
 HISTORICAL. 
 
 every form by heart, so as to lay on each broad touch 
 in planned and decisive shape; which is certainly the 
 secret of all water and body colour, if not of all 
 painting. Some great men, as Leonardo, have been 
 practically incapable of painting in fresco, from inde- 
 cision as to what to do. It is true their indecision has 
 been that of varied knowledge, and their fastidiousness 
 that of long experience and labour. But there seems to 
 have been a dash of pride besides in the conscientiousness 
 which sometimes prevented Leonardo’s finishing his pic- 
 tures at all. And though we have abused the monastic 
 patrons of the Frescanti, as we think, with no more 
 than a strenuous moderation, it must be admitted that 
 they may have had reason to think that Masaccio, 
 perhaps, kept them out of a chapel too long, or Leonardo 
 out of a refectory. Delay always involves expense, 
 as the painter must live all the time he is changing 
 and amending : and of all the recriminations between 
 patrons and artists which are eternally going on, the 
 most provoking are founded on the fact that a modern 
 fresco takes so very long to do, that the painter must 
 be paid for his time, and that if he is a man of name 
 and mark, his time will be worth a good deal. And, 
 without doubt, wall-paintings ought not to be finished 
 like oil-paintings. Ghirlandajo was eager for both kinds 
 of labour to the end of his life ; but any one who has 
 seen his fresco and his oil-painting can see the absolute 
 difference of his style and treatment. It is as if he 
 rested over his altar-pieces; taking his pleasure in 
 giving them their colour, their transparency and re- 
 flected lights, and pleasant backgrounds of scenes he 
 
WALL-PAINTING. 
 
 155 
 
 knew and enjoyed as only a painter can enjoy them. 
 He finished and polished them, and used the clear 
 Peruginesque grey distance and transparent verdure^ 
 as tranquilly as if, in his hours of eager action, he 
 was not desiring to paint all the walls in Florence, 
 and actually painting a considerable proportion of 
 them. 
 
 This power of speed, decision, and limited finish in 
 fresco is insisted on as a great and chief desideratum 
 in our British Art, by authorities whose opinion can 
 hardly be disputed, in the evidence before the Royal 
 Academy Commission. Many of the frescoes in the 
 House of Lords and elsewhere are finished like easel 
 pictures, and must necessarily be expensive according 
 to their size. The worst is that when one of them is 
 finished at last, and a bargain between Art and the 
 State honourably completed, the artist has lost money 
 by his work, and the State has generally lost temper 
 and patience at his having spent so much time to his 
 own disadvantage. 
 
 Ghirlandajo painted with a knowledge and power 
 which leaves little room for criticism in his works: 
 and his speed was equal to his power. But wall- 
 paintings in every way imperfect, like Paul Uccello’s 
 in the Chiostro Verde of Santa Maria Novella, have 
 been valuable and interesting ever since from their 
 
 ' See in our own National Gallery, No. 296. The student will do 
 well to notice such parts as the lily, brooch, or raspberry. He may 
 study them if he likes. The yellow shades on flesh are remark- 
 able, and the reflected lights on the limbs assist their rounding very 
 artfully. 
 
156 
 
 HISTORICAL. 
 
 graphic power, and the keenness and vigour of the 
 painter’s mind, which is more marked in his rudest 
 execution than his finest. Wall-painting evenly com- 
 pleted, without delicate finish anywhere, would be 
 sufficiently speedy, and might be indefinitely cheap, 
 if the walls were committed to the best pupils of a 
 real Academy of Painting, under the guidance and 
 from the designs of their own masters, or of men 
 like Mr. Watts, Mr. Armitage, or Mr. Maclise. If edu- 
 cational frescoes are ever to be done in this country 
 they will have to he painted exactly in the old way, 
 rapidly by masters and scholars together, with con- 
 fessed imperfection of means and time; and often, 
 we trust, with the old genius and science which made 
 glorious the swift efforts of the Gothic school. 
 
 Ghirlandajo died before 1493, before ‘the French 
 lances were shining in the passes of the Alps.’ He 
 did not see the evil time ; and scarcely the reforms of 
 Savonarola, or the Florentine gallows and fire which 
 were the Florentine^ prophet’s reward. Nor did he 
 see the bitterer but nobler days, when, as the author 
 of ‘Romola’ says, the sons of Savonarola’s followers, 
 brought up under the influences of his teaching, made 
 their last stand for liberty in the old Florentine fashion. 
 His aristocratic pupil had then to turn his all-embracing 
 genius to engineering and fortification, like Durer or 
 Leonardo ; to seize on San Miniato, and secure Florence 
 at least from storm and sack ; and to return once more, 
 escaped from the bloodhounds, to the Day and Night 
 of the Lorenzo Chapell With him and with Rafael 
 
 ^ Ferrarese by birth. 
 
 ^ See Duppa’s Life of Michael Angelo. 
 
TINTORETS MOTTO, 
 
 157 
 
 ends Florentine Art ; but in ending its course it becomes 
 mistress of all the world. Further progress is reserved 
 for Venice alone, with the help of Buonarottfs great 
 works : and Tintoref s high-reaching motto sums up Art, 
 perhaps for ever, with the aspiration which he alone 
 has yet made into achievement : — 
 
 *11 disegno di Miclielangelo ed il colorito di Tiziano."’ 
 
158 
 
 HISTORICAL. 
 
 VIL 
 
 ON THE STUDY OF FINISHED WOEKS OF AKT. 
 
 rpHE course of drawing which we have set before our 
 student will, we trust, make him pay sufficient 
 attention for some time together to casts representing 
 some of the greatest works of Greek and Roman 
 Art: and it will virtually teach him, we may hope, 
 the right way of looking at other great models. 
 For, as a student of Art, he must look on them 
 with somewhat implicit faith : later in life, and as his 
 powers increase, he may consider that they guide him 
 in part, but are not entirely to dictate to him. He 
 will then, probably, enter with a will, if he has not 
 done so before, on the works of Michael Angelo. 
 They are, as a rule, valued far more highly by work- 
 men than by critics; and this may give us an oppor- 
 tunity for introducing a remark on lay-criticism. A 
 well-educated man of taste, who is not a workman 
 in Art, looks on great pictures and statues as poems; 
 and is quite justified in expressing his feelings about 
 them. What he says may be of the greatest educa- 
 tional value, when it is not against technical or his- 
 torical fact: and he is sure to obtain more immediate 
 attention than the artist, who paints and carves 
 instead of writing. When he is wrong, the protest 
 
GREAT MASTERS. 
 
 159 
 
 of the best workmen generally makes itself heard 
 against him, unless his notes die away of them- 
 selves. But the lay-critic's being right depends on his 
 tastes, his feelings, his education, and his spiritual 
 views and hopes for humanity and for himself. And 
 our classical education seems often to do very little 
 good, in this direction, though the want of it does so 
 much harm. Greek history and knowledge of Greek 
 Art certainly ought to go together; and as certainly 
 they do not, in any English place of education we know 
 of Byron, the hater of Horace, was probably the best 
 judge of a statue in Cambridge, at his day; and Person 
 the worst, or not one at all. 
 
 Whatever education in Art men ought to go through 
 in order to talk about it, this book is for those who 
 mean to practise it. Its lessons and exercises may 
 be found rather difficult and irksome; but any one 
 who can do them well is so far forth a workman; 
 and whoever can do them all well is a trained work- 
 man, prepared to do justice to whatever original genius 
 he may have, by design of his own. And when he 
 has reached the point at which his own thoughts and 
 character begin to be expressed in his work, he will 
 look at works of great masters with the eye of a critic 
 as well as with the technical eye, and enter more or less 
 into the spirit that is in them. But all the while, 
 the magnificence and quite mysterious greatness of 
 their technical knowledge and power will contend for 
 his admiration, and he will always find much to learn 
 from Rafael or Michael Angelo, Titian or Tintoret. 
 He will always get more and more from them of that 
 deep enjoyment of truth and beauty which teaches Art 
 
160 
 
 HISTORICAL, 
 
 best of all things, because it is the essence of artistic 
 feeling. Tintoret is only to be seen in Venice, and 
 Titian is essentially the master’s master, rather than 
 the student’s, save only that, as has been said, the 
 latter may gain endless encouragement from seeing 
 how much precision and steady severe drawing had 
 to do with his unlimited success. And as the pure 
 drawing of line and form in Rafael and Michael Angelo 
 is so transcendent, as also so many sketches and 
 unfinished drawings by both are within our reach, 
 these two must be our chief rudimentary teachers — 
 simply because we can see how they began and went 
 on like other students, and ended beyond the reach 
 of all other men. The sources of their education, too, 
 are traceable for centuries, in the great Florentine 
 succession from Cimabue : and as the history of 
 modern or Gothic Art is best studied in Florence, 
 we have chosen our representative painters from the 
 banks of the Arno. We are writing for students, and 
 the student-masters who between them completed the 
 technical or ‘ scientific ’ part of the painter’s craft have 
 been our choice; and we commend to our readers, as 
 pupils, only the rudimentary work, and early processes 
 of our chief models. But colour may be learnt from 
 Titian, though it cannot be taught by talk about him, 
 or by writing. And the student must of course take 
 every occasion of hard looking at any work of his, 
 of John Bellini’s, or Giorgione’s (or Carpaccio’s, or Cima 
 de Conegliano’s, if he like the earlier sacred work) — 
 and especially of Veronese’s. He will learn we know 
 not what from them all. He will see, with perseve- 
 rance, what is wrong or weak in his own work: he 
 
VENETIAN COLOUR. 
 
 161 
 
 will learn that putting rich colour on everything 
 does not make powerful colour: he will learn to tone 
 his crimsons with black and his yellows with brown, 
 except in the one fold which admits the perfect hue. 
 His greens will draw towards the subdued power of 
 the olive-greens of Veronese, his yellow^s will be rich 
 with gold and orange flashing sparsely out of their 
 brown shadows: he will delight to see his reds take 
 the glowing bronze of sunburnt limbs, which Titian 
 and Veronese loved and dwelt on in their drapery as 
 well as their flesh h And his blues will be green in 
 their lights and black and purple in their shades : and 
 he will draw form always more keenly for the sake 
 of purity of colour : and will carry the trenchant slash 
 and varied pressure of the keen but delicate water- 
 brush out in all his oil-work. Let him look hard and 
 continually at Venetian colour: not, we think, at many 
 pictures, but constantly at a few :— indeed, if he live 
 in England, there are not many accessible ones to 
 look at. Still, John Bellinfs Doge Loredano (No. 189, 
 National Gallery), his Madonna (No. 280), the noble 
 picture ascribed to him or Giorgione (No. 234), and 
 the supreme and matchless little Giorgione (No. 269), 
 may teach colour to ages to come: and generations 
 of true workmen may go on gaining strength from 
 the Pisani Veronese, or Titian’s Noli me Tangere, or 
 from the Ariosto. 
 
 We have said nothing of Leonardo or Velasquez - or 
 
 ^ I am sure the indescribahle tones of the clear Yenetiaii russet-red 
 were first brought to the painter’s mind by study of sunburnt fiesh. 
 
 ^ It is said of Velasquez, by Mr. Ruskin, that ‘ everything he does 
 may be taken as absolutely right by the student.’ This dietuni seems 
 
162 
 
 HISTORICAL. 
 
 Francia, or many another whose works ought never to 
 he passed by ; because the works named for study are, 
 perhaps, enough for a young painter to choose his 
 favourite copies or models from. The parts must be 
 well studied, as the snake’s head and the faun’s wreath 
 in Bacchus and Ariadne, and the pearls on the rose- 
 coloured dress in the Pisani Veronese, which shew 
 something of Veronese’s manner of work The student 
 of Rafael’s earlier work, finished or unfinished, will have 
 gained some idea of Perugino, especially of the tech- 
 nical excellence of his pen-and-ink, or hard-point draw- 
 ing, which his great pupil evidently inherited I 
 
 More colour-power is gained, however, by hard water- 
 colour practice from Nature than by anything else, 
 if the pupil will only match his colour from Nature. 
 If he will do that he will soon find himself beginning to 
 understand Turner’s work : and if that should lead him 
 right away into landscape and mountain-drawing for a 
 
 to US correct. And thus much may be added to it as a matter of 
 feeling and treatment, — that the truth of Velasquez is like scarcely any 
 other man’s : and his treatment of homely faces, and love for the features 
 of his countrymen as they really looked, is of the greatest value as an 
 example for the English Realist School. Diego will not flatter king or 
 kaiser, nor yet will he take a line out of an old woman’s or a shepherd’s 
 face for beauty’s sake, yet all the while he is 'par excellence the painter 
 of kings and the ennobler of old women. He has the pride of times 
 when Spain had reason to be proud : but he is a humbler man than a 
 German Idealist, who is too pure for colour, and can produce beauty by 
 rule. The boy’s and old woman’s faces in the Adoration of the Shep- 
 herds (Ho. 232 in the National Gallery) ought to be what Mr. Ruskiu 
 calls ‘ a revelation ’ to a young Realist painter. 
 
 ^ See Modern Painters, vol. v. p. 193, a chapter to be studied by all 
 painters. 
 
 ^ His steadiness of line in shading is wonderful \ but the hands and 
 feet of his figures are often unnaturally small. 
 
DRAWING FROM NATURE. 
 
 163 
 
 time, that is worth a man’s life, and certainly it is worth 
 the leisure hours of a life. But ‘ Hinter dem Berge sind 
 auch Leute after Nature comes Man ; and a higher 
 landscape, with powerfully -painted figures, may yet 
 arise in the English School, which shall have Nicolas 
 Poussin’s dignity and power without his bastard clas- 
 sicism. Lewis’s pictures, and even sketches, are most 
 important, as combining absolutely perfect workman- 
 ship in human, animal, and landscape painting, and so 
 are the finished works of Hunt and Millais, and of 
 many rising masters of our own schools. 
 
 We hope that this book will be found to prescribe 
 copying enough for the advancing student. But it aims 
 at assisting men who may turn out something more 
 than copyists. We trust some such may use it, and 
 soon make it useless to themselves, and advance far 
 beyond it. And one way to do so will be to work in 
 its spirit; that is to say, to reverence and study the 
 work of all great ones of the past, remembering con- 
 tinually that greatness is to be sought as they sought 
 it, chiefly by the study of Nature herself — not as their 
 weaker followers or imitators sought it, by exclusive 
 study of the pictures and statues, by which the}^ had 
 first expressed their delight in Nature. There is a dif- 
 ference between loyal service and servility ; and Rafael 
 is best followed by those who copy wdiat Rafael 
 copied. He who has well obeyed a good and strict 
 master in an English Art-School through his elemen- 
 tary course, deserves, or should deserve, a certain 
 liberty or choice of his own in his w^ork : he should 
 have learnt enough obedience to be able to command 
 
 A 2 
 
164 
 
 HISTORICAL, 
 
 — himself at least. Every man is one’s teacher, from 
 whom anything is to be learned ; but original work 
 is original work, and a true workman from Nature may 
 answer with the measured pride of Evan Dhu Mac- 
 combich ^ ‘ Master- — my Master is in Heaven.’ 
 
 ^ Waverley, vol. i. 
 
PICTOEIAL AET. 
 
 PAKT II. PRACTICE. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 TT was stated in the introductory chapter of the First 
 or Theoretic Part of this Manual, that an alterna- 
 tive existed between beginning to work at Art with 
 line-drawing (which is the preferable way in all cases), 
 and beginning altogether wrongly, with washes of 
 colour, and attempts to produce landscape without the 
 study either of Art or Nature. What that alternative 
 is we shall endeavour to shew. It is a way which may 
 lead the student to good and profitable landscape 
 sketching and colouring, and enable him to understand 
 advanced work, and the higher finish^ of modern water- 
 colour. But the best thing to which this concession to 
 landscape amateurs can lead is still — what we recom- 
 mend from the first — the usual and severe course 
 of free-hand and light and shade drawing ‘from the 
 flat and from the round.’ It cannot he expected hut 
 
 ^ Here as everywhere, be it understood, we mean by finish, more 
 perfect rendering of facts in detail, and completion by putting in ad- 
 ditional truth. A tree-trunk in one of Turner’s pictures is more 
 finished than in one of Constable’s, because it gives us more facts 
 about the moss and weather-stains, and old insertions of boughs, and 
 age of bark, and muscular strength of the tree, and so on. 
 
166 
 
 DREAD OF LINE-DRAWING, 
 
 that most full-grown persons (in particular) who are 
 inclined to take to drawing from awakened sense 
 of natural beauty, will want to begin their work at 
 the wrong end, or at least in the middle. They see 
 wonderful and complicated subjects, in varied and ever- 
 changing colours ; they naturally wish as soon as 
 possible to produce something like them, and ask for 
 a short way to learn to reproduce a grand landscape. 
 It is a sign of real progress when they begin to have 
 a clear idea of the difficulty of doing this : despair of it, 
 in fact, is a hopeful sign. But when the hope of great 
 things all at once has been given up, if the honest eager 
 impulse remains with them to produce some record of 
 remembered beauty in Nature, it is a pity they should 
 not try. They cannot, if they are in their senses, expect 
 to begin at a successful end; and we can but furnish 
 them with as advanced a beginning as possible — with 
 such a course of drawing as shall enable them to face 
 natural scenery with some prospect of producing intel- 
 ligible sketches of it. We hope that practice of this kind 
 will bring them, as has been said, to some sense of 
 the difficulty of what they wish to do, and also of the 
 immense value to themselves of genuine success : so 
 that a little progress and a good deal of failure, in an 
 amateur way, may bring them to begin their work at 
 length in an artistic way, with straight lines and free- 
 hand. 
 
 To those who want to copy popular water-colourists, 
 and call for water-colour washes that they may produce 
 bad imitations of indifferent chromographs, we have no 
 observation whatever to offer, nor could we expect any 
 attention from them. We are attempting to describe 
 
WITH FEELING FOR NA LURE. 
 
 167 
 
 a course of study by which a certain skill in landscape 
 (or indeed other) drawing may be attained, without 
 going through all the severe indoor or scholastic training 
 of drawing in line or from casts. And we hope that 
 such skill, once reached, will shew the student the 
 necessity of beginning at last with the real training 
 which he has hitherto declined. 
 
 Albert Durer is the great drawing-master for the 
 eager landscape student in his first essays ; Turner, as 
 his skill advances. But before we give examples from 
 either, we must try to analyze the untaught feeling, and 
 see with the willing yet unpractised eye of, say the girl 
 of sixteen or the lad of twenty, whose eyes are opened 
 by a first visit to Scotland or Switzerland, or even who 
 has just seen lowland scenery transfigured by flames of 
 sunset or rose of dawn. 
 
 They do not see much in a rational or conscious way, 
 so as to trace or command it with the eye. What they 
 do see is, of course, first of all the outlines of distance 
 — either of mountain, fiat horizon, or perhaps clearly 
 defined and heavy cloud, in which part or the whole of 
 the horizon is lost. And, in trying to put it on paper, 
 they always begin with the most distant line they can 
 see. That is perhaps correctly drawn ; and then comes a 
 search for more lines, and a discovery that on the whole 
 there are none, or none such as will ‘fall together’ 
 into a picture. There is nothing but form, and masses of 
 form : and though they cannot express it, the difference 
 between form and line is then first practically shewn 
 them. Then comes the usual call for a short way and 
 a drawing-master, often not to teach drawing, but to 
 teach them to evade drawing. They say they want to 
 
168 TRACING FROM DURER AND TURNER, 
 
 learn composition: that is to say, learn to caricature 
 the face of Nature into lines and masses by receipt. Or 
 else the sketcher begins to see how much there is in 
 Nature, and that he must begin by learning to draw all 
 he can of what he sees, instead of thinking what he is to 
 leave out or not to draw. This may be said to he the 
 regular invitation of sham Art. Learn to omit, to slur, 
 to generalize, to wash out, to arrange masses, to get 
 effects — to do anything but draw what you see, and 
 try to bring Nature to hook resolutely. Nothing but 
 practice and failure will teach the great lesson, that 
 power waits on method and headwork, and swiftness 
 on steadiness, and brilliancy of rapidly-laid colour on 
 precision of line- — line so slowly learnt, hut so quickly 
 drawn when once learnt. Real power of composition 
 must always he the ultimate reward of experience of Art 
 and Nature, developing natural gift. It cannot perhaps 
 be learnt by study, hut it comes with right study. 
 
 I know no better way of beginning to prepare oneself 
 to draw from Nature than is given in the Course for 
 Landscape Amateurs in this chapter. It is intended for 
 adults, and for persons who already know something of 
 drawing and the use of brush and colour; even sup- 
 posing them unwilling to face what they always call ‘ the 
 drudgery’ of free-hand drawing. No one who will not 
 attempt it with some care is ever likely to be fit to draw 
 from Nature at all, that I see : every one with the least 
 true love of Nature must enjoy Durer’s or Turner’s 
 rendering of her forms. The system is not adapted for 
 very young people. They ought to begin in the right 
 way, with right lines. Docile children ought to be 
 docile enough for that. But if they will only dra^v 
 
RICHTER, RETHEL, AND LEECH. 
 
 109 
 
 their lines faithfully for a part of their time (as 
 large a part as possible) they may be allowed to go 
 in advance a little, and try harmless experiments. 
 A little drawing from the solid, or even some use 
 of colour, may be permitted the pupil from time to 
 time before he has fairly passed through his course 
 of free-hand line ; not by way of improvement, but of 
 refreshment, just to keep np his interest in his work. 
 This applies to children of larger growth as well. 
 
 There are at pp. 176-181 in this chapter fac-similes 
 of two backgrounds of two woodcuts from Albert 
 Durer; also of the main lines of the plate of the Mer 
 de Glace in the ‘Liber Studiorum,' engraved by Turner’s 
 hand, and reduced in size with correctness enough 
 for our present purpose. There is also a photograph 
 of a large stone on a glacier, with a woodcut of its 
 principal lines, about twice its size. The student may 
 use these to begin with, as he is directed below. But 
 if he possesses and prefers any other Durer woodcuts, 
 especially The Cannon ; or any of George Cruikshank’s 
 .earlier etchings ; or of Richter’s ; or Alfred Rethel’s 
 Death the Avenger and Death the Friend; or any of 
 Leech’s woodcuts which have landscape in them, as 
 various hunting sketches, and especially the Adventures 
 of Mr. Briggs out Deer-stalking ; — above all, if he can 
 get the etched lines of an engraving from Turner’s 
 ‘ Liber Studiorum — he may proceed Avith any one of 
 them, as follows : — 
 
 ^ A photograph of the original etching of Cephalns and Procris in the 
 ‘Liber Studiorum’ has been most kindly given me by Air. Enskin, 
 for use in this book. It will be found reduced in size at the beginning 
 of the cliapter on Tree-forms. 
 
170 
 
 EVEN SHADING. 
 
 EXERCISE I. 
 
 Make a careful tracing on transparent paper of the 
 main lines of your woodcut, drawing them in right, 
 line for line and touch for touch, making as perfect 
 a fac-simile as you can. You will not he able to get 
 the right thickness or firmness of line at first, but get 
 all the forms and directions of the lines safe\ Then 
 transfer your tracing to drawing-paper very carefully. 
 Having done so, set your copy before you, and imitate 
 it in pen and ink freely over your traced lines, touch 
 for touch ; or you may use a fine pencil, if you please. 
 By the main lines to he drawn in, I mean all the sig- 
 nijicant lines you can trace; if there are any which 
 are evidently meant only to indicate shade, they may 
 be left out at this stage of your work. 
 
 By repeating the same lines freely, it is not meant 
 that you should only ‘ink over’ the traced lines, but 
 imitate them ; say at an eighth or sixteenth of an inch 
 distance to right or left, so that your hand repeats its 
 work fi-eely. Take care that your lines are even in 
 breadth, whether they are fine or broad. In pencil or 
 pen and ink it is a great object, and great sign of pro- 
 gress, to be able always to get a firm even line. Always 
 move the hand as much as possible from the shoulder, 
 difficult as it seems at first. In point of fact, cramped 
 work with the fingers is much more uncertain and 
 shaky than the play of the whole hand. You can prac- 
 tise in writing. Nervous hands always shake at first 
 beginning work, and gather steadiness as they go on. 
 
 ^ You will be surprised at the difficulty of getting anything like a 
 fac-simile of such lines at all. But never mind ; that difficulty is 
 exactly what you will learn most from. 
 
EVEN SHADING. 
 
 171 
 
 EXERCISE II. 
 
 When you are tired of the exertion of careful line- 
 drawing, which is not small, you may take up the 
 following lesson, which is copied, by kind permission of 
 the author, from Ruskin's ‘ Elements of Drawing.' 
 
 a h 
 
 Fig. I. 
 
 Take any finely-pointed steel pen (one of GillotCs lithographic 
 crowquills is best), and a piece of quite smooth, but not shining, 
 note-paper, cream-laid, and get some ink that has stood already 
 for some time in the inkstand, so as to be quite black, and as thick 
 as it can be without clogging the pen. Take a rule, and draw 
 four straight lines, so as to enclose a square, or nearly a square, about 
 as large as a Fig. i. N.B. I say nearly a square because it does 
 not in the least matter whether it is quite square or not, the object 
 being merely to get a space enclosed by straight lines. Now try 
 to fill in that square space with crossed lines, so completely and 
 evenly that it shall look like a square patch of grey silk or cloth, 
 cut out and laid on the white paper, as at h. Cover it quickly, 
 first with straightish lines in any direction you like, not troubling 
 yourself to draw them much closer or neater than those in the 
 square a. Let them quite dry before retouching them. (If you 
 draw three or four squares side by side, you may always be going 
 on with one while the others dry.) Then cover those lines with 
 others in a different direction, and let those diy ; then in another 
 direction still, and let those dry. Alwaj^s wait long’ enough to 
 run no risk of blotting’; and then draw the lines as quickly as you 
 
172 
 
 EVEN SHADING 
 
 can. Each ought to he laid on as swiftly as the dash of the pen 
 of a good writer ; but if you try to reach this great speed at first, 
 you will go over the edge of the square, which is a fault in this 
 exercise. Yet it is better to do so now and then than to draw 
 the lines very slowly ; for if you do, the pen leaves a little dot of 
 ink at the end of each line, and these dots spoil your work. So 
 draw each line quickly, stopping always as nearly as you can at the 
 edge of the square. The ends of lines which go over the edge are 
 afterwards to he removed with the pen-knife, but not till you 
 have done the whole work ; otherwise you roughen the paper, and 
 the next line that goes over the edge makes a blot. 
 
 ^ When you have gone over the square three or four times, you 
 will find some parts of it look darker than others. Now try to 
 make the lighter parts as dark as the rest, so that the whole may 
 be of equal depth or darkness. You will find, on examining the 
 work, that where it looks darkest the lines are closest, or there are 
 some much darker lines than elsewhere ; therefore you must put in 
 other lines or little scratches and dots between the lines in the paler 
 parts ; and where there are any very conspicuous dark lines, scratch 
 them out lightly with the pen-knife ; for the eye must not he at- 
 tracted by any line in particular. The more carefully and delicately 
 you fill in the little gaps and holes the better : you will get on 
 faster by doing two or three squares perfectly than a great many 
 badly. As the tint gets closer and begins to look even, work with 
 very little ink in your pen, so as hardly to make any mark; and 
 at last, where it is too dark, use the edge of your pen-knife very 
 lightly, and for some time, to wear it softly into an even tone. 
 You will find the great difficulty consists in getting evenness : one 
 bit will always look darker than another bit of your square, or 
 there will be a granulated sandy look over the whole. When you 
 find your paper quite rough and in a mess, give it up and begin 
 another square ; but do not rest satisfied till you have done your 
 best with every one. You will find it very difficult to get a pale 
 tint. ... You must get over this not so much by leaving the 
 lines wide apart as by trying to draw them excessively fine, lightly 
 and swiftly, being cautious in filling in, and at last passing the 
 
EVEN SHADING, 
 
 173 
 
 pen-knife over the whole. By keeping several squares in progress 
 at one time^ and reserving your pen for the light one when the ink 
 is nearly exhausted_, you may get on better. The paper ought 
 at last to look lightly and evenly toned all over^ with no lines 
 distinctly visible. 
 
 graduated space^ the dark tint passing evenly into the 
 lighter ones^ is the next exercise, as soon as the pupil has some 
 command of the pen as a shading instrument.^ See Fig. i, c. 
 
 These exercises may be repeated with the point of an 
 H or HH pencil, or at least some of those which follow 
 on shading must be taken up and done delicately with 
 a hard pencil, using bread or india-rubber and the 
 penknife-point to remove dark specks. It will be, on 
 the whole, best to use chalk for practice, with the soft 
 point and on a larger scale ; and pen and ink in order 
 to train oneself to hard-point or etcher’s work. The 
 pen and ink have the advantage of being always at 
 hand, and it is a really important gain to an amateur 
 or young artist if he can form a habit of ready firm 
 illustration with his pen. Drawing ought to be taught 
 just as writing is taught; but nevertheless, as the latter 
 must generally^ come first in education, it is best to 
 connect Art with it where we can, and to consider one’s 
 pen as a drawing instrument is a very good thing for 
 the student. In no other way will he so easily form 
 the invariable painter’s habit of ‘ always drawing some- 
 thing,’ — always watching form and colour, always ob- 
 serving and imitating. Business is business, of course, 
 and I do not recommend him to illustrate his books or 
 correspondence ; and yet I remember how the illustrated 
 
 ^ Not always. We have found it useful, in a night school, to toll 
 a pupil, uncertain about the form of A, to ‘ make his picture ’ on a slate. 
 
174 HABITS OF DRAWING AND OBSERVATION. 
 
 letters of a friend of times past used to be longed for 
 and delighted in. The drawback, of course, to habitual 
 sketching is that it is likely to induce carelessness in 
 execution in some cases; but this risk may be safely 
 run by any one who has trained himself by diligent 
 tracing and copying from Albert Durer and from the 
 lines of the ‘Liber Studiorum,’ and who has practised 
 squares carefully enough to be able to etch an even 
 tint with his pen. A week's practice at the exercises 
 given or named in the text will teach the pupil a good 
 deal about drawing : and when he has reached a certain 
 point he may make steady progress only by working up 
 spare hours or half-hours. It is impossible to say too 
 much in praise of the habit of carrying a small sketch- 
 book about, with a sharp F pencil in a sheath, for occa- 
 sional practice from the object. 
 
 Remember also, that having undertaken to become 
 something of a painter, you have undertaken to be an 
 observer as well as an imitator, and that the painter’s 
 eye is always open. You should always be making 
 at least mental notes of form or colour or effect. The 
 well-stored memory, more than anything else, seems to 
 distinguish great men from small. It is impossible 
 to say how much imagination and invention owe to 
 memory; they certainly could do nothing without it. 
 You ought, as time goes on, to have a sort of mental 
 scrap-book, which will suggest true forms to you in work- 
 ing at your pictures. It is almost impossible to say how 
 far memory can take the place of invention in painting, 
 just as one cannot tell how far it ministers to genius 
 and power of thought in science or history. It may be 
 developed in a morbid way by a person who has little 
 
NATURE AND PICTURES, 
 
 175 
 
 power of thought, and who has in consequence a vast 
 storehouse of things he cannot use. ‘ Si quis emat 
 citharas, emptas comportet in unum,’ &c., applies to 
 the man who has a vast recollection of facts as they 
 occur in books, without power of arrangement, induction, 
 or deduction. But the painter’s memory is connected 
 with so many perfectly secret and unknown springs of 
 feeling and association, that it cannot well be over- 
 loaded, and may be trusted to arrange itself. Of course 
 drawing from Nature or the real object must always 
 be prior in time and in importance to drawing from 
 memory, because Nature feeds and supplies ideas of 
 memory. Yet even drawing from Nature implies the 
 use of the mind in remembering an observed form in 
 the object till it is realized on paper or canvas. You 
 cannot look at two things at once, and you must de- 
 termine from your object the form of your next touch, 
 and remember it till you have put it on. Again, 
 memory may be supplied from other men’s work as 
 well as from Nature. You have a right to imitate, 
 though not to plagiarize ; and the practical way to do 
 right in such a matter is, I think, always to compare 
 this or that man’s rendering of Nature with Nature before 
 you imitate him in your own work. T. M. Richardson’s 
 moorland and highland scenery is very attractive to 
 sketchers, and deservedly so ; but you should compare 
 his moors with a real moor before you take to copying 
 him. So of Cox’s woods and weeds, or Copley Fielding’s 
 commons. When you have observed a form or a tint 
 on the hill-side, and seen how these men render it, 
 then you may take their assistance in rendering it for 
 yourself, and they or any true painter will rather 
 
176 
 
 DETAIL IN DURER. 
 
 thank you for it, feeling that their work has taught 
 you something and been a real work of kindness and 
 good to you. As a rule, never adopt or copy any fea- 
 ture of a picture without identifying it in Nature. 
 
 . The Durer woodcuts will teach you better than any- 
 thing else can the value of detail in landscape, and the 
 power which is gained over Nature by manfully draw- 
 ing in line all that comes in one's way. Ordinary 
 modern water-colourists pay no real attention to form 
 at all. Durer lets no form escape him ; and by follow- 
 ing him, first by copying his works, then by drawing 
 from Nature as he drew, you fill your paper and your 
 mind with natural facts. The wash of colour teaches 
 nothing but technical handiness in laying it on, which 
 is quite as surely acquired by studying forms to lay it 
 on hy. And do not fret at the infiniteness of what 
 you see, or despair of drawing anything because you 
 cannot draw all things together. Durer will teach you 
 at least to draw anything separately, or a great many 
 things together. 
 
X 
 
 A hicK OwKN la/ter Durer). 
 
178 
 
 RIGHT DRA WING BY RIGHT LINES. 
 
 You may perhaps form a conjecture about the present 
 state of your natural powers for landscape, by the 
 interest you are capable of feeling in Durer's distances, 
 where every tree and bush is drawn, and nothing left 
 unaccounted for. You may also judge of the correct- 
 ness of your own eye, by the difficulty you will find 
 in really making a fac-simile of his work. And so in 
 a higher degree with Turner. An intelligent and per- 
 fect imitation of the lines of one of his landscapes im- 
 plies at the least careful reading of Nature and long 
 discipline of hand. This you are bound to try for. 
 The best way of all is by going through a regular 
 course of free-hand drawing, such as is taught in our 
 elementary Art-schools, and described towards the end 
 of this chapter, with examples. It is at least of almost 
 vital importance to you to learn the use of straight 
 lines for correct object drawing. At all events you 
 may go so far as to learn to draw some simple object 
 correctly by right lines, and then to try and draw it 
 by your eye alone. You will see the difference between 
 setting to work like a workman and like an amateur, 
 in that real sense of the terms which we shall here- 
 after explain. In our view the best workman who 
 ever held a brush was still an amateur, a man loving 
 beauty and skill and their Maker and Giver, yet un- 
 able to reach the perfection of any natural work of 
 His hand. And any amateur who does his best, i. e. 
 chooses the best means, not the easiest, for the highest 
 end he is capable of desiring, is a true though imperfect 
 workman. 
 
 But if, in spite of all advice, you are determined not 
 to draw straight lines ; then take to your Durer tracings 
 
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FIRST USE OF A PHOTOGRAPH. 
 
 183 
 
 and the examples here given. But give your whole 
 attention to them and do your very best, now and at 
 all times, in Art ; for in it, as in all things, no advance 
 worth making is ever won easily. When you are a 
 workman, you will do rapidly and right what you have 
 often done before ; but even then you will always find 
 further advance strain your eye and put your mind on 
 its mettle. 
 
 EXERCISE III. 
 
 Take a simple photograph of some piece of land- 
 scape you rather like, not of a very striking or im- 
 pressive subject, or of one which has any very exciting 
 association connected with it in your mind. Trace all 
 the main lines you can find in it, and transfer them 
 to drawing-paper. Then set the photograph before you, 
 and, using your traced lines as a guide, try to fill up 
 your drawing in pen and ink, after Durer’s manner, or 
 in the fashion of the woodcut of the large ‘ erratic ' on 
 the glacier. Try to secure character before all things, 
 and never mind how your work looks. Do not work 
 too long at a time, as your eye and attention will get 
 fatigued and unable to bid your hand do its work 
 with precision ; a tired eye is always disgusted and 
 vexed with the look of its work, however good it 
 may be. 
 
 If you have been used to sketch, you may try to 
 work out some one small object from Nature thus, in 
 pen and ink or with a hard pencil. 
 
184 
 
 LIGHT AND SHADE EXERCISE. 
 
 EXERCISE IV. 
 
 Take a roll of whitey- brown paper, or a wooden 
 cylinder, or a tennis-ball, or tbe cast of an apple. 
 Let it rest on a piece of light grey or drab paper be- 
 tween yourself and tbe light. It ought not to be dis- 
 turbed till you have done with it, and you ought to 
 sit always in the same place, at the same distance and 
 angle with the light. Observe its light side and its 
 dark side, and the shadow under it which is darker 
 than its dark side. Mix a tint of sepia which is as 
 deep or nearly as deep as the shadow, and mark with 
 it the place of deepest shade. When it is dry, take 
 a rather large brush and the lightest tint you can 
 make, and carry that all over the rough outline you 
 have made. (Better draw a square first, then a circle 
 within it touching its sides, if you have a ball to 
 represent.) You will then have your darkest point of 
 shadow and your high light marked, and your object 
 is to get the greatest possible gradation between those 
 two tints, so as to give the greatest possible roundness 
 to your cylinder or ball. You should repeat this ex- 
 ercise many times, and each time on a different scale. 
 The larger copies should be made in sepia, or with 
 chalk or a broad pencil, using intersecting lines as in 
 the ‘ square exercise \ the smaller ones must be in pen 
 and ink, and in all the gradations must be brought 
 right, that is to say, led imperceptibly into each other 
 from light to dark. There must be neither streak nor 
 spot. When one occurs, especially when you are using 
 the brush and sepia, do not rub out, but try to fit in 
 
ROUNDING. 
 
 185 
 
 the intrusive shade by means of lines drawn all round 
 it, ‘ hatched,’ or lightly drawn across and across. The 
 exercise in squares has in effect taught you how to do 
 this, and there is great value in this kind of practice 
 in correction, or working wrong into right. It gives 
 you confidence in being able to mend your work into 
 something at last in every case ; it educates your eye 
 and hand in firmness and patience; and it will also 
 give you so much trouble, that you will instinctively 
 avoid it as much as possible by caution and precision 
 in your beginnings. The drawing of the pomegranate 
 (ch. ii.) will give you some idea of w^hat workmanlike 
 accuracy of shading really is, and will be a good model 
 for you as your skill advances. 
 
 It is good practice to draw a deep strong line 
 across a piece of light shadow, and then work the 
 shadow darker, hatching across and across, till the line 
 is imperceptible and only forms a part of the mass of 
 shade. 
 
 If you wish, however, to wash out and begin again, 
 be careful in all cases to wash clean out and leave 
 nothing behind. 
 
 These exercises must be repeated over and over again 
 until you can produce a well-rounded drawing of an 
 apple or a ball with certainty, and in a moderate time. 
 By the time you can do so you will begin to see how 
 much form has to do with the laying on of shades, 
 much more of colours. Even in so simple a thing 
 as a tennis-ball it makes all the difference between 
 good work and bad to lay on the different coats of 
 shade rapidly, and with a sense of the shape of each 
 shade you are putting on. With a round object. 
 
186 
 
 LIGHT AND SHADE. 
 
 these shades will mostly take a crescent form. Each 
 must be suffered to dry perfectly before another is 
 laid over it; for the standing rule of all water-colour 
 is never to touch any tint twice until it is dry, right or 
 wrong. It will be well at first only to use one brush, 
 and to leave the edges of the successive shades to be 
 softened into each other afterwards by means of hatched 
 lines. But you will soon find it convenient to work with 
 two brushes ; a smaller one to lay on the tint, and a 
 rather larger one (always kept quite clean) to soften off 
 the edges while still wet. 
 
 When you have fairly learnt the processes of rounding 
 and gradating in sepia, turn to the piece of drapery 
 in chapter ii. It is arranged to illustrate two different 
 systems of light and shade, but will answer your present 
 purpose tolerably well. First make a pencil copy of the 
 engraving, paying some attention to the shading, and 
 getting the folds and the undulation of the stripe toler- 
 ably right. Then arrange some piece of striped cloth 
 or linen in the same way, place it where it will not be 
 disturbed (it should stand against a plain wall or screen), 
 and make a careful drawing of it, in pencil or sepia. 
 A whitish or light-coloured ground with but few stripes 
 will be best. Draw it carefully in lines first, until you 
 know exactly where the shadows of the folds are to 
 come on your paper. Then begin to paint them in, 
 rounding and modelling the folds. If you cannot take 
 interest in this, it is a bad sign for your prospects of ever 
 becoming a draughtsman; but if you can get yourself 
 to take pains at it, you will soon feel interest enough. 
 As soon as you have put on one set of shadows, wash in 
 a background of sepia half-tint, behind your drapery, 
 
LIGHT AND SHADE, 
 
 187 
 
 SO as to get it to stand out as a white object, as it would 
 tell in a large picture: then complete it as perfectly 
 as you can. 
 
 You had better next begin to draw shells of broad 
 and simple form ; first in outline, then in sepia shading. 
 Or you may go through a course of single fiowers 
 or leaves: if you will be content to repeat whatever 
 you undertake till it is right, or to patch it into cor- 
 rectness at last. The great engineer's advice about the 
 embankment applies to water-colour as well as water- 
 works: — ‘Puddle it.' ‘We have puddled it.' ‘Puddle 
 it again.' 
 
 But it will save you time and trouble in the end, and 
 give you additional power from the first, if you will con- 
 sent to begin at the beginning with the Student’s Drill 
 we are going to describe. There is one more exercise — 
 a necessary piece of dexterity in gradating colour over 
 a large space, which you will see the advantage of prac- 
 tising: it is the surest method of obtaining brilliancy 
 in sunset or sunrise effects, or of getting clearness in 
 large cloud forms. The works of the late W. Turner, 
 of Oxford, were well known in the Old Water-Colour 
 Society for their power of light and colour; and 
 this was his sole method of gradation. Practise it at 
 first with sepia only, and you will get an idea of the 
 great luminous effect which can be produced by using 
 the darkest colour ; in short, you Avill see that light and 
 darkness are truly relative terms. 
 
188 
 
 GRADATION EXERCISE. 
 
 EXERCISE V. 
 
 Have paper properly stretched, or at least a full-sized 
 sketching-block. Wet its surface with a flat brush — 
 not drenching it, but wetting the whole. Slope it and 
 let it dry till colour will not run on any part of it : 
 and meanwhile prepare a good pool of water-colour, 
 proportioned to the space you have to cover. Have 
 clean water by you as well as that which you have 
 used, and two rather large brushes (I like ?o^^-haired 
 red sables for almost all kinds of work) ; fill one of 
 them nearly full, and begin to lay on the mixed tint 
 across the paper at top, from left to right: when it 
 grows empty, drop two or three drops of clean water 
 into the mixed tint with the other, or clean brush ; 
 mix up all with the working brush, and lay on the 
 resulting tint, which will be just lighter than the first; 
 nearly empty tlie working brush, drop in more clean 
 water with the other, mix up and proceed till you have 
 gone over the whole paper. You ought to arrive at 
 the bottom of it with nearly clean water in your 
 brush, and with a perfect gradation from the top of 
 the paper. Do not try to get on too strong a tint 
 in one wash, the difficulty is too great, and repeating 
 it is quite safe, if you allow it plenty of time to dry. 
 
 You will see, that having done this properly with any 
 sunset blue tint (say cobalt and rose-madder) you may 
 slope the paper (when dry) the other way, and lay on 
 the yellow tint, of yellow-ochre or cadmium and rose, 
 from the horizon of your picture where you mean the 
 light to be strongest, to the top, over the blue-grey. A 
 
METHOD OF THE LATE W. TURNER. 
 
 189 
 
 skilful person will gradate from purple-grey to pale pink, 
 and from that to yellow in a single wash, by dipping the 
 working brush lightly in tints of rose-madder and then 
 of yellow, whenever he drops in the clear water to 
 lighten the blue. This is in fact substituting first the 
 rose for the blue, then the yellow for the rose. But it 
 requires great skill and steadiness, and cannot be done 
 without that peculiar handiness with brushes and colour 
 saucers, w^hich seems to require long habit and experi- 
 ence in any man, and which some persons never gain, — 
 not even though their eyes and hands are cunning enough 
 on paper or canvas when the right brush is in their 
 hands. We now begin our proper course at its begin- 
 ning. At the end of it the landscape-amateur and the 
 student who has worked through the course will be pre- 
 pared to draw from the casts. We think the latter will 
 almost to a certainty draw casts better than the former. 
 But the former will as certainly learn much by doing 
 them as well as he can. They will in fact throw him 
 back on the practice of free-hand drawing in line, and 
 it is our object to do so. 
 
190 
 
 STRAIGHT LINES. 
 
 STUDENT’S DRILL. EXERCISES. 
 
 1 . Draw a straight line, by the eye, from right to left 
 across your paper. Bisect it. 
 
 2. Draw another line at right angles to it from top 
 to bottom of your paper. Bisect it. 
 
 3. Practise trisections of both these lines, and accustom 
 your eye to take lines in thirds or halves at will. 
 
 These lines, and all others, are first to be sketched 
 very lightly with a fine hut not hard pencil, cut to a 
 long and sharp point. Hold it long in your hand, and 
 use it with a motion from the shoulder, not resting your 
 hand or working from the fingers, only letting your little 
 finger slide over the paper to steady you. When the 
 lines are accurately traced out, they must he almost 
 entirely ruhhed out, and gone over again with an HH 
 pencil and a firm single line. Great care must be taken 
 to keep this line even. It does not signify whether it 
 be broad or fine, provided it be always of the same 
 breadth throughout. In drawing it you will of course 
 have to rest your hand a good deal, to work from the 
 fingers, and to make your line with short successive 
 touches, painting it as it were, for precision’s sake, and 
 for even pressure on the pencil point. But still hold the 
 pencil long, and rest the hand lightly, so as not to cramp 
 the fingers. It will be best to measure distances at first, 
 with dividers or a slip of paper, but always do so to 
 correct your first sketch, never in the first instance, or 
 before it is complete. 
 
 A page or two of the earlier part of ‘ Dyce’s Outlines’ 
 will supply you with plenty of simple curves to copy by 
 the eye, and a few are given here selected as proper 
 
CURVES, 
 
 191 
 
 practice for the necessary use of straight lines. Some 
 are regular and simple, others irregular and more com- 
 plicated. When you can draw the easier ones with 
 a fair amount of accuracy — that is to say, when your 
 circles or, ellipses are true, and drawn of the same size 
 with the copy, though that copy be at a distance from 
 your eye, you may proceed to the irregular and more 
 varied curves. Something will be said in a cliapter on 
 Composition about natural curves, and there or here 
 you will do well to read the 17th chapter of Ruskin's 
 ‘ Modern Painters,' vol. iv. It may be said that all the 
 most beautiful lines or contours in Nature are infinite, 
 springing from their origin into space, and not returning 
 into themselves ; and also irregular, that is to say, not 
 yet subject to mathematical calculation. And to be 
 able to draw these abstract lines correctly by rule of 
 thumb, drawing the proper tangents and co-ordinates 
 without knowing anything in theory about tangents and 
 co-ordinates, is what the eye of every draughtsman 
 should be educated to do. Also, it is especially neces- 
 sary for those to learn it who fret most against it. This 
 uninteresting work is especially wearisome to those 
 who have strong feeling for seen beauty, and want to 
 produce it themselves by force of feeling without power. 
 For some time they must he kept gaining power, without 
 being excited by the beauty of what they copy; and 
 practise the short rule for all curves ; which is to ‘ put 
 them in straight waistcoats.' The ej' e can always from 
 the first be taught to judge of the length or direction of 
 straight lines ; and this is not possible with curves. 
 This rule applies to all drawing of form, from the solid 
 object as well as from the fiat. 
 
192 
 
 CURVES. 
 
 A 
 
 CURVE No. 1. 
 
 The continuous lines represent the figure to be drawn^ the 
 dotted ones those necessary for its construction. 
 
 Begin by drawing (very lightly) two lines at right angles to 
 each other AB_, CD^ making E their point of intersection^ and 
 AE==CE = BE = DE. 
 
 Join AC, CB, BD, DA, and bisect them all by lines at right 
 angles, intersecting in E, lettered ac, bd; bisect aA, Ad, &c. 
 all round. The curves of the stem leave Bb, for example, at 
 the point of bisection ending half-way between b and E. Mark 
 those points, and then draw the curve from one to another, 
 beginning on the right line, and leading it away into the curve, 
 at each end. Repeat this next at Be; as (N.B.) it is much easier 
 to draw curves in pairs ; — and so all round. You will have 
 eight points to guide you in drawing your inner circle, the 
 
CURVES. 
 
 193 
 
 circumference of which is half-way between E and the spring 
 of the curves. 
 
 Having drawn all this lightly with an E pencil, ruh it nearly 
 out, just leaving enough to guide your eye : then go over the 
 lines of the star with an HH pencil and a firm even line. 
 
 The straight rays from the circle are ad libitum. 
 
 There are one or two cautions for drawing these and other 
 subjects, which will probably be repeated more than once in 
 this hook ; hut they must at all events be given here : — 
 
 I. Notice whether your habit of eye is to draw too large or 
 too small. The former is more general ; most beginners draw 
 about 5 too large; but the contrary is often the case. 
 
 2,. Children and all early-beginners should always have the 
 merest outlines or silhouette-forms to draw from. Perspective 
 (even in bare line) confuses the attention at first, and early 
 progress depends very much on a habit of success. First lessons, 
 if possible, should be so easy as to secure the pupil from failure. 
 This is why tracing is recommended in amateur drill. In 
 making a traced outline on drawing-paper the pencil will move 
 three times over the lines pretty correctly. It is better to do 
 so at first than to spend twice the time in drawing the lines 
 once incorrectly. 
 
 ^Dyce^’s Outlines (price 4.S. 6d., Messrs. Chapman and Hall, 
 193 Piccadilly) will be fully sufficient for any learner as a book 
 of free-hand copies. The later examples are chosen mostly from 
 Renaissance ornament, and might not benefit the pupiFs taste; 
 but long before he reaches them he will be only too eager to 
 close the book for ever and proceed to solid drawing. No one 
 is likely to receive a bias from them, and no one can fail to 
 learn to draw in line from them. 
 
 Do not fall into the habit of working too near your eye. 
 You will see much better what your drawing will be like to 
 others, and to you when finished, by keeping it a yard from 
 your face at least. 
 
 0 
 
▼ 
 
 CURVE No. 2. 
 
 Our second example speaks for itself tolerably well. First draw the 
 large parallelogram which contains both the flower-ornaments. Then 
 bisect it, continuing the perpendicular line. That gives you a central 
 line : and a little below the lower side of the parallelogram is a point on 
 the perpendicular which is the origin of all the curves. Straight lines 
 drawn from thence would make each of the halves of the large parallelo- 
 gram into a square. Diagonals of those squares will give you a centre 
 line for the flower curves. 
 
 A second, and if necessary a third, parallelogram may be drawn from 
 the line which passes through the origin of the curves, to guide the 
 eye in completing the figure correctly. 
 
 1 
 
I 
 
 Those curves illustrate the process of bloekiug- out by leading lines. 
 The first thing, as Avill be seen, is to get the main curves right, by 
 placing them in parallelograms. They may then be snb-diviclea. 
 
 0 2 
 
I 
 
 { 
 
 CURVE No. 5. (Natural Lines.) 
 
QUESTION OF INDULGENCE, 
 
 m 
 
 CURVE No. 5. {Natural Lines.) 
 
 This example is nearly contained in a rectangle, which will at 
 once give you the scale on which you wish to draw it. Divide it 
 by straight lines touching the chief extremities of the leaves. 
 Then draw the main stem carefully as far as the last, or upper, 
 four leaves : next, get the central line of each leaf, and draw the 
 others round it, using guiding lines as in the copy. The upper 
 four leaves had better be taken last, and may be inscribed in a 
 small parallelogram of their own. 
 
 REMARKS. 
 
 It is a question which is certain to come before every 
 master of an Art-school very early in his career, how far 
 he may modify or relax the excellent system of instruc- 
 tion which is laid down for him by our authorities. 
 Pupils must have some indulgence from time to time, 
 and it is difficult to say whether the younger or older 
 ones wdll want it most. Those who want it least are not 
 al ways likely to become the best painters, though for the 
 present they are the best pupils ; as there is a sensitive 
 impatience of eagerness as well as the impatience of 
 idleness, and older pupils of education and feeling are 
 well worth breaking in, though they are always hurrjdng 
 on into difficulties which they have not learnt to ap- 
 preciate. They must be enticed into a certain amount 
 of useful work somehow, and induced to invest effort 
 and interest of mind in drawing straight lines, instead 
 of spending it at once on colour or finished work. 
 This is why the tracing and afterwards the pen-and-ink 
 drawing from Durer has been put first in our course 
 for grown or partially-instructed persons. It is con- 
 ceived that those exercises, as well as that from the 
 
198 
 
 FREEDOM OF HAND. 
 
 photograph, will give the learner some idea of the multi- 
 plicity of Nature and of the difficulty as well as the in- 
 terest of translating Nature into line. When it has been 
 gone through, or as soon as the pupil is decidedly im- 
 proving in exactness of hand and eye, some well-finished 
 drawing of a simple subject in chalk or in sepia should he 
 put before him, and an appeal should be made to him 
 whether he had not better begin to do simple work in 
 a workmanlike way, and really learn the necessary pro- 
 cesses and exercises, instead of trying to pick them up 
 irregularly. As soon as he has really learnt to feel the 
 difference between correct and incorrect drawing, it may 
 seem matter of comm on- sense to him to go well through 
 that plain training in the use of straight lines which will 
 enable him to command correct form. In short, he will 
 consent to draw a few free-hand curves and patterns; 
 and this done, he must consent further to go through 
 a little more drill in shading, just to learn to lay on 
 and gradate a tint with the point or fine brush in 
 a mechanical way. The sooner our pupil is got to his 
 egg or tennis-ball copy the better. And then, we think, 
 he may be allowed to learn to stipple and hatch his 
 work into flatness, either by use of pen and ink, in 
 Mr. Ruskiffis first exercises, or by the brush and sepia, 
 or with chalk. Something is to be said in favour of 
 each : the pen and ink is trenchant and fine, and gives 
 confidence and pleasure in minute work ; but it wearies 
 the eye and keeps it too near its work. Brush and sepia 
 are faint and delicate and give nicety in distinction of 
 shade : moreover, as a man is to have the brush in his 
 liand all his days, he cannot make acquaintance with it 
 too soon. But he must learn to use the point so as to 
 
CHARCOAL DRAWING AS IN FRANCE. 
 
 199 
 
 get quite even shade and gradation with it, and the 
 chalk point has great advantages for study, from the 
 boldness and freedom which is gained in its use. Of 
 course it is no use to be bold in wrong drawing, but 
 straight shading-lines are easily drawn with a free hand. 
 It may be well for a learner to get a habit of occasionally 
 writing from the shoulder, letting his whole hand play 
 on the paper : it will make his writing rather flourishing 
 at first, hut it is not bad practice for a draughtsman. 
 
 It is surprising how much neatness of stippling may 
 be learnt by practising Mr. Ruskin’s squares in pen and 
 ink in any odd five minutes of time when one is left 
 alone with that vehicle of expression. A spare quarter 
 of an hour is time enough to draw a jar or inkstand 
 in correct outline, or at least to take its distances and 
 block it out in square, as in chapter ii. Practice of this 
 sort is of the greatest value, as it gives speed, deci- 
 sion, and rapid calculation and eye-measurement better 
 than anything else; and once begun it will be found 
 pleasant enough. He who can once sit down and begin 
 to draw a few folds of curtain or odds and ends, when 
 he is left alone in a waiting-room, instead of reading the 
 advertisements in the ‘ Times ’ or the hills on the wall, 
 will soon have an amusing set of sketches, and, what 
 is far more, he will always be ready to draw every- 
 thing. There never is a time when a painter can 
 aflbrd to leave off studying pure form : even if he is 
 given over entirely to landscape, he ought to keep 
 studying the figure in line, and, if possible, on a large 
 free scale. The French use of charcoal is admirable in 
 work of this kind; and their system, as recommended by 
 Mr. Armitage, appears less mechanical and more artistic 
 
200 
 
 STUDY OF FORM 
 
 than our own, which was originally established rather 
 with a view to training pupils to applied Art for com- 
 mercial purposes, than with the idea of making painters. 
 In the great French ateliers, the elaborate chalk stip- 
 pling does not occupy so much time as in England. 
 Time is devoted rather to continual and extremely 
 accurate study of form by means of straight lines. 
 ‘The English students do not draw square enough,’ 
 say our neighbours; that is to say, they spend time 
 on texture — and the toil of stippling and hatching 
 really produces little more — instead of close con- 
 tinual measurement and calculation of distances and 
 angles, and patient triangulation of the model. Nicety 
 in judgment of pitch and flatness of shade may come 
 after: all the pupiFs time, till he can produce some- 
 thing worthy of high finish, ought to be spent in study 
 of line, and in storing his ocular memory with facts 
 and observations of subtle form. It is quite true, on 
 the other hand, that the facts of surface-form are best 
 learnt— perhaps can only be learnt— by long practice in 
 shading; but it ought to be of significant shade indi- 
 cative of form or structure. 
 
 The materials for study in use in French schools 
 are charcoal and a paper stump for blending lines to- 
 gether, or for taking out half-lights. Bread rolled into a 
 pencil-point is used to remove high lights, as in chalk 
 drawing ; and the work when finished is set by an ap- 
 plication of mastic varnish on the back of the paper, 
 which is quite soft and spongy. The main lines once 
 obtained by careful calculation of the various distances 
 and scrupulously exact ‘square' drawing, or ‘blocking 
 out in straight lines,' the charcoal is hatched on and 
 
APART FROM COLOUR. 
 
 201 
 
 rubbed with the stump and finger to tolerable evenness 
 of half-tint over the main shades, and the work is then 
 gone carefully over, every light in the copy being faith- 
 fully rubbed out with bread or the stump, and the 
 stronger darks added afterwards. 
 
 It is also asserted, and we think that it may be true 
 in the case of many highly-educated pupils, that some 
 relief is necessary in another way. It is well to ab- 
 stract form from colour, and for a time to give a student 
 nothing but plaster casts to copy. But he ought also 
 to see and make studies in light and shade from natural 
 objects in colour as soon as he is able. It cannot be 
 as instructive to him to work from a dirty-white plaster 
 cast as from the original of the same in its natural 
 bright colours ; and any advancing student or amateur 
 who wants the encouragement of a change of lesson 
 may be supplied with a series of shells for study. The 
 simpler forms should come first, the more difficult later ; 
 and when they have been successfully modelled in light 
 and shade with brush and sepia, they may be repeated 
 with some attempt to imitate their marvellous colours. 
 It will be seen that the eye ought to be early accus- 
 tomed to work in light and shade from natural coloured 
 objects in the studio, in order to acquire power of esti- 
 mating the value of various hues in terms of light and 
 shade. 
 
 These remarks are addressed to masters rather than 
 to pupils. We began with, and we hope to sustain 
 throughout, a protest against all royal roads and all 
 false progress ; but we think that people learn the gram- 
 mar of Art in very different ways, just as they learn 
 any other grammar, and that, practically speaking. 
 
202 TURNER AND HOLBEIN, 
 
 it may be best that Art-masters should be allowed a 
 considerable discretion in their treatment of different 
 pupils. Some encouragement should be given as soon 
 as the pupil can get a correct outline: the regular 
 course should not be deserted, but he should be en- 
 couraged by being allowed to make experiments. Above 
 all, he should begin to be admitted to see beauty in 
 what he draws, and get accustomed to the excitement 
 and flurry which delicate form and colour in a shell 
 or a flower really produce in every keen student who 
 has learnt to see. Fine execution is a means rather 
 than an end, after all, and should be learnt as a means 
 and not an end; if the pupil is over-broken to stippling 
 and hatching at first, when he comes to Nature he will 
 only look for things which he can stipple and hatch. 
 In short, there is a difference between the restlessness 
 of eagerness and the restlessness of idleness ; and ac- 
 cording to the master’s judgment of him and what he 
 will bear, he may allow him to attempt easy colour too 
 soon, or to study with the brush rather than the point. 
 But in no case ought mathematically correct study of form 
 ever to he long discontinued, for any reason ivhatever. 
 
 Both in landscape and figure work it seems to me 
 that as soon as the pupil has reached the point at which 
 he may attempt original work in light and shade, he 
 ought to be set to reproduce sketches of his own 
 in imitation of two models. One, as we have said, 
 is Turner’s ‘ Liber Studiorum the other is Holbein. 
 I have elsewhere mentioned the invaluable photographs 
 from the latter artist published by Mr. Dowdeswell, 
 Chancery Lane : and there can be nothing much better 
 for the workman, young or old, than to study and 
 
THEIR WORK IN LIGHT AND SHADE. 
 
 203 
 
 imitate them. They are not pretty; there is no Italian 
 grace in them : hut there is a good deal in Art besides 
 such beauty as Correggio and Guido sought and found ; 
 and no one who has learned to understand and appre- 
 ciate the insight, feeling, and technical power of these 
 drawings, can have any reason to regret the time he 
 certainly must have spent in learning to judge of Art. 
 One may just mention the faces of the mockers of our 
 Lord as examples of unmitigated Teutonic power in 
 painful subject, and the standing female figure with her 
 back to the spectator as a specimen of every beauty 
 of form. The latter deserves attention, moreover, be- 
 cause her dress is nearly in accordance with one of the 
 latest and most graceful of our modern fashions, and 
 suggests the idea that if ladies would look a little more 
 at pictures worth looking at, they would obtain some 
 capital hints on the really important matter, as we con- 
 sider it, of their own appearance. For every artist 
 must feel it highly important that the most ornamental 
 objects in creation should really be fit to be seen. But 
 the way in which both Holbein and Turner’s studies 
 are made is worthy of great attention and careful 
 imitation. The outlines are drawn firmly in pen and 
 ink— probably in indelible ink ; then the light and 
 shade are put decisively and quickly on with the 
 brush, so that the strong brown contours look no 
 more than guiding lines, and assist the e^^e without 
 offending it. No form of study can he better for the 
 young workman who has made himself a workman, 
 or something like it, by hard judicious practice, and 
 who wants to try an idea or an impression of his 
 own, or to realize a sketch for pictorial form. The 
 
204 
 
 DRAWINGS IN OXFORD GALLERIES. 
 
 lines first, unalterably: then the forms in chiaroscuro 
 up to the lines ; the fiesh of the work gradually gathered 
 to its bones until something of life and the spirit of the 
 painter is breathed into the work. It is, of course, an- 
 ticipating matters to say much here of original drawing. 
 Yet all drawing from Nature is original, in the first and 
 essential sense : it is distinguished absolutely from copy- 
 ing, because of the greater multiplicity and difficulty of 
 the real thing as a copy. And some system of practice, 
 either in rendering a natural object in terms of light and 
 shade, or writing down a thought or idea in terms of 
 light and shade, is highly important. Our course began 
 with lines,— with Durer for multiplicity, with unmean- 
 ing straight lines, curves and patterns, to gain precision ; 
 then it went on to technical and mechanical use of 
 shade, since shade expresses form in Nature ; and lines, 
 like letters, not existing in Nature, still teach men to 
 understand form conventionally. 
 
 The next step is proper combination ; of line, with the 
 light and shade which constitute form as distinguished 
 from line. And such combination, as far as we can 
 make out, is best seen either in the two sets of examples 
 we have mentioned, or in galleries of sketches and pre- 
 liminary studies by great masters, such as those of the 
 University Gallery in Oxford h The University now 
 possesses a complete course of Turner’s works, from 
 his simplest broad chalk sketches or experiments to his 
 most refined water-colour execution. And besides this, 
 for the regular student, there are large numbers of 
 
 ^ A selection of most accurately-reduced copies of these drawings 
 lias been published by J. Fisher, Esq., Curator of the Gallery. (Bell and 
 Daldy, 1867.) 
 
DRAWINGS IN OXFORD GALLERIES. 
 
 205 
 
 Eafael’s and Michael Angelo’s sketches and groups, 
 of very great intrinsic value, and quite priceless as 
 models to copy. The use of the hard point every- 
 where is a great technical characteristic of these 
 drawings, and it is very commonly combined with 
 washes, or forms put decidedly in with the brush. 
 These works ought to he put to their proper educa- 
 tional purpose; and, indeed, any one who wishes to 
 study them can obtain permission to do so. First, 
 careful copying, and secondly imitation, of these works 
 of Turner and Holbein, will afford the best advanced 
 practice in light and shade we know of. 
 
 NOTE ON THE PHOTOGEAPH AND WOODCUT 
 AT PAGES i8o, i8i. 
 
 This photograph is inserted, because it seems to me to be a rather 
 happy instance of natural lines converging in a very pleasing way, and 
 is accordingly in itself a composition, such as the sketcher from Nature 
 should look for. But though so well chosen by the photographer, it 
 has not printed happily, and I fear the drawing from it needs apology. 
 Still the large block of stone will do well enough to trace from, as 
 an example of lines expressing structure. The rest may be omitted, 
 unless the whole be copied, as a vignette, in sepia. 
 
206 
 
 DRAWING FROM THE CAST. 
 
 CHAPTER 11. 
 
 DRAWING FROM THE CAST. 
 
 TT will be observed that in our opening chapter 
 on Free-hand Drawing we have taken into con- 
 sideration, and made certain allowances for, the case of 
 a large number of people who care much for Art and 
 Nature, but who have begun their study of Art, so to 
 speak, in the middle. They are a specially numerous, 
 and indeed important body in our own country, and 
 they have arisen with the rise of the modern English 
 school of landscape, and with that great feeling for the 
 beauty of inanimate nature which finds its text-book 
 and manifesto in the earlier works of Mr. Ruskin. No 
 one can doubt as to the effect of such a comment on 
 Turner’s interpretation of Nature as these works con- 
 tain. A demand at once arose for assistance in the 
 study of Nature, and principally for good water-colour 
 instruction. In this branch of Art the frequent refe- 
 rences made by Mr. Ruskin to the works of Harding, 
 Cox, Prout, Copley Fielding, Stanfield and others, 
 supply the pupil with what may be called a gallery 
 of reference for preparatory study, which will enable 
 him to appreciate the greatest works of Turner in 
 due time. All this is excellent, and has i3roduced 
 great results. But it is certain that Mr. Ruskin never 
 
STUDY OF THE HUMAN FORM. 207 
 
 wished to confine the studies of his disciples to land- 
 scape, still less to landscape inaccurately drawn; on 
 the contrary, we have heard the severity of his system 
 of working complained of somewhat unreasonably. And 
 in some of his published lectures he lays down the 
 principle ' which our Art Schools follow in common 
 with him, that all Art work and study, even in simple 
 decoration and ornament, is based on drawing from the 
 Human Figure. The proper study of mankind is Man, 
 in painting as well as in poetry or philosophy: per- 
 haps for the same reason in both— its great difficulty 
 and absorbing interest. When the pupil has worked 
 through a proper series of casts of other objects of in- 
 ferior beauty, and can draw their lines correctly, and 
 see and lay on their darkest and faintest shades in fine 
 gradation, he is fit to begin drawing such casts as that 
 of the Discobolus, which is one of our chosen models 
 of Art-anatomy. Correct drawing of the figure is tlie 
 end of Drill and the beginning of Art. 
 
 All our drill in form, then, will lead to the study of 
 the human body. By the word ‘ form,’ in this book, is 
 meant not only outline or the conventional boundary 
 of form, but more particularly that modelling of surface 
 within the outline which expresses internal structure. 
 This is called ‘ the light and shade of the particular 
 object:’ although it varies with every relative position 
 of the object and the light in which it is seen. For 
 however the appearance of the shadow may vaiy, the 
 modifications of surface which produce it remain a 
 constant quantity. They ahvays cast a shadow of 
 their own, which resembles them in form, though 
 every change of the angle at wdiich light Mis on the 
 
208 
 
 ACC UR A cr. 
 
 object brings fresh modifications of its surface into 
 sight. 
 
 ‘ Even landscape painters/ says Mr. Armitage, ‘would 
 be the better for a course of real drawing." This sen- 
 tence is one to be carefully considered by professed 
 artists as well as amateurs. And the latter, we think, 
 should attend to it in particular ; that is to say, educated 
 adults who wish really to take to drawing ought to 
 think seriously whether it may not be better to begin 
 with their course of ‘real drawing,’ and learn to go 
 through operations methodically and correctly, and to 
 draw simple things right in the first instance, by simple 
 rules which will apply afterwards to difficult and com- 
 plicated things. It is not easier to draw a sketch of 
 a glen or a stream than to draw the cast of a pome- 
 granate ; yet how many persons with the painter’s 
 instinct in them will begin with a complicated piece of 
 scenery and reject the dull beginning. They had rather, 
 they admit, make a futile sketch of a beautiful thing 
 which will assist their memory, &c., than make a 
 good' drawing of an ugly thing; and it is easier too. 
 No doubt it is. We are afraid that this position is im- 
 pregnable ; for it really implies thorough inattention 
 to the subject. People can only keep in the persua- 
 sion that a ridiculous caricature of a beautiful thing is 
 better than a good drawing of a simple thing, by de- 
 liberate neglect of mind: they will, in fact, hear no 
 reply. 
 
 We must say to all alike. Correctness first, beauty 
 afterwards. If you like deforming Nature first, and 
 sentimentalising over your deformity afterwards, it is 
 not forbidden in a free country. But you ought to 
 
LA NDSCA PE FOR OR O WN A MA TEURS. m) 
 
 begin with steadying your hand and eye by drawing 
 straight lines and rounding tennis-balls. If you will 
 not; if you are already a sketcher ; if real iove of 
 Nature made you one, and you have innocently begun 
 with beauty, you have begun with pudding before meat. 
 Still you may make a good meal if you come to the 
 meat at last. But as at present nothing but pudding- 
 will tempt your artistic palate^ a piece of Albert Durer, 
 a woodcut of the characteristic lines of a photograph, 
 and the photograph itself, have been prepared for you 
 in chapter i. You are first to trace them, then to draw 
 them in pen and ink. You may perhaps work them 
 out tolerably ; but if you cannot do them, why not 
 begin with what you can do ; as, for instance, the curves 
 given in that chapter, or some of the easiest casts in 
 this? If you know what Beauty is, is she not worth 
 serving two months for ? If that be all, you will find 
 her in the casts quickly enough. 
 
 Landscape, in fact, is an excellent introduction into 
 Art, but it is not all Art, or the highest thing in it. The 
 great thing is that it teaches people to look at nature 
 before anything else can, and also commits them to 
 practice in Art by giving them the pleasure of little 
 successes at first. Turner’s first attempts, as they are 
 now to be seen, we think, at South Kensington, are as 
 frank rudimentary efforts at doing what he wished to 
 do but could not dOj as any ordinaiy sketcher’s. He 
 soon withdrew into grey, and began at the beginning, 
 with hard-pencilled straight lines, of walls, &c. 
 
 In a future chapter on Sketching from Nature, for 
 travellers or persons pressed for time, we shall return 
 to the word ‘amateur’ and make some inquiries about it. 
 
 r 
 
210 
 
 SKILL VERSUS BE A UTY. 
 
 At present we have only to say that whatever amateur 
 work may mean beside, it does not mean incorrect work, 
 but incomplete work ; and that work done wrong is not 
 done at all, but only attempted in a futile manner. A 
 problem or a sum is not done when you have multiplied 
 and divided wrong and brought out a wrong answer ; nor 
 is one’s argument completed, when one has reduced one- 
 self ad ahsurdum by one’s own statements, and ceased to 
 argue. But Amateur, we suppose, means Lover of Beauty: 
 and all beginners, old and young, are apt to mistake 
 what is meant for mere training of the hand and eye for 
 serious endeavour to express beauty. They feel it no 
 small vexation to have to pass hours in producing a 
 well-rounded drawing of a tennis-ball by way of train- 
 ing, when they want to paint some favourite scene or 
 portrait straightway. As we have said, the pupil, as 
 such, must put by all his feelings about beauty. They 
 may be intense to passion, but it is ‘skill’ alone which 
 ‘wins grace V not the mere feeling of what one could 
 do if one was skilful. No one must think at first of ac- 
 quiring skill and producing beauty at the same time. So 
 let our pupil repeat the exercises set down for him, with 
 a good courage. The Durer-copying is, in fact, a con- 
 cession to the landscape sketcher, and only granted him 
 in the hope that, having acquired some little accuracy 
 and real power by irregular means, he will seek to gain 
 more by simpler and severer drawing. But for years 
 of progress it will be highly expedient for him to go 
 back to simple exercises from time to time, and 
 practise plain light and shade at intervals : it will 
 
 Kunst macht gunst. 
 
CHALK AND SEPIA, 
 
 211 
 
 ensure his returning to the use of colour with renewed 
 power. 
 
 Now, drawing the human figure is generally admitted 
 to be the central way of learning to draw, consequently 
 w^e must lead our Artistic drill up to it, and, in fact, our 
 Amateur or Landscape drill also. 
 
 Both are, in fact, preparatory courses before our pupil 
 can, properly speaking, begin real study of art. When 
 he has learnt the ordinary processes of drawing and the 
 names and arrangement of bones and muscles, he has 
 learnt as it were to set up the framework and the walls 
 of man’s house of flesh : but this is a mere preliminary 
 to drawing it as it stands : and as study of the frame- 
 work will only teach him correctness, and not distract 
 him with beauty, it is the best training he can have. 
 The study of the form from casts introduces him to 
 beauty : and when he has really mastered that, we are 
 inclined to give him further liberty in three important 
 ways. First, when an able master will give him leave, 
 he may proceed from the cast in chalk to the cast in 
 brush and sepia, and then to the cast in oil-monochrome. 
 Secondly, when he is an advanced student of human 
 form in sepia, or with the hard-point, he may begin to 
 try experiments in colours, always by way of exercise. 
 Thirdly, if he has the painful gift of originality in him, 
 he may now begin to try to use it by designs in pen- 
 and-ink etching; inventing or choosing his own subjects. 
 This, we apprehend, is an adaptation of the severe and 
 excellent system of the French ateliers. Their method 
 of study has this advantage over our own, that it really 
 is a system of progressive training, capable of being 
 adapted to almost any student’s wants. Its principle is 
 
EVIDENCE ON FRENCH SCHOOLS. 
 
 severe labour and gradual progress, repression of crude 
 originality, and devotion to study of scientific drawing, 
 with continual reference from the living model to the 
 cast, and from either to the skeleton. 
 
 Extracts from, Mr. ArmitagVs evidence before the B. A. Commission, 
 Blue-book, p. 543. Ans. 5050, et sqq. 
 
 ^ Q. Do you consider the Drench better draughtsmen than the 
 English (and why) ? 
 
 ^ A. Decidedly : from their thorough education, and the length 
 of time which they devote to the art of drawing. In England 
 nobody knows what drawing is ; it is considered that two hours 
 a day is quite sufficient for learning the art. What would be 
 thought of devoting only two hours a day to the practice of 
 music ? You have to give seven or eight if you want to acquire 
 proficiency; and the art of drawing is at least as difficult to 
 acquire. 
 
 ^ Q. What time do the students in France give to art? 
 
 ‘A. In the private ateliers five hours a day, four of which are 
 devoted to downright hard work ; the remainder being spent in 
 intervals for rest. The public school in the evening afterwards 
 is two hours/ 
 
 ^ There are two separate rooms, one for the antique, the other 
 for the living model. On entering the school the student was 
 set to work at once in the antique school from some cast, and 
 the master would three times a week go among the students 
 and correct the drawing of every individual 
 
 ^ When the professor thinks the student sufficiently expert in 
 drawing from the antique, he tells him to go into the school of 
 the living model, where he has to draw with chalk and charcoal 
 perhaps for another year. Some have to draw for two or three 
 years from the life before they are allowed the use of colours. 
 It is only when the master is fully convinced that the student 
 is sufficiently advauced, that he allows him to take the palette 
 and colours and begin to paint.^ 
 
FRENCH SCHOOLS, 
 
 9A9) 
 
 French academic teaching provides also that the 
 stronger and higher class of pupils shall not be com- 
 pelled by poverty to waste time in painting pictures for 
 sale, but be supported by Art Scholarships, so as to be 
 kept long enough in the student state, and not leave 
 it till they are masters of line, light-and-shade, and a 
 certain (perhaps not very wide) range of colour. In 
 England, a young man of promise is not only allowed, 
 but forced, to begin to paint for money before he has 
 half learnt to paint at all, or even to draw ; and in con- 
 sequence he never completes his Art-education at all; 
 and though natural power, feeling, and sense of colour 
 may enable him to produce original pictures, yet he 
 is hampered in his choice of subject because he is not 
 master of the human figure, and is not able really to 
 aspire to serious work for want of severe study. He 
 is often like a clever private-school boy who has not 
 learnt his grammar^ — and must either fail for want of 
 it, or pick it up by painful waste of labour. 
 
 The fact is that our Art Schools have done more than 
 they professed to do. Their main object was at first sup- 
 posed to be the production of artistic patterns for various 
 manufactures, and the desired results were produced. 
 Young persons were taught real drawing from Nature, 
 and found it easy to produce pretty designs in con- 
 sequence. But a number of them now feel also that 
 there are a great many objects in Art, besides and above 
 good designs for lace or wall-papers ; and that the good 
 training which has been given them is training for 
 higher work as well as for loAver. They want, in tact, 
 to paint pictures. We hope the time may soon arrive 
 when some at least of our Art-manufacture scliools may 
 
214 
 
 ALLOWABLE LNDULGENCES. 
 
 be Art Schools properly speaking ; and establish regular 
 examinations, with pass degrees and prizes, for ana- 
 tomy, water-colouring, and painting. It is a question 
 for the Universities to consider whether they may not 
 be right in taking the initiative in this matter. The 
 encouragement to all higher forms of Art would be 
 incalculably great, if the leading educational bodies in 
 this country would recognize Art as an object and 
 means of Education. 
 
 Still the sense and desire of beauty are something : 
 and no one perhaps is strong enough to go through the 
 proper series of exercises without some indulgence in 
 anticipation of the use of powers which he has yet to 
 gain. Turner’s system in his wide study of inanimate 
 nature was to treat himself to bright local colour in the 
 foregrounds of his sober early pictures ; which were in 
 fact saleable and priceless studies in light and shade. 
 He coloured dead fish like opals on his beach fore- 
 grounds; he introduced rainbows into his storms; he 
 brought in peacocks, or striped dresses, or anything 
 which would give him the keen enjoyment of colour 
 without doing him harm. And we think that the chief 
 reason for using the human figure as a means of general 
 training for all pupils who are strong enough to begin to 
 study it, is that it gives the greatest amount of beauty 
 of line in its severest form, and the most delicate 
 gradations of shade in their subtlest form. Any one 
 who has learnt accurate drawing by means of straight 
 lines, or, as the French call it, ‘drawing square,’ will 
 gladly welcome the greater difficulties and far greater 
 interest of drawing from the cast. It is also the best 
 means of teaching the pupil, who has hitherto de- 
 
USE OF THE BRUSH. 
 
 215 
 
 pended on lines for all marked form and only learnt 
 rounding as an exercise, that there are no lines in 
 Nature after all, and that he must express form by 
 subtle shades. And of course as he acquires an 
 idea of muscular form in man, he is sure to gain 
 power of appreciating surface, and to learn to ex- 
 press its rise and fall by delicate shades without cutting 
 lines. In short, he will come to understand perspec- 
 tive in a practical and Unconscious way; and in fact 
 a very great deal of perspective is to be learnt, for pur- 
 poses of Art, by drawing the deltoid and pectoral muscles 
 again and again. 
 
 So far for the reasons for making use of the human 
 figure (generally speaking, and in its various details), 
 as containing our grammar of practical Art-instruction. 
 For our instruments of study, the young artist will pro- 
 bably begin by working in charcoal and chalk. We 
 think that if he makes rapid progress in their use, 
 which is not unlikely supposing he has been in 
 the habit of drawing rocks or trees with care and ac- 
 curacy, he may soon be promoted to the use of the 
 brush, in water-colour first, and subsequently in oil. 
 Colour is out of the question till an able and uncom- 
 promising master can be got to say he is fit to use 
 it ; and that cannot well be for months. But he may try 
 what experiments he likes in it out of school. There 
 are many grown pupils, we think, who will really be 
 better able to use the brush than the crayon: and if 
 it be so, we do not see why they should not be allowed 
 to put on their lights and shades with the tool to which 
 they are best accustomed; that is to say, after they 
 have drawn their subject carefully in line, and secured 
 
216 
 
 THE WATER-COLOUR BRUSH. 
 
 a proper framework of form to work upon. For aught 
 we see, the water-colour brush and sepia are as good 
 instruments of study as the crayon : and indeed in very 
 deep-toned or large subjects they may he assisted by 
 chalk shading. It is also remarked that many be- 
 ginners find it much more difficult to see or express 
 gradation by means of chalk lines, than to deal with 
 it in water-colour washes. Of course it will often be 
 convenient to work up a drawing as far as possible in 
 pencil, and then wash it lightly with sepia. We have 
 some difficulty in saying whether this license for the 
 brush may not even be carried farther where a person 
 is tolerably well skilled in form, that is to say, when he 
 has acquired the habit of drawing correctly by putting 
 on patches of light or of shade in definite shape ; — sup- 
 posing him to have gained this power (and good land- 
 scape water-colourists often have gained it), we do not 
 in that case see why he should not study the figure by 
 means of monochrome in oil. He must go through his 
 course of line-drawing, till he can put the leading lines 
 of a cast on his canvas correctly ; then we think he may 
 paint its forms in white and umber. He must not think 
 of colour till he knows the use of the brush, and till he 
 has also learnt subtlety in surface-light and shade. 
 
 The pupil must now be put through a course of 
 drawing from casts of various objects, as a prepara- 
 tion for drawing from the human figure. We prefer 
 his working from casts of objects in the school. At 
 other times, we give him leave for practice in rapid 
 sketching from any object he pleases, if it be free from 
 polish on its surface, for reflections are sure to be too 
 much for beginners. If he must make experiments 
 
DRAWING FROM CASTS. 
 
 217 
 
 with colour, we recommend him to take a series of 
 shells, or wild flowers of simple form; or a spray of 
 not more than three leaves, or a greem apple. He 
 should at all events imitate -one of Green's sheets 
 of mixed tints from three colours (procurable at 
 Rowney's, Rathbone Place), and practise Rowne/s 
 sepia lessons. 
 
 It must be remembered that it is much easier to draw 
 a small cast than a large one ; as the eye measures the 
 relative distances with greater ease and precision. It 
 would be a capital exercise to repeat each of the full- 
 length casts given below, drawing them first at about 
 eighteen inches from a small cast, then at a large size 
 from the full size one, 
 
 [The casts here recommended are all used in our Art 
 
 Schools, and are procurable at Bruccianfs in Long 
 Acre.] 
 
 a. Cast of apple, orange, or pomegranate, to be 
 drawn correctly in outline, by means of 
 straight lines, and then rounded and finished 
 in sepia or chalk. 
 
 h. Casts of various shells: rather more compli- 
 cated shades with crossing lines. Sepia or 
 chalk. 
 
 c. Blackberries and leaves (cast), for intricacy. 
 
 d. Cast of arm or leg. 
 
 e. Same ecorche ; muscles exposed. (Names to be 
 
 learnt by heart.) 
 
 /, g. Hand and foot. 
 
 A, i. Hand and foot ; muscles exposed. (Names as 
 above.) 
 
218 
 
 BONES AND MUSCLES. 
 
 j. Face of a cast ^ 
 
 h. Human skeleton from the flat (see photograph 
 No. i). (Bones to be learnt by heart.) 
 
 l. Human figure from the flat ; muscles exposed (to 
 
 be named and learnt by heart). Photograph 
 2 , front muscles : and woodcut of back 
 muscles. 
 
 m. Human figure from cast, full length : various. 
 
 EEMARKS ON THE PHOTOGRAPHS OF THE BONES 
 AND MUSCLES. 
 
 The photographs here given, with the diagrams be- 
 longing to them, are an attempt to illustrate artistic 
 anatomy for the student in the simplest way. It is con- 
 ceived that they will be enough, if they are studied with 
 real care, to enable him to provide himself with correct 
 drawings, on a large scale, of the exterior muscles of 
 the body, of its outer form with its skin and integu- 
 ments, and of its inner framework. No one can learn 
 the living action of the bones and muscles without 
 drawing them. Of course it is a question of great 
 difficulty how much further study of internal structure 
 is necessary for the painter : one may generally say, it 
 is good for him to take as much as he can assimilate, 
 and the work of Dr. Fau, edited by Mr. Knox, or, in 
 its absence, Mr. WarreiTs ‘Manual,' will give him all 
 the information he can desire. 
 
 ^ A list of statues is given at p. 237. The /<xce of one or more of 
 them should be studied as a preliminary exercise in measuring, before 
 the whole form is drawn. The hands and feet are drawn with correct 
 anatomical detail in our photographs. 
 
BONES AND MUSCLES. 
 
 219 
 
 This is not the proper place to go into the question 
 of how great knowledge of the internal structure of 
 things is required of one who only seeks to represent 
 their outward appearance. As a practical rule, the 
 best conditions of teaching seem to be those of good 
 studios or ateliers in France or this country, where the 
 skeleton and anatomical drawings are always at hand, 
 for continual comparison with the cast, and also with 
 the living model. Drawing from one or the other, 
 with continual reference to the other two, and a little 
 advice from a good master, will leave little to desire 
 as to technical instruction. Inventive thought and the 
 spirit of the painter are matters either of spiritual gift 
 or of liberal education. 
 
 The bones and muscles may be drawn correctly on 
 an enlarged scale by the use of the diagrams and 
 photographs at pp. 223-225. The former are enclosed 
 in a rectangle, which is graduated on two sides in 
 half-inches ; on the third side, the artist's way of cal- 
 culating by heads is illustrated. If the pupil divides 
 one of them into half-inch squares with a rule and 
 pencil, he will be able to construct a rectangle di- 
 vided in like manner in any proportion he pleases, 
 and can proceed to draw first the outline of the body, 
 and then the skeleton within it, in chalk or sepia. 
 He can then proceed to the back muscles, which are 
 easier; and, lastly, to the front ones. It is better that 
 he should draw them in the fiat before proceeding to 
 the cast ; but it need only be in correct outline, with 
 just so many lines of the surfixce of each muscle as 
 shall enable him to understand its working and fibrous 
 structure. He will afterwards find it best to draw 
 
S20 
 
 ANATOMY OF THE DISCOBOLUS. 
 
 superficial dissections of some of his copies of full- 
 length figures, taking great pains with the varied 
 position of the muscles and bones. If it be thought 
 unnecessary to make him copy the figures as given 
 in this book (and the assistance of a good master may 
 render it so), he had better begin with drawing the 
 back of a small cast of the Discobolus, and set up 
 the bones and construct the muscular frame within 
 his outline, according to the illustrations. The back 
 muscles should be drawn first, as they are easier: a 
 woodcut from a chalk drawing seems sufficient for 
 them. A small cast is recommended at first, because 
 it is easier to draw correctly from it than from a 
 large one, and the Discobolus, though a very convenient 
 and beautiful model, is not an easy one. It is ap- 
 parently that of an athlete trained for the cestus\ 
 in rather too fleshy a condition to give sharp shadow 
 to his muscles ; and consequently the lines of his back 
 are not marked enough for easy drawing. But the 
 following directions seem tolerably sufficient for a 
 student who wishes to begin drawing him from the 
 cast. (It is assumed that where the cast is used in 
 the first instance, the student has a good book of 
 anatomy at hand ; and that he proposes to make two 
 
 ^ See ‘ Last Days of Pompeii ’ for the curious but probably correct 
 statement that the pancratiasts sought to encourage the growth of flesh. 
 Strange as this seems, it must be remembered that the cestus was so 
 heavy and dangerous a weapon (as Lord Lytton says), that but a few 
 exchanges probably settled every contest with it. Few ‘rounds’ can 
 ever have been fought; the first home-blow on or about the head would 
 determine all ; consequently the necessity for high or fine condition 
 would be removed. Still the Fighting Gladiator seems to prove that 
 modern ideas of condition were conformed to in some cases. 
 

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BLOCKING OUT. 
 
 223 
 
 outlines, and to draw the bones properly within one 
 of them, and the muscles in another.) 
 
 BACK MUSCLES. 
 
 X Spine of Scapula. A Seven Cervical Vertebrae. H Great Trochanter, 
 (Occipital' on back of head omitted.) 
 
 1. Trapezoid or cucullaris. 
 
 2. Deltoids, interlaced half-way up. 
 
 3. Latissimus dorsi. 
 
 4. Infra spinatus. 
 
 5. Teres minor. 
 
 6 . Teres major. 
 
 7. Rhomboidal. 
 
 8. Sacro-lumbar fleshy masses. 
 
 9. Obliquus externus. 
 
 10. Gluteus maximus. 
 
 11. Gluteus medius. 
 
 12. Vastus externus. 
 
 13. Biceps femoris. 
 
 14. Semitendinosus. 
 
 15. Triceps or adductor femoris. 
 
 16. Semimembranosus. 
 
 17. Gastrocnemius. 
 
 ! anconeus exterior. 
 
 interior. 
 
 longus. 
 
 19. Supinator radii longus. 
 
 20, Radialis externus longus. 
 
 21. Extensor common to three first 
 fingers. 
 
 22. Extensor of little finger. 
 
 23. Short muscle of the thumb, 
 
 24. Ulnar Flexors. 
 
 First let him mark the place at which his easel 
 or desk stands, (having previously arranged his cast 
 with its back towards him, as in the photograph and 
 woodcut). Their relative positions ought not to be 
 altered until his work is done. He will probably find 
 it easier to work at a desk at first; but in any case 
 all his measurements must be made from exactly the 
 same place. 
 
 As only half the head is visible in the back view of 
 the Discobolus, the length of some other part must be 
 chosen as a general standard of measurement all over. 
 
 I. Hold up your pencil at arm’s length and measure 
 the cast accurately, say at C D, across the hips ; then try 
 how many times that length is contained in a perpen- 
 dicular line of the height of the whole cast. That line, 
 measured with the pencil at arm’s length, iicrpendicu- 
 larly down the figure, is as nearly as possible 5 A times 
 
DISTANCES. 
 
 the length of the waist-line C D. In our small figure 
 C D is exactly inch long, and the height of the 
 figure is 7^ inches. It is duly scaled for enlargement. 
 Consider your perpendicular line AB as touching the 
 back of the athlete's skull. Then hold up your pencil 
 or a plumb-line against the cast, and measure off two 
 waist-lengths from the top of your perpendicular, and 
 three from its very bottom : mark them. 
 
 2. Hold a plumb-line up again, and calculate as 
 exactly as possible where such perpendicular from the 
 back of the skull cuts across the waist-line of the cast : 
 it falls just one-third across: draw your waist-line ac- 
 cordingly at the proper perpendicular height, just below 
 your second waist-length from the head. 
 
 3. You have now the height of your figure, and 
 one of its breadths. Measure across the shoulders 
 at the widest part; it is a waist and two-thh*ds: draw 
 a line of that length for the very broadest part of the 
 shoulders, at exactly a waist from the top of the head. 
 You will find that at that point on your perpendicular 
 line it is just a waist to the outer edge of the right 
 deltoid muscle above its lower point. Consequently 
 the waist-length will be on that side and the two- 
 thirds on the other. Draw this line, carry off the 
 curve of the deltoids in a right line to the apex of 
 the perpendicular line, and square the head. 
 
 4. Measure again from the left elbow to the right 
 inner knuckle, 2 waists. Knowing the point of the 
 left shoulder, you will easily judge the slight inclination 
 of the line from it to the point of the elbow, and from 
 thence to the discus. You can then draw the elbow and 
 knuckle line, E F, at 2 waists from top of head, 2^ waists 
 
DISTANCES. 
 
 225 
 
 in length. Next, you have one waist from x, the top 
 of the angle of the shoulder, to the elbow at E, and 
 it is almost exactly the same distance from the 
 same point to the upper waist-angle at M : complete 
 this isosceles triangle, and measure off the breadth 
 of the arm at its base. Block out upper arm and 
 side. 
 
 Again: from x at top of the shoulder across deltoid 
 muscle ; 
 
 = from below deltoid to armpit, separation of 
 arm from side ; 
 
 = from that to upper waist — very nearly. 
 
 Measure, with the help of one of the sides, x M of your 
 isosceles triangle ; determine points and block out. It 
 is also an isosceles triangle on the other side from y 
 to F, and to the intersection of the line E F with the 
 side. 
 
 5. The plumb-line will now shew you that the 
 right ankle-bone and knuckle are in an exactly vertical 
 line, and the left armpit, little finger, and end of the 
 block very nearly so. So you have the lines GH, 
 FK. 
 
 6 . It is exactly one waist perpendicular from the sepa- 
 ration of the left arm and side at G to the discus at II, 
 and a very little more from C at the left end of the 
 waist-line to the separation of the thighs. In fact, 
 calling that point L, C L D is almost exactly an 
 equilateral triangle. This will determine ^mur main 
 points and distances. You will easily calculate the 
 size of the hands, &c. by the points already known : 
 and when these lines are secured and understood, your 
 
 Q 
 
226 
 
 PROGRESSIVE DRAWING. 
 
 work should proceed very rapidly and quite correctly. 
 Time may be lost in correcting errors and changing 
 one's ideas, to any extent ; but careful preparation 
 saves it. 
 
 The outer lines may at all events he drawn by them- 
 selves in the order we have given, from the diagram ; 
 they will illustrate the process of ‘ blocking out ' 
 tolerably well. 
 
 The object of this progressive system of exercises 
 is, as will be seen, to enable the pupil to pick up a 
 beginner's knowledge of anatomy while he is labouring 
 at his hand-and-eye education. It is not likely that 
 his attention will be distracted from the search after 
 technical skill in drawing by merely having to know 
 the names of the forms he draws. It is necessary to 
 insert at least one drawing from the flat into the course 
 — that of the human skeleton. Actual skeletons of fine 
 form are not always accessible ; and a little comparison 
 of the drawing with the hones, when their names have 
 been fairly well learnt, will be nearly sufficient know- 
 ledge of the ground-plan of God's image. Our series 
 of examples, as will be seen, falls in with the course 
 of anatomy usually pursued in Art Schools. The 
 skeleton is drawn and the bones well learnt from the 
 correctly imagined frame of some cast. The standing 
 Discobolus will do as well as any other ; the Anti nous 
 has also great claims. The student has next to draw 
 the skeleton clothed with its muscles: and by the 
 time they are propdrl}^ outlined and rounded in sepia, 
 he will be pretty well acquainted with their names. 
 But he is not perfect in his rudimentary knowledge 
 of muscles and bones till he can construct and draw 
 
BEAUTY OF ACCURACY. 
 
 227 
 
 out without copy a tolerably correct and well-propor- 
 tioned skeleton or ecorchd. And he will not have 
 made the best artistic use of his knowledge of the 
 frame machinery of man until he has learnt to see 
 that it is merely an introduction to his after study 
 from the life. One cannot be a thorough painter 
 without anatomy; it is hardly possible to advance 
 in any branch of Art without it^; but it is a means 
 of study, and not an end. Anatomical correctness is 
 no more than grammatical correctness — trifling to 
 possess, but ruinous to be without ; and beauty of 
 drawing is like beauty of diction, or pleasure in well- 
 doing, a kind of hnyi^yvoik^vov TeXog to the work, which 
 comes one knows not how. For there is a kind of 
 beauty in accuracy combined with ease, even though 
 they are combined in drawing an ugly object. It seems 
 paradoxical to talk of a beautiful drawing of a skeleton ; 
 but, at all events, a bad copy of one is so infinitely 
 worse a thing to look at, that the use of the term 
 beautiful may be allowed by force of contrast ; in fact, 
 it is the drawing which is beautiful, or rather excellent, 
 and not the bones ; and we here refer, with some con- 
 fidence, to our photograph from Mr. Macdonald’s dis- 
 section of the Discobolus. 
 
 ^ Sir Joshua Reynolds’s words, ‘A landscape painter ought to study 
 anatomically all the objects which he paints,’ are used, we are glad to 
 see, as a motto for a work already in use at South Kensington, which 
 is now to be issued to subscribers. It is arranged by Thomas Hatton, 
 Esq., and called ‘The Anatomy of Foliage,’ and consists of a series of 
 photographs, in pairs — one of a tree in winter, the other of the same 
 in summer. The principle is obvious, and carries out the instructions 
 of Harding, which are invaluable for beginners. 
 
LIST OF BONES AND MUSCLES. 
 
 Bones, 
 
 1. Frontal. 
 
 2. Parietal. 
 
 3. Temporal. 
 
 4. Occipital. 
 
 5. Seven cervical vertebrae. 
 
 6. Clavicle, 
 
 7. Scapula. 
 
 8. Twelve dorsal vertebrae. 
 
 9. Humerus. 
 
 10. Five lumbar vertebrae. 
 
 11. Ulna, 
 
 12. Radius. 
 
 13. Carpus. 
 
 14. Metacarpus. 
 
 15. Phalanges, 
 
 1 6. Pelvis. 
 
 17. Ilium. I 
 
 18. Ischium. [ 
 
 19. Pubis. J 
 
 20. Sternum. 
 
 21. Sacrum. 
 
 22. Femur, 
 
 23. Trochanters. 
 
 24. Patella. 
 
 25. Tibia. 
 
 26. Fibula. 
 
 27. Tarsus, 
 
 28. Metatarsus. 
 
 29. Phalanges. 
 
 30. End of fibula. 
 
 31. Malleolus. 
 
 32. Five true ribs. 
 
 33. Five false ribs. 
 
 Front Muscles. 
 
 1. Deltoid. 
 
 2. Biceps. 
 
 3. Triceps. 
 
 4. Pronator radii teres, 
 
 5. Supinator radii longus. 
 
 6. Flexor carpi radialis. 
 
 7. Palmaris longus, 
 
 8. Flexor carpi ulnaris. 
 
 9. Pectoralis major. 
 
 10. Obliquus descendens, 
 
 11. Cucullaris (trapezius). 
 
 12. Sterno mastoideus, 
 
 13. Sterno hyoideus, 
 
 14. Serratus major, 
 
 15. Rectus abdominis. 
 
 16. Frontalis, 
 
 17. Temporalis. 
 
 18. Iliacus. 
 
 19. Adductor longus (triceps). 
 
 20. Pectinalis. 
 
 21. Biceps femoris. 
 
 22. Gracilis. 
 
 23. Sartorius. 
 
 24. Rectus femoris. 
 
 25. Vastus internus. 
 
 26. Tensor vaginae femoris. 
 
 27. Vastus externus. 
 
 28. Tibialis anticus. 
 
 29. Gastrocnemius. 
 

FRONT VIEW OF DISCOBULUS. ^33 
 
 Drawings from the cast should, as a rule, be made 
 of the full size of the cast. This is impossible in 
 most whole-length studies, but should be complied 
 with in other cases. The pupil should have every 
 advantage given him in arrangement of lateral light 
 above his work, comfortable desks and easels, and 
 good materials, and everything should be done to 
 enable him to concentrate his attention on mathe- 
 matical accuracy of proportion, between the distances 
 and comparative sizes of parts, in his model and his 
 drawing. 
 
 Almost all draughtsmen vary their method of cal- 
 culating distances in copying a statue. We have 
 already attempted an analysis of the process, but 
 repeat it for the front of the figure, measuring by 
 heads. The Discobolus shall be the chosen model ; 
 and charcoal the material, until our outline is abso- 
 lutely mastered. 
 
 1 . Mark the exact distance at which you sit from your 
 copy, noting the difference between your view of it when 
 you sit up and when you lean back. If possible, make 
 a chalk mark for your chair, easel, and model. 
 
 2. Draw a perpendicular line of the height you mean 
 your drawing to be, and a horizontal one across it at 
 top where you mean to begin: also at its lower end. 
 This will be the height of your copy. 
 
 3. Hold up your pencil at arm's length against the 
 cast, measuring with ^mur thumb the distance from the 
 top of the hair to the point of the chin. That is what 
 artists call a head, and there are eight heads in the 
 average male figure. The Discobolus, like many other 
 athletic statues, is shorter in proportion : only just 
 
234 
 
 DIMENSIONS OF FIGURE. 
 
 seven \ A head is a face and one-fifth, so that there 
 
 ^ We prefer Sir Joshua Keynolds’s reckoning by faces, which we 
 insert here. 
 
 Lengths. 
 
 The ancients commonly allowed 8 heads to their figures, or 7 for 
 short herculean proportions ; we ordinarily divide the figure into 10 faces. 
 
 Crown to forehead 
 
 From lowest hairs on forehead to bottom of chin 
 
 (Forehead, ^ face ; nose, face ; mouth and chin, J face.) 
 
 Chin to pit between collar-bones 
 
 Pit of collar-bone to end of sternum 
 
 To navel i face, to ischium i face 
 
 To upper part of knee 
 
 Knee 
 
 Lower knee to ankle 
 
 To sole of foot 
 
 Faces. 
 
 10 
 
 (The face, it will be seen, is equally divided by a line drawn across 
 through the eyes.) 
 
 Faces. 
 
 Humerus = 2 faces from shoulder to elbow 2 
 
 Elbow to root of little finger . . 2 
 
 4 
 
 Breadths, &c. (approximately.) 
 
 A man with arms outstretched is as broad as he is long, from point of 
 longest finger on right hand to point of longest finger on left hand. 
 
 Faces. 
 
 From pit of collar-bones to shoulder, i face each way . . 2 
 
 From shoulder each way, about face oj 
 
 (This may do for male or female.) 
 
 Waist iV 
 
 Hips 2 
 
 Knee, about oj 
 
 If lines be drawn from the points of a woman’s breasts to the pit 
 between the collar-bones, they form an equilateral triangle. 
 
 The chest is one face deep from the pit of its collar-bones to the ‘box’ 
 of its shoulder-blades. 
 
 The sole of the foot is ^ of the figure, and the thumb = i nose (J face). 
 Middle of arm to beginning of head, 5 noses. 
 
APPROXIMATE MEASUREMENT. 
 
 235 
 
 will be no difficulty in reducing this measurement to 
 that in the note. 
 
 By Heads. 
 
 Chin to sternum^ i ; — to navel, ^ ; to ischium, 3 ; to knee, 5 ; 
 to sole, 7:74-1 — 8. 
 
 Top of hair to forehead ~ roots of hair to centre of eye = thence 
 to meeting of teeth ^ thence to chin ; each ^ head. 
 
 4. Having got the length of the head with your 
 pencil, measure the cast by it accurately, and see how 
 many times the head-length is contained in the length 
 of the body. Be careful to make the pencil descend 
 exactly in the same straight line in measuring. Divide 
 your perpendicular line accordingly on your paper ; you 
 have then the proper height of your drawing, correctly 
 divided into its eight parts. That is to say, you know 
 at what height the chin, the sternum, the navel, the 
 ischium, the knee, and the small of the leg above the 
 ankle of your copy ought to be. 
 
 5. Hold up a plumb-line from the chin (or along the 
 frontal line) of the cast, and mark on your paper where 
 it runs along the body to the feet ; this should give you 
 the pose of the figure, and enable you to mark the 
 horizontal position of the above parts. 
 
 6. You have now the necessary lengths to guide you 
 in your drawing; and may proceed to hold up your 
 pencil once more at arm’s length, to ascertain the 
 breadths, or you may measure from the pit between the 
 collar-bones (a most important point to start from 
 in all figure drawing) to the point of each shoulder. 
 The usual breadths of various parts of the body are 
 annexed. They may be committed to memory, but 
 
236 
 
 ANTIQUE PROPORTIONS. 
 
 are best learnt practically ; or rather they are not 
 learnt till the student is beyond reach of mistake in 
 applying them. 
 
 Breadths in Heads (from Apollo Belvidere). 
 
 Shoulders, 2 heads, across middle of deltoid muscles. 
 
 Waist, at narrowest, i J head. 
 
 Hips, at fork of thighs, head. 
 
 Arms, ^ head. 
 
 The head of the Apollo does not include the top-knot of hair. 
 
 7. You have now secured your 'distances' or pro- 
 portions with some correctness. You must proceed to 
 block out your figure in straight lines, not attempting 
 to imitate its curves. Treat it as you have treated any 
 simple cast which has been put before you, and enclose 
 it with straight lines, verifying them at convenient 
 points, by holding up the pencil to the cast, and making 
 distance A : B in cast equal to corresponding distance 
 a : ^ in your copy. 
 
 The measurement we have given by heads and faces 
 is generally used, and has therefore been adopted. Yet 
 on measuring casts of the great antique statues it will 
 be found that eight heads is decidedly too large an 
 allowance for the standard comparative height of a 
 man. Almost all students will be surprised, on 
 measurement, at the large size of the heads of statues 
 which give the idea of delicate smallness by their 
 finely-formed crania. This impression is probably de- 
 rived also from their exquisite throat-poise, breadth of 
 shoulder, and set of collar-bone. 
 
 It seems that the standard of eight heads has been 
 assumed from the Apollo Belvidere. By allowing rather 
 
ANTIQUE PROPORTIONS. 
 
 237 
 
 largely for the Kpw^vXog of hair, and measuring down 
 to the toe of the advanced foot, one can make that 
 number of him. We add our measurement in heads 
 of a few other well-known statues, from casts or 
 
 photographs. 
 
 Venus of Milo 
 Venus (To Willey) 
 Discobolus (standing) 
 Antinous 
 Germanicus ... 
 
 Heads. 
 
 ... 7i 
 
 nearly 8 
 
 ... 7 
 ... 7i 
 ... 8 
 
 The ^little Apollo'’ (Sauroctonos — wonderfully light, 
 
 graceful, and agile) ... ... ... ... 6| (! !) 
 
 Faun of Praxiteles ... ... ... ... ... 78 
 
 Nothing but continued practice will give the faculties 
 of correct calculation of distances in drawing outline 
 and of subtle gradation in light and shade. But when 
 they are once gained they can hardly be lost, and they 
 will between them enable any person to draw anything 
 which may he set before him. They are as valuable 
 in landscape sketching as in studio copying, and proper 
 use of them makes the difference between good work 
 and failure, truth and falsehood. 
 
 When your charcoal outline is complete and correct, 
 draw it firmly in with chalk, if you propose to make 
 a chalk drawing, or oil study; Avith a hard pencil if 
 you mean to use sepia or water-colour. You should 
 then have lines representing all the limits of your 
 Discobolus correctly, and also lines representing the 
 direction, through their centre or darkest part, of the 
 shades on the body which indicate the projections 
 of the muscles, and the depressions Avhich generally 
 indicate hones, at least in the trunk. If you are 
 
2.^58 PREPARATION FOR SHADING. 
 
 going to use sepia, these latter lines, drawn through 
 and so representing the deepest shade, must be erased 
 before the water-colour shade is put on. It may be 
 well to make a sketch in charcoal only, roughly but 
 correctly imitating the shadows you have to copy by 
 rubbing the charcoal in with your finger to the form ; 
 then to transfer its outline to your paper, and to 
 keep it beside you while you are repeating its shades 
 in sepia. 
 
 To transfer it, you have only to cover its back with 
 black chalk, to lay it back downwards on a sheet of 
 paper, and to pass a hard pencil point over its outline 
 and leading lines. When you have secured your out- 
 line and leading lines, which guide you to the principal 
 shades, you have in a great degree obtained the form. 
 
 You have now to express by crafty gradations the 
 right degree of projection. 
 
 The Venus of Milo may be studied for extreme grace 
 and repose of line. 
 
 The Farnese Hercules, Atlas, or Laocoon as a map 
 of the muscles. 
 
 The Theseus and Ilissus for strength in repose. 
 
 The Torso of the Vatican (‘Michael Angelo's master'), 
 for spring of muscle in motion. 
 
 The Antinous, Germanicus, or the athlete with the 
 strigil, for perfection of strength. 
 
 [Of course, if the student is a young man at all given 
 to rowing, gymnastics and the like, he will have op- 
 portunities of observing muscle in motion, which are 
 quite invaluable. It is most important for him to store 
 his memory with observed forms and facts, even before 
 he can hope to be able to express them by drawing.] 
 
VALUE OF FIGURE DRAWING. 
 
 239 
 
 When he is well able to study the human figure in 
 water-colour or oil from the cast, he has reached a 
 point which allows him a retrospect. He has not only 
 a good deal of hard work to look back to, but some sub- 
 stantial progress, from lines to solids, and from solids 
 to the most beautiful and difficult of all solid objects. 
 He has reached a point of divergence in his progress. 
 He will perhaps continue the study of the human form 
 with a view to attempting the highest forms of Art, 
 that is to say of recording facts which concern the his- 
 tory and nature of man; or in any case, he will have 
 learnt enough accurate drawing to assist him very 
 materially and protect him from anything like gross 
 error, should he attempt portrait, or confine himself to 
 landscape, genre, or still life. He has reached in one 
 sense the end of the course of our present ‘nationak 
 Art-schools ; and may, if he will, enter the regular 
 course of schools of painting. We have already given 
 some reasons why the human figure should be the 
 chief object of study. The principal one was its diffi- 
 culty, from the extreme subtlety of its curves and 
 roundings, and the absence of edges and outlines. 
 The pupil will find that in drawing an arm or a leg, 
 and especially in the more difficult study of a hand, 
 nothing will avail him but knowledge of form without 
 lines. And this is why it is expedient to commit the 
 muscles to memory, and to make careful studies of 
 them before attempting the perfect form. The bones 
 are all outline, the muscles give you the guidance of 
 cutting lines over the whole surface. With the first 
 attempts at drawing from the full-length cast begin all 
 the difficulties of drawing surfaces and foreshortenings ; 
 
240 
 
 PERSPECTIVE. 
 
 and nothing but severe practice can overcome them. 
 In all work where delicate curves are concerned, as 
 well as in all complicated subjects, without exception, 
 the rules of perspective are found rather negative 
 than positive guides. They will secure one from error, 
 especially in architectural work, where the principal 
 lines of a subject are straight; and as the foreground 
 of a picture comes into existence they must be carefully 
 borne in mind. But in landscape which takes in a 
 wide horizon, or in historical pictures of many figures 
 and varied action, there is so much to think of besides 
 vanishing points, and the difficulty of applying the 
 rules of perspective is so insuperable, that a kind of 
 tacit amnesty is allowed the artist, and if there be 
 interest or beauty in his work, few critics are willing 
 to search for mistakes in it; or indeed able to verify 
 them in the complications of the subject. We cannot 
 parse every word we use, nor can the grammar of 
 perspective be all repeated over every tree or stone 
 in a landscape. Yet a grammatical error is unpar- 
 donable in an educated speaker, and a careless per- 
 spective in a middle distance which offends an 
 accurate eye, most grievously diminishes the value 
 of the picture in which it occurs. We remember 
 a water-colour of great beauty and value, where the 
 principal figures stood in a hall or vestibule, with a 
 high flight of stairs in the background, and an open 
 door and lovely piece of garden-scene still further back, 
 partly behind the stairs. An accurate eye instinctively 
 began to count the steps, and compare their height with 
 that of the door — an ordinary back door of a handsome 
 Italian house. Reckoning each stair at 5 inches in 
 
PERSPECTIVE. 
 
 241 
 
 height, that of the door could not have been less than 
 35 feet ; and this absurdity, once observed, could hardly 
 be banished from the eye or the mind. The fact is, that 
 the rules of perspective ought never to be evidently 
 broken, and that breach of them is failure in the gram- 
 mar of Art; but that in many cases it is impossible 
 to apply them accurately enough to detect mistakes, 
 if they exist. Wherever the artist can attend to them 
 he is bound to do so. 
 
 In a practical way, much perspective is learnt by 
 care in anatomy, in the widest sense of that term. Per- 
 spective deals, as we said, with negative information. 
 It will not teach us what hills are like, or trees, or 
 limbs ; but it will tell us what is the error in a drawing 
 of any of them which, as we say, 'looks wrong' in- 
 explicably. One may say, that a master of anatomy 
 is very unlikely ever to go wrong in his perspective. 
 Again, even in wide landscape, you should remember 
 that clouds are wide floating surfaces, and that their 
 shape is much more a question of perspective than 
 you think. Again, remember that correct drawing of 
 the solid angles .of rocks will give unmistakeable so- 
 lidity to your picture, and that arranging angle against 
 angle and edge beyond edge along a hill-side will give 
 a power of distance to a small work which cannot be 
 got in any other way. Besides, the whole character of 
 tree-trunks depends virtually on perspective of their 
 muscular strength or pliancy. 
 
 We must now take up the various processes of 
 shading. 
 
 R 
 
CHALK SHADING. 
 
 
 PRACTICE IN CHALK SHADING. 
 
 The rules for pen-and-ink shading which have been 
 given in chapter i. apply to chalk drawing, and indeed 
 to stippling with the brush. Water-colour drawings are 
 now often laboriously finished in this way, and by cross- 
 hatchings of different colours, which produce a pleas- 
 ing effect when in their place. It seems more appro- 
 priate, however, to use these artifices of high finish in 
 still-life drawings and small studies, like those of the 
 late W. Hunt, than in the higher and wilder landscape, 
 where character is everything. Texture, after all, 
 ought only to be aimed at as a means of expression. 
 Painting pictures up to exhibition-pitch is hardly work 
 for a student. But whether we are to aim habitually at 
 the soft play of light and shade which stippling gives us 
 or not, it is quite necessary to be able to produce it. In 
 colours, we shall take the subject up again at length, 
 but a certain skill is to be learnt by chalk drawing, and 
 still more by using the fine pencil and pen and ink. 
 Patience and a sharp eye are necessary to success ; 
 and we put the virtue before the faculty, because pa- 
 tiently repeated practice, with attention, educates and 
 quickens the eye, in almost every instance, to a won- 
 derful extent. A little practice of the kind we have 
 partly described and are now going on with, will be of 
 the greatest use to a water-colour sketcher who is only 
 accustomed to washing in sketches without really strict 
 form. We do not ask him at once to give up his colours 
 or his bold style, we only suggest that he had better 
 gain a little real command of form, acute judgment in 
 
Dar& Son.tlamiLedjIith Lcmdon, vV I 
 
CHALK SHADING. 
 
 ^3 
 
 light and shade, and ability to draw correct lines : it 
 will not diminish his boldness, but only put reason 
 into it. 
 
 The fact is, fine and subtle gradation in chalk is every- 
 thing — ^though it may, we think, be learnt with the 
 brush and sepia, and though we are not inclined to 
 postpone their use. In the first place, draw in your 
 outline correctly: an egg is the easiest and best object 
 to begin with, but we choose the next step in advance 
 —a pomegranate (see illustration)— on account of its 
 texture. Get a really correct outline of the natural 
 size. Then observe three things: i. Where the high 
 light is, or where the object is brightest. 2. Where 
 the darkest shade on the light- coloured object (you are 
 supposed to be drawing from a plaster cast) meets 
 the dark projected shadow on the table where it stands. 
 3. The irregular line or something like a line of sha- 
 dow across the object, where its roughnesses first inter- 
 rupt the rays of light, or its smooth curves of form first 
 sink away out of their reach. Mark all these lightly on 
 your drawing. Then cover the whole space within the 
 shadow-line with an even tint: first by straight lines 
 one way, then by others intersecting them at a very 
 acute angle, as in the illustration. Three or four 
 sets of lines crossing each other, if steadily drawn, will 
 bring the whole to a rough evenness of tint, ready 
 for stippling. In order to draw the lines evenly, it 
 will be best to cut the chalk to a long smooth point, 
 to hold it long, and to draw the parallel lines rather 
 with the side than with the point, resting your hand on 
 the table, or, rather, sliding it along the paper at every 
 stroke. The chalk, like charcoal and all broad and soft- 
 
2U 
 
 FLA T SHA DING. STIPPLING. 
 
 pointed tools, should be held like a foil or stick, with 
 the thumb uppermost. 
 
 Your object is now to get a quite even flat tint all 
 over the shadow- space of your pomegranate. You 
 are not to attend to either roundness or texture yet; 
 and, in fact, will be distracted and fail altogether in 
 your work if you attempt more than one thing at a 
 time in it. Your crossed lines are now to be stippled 
 flat. To this end first cut your chalk to a very sharp 
 point and fill up all the holes left between the crossed 
 lines; either using the point itself, or, whenever it is 
 possible, delicate lines. Next roll a piece of bread 
 between your fingers into a sort of doughy cylinder, 
 with a point like a pencil's ; and with that remove all 
 the dark spots and crumbs of chalk from your work. 
 Alternate use of the chalk-point and bread-point will 
 soon improve the look of your drawing ; and you must 
 then draw back from it, and observe carefully the 
 lighter and darker spaces which you will still detect on 
 it. Bring them even, with fine lines and careful filling- 
 up of interstices ; and as you proceed with the surface 
 of your pomegranate, take up its dark projected shadow 
 at intervals, and treat it in the same way, noticing that 
 its extreme dark does not extend all over it, and ob- 
 taining some degree of gradation. You will at once 
 notice the roundness and projection which this dark 
 shadow will give your work ; and enough of both will 
 be probably attained, when the form drawn has been 
 softened towards its lower edge, so as to melt into the 
 shade. (In oil painting you would mix the two tints 
 and so obtain reflected colour.) We say your drawing 
 will now be round enough, for this reason ; that it is 
 
REFLECTED LIGHT, 
 
 245 
 
 a common fault of beginners to try to obtain roundness, 
 and even texture, a great deal too early in their work ; 
 and consequently to try and gradate their shadows too 
 soon, instead of giving their whole attention at first to 
 getting a good flat tint of shadow. This must be ob- 
 tained first, according to our directions ; and as soon 
 as it is obtained the shade should be reinforced and 
 darkened, not so much towards the projected shade, 
 but nearest the light. Odd as this may sound, it is 
 right; simply because the shadow of any object is 
 darkest just where it first intercepts the light. We 
 have just noticed this with the dark projected shadow — 
 it is visibly gradated from the object which casts it. It 
 is just the same with the roughnesses or projecting 
 form of your pomegranate : their shadows on the white 
 cast are strongest at their origin. So darken your 
 shade up to the light, with full confidence that the 
 projected shadow, and outline rounded and softened off 
 into it, will make your drawing project ‘till it looks 
 as if it could be taken up.’ Not that that, to a real 
 painter, is an object; for when you get your fruit 
 into a picture which contains more interesting objects, 
 you want your spectator to think about them, and not 
 about taking up pomegranates. As a single study and 
 exercise in projection, you may of course make it as 
 round as you can without sacrificing truths of light 
 and shade. 
 
 You have now to take up the light side of your draw- 
 ing. This for the first time requires you to attend to 
 texture: for it is between the main shade and main 
 light that texture is most noticeable; of course, be- 
 cause all projections in that part of the object cast 
 
246 
 
 TEXTURE, 
 
 characteristic shadows of their own and display their 
 form. Tree-trunks in light are capital examples of this. 
 In most instances it will be best to let shade have its full 
 prevalence over detail or texture; very slight touches 
 with the point of the chalk will do all that can rightly 
 be done; and if the roughness of the rind be well 
 given at the junction of the shade and light, and 
 delicately indicated in the light, the eye will have no 
 difficulty in taking it for granted in the shade. 
 
 A half-tint may be scratched in in lines behind the 
 drawing when finished: it is sometimes well to cover 
 the whole paper with it, particularly when you are 
 using the brush and sepia. 
 
 GENEEAL REMARKS ON DRAWING IN LIGHT 
 AND SHADE. 
 
 The exercises which the pupil has gone through in 
 pen-and-ink shading will soon give him workmanlike 
 correctness in drawing with chalk or charcoal. There 
 is this difference in their use, that as chalk will cut 
 to a fine point, one generally uses the point of the tool 
 in drawing lines or filling up spaces. Charcoal ought 
 to be cut to an edge, and rather dragged along the 
 paper or canvas, than thrust against it. Both chalk 
 and charcoal must be used with the whole hand, play- 
 ing freely from the shoulder \ The pencil should be 
 held like a foil or single-stick, with the thumb as its 
 principal guide. A little practice on a black board or 
 a wall will soon give all the necessary confidence and 
 
 ’ We repeat our caution to keep your eye at least two feet from your 
 work. 
 
ECONOMY OF SHADE, 
 
 247 
 
 accuracy. A mahl- stick should be used, but occasional 
 practice without it is desirable. It is better to draw 
 forms without, and fill up and lay on shade in lines 
 with its assistance. It is of importance in drawing a 
 round object, as, for example, an apple or an orange, to 
 express its form with a certain economy of darkness 
 in your shade. All the great colourists seem to have 
 found this necessary, for fear of sacrificing the bright- 
 ness or mutual relation of their tints to mere projection 
 of form. Nothing is really gained by making a figure 
 look as if he was walking out of the picture ; he ought 
 to look as if he was doing or suffering something in the 
 picture, and not out of it. We here consider smaller 
 objects, as fruit, &c., in the light of preparatory exer- 
 cises for more important works. We begin of course 
 by learning to make our apple look round ; and we 
 advance to making it look round as an apple looks, that 
 is to say, we advance to representing it at its proper 
 pitch of colour as an object reffecting light, and also 
 in proper relation to other objects in a picture. The 
 fact is, that fine gradation in light and shade suggests 
 colour, whereas over-expenditure of darkness suggests 
 charcoal only. The perfection of sepia drawing is that 
 the spectator shall forget the unpleasant brown-grey 
 of the sepia, and look on the work as simple light and 
 shade. Now, crafty and gradual progress from light to 
 shade will make this possible for him, and will accord- 
 ingly be a good test of the excellence of the work. 
 The following extracts from ‘ Modern Painters,' vol, iv. 
 pt. iii., will explain this in some measure. TJie whole 
 chapter ought to be carefully studied, but an analysis 
 of part of it seems expedient here. 
 
248 
 
 SCALES OF LIGHT AND SHADE. 
 
 It begins by making the reader understand the dif- 
 ference between whiteness and brightness, or actual 
 reflected light. The highest light in a picture is white 
 paint or paper in shade; for no picture can be properly 
 seen with the sun's light shining upon it. Now if a 
 piece of the whitest paper be held upright near a 
 window whose light (not sunshine) falls sideways upon 
 it, it is in the fullest light in which it can possibly be 
 seen when it has a picture painted on it ; and being 
 in the fullest light it is as white as possible. Yet if 
 it be held out of window against clear sky, it at once 
 appears and is much darker than the blue sky, and 
 infinitely darker than bright clouds, which are white 
 against that blue. This shews the smallness of the 
 range of the lights and darks which can be used in 
 painting, and the comparative whiteness of white paper 
 and illuminated cloud is calculated at about lo and 40 ; 
 the azure light of clear sky being represented by about 
 20. The various systems by which the greatest amount 
 of truth in light shade and colour has been obtained 
 with such inadequate means are then classified and 
 explained as follows: — ‘Suppose the utmost light you 
 wish to imitate be that of serene feebly-lighted clouds 
 in ordinary sky : not sun or stars, which it is impossi- 
 ble deceptively to imitate in painting by any artifice. 
 Then, suppose the degrees of shadow between those 
 clouds and Nature's utmost darkness accurately mea- 
 sured, and divided into 100 degrees, darkness being 
 zero. Next we measure our own scale, calling our 
 utmost possible black zero^; and we shall be able to 
 
 ^ Even here we shall be defeated by Nature, her utmost darkness 
 being deeper than ours. See Part II. sect. ii. ch. i. § 4-7, &c. 
 
SCALES OF LIGHT AND SHADE. 
 
 249 
 
 keep parallel with Nature, perhaps up as far as her 
 40 degrees ; all above that being whiter than our white 
 paper. Well, with our power of contrast between zero 
 and 40, we have to imitate her contrasts between zero 
 and 100. Now if we want true contrasts, we can first 
 set our 40 to represent her 100, our 20 for her 80, and 
 our zero for her 60 : everything below her 60 being lost 
 in blackness. This is, with certain modifications, Rem- 
 brandt's system. Or, secondly, we can put zero for her 
 zero, 20 for her 20, and 40 for her 40 ; everything above 
 40 being lost in whiteness. This is, with certain modifi- 
 cations, Paul Veronese's system. Or, finally, we can 
 put our zero for her zero, and our 40 for her 100, our 
 20 for her 50, our 30 for her 75, and our 10 for her 25 ; 
 proportioning our intermediate contrasts accordingly. 
 This is, with certain modifications. Turner's system ; the 
 modifications in each case being the adoption, to a 
 certain extent, of either of the other systems. Thus, 
 Turner inclines to Paul Veronese; liking, as far as 
 possible, to get his hues perfectly true up to a certain 
 point; that is to say, to let his zero stand for Nature's 
 zero, and his 10 for her 10, and his 20 for her 20; and 
 then to expand towards the light by quick hut cunning 
 steps, putting 27 for 50, 30 for 70, and reserving some 
 force still for the last 90 to 100. So Rembrandt mo- 
 difies his system on the other side, putting his 40 for 
 100, his 30 for 90, his 20 for 80; then going subtly 
 downwards, 10 for 50, 5 for 30 — nearly everything be- 
 tween 30 and zero being lost in gloom, yet still so as to 
 reserve his zero for zero. The systems expressed in 
 tabular form will stand thus : — 
 
250 
 
 SCALES OF LIGHT AND SHADE. 
 
 Nature. 
 
 Kembrandt. 
 
 Turner. 
 
 Veronese. 
 
 0 
 
 0 
 
 0 
 
 0 
 
 10 
 
 I 
 
 10 
 
 10 
 
 20 
 
 3 
 
 20 
 
 20 
 
 30 
 
 5 
 
 24 
 
 30 
 
 40 
 
 1 
 
 26 
 
 32 
 
 50 
 
 10 
 
 27 
 
 34 
 
 60 
 
 13 
 
 28 
 
 36 
 
 70 
 
 17 
 
 30 
 
 37 
 
 80 
 
 20 
 
 32 
 
 38 
 
 90 
 
 30 
 
 36 
 
 39 
 
 100 
 
 40 
 
 40 
 
 40 
 
 It is clear that, on Rembrandt’s system, while the con- 
 trasts are not more right than on Veronese’s, the colours 
 are all wrong from beginning to end. With Turner and 
 Veronese, Nature’s lo is their lo, and Nature’s 20 their 
 20, enabling them to give pure truth of colour up to a 
 certain point. But with Rembrandt, not one colour is 
 absolutely true, from one side of the scale to the other ; 
 only the contrasts are true at the top of the scale. Of 
 course, this supposes Rembrandt’s system applied to a 
 subject which shall try it to the utmost, such as land- 
 scape. He generally chose subjects in which the real 
 colours were very nearly imitahle — as portraits or figures 
 with dark backgrounds, in which Nature’s highest light 
 was little above his own : her 40 being then truly repre- 
 sented by his 40, his picture became nearly an absolute 
 truth. But his system is only right when applied to 
 such subjects; clearly, when we have the full scale of 
 natural light to deal with, Turner’s and Veronese’s con- 
 vey the greatest sum of truth.’ 
 
 The annexed drawings of the same piece of drapery 
 illustrate this quotation sufficiently well; the darker one 
 is on the Rembrandt principle, the lighter one on Turner’s. 
 

CAST SHADOW. 
 
 251 
 
 In the first, the highest light is white, and the darkest 
 parts of the white Arab ‘ abba' represented are brought 
 down correctly to black. This is the system pursued by 
 Leonardo da Vinci as well as Rembrandt. The other 
 drawing is on Turner's system : the high light is dis- 
 tinct enough, but shade is economized, and the darkest 
 parts of the shade are kept pale. It will be seen that 
 the former method is excellent for study of parts, or 
 single objects in light and shade only, with a view to 
 obtaining as much form as possible ; but that it is dis- 
 tinctly inferior to Turner's, in which the form modelled 
 in light and shade is considered as prepared to receive 
 colour, and to form part of a regular picture. One 
 dwells entirely on the fact that the folds are round, 
 the other also on the fact that they are white and 
 yellowish, with a black pattern meandering about them; 
 and it seems that the first loses more in turning white 
 into black, after all, than the other loses by want of 
 emphasis on the shades. What has been said already 
 of the importance of getting a flat surface of shade 
 in drawing a rounded object like a lemon or pome- 
 granate, is quite in accordance with this; and so are 
 the remarks about reinforcing the shade near to the 
 light, since the darkest shade on the surface of an 
 object will always be thrown by those irregularities 
 of the surface which first meet the light. The shadow 
 cast hy the whole object itself on the plane on which it 
 rests is of course more dark and solid b It is a different 
 matter altogether, as has been said, either from the 
 
 ^ This of course depends on the colour of the plane. If the object 
 itself be much darker in colour than the surface on which its shadow 
 falls, the cast shadow will be lighter than that shadow. 
 
253 
 
 USE OF THE BRUSH. 
 
 natural light and shade belonging to the structure of 
 the object, or again from accidental shadows cast upon 
 it by other things. In our Discobolus, for example, 
 the shadows which give roundness to the muscles, 
 and those on the left sides of all the limbs, are 
 the natural light and shade of the figure; the discus 
 would cast a shadow upon the figure if the light 
 were the other way; and if it were part of a picture 
 involving sunlight, the figure itself would cast a long 
 shadow to the right, which would be distinct from the 
 other two. 
 
 The Rafael and Michael Angelo drawings in the 
 Gallery at Oxford are wonderfully instructive as to the 
 completeness of form which may be obtained by 
 subtlety of gradation without violence of gradation. 
 Whole groups are drawn in perfect roundness and 
 relief, in which the scale of darkness begins with dim 
 white, and does not sink below a grey half-tint. 
 
 As has been said, we are in favour of our piipiks 
 being allowed to use the brush, instead of the crayon, 
 in his light and shade studies, as soon as he can 
 appreciate the greater power and subtlety it wiU give 
 him. It will be for a master to judge of the proper 
 time ; we think it should come as early as possible, 
 because it is with the water-colour brush in particular 
 that the habit of drawing forms with both edges of 
 the tool is learnt, as well as that of giving every 
 touch its planned and considered shape. We must 
 return to this subject hereafter. 
 
OIL AND WATER-COLOUR, 
 
 253 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 USE OF WATER-COLOURS.— INTRODUCTORY. 
 
 I T is hardly necessary, for the purposes of this book, 
 to speak of the comparative importance of water- 
 colour drawing and of oil-painting. Both vehicles have 
 advantages of their own ; but it cannot be disputed 
 that the balance of power inclines in favour of the 
 latter, so that a master of oil-painting can do more, 
 and in a more forcible way, than a man who is his 
 equal in power, and who uses water-colour alone. Still, 
 some of the most thoughtful and beautiful works in 
 modern Art are in water-colour: and that not only in 
 pure or mixed landscape, as in Turner's Goldau and 
 S. Gothard — but in poetical or historical figure-subject 
 of the highest aim. It would not be easy to find 
 pictures of greater power of thought and poetry than 
 Mr. Burne Jones’s S. Dorothy ; The Winepress, and The 
 Mill, by Mr. Spencer Stanhope; or than Mr. Lewis’s 
 Sinai. Yet the last-named painter repeated his great 
 work in oil; and though few, perhaps, of its specta- 
 tors preferred the second edition on canvas to the 
 first on paper, it had the advantage of undoubted per- 
 manency, which is certainly in favour of oils. At the 
 same time, care and good air-tight frames and protection 
 from bright light will preserve the most delicate water- 
 colour for an indefinite time ; and a water-colourist 
 
254 
 
 COPYING. 
 
 has a right to expect that his works will be tenderly 
 handled. Pictures are not set up like iron targets, to 
 stand the utmost amount of battering. It may, perhaps, 
 be questioned whether oil-paintings are not subject to 
 special perils by cleaning and restoration. But, how- 
 ever this may be, the practice of water-colour first 
 claims our attention in this book, as an easier means 
 of teaching or of self-instruction than that of oils. 
 
 When you have gained a certain proficiency in draw- 
 ing from the cast and in the studio, you have to proceed 
 to work from Nature. That is to say, you will either 
 go into the life-school, and pursue its various studies 
 of the human form, draped or undraped, or you will 
 begin with landscape : or take up a course of studies 
 of coloured objects at home, to acquire knowledge and 
 power in near and local colour. If you really mean 
 to make all possible progress, you certainly must not 
 relinquish the study of the human form. But in so 
 small a work as this, you must be treated for the pre- 
 sent as a fairly disciplined draughtsman, educated up 
 to landscape point ; capable of making a workmanlike 
 sketch or drawing in sepia, and of putting fairly well- 
 drawn figures into it when you think fit. The subject 
 of sketching from Nature is taken up further on. A 
 little copying to learn a moderate scale of landscape hues 
 will now be advisable. Of course if you have hitherto 
 manfully adhered to the free-hand curves, and drawing 
 from the cast, and to that only, a few copies in sepia 
 from the 'Liber Studiorum,' or from photographs, will now 
 be necessary. Mountain photographs are always to be 
 had : choose, if possible, some scene you know ; or take 
 up some of Mr, Hatton's trees in sepia. The ‘ Liber 
 
PIGMENTS, 
 
 ^255 
 
 Studiorum ’ will teach you much form and composition ; 
 and its plates are accessible, at a reduced size, in photo- 
 graphs, published by Mr. Hogarth, of Mount Street. 
 Having done one or two of these on an enlarged scale 
 (first in bold ink outlines, then in sepia light and shade), 
 take up one of Rowney's three-colour lessons in land- 
 scape, which will give you a certain scale of greys, 
 greens, and yellows. You ought not to be confused 
 with too many ‘ pigments ' — (the use of this truly dis- 
 gusting term is compulsory) — hut you ought to be 
 allowed any greys or yellows you fancy, always remem- 
 bering not to indulge in too much rose-madder, so as 
 to make the greys too purple in your distances, as 
 young landscapists always do, if they can. Suppose, 
 then, you add the following colours to Rowney's three 
 (i.e. raw sienna, indigo, and sepia) : — 
 
 Brown madder, excellent with cohalt, in distance, for 
 cloud, or calm shades, mountains, &c. 
 „ in middle distance, with raw sienna, 
 
 and cobalt or indigo, for yellow and 
 green greys. 
 
 „ very powerful in foreground for sharp 
 
 points of shade : with Vandyke brown. 
 
 Cobalt, excellent in almost all mixtures : too 
 
 raw for skies, unless mixed with 
 white or a little yelloAV ochre. 
 
 Light red, all storm-greys contain it, mixed with 
 cobalt or black, or both. 
 
 Burnt sienna, rich yellow-brown, autumnal or warm 
 greens, with gamboge and a little 
 Prussian blue. 
 
256 
 
 THEORY, 
 
 Rose madder, pure greys and purples, with cobalt. 
 
 Gamboge, transparent yellows and emerald green. 
 
 Yellow ochre, semi-transparent yellows (and with 
 emerald green for spring foliage). 
 
 These, with black and Vandyke brown, lake to 
 deepen browns and purples and for force, and Chinese 
 white to mix in distance-blues, will do very well to 
 begin with. Emerald green requires special care, as 
 it is charming when well kept down, and thoroughly 
 agonizing when abused. But spring greens are not 
 to be obtained without it. I am personally very 
 partial to yellow and scarlet madder, but they can 
 be dispensed with. You should use a colour if you 
 really like it, but still with moderation. 
 
 If you like to begin colour with a series of shells, or 
 of wild flowers, it is perhaps the best thing you can do. 
 A judicious master will direct you in the matter ; or 
 your decision may depend on the time of year. You 
 cannot well go out for real open-air drawing in winter, 
 late autumn, or early spring, at least not systematically. 
 In summer, you had better begin to make water-colours 
 while the sun shines, out of doors. 
 
 And before you begin to lay colours on, pay attention 
 to the following remarks on them, which, if remem- 
 bered and carried out, will have more effect on your 
 progress in Art than you can at present think 
 possible. 
 
THEORY. 
 
 257 
 
 THEORY OF WATER-COLOURS. 
 
 When pigments are spread upon a surface, their effect 
 of colour and impression on the eye are produced in one 
 of two ways, according to the mechanical nature of the 
 substance of the pigment. It is either opaque and solid, 
 or it is transparent. In the former case, the light which 
 falls on the paper, or part of it, is reflected from the 
 surface of the colour laid on, not at all from that of 
 the paper : the light does not reach the paper through 
 the solid surface of colour any more than through a 
 plate of metal. The colour shines for itself, and has 
 a fixed place in the scale of light and dark; nor can 
 you darken it by increasing its quantity, hut only by 
 mixing it with some darker hue. It is, on the paper, 
 either lighter or darker than its surroundings, and will 
 not be made any darker by more of it being put on. 
 This is what is meant by body-colour. 
 
 In the use of transparent colours, a thin film or layer 
 of colour is interposed between the white surface and 
 the eye : and the colour we see is the result produced 
 by white light passing through this film or coat. The 
 effect is of the same nature as that which would be 
 produced by laying a very thin plate of stained glass 
 on the white surface. Then, if another plate of glass 
 were laid over the first, the strength of the colour would 
 be increased, but it would also be made darker in pitch 
 of shade ; and if this were continued, the colour would 
 first reach its maximum of intensity as regards hue \ 
 
 ^ The word ‘hue’ always refers to variation of colour; the word ‘tint’ 
 to variation in depth of shade. There are many different tints in a sepia 
 drawing, hut no hues. 
 
258 
 
 OPAQUE AND 
 
 and would afterwards grow darker and darker in shade. 
 For the light would have to pass twice through the suc- 
 cessive layers of colour ; first to reach the white paper, 
 then back to the eye to produce on it the effect of the 
 white paper flus the colour spread upon it. This is the 
 difference between transparent and body-colour, turning 
 on the effect of surface through the colour. Of course 
 washes of colour are not exactly like plates of stained 
 glass : in the first place, any number of the latter may 
 be laid one over the other, while it ds impossible to lay 
 on more than a certain number of coats of colour with- 
 out disturbing the under surface ; in the second, the 
 colour comes thoroughly into contact with the paper, 
 and is incorporated with it ; so that owing to the texture 
 of the paper, which as it were backs the colour closely 
 up, a certain amount of white light is refiected back to 
 the eye from the hue without reaching the paper (as 
 if the hue had been opaque). This white light neces- 
 sarily makes the colour appear less pure. Again, very 
 few pigments are completely transparent ; and, in prac- 
 tice, opaque colours are often put on in thin washes to 
 produce certain effects, the peculiarity of which depends 
 on the greater or smaller quantity of white light re- 
 fiected from their surfaces, when they have been laid 
 on the paper. 
 
 Painting in fresco and tempera, as at present prac- 
 tised, is necessarily body-colour work. It is stated 
 by Mr. Crowe that Masaccio used many wai^m trans- 
 parent glazings in the frescoes of the Carmine. They 
 seem, however, to have been swept smoothly on, over 
 designs already modelled in solid light and shade to 
 great completeness : and he is said, again, to have put 
 
TRANSPARENT COLOUR, 
 
 J^59 
 
 his high lights upon them in body-colour, as in oil- 
 painting. However it may be, oil-painting combines 
 both solid and transparent work; while water-colour, 
 as we understand it here, is essentially work done 
 with transparent colours. It is not that body-colour 
 is excluded, but the principle of operation; — at least 
 by far the best principle for those who are entering 
 on the very considerable difficulties of the work 
 seems to be as follows. You start with a completely 
 white surface reflecting a certain amount of light 
 and no more. That amount of light and no more 
 is all you can have for your picture; at present it 
 is a blank of high light. So you proceed to obscure 
 it in certain parts by laying on washes of colour, 
 and to carve your picture out, working from light to 
 dark. The lightest green goes on the trees first, then 
 they are rounded and modelled with darker tints; 
 and so with the stone-greys or browns. Throughout 
 you use the white of the paper for light, and lay on 
 colour in others, hiding the light so as to give shade, 
 and working from light to dark, by putting on darker 
 and darker patches in as definite forms as possible. 
 
 This process in its perfection implies the use of trans- 
 parent colour; and it is clearly the most straight- 
 forward way of going to work, to lay on the light 
 tints first all over, then the darker ones, one after 
 the other, according to their degree of strength or 
 darkness, each of them covering a less space, and 
 leaving the lights. The edges of these coats or patches, 
 if delicately and well shaped and rapidly put on, are 
 one of the especial beauties of Avater - colour : and 
 nothing but the mind and hand of the able workman 
 
260 
 
 WASHING DOWN. 
 
 can give them. I should think most people who look 
 at the frontispiece of this book will consider it a 
 good chromograph of a very charming little water- 
 colour. And I wish that, as an illustration of my 
 meaning, they could see the original (by Mr. Macdonald, 
 who is also in fact the author of these instructions 
 in water-colour). For it must be confessed that, to 
 an instructed eye, the chromograph is necessarily far 
 inferior to it, for want of keen edges and sharp touches/ 
 It is richer in colour however ; and any one conversant 
 with the matter (i. e. who knows what it is to have a 
 favourite drawing of his own rendered in chromograph 
 by strange hands) will consider that Messrs. Day and 
 Son have well deserved of the authors and readers 
 of this book. Here, however, is a good place to introduce 
 a remark which I must reiterate continually, that the 
 great use of water-colour practice is to teach a man 
 to put on every touch in a planned form, at least all 
 through the constructive part of his picture. Glazings 
 and scumblings in oil-colour are allowed of course — 
 they are the privilege of the oil-painter. Washing 
 down with clear water, in water-colour, is also admis- 
 sible; it cannot of course take the place of drawing, 
 but it often produces pleasant effects of texture in 
 an easy way; and there is no harm in it any more 
 than in the oil-scumble, unless it be used to disguise 
 bad drawing. But washing out is not drawing in 
 rightly, and the latter is what I want my student to 
 attend to. And the first and last habit of the water- 
 colour painter is to be always cutting out forms with 
 his double-edged, or rather many-edged, brush. Use 
 a long red cutting sable ; large or small, let it be 
 
DARK OVER LIGHT, 
 
 261 
 
 always long haired^ — and hold rather by little brushes 
 than big ones. And remember that every touch put 
 on is as a word in a sentence, or a sentence in a 
 speech, and that nonsense-drawing is nearly, though 
 not quite, as bad as rhetorical verbiage. Character, 
 vigour, and meaning of expression— these are the 
 things which make drawing a pursuit worthy of 
 a man. They cannot be taught him like shading 
 or perspective; but he can teach himself to store 
 his memory with form by continual attention to 
 form, so that his brush always moves to express an 
 idea, or a part of an idea;— and when he has begun 
 to work in that way habitually, he may well hope 
 that something will come of it. 
 
 Now the system of laying the dark tint over the 
 light conduces especially to precision in the forms 
 of the light portions: a matter, as we say, of the 
 greatest importance in foreground work. Suppose you 
 have to represent the figure here given in four w^ashes 
 
 
 1234 
 
 of colour, and to shew the separate portions as clearly 
 as possible. Cover the whole with a w^ash of the 
 strength of the tint between i and 2. When that is 
 dry, lay on one a little darker from 2 to the end ; a 
 third from 3 ; and lastly, the darkest one at 4. By 
 this means each portion will be clearly and distinctly 
 marked off from the others. If the darkest shade 
 ^yere put on first and the three others worked 
 
262 
 
 GRAD A TION, 
 
 over it, it would run over the edge into the next space, 
 destroying the evenness of the tint and the clearness of 
 the line of separation. There is not the same danger 
 where the lighter tints come first : the only effect of the 
 successive washes may be to make the boundary lines 
 a little softer. This is often desirable ; and the method 
 is followed in cases to be hereafter referred to. 
 
 As the sky and distance are generally the lightest 
 part of the work, it will be best in general to begin 
 with them. I must here refer to p. 248 for the reasons 
 of the next remark which is to be made, namely, 
 that all clear skies must be in some degree conven- 
 tionalized, because we have not, like Nature, unlimited 
 command of brightness of light and depth of shade. 
 If you were to try to preserve the apparent relations 
 between the light and dark of clouds and clear sky 
 among themselves, and then to go on with the proper 
 contrasts in shade between the sky and the rest of 
 the landscape, and the various parts of the landscape 
 with each other, you would find yourself reduced to 
 the blackness of darkness before you had got the 
 shades even of the lightest part of the picture. So 
 the darker parts of the cloud must be kept as light 
 as is possible consistently with a fair amount of cloud- 
 form. You will see at the very beginning how much 
 roundness, relief, and definite shape can be given 
 by delicacy of gradation, using almost no intensity 
 of shadow, i. e. no strength of colour representing 
 shadow. And here, as elsewhere, the landscape artist 
 who has submitted to proper training will feel the 
 advantages of knowing the grammar of Art, and pos- 
 sessing a practical knowledge of gradation. 
 
TEXTURE OF PAPER. 
 
 265 
 
 It is a common practice to paint sky and clouds 
 in colour rather stronger than you intend them to 
 appear, and then to remove a portion of the colour, 
 after it is thoroughly dry, by washing it with clean 
 water. If this is successfully done, that is to say, 
 if an equal proportion of colour is removed, over the 
 whole work, the effect is to make the whole sky 
 lighter, without losing the clearness and distinctness 
 of the forms of cloud and shadow. Some artists even 
 use powdered pumice-stone with the same view: and 
 in either way, a ‘quality' is often obtained which 
 is valuable in skies and distances. A granulated 
 effect is produced by the colour being partly removed 
 from the upper surface of the paper: for all paper 
 used for large-size works in water-colour has a more 
 or less rough texture of surface, which is called its 
 grain. When a tint of colour has been laid on, well 
 dried, and then washed with a large fiat brush or 
 sponge, a portion of colour is removed from the little 
 projections of the paper, while all remains nearly 
 untouched in its hollows. Consequently, instead of 
 a thin coat of perfectly even colour, you have a tint 
 spread over the paper which is composed of number- 
 less small spots of lighter or darker colour, so close 
 together and so uniform in shade as to give the 
 same effect of evenness, with variety of delicate light, 
 which is produced by fine stippling. This tint expresses 
 distance better than a perfectly even coat on a smooth 
 surface. Even the roughness of the paper, without 
 washing, will produce this effect in some degree ; 
 as the depressions of the surface give minute points 
 of shade and its projections of light : so that the 
 
264 
 
 DR A WING 
 
 flat tint is broken and distance obtained. The question 
 of using rough or smooth paper requires a little 
 notice here. Rough paper is like any other rather 
 good thing, it is easy to abuse it and make it harmful 
 instead of useful. As we have said, there is a 
 reason, and a good one, for using moderately rough 
 paper, for painting in one’s clouds and skies firmly, 
 and then for washing them down to obtain air and 
 delicacy. But you must draw your clouds and skies 
 first, or gradate your flat sky if there be no clouds. 
 And where you are using sunset colours, I cannot 
 think washing advisable, because however clean your 
 water may be, it must take away the purity of the 
 pinks and yellows as first laid on, if they are washed 
 over along with the blues and purples. The blues 
 or purples must always be laid on first, and the 
 yellows over them. Setting this aside, and making 
 the rule to do our sunsets in W. Turner’s way^ 
 (see p. 1 88), we will agree to wash over our cloud-forms 
 when drawn: but drawn they must be. Good forms 
 half washed out are better than they were before. 
 So indeed are bad ones: but then the further course 
 of treatment is different, because the good ones may 
 be left to stand perhaps for centuries, and the bad 
 ones ought only to be further improved washing 
 till they disappear altogether and you have the paper 
 to try again on. In short, wherever in your picture 
 you are able to use the sponge without disturbing 
 any under-coat of colour — and wherever you use it 
 to produce a designed effect — there you are right: 
 
 ^ Or it may be better for beginners to reverse it, beginning with 
 pure water and adding colour from another saucer or palette. 
 
VERSUS WASHING. 
 
 265 
 
 but when you have got, say as far as the more remote 
 part of your middle-distance, then resign all thought 
 of everything except definite drawing. If you have 
 an error or a mess anywhere, wash it right out, and 
 all that is in its immediate neighbourhood, down to 
 the paper: but do not try to obtain chance effects, 
 by washing two or three madders, cobalt, yellow ochre, 
 and light red, already mixed in greys, into a kind 
 of puree over your carefully drawn lines. Accidental 
 effects and successes are a nuisance to be avoided 
 by every student; they only tempt him to forget the 
 purpose of his work, the thought he started with, 
 and the lines he drew to guide him in realizing it. 
 Excitement and confusion are the curse of beginners 
 in original work : and those perhaps suffer most 
 who have most originality— at least, who have most 
 feeling. 
 
 So do not wash your sky without a reason and 
 design, or your distance at all. And as to paper, 
 use the smoothest on which you can get colour to 
 run pleasantly, without forming irregular edges and 
 stains from too rapid drying. Yet there is a reason 
 for the use of moderately rough paper by those who 
 can be trusted to draw accurately upon it, and not 
 abuse it. It is that greater brilliancy of colour may 
 be obtained upon it. Every one knows that the 
 brilliant colours we see in Nature (as in flowers), or 
 in various fabrics (as in velvet pile), owe their rich- 
 ness in great measure to the nature of the surface 
 which reflects them. The petals of a flower are 
 composed, like velvet, of small filaments placed close 
 together, each of which has a light side and a dark 
 
2(56 
 
 AERIAL PERSPECTIVE, 
 
 side. Now, purity of colour is destroyed equally 
 by too much light and too little ; (in any round 
 coloured object on which light falls, the purest points 
 of colour are somewhere between the light and the 
 shade). Therefore there will be a high light, a dark 
 side, and a part which shews the true and perfect 
 colour, on every filament of the velvet and on every 
 little projection of the paper, and, from the form of 
 the projections, a particle of pure colour will be sent 
 from each to the eye in any position. Now, a coloured 
 surface which is perfectly smooth depends entirely 
 on the angle of its light, and only a few of the rays 
 which are most favourable to the colour reach the 
 eye in any one position. The eminences of the rougher 
 paper each reflect you a ray of the colour at its best, 
 and consequently you get more perfect colour in the 
 same space: though at the same time there is a 
 greater absorption of light. 
 
 To return to our skies and distances. It will be 
 understood that all colours must be greatly changed 
 by distance from the eye. Great part, if not the whole, 
 of the subject of aerial perspective is involved in these 
 changes of colour: and their various causes cannot 
 be enquired into here. It is enough to say that 
 from refraction, which increases according to the 
 quantity of moisture in the air, and often from the 
 presence of more or less visible water vapour, all 
 colours in distance are in a certain degree discharged, 
 and made to blend together into a nearly uniform 
 tint of bluish-grey. As has been hinted in Part I, 
 in the chapter on the works of Masaccio, the term 
 ‘Aerial Perspective' is somewhat undefined, and may 
 
VARIETY, 
 
 
 mean anything, from the effect of projection which 
 is caused by our naturally binocular or stereoscopic 
 view of objects, to the partial or entire evanescence 
 of a mountain-scene behind rising mist or stooping 
 thunder-cloud. In fact, it is a matter of colour or 
 of the use of white with other hues, practically 
 speaking; and in a book like this, mainly consisting 
 of rules, we can only speak of linear perspective ; 
 because it only is reducible to rule. There is no telling 
 anybody how blue or how dim a distance may look: 
 nor is it easy to say how many different causes may 
 produce what are called effects of aerial perspective 
 in different parts of the world. I have seen mist 
 drawn up, exactly like a curtain, displaying the 
 whole valley of the Rhone, from the top of the pass 
 above Martigny; and have had, for ten minutes, a 
 sudden vision from the slopes of the Faulhorn of the 
 whole Lower Glacier of Griindlwald. I have seen the 
 Mount of Deliverance, and all the Desert round the 
 Gulf of Suez, reeling with mirage and dim with 
 excess of light. Everybody has seen English fogs 
 and thunder-storms; and every sketcher at least will 
 know the way in which all the usual conditions of 
 warm and cold greys are inverted, when the sun 
 shines powerfully on a heavy bank of rain-clouds, 
 changing what was purple and black into warm 
 brown and yellow. Yet all the indescribably different 
 ways of expressing distance under these various 
 lights come under aerial perspective, so called ; while 
 the effect of space and distance in cleai* sunsets, 
 &c., depends greatly on there being no mist at all : 
 nor can there be any in many historical pictures 
 
268 
 
 LINEAR PERSPECTIVE, 
 
 in which the foreground is everything, and no dis- 
 tance is introduced, as in Millais’ Huguenots The 
 fact is, that though expression of aerial distance 
 depends greatly on obscurity or cold colour, it may 
 be produced in Nature by other causes, and may 
 therefore be referred to other causes in a picture, 
 unless it tell its tale ably. But distance depending 
 on linear perspective, i. e. on real drawing, is unmis- 
 takeable ; though it often takes a real draughtsman to 
 appreciate it in a picture. However, a certain licence 
 is allowed to the weakness of man, who cannot draw 
 all things; and so it happens sometimes that figures 
 in a picture, under ordinar}” calm daylight and not 
 fifty yards from the eye, have a blue or grey medium 
 scumbled in between them and the front of the scene I 
 It is theatrical, and wrong: but it is always being 
 done, and then its perpetrators talk about aerial 
 perspective, because they either cannot draw or will 
 not trust their drawing. ‘Da mihi fallere,’ quoth 
 Juvenal, ‘et fraudibus objice nubem^ and if ‘fraus’ 
 may rightly be construed ‘ bad drawing,’ the quotation 
 applies perfectly to our own highly finished pictures. 
 The honest rule for either student or painter is always 
 to aim at clearness, unless he wishes to call attention 
 to obscurity, as in storm effects, which have a set 
 of phenomena of their own well worth recording. 
 The incident of a cloud on a hill-side may be intended 
 to convey the idea of new-fallen rain rising again in 
 
 ^ See The Stones of Venice, vol. iii. p. 47. 
 
 ^ Hamerton, A Painter’s Camp, ‘On Aerial Perspective about 
 Glencoe,’ &c. 
 
 ^ ‘ Grant me not to be found out — and hide my impostures in a mist.’ 
 

FRONTISPIECE. 
 
 269 
 
 ‘ dewy steam V or of bad weather coming on ; or it may 
 be put there only to cover space — in the first or second 
 case the picture is better for it, in the other it is worse. 
 
 To take up the frontispiece in its colours. Three 
 stages are given which illustrate the system on which 
 you have been advised to paint; viz. that of using 
 transparent or semi-transparent colour, and of working 
 from light to shade throughout. Look well at its First 
 Stage, and compare that carefully with the finished 
 chromograph, which you must have before you for 
 that purpose all through your work. For these pages 
 are an attempt at giving you such a lesson as a 
 fairly good master would give you, by painting before 
 you from Nature, and giving explanations as his 
 work proceeds. The finished frontispiece stands for 
 Nature : the two earlier stages represent the advancing 
 transcript. Neat and attentive work should enable 
 you to do something nearly as good as the latter; 
 and you ought to work up to the colour of the 
 former^ and at last surpass it, by means of that 
 sharpness of touch which nothing but educated eyes 
 and fingers can produce. 
 
 FIKST STAGE OF FRONTISPIECE. 
 
 Now lay aside the finished frontispiece, take up 
 the first stage, and make an outline of it, with a 
 hard pencil, clear, fine, and in the lighter parts of 
 the picture, where local colour and shadows are fiiiiit, 
 scarcely perceptible. It will be better to make this 
 
 ^ Christian Year — ‘Morning Hymn.’ 
 
270 
 
 FIRST SHADOWS. 
 
 on a scale of not less than twice the size of the 
 actual plate. If your pencil lines are too strong at 
 first, rub them nearly out with bread, so as not to 
 have any black lead on the paper, which might spoil 
 the purity of your colours. In the foreground, or 
 where the shadows are stronger, this caution is of 
 no consequence, as the colour will hide the lines. 
 Forms of clouds should never be drawn with the 
 pencil when they form part of a water-colour picture : 
 but careful studies in line should be made of clouds 
 only, at other times. 
 
 Next put in the principal shadows on those objects 
 which are well defined in light and shade, as the 
 dark sides of the large stone and some of the others 
 in the middle of the picture; also the dark foliage, 
 leaving the rather intricate bright-green forms of the 
 leaves untouched. If you have made a good outline, 
 and will use a small brush, you will be able to do 
 this neatly: and having once done it, you will have 
 made some progress in mapping out your work, and 
 really know where the colours are coming, so as to 
 be able to lay them on quickly and confidently; for 
 quickness of touch is everything in water-colour, when 
 correctness is once gained. Use cobalt and brown 
 or rose madder (or perhaps light red) for these guiding 
 shadows, and let all dry. 
 
 This is a kind of exception to our general rule 
 of 'dark over light’ — but observe that the actual 
 work of laying on colour is not yet begun. These 
 grey shadows ought not to be dark enough materially 
 to affect the stronger colours which are to come 
 over them. They are only meant to determine the 
 
UNDER-TINT. 
 
 271 
 
 whereabouts of the shadows, and to save time and 
 confusion hereafter. When you have to match the 
 local colour, you ought to have form as decided and 
 as little distracting as possible. 
 
 Now pass a light tint of yellow ochre, mixed 
 with a little brown madder or light red, over the 
 whole drawing: except where any pure colour is to 
 come, as in the bright yellow-greens in the middle, 
 the two blackberry sprays against the stone on the 
 right, and the purple heath-bells and ferns to right 
 and left. Proceed thus : begin at top with clear water, 
 add a very little of the tint as you descend, and 
 increase it towards the bottom^: — but keep it light 
 throughout, or your picture will look hot. (Of course 
 in an Eastern subject you would want heat and 
 glare, and would reverse this caution ; but even 
 there you must be moderate, for fear of losing light.) 
 The effect of this ought to be to bring the picture 
 together in the first instance, and prevent your falling 
 out of tone ; that is to say, losing the proper relative 
 intensity of tint in different objects according to 
 distance. According to our former definition, intensity 
 of tint will mean the same thing as pitch of shade 
 (expressed in sepia or one colour only) ; intensity of 
 hue will mean purity and force of coloui\ Lemon- 
 yellow or extract of vermilion are intense hues ; 
 violet-carmine an intense tint. The strength of this 
 warm ground tint, as has been already hinted, must 
 depend on the warmth or coldness of the light 3'Ou 
 wish to diffuse over your pictm*e: sunset is warmer 
 
 See W. Turner’s metliod, p. i88. 
 
272 
 
 FIRST COLOURS. 
 
 than sunrise, and sunshine than the diffused daylight 
 of a cloudy morning. 
 
 There is another reason for this warm tint, which is, 
 that water-colours have a tendency to dry colder than 
 they looked when first put on. As the paper dries the 
 colour clings closer to the surface, from which more 
 white light is thrown back, so that the tints look paler 
 and colder. But if a ^ure blue sky be required (which 
 is very unlikely, unless you are representing a space 
 between clouds after rain) the warm wash must not go 
 over it. Its chief value as regards colour is, that it keeps 
 down or subdues all the hues except the pure colours, to 
 which of course you wish to call attention. You will 
 be able easily and quickly to vary its strength in dif- 
 ferent parts of the picture, as on the stones and dark 
 water, if you have studied them carefully, so as always 
 to know where they are. 
 
 Now take up the different parts and paint the tints 
 in the first stage over them in correct form, as near as 
 you can. 
 
 The sky is cobalt, slightly broken by the under-tint, 
 and carried over the grey distance. 
 
 The grey distance, rose madder and cobalt. Then 
 wash your brush lightly; half dry it (not in your 
 mouth, but on blotting paper), and take a little more 
 rose madder into it, with some yellow ochre. Lay it 
 on the hill-side to the left, running a little of the grey 
 in again at bottom and carrying the same over the 
 right-hand far hill-side almost to the right side of the 
 paper, leaving the ragged edge. Let dry. 
 
 Mix a little white with all these hues. 
 
 Next, the lower edge of moor on the left — a little 
 
DARK OVER LIGHT. 
 
 green at top (faint Prussian blue, burnt sienna, and 
 gamboge) ; brush half- washed, and the madder mixture 
 run in below to form. 
 
 Now take up the lightest stone-colour — light red and 
 cobalt ; — best match all the tints and hues on the side 
 of your copy. Run it all over the stones, dark green 
 shade and water ; avoiding the two blackberry sprays on 
 the right. You have them drawn in pencil — go as near 
 their lines as you can, but at all events leave them clear. 
 If your copy is twice or thrice the size of the frontispiece 
 you ought to be able to manage this, if you have gone 
 through proper training. You will soon feel the benefit 
 of sound training in every touch : your brush will begin 
 to go right of itself, as soon as your eye and mind are 
 used to the forms, and your work will look always like 
 a workman’s. Of course even a good studio-workman 
 will hesitate at landscape forms at first : the only thing 
 is, that if he wishes to learn them, he will do so in a 
 very short time. A good Latin scholar will stick at an 
 Italian book a little at first, but a week of dictionary 
 will enable him to read it pretty freely. 
 
 Where there are evidently two tints on anything, lay 
 on the lightest first, according to our rule. You must 
 be most careful in your forms everywhere : but where 
 you have a darker tint in reserve to define them, you 
 need not be so anxious about the lighter one. For 
 instance, you next lay on your bright greens — emerald 
 green pure on the blackberries only; emerald green and 
 gamboge elsewhere, with here and there a blending of 
 the dark warm green. Then touch the masses of heather- 
 bloom, with rose madder and a little white, all over. 
 As has been partly said, when it is dry you will be able 
 
 T 
 
274 
 
 FRONTISPIECE. 
 
 to work out the forms by putting in the dark green 
 stalks and foliage, carving the pink blossoms out, as it 
 were, with the deeper colours. So with the ferns below, 
 and with the bright ash saplings in the centre, and the 
 blackberries below them. Finally, the dark water, when 
 sharply put in with burnt sienna and a little grey or 
 green, will give great effect to the stones. Lighten it 
 a little with the brush for their reflections, and, if neces- 
 sary, glaze over again with burnt sienna, or that and 
 gamboge. 
 
 Remember particularly that wherever light cuts 
 against dark in intricate form our rule is absolute 
 that the light should be correctly laid on first ; since 
 the darker tint can always be used to cut out the 
 proper shape of the lighter hue, though that, w^hen 
 first laid on, may have somewhat transgressed its 
 boundaries. 
 
 Mixing colours in the brush, as I have recommended, 
 is a matter of practice. It gives natural transition of 
 colour with a certain degree of truth, and determines 
 much for the picture, as colours contrasting well and 
 quickly blended into each other secure good effect 
 throughout. The leading rule is, do not touch twice; 
 good, bad, or indifferent, as the case may be, carry 
 your tint evenly up to the next necessary outline of 
 form ; soften it off, or leave it sharp, and let it all 
 dry before you alter : you will often find it dry to 
 your satisfaction. 
 
1 
 
 
 
 If/-. 
 
 
 
 A 
 
 n . 
 
 
 1 "' 
 
 « 
 
 
 
 i^ 
 
 
 i^:-' 
 
 .» 
 
I 
 
SECOND STAGE. 
 
 Tir, 
 
 SECOND STAGE OF FRONTISPIECE. 
 
 When the ground-colours of a water-colour drawing 
 are laid on, as in our first stage, the real work may be 
 said to be mapped out rather than begun. At the same 
 time, if it has been well thought out beforehand, if a 
 good preliminary sketch or blot has been made, or if 
 the student has studied his subject well enough to know 
 what he is going to do, he may proceed in a methodical 
 way, with tolerable certainty of fair success. It may 
 be remarked that the intricacy and minuteness of the 
 frontispiece will be of the greatest use to any one who 
 will faithfully work out a copy of it, because it will 
 prepare him in some degree for the difficulties of close 
 sketching from ' Nature. Without anticipating the 
 chapter on that subject, it is enough to say, that any 
 person who has hitherto only drawn from models or 
 single objects in the studio will be surprised and con- 
 fused, in all probability, in his first attempts in the 
 open air, or from a tent, or window. He has hitherto 
 drawn uncompromisingly, and with the certainty of 
 being able to render all he has seen before him to draw. 
 He has now to realize from the first that he cannot 
 represent all that meets his eye ; to effect a series of com- 
 promises between his own powers and the multiplicity 
 and variety of Nature ; to put in this and leave out that ; 
 to be confused by grandeur of general impression, and 
 distracted by beauty of detail. The sharpness of 03 e 
 he has acquired will, for a time, tend rather to his con- 
 fusion, by making him see more into form : and, more- 
 over, he has now' to deal with subjects where change 
 
276 
 
 FORM BY SHADOWS. 
 
 and motion are involved. This is why we recommended 
 careful study of the frontispiece before taking up the 
 representation of its first stage. We wanted the thought 
 of the sharp-eyed sketcher, well trained in-doors, to pass 
 through the student's mind, ‘ How am I ever to get all 
 that in?' In short, the frontispiece is the result of 
 a tough and successful struggle with Nature, and its 
 difficulties are in some degree those of drawing from 
 Nature. As we have said, our studio-trained pupil is 
 like a good Latin scholar beginning to read and speak 
 Italian. He feels he has a great deal to learn. But he 
 will learn it very much sooner than one who knows 
 no Latin. 
 
 The second stage of the drawing introduces us to 
 a new set of difficulties, which depend on knowledge 
 of Nature rather than of Art. Now we have hitherto 
 talked of nothing but Art, or technical means of repre- 
 senting Nature. A book on the Beauties of External 
 Nature, and which of them to choose for subject, and 
 how to represent them, would soon grow into a whole 
 library, if it were faithfully written. All we can do 
 is to point out some of the natural phenomena in the 
 frontispiece, chosen for their beauty, fitness, and interest, 
 and give the student some notion of how to record 
 them: when he has made a good copy of the work 
 before him, he will not be totally helpless before Nature. 
 But exact recipe what to do is henceforth impossible. 
 
 However, take the distant mountain in the second 
 stage and put in its shade with pure cobalt, and perhaps 
 a little white. Then take a little rose madder with it, 
 and put in the edgy distinct shadows in correct form 
 on the distant hills right and left. They represent 
 
MAKING OUT, 
 
 277 
 
 hollows in the mountain, or shadows of rocks. The 
 rose madder patches on the top of the left-hand hill 
 are patches of distant heather. Put them in, imitating 
 the horizontal streaky touch, which in fact represents 
 the perspective of the little plots of heather growing 
 along far-off ridges. Use a small long-haired brush, 
 and cut sideways with it. Darken the upper stones, 
 and the central oak-bush ; and now pay great attention 
 to cutting out the light forms of the ash and black- 
 berry \ Put some brown madder into your darker 
 green for the shade hue ; or use raw sienna, brown 
 madder, and cobalt together ; or gamboge, indigo, and 
 a little Indian red. 
 
 Unless you are quite sure of them, trace out the forms 
 of the ferns and leaves in right and left foreground 
 with a sharp hard pencil, following the outline left in 
 the second stage. Then put on the shade with a fine 
 brush, leaving the lights, and working as quickly as 
 possible, never touching more than you can help. You 
 will see what value the shade will give the bright 
 greens which are left. So with the grass on right 
 hand. 
 
 Go over the water with burnt sienna and gamboge, 
 gradating from the dark shadow under the big stone : 
 leave the centre reflection ; and observe that the brown 
 peat water reflects a light object much better than a 
 dark one. 
 
 Take a faint transparent grey (your original madder 
 and cobalt will do), and go over the undulation of the 
 
 ^ The perfect sharpness of the bright leaves is reserved for the last 
 shadow, as, were it done now, it would have to be repeated with that — 
 nearly impossible to do exactly. 
 
278 
 
 FRONTISPIECE. 
 
 light surface of the big stone; and model the others 
 also with a darker and warmer grey, adding a little 
 Vandyke brown to the grey you are using. 
 
 Add some stronger touches of rose madder to the 
 heather-blossomf 
 
 Faintest rose madder and cobalt shadow on the white 
 cloud. 
 
 THIRD STAGE OF FRONTISPIECE. 
 
 This stage of your subject tries both your knowledge 
 of Nature and your technical skill considerably more 
 than the others. It requires a smaller brush than the 
 others, and darker and more transparent colours. 
 Almost the whole surface of the drawing has to be 
 gone over again with small touches: and the great 
 difficulty is, that these touches ought not to be an un- 
 meaning stipple, but everywhere suggestive of form. 
 It is the misfortune, and not the fault, of the chromo- 
 graphed frontispiece, that, like all chromographs, it 
 wants the rapid sharpness of touch and minute sig- 
 nificance of form which the original possesses in a 
 remarkable degree. But there is enough form in it 
 to render it highly instructive, and more particularly 
 so to those who have been accustomed to careful 
 sketching and watchful observation of natural objects 
 of landscape. Advice about finishing your copy must 
 necessarily be more vague than before. But, supposing 
 that you have produced a decent imitation of the 
 second stage, you will have a tolerable idea of what 
 is required to finish your work, even before you take 
 up the third. That want is expressed by the words 
 
THIRD STAGE. 279 
 
 ‘making out/ That is to say, you want additional 
 facts principally of form : for on our system of laying 
 dark over light the pure colours are left from the first, 
 and if they have been kept clear, you have already 
 secured the best part of your colour. It is possible 
 for you to glaze with transparent tints, and so give 
 greater richness to your work in parts; but finish of 
 that kind is beyond all rule and direction. So, indeed, 
 are the broad washes of shadow which water-colourists 
 are always having recourse to when detail has been 
 painted too strongly in middle-distance or elsewhere, 
 and when various objects at different distances look 
 equally forcible. Under such circumstances the eye 
 does not know where to go in the picture; there is 
 no governing point of attraction, but various points 
 which are equally attractive, and the attention is not 
 properly led on from one to the other. To do this 
 is the object of composition; and in the chapter on 
 that subject some principles and rules are attempted. 
 At present we can only say, that a half-finished 
 drawing often looks unconnected, and what painters 
 call ‘ spotty.' They then say that it wants ‘ bringing 
 together,' or massing : and this generally has to be 
 done by throwing broad veils of shadow over those 
 lights which separate isolated features. This, however 
 necessary, is still a corrective process (unless, indeed, 
 it has been designed from the first), and in theory 
 ought not to be necessary, as the features of the 
 drawing ought to be put in at once at the right pitch 
 of shade and hue; and to have been composed and 
 arranged at first in proper subordination to each other. 
 Now compare the second and third stage, and proceed 
 
280 
 
 LEAF-PERSPECTIVE. 
 
 to make out the two distant hills by putting in quick 
 triangular or lancet-shaped touches of light ultra- 
 marine or cobalt, which stand for shadows of rocks 
 seen in perspective. Express the undulations of the 
 moor-ground by hatched lines in the proper direction. 
 Deepen with small sharp touches suggestive of rock 
 (to learn to suggest you must study rocks or rock- 
 photographs) the ‘ coire,’ or hollow side of distant 
 mountain. Then take up your foreground of grass 
 and leaves, with small touches of gamboge, burnt 
 sienna, and Prussian blue, in different strengths. Be 
 very careful to give the masses of foliage their per- 
 spective : notice the roundness of the dark bushes and 
 the brambles in the foreground. Observe how the 
 sprays and leaves stand like leaves, edgeways in great 
 measure, and all shewing different perspectives. Do 
 not miss a leaf, that is to say, put in every one you 
 can as it stands in the copy. If it be too intricate, 
 that is what it is there for : it represents Nature, 
 which is still more complex, and is in fact intended to 
 puzzle you. Take a part separately on another piece 
 of paper : for instance, the ferns, &c. between the two 
 nearest grey stones on the left, and try to imitate 
 them exactly: and then return to the rest. Whatever 
 the look of your copy may be in the end, you will have 
 gained considerably by having made it ; and will feel 
 that gain with the very next drawing you begin. 
 
 The water is now finished by clear touches of Van- 
 dyke brown, which represent the shadows of its faint 
 ripple, or its deeper parts. The yellow lights are pebbles 
 at the bottom, slightly interfered with by faint stone- 
 grey refiections from the large stones above the water. 
 
REMARKS. 
 
 281 
 
 Notice, and try to render, the variety and gradation of 
 depth in the colours of the little pool. 
 
 Almost every square inch of the frontispiece will 
 make a useful exercise, especially of its foreground : 
 and no one who can imitate its bushes and foliage 
 pretty well is likely to feel helpless, when he has to 
 draw trees on a larger scale. 
 
 EEMAKKS. 
 
 The student may be now supposed to have reached 
 the point at which he may begin original work, or, in 
 other words, begin to study Nature for himself without 
 rigidly prescribed method. We apprehend that the t^fm 
 ^ original ' is, when well considered, a very wide one in 
 Art ; and that it applies to all pictures, &c. in which 
 either pupil or master attempts to record for himself 
 what he has seen for himself. It is quite natural and 
 quite right, and an excellent way of employing time, for 
 a young person to make careful copies of good pictures 
 or models under the eye of a master, or even without 
 one. But it can only result in a copy, or repetition 
 of another person’s work. When the pupil has gained 
 skill enough to observe Nature with an eye to recording 
 the beauty of Nature, and to set such record on paper 
 in an intelligible form, the work produced will not 
 perhaps look so successful as a copy, but it will be 
 a work in another and far higher class. 
 
 The Exercises already set forth are almost entirely 
 technical. They have been principally on Form, because 
 power of representing form is much more easily com- 
 municated than power of colour. We have anticipated, 
 
282 
 
 CONVENTIONAL COLOUR, 
 
 in the last chapter, a statement we now repeat, that 
 colour in Landscape, and all highly interesting or 
 complicated subject, is always to a great extent con- 
 ventional. This is caused, as has been said, by the high 
 lights of Nature being brighter than any white or 
 yellow light which can be put into a picture. It 
 is also true that the deepest shadows of any scene 
 which contains powerful light and shade are stronger 
 than any black or deep brown with which we can 
 match them in painting it. It follows that all the 
 scales of colour we can give are more or less tentative 
 and conventional, and that in using them the student 
 will have to trust his own eyes after all. It has 
 already been explained, that on Rembrandt’s system 
 of giving up colour in the dark shades, and choosing 
 subjects like single heads and dark interiors where 
 the brightest light was strictly within his reach, almost 
 absolute truth may be attained. But the possibility 
 of this will depend on the subject; and any landscape 
 scene of natural light and shade, or figure -subject 
 involving variety of tint and colour, will put it out 
 of the question; the range of light and shade and 
 variety of colour are so infinitely greater in an open- 
 air scene than in an interior. 
 
 Landscape studies in water-colour will naturally 
 come first. As most commonly happens, our student’s 
 choice of subject may be already determined by 
 natural taste or previous study. Those who prefer 
 the modern water-colour styles of more or less 
 conscientious drawing, will choose their master more 
 or less wisely, and imitate Nature more or less in 
 his way. Harding’s, or Cox’s, or Front’s published 
 
cox, PROUT, AND HARDING. 
 
 283 
 
 examples and advanced lessons in water-colour will 
 probably find many disciples; and very considerable 
 advance may be made by taking them as guides. 
 Their tints of colour may be used, and their usual 
 methods of composition studied, and an attentive 
 disciple will soon pick up their simpler arrangements 
 of light and shade, and learn to dispose his own 
 sketches in the same way. But hardly any one who 
 has gone with tolerable attention through the lessons 
 we have already given, ought to think it enough to 
 arrange sketches into problems of light and shade 
 in a methodical and dictated way. Enough accuracy 
 of eye and delicacy of hand ought now to have been 
 gained, to dispose the student himself to modify the 
 manner of any master he may have chosen for the 
 time; and in fact to begin to form a style of his 
 own. There is no harm done if he remains a copyist : 
 for he may record natural facts in David Cox’s way 
 to the end of his lifetime without the process doing 
 him anything but good: but being himself, and not 
 David Cox, he ought to have in him a way of his 
 own. Of course he must fall short of his models 
 in their strong points; but he ought to be able to 
 see their weak ones plainly enough, and wish to 
 avoid them. Besides this, the real power of drawing 
 which he will have gained will probably make liis 
 style in landscape a rather defined one at first, and 
 he will be both able and willing to realize and work 
 out his foregrounds with some attempt at exactness. 
 And Avhile he honestly indulges this ambition liis 
 success is almost a certainty ; though he may feel 
 imcxpected disappointments at first. ^Memory, feeling. 
 
284 ) 
 
 DIFFERENCE OF SIGHT. 
 
 and past travel and experience of scenery and natural 
 effects will be all called into play. He is able to draw 
 anything that will wait for him, perhaps; but he will 
 soon find himself, in natural study, struggling with waves 
 and clouds, and gazing after evanescent bursts of light. 
 The freedom and incessant variety and change of 
 Nature will confuse him at first; and he will find 
 new ideas of space, multitude, and vastness come to him 
 in a highly disturbing manner. And this effect will 
 be yet further increased if he belongs to the first 
 of two classes,^ into which all persons of good sight, 
 considered as actual or possible artists, may be divided. 
 
 These are, in two words, the minute-sighted, and 
 the far-sighted. This difference has been long ago 
 pointed out in Mr. Riiskin's pamphlet on Pre- 
 Rafaelitism, where the essential principles of good 
 Art-work are proved to be the same in exact fore- 
 ground work as in well -rendered subjects which 
 involve distance and a wide horizon. He takes Millais 
 as the representative of limited space and minute 
 realization of detail on a comparatively large scale, 
 and Turner as the great master of effects and impres- 
 sions ; equally faithful in detail, as detail would appear 
 to the eye of a spectator whose attention is really 
 called upon by objects of great interest and beauty 
 in distance or middle-distance. The difference, roughly 
 speaking, is that of scale. Where the whole scene of 
 a picture is bounded by the four walls of a court 
 or small garden, or a corner of either of them, all 
 the objects of detail strike the eye differently, and 
 are, as a matter of common sense, to be rendered 
 more sharply, than where the eye of the spectator 
 
TURNER AND MILLAIS. 
 
 285 
 
 ranges over a wide valley or chain of mountains: 
 the vastly greater extent of horizon and space of 
 course makes all the difference ; the principle of paint- 
 ing things seen as they are seen being equally carried 
 out by both artists. But the distinction between the 
 typical characters had better be given in the words 
 of its first observer : — 
 
 ^ Suppose two meiij equally honest and industrious,, equally 
 impressed with a humble desire to render some part of what 
 they see in Nature faithfully. One has feeble memory and 
 invention and excessively keen sight; the other is impatient,, 
 has a memory which nothing escapes^ and unresting invention ^ 
 and is (comparatively) near-sighted. Set them both free in a 
 mountain valley. One sees everything, small and large, with 
 almost the same clearness, mountains and grasshoppers alike. . . . 
 He chooses some small portion out of the infinite scene, and 
 calculates the number of weeks which must elapse before he 
 can do justice to the intensity of his perceptions. . . . The other 
 has been watching the change of the clouds, and the march 
 of the light along the mountain-sides. He beholds the entire 
 scene in broad soft masses of true gradation. . . . (There are) mul- 
 titudes of circumstances impossible for him to represent. But 
 there is not one change in the jagged shadows along the hollows 
 of the hills but is fixed on his mind. ... As for his sittino* 
 down to ^^draw from Nature,^'’ there was not one of the things 
 which he wished to represent that stayed for so much as five 
 seconds together : but none of them escaped, for all that. It 
 is absurd to expect these men to possess any of the qualities 
 of each other.^ 
 
 The leading distinction between the methods of 
 work which these two sorts of men will pmrsiie will 
 of course turn on this, that one man’s whole subject 
 will generally wait for him, the other’s will not. 
 
286 
 
 PLANNED FORM. 
 
 Both, however, must cultivate rapidity and decision — 
 the first of course depending on the last. The 
 student here enters on the painter's great difficulty 
 and leading rule of knowing what he has to do, and 
 doing it. It will be more fully spoken of when we 
 come to our chapter on Landscape Sketching from 
 Nature. But rapidity is absolutely necessary in 
 water-colour, to prevent drying and unpleasant edges 
 in one's work; and, moreover, the particles of colour 
 seem to arrange and gradate themselves best in 
 quick touches. But a rule already hinted at (p. i8o), 
 must now be ‘made absolute' in all our work: that 
 every touch that is put on shall have a planned form, 
 or be part of a larger planned form. Though it may 
 be impossible to carry this rule out altogether, still it 
 cannot be approached too closely. It is the habit of 
 rendering form with single touches, made expressive on 
 both sides of the brush at once, which makes water- 
 colour training so valuable, as it necessitates con- 
 tinual attention, and incessant application of the eye 
 and mind. We repeat, the outline of each touch must 
 often express form on both sides. The slower processes 
 of oil-colour are surer and less distracting. Of course 
 if it were possible to store one's memory with forms, 
 by any means except repeated attempt at rendering 
 forms, such means might be taken, and the painter 
 might duly form a stock of ideas in his memory, and 
 then deliberately compose from it in oil-colour. But 
 the painter's memory is best supplied with form by 
 practice in the quick clear touches, broad or subtle, 
 of the water-colour brush: from it he will soonest 
 learn what expression is: and he may enter on all 
 
fV. HUNT AND LEWIS. 
 
 $>87 
 
 painting through its means, as piano -practice will in- 
 troduce him to all music. Perhaps the ideal artisfs 
 career would thus begin with water-colour to gain 
 facility and multitudinous fulness of expression. He 
 would then produce works of elaborate power in oil; 
 then, when his vigour of mind had reached its height 
 and his technical knowledge was at the full, he would 
 go on to the speed and decisive breadth, of fresco, 
 returning to the rapidity of the water-colour system. 
 We apprehend that this is the principle of Michael 
 Angelo's traditional saying, that oil-painting was work 
 for women, and fresco for men: that the latter is so 
 great a test of force, rapidity, and decision, both, spi- 
 ritual and technical, in thought and working: besides 
 that, fresco is unalterable, and thus exaggerates water- 
 colour difficulties. 
 
 Strictly speaking, then, water-colour must be 
 considered as a preliminary training for the more 
 powerful means of pictorial expression in oil and 
 fresco. At all events, some of the best water- 
 colours in existence have been produced by men 
 skilled in oil-painting, and by the use of body- 
 colour or transparent vehicle in large quantities, so 
 as to resemble oil-colours in the working. This 
 will apply to Mr. Lewis's works, and indeed to the 
 late Mr. William Hunt's; which seem to unite in 
 great measure the advantages of both styles. How 
 far the use of body-colour ought to be carried we 
 do not think of saying; but it ought not to be used 
 in water-colour as an imitation of oils, at all events. 
 For elaborate water-colour, as for all compositions, 
 I the rule is of course masses first, detail afterwards. 
 
288 
 
 COMPOSITION, 
 
 When we have to speak of Composition, we shall 
 endeavour to give some examples of arrangement of 
 masses and points of interest h And until the proper 
 arrangement of a picture is secured, detail must not 
 be attended to. Solidity and tone must come first; 
 that is to say, you must get the right blue, and the 
 right pitch of blue, on your distance, and the right 
 depth of green, red, yellow, or brown on your woods, 
 and the right quantity of light and of dark all settled, 
 before you begin to make out the drawing of the 
 objects all over your picture. Of course your previous 
 knowledge of all such drawing ought to have been 
 secured by sketches and studies. And one great 
 secret of success for a learner is to make a good 
 blotted sketch in sepia beforehand, without much form, 
 but with the desired effect in light and shade; and 
 to have by him, with it, a set of etched lines of all 
 the forms in the intended work. He should also have 
 written down on the margin of the light- and-shade 
 blot the actual ‘pigments’ he intends to use to make 
 the light and dark varied tints which are to take the 
 place, in the finished work, of the uniform black-and- 
 white masses in the preliminary blot. 
 
 ^ We shall have to distinguish between conceptions and composi- 
 tions, i. e. between pictures where the eyesight, feeling, and inspiration 
 of the artist dictate all, or nearly all, (so that he is unconscious of 
 following any particular rule or principle in arranging his objects) — 
 and pictures more technically or methodically produced. The latter, 
 as works of Art, are inferior ; but they may be instructive to the 
 student who wants to analyze the manner (or habitual method of self- 
 expression) of the painter he is studying. 
 
FINISH. 
 
 m) 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 I. 
 
 ON FINISH. 
 
 TT would be hard to find any single term in Art 
 ^ which has led, and at this day leads, to more 
 varied discussion than the word 'Finish.' It is con- 
 nected with all the questions between High Art so 
 called, and Low Art so called ; and with all the 
 varieties of opinion which are embraced, and familiarly 
 expressed, by Sir Joshua Reynolds, in the statement 
 that ' the Dutch painters represent the low school, and 
 the Italian painters the lofty one.' He instances 
 Michael Angelo, and says that he and the Italians 
 attend only to the invariable, the great and general 
 ideas which are fixed and inherent in universal Nature ; 
 while the Dutch attend to literal truth and minute 
 exactness, in detail, of Nature modified by accident. 
 He says also, that if Michael Angelo had paid the same 
 attention to detail of Nature so modified, his works 
 would ‘ not only receive no advantage, but would lose 
 in a great measure the effect which they now have 
 on every mind susceptible of great and noble ideas.' 
 
 Sir Joshua Reynolds' practice was as habitually con- 
 tradictory to the general drift of his instructions as 
 any painter’s can possibly be. His reputation rests 
 (and in the same circle with that of Velasquez and 
 
 u 
 
290 
 
 JOSHUA REYNOLDS, 
 
 Titian) principally on the fact that he drew ladies’ 
 faces with exquisite attention to the accidents which 
 modify those interesting but changeful phenomena. 
 The word ‘accident’ is used in the passage to which 
 we have referred in a correct logical sense. An acci- 
 dent, strictly defined as a logical term, is that which 
 comes into uncertain connexion with, or joins itself by 
 contingency to, the essence of the individual person or 
 thing. Either it does so at once and for ever, like 
 a past happiness or sorrow, or only for a time, like 
 having black hair, which may fall off or turn white; 
 or standing up, or sitting down, or a fall out hunting 
 or skating. A lady’s face may have been sunburnt by 
 accident when Sir Joshua observed it, and he may have 
 put a little yellow into his carmine in consequence ; yet 
 the picture by no means ‘ lost its effect on a mind capable 
 of receiving noble ideas ’ because of that. Good or bad 
 temper is an accident, or rather good or bad humour. 
 The picture in Christ Church Hall of Archbishop 
 Robinson has an expression of quiet annoyance in its 
 side-look, arising, says tradition, from the fact that 
 the bishop, a severely studious man, w^ould never 
 spare the time to sit for his portrait, and conse- 
 quently had to be drawn by stealth. This was done 
 through a door, near Avhich Sir Joshua was placed, 
 obtaining views of the bishop by means of succes- 
 sive messages which necessitated the door’s being 
 opened and the bishop’s looking up. Whether this 
 story be true or not, it will be admitted that Sir Joshua 
 was right in painting the bishop with an expression 
 of subdued irritation — because he then and there 
 looked irritated, though uncomplaining — rather than 
 
'ITALIAN AND DUTCH SCHOOLS. 9A)\ 
 
 paint him without any expression at all, or with some 
 generally episcopal expression. Expression is an acci- 
 dent; yet neither Sir Joshua nor Michael Angelo, — 
 nor Giotto, nor the unknown Byzantines who painted 
 mournful Madonnas in the first days,— ever failed to 
 strive for every particle of expression they could possibly 
 give every face they painted. It is quite true that 
 Sir Joshua sometimes painted drapery carelessly, which 
 was very excusable at a time when ladies sat to him in 
 a kind of white bedgown. And he very often painted 
 his backgrounds carelessly, which we think less ex- 
 cusable, because he need not have painted them at all, 
 but might have let somebody else do them better. But 
 many, nay all, of the great Italians paint landscape back- 
 grounds with details, accidents, and incidents enough, 
 with devoted care and strong personal enjoyment. Then 
 as to accidents of dress, than which no humbler pieces 
 of detail can be imagined ; Titian, as a master of Italian 
 painting in every style of history and portrait, was 
 the choice of Sir Joshua's choice ; for our own great 
 painter preferred Velasquez to all other masters, and 
 Velasquez certainly preferred Titian \ This is true, 
 whether Sir Joshua was thinking of Titian or not when 
 he made his astonishing statement in the ‘Idler,' ‘that he 
 did not mean to include the Venetian School in his idea 
 of Italian painting, because it might be said to represent 
 the Dutch part of the Italian genius.' And for Titian's 
 drawing of details and accidents, we must, we fear, 
 appeal to painters only, because only they who have 
 tried to copy him can tell how resolute and complete 
 
 ^ Ruskin, ‘ The Two Paths,’ p. 83. See Appendix 2, 
 
 U 2 
 
292 
 
 TITIAN'S PORTRAIT OF 
 
 it is. It is quite true that its unlaboured perfection 
 does not withdraw attention from the main subject or 
 motive of the picture: but still its details are made 
 perfect by Titian's hand ; and to this day, he who would 
 follow Titian must finish in detail, and work out accidents 
 with considerable labour and difficulty, however easily 
 Titian worked them out. You will not get near Titian 
 by leaving out what he put in. And he put in all. The 
 great portrait of the Doge Andrea Gritti, at Denmark 
 Hill, is as good and as accessible an instance of perfect 
 work in detail, perfectly carried out, as can be wished 
 for. Perfectly it is worked out, in this sense : because 
 the Doge, or rather Andrea Gritti the Doge, strikes 
 one at the first glance; there is nothing in the mag- 
 nificent dress to which the Doge is not superior, — he 
 dignifies his fine clothes, and not they him, although 
 they are finished to absolute completeness and right- 
 ness. It is not, be it observed, as with a grand 
 historical or religious subject, where the interest of 
 the action necessarily triumphs over well-wrought ac- 
 cessories, and where dresses and details may be carried 
 out with ever so much pains, without distracting the 
 spectator’s attention from the principal action. It is 
 in a simple portrait that the character of the subject 
 is made so to prevail over all his entourage. When 
 Grambe told Martinus Scriblerus that he could conceive 
 of a Lord Mayor without his gown, chain, attendants, 
 body or digestive organs, that great master of dialectic 
 simply called him a fool. A modern critic of por- 
 traiture, more sensible than Crambe of the importance 
 of costume, would naturally pay no small attention 
 to the Doge’s berretta and gold embroidery. Yet no 
 
DOGE ANDREA GRITTE 
 
 293 
 
 person with education, feeling, or soul above buttons, 
 can help seeing how great is the Art-power which is 
 shewn, in that accurate finish of the splendid dress, 
 which never for a moment diverts any attention from 
 the stout Lord of the Adriatic. There is no mistaking 
 his fine-cut Coeur-de-Lion type of face, his wide-opened 
 blue eye of good nature and command, his sharp 
 chiselled mouth of action, thick bull-neck of strength, 
 and soft beard and hair of high blood. All this is 
 written down in colour and subtle form for all men 
 to see : but Titian's work was not done when it was 
 written. On the contrary, every line of woven gold 
 in his embroidered cloak plays and refiects light in 
 exactly the right place, as the cunning pattern undu- 
 lates over its folds. The yellow paint looks exactly 
 like actual gold, so artfully is its tint changed 
 from darker to lighter in each fold of the stuff \ It 
 is all separate stripes; and the tint has been changed 
 with methodical exactness in every one, so that the 
 folds of the dress are pointed out by the waving of its 
 pattern. In short, Titian puts the gold-work on the 
 Doge's coat of state for exactly the same reason as the 
 Doge put that coat on his body — as a proper accessory, 
 befitting him, and worthy of his office, and requiring 
 proper treatment and care in its subordinate place. 
 It is the same with Titian's forest-leaves, and stones, 
 and tree-trunks : all have their detailed statements 
 of minor fact. It may not have been painful to him 
 to carry them so far ; evidently it was quite the con- 
 trary : nor did it probably take him so long a time as 
 
 ^ This answers, wc think, almost exactly to what painters mean by 
 the mysterious term ‘ (puility ’ in work. 
 
LEONARDO’S DETAIL. 
 
 would appear, since time in Art-work is lost by changing 
 and correcting, and the great master's purpose altered 
 not, nor did his science ever need to reconsider the 
 means by which he would carry his purpose out. So 
 with Leonardo's subtle finish, or Rafael's. Can you 
 find blotted leaves, or scrawled grass, or doughy tree- 
 trunks, or clayey stones in either? You are not led 
 aside from faces and forms to look at the stones under 
 them, it is true. But Nature put the stones under 
 the feet of men, with minute veins and varied colour 
 in them : and so does Leonardo. The fact is, he who 
 can command or produce Beauty, Truth, or Power in 
 the motive of his picture will never lessen its value 
 or impressiveness, by trying to give it inferior beauties 
 and truths in its accessories. The effect of a large 
 sapphire is not diminished by its being surrounded with 
 small diamonds. And, on the other hand, we think 
 that the man who is not painter and workman enough 
 at heart to want to draw his accessories like a workman, 
 is not a likely person to have, certainly not a likely 
 person to realize on canvas, any great and powerful 
 ideas. Not to mention that a real workman can paint 
 things right with great rapidity, and without vexation 
 to himself 
 
 In our sketch of the life of Giotto, allusion is made 
 to the story of his circle, drawn as the only specimen 
 of his skill he would send Pope Benedict XL This 
 is connected with our use of the word ‘ workman.' 
 We apprehend that word, emphatically spoken, to be 
 nearly the most honourable unofficial title in the 
 English language. And the word has so much to do 
 with the question of artistic finish, completeness, and 
 
THE WORKMAN. 
 
 295 
 
 excellence (and indeed with excellence in all human 
 pursuits), that it will lead us very well into our 
 theory of finish, or completion, or excellence. For 
 clearly a finished performance ought to be better and 
 better the more it is finished, until it becomes excellent, 
 i.e. conspicuously good of its kind, and according to its 
 author's purpose. The author of ‘ Modern Painters ' 
 has been over this ground before, but very few critics 
 have followed him over it, and we apprehend we are 
 right in trying to do so. 
 
 The word ‘workman,' used emphatically or with 
 grave meaning, is highly honourable when applied 
 to any man, because it is specially used as a word 
 of praise by persons who possess real skill, and who 
 affect the use of few W’ords. It is much used with 
 reference to riding, taciturnity being a great point 
 in the horse-taming character, as Englishmen pos- 
 sess it. Lord Scamperdale explained his question 
 about somebody by the ' cover side, ‘ Is he a work- 
 man?' by saying that he did not want to know 
 whether the gentleman was a mechanic by pro- 
 fession or not, but whether he could really ride or 
 not. The adjective ‘workmanlike' is more generally 
 applied, and conveys the idea at least of genuine 
 and unpretending skill, in doing a difficult thing 
 well worth doing : strictly indeed of professional skill, 
 of that thoroughness and excellence of performance 
 which is gained by giving one's life to a particular 
 style of labour. The difference between amateur 
 work and professional Avork in everything is recog- 
 nized all over the Avorld ; and we have already 
 adverted to it as regards amateur Art. 
 
296 
 
 THE MECHANIC. 
 
 Now, as the words ‘ work,’ ‘ workman/ and their cog- 
 nates, are all highly honourable in the ears of all sane 
 people ; so the words ' mechanic/ ‘ mechanical,’ and the 
 like, are slightly disparaging. The reason is, we think, 
 in few words, that the former set of words call 
 attention to the performances of a Soul, in point 
 of fact ; and imply that a will has honourably sought 
 to do well and rightly, and has been able somehow 
 to get certain results effected, by means of its in- 
 tellect and its bodily skill in applying that intellect 
 (both, or rather all three, being assisted by expe- 
 rience of previous successful operations). But the 
 word ‘mechanic’ implies an absence of human energy 
 or thought in the production of the immediate result 
 before one’s eyes. The thought which is evident 
 in the result before the spectator does not come 
 from man direct to man, but mediately, and through 
 the ingenuity of others (who are intellectual middle- 
 men, between the producer and the consumer). We 
 do not like a print so well as a picture, generally 
 speaking, or a chromograph so well as its original 
 water-colour; and if we were asked why, we should 
 give our reasons in words which would involve the 
 assertion that one was a mechanical, or manual, work 
 of Art, and the other an original production, due to 
 the immediate connexion between the mind and hand 
 of the producer. And, observe, this is not because 
 the chromograph is not the result of great ingenuity. 
 There is an immense accumulation of ingenuity in 
 the long succession of contrivances which enabled 
 Messrs. Day and Son to produce our frontispiece. But 
 no artist would hesitate a moment in his choice between 
 
THE MECHANICIAN. 
 
 the original of that frontispiece, and all the copies 
 of it which adorn our present edition. The ingenuity 
 of the men, who made the machinery, which produced 
 the chromograph, may be greater than that of any 
 painter from Nature, however excellent : but such 
 ingenuity is not artistic, because it only produces 
 a machine, irrespective of the purpose of producing 
 a beautiful thing. The same faculty would produce 
 a steam-engine, or a sewing-machine, or a patent 
 mangle. And doubtless very skilfully made machines 
 of these or other kinds have an excellence of adapta- 
 tion, which is called beauty in popular language, 
 because it makes one feel a sense of admiration. 
 But though the admiration is fully deserved, the 
 term ‘beautifuF is applied to an ingenious contri- 
 vance only by way of analogy ; and it expresses 
 enjoyment of another man's cleverness, not of the 
 beauty of his work. To Mr. Macdonald's drawing 
 the term ‘beauty' is directly applicable: it is so in 
 a less degree to the chromograph at the beginning 
 of this book. Still, though the mechanicians who 
 contrived the process of multiplying water-colours 
 did not, probably, work as artists under impressions 
 of admiration and pleasure in Nature, they worked 
 as able and thoughtful men exercising God's gifts 
 of skill, invention, and ingenuity in contrivance. 
 Theirs was a liberal and scientific emplojunent; and 
 the term ‘mechanical' does not apply to them in any 
 lowering sense at all ; and when applied to the results 
 of their ingenuity, or that of other men like them, 
 that word is used in its true or higher sense, of 
 skilful adaptation of physical means to physical ends. 
 
S98 
 
 SOULLESS LABOUR, 
 
 and is in no sort disparaging. Why, then, is the term 
 ever applied in a sense which is disparaging ? Because, 
 without in the least undervaluing honest labour of any 
 kind, we cannot help painfully remembering that large 
 numbers of men are condemned, as it were, to labour 
 without thought or enjoyment ; and that though they 
 may he, and often are, morally elevated by doing their 
 work hard and honestly, they cannot learn anything 
 by it, or ever enjoy the artistic pleasure of doing it 
 well; or, at all events, cannot enjoy it in the same 
 degree as a painter. We do not know if the printers 
 and workmen, who produced all our chromographs, 
 any of them enjoyed the idea of producing a pretty 
 thing; but in as far as any of them enjoyed it in 
 a genuine way, his work ceased to be mechanical, 
 because it was done in an artistic spirit, more or 
 less rejoicing in beauty. Those who merely screwed 
 down the presses or laid on the colours because it 
 was all in the day’s work, acted, as we say, mechani- 
 cally: their hearts, or souls, or selves were not in 
 what their hands did. 
 
 This train of thought brings us to see that the term 
 ‘mechanical’ means soulless when it is used in a dis- 
 paraging sense. The word implies absence of energy, 
 thought, spirit, soul, geist, and the like. In other 
 words, it gives us a painful idea of a man’s time 
 and life being employed, while the best part of him 
 is not put into his work, or called into exertion, or 
 properly developed. The twenty men who are said 
 to be employed in making one pin, or those who 
 pass life in cutting screws and nuts, or multiplying 
 small parts of machines, are really in danger of a 
 
THE ARTISTIC AND THE WORKMANLIKE, 299 
 
 kind of degradation from their form of labour; from 
 which those who either exercise invention, or seek 
 knowledge or beauty, are if so facto free. 
 
 It would seem, then, that a liberal, artistic, inventive, 
 or scientific pursuit is distinguished from a purely 
 mechanical pursuit by the fact that it involves thought 
 or effort of mind. This holds good in spite of ex- 
 ceptions and difficult cases. We may hope, indeed, 
 that many occupations which are far from artistic 
 are pursued in a qiiasi-artistic spirit, which redeems 
 them, in real truth, from being purely mechanical. 
 It is not our business here to enquire how far moral 
 elements enter into the artistic view of things; but 
 this we may say, that the honest desire to do 
 anything one has to do as well as possible, is the 
 common foundation of artistic and workmanlike feel- 
 ing. Giotto meant to say, by sending his circle to 
 Pope Benedict, that he could not give account of 
 his inventive genius, because it was God's gift, for 
 which he had not worked; but that he could assure 
 the Pope that the hand which had laboured so 
 many years would always do its work as truly as 
 in the specimen he sent; since he had worked for 
 that gift of hand, and fairly earned it. In a 
 certain undefined sense, ‘the hand of Douglas is his 
 own.' Giotto appealed to the Pope’s belief in his 
 sense of the workman's honour. And even in the 
 least ornamental or interesting pursuits, we may 
 understand how near the workman's feeling is to 
 the artist's, in lower matter. An old shoemaker once 
 told me he gave up making boots for the Royal 
 Family, as journeyman and actual maker, because a 
 
300 
 
 FINISH, 
 
 great deal of fine sewing had to be put into parts 
 about the sole, ‘and then all the beauty of the work 
 was lost and blacked over/ The scavenger’s saying, 
 about fancy-sweeping round a post, is, I fear, of dubious 
 authority: but it is hard to distinguish between the 
 feeling of Art and that of good work, except by the 
 matter or means on which they are employed. There 
 is a certain pursuit of the really beautiful in the good 
 mason who likes to see his work proved true by 
 plumb-line and spirit-level, and the ploughman who 
 is proud of his straight furrows. And I think 
 that hardly any man, who is deservedly high in 
 the pursuit of great Art, will refuse sympathy with 
 these workmen; or refuse to share their title with 
 them. To do a very difficult thing well is a great 
 thing; hut to do a small thing as well as you can 
 for the sake of the koXov is something. 
 
 What, then, is workmanlike finish? You must ask 
 each in sua arte, and take the best man’s word. 
 In Art we will refer to Titian and Leonardo among 
 ancients, and to John Lewis of the moderns. But by 
 our principles, what is true finish likely to be? Is 
 there any finish that is unworthy of the workman? 
 At this point we fear we must leave the more 
 ordinary occupations, commonly and perhaps un- 
 worthily called mechanical, and confine ourselves to 
 Art-work. Where the mere enjoyment of his own 
 skill is all that interests or awakens a slight artistic 
 feeling in the operator, it does not signify much 
 what his operation is, as long as he does it well 
 and pleasantly. But pictures are, after all, different 
 and higher things to do than hoots, or masonry, or 
 
MECHANICAL AND THOUGHTFUL, SOI 
 
 ploughing, or sweeping. How will our principle about 
 good Avork having a soul in it and mechanical work 
 not having it, help us here? The smith's work has 
 the smith's soul in it, if he be a good one: so has 
 the artist's: only from the greater simplicity of his 
 work, the smith knoAvs more exactly how far he must 
 carry his work out. Can the artist determine in the 
 same way, and Avhere is he to stop? 
 
 We think he can determine : and we here refer the 
 reader to Mr. Ruskin's chapter on Finish, ‘Modern 
 Painters,' vol. iii. pp. 113-128. He sums up the 
 whole in half-a-dozen words, that ‘All true finish is 
 added fact’— or thought — pointing out by beautiful 
 examples and illustrations from the works of Turner 
 to what distance of completion that great master, to 
 use his OAvn expression, ‘carried forward’ his pictures. 
 There is a difference between thoughtful, artistic, or 
 high-workmanlike finish, and unmeaning, mechanical, 
 or low-workmanlike finish. Wrong choice in this 
 matter has at least a tendency to vulgarity ; since 
 vulgarity has its root in dulness, absence of thought, 
 and deadness of mind which cannot distinguish the 
 finish of completeness from that of mere polish. 
 Our popular notions of turn-out and finish are far 
 too mechanical, for the most part. In our highly 
 finished furniture and decorations, one cannot help 
 noticing that French polish goes for too much. All 
 of us Avho can afford it pay men for polishing and 
 rubbing up plate and tables, but no one makes any 
 exertion, or puts any pressure on goldsmiths and car- 
 penters, to get oak and Avalnut Avell carved, or silver 
 cunningly moulded. Yet in some things Ave under- 
 
302 
 
 THOUGHTFUL FINISH, 
 
 stand the difference between useful and useless finish, 
 between work and polish. The national taste for 
 plainness and unobtrusive appearance is much over- 
 strained and misapplied, and in many things amounts 
 to rejection of beauty and right ornament. But in 
 some things at least it does us justice, and par- 
 ticularly in tools and instruments which are meant 
 to be used by the hands of the rich man himself — 
 in saddlery and harness, for example. Perhaps the 
 best common instance of English good taste in 
 effective completeness is a well-made gun or rifle. 
 It is ugly, and so it ought to be, being an instru- 
 ment of death. But its finish is of a high kind, 
 because almost all the labour put into it conduces 
 to its efficiency. The fine steel is darkened, and 
 the choice wood studiously left unpolished, though 
 formed to exact shape suited to the bearer’s length of 
 neck and arms. The strength of the locks, the fall of 
 the hammers, the amount of pressure or pull of the 
 triggers are all calculated by ounces. The closeness 
 and force of the smooth barrel is fully ascertained; 
 the grooves and sights of the rifle are tested together 
 till its performance is a certainty; the efficiency, or 
 usefulness, of every part of the weapon is perfect; but 
 the national taste and feeling is utterly against wasting 
 ornament on that which is meant to kill. 
 
 Now the complicated and calculated appliance of 
 means to ends, or, in other words, of thought to 
 matter, distinguishes make from polish, or true finish 
 from false in all things : and this rule holds good with 
 Art. The more consistent and connected thoughts 
 there are in a picture, the more finish ; and vice versa. 
 
MILLAIS^ ROYALIST. 
 
 303 
 
 Our chajDter on Composition deals, in a brief and frag- 
 mentary way, with such methods of arrangement and 
 choice of ideas in a painting, as may make all its 
 parts consistent with its main purpose, or, in painters' 
 language, give it unity. And in sketches and studies 
 from Nature, intelligent finish seems to be connected 
 with composition. A tree-trunk, for instance, is the 
 example chosen in ‘Modern Painters.' If that is the 
 main object of your picture, or if it is anywhere near 
 its main action, so that the spectator must needs look 
 at it, it must be dwelt on in proportion to its im- 
 portance in the picture; and, indeed, if it is at all 
 near, it is important enough to be carried on so far 
 that any thoughtful spectator, who has really looked 
 hard at trees, shall be able to find the principal 
 facts of tree-structure about it. The hollow trunk in 
 Millais' Proscribed Royalist divides one’s attention with 
 the young lady's satin skirt; which skirt, though won- 
 derfully elaborated, is kept in proper subordination by 
 the pretty face and figure in it ; though we must say 
 it is hardly a dress for the greenwood h But it does 
 not seem that the picture Avould be the better for a 
 generalized tree, or an ideal tree, or a typical tree, with 
 a light side and a dark side, and a few conventional 
 grey and green touches about it: and the 'painter is 
 evidently right in carrying all out strictly, even to the 
 last year’s leaves under the girl's feet. In other works 
 which take in a larger horizon, or do not attach special 
 interest to their trees, less labour may no doubt pass. 
 
 ^ Probably, however, the idea of the Cavalier’s lying perdu close at 
 home is meant to be suggested ; the damsel may have left a party inci- 
 dentally on her kind errand. 
 
304 
 
 TINTORETS SWIFTNESS. 
 
 The distance from the eye may be greater — then, as 
 the eye would see less, the hand may paint less. 
 In short, the old rule, ‘ Paint what you see, and 
 do not paint what you don't see' (with the inner or 
 the outer eye), holds good in this as in everything. 
 Or the artist may be tired, or pressed for time, since 
 painters are but men, and perfect leisure for work is 
 as rare a thing as perfect temper in it. In that case, 
 we will take his sketch, or his incomplete picture, for 
 what it is, and give him credit for everything right 
 that is in it : but whatever is in it which is wrong 
 must lessen its value. He may leave things blank if 
 he will, or only cover the canvas, but he must not leave 
 things wrong ; and he ought to draw them right in the 
 first instance. ‘ Tintoret has drawn several large tree- 
 trunks in the two landscapes at the end of the Scuola 
 di San Rocco, with two strokes of his brush ; one for 
 the dark, another for the light side : and the large rock 
 at the foot of the picture of the Temptation is painted 
 with a few detached touches of grey over a flat brown 
 ground : but the touches of his tree-trunks have, been 
 followed by the mind as they went down with the most 
 painful intensity through their every undulation; and 
 the few grey strokes on the stone are so considered 
 that a better stone could not be painted if we took a 
 month to do it 
 
 This is Power in Art, such as is gained by the hardest 
 labour of the highest genius. It is the discipline of 
 passion into precision. Towards this all Pre-Rafaelite 
 study ought to lead : to this Turner's brown ‘ Liber 
 
 ^ Modern Painters, vol. ii. p. 182. 
 
FINISH AND POLISH. 
 
 S05 
 
 Studiorum ’ and grey drawings of all things led him. 
 And the drift of it all is, that if one’s work has no 
 visible error, then its incompleteness is not error, hut 
 a different thing. It is an important remark- that, 
 generally speaking, a certain degree of impetuosity is 
 visible in the works of men of high imagination. This 
 is shewn in Michael Angelo’s many unfinished blocks; 
 and by symptoms in some of his finished works it 
 appears that the labour of completion was painful to 
 him towards the end. Tintoret’s touch is careful and 
 fine at last, though certain and firm. The finish of 
 > Michael Angelo’s works, when he did finish, is seen in 
 the Duke Lorenzo, the Madonna of the same chapel, 
 the Bacchus of the Uffizii, and the Pietk of Genoa : 
 and the first and two last, in particular, are match- 
 less examples of power of conception realized in full 
 completion. 
 
 But to return to our tree-trunks, and the other inci- 
 dents and accidents of a picture. When is a tree- 
 trunk finished? We suppose, when you have given 
 everything in it which ought to be visible, at its 
 supposed distance from the eye, and at the supposed 
 hour .of the day or night. It may be carried only far 
 enough to pass muster, and intended only for careless 
 inspection, in any given part. In that case the picture 
 is so far forth of less value than one in which the 
 other features are equal to it, and that part is better 
 finished. But if what is done is wrongly done, or 
 if unmeaning polish is put on to look like finish in 
 a deceiving way, then the whole picture is lessened 
 in value, and all suffers together: the unmeaning 
 and mindless work ruins all. But to take the usual 
 
306 
 
 FORM AND LINE. 
 
 steps of progress. First comes the outline; which 
 as an outline alone may be either broad or fine, 
 according to the distance at which it is to he seen. 
 That states so many facts about the tree. Then the 
 shade is put on, the general half-tint shade, according 
 to the main forms of the trunk: and it asserts and 
 describes a great deal about those forms. With it 
 the outline vanishes, or rather it is merged in and 
 becomes a part of the shade; and is only left on 
 the light side conventionally, to guide the eye in 
 putting in the background: with it are also inserted 
 the sharp cast shadows of other boughs which may 
 cross the upright trunk. The outline makes the 
 following statement to our minds; only it speaks 
 in Art-symbols, which are pretty, just as we write 
 its words down in ‘phonetic’ or letter-symbols, which 
 are rather ugly : — 
 
 ‘I am the outside line or limitation (not the imita- 
 tion) of the form which will be completed, when 
 the shade is put on me, and I am merged in it. 
 I am going to be made into the form of an oak- 
 trunk, I hope. That form will be young or old, 
 rough, sturdy, and wide-spreading, shattered and cloven, 
 or expressive of struggling to hold on — and you may 
 see from me which. It will be large at its base, 
 like a tower standing on a wide foundation, or a 
 spurred pillar, and will increase again in bulk just 
 before it ramifies. When it does so it will break 
 into X branches : they will spread to y extent on each 
 side ; and there will be leaves, acorns, and little 
 birds on them to the or to an indefinite extent, 
 as I can’t be drawn to express them all.’ 
 
THE TALKING OAK. 
 
 307 
 
 The shade takes up its parable, and says — ‘ I am the 
 form of an oak trunk, young, old, rough, sturdy, &c., 
 or shattered, &c. I am rounded by gradations of 
 my depth or force : they will point out further 
 facts about me when the proper lines of drawing 
 are put in. But there are spaces left, on which 
 that young man with the palette evidently means 
 to put light moss; and he has taken a good deal 
 of trouble about my edges, which are ragged in 
 some places and smooth in others, and sometimes 
 straight and sometimes twisted. He seems to know 
 what sort of anatomy I am to have. In this 
 case (the Royalist) I am to have a great hollow 
 in my inside, and there is a blank left in that of 
 the shape of a young man. My number of branches, 
 &c. &c. is X, &c. &c.; they are darker than the sky 
 behind me, and their high lights are brighter than 
 the ground behind me, but I don’t know how much 
 darker or brighter, because the background and sky 
 are not put in yet.’ 
 
 To him' enter background and sky, and begin to 
 talk about him to us in his presence. ‘This oak 
 is so broad and so dark in colour: those bars and 
 spots upon him (if there are any) are cast shadows: 
 it is a dark day or a sunshiny one. We are soft 
 and blue, white and green, or grey and threatening, 
 and brown: or, if we are all one hue, we do our 
 utmost to indicate degrees of light and space by 
 careful gradation. There is a space left in the middle 
 of us in the shape of a young woman.’ Then the 
 lines and careful surface -drawing on the trunk of 
 the talking oak begin, about his anatoni.y and his 
 
308 
 
 FINISH BY ADDED FACT. 
 
 muscles, and his scars of loss of limbs and bark, 
 and perhaps about his rings of years. Of course 
 in the progress of a finished picture like Mr. Millais’ 
 Cavalier, the statements of all the parts have been 
 made more vivid and detailed by the addition of 
 the more powerful language, and countless additional 
 facts of colour. ‘ The oak is garrulously given, a babbler 
 in the land.’ We cannot follow out the innumerable 
 facts which assert themselves when the young lady 
 and cavalier are put in: we have only to do with 
 the question, How far the oak -trunk ought to be 
 finished ? Or rather let us say, that, as in this picture, 
 it is completed h I’outrance; and as all its facts 
 are put in, and all put in right, it is probable that 
 other painters ought to do in similar pictures as 
 Mr. Millais has done in this. The absolute completion 
 of a tree-trunk includes texture of bark, anatomy of 
 muscle beneath it, reflected lights in recessed hollows, 
 flickering varieties of cast shadows from foliage above, 
 moss in difierent masses and lights, varied local 
 colour over all — and all facts about the trunk which 
 can be expressed by the human hand. When that 
 exhaustive statement of them is made, the tree is 
 finished, and cannot be finished any more. It may 
 have to be glazed and scumbled, and brought out 
 and put back, and we know not what: but all this 
 is sacrificing the tree more or less to the general 
 effect of the picture. 
 
 From this follows a partial answer to the natur- 
 ally rather strong exclamations which painters and 
 students may make, on reading what has gone 
 before; to the effect that they cannot be expected 
 
INEQUALITIES. 
 
 300 
 
 (at all events that it is no use expecting them) to 
 finish all the trees in their pictures up to the same 
 point. First, it may be answered, Anyhow, you ought 
 to be able to .finish some of them like this : if you 
 are to paint trees, it will not do to issue any picture 
 of them which may tell the world that you do not 
 know or care about their anatomy, texture of bark, 
 mosses, or reflected lights. Photographs and Pre- 
 Rafaelitism have opened the eyes of the public a 
 little; and people are gradually learning to look at 
 Nature, and see more of what there is on a tree- 
 trunk. The Claudesque symbols, without Claude's 
 knowledge of oil-painting, will not pass now. Harding 
 has taught people what trees are like, and you must 
 at least give what he gives. This would he admitted, 
 or considered as truism, by the greater part of the 
 artistic and critical world. Men may be said, as 
 a rule, to have not only adopted the whole teach- 
 ing of ‘Modern Painters,' but to have succeeded in 
 convincing each other, by sheer vigour of assertion, 
 that they knew it all before. Then secondly, which 
 is the main point, it must he answered, that every 
 one who has real title to the name of a painter, 
 and indeed every one who has taken proper pains 
 in previous studies for his picture, will know per- 
 fectly, before he sits down to the final and decisive 
 canvas, that in certain places he must do his very 
 utmost, and that there are parts where he may 
 relax. All works must be unequal in completion, 
 even though done by men of determined character 
 and powerful eyesight, whether their labours look 
 brilliant or laboured in the end. For perfect finish. 
 
310 
 
 HASTE. 
 
 like Nature, is entirely beyond human power ; and too 
 intense pursuit of it may be too much for man — 
 as has been proved, we think, by sorao late works 
 of Holman Hunt, and certainly by the example of 
 Mr. Collins, who now, we believe, has almost ceased 
 to paint, finding the toil of such works as Convent 
 Thoughts, however beautiful in result, too wearying 
 and exhausting. As we have said, Tintoret will 
 paint his tree-trunks hastily; but he will paint them 
 right, as far as they go, and express his feeling of 
 facts of form which he does not make out: and 
 it does not follow, as all must feel, that Tintoret is 
 to be followed in the accidents of his work, such 
 as being hurried in it, or otherwise prevented from 
 Avorking out his details. He did them gloriously, 
 when he had time. But he had not ahvays time. 
 And the fact that Titian always seems to have had 
 it, and to have painted with a strange severity of 
 power, taken with his patience of Avell- grounded 
 and entire confidence, seems to make him a better 
 master and example to follow than Tintoret; although 
 the latter, as painter of the Paradise in the Doge's 
 Palace, and the Crucifixion of the Scuola di San 
 Rocco, stands, with Michael Angelo, at the heart 
 and centre of all creative and artistic greatness. 
 
 Now, there are what may be called elementary 
 subjects for pictures, such as still life, fruit, and the 
 like, Avhich are proper work for a young artist at 
 certain points of his career. He may, in short, find 
 it advantageous to work at studies Avhich are easily 
 saleable, and which also increase his knoAvledge and 
 skill. For it is clear that the study of fioAvers, 
 
ILLUSTRATION. 
 
 311 
 
 and of fruit perhaps still more, is of the greatest use 
 to the colourist; and that the operations of hatching 
 and stippling in colour give an idea of the value of 
 almost imperceptible touches, which can be obtained 
 in hardly any other way. We take for granted that 
 a certain fair amount of skill and knowledge on 
 this subject has already been obtained by practice 
 in sepia. Our first exercise in laying on gradated 
 tints, if carefully repeated a few times (not on 
 different pieces of paper, but successively wash 
 over wash), will give a good idea of the lumi- 
 nousness of plain black or grey properly applied. 
 We will suppose that this has been acquired, and 
 that the student has also learnt to put on touches 
 with tolerable rapidity in the precise form he wants, 
 and to correct all errors and mischances in a flat 
 wash by proper use of hatched lines or stippled 
 dots in light and shade. He has now to use colour 
 in the same way, in its endless complications, and 
 to hatch one hue over another or dot one into 
 another. We can of course do no more than set 
 him to work; but we think the examples given will 
 set him to work in the right way, or at least enable 
 him to begin an useful course of practice, during 
 which he will find right ways of his own. 
 
 Our illustration consists of three purple and three 
 green grapes. The uninitiated will, probably, not 
 see much difference in them: but the fact is, that 
 the practical part of this chapter is only meant 
 for rather advanced students, as real fineness of 
 hand and eye is required for it. The purple grapes 
 are numbered i, 2, 3 ; the green ones 4, 5, 6. Of 
 
312 
 
 METHODS, 
 
 these the original of No. i was done by means of 
 washes or coats of colour only; the others were 
 finished by means of hatched lines crossing each 
 other at acute angles. Some of them have been left 
 visible in No. 3. The skilful way in which the plain 
 washes have been laid on and softened in the chro- 
 mograph have made No. i look nearly as well as the 
 others, though about half the time was spent on its 
 original ; but the value of well-learnt stippling is, 
 that it will bring a far less successful beginning 
 than No. 1 up to a certain perfection. The reader 
 will observe that even these extreme _ processes are 
 properly called true Finish, because they convey 
 additional ideas of transparency and bloom. Of the 
 green grapes, Nos. 4 and 6 are carried as far as 
 they will go. No. 5 is only hatched with the inter- 
 secting lines; but their edges, as a quick eye will 
 observe, produced so good an effect that the artist 
 probably thought it best to leave well alone — a rule 
 which often becomes very valuable in delicate work. 
 
 The following is Miss Owen's analysis or log of her 
 drawing. Her general rules are to sit as far from the 
 work as possible, as it saves much useless labour ; and 
 also to carry the broader washes or coats of colour as 
 far as they will go, and only use the stipple where it 
 is necessary — as where your tint is slightly unequal, or 
 where you can increase force or transparency by its 
 means. Two brushes are used ; they should be long fine 
 red or black sables: the latter are softer, the former 
 more firm. One, the larger, should always be kept clean. 
 We entreat the painter not to do so by sucking his 
 brush; because, in the first place, mixed pigments are 
 
FIRST TINTS. 
 
 313 
 
 not good for liis health ; and in the second, an excitable 
 person is not unlikely to bite the hairy end of the brush 
 off and swallow it ; which is more deleterious still. 
 
 Begin the purple grapes with the bloom. Brush not 
 too full. Wash a mixed tint of indigo and lake over 
 all the parts on which it is seen. Take No. i first and 
 wash the bloom-grey in, in a kind of crescent-shape, 
 leaving the white light free. So also in the others, 
 except that the crescent is broken into by the dark 
 marks where the grape has been rubbed. (These should 
 be left also, but the white must be.) Soften all edges 
 at once with the other brush ; and make a broad mark 
 of this first tint on the margin of your paper, or another 
 piece, so that you may be able to try the successive 
 tints over each other before you put them on your 
 work. Keep a thick piece of blotting-paper at hand 
 to dry the brush to the right point. In the green 
 grapes, begin with a clear wash of gamboge all over 
 the lights and half-lights, leaving the white paper 
 for the high lights only. Soften as before, leaving 
 the bloomy part untouched, as the dark transparent 
 part is still white paper in the purple specimens. 
 This first wash should be rather in the shape of 
 a new moon. Beginners must be very careful not 
 to carry the bloom-colour over the transparent parts: 
 they are apt to think that the first coat does not 
 signify, and to forget that it will be certain to shine 
 through, where nothing except the most transparent 
 tints are to come over it. 
 
 One berry of each group may be taken at first for 
 lesson-practice, though it will be generally better to 
 work out all three in one colour first. We have 
 
314 
 
 PURPLE AND 
 
 contrasted the beginnings, and can now complete our 
 groups separately. 
 
 Purple Grapes, — You have covered the bloom-side 
 of your grape or grapes. Now mix madder carmine 
 with a little gamboge for the transparent crimson 
 crescent on the right-hand edge or dark side. Soften 
 and blend it into the dark purple colour, adding 
 lake and indigo; and not touching the high light. 
 A first-coat always looks poor; but you have now 
 the forms of your washes to guide you, and can lay 
 on a second and a third rapidly enough, as fast as 
 the colour will dry. Never touch twice, right or 
 wrong, until the whole is dry. Stipple will mend 
 everything, and the least washing-up of under- coats 
 of colour vjill invariably spoil everything. 
 
 Lay on one coat after another, first of the indigo 
 and lake bloom-tint, then of the madder and gamboge 
 transparent one, till your grape looks dark and rich, 
 and till you have got it to the stage of No. i. Then, 
 if you want to carry it farther, or if there are any 
 unevennesses in it, or if you enjoy the richness of the 
 stippled texture, begin with the small brush and a little 
 transparent grey in it (indigo and lake or madder 
 carmine). Let the tint be almost imperceptible, and 
 the brush only full enough to draw to a fine point; 
 and cover your grape with intersecting lines, at acute 
 angles, now encroaching with most faint and delicate 
 touches on the high light, as in No. 2, or in No. 5 of 
 the green grapes. 
 
 This done, if you are satisfied with your work, or 
 rather if it seems unlikely that your present skill can 
 carry it farther, you may leave it and begin another 
 
GREEN. 
 
 315 
 
 berry or another group. But if you have the welcome 
 perception that you really can make it better, proceed 
 with the fine point of the brush to fill up all the inter- 
 stices between your crossing lines, and try to bring all 
 to the transparency of Nos. 2, 4 and 6. Use the trans- 
 parent tint thus in stipple over the bloom and every- 
 where, except on the extreme high light; but with 
 the greatest faintness. 
 
 Grem Grapes . — Having laid on pure gamboge for 
 your transparent tint, — gradating it very carefully into 
 the high light with the clean brush, and also towards 
 the bloom-side, — wash on the shade-tints with a grey 
 made of indigo and a very little lake. Gradate towards 
 the lighter side with the clean brush, and let it dry. 
 Your grapes will now look of an unpromising grey and 
 yellow, and be ready for their faint green. This will 
 pass for their bloom-tint where it is laid on the white 
 paper (your light side is yet in that state), and for 
 proper grape-green where it passes over the yellow. 
 The extreme light edge may be left pure yellow, if 
 you wish to express ripeness and transparency. For 
 this green mix cobalt and gamboge, carefully trying the 
 tint over the dashes of yellow, and of yellow and grey, 
 which you have made on your margin. This experi- 
 mental way of trying one hue over another before 
 putting it on your work will save you much trouble 
 and disappointment. Lay this tint on the bloom-side, 
 sparing the high light and gradating towards the trans- 
 parent one. The bloom on grapes appears to be a sort 
 of fine down, only visible in the lights ; but its tint, if 
 once carried over the transparent part of your picture, 
 would spoil its clearness. 
 
316 
 
 HUES. 
 
 In going a second or third time over the three washes, 
 of gamboge for transparency, indigo and lake for shade, 
 and cobalt and gamboge for bloom and local colour, you 
 will have to vary their strength according to your eye ; 
 and it is probable that the yellow-green will need to 
 be enriched a little with burnt sienna. This may be 
 done in a wash, or by hatching and stippling. These 
 processes are to he used in the green grapes as in the 
 purple — with transparent colour, very faintly applied by 
 means of a brush carefully half-dried on blotting-paper. 
 
 The background, or a pretty dark tint of it, had 
 better be put in after the grapes are fairly covered with 
 their first entire coat of three different hues. The 
 beginner will be surprised by the telling effect which 
 the first appearance of the background will give his 
 work. That used in our illustration is composed of 
 burnt madder, indigo, and raw sienna. Cobalt may 
 he used instead of indigo, and many capital tones ob- 
 tained with the four colours, from red or dark yellow 
 to deep green or brown. Gamboge is the best trans- 
 parent bright yellow. Cadmium and lemon yellows 
 are only half-transparent; the chromes all fade; and 
 yellow madder is too red and powerful, though in other 
 respects and for other purposes it is one of the most 
 serviceable and beautiful of colours. 
 
 Other sets of tints may of course be used, as smalt 
 and ultramarine in the bloom-tints of purple grapes, 
 and emerald or malachite green, perhaps, in others. 
 But the colours we have named will do well enough 
 to begin with and for all students' practice, and it is 
 well to learn how much brilliancy can be got out of 
 simple colours. 
 
BODY-COLOUR. 
 
 317 
 
 The Finish of a landscape, and in some degree of other 
 pictures, has been treated in theory in the last few 
 pages. It is also considered at the end of the analysis 
 of our frontispiece. The use of body-colour in finishing 
 is justifiable enough of course ; but we think the stu- 
 dent ought to be able to do without it, and for the most 
 part, the artist too : though mixing a little white in his 
 colours to give bloom to his work is always fair. Body- 
 colour is best used on grey or coloured paper ; and 
 remarks on grey paper sketching will be found a little 
 further on. 
 
318 
 
 COPYING. 
 
 11 . 
 
 COPYING. 
 
 (Especially in Body-colour from Turner’s Sketches on Grey Paper.) 
 
 i^NE object of the preceding pages has been to reduce 
 the amount of absolute Copying which the student 
 will have to go through. Those who are sufficiently 
 advanced in their work to make tolerable studies from 
 Nature will find it of great use to them to make 
 studies of parts of great pictures, so as to learn definite 
 lessons of drawing and colour from them : but, as has 
 been said or implied before, it is not worth the time or 
 labour to copy a whole picture. To do it ill or indif- 
 ferently is not worth the time and labour which are 
 misspent in painful effort. To copy a whole picture 
 well, requires power and effort which might be better 
 employed. For instance, a careful student may study 
 the wreath round the little faun’s head in Nicolas 
 Poussin’s Dance of Satyrs, in the National Gallery, 
 with advantage; hardly with success until he has got 
 pretty far; but to elaborate the whole picture would 
 require science something like Poussin’s own. The best 
 rule for copying is, we think, to make partial studies 
 of interesting or useful parts of pictures, always for 
 the sake of the labour, and of what is learnt by it, 
 rather than for the result. Any one who has tried will 
 remember how the interest and value of a good picture 
 
TURNERS S IMITATIONS. 
 
 319 
 
 seems to double in the eye of a careful copyist ; so that 
 some attempt at imitation is almost a necessity for any 
 one who would really understand it. It is very easy to 
 look at and to admire Titian’s flesh-tint ; but a serious 
 attempt to copy a hand and a bracelet, or a Doge’s 
 sleeve, from one of his portraits, will give the best 
 idea of his consummate power which can be obtained. 
 Studies of this kind are of great value to all painters ; 
 but there is a way of studying a master without actual 
 copying, which is especially well suited to landscape 
 artists. It is Turner’s system ; and seems to consist 
 in imitating a master’s treatment in colour, tone, and 
 choice of effect, in parallel pictures (so to speak) 
 from one’s own stock of sketches or ideas. Turner 
 never (perhaps) copied any one; but he would choose 
 subjects like those of Claude or Vandervelde, and 
 paint pictures of his own in their manner till he had 
 exhausted all which was to be learnt from them. This 
 is of course a method of study which can hardly be 
 carried out except by a highly trained workman who 
 has mastered a technical system of painting, and can 
 rely on his own precision in using the instruments 
 of his craft. But even more than technical skill is 
 required to practise this system. A powerful and well- 
 stored memory is absolutely necessary for it ; as well 
 as that grasp of the student’s own subject (or felicity 
 in choosing it) which may enable him to learn from his 
 master in doing his own work, and to produce a really 
 original picture, as to facts, which is also a study from 
 a master as to treatment. It is perfectly true that 
 Turner’s emulative imitation of Claude did him no good, 
 and only held him back for a time from pursuing Nature 
 
320 
 
 GREF PAPER, 
 
 his own way on the Yorkshire moors and on the rivers 
 of France. But any one who will take up and try to 
 imitate one or two of the simpler grey-paper drawings 
 of Turner’s hand, in his own style, will soon find himself 
 learning fact after fact about Nature, and making step 
 after step in skill of rendering her. The University of 
 Oxford is particularly fortunate in possessing a pro- 
 gressive set of specimens of Turner’s work, which has 
 been selected for the use of students of landscape by 
 the munificent donor, Mr. Ruskin. The pecuniary value 
 of such a present is very large ; but its greatest value 
 will not be felt till the study of Art is fairly recognized 
 in Oxford, and these drawings are carefully analyzed 
 and lectured upon as standard works : for such in pure 
 landscape they undoubtedly are. In common Avith the 
 Rafael drawings, they form one of the most instructive 
 galleries in England : and now that they have been so 
 admirably re-arranged for the benefit of the student, 
 we may hope that some real progress in Art-study may 
 be made in the University. 
 
 The Turner sketches and incomplete drawings lead 
 us to anticipate a few remarks which will have to be 
 made about them in our chapter on Sketching fi’om 
 Nature, and to dwell a little on the word ‘sketching.’ 
 There is a use and a misuse for every term in Art, or 
 in anything else : and this participial substantive is no 
 exception to the rule. We have said that Amateur Art 
 is not inaccurate Art, but incomplete Art ; and we state 
 much the same thing in other words, when we say that 
 sketching is not drawing a whole thing carelessly and 
 hastily, but drawing the most important parts of a 
 thing very attentively. This is specially illustrated by 
 
PEN AND COLOUR, 
 
 321 
 
 Turner's grey-paper works. Many of them seem to 
 have been done on the spot. But the first thing in 
 them which strikes any one who is practised in careful 
 drawing is their precision and accuracy, rather than 
 their speed or power. Ordinary observers are vaguely 
 impressed by the latter, because they feel themselves 
 at once unable to understand how the work was done. 
 But when one begins to see how the work was done, 
 one observes, with grievous discouragement to one’s 
 hopes as a copyist, that almost every touch is the 
 result of an unknown quantity of previous knowledge 
 and practice. The first steps or processes are often 
 clear enough. Turner mixed his sky-blue or his storm- 
 grey, taking a little white with his cobalt and light 
 or Indian red. Or, if he had yellowish light to express, 
 and wanted to warm his cool grey paper, he washed 
 (probably) brown madder and white over it. Thus he 
 laid on a set of ground-tints, with such quick sug- 
 gestions ^ of and preparations for forms to come, as 
 iiis years of labour made easy to him. Copying will 
 enable many, or all, to understand them, but very few 
 will he able to imitate them. Then he took up his 
 pen and filled it with liquid brown, and with it drew 
 in all the forms he wanted, great and small ; rapidly, 
 accurately, mysteriously, in touches which told some- 
 times as outline, sometimes as parts or spots of shade, 
 irregular-looking enough till the colour came on ; when 
 they told as transparent shadow of the deepest tone 
 and sharpest form. By this drawing in pen and ink 
 over the ground-tints Turner secured a framework or 
 skeleton to clothe with colour ; and the colour was put 
 on in accurate and suitable forms, with no allowance 
 
 Y 
 
322 
 
 TOUCH. 
 
 for accident or variation from the well-considered first 
 intention. Or if the colour was put on without ink- 
 drawing under, it was put on in definite forms. If it 
 was green it was put on in the form of trees or bushes, 
 or patches, or sweeps of grassy ground ; if it was grey it 
 went on as rock or cloud, or what not, in definite form. 
 This is the great object of copying from Turner in his 
 simpler works ; for where he really brings out the stores 
 of his knowledge of Nature, it is almost impossible to 
 copy him. The actual result, the copy one has made, 
 is not successful, it hardly can be so : but the lessons 
 one has gained in form and colour, and the building up 
 and ruin of hills, and the growth and accidents of trees, 
 and the form and rhythmic order of clouds, ought to 
 be a regular step in advance on one's own course of 
 study. 
 
 The reason why neither Turner nor any other very 
 great workman can be successfully copied is that rapid 
 touches such as his, coming instantly from his brain 
 to the paper or canvas, and laid on with all his work- 
 man's power of touch, cannot be imitated slowly, by 
 mere attention and accuracy. It is so even in bare 
 line. It is a^matter of great difficulty at least, even 
 with the use of the finest tracing-paper, pencils, or 
 pens, to facsimile any involved lines in the ‘ Liber 
 Studiorum' plates. What they express may be stated 
 in line, so to speak, with sufficient exactness; but the 
 freedom, the artful hesitation and play of the touch are 
 not to be imitated. It is the old story about the fiddle 
 and the fiddlestick. Eloquence and force, moral and 
 mental, are not transferable qualities : and eloquence 
 expressed by form and colour is precisely the same 
 
TURNER AND NATURE. 
 
 
 iiiulefinable quality as eloquence of words, manners, 
 and gesture. It is the personal gift of the individual 
 mail ; rightl}" called inspiration, in some minor sense 
 of the word, simply because it is God’s gift to him 
 from the beginning, however wisely and hard he may 
 have worked to improve it. Any amount of instruc- 
 tion or enjoyment may be gained from the results of 
 another man’s inspiration; the mental gain of true 
 appreciation is incalculable ; but you cannot take 
 another man’s gift direct from him and make it your 
 own. To read a man’s speech attentively, to take 
 note of its graces, to get up its matter, meaning, 
 and purpose, to judge wisely, and in fact lovingly, 
 of its truth and wisdom, — all this is quite possible: 
 and a good copyist will do all this with the easier 
 works of Titian or Turner. But nobody except Titian 
 or Turner could repeat the works; and they were not 
 men to repeat themselves. 
 
 With Turner, the great thing seems to be, first 
 to pass a fair space of time in studying, and trying 
 to imitate, those expressive and designed touches 
 of his which look accidental, and are all planned 
 form; then to treat his picture as if it were a book 
 on natural history, and to try to verify its words 
 in his Book of Reference. You have learnt, perhaps, 
 to see Nature in Turner (many people decline taking 
 the trouble). Then go out into the fields or woods, 
 or wherever you can find a subject like some of his, 
 and see if you can find Turner in Nature. Stud}^ 
 him and verify him. Everybody has some idea of 
 the fiaming sunsets and chill bright dawns, and 
 cataclysms of rain, and breathing heat of noon, which 
 
324 
 
 COPYING TINTORET. 
 
 he set forth over and over again with ever-varied 
 repetition. Everybody has sun and cloud and rain to 
 look at, and may learn to look at them with the 
 eyes of the Observer and Imitator. 
 
 Our second chapter deals with copying from the 
 antique as a means of study; and of course it is 
 not in itself a very lofty end. Any one who can 
 really imitate a work worth copying, witli success, 
 must have power or skill which would be better 
 employed in working direct from Nature, or in ex- 
 pressing thoughts of his own. Yet the function of 
 the copyist would be an important one in Art if 
 it were properly understood and rightly patronised. 
 It is of no small importance that works like those 
 of the Arundel Society should be published, which 
 give a good notion, as far as they can go, of the 
 frescoes of Giotto and Ghirlandajo. The thoughts 
 and the handiwork of men whom every painter 
 honours in his heart are fast passing out of exist- 
 ence in the cities of Italy, and paintings of great 
 historical value fare no better than the buildings 
 which contain them. Many works of Tintoret in 
 Venice are quite unknown and uninterpreted in Eng- 
 land, e. g. all those in the church of S. Rocco. The 
 great Last Judgment in the Madonna delf Orto, and 
 the Golden Calf in the same church, are known by 
 name and by the description in ‘Modern Painters;' 
 hut we should not like to enquire into the number 
 of educated English visitors who never find their 
 way to a point so far from S. Mark's. Some better 
 way than engraving might be found of preserving 
 such record, as is now possible, of these great 
 
COPYING RAFAEL DRA WINGS. 
 
 325 
 
 works. Careful chalk or charcoal drawings well 
 photographed would be of great value, and this 
 country would have great cause to thank any good 
 draughtsman who would labour on them : not to 
 mention that he would gain such training, in fol- 
 lowing Tintoret's work, as would greatly develop 
 all the powers he possessed of his own. 
 
 Pencil sketches and partially coloured studies, 
 etchings and light-and-shade drawings, such as the 
 contents of the Rafael Gallery at Oxford, are the 
 real subjects for a student to copy; and, as has been 
 said, the educational worth of such collections is a 
 most important addition to their intrinsic value. 
 They are the notes, and first thoughts, and tentative 
 efforts of great masters, and shew all their favourite 
 processes in rapid work. Especially they shew 
 how great was the knowledge of form, the inven- 
 tiveness of mind and precision of hand, which seems 
 to have made them prefer hard -pointed pencil, or 
 pen-and-ink drawing, and even the use of a steel 
 or other especially sharp point on prepared paper. 
 Learners can understand and appreciate the master’s 
 skill only when they see his processes from the 
 beginning: and few moral lessons in Art are worth 
 more, to one who is impatient in mind and hurried 
 in touch, than long contemplation and careful copying 
 of some of Rafael’s partly shaded drawings in pen 
 and ink. There is something in those exact and 
 easy hatchings and crossed lines which gives one 
 a feeling of the precision of the graver and the 
 freedom of the brush in one. Rafael’s sketches also 
 give important lessons in delicate economy of shade. 
 
326 
 
 LIBER STUDIORUM. 
 
 A study of a figure or limb by his baud, ever so 
 carefully elaborated in form, and quite rounded into 
 projection, has hardly a dark touch in it, and would 
 tell in a picture as a mass of light. This is par- 
 ticularly instructive in these days of unmitigated 
 ink, when Gustave Dore paints all abomination in 
 its true tints of blackness. It is not our business 
 here to say anything of this artist’s works, or to 
 enquire into the causes of his great popularity: nor 
 are we inclined to dispute or diminish from his great 
 and evil genius. But it must be said, that what- 
 ever power his pictures possess, they contain every- 
 thing which we should wish our student to avoid. 
 
 The chapter on Composition contains various refer- 
 ences to Turner’s sketches and drawings, and most 
 persons will be able to verify one or more of them. 
 We do not know that it is desirable to give a young 
 landscape painter too many to look at at once. If 
 he will take any of the annexed list of ‘ Liber 
 Studiorum ’ plates which he fancies, and try to exhaust 
 it thoroughly, by careful copying first in line, then 
 repeatedly in light and shade, he will find himself 
 fast gaining strength enough for real sketching from 
 Nature \ 
 
 ^ Mr. Uuskin’s list of the best plates for study in the ‘ Liber 
 Studiorum’ is as follows : — 
 
 Grande Chartreuse. 
 CEsacus and Hesperie. 
 Cephalus and Procris. 
 Source of Arveiron. 
 Ben Arthur. 
 Watermill. 
 
 Hind-head Hill. 
 
 Calais Pier. 
 
 Pembury Mill. 
 
 Little Devil’s Bridge. 
 Holy Island. 
 
 Clyde. 
 
 Lanffenbourg. 
 
 Blair Athol. 
 
 Hedging and ditching. 
 Dumblane Abbey. 
 Morpeth. 
 
 x41ps from Grenoble. 
 Raglan. 
 
BODY-COLOUR ON GREY. 
 
 m 
 
 We take the liberty of adding to these Rizpah 
 and the Mer-de-Glace, for reasons which will be given 
 in our descriptions, and because they are perhaps the 
 most important of all in one ' great respect. They 
 shew any plain person what impressive power is in 
 landscape painting, and how great its appeal to 
 passion, feeling, and thought may be. The Sensualist 
 or late Renaissance School, which is fast rising at 
 the present day, with evil omen for Art, appeals to 
 impure emotions of various kinds and shades, simply 
 for the sake of power ; and adopts M. Taine's 
 philosophical criticism, which extols the artistic power 
 of Impurity, in the days of the Renaissance. Such 
 plates as these two, or Cephalus and Procris, arouse 
 all the nobler forms of those passions which are 
 now appealed to in their corruptness by images of 
 sensuality and cruelty, 
 
 A few remarks are left for us to make on the 
 subject of Body-colour. It may best be studied from 
 the works of three men, specimens of which are 
 accessible to most students : from Turner’s works 
 on grey, from Mr. Lewis’s (which are generally on 
 warm-tinted paper, suited to his favourite Eastern 
 or Spanish subjects), and from the drawings of the 
 late W. Hunt. It is of course necessaiy to use 
 body-colour, in the mere sense of mixing white 
 with one’s coloin-s, whenever the tints have to be 
 laid on coloured paper, as otherwise the ground- 
 colour destroys the transparent hues. And most 
 artists mix white with their sky, cloud, and distance 
 colours in landscape painting with great advantage, 
 as it gives bloom and aerial effect. But body-colour 
 
S28 
 
 PREPARA TION FOR OILS, 
 
 is an intermediate stage of painting between water- 
 colour and oils; and we had rather our student 
 should take pure water-colour and regular oil-painting 
 one at a time. Oil-painting is the converse of water- 
 colour in its operations, as has been said, inasmuch 
 as the lights are laid on thickly and the shadows 
 left in transparent under -colour. In body-colour 
 work, one is prepared for oil practice, and learns 
 how to combine transparent and opaque hues: be- 
 sides, in following Turner's carefully designed touches 
 as we have described, a habit is formed of always 
 seeking to express character, and give significant 
 form to every touch or group of touches one puts 
 on; and, as we have always held, that habit is the 
 foundation of all original painting. In short, a rather 
 advanced water-colourist will do well to use body- 
 colour as we have suggested, and glide from its use 
 into that of oil by slow degrees. But our principle 
 in water-colour is to rely only on ‘left' forms; 
 designed by the mind and drawn by the brush: 
 and to hew forms gradually out, with preconceived 
 purpose, leaving nothing to accident, or ‘taking out' 
 or painting over with opaque colour. All that may 
 do for a master of water-colour; though our ideal 
 water -colourist will be able to do without it: and 
 Turner always did without it, on white paper. As 
 a learner, one should hold by pure water-colour, 
 and never lose semi-transparency, at most; — making 
 no allowance for change of purpose or for alteration. 
 Indeed, the great temptation of body-colour is that one 
 is apt to think that anything may be changed or con- 
 cealed by it. And it ought not to be used for that 
 
NO CHANGE. 
 
 
 purpose by any student; because colours are put into 
 his hands that he may draw forms rightly; and he 
 ought not to think of hiding his mistakes by thick 
 plasters of Chinese white. A few points to his leaves 
 with cadmium and white; some fringes of foreground 
 grass, or draggings and hatchings to give texture to his 
 rocks and stones, or some good mist and cloud forms 
 rapidly swept over a dark distance, are excusable : 
 but in some of these a slight touch of oil-colour 
 for the bright points will generally do better. In 
 fact, for real study of real form, we recommend 
 body-colour: it is necessary if we are to follow 
 Turner, Hunt, and Lewis, as every painter ought 
 to follow them. But it was meant to be used 
 skilfully and not unskilfully : a man should be 
 something of a workman before he deals with it: 
 and for mending and altering we object to it 
 altogether ^ 
 
 ^ Our views about the selection of masters for the student are ex- 
 pressed at the end of the Historical Sketches in Part I. 
 
330 
 
 LANDSCAPE IN OIL. 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 FIRST LESSONS IN OIL-PAINTING. 
 
 Ty^E have treated the study of Water-colour in 
 ^ ^ this manual rather as a preliminary to that 
 of Oil-painting, than as an end in itself. This is 
 simply because the latter is on the whole a more 
 powerful means of expressing one's ideas, or realizing 
 natural objects, than the former. It is impossible to 
 say which is easier and which the more difficult, 
 — indeed, what we have just said about the com- 
 parative power of the two vehicles of painting 
 may be disputed; and those who have opportunities 
 of seeing the water-colours of Mr. Lewis, or of 
 Mr. Burne Jones, will not be likely to let it pass 
 uncontradicted. And the modern English Landscape 
 School, which is undoubtedly the central one in the 
 world, and may be said to be, at present, the most 
 progressive branch of Art in existence, owes every- 
 thing to water-colour. Water-colour, again, has gained 
 from Pre-Rafaelitism. It is useless to insist on the 
 admitted imperfections of a system which encourages 
 rapid sketching, and even admits of considerable 
 slightness and thinness in finished works. It is 
 clear that modern out -door drawings in water- 
 colour have enormously increased and popularized 
 
TURNER’S WA TER- COLO URS. 
 
 331 
 
 the knowledge of Nature; and that they prove how 
 intimate is the connexion between Nature and Art, 
 between the well-stored memory of the painter and 
 the speed and precision of his hand in his various 
 processes. But this great importance of water-colour 
 sketching and study from Nature is one reason why 
 water-colour should be a preliminary to oils: since 
 the slighter and more rapid work should come first 
 to store and enrich the memory : for water-colour 
 information, so to speak, is always useful and valuable 
 for oil-painting, while skill in oil is less available with 
 water. It will hardly be disputed that people should 
 begin with what they learn most from in the easiest 
 way. In landscape, there can be no doubt that 
 water-colour is this easier way ; though in strong 
 hands it may well be that it is the more powerful 
 way also. Turner’s water-colours of eighteen inches 
 by twelve, give ideas of power which even he never 
 surpassed in oil: but it would be very rash in any 
 student to refuse attention to oil in the hope of 
 emulating such works as Llanthony, or Goldau, or the 
 S. Gothard. Indeed, Turner’s extraordinary power with 
 solid or opaque colour could hardly have been matured 
 without the help of his vast practice in oil. There is 
 no doubt that any one who labours on exact principles, 
 faithfully meaning and wishing to be able to realize 
 as far as he can, will find that he can realize further 
 in oil than by other means: we say further, because 
 the power of oil-colour carries the impression further 
 by sheer force of propulsion. Oil and varnish im- 
 press colour on the eye far more strongly than water, 
 unless it be in fresco. The shiny or apparently 
 
3S2 
 
 PERMANENCE OF OILS. 
 
 wet surface enhances colour in a very powerful 
 way, which we cannot now stop to account for. It 
 is enough to say here, that all our training must 
 be in the direction of clearness and realization, and 
 the vehicle which realizes with the greatest clearness 
 must go first. A great painter may refuse us clearness 
 in his work, give us obscurity in its proper place; or 
 he may deny us realization for good reasons of his 
 own. But it will never be because he has not learned 
 to make his smaller forms out decisively, or draw 
 his larger ones clearly. We try to educate pupils 
 to do things and not to leave them out, to finish 
 to the utmost by adding truths in detail. When 
 they are able to do this, we must needs leave it to 
 them to use their science, in sure hope that they 
 will not resign the universally understood power 
 which accuracy infallibly gives every one who possesses 
 and can shew it. 
 
 But oil-painting has this further advantage, that 
 its results, if fairly treated, will last almost for ever, 
 and in many respects gain from the touch of Time. 
 This, it is true, does not make them more valuable 
 as works of Art once completed : but it has a tendency 
 to make the young artist, at least, more careful in 
 an oil-picture ; and so to give himself a better chance 
 of real success. Generally speaking, men work at 
 fuller stretch of their powers in oil than in water- 
 colour. They take more time, they are more certain 
 and deliberate with their processes; they are less 
 liable to be distracted with accidental results, good 
 or bad. As to the difficulty of real success, both 
 vehicles are about even. Our early lessons will have 
 
EASE, SO CALLED. 
 
 3S3 
 
 given a student some idea of the difficulty of a 
 large flat wash of water-colour, properly gradated. 
 The method of the late W. Turner is there given 
 as he taught it to all his pupils; and many of his 
 works bear witness to its excellence. But all his 
 pupils will remember how he, the coolest, most subtle 
 and methodical of extensive-landscape painters, con- 
 stantly found accidents, of materials and the like, 
 interfere with his work; and how often it had to 
 be repeated even when successful, till his flrst pale 
 purples and faint yellows deepened and brightened 
 into transparent luminous - perspective. His skies 
 and distances had a delicacy and power which is 
 scarcely attainable in oil-work, from the shininess 
 of surface which it always involves more or less: 
 but such gain of power would not make up, in 
 most men's eyes, for the additional command of 
 depth and brightness gained in oil throughout the 
 rest of a picture. The common notion that ‘ oil- 
 colour is easier tjian water-colour, because you can 
 alter anything you like,’ deserves as much clipping 
 and turning as common notions generally do. Of 
 course it is easy to smear anything out; and it is 
 an advantage to be able to do so without spoiling 
 one's ground, so as to be ready for a new attempt. 
 But in as far as the possibilities of patching and 
 mending tempt the student to begin any work be- 
 fore he really knows what he is going to do 
 — so far the practice of oil will be found danger- 
 ous to him, and is wrong for him. It does not 
 follow that because you have great advantages for 
 rubbing out a thing when it is wrong, you will 
 
334 
 
 ALTERATIONS. 
 
 therefore be able to paint it in again right. The 
 real advantages of oil in the matter of alteration 
 will be considered. The}^ are very great in landscape 
 especially, as any impression of coloured light may 
 be given by transparent glazing, and any idea of 
 mist or aerial perspective easily conveyed by scum- 
 bling with solid colour. In oil-colour, as in all good 
 work whatever, the effort should always be to do 
 the thing rightly at first, striking it off once and 
 for all. There must always be long preparation 
 in the way of thought and acquisition of know- 
 ledge: there must be sufficient technical knowledge 
 of processes and materials. Studies of parts or of 
 the whole of a work may be made beforehand, if 
 it be necessary: in fact, the painter ought to have 
 been collecting materials for his picture long before 
 he begins it, and to have thought over its treatment 
 enough to be able to see his way through it. Having 
 done such justice to his subject in preparation, he 
 will want no more than correct outlines to guide 
 him when he brings it to canvas; and will be able 
 to paint things in with a full mind and a full brush. 
 
 Of course there is a difference between altering 
 an idea or thought, so as to make it necessary to 
 insert or leave out a figure or detail, and altering 
 and patching to mend mistakes in drawing or colour. 
 But the conception of a picture should be as little 
 altered as possible in any case, and that is a greater 
 work cceteris paribus which clings more closely to 
 its original design. 
 
 Every one knows the virtue of quick touches ; though 
 the number of those who feel the difference between 
 
 1 
 
PREPARA TION. 
 
 335 
 
 quick touches right and quick touches wrong is 
 unfortunately much smaller. And the advantage of 
 oil, as we see it, seems to be that it involves more 
 careful preparation and better previous instruction 
 than water-colour, as the trouble of preparation is 
 greater ; also, that it allows less excuse for slight 
 work. It was noticed at a late water-colour exhi- 
 bition, that the drawings which were sent there by 
 professed oil-painters were on the whole superior to 
 those by professed water-colourists. The reason was 
 of course that oil-painting is more ‘professional,' and 
 implies more complete training (for the most part) 
 than water-‘ drawing: ' and this is reason enough for 
 taking water-colour as the preliminary, in a treatise 
 for the use of not very far advanced students. 
 
 In point of fact, it is as much more difficult to use 
 oil, as it is more difficult to get a clean line, exact form, 
 and minute pointed touch with a hoghair brush than 
 with a fine sable. Fine brushes may of course be used 
 in oil-colour, even with turpentine and colour, as if with 
 water. But the effect of such touches in finishing will 
 depend almost absolutely on the broader work which 
 has gone before. And through all the process, from the 
 charcoal outline to the last touches which force out 
 the foreground into relief, the advantage or the want 
 of elementary training in form will assuredly make 
 itself felt. We have drawn no line as to the time 
 which must be given to elementary drawing in the 
 first instance; but there are few artists who do not 
 find much advantage in returning to it at intervals, 
 either in the way of life-study or drawing from the 
 cast. But the excitement which must seize on all 
 
336 
 
 fVAATT OF MEANING. 
 
 ordinary persons as soon as they begin to see their 
 ideas partly realized and actually coining into existence 
 in a picture is both real and trying : and the number 
 of minor ideas and processes which contribute to make 
 up the general effect is very large and confusing: and 
 the difference will soon be felt between the well-trained 
 eye and mind, which virtually sees every form before 
 the hand has put it on the canvas, and the uncertain 
 half-trained touches which prove that the mind has not 
 really settled what it means the hand to do, but has 
 trusted to the chapter of accidents, and is letting the 
 hand wander in hope of a suggestive blot. There is pro- 
 bably only one recorded example in ancient Art which 
 is faithfully followed by our rapid performers at the 
 present day ; it is Protogenes' painting the foam. Many 
 a brush is dashed unmeaningly against paper or can- 
 vas in the desperate hope of getting something out of 
 nothing — some suggestive form to help the idle eye or 
 exhausted invention. Time and thought, careful studies 
 beforehand, and the determination, methodically car- 
 ried out, never to put on an unmeaning form, or use 
 a glaze or a scumble^ without a reason: these things 
 will enable a man to do his best, and improve that best 
 with every picture. 
 
 But it is time to set our student to work. We 
 have given him a training in light and shade, and 
 some information about colours, as used with water; 
 and some practice in using them in still-life objects. 
 If he has not hitherto used oil-brushes or colour, 
 
 ^ To glaze is to rub a coat of transparent colour, mixed with 
 medium, over your canvas ; to scumble is to use partly opaque colours 
 and white, in the same way. 
 
PRIMING A CANVAS. 
 
 SS7 
 
 he had better copy some easy cast in monochrome, 
 as follows, to get used to the tools. Let him get 
 a correct outline in chalk on a mill-board or pre- 
 pared block; and fix it with a small brush and tur- 
 pentine: then let him go over the whole surface with 
 a thin -glaze of raw umber and cobalt, with a little 
 white and medium, which will have the eflect of 
 brown transparent shadow: then let him paint into 
 that glaze all his half-tints of light, in fiake white and 
 umber, blending it into the transparent shade. He may 
 then put on his high lights and, if necessary, reinforce 
 his shades a little with transparent colour; but it 
 will be safest to let the first painting dry, then to glaze 
 it again all over with transparent shade; and then 
 paint in the lights somewhat higher a second time. 
 Two or three coatings thus put on will accustom 
 the pupil to the use of the tools ; which differs 
 fi:’om water-colour mainly in this, that the point of 
 the brush is but little used, the colour being laid 
 sideways for the most part, as in charcoal drawing. 
 We will begin a landscape with him : postulating 
 for him that it shall be from a sketch of his 
 own, or at least that he has seen the subject, and 
 has a sketch of it before him; that he shall have 
 thought it over carefully, and indeed made studies of 
 important parts ; and that he shall have before him 
 a warm whitish canvas on an easel in a good north 
 light, if possible ; at all events with the main light 
 coming from above. 
 
 Then let him consider the amount of time and 
 patience he has at his disposal, which will depend 
 greatly on the interest he takes in his subject. 
 
 z 
 
338 
 
 PRIMING A CANVAS. 
 
 If he feels strong enough to try to elaborate it tho- 
 roughly, by a regular first, second, and third painting, 
 he may proceed at once on his canvas, prepared as it 
 is by the colourman. But if he has only time for one 
 painting, or is only making an oil-sketch, it will be 
 best to ' prime ' his canvas with an extra-thick coat 
 of warm white. It will give him good texture to 
 work on— just as important a matter in oils as in 
 water-colour — and it will prevent the colours sinking 
 into the canvas when drying, and make them bear 
 out as brightly as on paper. In this case proceed as 
 follows 
 
 Mix a little cadmium or yellow ochre, and pink 
 madder, with a great deal of flake white, and two or 
 more drops of < turpentine, in proportion to the size of 
 the canvas. The more turpentine the faster all dries : 
 it will probably be best to use as much as will leave 
 the coat of ‘ priming ' soft enough to be smoothed nicely 
 with the handkerchief Use no megilp where the sky 
 is to come, or anywhere unless you want shininess of 
 surface ; to which we ourselves strongly object, except 
 in calm water, &c. If you have rich sunset or bright 
 autumn tints in your mind, make your mixture, or part 
 of it, warmer and brighter : in any case the result 
 should be a warm white, light yellow or pinkish. It 
 depends on your full knowledge of what you mean 
 to do, whether you should give any forms in grounding 
 a picture thus. Much may be done by using trans- 
 parent shade over a warm ground, or by painting local 
 colour and detail over a ground of light ; and vice versd 
 by painting into heavy ground-shade. All depends on 
 your hold of your facts. In all early work, abide 
 
BROAD MIDDLE TINTS, 
 
 339 
 
 strenuously by your first intention, I may say right or 
 wrong. ‘Error (or imperfect arrangement) persevered 
 in becomes success.' Prepare enough warm white 
 to cover your canvas, and paint it thickly on with 
 a hogliair brush. 
 
 This done, take a clean fine napkin or old pocket- 
 handkerchief, and fold it lightly together, corners 
 inwards, into a baggy shape, loose but smooth (some- 
 thing like the ‘balls' or dabbers which are used to 
 apply the ink to the types in a printing-press). Then 
 beat the coat of warm white with very light repeated 
 blows over its whole surface till it is perfectly even and 
 equal all over. The lighter the strokes the finer the tex- 
 ture, but a certain amount of roughness where sky and 
 distance are to come will do rather good than harm. 
 
 When this coat is quite dry, and your outline is 
 drawn on it in charcoal lines which fully express to 
 your understanding all the principal forms and shades 
 of your picture, take a small sable with a little turpen- 
 tine, blow away nearly all your charcoal, and fix the 
 lines by passing the brush over them. We like to draw 
 our distances in with smalt and turpentine, and our 
 foregrounds or strong lights with scarlet madder or 
 yellow. Have by you a study or etching of principal 
 lines, on which you can rely when your outline is lost 
 as the coatings of colour are laid on. 
 
 It is useless to begin before you have settled finally 
 what and how much space shall be covered by your 
 broader shadows, and consequently where your main 
 lights are to come. 
 
 The main processes in an oil-picture, especially in land- 
 scape, seem to be expressible thus in the shortest way. 
 
 z 2 
 
340 
 
 PIGMENTS. 
 
 Lay on 
 
 1. Middle tint of shade (transparent). 
 
 2. Middle tint of light (opaque), and blend by paint- 
 
 ing over while wet. 
 
 3. ‘Paint up' your lights as bright as you please, 
 
 or as you can; not by use of violent tints, but 
 in grammatical light and shade.' Sharp opaque 
 touches. 
 
 4. Brighten all by putting in the reserved strong 
 
 darks. Turner’s cypresses, or the figures in 
 Rogers’ ‘Poems’ and ‘Italy,’ are wonderful ex- 
 amples of reserved force and its use. Sharp 
 transparent touches. 
 
 Of course when the picture is dry, between any of these 
 steps you can draw forms in, to guide your further 
 operations, with white or other chalk. You ought to 
 have a study at hand of how you mean to treat your 
 subject, as well as a sketch in line or light and shade 
 of the facts of the subject you mean to treat Let the 
 
 ^ Colours to be arranged on your palette, say in this order : — 
 Megilp 
 
 I (these in larger quantity). 
 
 Flake white 
 
 As also — 
 
 Cobalt*. 
 
 Ultramarine asli. 
 
 Smalt. 
 
 Antwerp blue (a very little). 
 
 Brown madder (enough). 
 
 Purple madder (enough). Burnt sienna. 
 
 Bose madder. Emerald green. 
 
 Have a little turpentine by you ; and use rather large 
 brushes at first ; red sables afterwards. 
 
 Light red. 
 
 Vandyke brown (enough). 
 Yellow ochre. 
 
 Baw sienna. 
 
 Gamboge. 
 
 flat 
 
 hoghair 
 
 * Ultramarine ash is often preferable to cobalt, unless a very definite blue (as of 
 blue sky) is wanted. It produces beautiful green-greys. 
 
TRANSPARENT SHADOWS. 
 
 341 
 
 sky and distance alone for the present. When your 
 mind is made up, first rub some megilp medium, with 
 a little transparent brown colour, umber, madder, or 
 what you will in it, over all the shadow-space ; then 
 paint or rub your broad shadows over the whole space 
 they are to cover, disregarding everything except their 
 outer forms or the lights you niean to leave within 
 them. For pure light and shade use brown madder 
 and cobalt mixed up with enough white to give con- 
 sistency, yet not enough for opacity. Rub it on thinly 
 and lay it as evenly as possible : if it lies too thickly 
 where the full brush first touched, or elsewhere, take 
 a clean one and spread it till you have a transparent 
 coat of shade wherever you want it. Remember this 
 rule throughout your work, ‘Transparent shades and 
 solid lights.' Also, ‘No megilp to be used in sky 
 or extreme distance.' You can thin your tint with 
 turpentine. For storm-shadows use light red and 
 cobalt, with white ; deepen with black if you will : 
 or on deep mountain-shades with purple madder, or 
 on sea-surface with Antwerp blue, both in the smallest 
 quantities. They have a very beautiful effect in moder- 
 ation, and a thoroughly destructive one in excess. 
 Vandyke brown is the best of all ground-shadows for 
 the nearest parts of a picture. 
 
 Your canvas is now half-covered, and sufficiently 
 dolorous in its appearance. Look well at your study 
 and line-sketch : consider what pitch of shade you 
 have now put on, that is to say, how many degrees 
 of light and shade above or below it you want to 
 have in yoilr picture. You ought to have quite set- 
 tled what scale of light and shade, or, as painters 
 
TONE, 
 
 say, what tone, you mean to have throughout your 
 picture. We call a dark picture deep-toned, if there 
 he sufficient gradation in its darkness; for darkness 
 and depth are very different things. We call a bright 
 picture clear-toned, or light in tone, if it consist 
 principally of masses of well-gradated light, with only 
 a few strong darks used to get brightness by contrast. 
 According as you economize the darks or force them, 
 or, in other words, as you work by gradations of light 
 or gradations of darkness, you will be following the 
 system of Rembrandt or that of Turner (for which see 
 p. 249), and the general effect of your picture will be 
 deep or luminous accordingly. Much may be done by 
 after-glazings or scumblings to deepen or lighten the 
 general pitch of shade: but of course it is far better 
 to be right, or nearly right, at first. So now mix a 
 middle tint for your lights, that is to say, one which 
 shall stand in bright relief against your shades, yet 
 admit of blending with them; and which shall be 
 dark enough to leave you the power of putting on 
 high lights with telling effect towards the close of 
 your labours. Always keep a good reserve of force 
 both in light and shade for the end of the work, 
 so as to ‘come with a rush’ in finishing the picture. 
 Before beginning to paint any form on a dry canvas 
 or painting, it is almost always necessary to rub on 
 some megilp, tinted with transparent colour (as brown 
 madder), to paint into: clean forms are impossible 
 without it. This must be the first thing done on 
 the canvas in every day’s painting. 
 
DISTANCE. 
 
 343 
 
 Extreme distance. E^ect of light. 
 
 Pink or yellowish light (as cumulus clouds in evening 
 or morning sunshine, or distant hills where local 
 colour is merged in light) : 
 
 r rose or pink madder predominating, 
 
 Mix <; with a little cohalt or ultramarine- ash, and 
 [ white. 
 
 You may add, or glaze afterwards with, a little 
 raw sienna, without megilp; turpentine may be 
 used instead. 
 
 Detail afterwards, with 
 
 rose madder and ultramarine ash, or 
 smalt pure, or with white. 
 
 Clear shadows in extreme distance (telling as light 
 in the whole tone of the picture) : 
 
 " ultramarine ash or cobalt predominating, 
 rose madder, 
 
 Mix 
 
 I the least possible amount of yellow ochre, 
 white. 
 
 Detail with ultramarine ash or smalt, and white. 
 
 White is to be used with everything in distance, and 
 medium to be banished entirely, if possible. 
 
 As to glowing or coloured light, it may be glazed on 
 afterwards to your heart's content with more forcible 
 colours. Cadmium and the chromes, malachite, chro- 
 mium and emerald greens; cerulium and ultramarine, 
 extract of vermilion, carmine and all the brighter 
 madders — excellent colours all — are meant for masters 
 rather than for pupils. But if you have laid your 
 ground with provident foreknowledge of your subject, 
 
344 
 
 TURNER’S WORKS ON GREF. 
 
 the effect will be likely to be one not to be sacrificed 
 for the sake of florid colour. Subdued and mysterious 
 glow, like some of Linnelfs work, is the best aim of a 
 young landscape colourist: and it is best obtained by 
 having the glow under, painting over, and so toning 
 it down, with mysterious detail and distant shadow. 
 
 Those who have access to any of Turner's simpler 
 works on grey paper will find it of the greatest use 
 to make one or two very careful copies or studies 
 from them before beginning oil-colour. His process 
 seems to have been almost the same as that which 
 is regularly taught to students of oil-painting in 
 our National Art-Schools. First came his middle tints 
 of shade, all the darker masses of his composition, 
 painted on at great speed, hut with an attention 
 to form which shews how thoroughly premeditated 
 the whole work was in his mind. These masses of 
 shade came first, done in nearly transparent body- 
 colour, with just enough white in it to make the 
 tints hear out from the grey paper. Then he went 
 over the whole with pen and colour, marking in 
 forms of detail and accenting the corners, outlines, 
 and small deep darks of his whole picture. Then he 
 took up his lights in thick body-colour with extra- 
 ordinary attention to form, putting on the light sides 
 of a whole forest of trees, for instance, and leaving 
 the grey of the paper to stand for their shaded side. 
 Then he settled his highest lights, and gradated every- 
 thing up to them: then he put in figures or near 
 objects which threw everything into aerial distance, 
 and often furnished one or two touches of bright 
 local colour: and then came a cypress or plough, or 
 
FOREGROUND OBJECTS, 
 
 Mo 
 
 some broad form and shadow, which threw everything 
 somehow into its place. 
 
 Page 349 will contain a list of a few middle-distance 
 tints, which will serve in foreground, if you keep the 
 shades dark and transparent, in Vandyke brown, and 
 if your lights are well defined and solid. 
 
 Your canvas is now fairly covered with what 
 amounts to a rather advanced ‘first painting.' It 
 may now be left to dry thoroughly, for two or three 
 days. Meanwhile, it will be best to look well at 
 old sketches, photographs, or anything which refreshes 
 your memory or stimulates your thoughts about the 
 scene you are working at. Your mind has done 
 with the composition of its picture, and must now 
 take in a store of minor facts for detail. So if you 
 have a hill-side covered with trees in your picture, 
 store your mind with tree-forms from a photograph, 
 or from Nature, or go and study one of Turner's 
 forests: the same of course with rocks or clouds, or 
 what you will. You must now settle (unalterably, 
 if possible, which is not often the case) what j^our 
 foreground shall be, whether you will have incidents 
 or figures, or leave the scene to itself. On this last 
 matter the plain truth is that a landscape student 
 had better let figures alone till he can paint them. 
 Still, turf-carts on a moor, white jackets and blue 
 petticoats, with red faces and legs, are admissible — 
 though I should prefer a few grouse basking among 
 sand; or a fox or wild cat. Eagles and red deer 
 have become conventional, and so I regret to say have 
 herons; so if drawn they must be well drawn. In 
 Swiss scenery, well studied flowers, such as Alpine 
 
346 
 
 SECOND PAINTING, 
 
 roses on the lower ground, and gentians higher up, 
 are better than any attempt at figures. Of course in 
 either Scottish or Swiss landscape, if you can put 
 in a brown bull, with lights to mark the weather- 
 bleached curls of yellow shagginess on his thick neck 
 and shoulders ; and if you have feeling enough to 
 call attention to his short forelegs, and horns, his 
 wild eye, and nostril of scorn — especially if you have 
 a sketch of your own which reminds you somewhat 
 of such points— he will do credit to a place in or 
 near your foreground. But in proportion as you 
 feel weaker, you must put him farther oflp. The 
 eternal camel cannot be kept out of an Eastern 
 scene, if it be in Egypt or the Desert (he is not 
 wanted in Syria, but no one has courage to omit 
 him) — and he is easy to draw, as his characteristic 
 points are so strongly marked. Lewis's are best of 
 all as models. In any case, while your first painting 
 is dry, draw from detail your forms upon it in chalk, 
 black or white. - You can try the effect of figures or 
 animals, &c., by cutting out paper ‘silhouettes’ of their 
 form and general tint of colour, and sticking them on 
 the picture for a while ; or use soft coloured chalks. 
 
 You will now go over your picture again with 
 higher lights and brighter colours: though the object 
 is not so much to raise part or the whole of the 
 picture to intense brightness, as to have plenty of 
 true gradations between your lightest and your darkest. 
 And here you will find previous water-colour training 
 of great value, for your object now is sharp form: 
 varied and delicate it ought to be also, but keen 
 and decisive it must be. The object of all the school 
 
RESERVED DARK TOUCHES. 
 
 347 
 
 and book training you have gone through, and also 
 of all your out-door sketching, has been to enable 
 you to remember the natural forms you want, to 
 know them correctly at the needful time, to anti- 
 cipate and see your way through every process and 
 touch in representing them. Think well therefore 
 over every form, make good use of your chalk out- 
 lines, and then paint your forms in steadily, yet with 
 quick touches. The dark transparent colours had 
 better go on first, all over the given formh In the 
 brown bull, for instance, you would paint him all over 
 quite flat with Vandyke brown; then you would 
 take yellow, white and red, and paint his lights over; 
 Anally purple or black, and put the last few dark 
 touches, which ought to be the most forcible and 
 expressive of all. And if he were white, part of him 
 would still be in shade, and the whole ought first to 
 be painted in the more or less transparent grey, of the 
 darkest shade, and then to be brought out by thick, 
 well-defined touches on muscles and locks of hair 
 drawn sharply in warmer or cooler white. So with 
 rocks or massed trees in middle - distance : paint in 
 the light sides on the ground-shade with the greatest 
 effort at sharp form, and a few darks will complete 
 all necessary detail. With the water-colour fore- 
 ground you were advised to put on your lightest and 
 brightest pink first, all over your mass of heather, 
 let us say; and then to hew the form out of it 
 with the darker colours of the stems and leaves. 
 With oil you will find it best to put on first the 
 general coat of transparent dark\ and paint on the 
 
 ' See footnote, however, p. 349. 
 
348 
 
 FOREGROUND. 
 
 light forms, thick and bright ; lighter perhaps than you 
 want them, to allow for after glazing. Last of all put 
 in the reserved darks with all their force; let them 
 be perfectly transparent, and decisive in form. ‘Full 
 of meaning ' is the highest praise of all, for the picture 
 as a whole and for all parts of it, and every one 
 of the last darks ought to speak, as it were. And 
 if the lights are sharply touched, and there is right 
 and grammatical gradation, the whole canvas will 
 kindle and expand as the strong darks throw dis- 
 tance back on distance. 
 
 As to Finish, enough was said of it in the chapter 
 on Water-colour. As has been said, to finish is to 
 add facts, especially in the foreground, where the 
 eye looks for them. Oils and water-colour are much 
 the same as to the pigments used; and correct draw- 
 ing is the same thing in one vehicle as in the other. 
 The difference is in the use of opaque lights in oil, 
 and the modelling processes which they require. But 
 any one who has learnt enough of gradation, form, 
 and surface, in water-colour, will find himself blending 
 and modelling with some spirit, by the time he has 
 got through the first painting of his first canvas. He 
 has the facts, and can make his picture state them 
 for him, from horizon to foreground. ‘The distance 
 and the middle-distance had this general effect, and 
 so much detail was visible in them, in the confusion 
 of space and aerial perspective— look in my lights 
 and you will see. The foreground had such and 
 such stones lying about it, granite or slate or gneiss, 
 broken here and lichened there, lying points up, 
 wedged in old moraine, or like smooth stones of 
 
MIXED TINTS. 
 
 SW 
 
 ancient rivers before the day of man — look and see. 
 And there were ferns in the shaded places, with cnrling 
 buds and hairy stalks, and heather in clusters of purple 
 spikes, all with strange subtle curves of their own, all 
 in fine intricate detail beyond what I can shew: but 
 in a plain way I shew all I can — look and see.’ 
 
 It has seemed on the whole better to put this 
 short sketch of oil-colour processes before our chapters 
 on Composition and Sketching from Nature. No more 
 is attempted than to set the student to work on a 
 coherent system, and with a few colours. As he 
 advances in power, he is sure to vary his methods. 
 
 Texture may be secured by scraping the dry surface 
 of your work with an old razor; or by dabbing it over 
 lightly while wet, as in grounding the canvas at first. 
 
 MIXED TINTS IN MIDDLE DISTANCE AND FOEEGEOUND. 
 
 Greys. 
 
 Storm grey— Light red and cobalt, deepened with black. ) Mix with 
 Calm grey (faint)-— Brown madder and cobalt. j white. 
 
 TOWARDS FOREGROUND. 
 
 Greens. 
 
 Spring and early Summer Burnt sienna, Prussian blue, with strontian 
 yellow, raw sienna, or ‘ aureolin.’ 
 
 Heighten lights with emerald green and chromes. 
 
 Deepen with Prussian-blue, Indian red, and gamboge. 
 
 Autumnal Shades i—Raw sienna, light red, brown madder, and cobalt ; 
 Prussian-blue, Indian red, gamboge. 
 
 Heighten with cadmium, chromes, and vermilion ad libitum. 
 
 FOREGROUND. 
 
 Vandyke brown under. Paint over in sharp form with solid local 
 colours. 
 
 But it will probably be best, as you gain decision and power, to 
 paint your foregrounds on the water-colour principle : laying down the 
 richest and brightest hues first all over, and cutting forms out of 
 them with the shade. 
 
350 PORTRAIT IN OIL AND WATER-COLOUR. 
 
 PORTRAIT IN OIL AND WATER-COLOUR. 
 
 This part of our book seems hardly complete without 
 a few hints on study and practice for portrait-painting. 
 All good workmen will know how difficult it is to do 
 more than set the student to work : but, as has been so 
 often repeated, this manual professes only to give him 
 principles and rules by which he may learn to teach 
 himself. Before he attempts anything from a living 
 model we will suppose that he has painted a certain 
 number of casts in monochrome, carefully studying 
 the faces, and that he has gained accuracy enough 
 to be able to command that considerable power of 
 likeness which must result from good drawing. He 
 has only to take a canvas or mill-board, draw his 
 cast right on it in charcoal, and secure the outline 
 with chalk. Then let him scumble a tint of raw 
 umber and cobalt, with a little white mixed with 
 medium, thinly over the whole surface, and paint 
 the light side, and all the lights solidly into that 
 in correct form; blending the tint and modelling the 
 surface with the other brush, used for the scumble. 
 When the canvas is covered, it may be well, before 
 drying, to dab the flesh -surface over with a cloth, 
 as directed at p. 339. This secures texture: and 
 the surface may also be scraped when dry. A second 
 and third painting may follow — scumbling the trans- 
 parent shade over the dry surface, then painting the 
 lights into it in white. We suppose this to have 
 been gone through, and that our student is face to 
 
SITTERS. 
 
 351 
 
 face with his sitter; and a few hints on dealing 
 with one of those generally unintelligent and in- 
 tractable beings may, perhaps, be of use. 
 
 Consider first if your sitter can be induced to sit 
 still, and keep his features still, or let himself alone, 
 and give you a quiet view of his natural features, 
 without simpering, or making eyes, or looking vigorous 
 and truculent, or assuming the supposed expression 
 of any favourite hero. The great thing of course is 
 to be able to interest him in some subject of con- 
 versation while your work proceeds. Nothing makes 
 men more awkwardly self-conscious than sitting for 
 a portrait: and the great thing is to get rid of self- 
 consciousness from the face or expression just when 
 you are actually drawing it. Find, if you can, a 
 point for your sitter to look at which will bring 
 his face to the right direction, and let it be under- 
 stood between you, that when you look at him, he 
 is to look at that point. Of course all matters 
 relating to position must depend very much upon 
 circumstances, such as the aspect of rooms, height 
 of windows, peculiarities of face, and even the 
 habits of the sitter. This arranged, if you can keep 
 him interested in conversation or otherwise, and get 
 him to look at his point unconsciously, so much the 
 better: if not, he had better be allowed a book on 
 a table-easel, or something which will enable him to 
 read without dropping his eyes too much. Do not let 
 him stiffen his neck, or throw his head too far back: 
 treat him, as Isaac Walton says of his frog, as though 
 you loved him, and settle him into some favourite 
 and comfortable position. There is much expression 
 
S52 
 
 FIRST MODELLING. 
 
 of character in the carriage of a head, and its poise 
 on the spine. 
 
 As to the light, it will perhaps be best to hide 
 all windows except one behind you, and facing the 
 sitter, and to cover the lower part of that. You 
 will place him, let us say, with his face three-quarters 
 turned to the light — and consequently you will have 
 about half one side of his face visible in shade. When 
 he is once properly seated, the fixed point to look 
 at will enable him always to keep the right position 
 to an inch: and the light, falling obliquely on or 
 about his forehead, will throw good marked shadows 
 on his face. Former practice with casts should help 
 you much in arranging this. 
 
 Then treat him first in monochrome, exactly like a 
 cast. In doing so, you will find the same difficulty in 
 portrait-painting as in trying to catch and record any 
 important natural subject; you will meet the great 
 difficulty of representing change or subtle continued 
 motion. Eyes will not be still ; and the more animated 
 and vivid the face before you, the more fresh and 
 unaffected its expression, so much the more subtle 
 change and play you will observe in it. However, a 
 sitter will at all events try to help you, which a cloud 
 or a waterfall will not ; also, as in landscape, the more 
 subtly you observe, the more you have to record after 
 all, and the higher are the qualities of your work. 
 This first painting in monochrome is certainly the best 
 method for beginners, and perhaps for all except ex- 
 perienced masters. It secures likeness and a scale of 
 light and shade; and by it you partly determine the 
 key of colour in which you mean to paint : the clearer 
 
DARK AND FAIR TYPER, 
 
 353 
 
 and brighter hues you mean to put on, the lighter and 
 sharper should be the handling of your flesh-shadows : 
 in fact, the higher key requires higher skill. When your 
 monochrome portrait is thoroughly modelled and dry, 
 scumble again with a green grey\ in order to break 
 the flesh-colour which is coming and secure the proper 
 admixture of grey with the warmer hues. Then, if you 
 are using a high bright scale of colour, in painting 
 cherry cheeks and that kind of thing, mix rose madder, 
 raw sienna, and white, with a little megilp, and paint 
 on a half-tint of light ; using vermilion afterwards for 
 lips and blushes. If you have a sunburnt man's face 
 to deal with, more raw sienna and a little light red 
 may be added ; and so you can go on through all bright 
 yellow or copper-coloured complexions, down to using 
 umber for any coloured gentleman or lady you may 
 wish to immortalize. If, however, you are painting 
 a swarthy face in a dark picture, and low key of colour, 
 light red will be bright enough to be mixed with the 
 white and sienna for your first flesh-tint. Most men's 
 faces are, or ought to be, sunburnt, and you will soon 
 observe the differences of bilious and sanguine tem- 
 perament, and the necessary colouring. In other words, 
 some men burn black and others brown-red. The best 
 representation of these two types of Englishmen which 
 I know of is that of the Barons in Mr. Watts’ great 
 fresco in Lincoln's Inn Hall. The dark face is of the 
 Cromwell type, and is, I believe, a portrait of Sir John 
 Lawrence. The other with the beard and general 
 resemblance to Thor, bears some likeness to the Earl 
 
 ^ Say of ivory black, emerald green, white, and a little Prussian blue. 
 
 A a 
 
354 
 
 RED SEMITIC TYPE. 
 
 of Leicester. Both faces, at all events, announce them- 
 selves as portraits none the less genuine for being more 
 or less idealized. For to idealize a face means really, 
 to dwell on and add force and charm to its most sug- 
 gestive features ; to make the spectator see in your 
 picture the ideas and judgments about the sitter which 
 are borne in upon you as you paint him. The differ- 
 ence between the red and black Highlander is still 
 better known than the one we have mentioned: and 
 the same types are to be seen in the Semitic races. 
 Hebrew hair is red enough sometimes, and I have seen 
 it of the finest auburn shades in Jerusalem. I remem- 
 ber also that my guide to the Dead Sea, a Bedouin 
 called Sheykh Salam ibn Seir, combined the true 
 eagle features of Nineveh, wasted and exaggerated by 
 heat, age, and hunger, with fine yellow-brown hair 
 and beard. 
 
 Having finished your first and second painting, the 
 features should be modelled and formed by hatchings 
 with brown or pink in their proper directions, as with 
 an engraver’s lines. These will be the same in oil as 
 in water-colour ; and in the latter may be followed up 
 by fine stippling. The great success in this is to be 
 able to blend the pure pink and pure yellow-brown, as 
 also the grey shade, delicately together without mixing 
 the colours : this will produce real richness of hue. 
 The effect will be one of true glow and force : and 
 though the resulting colour will be neither crude nor 
 staring, it will hold its own, even though it be hung 
 in an exhibition next to a Master of Fox Hounds or 
 a Lord Mayor. 
 
 This system of covering the canvas with scumbled 
 
VENETIAN PAINTING. 
 
 355 
 
 shade first and painting on the lights seems the best 
 for a beginner. Yet the converse one, of painting on 
 the lights and shades of a face thickly and at first, is 
 recommended by many and good workmen, and may 
 be, for ought we know, the best. Perhaps a student 
 skilled in water-colour may succeed best in oil this way : 
 securing his light and colour first, then glazing and 
 scumbling it over till all falls together into proper tone, 
 or harmonious relation of light and shade. But greater 
 experience seems necessary if one is to work thus. 
 It is generally asserted that the Venetian masters 
 used this method habitually : and of course when our 
 pupil can draw and colour like a Venetian, he will 
 be in a position to do what he likes; and what he 
 does will make him our instructor and not our pupil. 
 The real truth of the matter seems to be^ that the 
 Venetians used tempera first, painting on canvases 
 prepared with a gesso or plaster ground, and finished 
 up with oil-colour. 
 
 The eyes of a portrait are of course the most difficult 
 thing in it, and must be kept to the last. While paint- 
 ing a face, one is sure to gain familiarity with its eyes 
 in successive sittings ; and, moreover, it is best to keep 
 them in reserve, as it were, and gain the greatest pos- 
 sible likeness without them. When that is attained, 
 the eyes will give life and power to the whole painting, 
 and raise its value incalculably. 
 
 There is one sort of portrait which we advise our 
 pupils to avoid attempting ; partly, no doubt, from con- 
 siderations of their own interest, and their friends' 
 
 ' See chapter on Fresco, Tempera, &c., with letter ^fr. Spencer 
 Stanhope. 
 
 A a 2 
 
356 
 
 C A RICA JURE, 
 
 personal comfort ; but also for strictly artistic reasons. 
 It is that of Caricature. Low caricature of exaggeration 
 like Rowlandson or Gilray is out of date, we are thank- 
 ful to say: nor is anybody likely to take up inferior 
 caricature, unless it be either from motives of the purest 
 ill-nature and dullest malice. But the work of Doyle ^ 
 and Leech has such evident and obvious merits, and 
 is so easy to understand, that people are apt to think 
 it equally easy to produce : and there can be no greater 
 mistake. The rapid work of these two artists depends 
 on quite special qualities of their own minds, and also 
 on severe study and practice in drawing. To draw in 
 their style means to draw with their power ; and their 
 power was gained, like that of all other powerful men, 
 by hard labour. We have recommended tracing Leech's 
 landscape, and repeating it in pen and ink; but his 
 faces are as inimitable as Turner's rapid landscape 
 sketches. High caricature is rather vulgarized at pre- 
 sent by the system of copying photographs, which, in 
 as far as they contain exaggerations of the shades, 
 partake in the nature of caricatures ; whether that 
 word in its origin be connected with character, or de- 
 rived, as we have heard, from the Italian ‘ carricare,' 
 to pile up, exaggerate, overload. Whatever be the first 
 meaning of the word, the thing is work for perfectly 
 formed draughtsmen, and quite unfit for students. 
 
 There may be an innate power of seeing and seizing 
 likeness of features, as there is a natural instinct for 
 beauty in landscape. But neither can be improved 
 
 ^ Tenniel’s drawing is more laboured and complete ; as is M. Du 
 Manner’s. Either may be copied with advantage by any one who will 
 work closely enough, and line for line. 
 
WATER-COLOUR PORTRAIT, 
 
 357 
 
 without exertion, or perfected without continued dis- 
 cipline — and neither 'portrait nor landscape can he begun 
 at the wrong end. 
 
 Those who have learnt hatching and stippling in water- 
 colour by practice with grapes or other fruit will soon 
 find they can apply their knowledge to finishing por- 
 traits in the same vehicle. The colours we named for 
 oils will do to begin with, and the processes have in 
 fact already been given, except that shade is laid on 
 with one brush and softened with the other, instead 
 of light : and that when all is done with washes, 
 hatched lines and stippling may follow. 
 
358 
 
 COMPOSITION. 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 COMPOSITION. 
 
 A S this is a practical treatise addressed to Art 
 ~ students of various descriptions, who have not 
 much time, as a rule, for metaphysical discussion, 
 I do not feel inclined to define Composition, Invention, 
 Imagination, or like words, which may nevertheless 
 have to be used, as sparingly as possible \ in this 
 chapter. The object and purpose of Composition is 
 what we are mainly concerned with; or rather the 
 object and purpose of the composer, what he means 
 to do and may hope to do by real attention to the 
 subject. 
 
 Now the object of what we call Composition here 
 is to affect the mind of the person who looks at 
 
 ^ Mr. Euskin’s account of Composition is quite sufficient for our 
 purpose : — 
 
 ‘Composition means, literally and simply, putting several things 
 together so as to make one thing out of them ; the nature and good- 
 ness of which they all have a share in producing. Thus, a musician 
 composes an air by putting notes together in certain relations ; a poet 
 composes a poem, by putting thoughts and words in pleasant order; 
 and a painter a picture, by putting thoughts, forms, and colours in 
 pleasant order. In all these cases, observe, an intended unity must 
 be the result of composition. . . . Everything should be in a deter- 
 mined place, perform an intended part, and act, in that part, advan- 
 tageously for everything that is connected with it.’ (Elements of 
 Drawing, p. 244.) 
 
THE LEADING IDEA, 
 
 359 
 
 your picture (supposing him to be a tolerably sensitive 
 and intelligent person), by the matter of the work 
 and the way it is arranged, or composed, in order 
 to be presented to him. By the matter of a drawing 
 or picture is meant, of course, all the ideas which it 
 is intended to convey : and on their arrangement 
 or composition, or setting together, depends in great 
 measure the effect of the whole thing — not only the 
 immediate appearance of the picture to the eye, but 
 its moral and intellectual effect on the spectator, 
 the amount of true ideas and genuine feeling which 
 he will derive from it. And your object must be, 
 first, to have things or thoughts in your picture 
 which are worth representing; and secondly, to pro- 
 duce them in it in such order and relation as shall 
 make the eye of the spectator take them the way 
 ! you wish, that is to say, in the order and relation 
 in which you have taken them. The leading idea 
 : should come first, so that even an uninformed person 
 who does not know the ‘motive' or leading purport 
 of the picture, may be able to catch it with some 
 ease ; that is to say, the leading idea should be repre- 
 sented by something in the picture which must be 
 the most striking or immediately attractive object 
 in it; or else it must be pointed to, as it were, by 
 some specially conspicuous object. The collection of 
 Rembrandts in the Pinacothek at Munich shews his 
 general use of a principal light in the centre of his 
 picture; or of a burst of light wherever he means 
 the eye to go: and perhaps the easiest and simplest 
 types of this principle of composition are the various 
 Nativities, where the light issues from the Holy 
 
S60 
 
 FRONTISPIECE, 
 
 Child, and where the first thing seen in the picture 
 is necessarily the most important thing. This may 
 be said to be the real underlying principle of com- 
 position, that the leading idea shall take the lead. 
 It is the same in pure landscape as in historical 
 fresco; the painter will always lead the eye, if he 
 can, to his favourite passage: if he enjoys his dis- 
 tance most, the foreground will not have marked 
 figures in it, or they will be moving on towards it 
 in perspective; if he delights in his foreground and 
 figures, he will make his distance into their back- 
 ground. For, be it observed, where the picture is 
 not like a history, and involves no action of figures, 
 the leading idea is its chief beauty: and the most 
 successful composition is that which surrounds a 
 beautiful idea or object with others in positions sub- 
 ordinate to it, which assist it by harmony or contrast, 
 like the setting of a large fine stone. The subordi- 
 nation of the others to a leading idea secures what 
 is called Unity; that is, it shews at once what the 
 picture is about. In our frontispiece, the leading 
 interest gathers round the big stone rather on the 
 left. He is the principal object; attention is called 
 to him by means of delicate contrast : he is pale, 
 cubical, and solid on his light side: his shadowed 
 side is dark and opaque: before that side is the 
 stream, which is rich, dark, and transparent, con- 
 trasting with both the light and dark side of the 
 stone; and also giving a sense of hidden soft-gliding 
 delicacy which contrasts with one’s feeling about 
 him. He is the chief character in the sketch, be- 
 cause in the old times he must have come violently 
 
ASSOCIATION OF IDEAS. 
 
 361 
 
 into the land he occupies in a raid, like a Northern 
 I invader or mountaineer ; and the question arises, 
 whether he came down with the stream he now 
 lives by, when it was stronger; or if he rolled down 
 the hill side suo Marie; or if he is a trace of 
 the ancient incursion of some great glacier. Many 
 a day he has been quiet, however, and been a settled 
 and not a rolling stone. So he has gathered moss; 
 and the heather and briars and young ash saplings 
 have grown round him, though the sheep have 
 nibbled them rather; and we suppose a small trout 
 lives under him in the shadow, and that the ouzels 
 ! come down and dip about him after caddis worms. 
 
 ! He is a piece of the far hills, but they do not miss 
 [ him; like the Skyeman Mac Einimon, ‘he returns no 
 I more — no more — no more.' 
 
 : This may be considered rather sentimental and 
 
 I perhaps sill}^ But this book is written in a greater 
 degree for those who have some feeling of their own 
 f about landscape than for those who have not; and 
 y one may say that if Sentiment or Feeling will not 
 f make a painter, dulness will not do it either. And 
 the fact is, that in all painting, and all the inventive 
 or creative pursuits, the habits or faculty of obser- 
 vation and rapid association and connexion of ideas 
 make the artist : and these are capable of culti- 
 vation. We do not deny that there is some risk 
 of over-cultivating them; and no habit of mind can 
 be worse than that of trying to be desperately^ ima- 
 ginative about everything. And this is one reason 
 why a painter should not avoid society, if he can 
 help it; that it is good for him to learn to follow a 
 
 1 
 
S62 
 
 REVERIE. 
 
 train of reverie when it comes to him; and learn all 
 the time to he prosaic with quiet people, and not 
 expect everybody to understand him. However this 
 may he, it is certain that true feeling gains power 
 by quiet and unaffected cultivation : and there is 
 no doubt that minuteness of sight, as well as 
 correctness, is a matter of study and acquirement ; 
 so it is also with habits of attention and observation. 
 And in all education we think that very often suf- 
 ficient allowance is not made for reverie, and that 
 scarcely enough time for easy reception of natural 
 ideas and half- unconscious pondering over them is 
 allowed hoys and girls. People always want to see 
 the former, at all events, either steadily at work 
 or noisily at play: England expects either so much 
 Latin or so much cricket of all her smaller children; 
 and everybody is impatient at seeing them ‘ moon about 
 and do nothing.' While they really do nothing it is 
 all well with them — their not getting into mischief is 
 something. If they are capable of connected thought 
 or fancy, whether it he about fairies or ponies or 
 lessons, let them go on with it: they are taking their 
 time and dreaming out their little dream, — and had 
 better be left to it. Real idleness soon betrays it- 
 self, by ill-temper, listlessness, or mischief 
 
 This has little to do, however, with our remarks 
 on composition, since, as was observed at first, we 
 can do no more than ofier some remarks on it. It 
 is doing a good work for any person to induce him 
 to look at Turner's ‘Liber Studiorum:' and as the 
 plates have been photographed (though most unfor- 
 tunately) and are themselves more accessible than 
 
COMPOSITIONS IN ^ LIBER STUDIORUM: 363 
 
 they were, it will be well to refer to the book for 
 one or two instances of powerful arrangement, by 
 which the desired thoughts are conveyed to the 
 spectator’s mind in the easiest and most decisive 
 way: we shall choose the easiest and most obvious, 
 with subjects of slighter or deeper interest. The 
 sea-piece called ‘A Brisk Gale’ is a noble study of 
 sea and cloud and shipping: the first object in it 
 which catches the eye is the sail of a fishing- boat, 
 which is the brightest object in a long line of illu- 
 minated sea. That line of light makes one look at 
 the clouds which have broken to let it through ; 
 and the faint streaks of slanting rain instantly make 
 one see how the wind blows from the left of the 
 picture. The eye runs along the horizontal illu- 
 minated line, and is led off at an angle, up the 
 wild edges of heaped storm-clouds, the lateral burst 
 of light shewing them with all their forms. That is 
 the way out of the picture. Another glance at the 
 white sail and the attention is caught by the black 
 sail of a cutter in the full darkness and strength 
 of the gale, running out to the line -of- battle ship 
 at anchor in the line of light — the principal minor 
 incident in the picture. From the wake of the cutter 
 the eye is led out of the picture, or rather round it, 
 to the large ship and line of light again, by mar- 
 vellously drawn waves foaming and brightly illu- 
 minated at top, all lashed over to the right by the 
 wind. It is also guided by a white sea-gull and 
 the large ensign on board the liner, which last also 
 give vast depth to the stormy horizon behind them. 
 Or notice in Calais harbour how every line points 
 
364 
 
 RIZPAH. 
 
 to the old spire; or in Ramsgate how the central 
 mass of light shews the way into the harbour, which 
 the nearest vessel will just fetch on her present 
 tack : or, again, in the S. Gothard how the first 
 slow mule coming out of the long gallery carries 
 the eye to another at the further end; how the line 
 of the wonderful road which claimed Turner's chief 
 admiration is marked far below in the more open 
 valley. 
 
 In the plates, where the interest is great and 
 depends on important figures, the principle of com- 
 position is perhaps easier to understand, because 
 the leading fact in the picture is seen at once in 
 its proper position. The figures in Cephalus and 
 Procris challenge attention at once. But the plate 
 of Rizpah and her dead sons is certainly one of the 
 greatest examples which exist of powerful compo- 
 sition, and of the command which it asserts over 
 the eye of any ordinarily careful spectator. The 
 chief light in the picture is the weary mother's torch, 
 which at once catches the eye and directs attention 
 to its various reflections — on the sackcloth spread 
 on the rock; on the languid, exhausted, living figure 
 of the watcher; on the fleshless ribs and upturned 
 skeleton feet of the dead sons of Saul; and lastly, 
 on the points of a small crown, such as Saul's con- 
 cubine once wore. Then the powerful contrast be- 
 tween the near-looking brightness of the rising moon 
 and the massive shade of the oaks of the middle- 
 distance claims notice, and the eye falls unavoidably 
 on a small object sticking up in the nearer middle- 
 distance. It points out another watcher; it is the 
 
CONTRAST. 
 
 365 
 
 impatient tail of a leopard, waving in hungry 
 irresolution: and a large bird is hovering above 
 him, dark against the light, while another is wheeling 
 about nearer, reflecting the light and sharply relieved 
 against the foreground darks. Just between the two 
 birds are slightly drawn the sheaves of barley harvest. 
 The mind is led through every thought which the 
 text of Scripture gives, as minutely as by written 
 narrative, and with impressiveness and reality beyond 
 all words. 
 
 Works of transcendent imagination and power are 
 beyond rules of composition, it is true ; but then they 
 generally conform to rules, because rules are made out 
 of them : at all events it is possible to get good ideas 
 about rules and principles from them. Rules of com- 
 position are very commonly, and quite rightly, gene- 
 ralizations from the works of great painters. These 
 men command the eye and the mind they scarcely 
 know how ; and without fixed and completed method. 
 But some of the means they use can be described and 
 imitated. And imitating a good painter's manner and 
 method will be of the greatest use to the student, if 
 he will do it strictly by way of exercise, and remember 
 that the method is only a small part of the power of 
 the master, the ideas conveyed by his work being the 
 great thing. 
 
 Enough has been said of Contrast, which involves 
 excitement; and is naturally used in subjects where 
 strong feelings are engaged, or violent action is repre- 
 sented. Storm and mountain scenery in landscape 
 involve all the sense of passion and vehement action, 
 to the painter or any tolerably sensitive spectator, as 
 
366 
 
 HARMONY IN CONTRAST. 
 
 much as tragic scenes or battle-pieces, with this great ad- 
 vantage, that their expression of it can never be ignoble. 
 Of course it is found that the use of contrast in a pic- 
 ture tends to excitement, and that of likeness to repose : 
 though harmony involves much delicate contrast, and 
 is best produced by the suggestion of contrast overcome. 
 Cuyp’s pictures of dreamy afternoon repose derive their 
 thoroughly soothing and sleepy effect from the spec- 
 tator's feeling, or unconscious thought, of how the dif- 
 ferent colours of the objects in the picture are merged 
 in light, and all the greys and greens and browns are 
 embraced and lapped in gold. Contrast is there, you 
 know, and you are pleased that it is there and that 
 you do not see it, but are overcome with the animal 
 feeling of soft brightness and ease and absence of in- 
 terest, and deafness to the call of time. The fact is, 
 that contrast and harmony are things dependent on 
 each other; and they vary mutually like light and 
 darkness. A still summer-day effect in a picture of 
 Glencoe or the Valley of Zermatt would involve a feel- 
 ing of calm ; and all its parts would have to be some- 
 how pervaded with peace — the softer lines dwelt on, 
 the brightest tints used, little circumstances of rest 
 put in, and so on. That, well done, would be a great 
 Harmony of Quiet. But the whole quiet effect of such 
 a picture would depend first on the implied contrast 
 of Glencoe or Zermatt in calm, with Glencoe or Zermatt 
 in storm; and its repose would be felt as repose after 
 toil. Secondly, mountain scenery always suggests the 
 action of immeasurably great forces which have now 
 in great part ceased to act ; and the stillness of a moun- 
 tain valley carries with it an undefined suggestion of 
 
HARMONY OF CURVATURF. 
 
 the inconceivable power of volcanic or watery action 
 by which the valley was formed. 
 
 The object of composition in pictures is perfectly 
 well stated in Horace’s remark as to poetry : — 
 
 ^ Non satis est pulchra esse poemata ; dulcia sunto 
 Et quocunque volunt^ animum auditoris agunto.^ 
 
 The power over the ‘ animum auditoris/ or ‘ spectators, ’ 
 is the thing: and there are various technical means 
 of gaining it by paying little attentions to the eye and 
 delicately flattering the intellect. Technical rules of 
 composition ought not to be undervalued or neglected ; 
 they are not all, they are not much ; but ignorance of 
 them, or idle contradiction or neglect, will do great 
 harm to any picture. Almost every eye likes to follow 
 a good curve ; every trained eye will, as a matter of 
 course. Consequently, when the salient objects of a 
 picture are arranged so as to follow each other in 
 a good curve, that is a great point gained in its com- 
 position : every competent and careful person who looks 
 at it will experience pleasure, consciously or uncon- 
 sciously, from following with his eye the harmonious 
 line of leading points : and that pleasure will lead 
 him about your picture where you please. We may 
 call our third law of composition that of Arrange- 
 ment in curves, or Unity and Harmony (by contrast 
 or similarity). 
 
 We have no room to quote so long a passage as the 
 dissertation on lines of curvature in vol. iv. of ‘ Modern 
 Painters,’ and must refer the student to it in hope that 
 it will receive from him all the attention it deserves. 
 The laws of beauty in abstract line there laid down are 
 
368 
 
 SWEEPING OR SPRINGING CURVES, 
 
 at least sufficient for the purposes of the artist, and 
 probably would go far towards satisfying a scientific 
 analyst. For our purpose, wishing rather to tell the 
 student of certain classes of beautiful curves, rather 
 than to attempt to lay down rules for what curves he 
 is to consider beautiful, we can only give a few extracts 
 from the valuable dissertation we have mentioned. 
 
 It would probably be said, in ordinary painters' or 
 sketchers' language, that the beauty of a curve con- 
 sists in its ‘springing' or sweeping character. The 
 one word ‘ springing ' conveys an idea of vigorous 
 effort in its origin ; the other, ‘ sweeping,’ that of 
 severity of curvature, approaching to a right line. 
 Such curves as those of a distant shore may be 
 called sweeping curves, because being nearly right lines 
 they convey the idea of getting over ground as fast as* 
 possible, and also because they suggest natural forms 
 mostly observed in distance or at a distance, such as 
 the lines of extensive plains or of tolerably calm sea. 
 And their impressiveness results from the feeling which 
 is in them of space, in fact of infinity. Curves which 
 radiate from a centre, like those of leaves and all vege- 
 tation, are felt to be springing curves : they are under- 
 stood to start from their origin and go forth towards 
 infinity as far as they can : and they suggest vital 
 force and vigour. It is not necessary to distinguish 
 these curves from each other, because almost all good 
 lines spring vividly from their origin and sweep off 
 into severity of curve afterwards. But all such lines 
 at once separate themselves from the regular or mono- 
 tonous curves, such as may be drawn with compasses ; 
 or are generated in any invariable mathematical way, 
 
I 
 
 1 
 
 I 
 
 WING-CURVES, 
 
 369 
 
 as the sections of a cone, and the cycloid. The para- 
 bola and hyperbola may be excepted, as each of them 
 ' consists of a pair of very beautiful curves. But all 
 the beautiful natural curves are irregular : the outer 
 edge of a wing of any bird of powerful flight, as 
 of the hawk or gull among the long-winged birds, 
 
 ; or the grouse, and teal or other ducks, among the 
 short-winged, is an excellent example of simple beauty 
 of springing line. The expression of life and vital 
 strength in the latter example depends of course on 
 ' the way in which the feathers radiate from the bone 
 or centre of motion : the sense of power in the long 
 ! wing is conveyed by the severe line of the shoulder 
 and greater quills ^ 
 
 It should be remembered that the principles and 
 rules which we are giving are rules of composition 
 i; only, that is to say, that they suggest order and 
 arrangement for ideas which you already possess, 
 
 ; and that the value of an original work depends on 
 
 ^ The vigour of the short wing suggests what we call springing curves : 
 j. the graceful outline of the long wing illustrates the long or sweeping 
 I curves. This is beautifully shewn in a plate of vol. iv. of ‘ Modern 
 Painters, where the wing-forms are shewn exactly to resemble those 
 of the lower slopes of a mountain. 
 
 It is impossible for us to take up the subject of abstract lines here, or 
 to make any real enquiry into the causes of their greater or less beauty. 
 
 1 The twentieth chapter of ‘ The Stones of Venice ’ should be carefully 
 studied, especially in all that relates to plate vii. It is very possible 
 ; that the student may not at present see that one line is more beautiful 
 I than another. But we think as he gains knowledge, and practises 
 drawing, he will find at all events that he prefers pictures which are 
 based on fine natural lines. And the chapter of ‘ The Stones of Venice’ 
 which we have referred to, will give him some examples of the most 
 beautiful contours of objects, great and small, and with valuable analyses 
 and classifications. 
 
 B b 
 
370 
 
 MER DE GLACE. 
 
 matter rather than arrangement. They cannot supply 
 the thoughts or facts you wish to paint; and, as has 
 been hinted, powerful thoughts and strong impres- 
 sions from Nature generally arrange themselves in 
 the mind and on the canvas in pretty intelligible 
 order; so that he who possesses them will comply 
 more or less unconsciously with most of the princi- 
 ples here given. We have placed opposite chapter i. 
 a rude sketch of some of the main lines of Turner's 
 Mer de Glace in the ‘Liber Studiorum : ' ' a work 
 which for power of expressive line seems to us 
 quite unsurpassed in Art. It is strictly a compo- 
 sition, as there is no spot on the Chapeau side of 
 the Mer de Glace which commands the particu- 
 lar outline given. Mr. Ruskin's partial analysis of 
 the plate is directed to prove how thoroughly the 
 character and structure of the aiguilles or sharply 
 pointed mountains of the valley of Chamonix are 
 felt in and (perhaps unconsciously) expressed by 
 Turner's work. It is not in his way to point out 
 in that part of his work the wonderful power of 
 Turners glacier- drawing, which he refers to else- 
 where in speaking of the print of the Glacier des 
 Bossons. Our rough line sketch with the few dotted 
 curves will enable the pupil to trace what may be 
 called springing curves all over the picture. If he 
 will refer to the plate, or the photograph published 
 by Mr. Hogarth, he will observe the way in which 
 the central light of the ice is repeated by that 
 of the sky and upper snow: how the eye cannot 
 help going first to the central light, and is then 
 caught by the leaping lines of ice-fracture. He will 
 
GLACIER ACTION, 
 
 S71 
 
 see in our woodcut how they point up to the wild 
 aiguilles, which in their turn draw back from and 
 suggest the distance and grandeur of the faintly- 
 seen snow -peak far away. Next, his attention is 
 handed on from one jagged edge to another along 
 the high ridge to the right, finding no rest until 
 it slides down the dark pine -edged cliff over the 
 Montanvert to the glacier again ; where it is at 
 once seized on by the great descending curve of 
 the ice from the left, carried across nearly out 
 of the picture, and brought round again to below 
 the principal light on the sharpest ice-peaks. Then 
 the spectator begins to see that the lines are lines 
 of furious motion, and that the peaks break back 
 like sea -waves when wind is against tide, or those 
 of a torrent when it first meets a great submerged 
 rock. In short, it is evident that Turner understood 
 the flow and progress of the glacier, was deeply 
 impressed by it, and determined that other people 
 should feel it. Then at last, in the left-hand corner, 
 are the ugly wrecks and crumbling ruin of the dismal 
 moraine: it is all foul with' its own work of destruc- 
 tion. Great rocks are there half ground to powder, and 
 dusty meal of granite as fine as flour ; various jagged 
 edges of what once was pure snow: the desperate 
 grind of the massive ploughshare in its unyielding 
 furrow, where clear ice bites on the clean rock — all 
 is there. All this was given on paper in form and 
 colour long before any written words in the English 
 language had told men anything about it; when De 
 Saussure was sole authority, and when the old guides 
 might still have remembered how he ascended i\Iont 
 
 b 2 
 
S72 
 
 HARMONY AND UNITY. 
 
 Blanc ^ in a long scarlet coat and cocked hat with gold 
 cockade, &c., and his son in lemon-colour and top-hoots. 
 
 There are other rules or practical objects to aim 
 at in what is called composition, which will he 
 found to be really involved in the principles we 
 have given. They are to be mentioned as means of 
 expressing and securing the feeling of harmony ; 
 either by contrast, or by similarity, or by arrange- 
 ment in beautiful curves. We presume that unity 
 expresses the proper pre-eminence of a leading idea, 
 and that harmony expresses the means by which that 
 leading idea is kept in its place of command. It is 
 best also to give some of the terms used in teaching 
 composition, and to suggest how they may all be 
 classified under our principle, that a composition is 
 several ideas made into one new one, with skilful 
 use either of contrast, which produces excitement, 
 or of harmony, which produces repose, or of both 
 together, — which produces reflective repose. These 
 terms are especially frequent in lectures or treatises 
 on decorative or highly conventional composition, such 
 as patterns for ornamental manufacture : and we think 
 their origin is the same. 
 
 " Repetition, i. e. of the same idea in varied forms — 
 
 Symmetry, or consistency of idea and similarity of 
 < form, with evident novelty of both ; or at least 
 with difference of relation — 
 
 ^ Balance, or symmetry of masses 
 —are three different ways of expressing harmony of 
 
 ^ See old prints and illustrations. We believe, by the way, that young 
 M. de Saussure did not ascend Mont Blanc j but he often accompanied 
 his father : and we well remember this picture. 
 
REPETITION. 
 
 375 
 
 contrast or harmony of likeness. Repetition gives 
 harmony of likeness; the spectator finds unity of 
 meaning in any number of varied forms. Look, for 
 example, at the leaping lines all over the Mer de 
 Glace etching, and the aiguille - points : all 'alike, 
 with a difference.' Symmetry expresses that which 
 makes repetition so agreeable, the mingled resemblance 
 and variety of forms; like the recurrence of a theme 
 in a musical composition, where the notes are always 
 changing. It is based on the principle of unity by 
 similarity. Observe in the example how all the 
 peaks resemble one another without repeating each 
 other in any case. If you think they are exactly 
 like each other, take a piece of tracing-paper and 
 a fine pencil, and draw a few of them. This should 
 be done in any case, and very carefully: and the 
 tracing should further be completed, in pen and 
 ink, over the pencil lines; yet they should not be 
 followed exactly, but used as guides for firm pen- 
 drawing with the original copy before you. 
 
 Balance of masses is well illustrated in the plate of 
 the Mer de Glace ; where the two lower corners of the 
 picture balance each other as masses of darkness, and 
 also repeat the two dark sides of the picture, which 
 balance each other also to right and left, while the 
 pale sky with its snow-peak, and the white glacier- 
 ice, do the same above and below. It will be seen 
 at once that balance of parts, where there is a lead- 
 ing idea to fuse them into a whole, only conduces 
 to the full expre^ssion of such motive or leading idea. 
 It is impossible to give any marked rule on the 
 matter except the old one, ‘Know what you mean 
 
 1 
 
374 
 
 BREADTH AND UNITY. 
 
 to do, and do it/ While the parts of a picture are 
 felt to be parts, they may be elaborated to any 
 extent; but they should balance each other as parts 
 of a whole, not contend with each other on uncon- 
 nected interests. 
 
 Breadth and unity are destroyed when there are 
 many objects of equal interest about a picture. The 
 criticism in the preface to ‘ Modern Painters ^ on 
 Claude's landscape called II Miilino, or on the Wouver- 
 mans landscape in vol. v., are admirably detailed 
 accounts of this. There should be some ruling motive 
 in a work, which should have evidently a claim on 
 the spectator's attention; instead of a number of 
 groups scrambling for it, like a set of importunate 
 beggars. Giotto's groups balance each other exactly, 
 but they are all united in the purpose of his picture. 
 
 Breadth seems to be a part or means of unity, 
 by proper subjection of the whole picture to its 
 leading idea. We have said a good deal of this in 
 the first part of this chapter; but we cannot give 
 any rules or receipts for having leading or other 
 ideas, except the general moral precepts of doing 
 one's best, and being faithful to one's gifts, especially 
 the chief gift of Admiration; or delight in beauty 
 as God's work for man. Those who will look for 
 beauty and store it in their memory, will not want 
 ideas by the time they know how to draw; and will 
 be able to take them in proper order, and one at a 
 time. In our example in lines, the leading idea is 
 pointed to by the fiow of the glacier, and the sharp- 
 ness of the peaks. The motion is given mainly 
 by the sweeping lines of the ice which swing the 
 
INTERPENETRA TION. 
 
 375 
 
 eye across and across, as the weight of a torrent 
 rounding a corner sets over, first on one side, then 
 on the other; the sharpness of form is variously re- 
 peated by the rocky pinnacles. Both result in such 
 feeling of force and desolation as completes the im- 
 pressiveness of the picture. All its ideas converge in 
 that of Death and its power. 
 
 What is called the principle of Interpenetration 
 is of great technical value in composition, whether 
 pictorial or decorative. It consists in carrying por- 
 tions of light into the principal masses of shade, 
 and placing small spaces of dark upon light, with 
 proper balance and relation to each other. It is a 
 principle strongly insisted on in Mr. Front’s works 
 on light and shade, and of course depends on that 
 of contrast. It is, in fact, contrast artfully con- 
 trived ; and its success depends on proportion 
 and balance; and in higher Art, on the skill with 
 which the artifice is concealed — as in the white 
 tongue of ice-forms, on the right of the Mer de Glace 
 plate, which runs into the deep shade. The quarter- 
 ings of a shield are a simple instance ; and the 
 sea-mews and illuminated wave -tops in the one or 
 two Turner sea-pieces we have mentioned are repeated 
 by most marine painters. The use of the torch, bat, 
 sackcloth, and trees in Rizpah is very noticeable. 
 
 An artifice frequently used whenever there is op- 
 portunity for it is the suggestion of distance and 
 perspective by interlacing lines such as tree-trunks 
 crossing each other in a forest picture (see Cephalus 
 and Procris, Blair Athol, (Esacus and Hesperie, with 
 others in the ‘Liber Studiorum’). Incident of this 
 
376 
 
 SUGGESTED PERSPECTIVE. 
 
 kind should be very carefully studied, as it often 
 gives opportunity for expressing space just when 
 it is most wanted. The pleasure which interlacing 
 lines give the mind, seems to he derived from their 
 radiation, and from the sense of variety in unity, 
 of organic form, and modulated change, which they 
 always convey. The radiation of the lines in the 
 Mer de Glace from the centre of the glacier is 
 visible at a glance, and we have already spoken of 
 the way in which they guide the eye and call 
 attention to the principal points which the artist 
 meant to enforce. 
 
 Mr. Proufs writings on Composition have con- 
 siderable value, and the subject is exhausted in 
 Mr. Ruskin’s various works. Taking the word as 
 expressive of the best arrangement of the greatest 
 ideas,- into an Unity or great new Idea, it is quite 
 clear that it is almost synonymous with artistic 
 power, as we have already said: and we repeat that 
 we can give no rules for acquiring such power, but 
 can only suggest means whereby the reader may 
 develop all powers of the kind, which are in him, 
 to the fullest extent. Also we fully believe that 
 all men possess some such powers ; that sensitive 
 apprehension of not possessing them is one favourable 
 sign of their existence; and that when the gift of 
 admiration and keen pursuit of beauty are combined 
 with power of arrangement, the artistic temper seems 
 to be almost complete, and to want only the pro- 
 pelling and sustaining qualities of will, perseverance, 
 or necessity. 
 
LANDSCAPE SKETCHING, 
 
 377 
 
 CHAPTER VIL - 
 
 ON LANDSCAPE SKETCHING. 
 
 *T^E suppose that sketchers multiply as Art grows 
 ^ * popular ; and, indeed, amateur pursuit of Art 
 generally begins with what is called ‘a taste for 
 sketching.' Most people understand by the word 
 the act of drawing rapidly from Nature, or making 
 memoranda from observed objects, without any in- 
 tention of carrying* them out with perfect finish. All 
 drawings for parts of a picture, or expressions of its 
 first idea in a hasty way, from necessary eagerness 
 to seize the flying thought, are also called sketches, 
 as distinguished from studies, or more laboured work 
 of an incomplete kind. These latter are highly 
 finished copies of part of a work; the former may 
 contain all the scheme of the whole work. We shall 
 take Landscape Sketching from Nature by itself, and 
 must plead for it as a pursuit having real and great 
 value of its own, not only because it is the means of 
 committing people to Art, so to speak, and of leading 
 them from amateur practice into serious work ; but 
 because it is indispensable to the true artist ; though 
 some of our best men seem to reject the very idea of 
 rapid work altogether. 
 
 Of course no man can paint what he has not seen. 
 The question is. How long must he have had it before 
 his eyes, before he is justified in trying to record it ? 
 
B78 
 
 RAPIDITY, 
 
 Beauty may sometimes be seen and studied; it will 
 more often be seen at a glance, without time for 
 study. There is no time to study waves and clouds, 
 or their effects — ^they must be painted from memory. 
 Many painters may consider such things as unfit 
 subjects for their art; but at all events the general 
 verdict, and not merely the popular one, will for ever 
 go against them. And one of the senses of the word 
 ‘ sketching ’—perhaps its special and peculiar sense — 
 seems to go against it too. That which is seen in 
 a continual state of perceptible change is seem, in a 
 different sense of the word from that which remains 
 at rest for long periods of time together, and gives 
 the painter leisure at his work. Seeing change is not 
 the same thing as seeing a thing at rest. You are 
 motionless, so will your picture be when it is done, 
 but it is to represent vivid change and furious motion. 
 The fact is obvious, that the multitudinous changes 
 of air and water in motion may be sketched, but 
 cannot be studied, in the same sense in which a 
 man may sit down and make a study of the Torso. 
 The sketcher may have to record the effect of an 
 instant of consciousness, and use all his skill and a 
 great deal of his time in recording the impressions 
 of a moment. ‘ Paint your impressions,’ said Turner. 
 When he was induced to make an observation on Art, 
 we believe it was generally found to be an important 
 one : and this example is strongly in favour of our view, 
 and goes far to establish it. But not every impression 
 can be painted ; and our great difficulty is often that 
 of choice, self-restraint, and avoidance of things beyond 
 us. The artist will have knowingly and willingly to 
 
AMATEUR AND ARTIST. 
 
 379 
 
 let many lovely scenes and effects go by, and trust to 
 memory to save him a few features of them. It is not 
 only because he cannot do them justice — nobody can — 
 it is because he would be only distracting himself and 
 wasting time in attempts which would not advance him 
 in his knowledge of his trade. For up to a certain 
 point every successive picture ought to carry the artist 
 forward. Each picture should be to him the record of 
 his having learnt either some new tint, or some new 
 process, or learnt to put down some natural fact new 
 to him in a language understanded of the people. 
 
 ' The regular landscape amateur, we suppose, in- 
 tends principally to assist his own memory of Nature 
 by such records as he can learn to make. This is 
 the humblest form of artistic purpose which entitles 
 him to our notice or advice at all in a serious way. 
 His object is to create himself a symbol of some ob- 
 served beauty or wonder of Nature, which shall record 
 it always for himself. The question then occurs. How 
 far shall he try to record it for others? In shewing 
 it to those who have seen and noticed it, he con- 
 verses with his peers, and compares notes : in shewing 
 the sketch to those who have not seen the thing, 
 he so far tries to instruct. But the amateur, qua 
 amateur, studies and sketches for himself. The artist 
 sketches with a view to composing a picture, which is 
 virtually the public’s; in the high view he wants to 
 teach by it ; in the low view he wants to sell it : he is, 
 therefore, bound not only to write its facts down in 
 form and colour for himself, but to write them down 
 for the public in such a way that they may enjoy as 
 well as understand them. And his doing this effectively 
 
380 
 
 AMATEUR AND ARTIST 
 
 ought to depend on a mass of former knowledge, natural 
 or technical. It is the possession of all this prior know- 
 ledge which really distinguishes artist and amateur. 
 Publicity is an accident of the artist, as logicians say, — 
 knowledge of his work is his essence. A room full of 
 water-colour drawings by the working classes is no 
 doubt worth a visit, and is generally well visited; so 
 would be one which contained work done by the epis- 
 copal or judicial bench. But both would most probably 
 display a certain inferiority of technical knowledge, or 
 limited memory of natural facts; and in proportion as 
 they ceased to display these deficiencies, they would 
 cease to be amateur work and become artistic. In other 
 words, supposing a sketch to have been worked out till 
 there are plenty of truths in it — facts well drawn, well 
 coloured, and so composed as to lead the spectator's 
 attention about the picture, and make him see them 
 as the painter intends him to see them — then it is 
 a picture, whoever painted it, and he who did it is 
 artist and author. According to the number of failures 
 in technicalities, he is a good or had painter. If a man 
 makes sketches and retains his pleasure in them be- 
 cause of the beauty that is past, he will follow that 
 pleasure, in all human probability, and it will lead him 
 on towards serious study of Art with the view of re- 
 producing beauty. He will begin to sketch with a view 
 to making pictures; from a contented amateur he will 
 become a struggling student, and find that he has begun 
 a voyage on the sea which ‘ sempre si fa maggioreJ In 
 fact, the making a picture is an act of authorship; it 
 is true there are not many original pictures, but then 
 there are even fewer original books, because forms and 
 
AMATEUR AUTHORSHIP. 
 
 381 
 
 colours are fresher things than pen and ink, and have 
 all sorts of original and noticeable facts of their own. 
 Suppose, by way of analogy, that a young lady writes 
 charming letters, as many girls do, for her friends : she 
 records her life and its doings in pen and ink: it is 
 amateur work, and has a charm of its own — freshness, 
 humour, purity, and perhaps knowledge or keen obser- 
 vation. If she is betrayed into a domestic novel, or 
 a published journal, she sits down to her picture : she 
 begins to compare, to arrange, to idealize; — and as- 
 suredly she finds it somewhat difficult to do this 
 well : if she is wise, she sees that her difficulties 
 proceed from want of knowledge of life in general, 
 and is content to wait awhile, and give methodical 
 labour to her production. And, it must be observed, 
 that producing careless or ill-considered work now is 
 a much less excusable matter than it used to be, in 
 landscape or other Art. Thirty years ago it was a 
 matter of difficulty, time, and expense, to get even 
 fairly good instruction in any kind of drawing. In 
 landscape, that is to say, in genuine study from 
 Nature, it was nearly impossible. Painters there 
 were, but very few drawing-masters: and their system 
 of instruction and knowledge of Nature would not 
 be considered endurable in our days. Harding’s 
 ‘ Lessons on Art,’ and his various progressive studies 
 of trees and home-scenery, have produced an effect 
 in popularizing a good conventional style of drawing 
 from Nature, which cannot be too well understood. 
 The world has advanced beyond them now, to a 
 great extent : but I cannot help thinking that a 
 strong majority of the landscape sketchers who have 
 
 1 
 
38S 
 
 HARDING’S LESSONS. 
 
 gone through a course of Harding, have found great 
 benefit from him. His rapid lithographs were full of 
 character, and the short written instructions which 
 accompanied them were always to the purpose. In 
 a simple way, which nobody could fail to understand, 
 he called attention to the study of character in land- 
 scape; and the study of his educational writings on 
 Art may be said to be a good preparation for reading 
 Mr. Ruskin’s books on landscape, just as the study of 
 his pictures will guide attentive eyes to intelligent 
 perusal of Turner's more powerful works. From his 
 power over tree-character, and also from his teaching 
 power in enabling his reader to understand it and 
 begin to observe Nature for himself, we must pronounce 
 Harding first of sketchers in such subject, and also the 
 best early teacher. David Cox's example, great as it is, 
 has probably done serious harm to many imitators who 
 have fallen into the snare of imitating his manner of 
 execution without imitating his manner of study. Had 
 they considered that his powers were really those of 
 about one man in ten thousand, they would not have 
 been guilty of the unconscious vanity of trying to 
 imitate his style. To imitate any man’s style is like 
 trying to transplant a tender flower in full blow from 
 his garden into quite different soil in your own. The 
 flowers you will get will never be anything like what 
 it produced before, even if the plant does not wither 
 completely. Supposing a student gifted with one-tenth 
 of that feeling for woodland and lower mountain which 
 made David Cox the boldest and best sketcher in the 
 world: suppose that he studies oak, ash, and thorn, 
 and Welch granite and heather, for many years of life 
 
DA VID COX, 
 
 38^5 
 
 in the open air, doing little else ; supposing that he 
 has a great unconscious gift of composition besides — 
 then he may produce rapid drawings, in time, which 
 shall be at least one-tenth as good as David Cox's. 
 And that is worth doing : for he will to a certainty 
 discover many things for himself, and diverge from 
 copying Cox, as he honourably follows Cox's example, 
 working from Nature as a disciple, and not a plagiarist. 
 But if he only copies drawings, and tries to pick up the 
 sylvan master's manner, he will end as he has begun, 
 — copyist and no painter ; plagiarist and no true 
 amateur. Copying the picture is not copying the 
 man. One does that by working as he worked : and 
 Cox copied pictures no more than Turner. And the 
 same remark applies to copying Rafael or Titian, or 
 anybody else. Study the sketches and imperfect works, 
 if you will : see how the master worked technically, 
 where you can see it : study his pictures, and see what 
 motive and purpose he laboured with, and where in 
 Nature his impressions came from. Then you must 
 do as he did, and go and seek for impressions like his 
 from Nature; you must go to the same scenery or to 
 analogous scenery. Titian studied in Cadore ; you may 
 go to the Lakes, and verify much of his work there 
 by observing its truth to actual rocks, waters, and 
 vegetation : and having done thus much, you will find 
 yourself adding original discoveries of your own to the 
 verified observations of your master which you liave 
 made your own. This is planting your exotic flowers 
 of observed beauty in their own soil, prepared in your 
 own garden : mere copying is only pulling oft’ blossoms ; 
 for the most part it is spoiling them at the same time. 
 
384 
 
 HARDING. 
 
 This brings us back to Harding as an instructor; 
 because we have named him as the best of landscape 
 drawing-masters at first. As has been said, there is 
 no doubt that the best drawing-master for real begin- 
 ners is the well-drilled South Kensington teacher, who 
 will enable you to draw with a free hand and correct 
 eye. He will teach you to draw common things rightly : 
 and things right are always to be studied before things 
 beautiful. But one merit of Harding’s works at this 
 day is in their imperfection. Every pupil who is worth 
 anything, that is to say, who has keen perceptions and 
 true feeling, will be able to learn Harding’s method; 
 will face Nature with its assistance ; will find it in- 
 adequate, yet helpful ; and will proceed to apply it, 
 and add methods of his own to it. It is, in fact, our 
 best grammar of out-door landscape Art, because it 
 is the best illustrated treatise on the subject, in which 
 the examples are elementary enough. Prout’s and 
 Cox’s works are excellent for composition, and will 
 do much towards calling out feeling, where that unde- 
 finable quality exists. But they do not insist on hand- 
 exercises, like scales on a pianoforte ; and Harding does. 
 
 And here we get to what we should have begun with. 
 It is useless to try to draw from Nature, unless you can 
 draw. This may seem obvious, but large numbers of 
 amateurs go directly against it ; and we ourselves, many 
 years ago, began scrawling from Nature from sheer 
 admiration, and made outlines and rough sketches 
 which were full of feeling, but which our friends 
 generally looked at wrong side uppermost. Then we 
 had ^ lessons in colour’ from one who deserved a better 
 fate than to minister to our ignorance. Then we began 
 
WASTE OF EFFORT. 
 
 fm 
 
 Harding’s trees; then we began to see much more in 
 trees, and all other things, than ever before : and so we 
 were committed to landscape-drawing, probably for life. 
 ! Travel, and continued attempts from Nature, and study 
 of Mr. Ruskin’s works, and copying from Durer and the 
 ‘Liber Studiorum,’ enabled us to make some progress: 
 but with every step in advance came clearer under- 
 standing that we could not draw after all, and that 
 ultimately we should have to learn by beginning at the 
 beginning. This we did at last ; but our after feelings 
 have been dashed with a good deal of vexation to 
 think how much time and effort we wasted, for want 
 of an ordinary Art-school course of drawing, free- 
 hand and from the cast. There is no doubt that when 
 grown people (or well-occupied people) are led to wish 
 to be able to express themselves by painting, they 
 are worse than their juniors in their demands for 
 a royal road to success. They want to draw a little, 
 they tell you, — just so as to be able to put down, say 
 a panoramic sketch of the valley of Chamonix, or an 
 impression of a Highland thunderstorm, or some other 
 bagatelle, in two hours’ work. What has learning to 
 draw a star-pattern, or to copy a cast of a hand or foot 
 rightly, to do with them ? They do not want to take 
 pains over drawing and bisecting straight lines ; they 
 want to draw sunsets and torrents without any trouble. 
 
 I They think, in a general way, that they can walk into 
 i Messrs. Winsor and Newton’s, and purchase a bottle 
 of the hues of earthquake and eclipse, and then be 
 j taught in six lessons to paint the eclipse and the earth- 
 ; quake very like. They do not want to draw right — 
 fthat is for artists; they only want to draw a little. 
 
 c c 
 
 1 
 
386 
 
 LOOKING FOR A MOTIVE, 
 
 That is to say, they want to draw a great deal with 
 little trouble : or, in other words, they either think 
 they can learn to produce showy or impressive land- 
 scapes with no defined forms in them ; or to be shewn 
 some patent way of evading all difficnlties, and making 
 something out of nothing. And they will, perhaps, 
 appeal to David Cox, and request to be taught his 
 touch and style : to be taught, in a dozen lessons, the 
 knowledge of Nature and power of expression which 
 took all his powers a lifetime to gain. 
 
 Mulready’s pithy advice to the student was ‘Know 
 what you have to do, and do it.' It sounds like a 
 mere truism, or vague encouragement. But its real 
 meaning is, as we apprehend, that method is every- 
 thing to the learner, and that aimless effort is 
 nugatory. We must try to give the sketcher some 
 rules for learning to know what to do in the presence 
 of Nature. Let him, in the first place, look for a 
 simple subject. By this we do not mean an unim- 
 pressive one, or an every-day one. There are scenes 
 w^hich naturally fall into pictures, and which strike 
 even unpractised eyes with an ordered beauty, intel- 
 ligible and capable of analysis and expression. Do 
 not, it may be said as a rule, choose any subject 
 unless you can tell yourself or others what is the 
 chief beauty of it. Any subject which has a leading 
 feature is so far simple, that it allows you to give 
 almost all your attention to that feature, and you 
 can so far define to yourself what you have to do: 
 that is to say, you have to represent a leading idea, 
 and had better add no circumstance which does not 
 develop it or throw light on it. Of course accurate 
 
REFLECTIONS. 
 
 387 
 
 drawing of inferior parts does throw light on the 
 main part, and is by all means to be done to the 
 best of your power. But you had better leave out 
 features which you do not feel to be necessary. 
 What you do put in, you ought to draw as well 
 as you can, and realize as far as you can. So I 
 should say, choose some quiet pool in a mountain 
 river, or reach in a lowland one, where there are 
 steady reflections. Or if it may be, take some small 
 tarn or bay in our own Lake country, in the calm 
 of evening or morning, when there is not more than 
 one rare sigh of wind at a time to confuse the 
 
 polished surface, in which inverted earth and sky 
 are seen as in a glass, darkly. There is your im- 
 pression, calm and the feeling of power at rest : 
 
 what you have to do is to play on that theme; 
 and the mirror of waters is your chief means of 
 expression, it will therefore be the leading feature 
 of your picture. To all those reflections you must 
 attend, and the value of your work ^vill vary as 
 you pay more or less perfect attention to them. 
 
 There is real reason for choice of such scenes. Their 
 beauty is very great, and unusually capable of analysis, 
 and a very slight amount of dexterity and previous 
 practice in sketching will enable a man to give 
 himself some pleasure in his work. Moreover, he 
 will soon And that he cannot get his water bright, 
 or deep, or still, without getting his reflections nearly 
 right ; and that he never can have a chance of 
 doing that, unless he can draw the objects of which 
 they are reflections. The fact is, a sketch of a tarn 
 or bay composes itself, and naturally takes the form 
 
 c c 2 
 
388 
 
 FOREGROUNDS. 
 
 of a picture rather than of a simple study; and also, 
 the student will soon understand that his success 
 in it depends on his making it a careful study, and 
 not thinking of it as a picture. One of the great 
 early difficulties is to remember that in making a 
 sketch on the spot you are taking a lesson from 
 Nature, whereas in painting a picture you are pre- 
 senting to other people the results of what you have 
 learnt, and your own thoughts about it — trying, in 
 fact, to give a lesson. As a learner you draw what 
 you see, adding as little as possible of your own. 
 As a painter, you may add, and omit, and arrange; 
 at least we never knew anybody who did not do 
 so in some form or degree. And if you can get a 
 good subject with plenty of reflections', and will look 
 well at it and make a real eflbrt to put it down 
 nearly as you see it, it will be a lesson of the 
 greatest value, for it will make you draw your 
 subject twice over, without fatiguing you. Of course 
 it is important to have subjects which will wait for 
 you. And this is one of the many reasons for in- 
 sisting on the foregrounds of all your drawings. 
 One enjoys the distance, but learns by the nearer 
 objects ; nor can any method be progressive without 
 careful study of them. In our view, sketching does 
 not consist in a constant eflbrt to evade accurate 
 drawing, but in accurate drawing rapidly done. Now 
 it is much easier to see what is near than to see 
 what is far off: you may think, when you have run 
 a successful wash of purple over your distant hills, 
 that they look pretty well, and may be let alone: 
 but three or four big stones and some drift-timber 
 
PREDETERMINA TION. 
 
 389 
 
 or broad-leaved weeds close to you, will challenge 
 your real attention and powers of drawing. If you 
 can deal with them properly, you will see their 
 immense importance in your work ; and the further 
 you carry them, the greater value they will give 
 it. If you cannot please yourself with them as with 
 the rest of your work, at least do your best at them 
 faithfully, or make a separate study of them. Young 
 sketchers always fly at the distance because it is 
 easiest: perhaps they do not even think of the fore- 
 ground till they are half through their distance. 
 
 Now, if it be necessary to know what one is going 
 to do with one's picture, one ought to know what 
 one is going to do with that part of it which every 
 spectator will look at first. That ought not to be 
 left to chance. In every sketch or picture objects 
 bear some relation to each other; and if you are 
 to know what to do, you must determine that rela- 
 tion in your mind and mark and adhere to it in 
 drawing them. You may like delightful old Lucerne 
 as it once was in its quaint beauty and freshness — 
 the city of the old Switzer — obviously built, every 
 house of it, with his own deal and his own lime- 
 stone; redolent of the rocks of Uri, and the pines 
 of Unterwalden. Or you may like it as it is, all 
 but invisible behind its huge square factories of 
 hotels, and embellished with idle women in crinoline. 
 But if you are to draw it so, you must at all events 
 settle in your mind from the first, Avhere you Avill 
 put your crinoline and where you will put your 
 hotels : and if you want to represent either you 
 must draAV them. 
 
390 
 
 TIME. 
 
 All this presupposes plenty of time : and this re- 
 opens the question of how far it is worth while 
 
 trying to sketch against time. It is all very well 
 to settle the question by a simple prohibition. But 
 when you have gained power enough, the question 
 
 will settle itself. You will no longer feel tempted 
 
 to dash at hopeless scratch -sketches of beautiful 
 scenes as you pass them on steamer or diligence; 
 knowing their greatness and your own helplessness. 
 You will look hard, learn some small thing, and 
 be thankful. Yet you may be right in scoring that 
 small thing down : and men differ very much in their 
 power of doing it. Turner’s hastiest sketches, some 
 of those on the Lake of Lucerne, now I believe at 
 South Kensington, cannot have occupied him above 
 ten minuies. There are one or two, I think of the 
 Splugen, which only consist of a few leading lines: 
 the latter are exceptional, being a mere record of 
 the tremendous profile-line of the Via Mala precipices. 
 But these are not so much representative sketches, 
 as shorthand notes to assist his memory and invention 
 — a zigzag line stands for pines, and is continued in 
 an unbroken curve to indicate smooth rock. However, 
 as soon as your own memory is fairly well stored, 
 you will find yourself most likely inventing signs of 
 your own to assist it. In short, very rough notes are 
 of great use to people of vivid minds; but as careful 
 records in line are of infinitely more value, to any 
 sort of mind whatever, it is always best to make 
 them when it can be done. 
 
 The first thing, then, is almost always to secure 
 all the leading lines, with all other significant ones. 
 
PHOTOGRAPHY. 
 
 391 
 
 Whether you leave things in the places in which 
 you see them, or order them about, at least draw 
 them as you see them, if not where you see them. 
 Young sketchers of course lean too much on outline, 
 especially on sky-lines, and learn to understand the 
 anatomy of things in learning to express it. All pre- 
 vious knowledge of the laws of growth or the rudi- 
 ments of geology will be invaluable. Every kind of 
 information as to structure, in the artistic point of 
 view, will be found in the fourth and fifth volumes 
 of ‘Modern Painters/ They will give the student all 
 the knowledge which can be obtained by reading, and 
 careful study of their illustrations and text is almost 
 indispensable. The short manual called ‘Letters on 
 Drawing,’ is a familiar abridgment of a vast quantity 
 of the same matter, and is perhaps the best guide in 
 existence for independent study of Nature. We think 
 it should be taken up after Harding, however, as its 
 directions are at first less tempting. Its advanced 
 exercises, well done, will give the student some claim 
 to the title of Workman. 
 
 Photography ought to be of the greatest service to 
 all learners of landscape. It supplies them with any 
 quantity of beautiful foreground material. It gives 
 them forms of Alpine roses beyond the reach of school- 
 boys, unlike those in ‘ Sesame and Lilies its ferns can- 
 not be collected by fanciers; nor can donkeys browse 
 upon its weeds. And more than this, photography 
 enables young artists to study rocks coolty: not an 
 easy thing to do in a general way. What is best 
 of all, photographs of Avell-known views are always to 
 be had; and any student may thus compare his own 
 
sm 
 
 Till: DEVI vs BRIDGE. 
 
 work, in lines and coloured sketch, with all the true 
 forms of his subject. No practice can be of more cer- 
 tain value than that of working out a subject already 
 drawn from its photograph, first in light and shade, 
 then in colour, at home, and with every advantage and 
 assistance. We assume that a good etching in lines 
 has been made on the spot, and that a second study 
 has been made for the sake of the colours. Every one 
 will see the advantage which the painter's memory 
 must then gain from the use of a photograph of his 
 subject. Many of Messrs. George and Edwards’s Alpine 
 plates might be made of endless service and a col- 
 lection of small stereoscopic landscapes and studies 
 should be always at hand, along with the brushes 
 and colours. The Devil's Bridge on the S. Gothard 
 is a capital instance. It is a difficult subject, not 
 an impossible one : the rocks will always wait for 
 everybody : you may leave out the new bridge if you 
 please; there can be no mistake about the feeling of 
 the scene. There is a capital small photograph of it; 
 and every one has drawn it, from Turner downwards. 
 He who has learnt to draw that precipice and fore- 
 ground straightforwardly and correctly, and to give 
 such conventional treatment to the infant wrath of 
 Reuss, as shall put some of its roar into his drawing, 
 has done something to speak of And a close sketch 
 on the spot, well worked up afterwards, will carry any 
 willing workman far towards that end. It is strange, 
 by the way, when one considers the hundreds of 
 sketches which have been made of the old and new 
 Devil's Bridge from below% — to think how seldom it 
 has been even attempted from above. Mr. A. Hunt’s 
 
USE OF THE BRUSH, 
 
 393 
 
 beautiful water-colour drawing, and another indifferent 
 one by an unknown hand, are the only representations I 
 knoAv of the whole height of the rocks above the bridge 
 and the fall below it, which are really not seen from 
 below. It is clearly better to choose well-known and 
 often-treated subjects for the sake of study. ^Difficile 
 est proprie communia dicere! In all conscience it is 
 hard enough : and one is enabled to compare one’s 
 attempts at stock subjects with abler men’s, which is 
 not only getting a lesson from Nature, but from them 
 also. But be it remembered that the end of study is 
 that a man shall be able to express himself, and have 
 something of his own to express, and that he must push 
 forward to subjects of his own. The world is all before 
 him where to choose, and it is wide enough, and is fast 
 becoming accessible enough. But at present we are 
 talking of tools and materials, rules, models, and hints, 
 pen-and-ink etching, and light and shade — not of all 
 the wilderness unconquered of what is to be done, 
 but of how to do one’s best. 
 
 And when a certain power, i.e. correctness, fluency, 
 subtlety and force of line, has been gained, by pen- 
 and-ink, or hard -pencil drawing from Albert Durer 
 or photograph, then we must needs say. Let the 
 pupil take to the brush, and, generally speaking, 
 stick to it. In the first place, all important or per- 
 manent works are done with a brush, and every willing 
 worker has a chance of doing something one day 
 which shall be of importance. Secondly, the feel and 
 handling of a brush is different from the feel of a point ; 
 and if the hand be kept too exclusively at the latter, 
 it will not learn the former. Thirdly, a water-colour 
 
894 
 
 POWER OF THE BRUSH. 
 
 painter must learn (and an oil-painter will probably 
 find it quite as necessary) to nse the brush like a 
 double-edged sword, and habitually to draw forms with 
 both its sides. We go back to the old motto, ‘Know 
 what you have to do:’ and say that, in theory, every 
 touch in a picture should have a form which shall be 
 the result of knowledge or design, and conduce to 
 the effect of the whole work. Now, making signifi- 
 cant touches of this kind with a brush is altogether 
 different from making them with a hard point, inas- 
 much as a form is not the same thing as a line. And 
 though point-drawing is absolutely necessary for years 
 of practice, and for studies of pure form throughout 
 life, still the more difficult faculty of using both sides 
 of the brush and putting a whole form on at once 
 is necessary to all good landscape drawing, and cannot 
 be gained without long practice with the brush. It is 
 a much subtler tool than the crayon or pen, and much 
 more powerful ; but for all that, elementary processes 
 may be learnt by it as well as by the crayon. In as 
 far as stippling and hatching are necessary to a work, 
 they may be learnt with the brush; and a fine long- 
 haired sable will draw as delicate and precise a line 
 as a crow-quill, in practised hands. Besides, there is 
 such a thing as being cramped and enslaved by lines : 
 for, after all, Nature does not etch, but works by touches 
 of shade and glazes of light. This we fear is a heresy 
 in the view of our excellent Art- schools : but several 
 of our leading painters are, we believe, inclined to recom- 
 mend early use of the brush, in light and shade only ; 
 and to allow it to be employed in elementary studies : 
 and Mr. Ruskin’s instructions recognize it as soon as 
 
DEFINITE FORMS. 
 
 395 
 
 steadiness and the power of gradation have been ob- 
 tained in pen and ink. This may apply mainly to those 
 who begin drawing comparatively late in life. No 
 doubt children had better be kept to pencil and chalk 
 drawing. But they and their elders too require encour- 
 agement as well as discipline ; and the great encourage- 
 ment in drawing is a little permitted waste of time 
 with advanced tools. Every reader likes to look on 
 a leaf or tw'o ahead now and then. 
 
 This may be illustrated from the works of Turner. 
 Art-schools were not in his day, or were not for him. 
 He began as young men and maidens begin at our own 
 time, by frankly trying to draw Nature and put on 
 natm^al colour. He found it would not do. And so 
 he began again, learning straight lines and accurate 
 proportion by years of pencil outlines of archi- 
 tecture, and other matter ; then he went through years 
 of light and shade in water-colour : but he never 
 resigned the brush from the first, until the life went 
 out of his aged and cunning hands. He kept to 
 elementary colours, but claimed the ivorhman’s tools 
 from the first : and so we think others should do. It 
 has been set forth already that as soon as the pupil has 
 got on far enough to copy a cast, he ought to do it first 
 in correct outline, then in Avater-colour or oil-mono- 
 chrome. He may continue at this till he can do it 
 well ; that is to say, for months or years. But at tlie 
 end of those years he will take up colour all the better 
 for having learnt to lay shades on in definitely shaped 
 patches ; which is the great arcanum, of the original 
 water-colourist at least. Turner’s grey-paper sketches 
 are allowed to be conclusive as models of rapid and 
 
396 
 
 TURNER. 
 
 elaborate drawing. They will be found to be created 
 by colour laid on in, definite form. All the forms of 
 the grass and vegetation on a hill -side are put in 
 with rapid suggestive touches, in green and yellow, 
 all of traceable and designed shape, but which look 
 quite accidentally right. Then all the rocks which crop 
 out are put in among them with another series of sig- 
 nificant touches in dark grey and purple : and there 
 is the work, with a pretty fair prospect of immortality 
 while its paper holds together b 
 
 Those who have gone over any considerable part, or 
 who have even looked attentively through any fairly 
 well- selected series of Turner’s sketches, will have 
 noticed, among many things, how very wide his range 
 was for his time. Real Swiss and Italian landscape 
 has hardly been attempted in water-colour till within 
 the last twenty years. Nobody ever really drew a 
 glacier before Turner’s Mer de Glace in the ‘ Liber 
 Studiorum ’ — or for about fifty years after. Nor do 
 we know of any real study of Italian landscape before 
 his time ; that is to say, of any close representation of 
 its natural features. It will be admitted that whatever 
 
 ^ It would be of immense advantage to all students of Landscape Art 
 if the Art-schools in some of our principal cities could be allowed for 
 a time to possess connected series of Turner’s drawings and sketches. 
 These might be selected from the vast number in the National Collections, 
 and entrusted to the schools for the use of somewhat advanced pupils. 
 Any which shew his true manner of working — which was simple in itself, 
 and complicated by reason of vast knowledge and extraordinary power 
 of eye — would be of great value, especially to the more thoughtful stu- 
 dents. The beautiful collection lately presented by Mr. Uuskin to the 
 University of Oxford is a very perfect example of such an educational 
 collection. Far fewer and less valuable specimens would give instruction 
 which could hardly be obtained in any other way. 
 
ms RAPIDITY. 
 
 397 
 
 be the merits of the classical landscape, it will not 
 furnish models or principles for the sketcher in our 
 own days. But Turner was one of the earliest and 
 farthest-ranging of travelling sketchers. It was pro- 
 bably the difficulties of locomotion in those days which 
 forced upon him, what he always seems to have under- 
 stood so much better than any one else before or after 
 him — the vast difference between sketching on a journey, 
 and painting at home with all conveniences. Railroads, 
 steamers, Pre-Rafaelite principles, and portable tents 
 and easels, have introduced far closer study of Nature 
 in these days ; and of course when we get in conse- 
 quence such pictures as those of Brett, Inchbold, and 
 the two surviving Hunts, we can only rejoice in the 
 change. But now, as men gain this power of elabora- 
 tion, they seem to lose their hope of rapid work. But 
 this has its weakness as well as its strength. If no 
 landscape is to be painted, or at least exhibited, which 
 has not been painted entirely on the spot and in the 
 open air ; or if no subject is to be attempted which 
 the artist is not certain he can master — then we have 
 nothing more to say, and all we have said falls to 
 the ground. With it goes all sane encouragement to 
 sketchers as a class. With it goes Turner, and Avith 
 him all the modern landscapists except the very latest, 
 and the old masters are gone long ago. As a method 
 of study, elaborate practice from Nature of course 
 stands before all others ; but it is impossible to con- 
 sider it as a limit to landscape Art. This is especiall}" 
 true in our own time, when distant travel is open 
 almost to every one, and when the resulting pictures 
 are so intensely interesting, if they have anything like 
 
398 
 
 LEWIS. 
 
 faithful likeness and portraiture in them. Lewis and 
 Holman Hunt have certainly painted elaborate Eastern 
 scenes, which ought to be studied most attentively by 
 every traveller who means drawing, either in city or 
 desert. Seddon’s picture at Kensington should be perused 
 inch by inch, and so should Vacher’s works in water- 
 colour. But on an Eastern journey a man must draw 
 many things as he can ; that is to say, as carefully as 
 time, sand, sun, mosquitoes, and Fellaheen will let him. 
 The world will be glad of any true notes of what 
 Sinai and Mount Hor are really like in colour and form. 
 I remember a first Desert sketch, under the following 
 circumstances. It was at Ayoun Mousa, opposite Suez, 
 the scene of a very charming picture of Goodalfs, where 
 the figures are superior to the landscape \ and that is 
 very beautiful. It was a wild sunset, such as I think 
 is not seen except near the Poles or near the Tropics I 
 This is a note of it in pen and ink : — 
 
 ' A strange double scene, at the water’s edge on the 
 shallow shore. Dead calm, with an advancing tide fast 
 
 ^ It will be against our principles to disparage Mr. Goodall’s picture 
 for looking, as it does, as if it had been painted in Cairo or at home. 
 But the girl’s figure, though quite lovely, is that of an idealized Egyptian, 
 and the man is not dark enough for a Tor Arab, though his drawn and 
 sharpened expression of thirst is admirable. But compare Lewis’s great 
 Sinai j^icture, or the lately exhibited scene in the Convent Court-yard in 
 Cairo. The Bedouin there carry the whole desert in their faces, as well 
 as in their subtly expressed repose up to the last moment, which indeed 
 characterizes all Oriental men of action. 
 
 ^ I think the forms of cloud in the East (when one sees any cloud 
 at all) and those in Arctic Norway are particularly beautiful and charac- 
 teristic. They are certainl}^ more sharply defined than elsewhere, both 
 cirri and cumuli. The Northern sunset colour is quite equal to the 
 Eastern, indeed some of its nameless crimsons are unequalled. Fused 
 rubies might be something like them. 
 
THE RED SEA SHORE. 
 
 899 
 
 swallowing up the flat beach, and filling various “ still 
 salt pools, locked in by bars of sand,'' almost without 
 a ripple. Looking east, these pools reflected the rose- 
 coloured mountains of the Tih (Desert of Wanderings), 
 monotonous in form, yet many crested, and all flaming 
 with the red sun which was going down in all his 
 strength behind Gebl Attakah. All the crystals and 
 mica in the plain sparkled red : the yellow sands were 
 touched with vermilion, and the whole was reflected 
 and repeated at one's feet in the broad shallow pools. 
 Turning round, there was another picture : the long 
 line of Gebl Attakah, deep solemn purple, and long 
 banks of barred clouds now flushed in pure crimsons, 
 undescribable and inconceivable ; soon to exchange 
 their many colours for soft gradation, from white moon- 
 light to the purple blackness of Eastern darkness.' 
 
 I had got off my camel, and made some sort of out- 
 line, and was beginning to try tints, when there came 
 a gentle puff of the wind of the desert, and raised a 
 small simoon of dust which in one instant filled all 
 my tin colour-box, speckled all my first wash over, 
 made all my brushes, &c., gritty for ever so long, and 
 gave me a first lesson in a sketcher's Oriental troubles. 
 After that I did what most men will have to do — 
 made careful outlines with a hard pencil, and matched 
 tints with the brush on the spot ; or even wrote down 
 the names of the actual paints I would use — and laid 
 colours on in tents. 
 
 There are subjects enough in the Sinai desert alone 
 to give an able sketcher employment for years; and 
 he might hope to produce pictures which would have 
 a real value, and in time would be felt to possess it. 
 
400 
 
 SINAI. 
 
 Photographs give a good idea of the mountain range 
 itself, but hardly of the extent and theatric slope 
 of the Plain of the Camp, which fronts Ras Sassafeh, 
 or Sinai proper, slope above slope and plateau above 
 plateau, till the Hill of the Law seems to be the chief 
 object of sight to every one who stands in the plain, and 
 till one feels that to stand there is to ‘stand before 
 the Mount ' in a special sense \ Then the glorious view 
 from Mount S. Catharine, and the still more interesting 
 one from the highest precipices of Sinai itself, have 
 been only recorded, as far as we know, by two feeble 
 water-colours, one in the Royal Academy of 1865 
 and one in the Exhibition of British Artists last 
 year. Again, there is the great waste of sands 
 facing the Mount of Deliverance, to which Lewis and 
 Goodall have only done partial justice ; neither of them 
 dwelling on the vast sweep or golden colours of that 
 most melancholy shore, but the one on his perfectly 
 realized group of Bedouins, the other on his most 
 prettily idealized girl and camel-driver. Then there 
 is the deserted hill-top of Surabut-el-Khadem, with its 
 blood-red sandstone flaming across the Debbet-er-Ramleh 
 at sunset and sunrise ; and chief of all there is Feiran, 
 the great oasis, the loveliest place on earth. Nor has 
 Petra ever received anything like justice : and though 
 the strong hand of Holman Hunt has been stretched 
 over the Dead Sea, Gennesaret remains ; and somebody 
 ought to give an idea of its beauty. Perhaps one 
 man only, Mr. Lear, has thrown himself with the 
 true landscape spirit on the scenery of the East, and 
 
 One of Mr. Fritli’s photographs shews this admirably. 
 
NORWAY. 
 
 401 
 
 has not degraded it into mere background for Bedouin 
 and dragomen," goats, camels, and chibouques, and 
 tarbooshes, and papooshes, and all the rest of 
 it. His works seem almost invaluable as rapid 
 and accurate records of Eastern Nature; but they 
 are sadly 'ill to find/ Roberts's sketches are of 
 course valuable as far as they go; but they will not 
 seem to go far enough, to any one whose eye has 
 been educated to accurate observation of Nature, 
 whether by Pre-Rafaelitism, which is accuracy in 
 foreground objects as seen; or by Turner, who re- 
 presents accuracy in distances as seen under various 
 circumstances ; or even by the study of Brett's works, 
 which represent supreme accuracy in both foreground 
 and distance; with change, motion, and imaginative 
 force in some degree sacrificed to it. 
 
 It seems to me that the coast and fiord scenery 
 of Norway are opening an almost boundless field to 
 our landscape painters. Mr. West's waterfalls are 
 admirable, and Mr. Rosenberg has from time to time 
 produced some very true and pleasing drawings of 
 Norse subject. But neither of them dwell on the 
 sea; and it is the eternal comparison of the sea and* 
 mountains which gives their peculiar charm and 
 power to the coasts of Scotland and Norway. That 
 power is vaguely felt even by the dullest tourist, 
 and often commented on in words: but it is hardly 
 expressed in Art, unless it be by Turner, and latterly 
 in some of the Harlech drawings of Mr. A. Hunt. 
 Contrast is felt between the solidity of earth and the 
 changing mirror of water, in time of calm, when Loch 
 Hourn or the Hardanger-fiord are as blue steel or glass, 
 
 D d 
 
402 
 
 FEELING, 
 
 reflecting all the wounds of the battered giants w'hich 
 hold them bound in bars of stone. Again, there is the 
 contrast of elemental combat, when the Western trumpets 
 sound onset, and the sea rises mountainously in forms 
 which mock, with their eternal wrath and change, the 
 granite pyramids that alter not. And the restless 
 tide with its ordered power of motion is continually 
 at work, cleaving and smoothing, building and under- 
 mining, stripping and clothing, rending and closing, 
 full of life and of destruction. Change itself personi- 
 fied: and so it contrasts with the hills which look 
 so immovable, yet slowly yield to change. The 
 really grand amount of what is called Feeling in 
 modern English landscape -painting shews how pos- 
 sible, and perhaps easy, it is to illustrate and suggest 
 trains of thought like this by landscape: and every 
 one who has the gift of doing this does wrong in 
 not labouring for so much technical skill, as shall 
 enable him to do it clearly and impressively. 
 
 For every licence in rapid sketching must he paid 
 for, or rather anticipated by, accurate study of form 
 at home, and by thoughtful observation on the spot. 
 No one can hope ever to paint his impressions or 
 realize them intelligibly, if he does not strive in every 
 way to clear and deepen them as he receives them, 
 to think them over and analyze them, to study the 
 scene which has touched his spirit. Then every line 
 or touch in his drawing will he the symbol of a 
 thought, and either mean something, or be a necessary 
 part of a meaning. Practice of this kind and in this 
 spirit fully justifies hasty sketching. Such haste is 
 not carelessness; for accuracy and finish are nothing 
 
ANALOGIES. 
 
 403 
 
 more in any picture than additions of well -chosen 
 thoughts and facts, made in a skilful way, intelli- 
 gently and intelligibly. And observant sketching is 
 of all things the best to educate the mind, eye, and 
 hand into right selection and clear and copious 
 expression of congruous facts in a picture; that is 
 to say, of facts which all fall in with and intensify 
 or ornament the motive or theme of a picture. For 
 every important landscape has its theme, recurring 
 again and again to the musing mind of the artist, 
 brought out again and again in fresh lights and new 
 colours and relations, with fresh notes to introduce 
 it, to throw it out, to vary and recall it. It is use- 
 less to follow the close analogy between light and 
 shade and colour in painting and the same in music; 
 or try to analyze how strangely harmony and contrast, 
 change and repose, are brought in on the spirit of 
 man by these sister arts. For painters rightly 
 prefer expression to analysis, and represent things 
 rather than take them to pieces. The value of 
 their work depends on the amount of the inex- 
 pressible which they manage to express in it: and 
 the importance of success makes carelessness in 
 pursuit quite inexcusable. The only reason for 
 which a person of sense can want to draw ‘ a 
 little' is that he may be led to want to draw more, 
 and to proceed from trifling successes, which please 
 himself and his friends, to serious and probably 
 laborious efforts, by which his friends and he may 
 learn something. Life is too short to faddle with 
 anything, least of all with Art; and it is the sense 
 of this which sets such a barrier between artists and 
 
 D d 2 
 
404 
 
 FATIGUE. 
 
 amateurs. The former feel that they are giving 
 their lives to what the others care hut little about, 
 and feel that the public think their lives are passed 
 in pursuing a mere amusement, while they are really 
 straining every mental nerve all day long. ‘I amuse 
 myself with Art,' says the regular amateur, washing 
 and sponging away at his copy of Rowbotham. Real 
 Art is not amusing, thinks the workman labouring 
 out his thoughts; it is a weariness, like the sea 
 that spreads ever wider ^ It takes too much work 
 and life out of man to be treated as a bye-play — ^it 
 rather deserves to be pursued alone, without ‘‘ parerga" 
 to distract a man's mind from it ^.' 
 
 Tintoret. 
 
 ^ Arist. Eth. Nic. 
 
TREE.DRAWING, 
 
 405 
 
 CHAPTER VIIL 
 
 TREE-DRAWING. 
 
 A FEW remarks on Tree-drawing seems a necessary 
 addition to the chapter on Sketching, as trees are 
 almost invariably the first objects which a student 
 attempts to draw from Nature out of doors, and as 
 they first meet him with all the embarrassments of 
 regular open-air work. The amateur says he or she 
 finds trees very difficult — the regular workman knows 
 that they are in fact impossible, as no human labour 
 or power can render their intricacy, their change, their 
 character, and subtle motion. It will be of great use 
 to any student to watch and make occasional sketches 
 of the same tree or group of trees in different weathers, 
 and at different seasons. Any one who will do so will 
 see that it is impossible for us to exhaust the subject 
 of tree-drawing here ; or indeed to give more than one 
 good example of the best conventionalism, and a few 
 hints for practice. Without a large number of illus- 
 trations in colour it would be impossible to demon- 
 strate the changes and varied beauty of leaves and 
 branches ; and every attentive person may see them all 
 for himself from month to month. These pages have 
 been almost entirely taken up with recipe and prac- 
 tical rules, excepting when they have been engaged on 
 matters of history : and little, after all, has been said 
 
406 
 
 CHANGES OF THE YEAR. 
 
 of the habit of artistic observation or note-taking; 
 though the importance of a well- stored memory has 
 been everywhere assumed. Country life and habits 
 of course give more and better opportunities of col- 
 lecting natural knowledge; though it often happens 
 that the habitual dweller in cities is more observant, 
 because of the keener pleasure he feels in less -accus- 
 tomed beauty. But all may have plenty of oppor- 
 tunities for watching the differences between bare 
 branches, red and purple with buds soon to open, 
 and wintry branches forgetful of sap and circulation; 
 or the same boughs fringed and powdered over with 
 bursting green points; or, again, scantily clothed at 
 first with emerald green in spring; or full-dressed in 
 early summer, with delicate yellow-green, their strong 
 boles and main branches telling dark among the 
 leaves; — or again, in the deep strength of August 
 growth, when grey, or green lichened, stems are lighter 
 than foliage bronzed with long sunshine; or with the 
 first fringes and sparks of September yellow defining 
 every form, and adding beauty to beauty; — or again, 
 as summer black-green, ‘faded yet full,’ glows out in 
 brown and orange and russet and scarlet, and the whole 
 orchestra of colour bursts out with a crash, before 
 the challenge of the autumn winds, and before golden 
 leaves, like 
 
 ^Golden lads and girls, all must 
 Pass away and turn to dust.^ 
 
 To watch these changes for a year, and their various 
 effect on different trees, will give any man a kind 
 of fruitful knowledge of the look and the ways of 
 oak and ash and thorn. He will take to them and 
 
HUES. 
 
 407 
 
 swear by their names as of old: and when he draws 
 them, there will be a spirit and character in his 
 work:— and if he has anyhow followed our former 
 directions within doors, he will have secured himself 
 a fair turn of skill and precision as well. 
 
 For rules have really been given for tree-drawing 
 as for all other work. Make your mind up steadily 
 and irrevocably to the form you will have in your 
 picture ; whether it be a motionless form, such as you 
 can sit and study in the open air for weeks, or if 
 it be the wild struggling lines of a tree in storm, 
 which you must fix on your mind at a glance. Decide 
 on it, block it out, draw it in, firmly or finely. You 
 must, as a rule, lay on this form flat, in your lightest 
 tint of colour first; or you can begin with the half- 
 tint, leaving out the high lights and strong darks, 
 and fitting them in afterwards like a mosaic. If you 
 are using autumn tints and want high colour, lay on 
 the first form in yellow and sienna, and paint scarlets, 
 purples, and browns into it, attending to form in all 
 your touches. Or if you are putting in masses in 
 distance, a half-tint first may be most convenient, 
 and the lights may be taken out and painted over. 
 But in all cases, knowledge of form is everything: 
 knowledge, that is to say, first of the typical shape and 
 form of leaves and masses in each tree, and secondly 
 of the broad principles of growth, in which all trees 
 seem to be agreed. The fifth volume of ‘Modern 
 Painters' is a perfect and complete book of reference 
 on the latter subject. And all the chapters which 
 describe the way in which a tree builds itself up 
 shoot by shoot and year by year; its difficulties. 
 
408 
 
 HARDING'S EXERCISES. 
 
 compromises, loss and gain ; especially how it contains 
 the record of all in its wood, and carries its own 
 history, are as exact in truth, as they are instructive 
 in the noble analogies which they suggest. Nothing 
 in this part of ‘ Modern Painters ’ should be omitted : 
 and all who have time should verify Mr. Ruskin’s obser- 
 vations from Nature. But for first lessons in tree- 
 drawing, valuable help is to be got from the works 
 of Harding. All who are beginning to sketch out of 
 doors will find his Lessons on Trees very useful at 
 first. They help one to a graceful and intelligible 
 conventionalism of form ; and his more advanced 
 lithographic drawings may be copied in sepia, or even 
 translated into colour. We wish our student to ad- 
 vance beyond them, and to gain power of original 
 tree-drawing; for the fact is, that it will not do to 
 rest as a contented disciple of Harding; it is quite 
 possible to he able to have acquired some power of 
 expressing tree-form in his language, and yet to be 
 quite unable to go out and make even a tolerable 
 study of an actual tree, in a veritable park or forest. 
 But his system of drawing a tree is the same as that 
 which we have already given for drawing the figure. 
 First the stem and main branches, which determine 
 the form of the masses of leaves, are blocked out or 
 perhaps drawn. Then the forms of the masses of 
 foliage are outlined with broad waving curves, which 
 are afterwards filled up with the leaves and boughs; 
 the shade being put in afterwards with great atten- 
 tion to form and character. Harding’s use of definite 
 forms of shade is everywhere highly instructive, and 
 his lithographs of the under or shaded side of branches 
 
FURTHER STUDIES. 
 
 m 
 
 alone, without outline, ought to be well studied. A 
 little practice in free-hand drawing will enable the 
 student to understand and imitate the wild and grace- 
 ful curves of his foliage: but at the same time he 
 must always try to verify the works he copies from 
 Nature : to find and study oaks and elms like his 
 master’s. Nothing can give so good an insight into 
 the work of both master and pupil. 
 
 Harding takes the foliage of the elm as his typical 
 form, shewing that others may be learnt from it with 
 slight alteration. It seems to us that the hand- 
 shape, which is his conventional type-form for a 
 bunch of leaves, is rather more like the ash. Photo- 
 graphy and the increased demand for accurate drawing 
 certainly make it necessary for both painters and 
 students to attempt further realization, and press on 
 to the study of Titian^ and Turner. But a sketcher 
 should practise Harding’s curves and radiating bunches 
 till his hand will produce them correctly and quite 
 easily: he will then find it easy to alter their form 
 and make them as angular as oak-boughs, as long 
 and delicate as birch, as soft as willow, and as sharp 
 as holly; and he will also learn easy expressions 
 for the radiating leaves of chestnut, and the needles 
 of spruce and pine. But he will never draw masses 
 till he has drawn leaves: and the real way to take 
 up tree-drawing, after a little copying from Harding, 
 is to take a spray of not more than seven leaves 
 and copy it faithfully twice, in light and shade, and 
 afterwards in colour. Then another of a cluster of 
 
 ^ Among Mr. PMlpot’s Florentine photographs are some very beautiful 
 tree-drawings by Titian. 
 
410 
 
 LIBER STUDIORUM, 
 
 leaves on a bough, about eighteen inches long, set 
 up eight feet from the eye. Let it be drawn at first 
 in profile or long-ways as a mass, running the leaves 
 into each other where they cross each other, and making 
 their form well out : then again, look at them end on, 
 and draw them foreshortened, — in both cases paying 
 great attention to the spring of the boughs. Two plates 
 in ‘Modern Painters,' vol. v., called ‘The Dryad's Toil' 
 and ‘The Dryad's Waywardness' are beautiful examples 
 of this method of study, and any one who follows it 
 faithfully is likely to gain the great and rare power 
 of giving a look of vitality and growth to his near 
 foliage. And all in distance or middle-distance is easy 
 to him who can make a successful struggle with his 
 nearer sprays. 
 
 This work may be done in chalk, though we 
 prefer a quill -pen and ink or colour for it, with a 
 wash of sepia in different shades afterwards. Let the 
 sketcher begin to work in sepia after the manner of 
 Turner's ‘Liber Studiorum.' And when he has made 
 fair progress, so that he knows enough about trees to 
 understand and delight in that work, then let him 
 take up some of its plates, and do his best with them 
 — tracing their lines if he will, or accurately blocking 
 out and copying them; or it may be better to trace 
 them in pencil and go over the lines again in ink 
 with careful imitation of the copy. This last seems 
 almost the best method of facsimile-ing Turner's lines; 
 and nothing short of a facsimile ought to content a 
 trained draughtsman studying trees of the great master 
 of woodland. 
 
 It is very possible that you may not like the ‘ Liber 
 
TOUCH AND STYLE. 
 
 411 
 
 Studiorum' etching given in this chapter for study and 
 for copying (it should be done at twice its size here). 
 But have faith, and practise it over and over again. 
 When you can outline some of its groups freely and 
 exactly, and command your pen or pencil so as to 
 imitate some of its bunches of foliage freely, you will 
 have gained a power of sketching trees in outline which 
 will avail you wherever you go. Turner will teach 
 you to express the character, habits, and perhaps the 
 history, of the favourite English trees in particular; 
 and also, perhaps with slightly diminished power, 
 of the Swiss or spruce fir, the stone pine, the cypress, 
 and Spanish chestnut. And no one can copy his lines 
 without gathering vigour of expression from them. 
 To appreciate them thoroughly requires a fair degree 
 of knowledge both of trees and of drawing ; but every 
 one who has learnt really to like them will find his own 
 work always more graphic, and his choice of leading 
 lines more accurate and telling. He will see at all 
 events that every touch of Turner's is a thought, or 
 new idea; that the forms are not, as Harding's some- 
 times are, graceful repetitions of a type in the mind, 
 but all distinct inventions or recollections, drawn from 
 a kind of internal sea of knowledge. In other words, 
 the thought follows the hand, or rather guides it, so 
 closely in his work, that imitating it must necessarily 
 add to one's knowledge. All that is said about a man's 
 peculiar touch or style, as has been said, means no 
 more than his special way of expressing special facts 
 which he is especially fond of or familiar with ; and 
 nothing can prove this more satisfactorily than the 
 etched lines of the ‘ Liber Studiorum.' 
 
412 
 
 MIXED HUES, 
 
 A few scales of colour for trees at different seasons 
 may be inserted here. We do not mean to say they 
 are the best, but they will do to begin with, and may 
 be varied according to feeling and experience. 
 
 In spring, the highest or purest greens will be best 
 matched with a mixture of emerald green and gam- 
 boge ; which may be warmed with a little burnt sienna, 
 and deepened and shaded with small admixtures of 
 Indian red and indigo or Prussian blue. This is for 
 foreground: as the trees retire into middle -distance, 
 cobalt, with a little white, should be substituted for the 
 indigo; and in extreme distance the green must pass 
 almost into yellow ochre for masses of sunshine, and 
 into grey for shadow — ^the best and purest grey of dis- 
 tance in almost all cases will be found in some com- 
 bination of cobalt or ultramarine ash with rose madder. 
 Again, the strongest and smallest touches of deep trans- 
 parent shade in foreground may be put in by adding 
 lake or Vandyke brown to the deepest greens. A lighter 
 tint of the same will do well for shadowed parts of the 
 larger stems and branches: for where light plays on 
 them, and dapples them, it must be fearlessly repre- 
 sented in yellow or green, perhaps only a shade or two 
 darker than the bright leaves. Correct grammar of 
 colour, as has so often been said, is impossible where 
 near or bright light is concerned. 
 
 Summer leaves are dark, and the Prussian blue, raw 
 or burnt sienna, and Indian red, will come into the 
 yellows and pale greens in larger proportion; or the 
 useful mixture of raw sienna, cobalt, and brown madder 
 may be used to vary it, in masses of shade. Of course 
 the nearer the shade is brought to the eye the clearer 
 
AUTUMN COLOURS, 
 
 413 
 
 it ought to look, and the more it must be represented 
 by transparent colours. 
 
 Autumn colour may be anything: as the emerald 
 green reappears (with the brightest chromes) in the 
 fading tints of lime, aspen, and poplar leaves; while 
 other trees may vary from dark brown to abso- 
 lutely burning scarlet under sunset light. We have 
 seen birches and beeches look absolutely like pillars 
 of fire on October evenings. But one of the most 
 singular effects of contrasted colour we ever beheld, 
 at least in the course of the last twenty years, 
 was from a place familiar to many of our readers — 
 no other than the towing-path of the Isis, opposite 
 the ‘bouquet' or ‘bosquet' (either word will do) of 
 small elms and alders on the projecting Oxfordshire 
 bank below Iffley Mill. There were the clear fiames 
 of a scarlet sunset over Bagley, just at their 
 brightest ; every leaf of the Iffley trees was like 
 a plate of red-hot gold : and they were so broad 
 and still, that little change or shade was noticeable: 
 below, towards the water, they sobered into bright 
 yellow and red -brown, and^ then the hollows of the 
 shaded bank formed a dark neutral contrast. They 
 were reflected clearly in very dark, clear olive green 
 autumnal water, which caught the aquamarine light of 
 the sky in its few and regular ripples. Behind the 
 trees there was crystalline turquoise-green sky, quite 
 cloudless, pure cold light against clear fire ; and in the 
 sky was a broad clear full-moon, rising in slow strength, 
 trembling above the scarlet flashes in the faint undu- 
 lation of the dark river. I remember no such other 
 effect of colour in a flat country; but parallel scenes 
 
414 
 
 PINE AND FIR. 
 
 are easy to find, and I have put down a reminiscence 
 of it here, thinking that some one may watch this 
 autumn for a like effect. Cadmium, carmine, and 
 emerald green, mitigated with cobalt and glazed with 
 yellow lights, would have to be used copiously, with 
 smalt, I think, in the shadow-purples. 
 
 It is very difficult to find any type of pine-drawing 
 which can be recommended as not only perfect, but 
 complete in instructiveness. The spruce firs in the 
 corner of Turner’s ‘ Source of the Arveiron ’ are perfect, 
 but they do not contain all about the pine. As Mr. 
 Ruskin remarks, they are pines in an abnormal con- 
 dition, pushed from off their natural perpendicular by 
 the thrust of the near glacier and its moraine-stones. 
 But they have all the character of the pine in them : 
 and the broad stone-pines of other plates ‘are all-suffi- 
 cient. Some of Calame’s lithographs of Swiss fir are 
 picturesque and good as far as they go. In drawing 
 the forms of a well-grown spruce, the idea of successive 
 plates or tables of verdure all round it, very like spread 
 hands on all sides may help the student ; at all events 
 it will preserve him from approach to the old type of 
 a straight stick with two rows of horizontal arms, like 
 a fiat-fish’s bones. For colour, you may descend from 
 emerald green and gamboge, through any admixture 
 of Indian red and indigo, to purple and Vandyke 
 
 ^ Yellow ochre— -for cadmium and emerald green will not mix, but 
 destroy each other. Yellow madder, with various blues, makes lovely 
 warm greens. 
 
 ^ Knowledge of perspective, or that unconscious attention to its rules 
 which is produced by the habit of careful drawing, is of special value in 
 dealing with fir-branches. We have already insisted on it in requiring 
 the pupil to draw branches both ways, in profile and ‘ end on ’ to himself. 
 
CEP H ALUS AND PROCRIS. 
 
 415 
 
 brown in deep shade under the branches. But it 
 must be noticed that all pines turn purple, or steel- 
 blue at least (brown madder and cobalt), at compara- 
 tively short distances, and that the far-off pine may he 
 dark green, but does not look dark green, but purple, 
 when you come to match the colour. 
 
 Therefore, and finally, let the student at all times 
 manfully match his colours for himself from Nature, 
 by holding up his hues in shade against the object. 
 If he will do this, or try to do it, in all landscape study, 
 he will find himself painting, out of his own head, in 
 colours something like Turner’s : nor can any happier 
 discovery for a young colourist well be imagined. To 
 tree-drawing there is no end, and the student ought 
 now to be able to begin it for himself : and in all early 
 stages of his work he cannot go wrong in consulting 
 the many beautiful studies of foliage to be found in 
 our Water-colour Exhibitions. Let him not try to pick 
 up anybody's touch or anybody's favourite effect ; but 
 go straightforwardly to any picture in which he recog- 
 nizes a natural effect, and ask it how its author did his 
 work. In water-colour he will generally be able to 
 discover this well enough ; and lessons so obtained will 
 make his visits to the galleries profitable enough to 
 him, till he is strong enough to have a will and 
 a way of his own. For the illustration ‘ Cephalus 
 and Procris' I have to thank Mr. Ruskin, to whom so 
 much is due already in this book. It has been selected 
 for various reasons, after some deliberation. I may 
 mention that it is a photograph from one of those 
 extremely rare etchings by Turner's own hand, which 
 were taken in limited number from the plates of the 
 
416 
 
 ETCHING. 
 
 ‘Liber Studiorum' before the mezzotint ground was 
 laid upon them. An attempt to explain the process 
 by which these plates were produced may be made 
 here, as an account of etching and mezzotint en- 
 graving is not altogether out of place ; and I never yet 
 found any ordinary Englishman, amateur draughts- 
 man or not, who understood what mezzotint engraving 
 means, unless it was his trade. 
 
 These plates were first etched, i. e. Turner took the 
 bright piece of copper, heated it, melted some wax 
 thinly on to it, and smoked the coating of wax over 
 a candle till it was quite even and black. Then he 
 probably set his original sketch (they are all at South 
 Kensington) before a looking-glass, and drew it thus 
 reversed, on the wax covering — scratching and digging 
 vigorously through to the metal \ Then he poured 
 aquafortis on the plate 2, which ‘bit’ into the metal 
 along the lines, and left the wax. On wiping off his 
 wax ground with the help of oil, he thus had the lines 
 of his sketch, drawn with his own hand deeply in the 
 copper. The plate then went into the hands of the 
 engraver, who ‘grounded it,' i-o. went over it repeat- 
 edly with a fine-toothed instrument like a small curry- 
 comb, till its surface was evenly and perfectly destroyed 
 or roughened all over. In this state it would have 
 
 ^ The student may make a tracing first on the waxed plate, reversing 
 his transparent-paper copy to get its lines in reverse. 
 
 ^ The best way is to make a wall of wax round the edges, and pour 
 on the corrosive, which will bubble as it does its work. The time of 
 active operation, from the first general bubbling, varies, according 
 as you are etching on copper or steel. Firm lines will take an hour 
 to bite, in copper : on steel, three or four minutes will suffice, in a 
 
 warm room. 
 
CEPHALUS AND PROCRIS. 
 
 417 
 
 uniformly printed as black as ink, and even tlie deep- 
 bitten lines of the etching would have been hardly 
 visible \ But Turner himself, or some engraver with 
 his help, would now scrape away the lights and paler 
 shades, with a thin sharp erasing-knife, until the high 
 lights shewed a perfectly bright surface of metal once 
 more ; and till other parts were so far polished as to 
 retain the right quantity of ink, and print no darker 
 than he wished. Successive proofs would of course 
 be taken to test the process, until the whole plate 
 was finished to Turner's satisfaction. It printed like 
 a drawing in light and shade, with the original etching 
 telling out vigorously as a skeleton of the whole. 
 The photograph is from the plate as it first left 
 Turner's hands, before the mezzotint ground was laid; 
 when it was a bright sheet of copper with the etched 
 lines upon it. The mezzotint plate resembles a dim 
 light-and-shade drawing. 
 
 The tree-trunks are the great objects of study in 
 ‘ Cephalus and Procris but the foliage-drawing ought 
 to be traced and gone over repeatedly till you can 
 follow its changes faithfully. It is no use drawing 
 nonsense-foliage ; and simple imitation of Harding is 
 sure to end in merely flourishing away with his 
 radiating bunches in a quite senseless way. Turner's 
 leaves have all different turns in them and do not 
 lie one over another like scales, and this alone would 
 make them the best known type of conventional tree- 
 drawing. All tree-drawing is conventional, we say; 
 
 ^ I have to thank Mr. Liiptoii, the well-known engraver, for some 
 kind instruction in mezzotint, ten years ago. 
 
418 
 
 EXPRESSION. 
 
 but a highly expressive style of doing it in line, once 
 gained, will lead you to the highest possible realiz- 
 ation. Notice in particular the spring of the lower 
 foliage and brushwood round the trunks; and how 
 much is conveyed in all their lines: and above all, 
 compare the figures with the trees. It is easy for 
 any person with eyes in his head to understand the 
 languor of coming death in the form of the fainting 
 nymph, and the clasp of the husband's arm, and the 
 hand which dares not draw out the bitter arrow: 
 and above all, the distress and apprehension expressed 
 by the ears and back of the hound. Feeling this, you 
 will gradually see also how all the clusters of vege- 
 tation express minor facts in their smaller and subtler 
 way ; and understand how great is the sum of graphic 
 power in those broad lines. It is a question how far 
 the light and shade in the plate^ adds to their power, 
 as given in our photograph : much is gained by it, 
 but something is lost; and the longer one looks at 
 the pure lines the more one will feel their absolute 
 sufficiency, and the difficulty of estimating the mea- 
 sureless power of mind and hand which produced 
 them. 
 
WALL-PAINTING. 
 
 419 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 PROCESSES OF WALL-PAINTING. 
 
 A S the words ‘Fresco' and ‘Tempera' have been 
 - repeatedly used in these pages, some little account 
 of them seems necessary. It seems beyond the scope 
 of an elementary book to attempt any detailed descrip- 
 tion of the processes, or give any special rules. Michael 
 Angelo's saying about pure fresco, ‘that it is work 
 for men, and oil-painting for women or sedentary 
 persons,' may be the text of our excuse. This book 
 is not for thorough workmen or masters; and fresco 
 ought in theory to be used by the most highly 
 trained and powerful painters. The ideal master 
 ought, one would say, to amass knowledge of form 
 and colour, materials and vehicles, by the use of oil 
 and water-colour; and then to have opportunities 
 of shewing his full powers by being made to work 
 at their full stretch, under the difficult, but most 
 exciting and stimulating, conditions of pure fresco. 
 Having acquired full power of expressing whatever 
 is in him, he shall be called on to express it with 
 pithy force and splendid brevit}^: he shall speak like 
 a Spartan, with trenchant meaning and without orna- 
 ment, or recall, or possibility of retouching. It was the 
 excitement which attaches to pure fresco which made 
 the great master pronounce so strongly in its favour. 
 
 E e 2 
 
420 
 
 RAFAEL AND MICHAEL ANGELO, 
 
 And what renders his words decisive is the fact that 
 they were uttered while he was labouring on those 
 paintings in the Sistine, which produced so great an 
 effect on the mind of Rafael, in the midst of his own 
 labours in fresco. For Rafaefs third or Roman style, 
 whether it was in him a change for the better or not, 
 really dates from the influence of Michael Angelo on 
 his mind. It will hardly do to say that Rafael's vast 
 reputation owes much to the beauty of his character, 
 mind, and even person ; for that would seem to detract 
 from the fame due to his works. But we have often 
 thought that the special beauties of all his paintings 
 (unless it be the too academic Transfiguration, and 
 others of the latest period) have a certain relation 
 to the tender deep -eyed face in the Uflizii, and the 
 other portraits of him\ But if he needed eternal 
 honour, his tribute to the mighty Angelo, whom 
 meaner men hated and thwarted, would secure it 
 him effectually, ‘I thank God that I have lived in 
 the time of Michael Angelo.' And doubtless his own 
 fame as a painter, no less than Buonarotti's, will 
 depend on his frescoes in the Stanze of the Vatican, 
 rather than on works in oil. We judge of men's 
 strength, after all, by trial in regular tours de force; 
 and fresco is such a trial to a painter. We hope 
 many of our students may live to shew their powers 
 in it. But we can only give a brief account of different 
 terms connected with the subject of mural decoration. 
 We dismiss at once the popular use of the word ‘fresco' 
 
 ^ One of the most significant and beautiful is the very early drawing 
 by his own hands in the Randolph Gallery at Oxford. 
 
BUON FRESCO AND FRESCO SECCO. 421 
 
 as expressive of all sorts of wall-painting indiscrimi- 
 nately, and proceed to distinguish in two ways : accord- 
 ing to the ground used for the colours, and the medium 
 used with the colours. The broad principle of division 
 is into tempera — any medium, on dry plaster; and 
 fresco — water-colours on wet plaster. We will take 
 the most frequently used names the first, though 
 tempera is far the most ancient and universal process. 
 Pure fresco, or huon fresco, is painting with colours 
 made up with water and lime, on a fresh laid plaster 
 of silver-sand and lime. Everything must be com- 
 pleted while the ground is moist ; and it dries rapidly : 
 hence it admits of no retouching, and a large work 
 has to be done in patches: so that the painter has 
 additional difficulty in concealing his joinings between 
 one day^s work and another. 
 
 The last coat of plaster, on which the colours are laid, 
 is called intonaco. The colours used must of course be 
 those only which are not affected by lime : but calcined 
 gypsum, or plaster of Paris, is said to answer as well 
 as lime, without injuring the more delicate hues, whether 
 it be used as intonaco or worked up with the colours. 
 This is the true fresco of the great masters, at the 
 end of the fourteenth century: on the freshly spread 
 plaster of a wall. 
 
 Fresco secco — dry fresco, half fresco, or Florentine 
 fresco, is on dry or old plaster. Lime is used with the 
 colours, and the plaster is well wetted overnight and 
 during the painting. The colours dry into the lime 
 perfectly, and are quite durable, but they have not the 
 brightness and transparency of real fresco. This method 
 is preferred, however, for ornamental paintings, as it 
 
422 
 
 STIPPLING. 
 
 has the advantage of requiring no joinings, like true 
 fresco, and the complicated forms of ornament make 
 it impossible to bring the joinings to the outlines, which 
 is the best way of disguising them. There is a picture 
 in fresco secco by Giotto in the National Gallery (No. 
 276), Two Apostles, taken from the chapel of S. John 
 Baptist in the Carmine at Florence. 
 
 These two methods may be, and in fact always have 
 been, combined in various ways. Buon fresco joinings 
 are painted over in dry fresco; or a whole design is 
 laid hastily in in buon fresco and completed at leisure 
 after it is dry. This avoids the joinings, and seems to 
 be a good method for works of ordinary size. Michael 
 Angelo’s frescoes in the Sistine are retouched at the 
 joinings with methodical and careful hatchings in 
 parallel lines : but this was probably done in tempera. 
 
 As it is extremely difficult to gradate a coat of colour 
 in fresco, or even to get a flat tint over a large space, 
 the processes of hatching and stippling are of great 
 importance to the painter. Our chapters on Chalk 
 Drawing and on Finish may be referred to on these 
 points. But the advanced student will find in all his 
 painting, that very much is to be done by varying the 
 hue with which he stipples. No rules can be given for 
 the process. He must take every opportunity of ob- 
 serving the works of the late W. Hunt, and noticing how 
 particles of contrasted colour are used in them. There 
 are frequent passages in Turner’s water-colours, from 
 shade to light (as in storm-clouds against the sun) which 
 are stippled or worked with great exactness of touch, 
 and gradated change of colour from cold to warm ; the 
 shade being purple on the dark side of the cloud, and 
 
THE VAN EYCKS, 
 
 423 
 
 brown, deep yellow, or pale crimson on the light : still 
 telling as form and drawing. One such passage well 
 studied, with attempts to imitate it, will teach the 
 painter much, and enable him to learn more. 
 
 The word ‘tempera' means any medium or vehicle, 
 except plain oil or plain water, both of which are con- 
 ventionally distinguished from it. The use of either 
 of them is now understood to be an entirely different 
 thing from what is called Painting in Tempera. The 
 first general idea which that expression conveys, is 
 painting on a dry — perfectly dry — wall with opaque 
 colours made up with size, egg, milk, or gum — prin- 
 cipally the former. It is then called ‘distemper,' and 
 employed in scene-painting. Yolk and white of egg, 
 generally kept till very thick and offensive (hence 
 painting a putrido), was the favourite vehicle in the 
 earliest times, up to the Van Eycks' discoveries, about 
 i4io\ One of the two brothers Hubert and John Van 
 Eyck is said to have ‘discovered oil painting.' What 
 he, or they, did to improve oil-painting (which had been 
 practised long before, as Ghiberti states that Giotto 
 painted in oil, and Cenninfs ‘Treatise on Painting,' 
 A.D. 1437, says much of the use of various oils) is 
 summed up to the following effect by Messrs. Gullick 
 and Timbs, in their most useful and readable book on 
 Painting: — ‘The great difficulty, of Northern painters 
 
 ^ Yolk of egg may be employed in water-colour with capital results, 
 as follows : — Wherever very sharp lights are wanted, as in the illuminated 
 edges of sunset clouds, in foreground grasses or leaves, &c., it is well to 
 paint them in sharply with yolk of egg at the very beginning, before the 
 washes are put on. When the high lights are wanted, the skin of egg- 
 substance will peel oft’ them quite easily, and leave them in pure white, 
 to be tinted at pleasure. 
 
424 
 
 TEMPERA, 
 
 in particular, was to find a varnish which would dry 
 in the shade ; what is called “ a drier ” to mix with 
 the oils. His chemical knowledge enabled him to hit 
 on amber, and find means of dissolving it in oil. 
 Secondly, the varnish and medium thus obtained was 
 so nearly colourless, that he was able to use it with 
 light -toned opaque colours, so as not to lose their 
 purity. Hence he was enabled to proceed to thick 
 painting, “impasting,'' or laying on solid lights, as has 
 been practised ever since.' 
 
 Tempera, however, with glue, or yolk and white of 
 eggs, diluted with fig-juice or vinegar, may be said to 
 be the original vehicle of modern painting. Cimahue 
 and Giotto, Orcagna and Angelico all worked in it ; and 
 Ghirlandajo hovered between it and the fresco which 
 adorns the Santa Trinita and the Carmine. Masaccio 
 had preceded him, and Benozzo Gozzoli ; but he must 
 always be considered Chief of the Frescanti. 
 
 The word ‘ gesso ’ is sometimes used to the confusion 
 of the few daring spirits of the lay world who take up 
 practical Art-books : we think we have seen the ex- 
 pression ‘Painting in gesso.' Painting on gesso would 
 be more correct ; the word simply means white plaster 
 of Paris, used with size for the tempera ground to 
 receive colours, whether it be spread tliickly over panels 
 or walls, or thinly on canvas. It is always used in 
 preparing grounds, on any material or for any vehicle. 
 
 All these processes of course require great prepara- 
 tion. The chief point is the memory and skill, the 
 experience and inspiration of the painter, set fully on 
 his mettle, and required to do in a day work which 
 may stand for centuries. Some Italian painters ai*e 
 
TEMPERA AND OIL. 
 
 425 
 
 said to have worked at once on the plaster surface : 
 but any one in his senses, in modern days, will have 
 first prepared a chalk or charcoal cartoon of the form 
 in light and shade, of the size contemplated, and then 
 a coloured copy of the same on paper or canvas^: 
 besides studying all the more complicated parts. When 
 he comes to face the wall he is to render a sweet and 
 lovely wall, he must cut his cartoon into pieces of such 
 size as he can finish in a day, pin them to the wet wall, 
 prick through them along the lines, and pounce the 
 holes with red or Mack dust: or he may indent lines 
 if he will. He will then have a complete outline, and 
 has only to paint with a strong hand. 
 
 We must refer our readers to Messrs. Gullick and 
 Timhs, and to their references, for some highly interest- 
 ing remarks about the partial use of water-and-size, or 
 distemper grounding for oil-paintings, with their first 
 coats of colour. ‘This partial use of water-colours,’ 
 they observe, ‘w^hich is generally confined to the 
 preparatory stages of the picture, recommends itself 
 by giving the artist greater facility in those stages, 
 and by the greater purity it secures to the super- 
 imposed oil-colour. Nearly all the Venetian painters 
 are believed to have used this mixed method. It is 
 known that the clear blues in the pictures of Paul 
 Veronese were painted in distemper and afterwards 
 varnished.’ A quotation follows from Burnet’s ‘Essay's 
 on the Fine Arts:’ which states that Correggio and 
 Giorgione managed, by this use of tempera and oil- 
 together, to have the light portions of their pictures 
 
 ^ It is almost indispensable to have a colonred sketch in fresco. 
 
426 
 
 ENCA US TIC. 
 
 without oleaginous substance at all, yet not to lose 
 unctuousness and transparency in their shadows. The 
 tempera lights remain, but the shadows are much 
 cracked and darkened — the water not having had 
 enough size in it^ Titian and Tintoret seem to have 
 made the same combination, and Rubens especially 
 got much of the brilliancy of his landscape from using 
 a white water-colour ground under his oil-painting. 
 Velasquez and Vandyke, and finally Sir Joshua Reynolds, 
 worked thus; the latter unfortunately in many cases 
 using water-colour over the oil-painting ; which ensures 
 contraction and cracking to a ruinous extent. This is 
 probably the chief reason why so many of Turner’s 
 grandest works are perishing so entirely. ‘In Etty,’ 
 Mr. Burnet continues, ‘we have the true Venetian cracky 
 substance of water-colour with the rich and trans- 
 parent glazings of oil: Wilkie also possessed this 
 quality in a very high degree.’ 
 
 It is easy and pleasant to paint in oil on a dry 
 plastered wall which has had a few coats of paint 
 spread over it. This is the only wall-painting we 
 ever practised. Turpentine should be used with 
 common oil-colours, and the painter may proceed 
 as in water-colour. 
 
 Encaustic painting, we believe, is laying a ground 
 of colours made up with wax, and afterwards glazing 
 the work by means of heat. For a full description of 
 
 ^ A hasty but convenient method for scene-painting is the use of 
 gum-water as a medium with water-colours, and on plain calico. The 
 process is simply that of water-colour, and the work may be rolled 
 up when dry and treated anyhow while it is kept dry. Thick gum- 
 water has much of the force of oil in transparent shade. Ox-gall 
 mixed with water-colour will make it Avork freely on almost any surface. 
 
LETTER FROM MR. SPENCER STANHOPE. 427 
 
 its processes, to any one who has to practise it, we 
 must refer to Messrs. Gullick and Timhs, to whom we 
 owe nearly the whole of this short chapter. 
 
 In conclusion, we cannot hope that all or a large 
 proportion of those who read this book will ever come 
 to paint in fresco. Yet almost all our ground-maxims 
 of study and practice would be contained in the advice 
 to work as if one was training for such work. The 
 stored memory, keen sure eye, and trained hand ; 
 precision, decision, and the inner vision of what you 
 mean to do, before it is done; these things make a 
 painter in any vehicle. And we think any one who 
 shall have really given the first three chapters of the 
 practical part of this book a fair trial, will find himself 
 advancing towards full possession of these qualities. 
 
 The annexed letter from Mr. Stanhope expresses 
 the substance of our chapter so pithily that we can- 
 not help inserting it : — 
 
 ^My dear — — - 
 
 ^ Fresco is painting in water-colours on wet plaster : the vehicle 
 used with the colours is pure water. When the plaster has set, 
 the colour cannot be washed off; that and its luminous qualities 
 are the chief advantages of fresco; the disadvantage is that only 
 a limited number of colours can be used, as the wet lime is de- 
 structive to many colours. It is not, therefore, suited to elaborate 
 work, but to large spaces where simple colours suffice. Tempera 
 or distemper is painting’ on a diy wall with water-colours, using 
 size as a medium. The size is to bind the colours sufficiently to 
 prevent their dusting off ; but of course it is no protection against 
 wet. Any colours may be used in tempera painting, but the effect 
 is not so luminous as that of genuine fresco. It is pretty generally 
 believed by artists that the Venetian School painted in tempera on 
 
428 LETTER FROM MR, SPENCER STANHOPE. 
 
 canvases prepared with a gesso or plaster ground, and finished up 
 with oil-coloursj by that means combining the advantages of both 
 methods. I am about to try that plan : Watts has reintroduced 
 it, and many artists are adopting it. I can tell you nothing 
 about the water-glass process, as I have not tried it. I believe 
 either Herbert or Martin have used it in their wall-paintings in 
 the Houses of Parliament. 
 
 ‘ Yours &c. 
 
 ^J. E. SPENCEE STANHOPE.^ 
 
PERSPECTIVE, 
 
 429 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 PERSPECTIVE. 
 
 TT has been long disputed whether the eye has any 
 natural power of distinguishing the distances from 
 itself of objects in space. It is generally allowed that 
 such power has to be gathered by experience ; and that 
 mere images on the retina are insufficient to give the 
 mind any idea of relative or even absolute remoteness 
 from the eye. It is said that persons blind from their 
 birth, who have suddenly obtained their sight, by an 
 operation or other means, find that all things at first 
 • appear equally distant from them, or rather equally 
 near to them. Everything they see seems to them in 
 contact with the eye. Hence it appears that the only 
 kind of magnitude of which we can become directly 
 conscious through the eye, is angular magnitude. That 
 is to say, if two points are visible at a distance from 
 each other, the eye can naturally only take cognizance 
 of the angular distance between them. This would 
 appear the same, whether one point were near the eye, 
 the other not, or if both were at the same distance, 
 provided their position were changed in a direct line 
 from the eye. Now, if the points kept their place, and 
 the eye changed its position, the angular distance be- 
 tween them would change ; and if one were near the 
 eye, the other distant, it would change rapidl3^ This 
 
430 
 
 PERSPECTIVE, 
 
 apparent change in the relative position of points gives 
 us one most important means of judging by the eye 
 of their forms and positions. We can see an illus- 
 tration of this when we look at a starry sky. It is 
 impossible to judge of the relative or actual distance 
 of stars from each other, because, move as we will, they 
 appear stationary with regard to each other. Conse- 
 quently the heaven or firmament looks like a blue 
 vault studded with stars, at no great distance and of 
 almost solid hemispherical form : a Srepew/xa, or firma- 
 ment, as old astronomers called it. The images of 
 things, in fact, like their names, seem to be only signs 
 of them, and the power of reading visual signs has 
 to be acquired by experience. Appearances are con- 
 stantly at variance with facts. By various distances 
 and position, a circle may be made to appear ellip- 
 tical in form, or a smaller thing larger than a greater. 
 These facts are part of the science of Optics, or the laws 
 of vision. Perspective, as we understand it, is a simpler 
 and more limited matter ; and this requires some illus- 
 tration, as follows : — 
 
 Let the spectator, or his seeing eye — (we ignore all 
 the rest of him except his eye, and further suppose 
 him to see as with one eye, and not with two) — let 
 the seeing eye be supposed to be placed in the centre 
 of a sphere, able to look successively in any direction 
 towards any point in that sphere. Now, if a straight 
 line be presented to him as representing extension, 
 there is a position in which he would only be able 
 to see it as a point. (We are speaking of course not 
 of mathematical, but actually drawn lines and points.) 
 If the line Avere placed before the eye end on, so as to 
 
PERSPECTIVE. 
 
 431 
 
 be exactly in the line of vision, nothing would be seen 
 but the end of it, which is a point. It becomes visible 
 to the eye as a line denoting extension, as soon as it is 
 moved out of the direct line of the eye. The rays which 
 proceed from it to the eye are then no longer all in one 
 line, but enclose an angle, and give an idea of a definite 
 length between them; the amount of the length de- 
 pending on the size of the angle. In other words, two 
 lines, or portions of the same line, will have their op- 
 parent lengths in the same proportion to each other 
 as the angles they subtend at the eye, no matter what 
 their actual length may be. A curious result follows : 
 viz. that the length of a line may be without limit, 
 while its apparent magnitude may never exceed a finite 
 quantity. 
 
 In fig. I we see that if successive equal portions 
 of the line BC be taken at increasing distances from 
 the eye, the angle at the eye subtended by each of 
 these diminishes as they recede. And if the line be 
 extended to any length, the ray from its extreme 
 point to the eye can never become absolutel}^ parallel 
 with the line EA. But it is possible to imagine 
 the line BC extended to such a length that the 
 ray from its extreme point shall be nearer the 
 parallel position than any other we can assign. So 
 that the parallel direction is the limit of change 
 
4S2 
 
 PERSPECTIVE. 
 
 in direction of the ray from the line BC to the eye 
 E. Therefore the angle AEB, contained between 
 the parallel EA and the first ray EB drawn to the 
 nearest end of BC (supposing it to be limited in that 
 direction), will be the limit of measure of the apparent 
 length of BC, even if BC were extended indefinitely 
 in the same direction. 
 
 Hence, it will be seen, that if a straight line exists 
 in space, not passing through the eye, it becomes visible 
 as length, as at EC : but that, however long it may be 
 itself, its image is always finite. The quality of straight- 
 ness is not easy to describe. In the above figure 
 we have seen that when the line BC is extended in 
 direction C, the ray from E to its further extremity 
 gradually approaches direction EA. That is to say, 
 when the extremity of BC is visible, it will appear 
 somewhere between B, the point of the line nearest 
 the eye, and that point into which the whole line EC 
 will resolve itself as a seen image when it coincides 
 with the line of sight EA. The farther C is from B 
 the nearer it will appear to approach to the line EA. 
 The state of things then would be this : A line EA ex- 
 tending from the eye seems like a single point; any 
 other line BC, though parallel to it, appears to stretch 
 from its nearest point B towards contact with it in 
 the line of sight, w^hen it appears as a point. So it 
 would be with other lines parallel to it alsok So 
 that a system of straight lines in space, all parallel 
 to each other, would look like so many stoight lines 
 
 ^ This apparent convergence of lines really parallel may be observed 
 by looking along railroad lines from a platform or bridge. 
 
PERSPECTIVE. 
 
 42S 
 
 radiating from a centre, that centre being the one 
 line of the system whose whole appearance is a 
 point by reason of its passing through the line of 
 sight. 
 
 This reasoning will apply to the same system of 
 parallel lines extending in the other direction B : so 
 that the same appearance of straight lines radiating 
 from a centre would he presented on two opposite sides. 
 This would seem to be contradictory to the fact of the 
 lines being straight, since straight lines cannot meet 
 in more than one point. As has been said, the eye can 
 only take note of the extension of a line as transverse 
 or angular magnitude, and apparent straightness con- 
 sists in the line never leaving the plane which joins 
 it and the eye. If a circle be presented to the eye in 
 such a position that the eye is in the same plane out- 
 side the circumference, it will only appear as a finite 
 straight line ; and so if the eye were within the 
 circle^ and in the plane of the curve, the circumference 
 would still appear straight. And if this circle were to 
 be cut by another, with the same centre but in a plane 
 inclined to it^ the circumference of that circle would 
 still give to the eye at the centre the same impres- 
 sion of straightness, though it would be seen to meet 
 the other in two points on opposite sides. This seems 
 the best way of realizing the appearance of a series of 
 parallel lines infinitely prolonged both ways : they 
 would be like the meridian lines of a globe to an eye 
 placed at its centre. 
 
 As a line in a particular plane viewed by an eye 
 in the same plane appears the same whether straight 
 or curved, it follows that lines different in lengtli and 
 
 F f 
 
434 
 
 PERSPECTIVE. 
 
 direction may be substituted for each other, and yet 
 produce the same effect upon the eye of the spectator. 
 For instance, imagine right lines EA, EB to proceed 
 
 from the eye E. It is evident that all the lines 
 I, 2, 3, 4, straight or curved, would all look straight 
 and the same to the eye, provided they all lay in 
 the plane AEB. In fact, supposing a figure of any 
 form to be visible, we can suppose another figure of 
 quite a different shape so placed as to intercept its 
 image, supply its place, and give quite the same 
 impression to the eye. It is quite possible to have 
 a collection of lines and figures all in the same plane 
 which shall present exactly the same appearance to 
 the spectator’s eye as so many solid objects at any 
 distance, provided the several points of both objects 
 and figures are in the straight line which meets the 
 point E, or the spectator’s eye. These figures would 
 form a perspective representation, or picture, of the 
 various objects: to determine their form and position 
 in any given case is the function of Perspective. 
 
 Let us define a Picture or Perspective Delineation 
 a little more strictly. Imagine that lines or rays 
 proceed from every point of the objects to be repre- 
 sented, and converge on a point; and further, that on 
 their way to it they have to pass through a plane, 
 
PERSPECTIVE. 
 
 4^35 
 
 upon which they produce certain figures by passing 
 through it. Then those figures are the perspective 
 projections of the several objects, and the plane is 
 their picture. If one could trace a landscape on a 
 window-pane, along its lines, they would form a per- 
 spective drawing. Hence it appears that the problem 
 of perspective is simply this : ‘ Given a point in space, 
 or an eye, to which straight lines from the given 
 objects converge; to determine the forms in which 
 those lines would intersect a plane which cuts them 
 as the window-pane does the rays proceeding from 
 the landscape it covers.' 
 
 It is often said that no perspective drawing can 
 give the true appearance of a complicated object, be- 
 cause in looking at its different parts the eye is 
 always changing the direction of its picture -plane ; 
 so that one's impression involves an act of combination 
 of many different images in many different planes. 
 But this has nothing to do with the correctness of a 
 perspective drawing, even if it be true: for if the 
 drawing is correct, the eye, when placed at the point 
 of sight, will pass over its different parts and take 
 in each point consecutively, varying its image in 
 looking at the picture, as it does in looking at the 
 object. The window seems to illustrate this. And 
 the images traced on the pane, the perspective pro- 
 jections of the various objects, will appear identical 
 with the objects, while the eye remains at the point of 
 convergence ; and the eye can move about the picture 
 looking at different objects in it on the point of pro- 
 jection as a centre. 
 
 Projection is the name given in geometrical drawing 
 
 p f 2 
 
436 
 
 PERSPECTIVE, 
 
 to the figure produced on a plane when an object 
 is referred to it according to fixed method. It is 
 called the orthographic projection of a figure on a 
 plane, when lines are supposed to be drawn from 
 every point in it to meet a plane at right angles, 
 all parallel to each other, and their intersection is 
 marked on the plane. Of this kind are all plans, 
 elevations, sections, &c., all architectural and mechanical 
 work, and generally all drawings for reference in every 
 kind of construction. If the’ lines of projection, instead 
 of being at right angles with the plane, were con- 
 verging on a point at the other side of it, farthest 
 from the object, the projection would be a perspective 
 representation: and an eye placed in the point of 
 convergence would get the same impression from the 
 projection as from the object. Hence it will be seen, 
 that making a perspective drawing is simply a 
 geometrical proceeding; that is, it is so, if you know 
 all the conditions as to size, distance, and position 
 of the objects, the plane of projection, and the point 
 of sight. 
 
 We define perspective, then, as the drawing on a 
 given surface such forms as shall convey to the 
 spectator the impression that he looks not at but 
 through the surface at certain objects ^ of which your 
 drawing is the visual appearance or signs, coinciding 
 with the impression he would get from the objects 
 themselves under given conditions. And since all 
 objects are seen by means of light reflected in right 
 lines from their surfaces, it is clear that if one can 
 
 ^ Hence the name Perspective, ‘ looking through.’ 
 
PERSPECTIVE. 
 
 437 
 
 SO manage that the rays of light from the traced 
 forms shall have the same arrangement among each 
 other as if they came from actual objects, the tracings 
 will stand to the spectator for the objects, and be 
 subject to the same laws of vision; so that it is not 
 necessary for him to know, when he sees a straight 
 line, whether its image on the retina is straight or 
 curved, or whether he sees it as length or angular 
 space. All that perspective has to do with is. the 
 question whether the images impressed on the retina 
 by the picture correspond to the images impressed 
 by the objects; it can only tell the spectator how he 
 sees what he sees^ — and cannot inform him about the 
 nature of what he sees. 
 
 This enables us to face Dr. Brook Taylor's obser- 
 vation in his Perspective. He says that a picture 
 painted to the ideal degree of perfection ought to 
 affect the eye of the beholder even to deception; so 
 that he shall not be able to say whether he is looking 
 at a picture or through a window. , ‘To produce this 
 effect it is clear that the light ought to come from 
 the picture to the spectator's eye in the very same 
 manner as from the objects themselves. That is to 
 say, every ray of light ought to come to the spec- 
 tator's eye, from every point in the picture, with the 
 same strength of light and shadow, the same colour, 
 and in the same direction, as it would do from the 
 corresponding point of the same object, if it were 
 placed where it is imagined to be.' 
 
 It would of course be impossible to produce a pic- 
 ture like this, as far as light and colour are concerned, 
 (the story of the grapes and curtain notwithstanding) ; 
 
438 
 
 PERSPECTIVE, 
 
 but under certain conditions the line-forms of objects 
 may be reproduced as faithfully as the description 
 requires. 
 
 These conditions must now be stated with some 
 precision; — and for the purpose some special terms 
 must be made use of, which are here explained : — 
 
 Picture Plane. The plane on which the drawing 
 or ‘projection’ is to be made is called the 
 Picture-plane, the Plane of Delineation, or shortly, 
 the Picture. 
 
 Point of Sight, That point to which the rays 
 from the objects represented converge, or the 
 position of the spectator’s eye, is called the 
 point of sight, and the station or standing- 
 point. 
 
 Distance of a Picture. The length of a perpen- 
 dicular from the point of sight on the picture- 
 plane. 
 
 Centre of Vision. That point in the picture-plane 
 in which the perpendicular from the stand- 
 point meets it. As the picture-plane is repre- 
 sented by the canvas or paper, it is most 
 convenient to refer to it the relative positions 
 of the eye and the objects to be drawn. 
 Given C, the centre of vision, and a line CE 
 representing the distance of the picture, you 
 have the position of the point of sight precisely 
 indicated. See fig. 3. 
 
 In this figure E is the position of the eye or point 
 of projection, ABCD a plane figure to be represented 
 in perspective, PP" a plane through which rays or 
 
PERSPECTIVE. 
 
 439 
 
 right lines from A, B, C and D converge on E. Then, 
 if the points a,h,G,d, in which each of these rays 
 cuts the picture-plane, be joined, as in the diagram, the 
 figure produced would be the perspective of ABCD, 
 and indeed would not be distinguished from it in 
 its proper position. For AE, BE, CE, DE being all 
 right lines of sight, all points in them are the same 
 to the spectator's eye: so that in his eye the points 
 
 F 
 
 Fig. 3. 
 
 a,h,c,d are the same with the points A,B,C,D; and so 
 with all the other points in the plane ABCD. 
 
 It is only when the spectator’s eye is situated 
 exactly at E that this takes place; and therefore the 
 complete similarity between an object and its per- 
 spective-picture depends on the observance of this 
 condition. At the same time, it is clear that the 
 draughtsman, as such, has nothing to do with the 
 spectator’s finding the right place for his eye, but is 
 
uo 
 
 PERSPECTIVE, 
 
 only concerned that there should be one for him, viz. 
 that the visual rays or lines AE, BE, &c., should really 
 converge to a single point E. This point the spectator 
 who wishes to see the true appearance of a perspective 
 representation must always find for himself. 
 
 The diagram fig. 3 also illustrates the relative 
 positions of the objects, and lines, and points above- 
 defined. 
 
 Thus PP" is the picture-plane ; C.V, centre of vision ; 
 E, point of sight.* Line from E to C.V is the distance 
 of the picture. HL is the horizontal line, and GF 
 represents a portion of the ground-plane, conceived as 
 a plane at right angles to the picture -plane, the 
 position of which as determined by line EK is 
 generally one of the data. 
 
 In order to learn the variations of the visual appear- 
 ance of objects, the usual way is to assume a perfect 
 knowledge of the necessary points in the case of some 
 simple object : first to suppose them placed at a given 
 distance from E, and in a given position with respect 
 to E and the picture-plane ; and then to determine 
 what form the perspective would take. By doing 
 this with various objects under various conditions, as 
 here with the plane figure ABCD, the learner becomes 
 familiar with the results in particular cases, and can 
 anticipate the probable appearance of actual objects 
 and render them correctly in his picture, from ivhat 
 he sees, without finding it necessary to know the 
 actual shapes, sizes and distances, or using any of 
 the geometrical constructions necessary in severe in- 
 vestigation like the above. 
 
 Many people imagine, that anybody with an eye 
 
PERSPECTIVE. 
 
 441 
 
 or eyes must surely be able to see the things before 
 them, and discover the apparent relative positions 
 of lines and points, without the trouble of learning 
 perspective. But most persons need only attempt to 
 draw, say one or two straight-lined solid objects, to 
 find that they are quite helpless, not only from want 
 of manual skill, but from sheer inability to see what 
 is before them. They cannot say at all, or they say 
 directly wrong, whether a line appears to go up or 
 down, or is longer or shorter than another. Others, 
 again, who begin to study perspective seem to do so 
 without much hope that it will ever be of practical 
 service to them in drawing from Nature, because they 
 cannot then ascertain the actual forms and distances, 
 so as to put objects into perspective by rule, or rather 
 so as to be able to prove the correctness of their 
 work. But they will find, after a time, that there 
 are a few general principles which govern all per- 
 spective change, and that these may be rendered 
 into broad rules which will guide them in drawing 
 by eye. Space forbids us to do more now than shew 
 what these rules are for placing given figures in 
 perspective, and give the sketcher such an account of 
 them as he can best bear in mind. 
 
 Diminution of size by distance from the eye is the 
 most familiar to us of all effects of perspective. The 
 distant object, as has been shewn, is smaller, i.e. 
 subtends a smaller angle at the eye: and this may 
 be demonstrated on a picture-plane as follows : — 
 
 Let E be the eye; PF, edge of picture; AB, CD, 
 two parallel lines of the same length at different 
 distances from PP'. 
 
442 
 
 PERSPECTIVE. 
 
 It is evident that right lines AE, BE must fall 
 within CE, DE; consequently line ah on the picture- 
 plane, which is the perspective of AB, is less than cd 
 on the same plane, which is the perspective of CD. 
 
 In the same way if AB he moved to a greater dis- 
 tance it will subtend a still smaller angle, and the 
 subtending line on the picture-plane will be still 
 shorter. 
 
 As these lines enclose a smaller angle they approach 
 each other; so that if AB were moved away to an 
 indefinite distance between the parallels CA and DB, 
 its perspective -representation would become indefi- 
 nitely small ; in fact, the EA, EB would coincide with 
 each other and ah become a point; or more correctly, 
 ‘the limit of the diminution of the perspective of AB 
 as its distance from the picture-plane increases, is zero.' 
 Accordingly, in our former diagram it will be seen 
 (fig. 3) that the lines AE, BE, drawn to the eye from 
 the more distant corners of the square on the ground, 
 produce on PP' a perspective-line ah, shorter than cd, 
 perspective -line of the nearer side CD. Then as to 
 sides of the square AC, BD. Their intersections with 
 
PERSPECTIVE. 
 
 44f3 
 
 the picture-plane are represented on it by straight 
 lines, since AEG, BED are plane triangles intersecting 
 a plane. Moreover, they are right lines connecting the 
 extremities of unequal parallel lines cd and ah. They 
 would therefore meet if produced in the direction 
 of the shorter ab\ and the point in which they meet 
 is the same point as the one mentioned above, in 
 fig. 4, as marking the extinction of magnitude of the 
 perspective-picture of the line AB, on indefinite increase 
 of distance from the PP'. This point, then, is called 
 the vanishing point of ac, hd. And as vanishing 
 points are very important matters in perspective, we 
 must discover their relation to lines AB and CD in 
 their original position in fig. 4. 
 
 "In that figure, as we said, lines or visual rays from 
 the line AB come closer together on PP' as AB recedes. 
 Now consider the case of rays coming to E from lines 
 CA and DB. Then, as in the case of AC and BD in 
 the square in fig. 3, the perspective-lines they will 
 produce on the picture-plane will tend to meet each 
 other in a point ; and their meeting point will be that 
 point on PP' at which a line drawn from E parallel 
 to CA and DB would cut it ; for to this parallel the 
 lines EC, ED, EA, EB, &c. &c., continually tend as you 
 assume more remote points along the parallels AC, 
 DB. Therefore the point on the picture-plane through 
 which this parallel passes is the vanishing point, to 
 which the perspective-representations of all these lines 
 converge ; and similarly with all parallels to these lines 
 CA, BD. These lines are drawn in the figure at right 
 angles with the picture-plane ; but the same is true 
 of lines at any other angle with it. So that to find 
 
444 
 
 PERSPECTIVE. 
 
 the vanishing point of any set of parallel lines we 
 have only to imagine a line passing through the eye, 
 or point of sight, in the same direction, and meeting 
 the picture-plane : the point in which it meets the 
 picture-plane will be their vanishing point. Thus in 
 fig. 3 the object is a square, two of whose sides are at 
 right angles with PP', and two parallel to it. The 
 vanishing point of the former will be found by sup- 
 posing a line to proceed from E in the same direction 
 as AB and CD, i. e. at right angles to the picture- 
 plane. But the point at which this line EC meets the 
 picture-plane is the centre of vision; consequently the 
 lines ca and dh w^ould, if produced, meet in that point. 
 If we take the two sides AB, CD, which are parallel to 
 the picture -plane, a line through E in their direction 
 would never meet it at all ; so that they have no 
 vanishing point in the picture. Their representative 
 lines on the picture-plane do not tend to meet in any 
 point, and they are parallel to each other, as in the 
 figure. Hence two rules, which will be referred to 
 again in summing up : — i. That the perspectives of 
 lines which are parallel to the picture-plane are parallel 
 to each other, and do not converge. 2. That those of 
 lines at right angles to the picture-plane must meet 
 in the centre of vision? 
 
 Again, let us take the case of a line on the ground 
 in a different position from the above, not at right 
 angles to the picture-plane, but inclined to the right 
 at 45°, or half a right angle. Its position can be seen 
 in fig. 3 ; as that of the diagonal CB of the square 
 ABCD; and its perspective can he at once obtained 
 by joining the corners c, h of the perspective-square 
 
PERSPECTIVE. 
 
 445 
 
 ahcd on the picture-plane. But, supposing that we 
 wish to determine the vanishing point, or the point to 
 which that diagonal and all its parallels appear to 
 converge. Then, as before, imagine a line EK (fig. 5) 
 to proceed from E to the picture-plane parallel to the 
 original diagonal CB at 45° with it. The point K, 
 where this line meets the picture-plane produced, is 
 the vanishing point we want. Accordingly we find 
 on joining c, h that that line, if produced, passes 
 through K. 
 
 In the same way, the vanishing point of any line 
 which, in its original position, is inclined both to the 
 picture and the ground, is still that point on the 
 picture-plane which is marked by the intersection 
 therewith of the line parallel to it which passes 
 through E. 
 
 Hence the operation of determining the vanishing 
 
446 
 
 PERSPECTIVE. 
 
 points of lines whose exact position is known is a 
 simple matter, supposing that lines can he drawn in 
 any given direction from E, the point of sight. But 
 this is just what cannot be done, as the point of sight 
 lies out of our drawing. Imagine this page to he 
 the plane in fig. 6, and let point C be the centre of 
 vision marked there. Then point of sight E in figs. 3 
 and 5 would be a point in front of the page, exactly 
 opposite to the centre of vision (or in a line from the 
 centre of vision at right angles to the page), and 
 distance of E from the centre of vision would be the 
 distance of our picture. 
 
 ~T 
 
 C 
 
 Fig, 6, 
 
 Now it clearly would be inconvenient, if always pos- 
 sible, to fix something projecting from the centre of 
 vision, so as to get our point of sight from which to 
 draw other lines meeting the page again. We have 
 therefore to discover some means of finding out where 
 the lines from the eye would meet the page, so as 
 not to necessitate the use of a construction out of 
 the plane of the picture. 
 
 It must be premised that, though, strictly speaking, 
 the picture-plane or our page may have any position 
 whatever with respect to the horizon, so long as its 
 relation to the point of sight and the objects to be 
 drawn is strictly defined, it is always supposed to 
 be in a vertical position, at right angles with the 
 horizon. And generally, for the sake of defining the 
 position of the lines to be represented, this vertical 
 
PERSPECTIVE. 
 
 447 
 
 PP' is supposed to be intersected by a horizontal plane ; 
 and lines are referred to both of these, when their 
 position and direction are described. Lines can then 
 be classified according to their position, thus : 
 
 1. Lines parallel to both picture-plane and hori- 
 
 zontal-plane. 
 
 2. Lines parallel to the former and inclined to 
 
 the latter 
 
 3. Lines parallel to the latter and inclined to the 
 
 former. 
 
 4. Lines inclined to both picture-plane and hori- 
 
 zontal-plane. 
 
 A cube and its diagonals illustrate this perfectly. 
 As to the first set of lines, there is no difficulty about 
 them, since they are parallel to both planes, the 
 horizontal and the picture-plane, i.e. to the inter- 
 section of the ground with the picture. They will, 
 therefore, be always horizontal lines in the picture. 
 The second also are easy to deal with, as it is 
 evident that since each of them is parallel to the 
 picture-plane it will be parallel to its projection on 
 that plane. The projection-line, therefore, will make 
 the same angle with the base-line of the picture-plane 
 as the original makes with the ground. The projections 
 of lines parallel to the picture-plane are themselves 
 parallel, and have no vanishing points, as above shewn, 
 in finding those points by the visual rays from E. As 
 to the third class, lines parallel to the ground, but 
 inclined towards the picture — here it is clear that 
 a line from E parallel to the given original line would 
 meet the picture-plane, make an angle with it, and 
 consequently its projection would liave a vanishing 
 
448 
 
 PERSPECTIVE. 
 
 point. The diagonal CB of the square in fig. 5, and 
 that of the top of the block, are in this position, 
 parallel with the ground and inclined at 45° to the 
 picture-plane. 
 
 If a line be supposed to proceed from E in exactly 
 the same direction, we find it meets the picture in a 
 point somewhere to the right of the centre. That will 
 be the vanishing point of the line in the picture which 
 represents the original line CB. How, then, are we 
 to determine the place of this point, since we cannot 
 draw lines in the plane of the picture from E, which 
 is in front of our paper? 
 
 It may be arrived at thus, fig 5 : Since line EK is 
 parallel to CB, and EX to BD, the plane of the triangle 
 EKX is parallel to the square ABCD ; therefore the in- 
 tersections of both planes with the picture, KX and CD, 
 are parallels. Hence we see that the vanishing point 
 lies in a line which passes through the centre of vision 
 and in a horizontal direction ; in fact, the horizontal 
 line : and if we can determine the length of KX, that 
 is, the distance of the vanishing point from the centre 
 of vision, its place is found. Now in the triangle 
 EKX, side EX is given, that being the distance of the 
 picture ; and the angles at X and E are given, the 
 former being a right angle, the latter the complement 
 of the inclination of line EK or CB to the picture, 
 (in this case 45°) ; so that it is easy to construct the 
 triangle and find the length of KX. The usual way 
 is to draw from X a line at right angles to the hori- 
 zontal line (either above or below) and set on this 
 the distance of the picture : then to make an angle 
 at S = angle KEX. The line thus drawn will meet 
 
PERSPECTIVE, 
 
 449 
 
 the horizontal line in K. The angle KEX being the 
 complement of the angle which EK makes with PP, 
 it is usual to draw a short horizontal line through S, 
 as OR, and to make angle RSK = the angle which 
 EK makes with PP — ^that angle being the same as 
 BCD, the angle given as the inclination of line CD 
 with PP. Hence for all purposes connected with the 
 finding of vanishing points on the horizontal line the 
 point S will do as well as the actual point of sight E. 
 Also, the perspectives of all lines which lie on the 
 ground or are parallel to it, no matter how far above 
 or below, have their vanishing points in the horizontal 
 line ; which is on that account called the vanishing 
 line of horizontal planes: the remoteness of these 
 vanishing points from the centre of vision depending 
 on the angle which the actual line is supposed to 
 make with the picture-plane. If this angle is very 
 small, i.e. if the line differs very slightly in direction 
 from the base-line, it will be seen that when a line 
 is drawn from S, making this very small angle with 
 SR, its intersection with the horizontal line will be 
 at a great distance from CN : so that the perspective 
 lines which tend to that as a vanishing point will he 
 almost horizontal. This is to be kept in mind in drawing 
 from Nature. 
 
 This method is followed with respect to the vanishing 
 points of lines in any position : any difference is of 
 detail, and depends on the terms in which the relative 
 position of the given line to the picture-plane and the 
 horizontal plane is defined. First, the line is to be con- 
 sidered as lying in a plane whose position with respect 
 to the picture-plane is given. The vanishing line of 
 
450 
 
 PERSPECTIVE. 
 
 that plane must be found, and a construction made 
 from the centre of that, like the one above the hori- 
 zontal line, by which the distance of the vanishing 
 point from the centre of vision in either direction may 
 be found. For example, let the line to be represented 
 be one which is inclined both to the picture and ground, 
 such as the line which joins the opposite corners of the 
 cube CGD. This line may be looked upon as in the 
 plane of BGCH, which is a vertical plane, making with 
 the face of the cube CDFH, and consequently^ with the 
 picture, the angle BCD. Its vanishing point then wiU 
 be in a line on the picture made by the intersection 
 of a plane which passes through the point of sight in 
 a direction parallel to the original plane BCHG, i.e. at 
 right angles to the ground and making an angle = BCD 
 with PP'. The intersection with the picture will be 
 a vertical line. And since the vanishing line of a plane 
 contains the vanishing points of all the lines in it, the 
 vanishing line of the plane BCHG must contain the 
 vanishing point of BC. That is to say, it will be an 
 upright line passing through the vanishing point K, 
 the centre (the point nearest the eye) of the vanishing 
 line. In this, then, the vanishing point of the line CG 
 will be found, if we can determine how far it lies from 
 this centre K. Look at the diagram once more : the 
 line KT is the vanishing line spoken of. The line from 
 E, parallel to CG, and which generates the vanishing 
 point of its representation, is ET. The problem is 
 therefore to determine the length of KT, which may be 
 done by constructing a triangle in the picture-plane 
 equal in all respects to the triangle EKT. Thus, from 
 K draw a line at right angles to KT. This will of course ^ 
 
PERSPECTIVE. 
 
 451 
 
 in this case coincide with the horizontal line. On that 
 set off a length from K = EK, which we have as SK 
 on the picture-plane in our former construction. Let 
 U represent the point to which this reaches : from U 
 draw a line making with UK an angle KUT = angle 
 KET : which is the angle at which the original line 
 GC is inclined to the ground, or the line BC. This line 
 will then meet the vanishing line in T, and this will 
 be the vanishing point of the line on PP which repre- 
 sents line CG, and of all lines parallel to it. The point 
 U here plays the part of E, as did S in the former 
 construction ; being at the same distance as E from K. 
 This distance, EK or UK, is called the distance of the 
 vanishing line KT ; and is always given when EX and 
 KX are given. 
 
 These are some of the artifices and constructions 
 by which the vanishing points of lines are determined ; 
 without making use of E in its proper place, but 
 only of its distance EX: which is always a given 
 quantity. These vanishing points of course only 
 determine the direction of the perspective lines, and 
 not their length. And as this varies with every 
 change of position in the same line, it becomes 
 necessary to find a means of representing the apparent 
 length of the same line under different conditions; 
 or, in other words, of finding what portion of the 
 picture-plane is included between the rajs, from the 
 eye to its extremities in its different positions. This 
 is usually done by the -use of what are called measuring 
 points. They are neither more nor less than vanishing 
 points of lines so arranged as to cut off equal por- 
 tions from some line on the picture-plane and the 
 
452 
 
 PERSPECTIVE. 
 
 original line which has to he represented. The fol- 
 lowing figure will illustrate the principle on which 
 
 this is done. Let PP repre- 
 sent a plan of the picture- 
 plane ; i. e. imagine the page 
 to be the ground and PP the 
 edge of the picture looked at 
 from above. Let E be the 
 point of sight and ah the 
 original line on the ground 
 to be projected on PP. From 
 what has been said, the va- 
 nishing point of the perspec- 
 tive projection will be under- 
 stood to be seen in plan at V, the point where EV, 
 a parallel to ah from E, meets PP. Suppose now 
 he to be drawn, making equal angles with PP and 
 ah\ the portion of the picture-plane between a and 
 c = ah. The direction of the perspective of ah is 
 determined, as we know, by its vanishing point; and 
 so it would be with ch if we had its vanishing 
 point. Now this is where a parallel to ch from E 
 would fall in PP, as at M; M is therefore the vanish- 
 ing point of perspectives of lines equally inclined to 
 ah and PP. Now triangle EVM is similar to triangle 
 ahe, and has therefore two of its sides EV and VM 
 equal to each other. So that we find, when we have 
 the vanishing point of a line whose original is ah, that 
 the vanishing point of another set of lines which will 
 intercept equal lengths from the picture-plane, and from 
 ah and its parallels, is a point M ; whose distance from 
 the vanishing point of ah = the distance of V from E, 
 
PERSPECTIVE. 
 
 45S 
 
 point of sight. Therefore, in order to set any given 
 distance on the perspective of ab, we have simply to 
 measure a line of the actual geometric length on the 
 picture-line, and draw from its extremities lines to M : 
 which will intercept equal lengths from the picture- 
 
 plane and from ab. The above figure shews the ap- 
 pearance which the above construction would present 
 when the page is the picture-plane seen from the 
 front in its right position. 
 
 The ab in fig. 8 is the representation on PP of 
 the original line ab in fig. 7. Its vanishing point is 
 obtained as above described, i. e. from S, whose dis- 
 tance from CV = distance of the picture-plane from E, 
 a line SV is drawn; making angle OSV = angle made 
 by the original line ab with PP in fig. 7 ( = to angle 
 bac in that figure). The point M is now set on the 
 horizontal line at a distance from V = SV : when it 
 becomes the vanishing point of lines which make 
 equal angles with the picture-plane and ab : and is 
 the measuring point of the vanishing point V. There- 
 fore, if on the indefinite line ab it be required to 
 
454 
 
 PERSPECTIVE, 
 
 place any given length, that length is first measured 
 on the picture-line from point a towards the left, and 
 then a line is drawn from the point so found, towards 
 M the measuring point. In the figure successive mea- 
 surements a, I, 2, 3, &c., are made along the picture- 
 line or base-line from a to the left, and a line is drawn 
 from each point to M. These lines mark off on ah 
 portions which are the perspective representations of 
 these equal divisions. 
 
 It will be now seen that the perspective of a line 
 can be found when its position and length (as also, 
 of course, the picture-plane and point of sight E) 
 are given. On these data, then, all rectilinear figures 
 can be represented. Curves can only be indirectly 
 represented. They are generally conceived as con- 
 nected with rectilinear figures whose representation 
 can be found, and from points in them thus deter- 
 mined the pupil gets a correct idea of the projection 
 of the curve on the picture-plane, and can draw it 
 freehand. In a great many cases the kind of curve 
 which will be produced may be known beforehand 
 geometrically. A circle in all positions but two 
 becomes an ellipse when in perspective. Rays from 
 the circumference converging on E form a cone, 
 right or oblique : and when this cone is cut by 
 PP, the form of the section (which by definition 
 is the perspective of the circle) will be an ellipse, 
 except (i) when the cutting plane is parallel to 
 the plane of the circle, (2) when the point of sight 
 is in the plane of the circle, in which case, as we 
 have seen, its perspective is a right line. But if 
 a few of the principal points in its projection are 
 
PERSPECTIVE. 
 
 455 
 
 found, the curve may be completed by any geometrical 
 mode of construction proper to it. The most common 
 way of placing a circle in perspective is to suppose 
 it inscribed in a square, whose diameters and diagonals 
 are drawn as in fig. 9. When this square is put 
 in perspective, with its diagonals, and 
 those portions of the diagonals which 
 lie outside the circumference are 
 geometrically determined, a sufficient 
 number of points will have been found 
 to make it possible to draw through 
 them the ellipse which represents the 
 circle : as there are the middle points 
 of the four sides where the circle and square touch 
 each other, and the four points where the circum- 
 ference crosses the diagonals. 
 
 As to the perspective of the sphere, it has been 
 questioned whether it should be a circle or an ellipse. 
 But all doubt on the matter may be traced to a con- 
 fusion between the visual appearance of the sphere 
 and the actual form of the curve on the picture-plane 
 which represents it, and not remembering that this 
 curve must be seen from the true point of sight. 
 There is no doubt that to the eye a sphere always 
 presents the appearance of a circle, — that circle which 
 marks the contact of the cone of rays from the eye 
 with the surface of the sphere. Nor can it be dis- 
 puted, that when this cone is cut by a picture-plane 
 in any other position than at right angles with its 
 axis, the form of the section will be an ellipse. This 
 will be evident from fig. 10. 
 
 The rays from E to the sphere touch its surfiioe 
 
455 
 
 PERSPECTIVE. 
 
 in points ah of circle ah. When the picture-plane 
 intercepts these rays, an ellipse will be produced on 
 its surface: but this ellipse, when seen from E, will 
 produce the same impression on the eye as the 
 
 a 
 
 circle ah. If the form of the section were repre- 
 sented as a circle, that circle seen from point of 
 sight E would not appear a circle but an ellipse. 
 
 Thus much for the nature of perspective-projection, 
 and the methods of determining by rule the variations 
 of figures represented under different conditions. Let 
 us now try to find how all this will help us, in draw- 
 ing from the visual appearance of the actual object; 
 or, as we say, in sketching from Nature. Observe, in 
 the geometrical construction of the perspective of an 
 object, the given quantities are, (i) its true form and 
 dimensions, and, (2) the exact positions of the object 
 and point of sight E, relatively to PP; the thing 
 to be found is the perspective-projection on PP. The 
 object need not exist at all in any position; — it is 
 sufiicient to assume these data respecting it, in order 
 to produce a representation of the same visual appear- 
 ance seen from E on PPj which the object would 
 present if it did exist. In drawing from an actual 
 object these conditions are changed. The end, the 
 correct perspective picture on a plane, is the same: 
 
PERSPECTIVE, 
 
 457 
 
 but instead of definite knowledge about the measure- 
 ments, &c. of the object, we have the thing itself 
 before our eyes (or rather, as we first stipulated, our 
 eye). Our drawing is to coincide with its visual appear- 
 ance in form. Now, the knowledge hitherto gained 
 will enable us to analyse that appearance better than 
 we should do without it, and to anticipate the probable 
 apparent relation of parts to each other. This is 
 always a great difiiculty to a person uneducated in 
 perspective; as he is always led to put the facts 
 he hiows about the object at variance with what 
 he sees and has to represent of its actual visual 
 appearance. 
 
 The laws of perspective modify the appearance 
 of all objects whatever when they are drawn on a 
 plane, but their influence is most easily recognized 
 in objects composed of straight or geometrical forms, 
 and it will be found that drawing such things is very 
 valuable practice to teach the student to apply his 
 perspective knowledge in sketching from Nature. 
 Wooden cubes, rectangular blocks, prisms, pyramids, 
 cones, cylinders, spheres, &c., are to be had for this 
 purpose from any artists -colourman ; and the more 
 perfect the student can make himself in drawing them 
 the better. 
 
 Let us imagine him seated about six feet from a 
 square table, upon which are several rectangular solids. 
 We shall suppose that in looking tow^ards the centre 
 of a group of them, his line of vision wnll be at right 
 angles to the edge of the table. Let him no^v hold up 
 his drawing-board vertically betw^een him and the table, 
 parallel with the table’s edge, and covering completely 
 
458 
 
 PERSPECTIVE, 
 
 the extent of space which he intends to represent. 
 It is now in its true place as a picture -plane ; 
 and the drawing, when made, ought exactly to coin- 
 cide with the actual lines of the group, as if it could 
 be traced on a transparent drawing-board. Now it 
 is clear that to secure this, it must be made of a par- 
 ticular size for any given distance of the drawing-board 
 from the eye. In other words, if the board be held 
 nearer the spectator, a smaller drawing will be sufficient 
 to cover the whole, and if at a greater distance, a larger. 
 It will be seen also that this difference of size is the 
 only effect produced by changing the distance of the 
 picture, so long as that between the eye and the models 
 remains the same : the relation of the lines to each other 
 remains unchanged though the distance of the board 
 is changed. For example, in fig. ii, if the places of E 
 
 Fig. II. 
 
 and 0 are fixed, the system of rays from 0 to E will 
 remain constant : and if this is cut by planes parallel 
 to each other, but at different distances from E, as i and 
 2 , it can be easily shewn that the forms of both sections 
 would be similar, but that their linear size would vary 
 directly as their distance from E. We have only then to 
 consider what will be the most convenient size for our 
 drawing, remembering that in fixing its scale we are 
 really fixing the position of the picture-plane between 
 the eye and the object. Pupils often ask whether 
 they are to draw an object the same size as they 
 
PERSPECTIVE, 
 
 459 
 
 see it, and cannot understand that any size may be 
 the size they see it according to the distance they 
 look at it from. Let the student therefore remember, 
 that though he may hold his board in a horizontal 
 or any other position for the convenience of sketching, 
 as soon as he has determined the size of any part of 
 his drawing, and its space on his paper, he has fixed 
 the true place of his picture-plane. And if he finds 
 it necessary to try to discover the apparent direction 
 of a line in his object compared with any fixed line 
 on his paper or the edge of his board, he must 
 hold the latter in its true position between himself 
 and the model. 
 
 One more point must be noticed before we begin 
 our sketch: that is to say, the lateral direction of the 
 picture-plane. The student has been told to consider 
 PP parallel to the edge of the table, that being at 
 right angles to the line which passes from the eye 
 to about the centre of the group. But it is clear 
 that it may have any other position, and still fulfil 
 strictly all the conditions necessary for obtaining a 
 perspective projection upon it. Thus, in fig. 12 , if the 
 
 shaded figure represents the plan of our object, and 
 E the point of sight to which the rays from 0 converge, 
 
460 
 
 PERSPECTIVE, 
 
 we can be sure that the cone of rays may be cut by 
 a plane in any position whatever, as at i, 2 , 3 ; and 
 in each case, by definition the section produced would 
 be the perspective of 0 , though they would be all dif- 
 ferent. They differ from each other in absolute form ; 
 but while they are in the positions i, 2 , 3 , in which the 
 sections of the cone of rays are produced, they will 
 of course all present exactly the same impression of 
 form, to an eye at E, as the original 0. Any such 
 position then may be chosen for the picture-plane, 
 provided the drawing, when made, shews clearly in 
 what position it is supposed to be with regard to the 
 spectator, and from what point it ought to be looked 
 at. Most spectators naturally take their point of 
 view somewhere nearly opposite the centre of the 
 subject drawn. We must, therefore, choose such a 
 position for our picture-plane as will be the most 
 likely for the spectator to place it in with relation to 
 himself — in short, such a position as he will see it 
 in. This will depend almost entirely on the extent 
 of the subject to be represented. When the sketcher 
 has made up his mind how far it is to stretch right 
 and left, let him suppose his picture-plane to be 
 placed at right angles to a line drawn from his eye 
 to about the middle of it. We say about the middle, 
 as it sometimes happens that by putting this central 
 line a little to one side or the other of the exact 
 centre, we may make the perspective forms of some 
 of the objects seem simpler in their construction than 
 they would otherwise be. 
 
 To begin with our models. Hold up the board ver- 
 tically, parallel to the edge of the table and at such 
 
PERSPECTIVE, 
 
 461 
 
 a distance from the ground as to make its outline 
 comfortably include all the group of models. Mark 
 the point in your board exactly opposite the eye 
 at right angles. That will be your centre of vision. 
 One of the models is (say) a square block, and it has 
 its nearest face just parallel to the edge of the table, 
 while, from its being to left of the centre, and below 
 the level of the eye, we can see its right side and 
 top foreshortened. Now we know that in that position 
 its nearest face is parallel to our picture-plane, and 
 consequently the four lines which bound it can be 
 drawn, two horizontal and two vertical, with as 
 nearly as possible the same ratio to each other as 
 the originals have. From the four corners of this 
 face, lines proceed straight from the spectator in a 
 direction at right angles to the picture : three of 
 which are visible. These, as was found before, will 
 not be represented as parallel to each other, but will 
 converge to a vanishing point, that vanishing point 
 being in their case a centre of vision. Draw lines 
 then of indefinite length, tending towards the point 
 you have marked as a centre, and then try to decide 
 on the apparent breadth of the surfaces which are to 
 represent the top and right side of the block. Any 
 one with a good eye will do this rightly in a few 
 trials — keeping in mind that he must not look upon 
 the surface of the top and side as receding space, but 
 as all in the same plane as the near face. 
 
 Sometimes he may help himself by holding out his 
 pencil in an upright position at arm's length, marking 
 on it with his thumb-nail the apparent width of the top, 
 and comparing this with tlie height of the face he has 
 
462 
 
 PERSPECTIVE. 
 
 drawn, so as to get the proportion between them. Or 
 he may look at the model and imagine a perpendicular 
 dropped from a farther corner on the near edge, and 
 observe in what proportion the latter is divided by it, 
 and reverse this operation in his drawing. As a rule, 
 the tendency is at first to make receding surfaces much 
 
 larger than they should be. This should be kept in 
 mind as a general axiom, that where lines converge 
 rapidly, and their vanishing point is near their origin, 
 a smaller width will represent as much of the receding 
 surface as a greater would do were the vanishing point 
 farther off, and the convergence, consequently, less 
 apparent. 
 
PERSPECTIVE, 
 
 463 
 
 We learn, then, from the above, and what has gone 
 before at p. 444, that when a sketcher observes lines 
 in a scene before him, whose direction with respect to 
 his picture-plane or picture is the same as that of those 
 in the block above (fig. 13), they must he treated in the 
 same way. Those parallel to the picture, stretching 
 right and left or up and down, will he in the picture 
 horizontal and vertical respectively ; while those which 
 stretch into the picture in a direction perpendicular 
 to the others must vanish in the centre of vision. 
 
 Again : since the upper surface of the block, and that 
 of the table, are both below the level of the eye, they 
 are both visible. On the paper they will he represented 
 by spaces bounded by horizontal lines, the lowest in 
 each case representing the near edge. If the block 
 were to he raised to a level with the eye, none of its 
 upper surface would be seen ; that would be a straight 
 line : were it raised above the eye it would also he 
 invisible from being hidden by the block itself ; or if 
 it were possible to see under the surface, the upper line 
 would represent the nearest edge and the lower the 
 more distant. This would be accounted for in theory 
 by the position of the vanishing line of horizontal 
 planes. It was pointed out that planes vanish in lines 
 as lines vanish in points : and this is neither more nor 
 less than saying that all lines, the originals of which 
 lie in one plane, will have their vanishing points in one 
 straight line, and that this line will he where another 
 plane, parallel to the first but passing through the point 
 of sight E, would meet PP. If, therefore, we imagine 
 a horizontal plane from the eye to the picture, it will 
 clearly intersect the picture in the horizontal line IlL 
 
464 
 
 PERSPECTIVE, 
 
 which passes through the centre of vision. Therefore 
 every surface in the drawing which represents a portion 
 of a horizontal plane, as the table, the top of the block, 
 &c., will appear to tend to this HL. That is to say, 
 of that portion of PP which stands for horizontal sur- 
 face, the near edge will be the under one when it 
 is below HL ; the upper when above HL ; and when 
 the horizontal surfaces are on a level with HL, both 
 the nearer and further boundary lines will coincide 
 with HL. 
 
 Let the sketcher then remember that all lines in the 
 scene before him which are in a horizontal position, 
 vanish somewhere in the horizontal line : as in build- 
 ings, the roof-line, eaves, window-sills, &c. Of course, 
 in a drawing, the position of a vanishing point can 
 only be inferred when two or more lines, representing 
 parallels, converge towards it; and the most that the 
 sketcher can do is to avoid glaring contradiction of the 
 above law : such as, for instance, drawing two lines, 
 which from the construction of an object are parallel, 
 in such a direction that they would evidently meet each 
 other before other parallels of the same set, and palpably 
 below or above their proper vanishing line. 
 
 But returning to our models, let us assume that to 
 the right of the block now drawn there stands a rect- 
 angular box, with the lid open and leaning back. 
 Taking the box -part first, we find its faces no longer 
 parallel, or at right angles to the picture-plane. The 
 two faces towards the front are seen to be inclined to 
 the edge of the table, and therefore to PP ; and one of 
 them, the left one, evidently makes a greater angle with 
 it than the other. We shall find in this case, (r) that 
 
PERSPECTIVE. 
 
 465 
 
 the upright edges are still vertical lines in the picture ; 
 (2) that the horizontal lines bounding the two upright 
 planes converge right and left respectively to the 
 vanishing points on the horizontal line; (3) that those 
 on the left converge more rapidly than those on the 
 right, owing to the position of their respective vanish- 
 ing points. If, as described at p. 445, lines be sup- 
 posed to proceed from the eye right and left, in the 
 same directions as the edges of the box, i.e. making 
 a greater angle with the picture on the left and a 
 smaller on the right, the line to the left will clearly 
 meet the picture in a point nearer the centre than the 
 other; and therefore the convergence to this vanishing 
 point of the lines of the box will be more apparent 
 on the left than on the right. At the same time, the 
 apparent width of the face on the left will be less in 
 proportion to its true size than the other. 
 
 In the middle of this left side is seen the keyhole 
 of the lock; the position of which can be determined 
 accurately enough by the eye, the pupil keeping in 
 mind that the farther half appears a little less than 
 the near one. The exact point of bisection of the sides 
 may be found by drawing the two diagonals, which cross 
 each other in the centre of these rectangular faces, and 
 an upright line through that centre will give the middle 
 line. 
 
 The inclined lid gives us an instance of lines inclined 
 to both the horizontal line and the picture-plane ; and 
 in drawing them the chief thing the pupil will have 
 to look to will be their convergence. In this he will 
 be assisted by knowing whereabouts the vanishing 
 points are. First, let us point out that the upper 
 
 n h 
 
466 
 
 PERSPECTIVE, 
 
 edge of the lid is still parallel to that on which it 
 hinges, and therefore tends to the same vanishing 
 point in the horizontal line on the left of the centre. 
 Again, the place of the vanishing point of the inclined 
 edges can be realized as before by conceiving a line to 
 pass through the eye parallel to them to meet PP. 
 
 This it would do immediately over the vanishing 
 point, on the horizontal line of the end lines of the 
 box, the height above being fixed by the size of the 
 angle which the sloping edges make with the ground. 
 
 These then must be drawn so as to incline together 
 slightly from below upwards ; but the convergence must 
 be less than that of the horizontal edges of the box 
 which vanish to the right, as the vanishing point of 
 the latter is not so distant. 
 
 In the same way the short inclined edges of the 
 lid, which mark its thickness, must tend to a vanish- 
 ing point which is immediately under the last, below 
 HL: and they will consequently converge from above 
 downwards. 
 
 Some such knowledge of perspective as this will 
 help the student in drawing from actual things which 
 involve straight lines, either in their construction or 
 their arrangement: and there are practically but few 
 things which cannot be so referred to straight lines, 
 whose perspective position will help him to a true- 
 rendering of all the forms in his picture. In ‘ Modern 
 Painters,' vol. iv., the author points out the unmistake- 
 able infiuence of visual perspective laws even on the 
 representations of such apparently intractable things 
 as mountain peaks and crests, cloud-forms, &c. The 
 influence of such principles as have been here pointed 
 
PERSPECTIVE. 
 
 467 
 
 out, of the convergence of lines, &c. on the drawing 
 of their forms, is often much more clearly traceable 
 than one might imagine. However irregular or 
 amorphous they may be, the various points in the 
 representation of an object must arrange themselves 
 strictly according to the principles laid down : though 
 to determine this arrangement exactly w^ould be 
 infinitely tedious and complicated. Still, in many 
 instances, the knowledge of what the effect is, in 
 determinable cases, is of use, where the things to be 
 drawn are not strictly determinable. For example, 
 the banks of a river may be anything but straight 
 or parallel to each other, but may yet be near enough 
 to straightness and parallelism, to exhibit very dis- 
 tinctly that convergence to a vanishing point Avhich 
 would be seen in them if they were so b 
 
 In the drawing of Cephalus and Procris there is 
 not a straight line in the picture: yet the law that 
 the perspectives of lines which recede from the spec- 
 tator at right angles with the picture have their point 
 of convergence in the centre of vision, has its effect, 
 apparent by the narrowing of the path as it recedes 
 from the front into the wood, by the diminution 
 of length and thickness in the tree-trunks, and of 
 
 ^ The peculiar melancholy with which most people’s minds are lightly 
 touched by the side of a quiet river, especially in the evening or 
 morning, is connected with the fact of the banks leading the eye 
 away into the far distance, and generally to the horizon, with a sense 
 of infinity. And these lines also give one, consciously or unconsciously, 
 a sense of the wandering and unreturning flow of the river, and 
 guide the mind to various comparisons, which affect it freshly enough 
 when they suggest themselves naturally ; but would have a very 
 platitudinarian appearance on paper. — R. St. J. T. 
 
 H h 2 
 
PERSPECTIVE, 
 
 ' 468 
 
 the spaces between them, and (in the mezzotint 
 engraving) by the top line of the clump of trees 
 cresting the high ground on the right. 
 
 In the accompanying sketch of the old mill at Ifidey 
 will be found examples of straight lines in most of 
 
 IFFLEY MILL. 
 
 the positions in which they will be likely to occur, 
 and an illustration of some of our rules. Observe, 
 first, that none of the faces of the building are at right 
 angles to the picture, and that those which face the 
 right are inclined to it at a greater angle with it 
 than the other, or recede more directly from the front. 
 
PERSPECTIVE, 
 
 469 
 
 All the horizontal lines, therefore, which run in this 
 direction, the ridge-lines, eaves, sills of windows and 
 doors, &c., converge to a vanishing point which is 
 nearer the centre of the picture than that of the cor- 
 responding lines running to the left. The horizontal 
 line drawn across the picture shews the level of the 
 eye: and since this contains the vanishing points first 
 mentioned, all the lines which are above this level 
 incline downward to meet it, and all below the reverse. 
 This would be sufficient to point out the level of the 
 eye if the horizontal line were not drawn. 
 
 Next, take note of the direction of the lines of the 
 gables. Their highest points, i, 2, 3, &c., are of course 
 farther from the spectator than the lowest points 
 visible, 4, 5, &c. Consequently the lines 5-1, 4-2, &c. 
 incline upwards from the picture towards the left. 
 Their vanishing point will then be above the hori- 
 zontal line, and in the perpendicular through that 
 vanishing point towards which the horizontal line 
 on the left tends. It wiU in this case be a long 
 way off, and the convergence of the lines will be 
 very slight; so that it might be considered of very 
 little use in drawing the lines: but it is good for 
 the student to know that it is there, as he will not 
 then be likely to place the lines so that two will 
 evidently meet each other before the rest, or, as is 
 very commonly done, on the other side. The lines 
 descending towards the left from the points of the 
 gables will have their vanishing point below the 
 horizontal line in the same perpendicular as the others, 
 since their lowest points are at a greater distance from 
 the picture than their highest; and because they are 
 
470 
 
 ^ PERSPECTIVE. 
 
 inclined at the same angle with the ground as the 
 lines 1-5, 2-4, &c. 
 
 The sides of the punt happen to be parallel to the 
 picture, and are in consequence represented by hori- 
 zontal lines; while the ends, which are necessarily 
 at right angles with the sides, and therefore with 
 the' picture, converge towards the centre of vision, 
 which is on the side of the doorway, and of course 
 in the horizontal line. 
 
APPENDIX. 
 
 GIOTTO ON POVERTY. 
 
 Molti son que’, che lodan povertate, 
 
 E tadicon \ che fa statto perfetto ; 
 
 S ’egli 6 provato e heletto 
 
 Quello osservando, nulla cosa avendo. 
 
 Di quella poverta, ch’ h contro a voglia 
 Non 6 da dubitar, che tuttavia 
 Chd di pecchare 6 via. 
 
 Facendo spesso a’ giudici far fallo 
 E d’onor donna e damigella spoglia, 
 
 E fa far furto, forza d villania, 
 
 E spesso usar bugia, 
 
 E ciascun priva d’ onorato stallo. 
 
 ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ 
 
 Certo mi par grand onta 
 Chiamar virtute quel, che spegna ’1 bene 
 E molto mal s’avene 
 Cosa bestial preporre a la virtute. 
 
 * * ♦ * * 
 
 Tu potresti qui fare un argomento 
 II Signor nostro molto la commenda, 
 Guarda, ch^ ben s’ intenda ; 
 
 Ch^ sue parole son molto profonde, 
 
 * For ‘ti dicoii.’ — R. 
 

 APPENDIX. 
 
 E talor’ anno dopio intendimento, 
 
 E vuol, clie ’1 salutifero si prenda 
 Perb ’1 tuo viso abenda, 
 
 E guarda ’1 ver’, che dentro vi s’ asconde ; 
 
 Tu vedrai, che risponde 
 
 Le sue parole alia sua santa vita ; 
 
 Che podesta compita 
 
 Ebbe de sodisfare a tempo e loco. 
 
 E perb ’1 suo aver poco 
 Eu per noi scampar dulla vita. 
 
 >lc * * * * 
 
 [Rwmohr, Italienische Forschungen, ii. 51 .) 
 
INDEX. 
 
 Accuracy, importance of, p. 2, 3. 
 
 Admiration, a valuable faculty, 8. 
 
 iEscliylus, heraldry of, 72. 
 
 Alphabet, Hebrew, 57. 
 
 Amateur work, &c., 2, 16; value 
 of, 7 ; course of, 165-189 ; ex- 
 pectations of beginners, 165, 166, 
 385; adults bad pupils, 168; exer- 
 cises for, ch. i. part ii. ; amateur 
 and workman, 178, 379, 404; 
 indulgence to, 197, 210, 295; 
 authorship, 381. 
 
 Anatomy, Giotto’s, 91, 92 ; study 
 of, ch. ii. part ii. ; Dr. Fau’s and 
 Mr. Warren’s Manual, 218 ; of 
 foliage, 227 j of bones and mus- 
 cles, 228 ; connection with per- 
 spective, 241. 
 
 Angelico, 88, 105- 107 sqq.; com- 
 pared with Orcagna, Ghirlandajo, 
 and Masaccio, 105 ; with Ma- 
 billon, 107, 126. 
 
 Antique proportions, 235, 237, 238. 
 
 A putrido, 423. 
 
 Architectural carvings, i8. 
 
 Armitage, evidence of, 31, 37, 125, 
 156, 199, 208, 212. 
 
 Art, part of liberal education, i, 7, 
 17, 21 ; value of amateur art, 7 ; 
 objects of education for, 21 ; 
 definition of, 22, 41 ; advertising, 
 
 Art-Schools, 4 ; teaching sufficient 
 for artist-workmen, 80, 163, 197, 
 213, 214. 
 
 Arundel Society’s publications, 93 ; 
 see Giotto. 
 
 Asceticism, 109, no. 
 
 Assisi, churches of, 89, 91 ; see 
 Giotto. 
 
 Association of ideas, 361. 
 
 Assyrian comiDounded forms, 42, 70. 
 
 Attila, 452. 
 
 Background, 307 ; tints for, 316. 
 
 Balance, 372 , 373 - 
 
 Bastard, M. le Comte, work by, 64. 
 
 Beauty, gradual intrQduction to, 
 208, 214. 
 
 Beauty, &c., terms used by analogy 
 of, 41 ; definition of, 42, 297. 
 
 Bellini, John, pictures of, in the 
 National Gallery, 161, 162. 
 
 Benozzo Gozzoli, at Pisa, 50, 103, 
 106, 140, 143, 424. 
 
 Berry, Miss, 14. 
 
 Blake, 14, 27, 92. 
 
 Blocking out, 223 sqq. 
 
 Body-colour, definition of, 256, 317, 
 328, 329 ; see Opaque. 
 
 Bondonc, see Giotto. 
 
 Bones, 228-231. 
 
 Breadth, 374; as ‘bringing to- 
 getheiv 279. 
 
474 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Bringing together, or massing, 279. 
 
 Brook Taylor, Dr., on Perspective, 
 
 437 - 
 
 Browning’s poems, ii, 28, 91, 132. 
 
 Brushes, use of, as compared with 
 chalk and hard-point, 198, 201, 
 2113 red sable for water-colour, 
 260 ; mixing water-colour in, 
 274. 
 
 Bume Jones, 253. 
 
 Burnet, Essays on Fine Arts, 425, 
 426. 
 
 Business view of Art, 108. 
 
 Byzantine Art, 43 3 Benaissance, 
 43, 48 3 MSS., 64 sq. 
 
 Campo Santo at Pisa, 50, 108, 
 III 3 Giotto’s landscape in, 102. 
 
 Canvas, priming or preparing, 338. 
 
 Caricature, 356. 
 
 Casts, drawing from, ch. ii. part ii. 3 
 lists of, 217. 
 
 Catacombs, 32 sqq., 47 sqq. 
 
 Chalk, used to follow charcoal lines, 
 2373 shading in, 242. 
 
 Charcoal, use of in France, 200 3 
 material for most first-sketches, 
 233 - 
 
 Cherub, connected with Veronese 
 griffins, 70. 
 
 Christian Art, 33, 41 sqq. 3 in- 
 creasingly ascetic, 473 in Angelico, 
 12 1 sqq. 
 
 Church paintings not idolatrous, 763 
 how made so, 33, 77. 
 
 Churches — S. Ambrogio, Milan, 41, 
 46, 663 San Michele, Lucca, 
 and Torcello, 49, 633 Murano, 
 49, 763 Madonna dell Orto, 
 Venice, 61 3 Sistine Chapel, 67, 
 4203 San Fermo, and San Ze- 
 
 none, Verona, 70, 803 Duomo, 
 71 3 Santa Maria Novella, Flo- 
 rence, 84, 147, 149, 155 3 Arena 
 Chapel, 96, 146 3 Carmine, 129, 
 1343 S. George of the Seaweed, 
 1 40 3 Assisi, see Giotto. 
 
 Cimabue, 69, 83-85, 104. 
 
 Claude, 35. 
 
 Colour, in portrait, 533 in dress 
 armour, &c., 753 use of, 201, 
 2163 transparent and opaque, 
 256) 2573 necessarily conven- 
 tional, 282 3 for mixed tints in 
 water and oil, 25, 272, 340, 
 345» 349 i tree-drawing, 406, 
 412, 413. 
 
 Composition and conception, 2883 
 in Giotto, 90 3 chapter on, 3583 
 turns on interest and leading 
 features, 360 3 rules got by 
 generalization, 365. 
 
 Constructive drawings, 436. 
 
 Contrast and Harmony, see Com- 
 position, 360, 365, 366. 
 
 Conventionalism in landscape, 13. 
 
 Copies and copying, 5, 29, 156 
 sqq. 3 parts of pictures and in- 
 complete work, 160-1623 choice 
 of masters for, 160-162 3 not ser- 
 vile, 1633 from statue, skeleton, 
 227 3 cast in light-and -shade, 
 2923 not same as imitation, 
 319 3 importance of, 324. 
 
 Cox, David, 175, 282, 283, 383, 
 
 384, 386. 
 
 Criticism, 158. 
 
 Crowe and Cavalcaselle, 82, 83, 88- 
 91, 96, 104, 106, 128, 133, 147, 
 258. 
 
 Curves, 190 sqq. 3 as means of 
 composition, 367, 368 3 mathe- 
 
INDEX, 
 
 475 
 
 matical, 369 \ wing-curves, 369- 
 371 ; parabola and hyperbola, 
 
 369* 
 
 CujT), 366. 
 
 Dante, 83, 84 ; type of face, 92 ; 
 portrait at Bargello, 93 ; with 
 Giotto at Padua, 106, 107 ; death 
 in 1321, 103, 109, III ; Gothic 
 features, 104, note; severity, 118. 
 David and Ingres, 151. 
 
 Death represented by Giotto, 91 ; 
 by Orcagna, 1 1 1 . 
 
 Definitions of Art, 2 2 ; of Beauty, 
 41, 297. 
 
 Delaroche, 31, 32. 
 
 De Eossi, 53. 
 
 Details and accidents, 290. 
 
 Devils of Orcagna, 112. 
 
 Didron, Manuel d’Iconographie, 85. 
 Distances in drawing the figure, 
 234- 
 
 Distemper, see Tempera, ch. ix. 
 part ii. p. 423. 
 
 Donatello and Masaccio, 139; S. 
 George, 149. 
 
 Durer, 16 ; copying from, 167- 
 169, 175 sqq., 393. 
 
 Education, 4, 23, 38, 158-160. 
 Egyptian Art, 44, 58. 
 
 Encaustic, 426. 
 
 Engraving (mezzotint), 417. 
 Etching, 416. 
 
 Eve and the Serpent, 67. 
 Expression, receipts for, 95. 
 
 Fairies, gift of seeing, 19. 
 
 Fan’s Anatomy, 218. 
 Figure-drawing, 218, 240 ; Giotto’s, 
 90 ; Masaccio’s, 130. 
 
 Finish, 289 ; added fact, 301 ; 
 efficiency, 302 ; connected with 
 composition, 303 ; Tintoret’s 
 haste, 304 ; Millais, 306-308 ; 
 Hunt, Collins, Titian, 310 ; 
 grapes as examples, 3 1 1 sqq. ; 
 in oil, 348. 
 
 Florence, &c., 80, 93, 105, 108, 
 1 1 9, 132, 143; contains whole 
 progress of Art, 144; photo- 
 graphy, 144-146, 156. 
 
 Foreground, water-colour, 279, 
 306 ; oil, 345-347 i sketching, 
 388. 
 
 Form distinguished from Line, 167, 
 207, 215. 
 
 Francia, 49, 85, 162. 
 
 Francis, S., at Assisi, 91. 
 
 Fresco, evidence on, 31, 32 ; his- 
 torical, 33 ; Orcagna’s at Pisa, 
 50; in churches, 78 ; Michael 
 Angelo on, 79, 419 ; processes, 
 419; Eafael’s, 420; Michael 
 Angelo’s, 420 ; wet and dry, 421; 
 stippling in, 422 ; letter on, by 
 Mr. Stanhope, 427. 
 
 Frontispiece, first stage, 269 ; 
 second, 275 ; third, 278. 
 
 George and Edwards’s Alpine pho- 
 tographs, 180, 392. 
 
 Gesso, 425. 
 
 Ghiberti, 80, 139, 423. 
 
 Ghirlandajo, compared with Giotto, 
 93 ; with Angelico, &c., 105, 
 108, 123, 139, 141 ; photo- 
 
 graphs from, 146, 153 ; family, 
 146 ; anatomy, 15 1. 
 
 Giorgione, 3, 160, 161, 425. 
 
 Giotto, 69, 82-103 ; at Assisi, 84 : 
 views on poverty, 87, 120 ; com- 
 
476 
 
 INDEX, 
 
 position, 88 ; faces, 94, 95 ; 
 never at Avignon, 96 ; Arena 
 Chapel, 96-98 ; symbolisms, 98, 
 99 ; landscape, 99 ; Campanile, 
 &c., loi ; features, 144, note; 
 ^workman,’ 294, 299; picture 
 in oil, 423 ; ^ canzone’ on poverty. 
 Appendix. 
 
 Glacier, 370 ; first understood by 
 Turner, 371. 
 
 Glazing, 336, 354. 
 
 Goethe, 15, 43. 
 
 Goodall, 398-400. 
 
 Gothic and Northern Art, 43, 46 ; 
 distinguished from Byzantine, 65 
 sqq.; at Milan, 66 ; at Verona, 
 79 ; humour of, 89. 
 
 Greek Art, Phidias, 42. 
 
 Griffin, Veronese, 70 sqq. 
 
 Grotesques, symbolic, 33, 51, 52 
 sqq.; scriptural, 51, 54, 61, 64 
 sqq., 69. 
 
 Gullick and Timbs on fresco, tem- 
 pera, &c., ch. ix. 419. 
 
 Gustave Dor6, difference in cha- 
 racter of his horrors from Dante’s 
 or Orcagna’s, 1 1 5. 
 
 Hamerton, 136. 
 
 Harding, 27, 282, 382-384, 408, 
 409. 
 
 Harmony and Contrast, see Com- 
 position, 365, 366. 
 
 Hayman, Kev. H., on Cherub-forms, 
 
 70 - 
 
 Heraldry, 69 ; none in Homer, 72 ; 
 knightly, 73 ; canting, 74 ; con- 
 nection with history of Art, 75. 
 
 Herbert, 34, 125. 
 
 Historical fresco unconnected with 
 image worship, 78. 
 
 History, taught by public fresco, 
 36-38; in Art consists of biogra- 
 phies, 40. 
 
 Holbein, photographs from, by Mr. 
 Dowdeswell, 202. 
 
 Humour, Gothic, 69. 
 
 Hunt, A., 392, 397, 401. 
 
 Hunt, Holman, 34, 125, 163, 398, 
 408. 
 
 Hunt, William, 287, 422. 
 
 Idolatry in Art- representations, 76. 
 
 Imitation and observation, 28, 30. 
 
 Interpenetration, principle of, 375 ; 
 cp. 75. 
 
 Intonaco, 421. 
 
 Knight in Holbein’s Dance of Death, 
 no. 
 
 Last Judgment, Orcagna’s, 50 ; 
 Michael Angelo’s, 6 1 ; Tintoret’s, 
 61. 
 
 Lear, specially attends to the land- 
 scape of the East, 400. 
 
 Lecky, 47, 68. 
 
 Leech’s woodcuts, 169, 356. 
 
 Leonardo da Vinci, 136, 155, 161, 
 
 25L 294, 300- 
 
 Letters, pictorial, &c., 55, 59. 
 
 Lewis’s works, 163, 253, 287, 300, 
 
 346- 
 
 ^ Liber Studiorum,’ 139, 169; pho- 
 tographs by Mr. Hogarth, 255 ; 
 lists from, 326, 362, 363; Kizpah 
 and Mer de Glace, 327, 365, 
 376 ; Cephalus and Procris, 364, 
 376, 417, 418; Source of 
 
 Arveiron, 414. 
 
 Light-and -shade drawing, 184 ; in 
 sepia, 185, 186; gradation, 186, 
 
INDEX, 
 
 477 
 
 243 ; generally considered, 242- 
 246 ; processes, 242 ; Paul Ve- 
 ronese’s and Turner’s system 
 of, 249 ; Rembrandt’s, 250 ; 
 Leonardo’s, 251 ; gradation in, 
 262. 
 
 Lindsay, Sir Coutts, evidence, 31. 
 
 Line distinguished from Form, 167. 
 
 Lombards, 52, 86, 128. 
 
 Lothian, Marquis of, ‘Italian History 
 and Art,’ 43, 49. 
 
 Mabillon compared with Fra An- 
 gelico, 109. 
 
 Macarius, S., no. 
 
 Mail superior in forms to plate 
 armour, 75. 
 
 ‘ Making out,’ 279, 306. 
 
 Masaccio, 102, 107, 123, 129 sqq., 
 130-141, 258 ; drawing and per- 
 spective, 136 ; landscape, 139, 
 424 j models, 140 \ death, 142, 
 note. 
 
 Measurements and distances, 234 ; 
 by waists, 224, 225 ; by heads, 
 234 ; by faces, 234. 
 
 Mechanical, term how used, 296, 
 297 ; drawings, 436. . 
 
 Media, various, 340, 341 ; see 
 Tempera, 423. 
 
 Medici, 132, 133, 148. 
 
 Memory, importance of, 285, 319 ; 
 refreshment of, 345. 
 
 Mer de Glace, Turner’s, 180, 370. 
 
 Mezzotint, 417. 
 
 Michael Angelo, 83, no, 122, 129, 
 131, 134, 144, 145, 287, 305; 
 compared with Angehco, 128; 
 with Ghirlandajo, 151 sq., 157, 
 159 ; drawings in Oxford, 252 ; 
 fresco, 419, 420. 
 
 Millais, 125, 163, 306. 
 
 Monotony of English life, 17, 38. 
 
 Mountain colours, 276 ; drawing 
 by Masaccio, 139. 
 
 MS., illustrations from, by Count 
 Bastard, 64 ; connected with 
 heraldic ornament, 75. 
 
 Mulready, 386. 
 
 Murano, 49. 
 
 Muscles, 215, 218 sqq., 228-232. 
 
 Myths, Pagan, used in catacombs, 
 45 ; Penelope, Deucalion, Jason, 
 Hesione, Andromeda, 45. 
 
 Natural power, taste, &c., 25. 
 
 Naturalism, Gothic, 64 sq.; see 
 Realism. 
 
 Nature interpreted by Art, 8-22 ; 
 value of drawing from, 10 ; love 
 for, 12, 29; study, 30, 163; 
 drawing from, 175; multiplicity 
 of, 276 ; in Turner’s works, 323 ; 
 sketching from, eh. vii.. Trees. 
 
 Nicolo Pisano, 66, 81, 103. 
 
 Norway, 401. 
 
 O of Giotto, Florentine proverb, 95. 
 
 Observation, 27 ; habits of, 173- 
 
 175- 
 
 Oil-painting, eh. v. part ii. ; ISIichael 
 Angelo on, 287 ; power of, 331 ; 
 alterations in, 333 ; advantages, 
 334; difficulty, 335 ; first lessons 
 in, 336 sqq. ; portrait, 350. 
 
 Opaque and transparent colour. 
 256, 257, 328, 329. 
 
 Orcagna (Arcagnoli), 49, 109 ; 
 
 Triumph of Death, 96, 103-109. 
 Ill sqq.; severity compared with 
 Dante, 116. 
 
 Origin of Modern Art, (i) Christian 
 
478 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 in catacombs, (2) Gothic or 
 Northern in Lombard churches, 
 41, 46 sqq. 
 
 Oxford Galleries, 145, 204, 320, 
 
 325, 396. 
 
 Paolo Uccello, 33, 48, 129, 137, 
 155 - 
 
 Paolo Veronese, 160, 161, 249 sqq., 
 425 - 
 
 Perspective, aerial and linear, 135, 
 266-268; Masaccio’s, 136; Paolo 
 Uccello’s, 137 ; negative but in- 
 dispensable guide, 240 ; con- 
 nected with anatomy, 241 ; of 
 leaves and bushes, 280, 375, 376. 
 
 Perspective, chapter on, 429 ; part 
 of optics, 430 ; apparent lengths 
 depend on angular distance, 431, 
 
 432 ; parallel lines in space ap- 
 parently radiating from centre, 
 
 433 i definition of picture or 
 perspective delineation, 434 ; 
 projection, 436 ; mechanical and 
 constructive drawing, 436 ; defi- 
 nition of perspective, 436 ; limits 
 of its power, 437 ; terms and 
 illustrative diagrams, 438 ; diffi- 
 culty of seeing relative positions 
 of points in object, 440 ; dimi- 
 nution of size, 441 ; perspective 
 drawing of a plane (figs. 3 and 4), 
 439> 441 ; rules, 441 sqq. ; find- 
 ing vanishing points, 443, 463 ; 
 perspective of cube, 445; of 
 curves, 453; of spheres, 454; 
 actual perspective from nature, 
 455 j practice from straight- 
 sided objects, 456 ; directions, 
 457 ; lateral direction of picture- 
 plane, 458 ; drawing a block, 461 ; 
 
 cylinder, 461 ; an open box, 463 ; 
 value of knowledge of perspec- 
 tive in drawing from nature, 
 
 466, and note ; perspective draw- 
 ing of Iffley Mill, with analysis, 
 
 467. 
 
 Perugino, 49. 
 
 Phidias, 42. 
 
 Photographs, Florentine, by Philpot, 
 &c., 144; use of in landscape, 183 
 sq. ; to secure character, 183; 
 Do wdes well’s, from Holbein, 202; 
 Hatton’s trees, 227, 254; ana- 
 tomical, 230, 392; Messrs. George 
 and Edwards’s, 392 ; Eastern, 
 400. 
 
 Pietro Cavallini at Assisi, 104, note. 
 Pigments, see Colour. 
 
 Pisa, 49, 50, 108. 
 
 Portrait, beginning a, 350. 
 Proportions, antique, 235-238. 
 Prout, 282, 376, 384. 
 
 H. A. Commission, 30. 
 
 Rafael, 3, 49, 129, 143-145, 162, 
 163 ; drawings in Oxford, 162, 
 252; drawing from, 325; cha- 
 racter, 420. 
 
 Raoul Rochette, 45. 
 
 Realism in Art, 34, 54 ; Gothic, 52. 
 Religious Art, symbolical, Realist 
 and emotional, 33, 48 sqq. 
 Rembrandt’s system of colour, 250, 
 282, 359. 
 
 Renaissance, Byzantine, 49, 63 sqq., 
 103; late, 327. 
 
 Repetition, use of, 372. 
 
 Reverie not idleness, 362. 
 
 Reynolds, Sir J., 289 sq. ; use 
 of tempera, 426. 
 
 Richardson, T. M., 5, 175. 
 
INDEX. 
 
 479 
 
 Roman Catholic Art, 32. 
 
 ‘Romola,’ 89, note, 93, 156. 
 
 Rosenberg, 401. 
 
 Rumohr, Von, 88, Appendix. 
 
 Ruskin, 12, 22, 35, 51, 62, 125, 
 138, 140, 162, 191, 367-369; 
 Stones of Venice, 52, 79 ; Two 
 paths, illustrated, 66, 67 ; on 
 Velasquez, 161 ; exercises, 171- 
 173; on Pre-Rafaelitism, Millais 
 and Turner, 246, 285 ; gift to 
 University of Oxford, 320, 396 ; 
 Definition of Composition, 358 ; 
 beauty of curvature, 367-369, 
 391-394 j on trees, 407-410. 
 
 Saussure, De, 371. 
 
 Savonarola, 93, 108, no, 157. 
 
 Scumbling and glazing, 336, 354. 
 
 Seddon, 398. 
 
 Shadow-cast, projected and natural, 
 257 - 
 
 Signs,representative or vicarious,56. 
 
 Sinai, Mount, Herbert’s, 3 4 ; Claude’s, 
 35 ; Art-remains, Lewis, 398 ; 
 Goodall, 398 ; description of, and 
 difficulties of sketching, 399. 
 
 Sitter, how to place, 350. 
 
 Skeleton, 227 sqq.; see Bones. 
 
 Sketching, 199 ; preparation for, 
 in water-colour, 275; on grey 
 paper, 320, 321 } Turner’s, 321, 
 322, 377 sqq., 395 ; choice of 
 subject in, 387 ; Swiss, 388, 392 ; 
 in Desert of Sinai, 398 ; Nor- 
 wegian, 401, 402 ; Lake country 
 good for beginners, 381. 
 
 Skies, gradated flat, 187, 272, 278. 
 
 Spencer- Stanhope, 253; letter from, 
 427. 
 
 Stanfield, 12. 
 
 Statues, dissections of, 226, 229 ; 
 for study, 237, 238. 
 
 Stippling, in pen and ink, 17 1 ; 
 chalk, 242 ; colour, 249 sq. ; 
 mends anything, 314; in fresco, 
 422. 
 
 Straight lines, importance of, 178 ; 
 curves and, 190. 
 
 Strozzi Chapel, 109. 
 
 Studies,distinguished from sketches, 
 
 377 - 
 
 Style dependent on knowledge and 
 purpose, 5. 
 
 Subjects, choice of, 386, 387 ; Lake 
 country, 387 ; in Desert of Sinai, 
 398, 400 ; Norway and Scotland, 
 401. 
 
 Symbol, definition of, 55 ; distin- 
 guished from hieroglyphics, 62 ; 
 list, 63 ; Celtic and Teutonic, 
 74 ; Oriental, 74 ; heraldic, 75 ; 
 Giotto’s, 95-98. 
 
 Symbolisms, 33, 49 ; definition of, 
 60 ; Christian symbols (earlier), 
 62 ; not objects of worship, 77. 
 
 Symmetry, 372. 
 
 Taine, M., 131, 327. 
 
 Tempera, distinguished from fresco, 
 421 ; media used in, 423 ; used 
 as ground for oil-colour by Vene- 
 tians, &c., 425. 
 
 Tennyson, 39. 
 
 Texture of paper, 263-265 ; in 
 oil-colour, 338, 349. 
 
 Tintoret, 144, 145, 152, 157, 305, 
 310, 324. 
 
 Titian, 3, 160, 161 ; colours, 161 ; 
 works in National Gallery, 161, 
 162 ; finish of, 291 ; at Denmark 
 Hill, 292 ; tree drawing, 409. 
 
480 
 
 INDEX, 
 
 Torcello, 48, 49, 63, 85. 
 
 Transferring outlines, 238. 
 
 Tree-trunks, 306 ; perspective by 
 interlacing, 376, 412, 413 ; 
 
 drawing, 405 ; colours, 406, 
 407 ; Harding’s, 409 ; Turner’s, 
 410, 41 1 ; in Ceplialis and Pro- 
 cris, 417. 
 
 Turner, T. M. W., 12, 25, 27 ; 
 ‘Liber Studiorum,’ 16, 169, 176, 
 304 ; finish, 165 ; method of 
 study, 203, 214; system of light- 
 and-shade that of Veronese, &c., 
 249 ; Goldau and S. Gothard, 
 253 ; photographs from, 255, 
 326, 362 ; compared with Mil- 
 lais, 285 ; did not copy but 
 imitate, 319 ; on grey paper, 
 320, 396 ; to be verified by ob- 
 servation of Nature, 324 ; use 
 of body-colour, 344 ; on impres- 
 sion, 378, 390, 395-397 ; ra- 
 pidity, 401,410, 41 1, 414, 415; 
 etchings, 4 10 -417; Cephalus 
 and Procris, 418. 
 
 Turner, W., of Oxford, method of 
 gradating skies, 188, 264, 271, 
 333- 
 
 Unity and harmony, 367. 
 
 University Galleries, Oxford, 145, 
 204, 320, 325, 396. 
 
 Vacher, 398. 
 
 Van Eyck, 423. 
 
 Vasari, 40, 84, 107, 119, 133. 
 
 Velasquez, 161, 289, 291. 
 
 Venetian system, 356. 
 
 Venice, 49. 
 
 Verrochio, 106. 
 
 Verona, 51, 70, 80. 
 
 Veronese, Paolo, 160, 161, 249 
 sqq., 425. 
 
 Washing, 263, 264 ; not to dis- 
 guise bad drawing, 268. 
 
 Water-colours, theory of, 256 ; scale 
 for use of, 255 j distinguished 
 from oil, 259 ; frontispiece in, 
 269. 
 
 Water-painting, 274, 277, 280, 281 ; 
 reflections in, 387, 388. 
 
 Watts, evidence of, 30 ; on fresco, 
 33, 36, 156. 
 
 Wings of birds, 369. 
 
 Word-painting, 35. 
 
 Wordsworth, 27. 
 
 Working-classes, Art for, 1 7-1 9, 38 ; 
 as amateurs, 379, 380. 
 
 ‘Workman’ and ‘workmanlike,’ 
 295 ; workman and amateur, 
 
 178, 379 ^ 391- 
 
 Wornum’s ‘Epochs of Painting,’ 82. 
 
 Writing, hieroglyphic and phonetic, 
 
 57 sqq., 173 - 
 
mm 
 
 
 
 mm