bit pggl ns APS ate ieee hasan. DRAWING FROM MEMORY. THE CAVE METHOD FOR LEARNING TO DRAW FROM MEMORY. BY MADAME MARIE ELISABETH CAVE. TRANSLATED FROM THE FOURTH PARIS EDITION, REVISED CORRECTED, Afp s - ENLARGED BY THE AUTHOR. To See, to Understand, to Remember, is to Know.—RvuseEns. NEW! YORE Soe Sul NAM'S :SONS 182 FirrH AVENUE 1877 650 OE ZT, Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1868, by G. P. PUTNAM & SON, In the Olerk’s Office of the District Court of the United States for the Southern District of New York. EDITOR’S NOTE. THE Revue pes Deux Monpss has published an article by M. Eugéne Delacroix, the illustrious painter, upon Drawine witHout A Master, by Madame Marie Elisabeth Cavé. We cannot do better than republish it here in order to call public attention to her work. Drawing without a Master, by Madame Elisabeth Cavé.* Tuis is the only method of drawing which really teaches anything. In publishing as an essay the remark- able treatise in which she unfolds with surpassing interest the result of her observations upon the teaching of drawing and the ingenious methods she applies, Ma- dame Cave, with whose charming pictures every one is familiar, not only proves that she has carefully studied the principles of the art she practises so well, but she also renders invaluable service to all who have marked out for themselves a career of art. She clearly shows the pernicious effects of the ordinary methods, and how uncertain are their results. She has indisputably the first claim to attention; she speaks of that with which she is well acquainted; and her piquant manner of pre- senting truth renders it only the more clear. I do not purpose in noticing her work to follow in the steps of those who, without thoroughly understanding the art of painting—without even having practised its elements, write upon it, and give officious advice to artists. The pupil who goes with his portfolio under his arm, to study at the Academy rarely reads writings of this sort; and the finished painter who has taken his bent and chosen his path, has neither the leisure nor the power to recreate or modify himself after their systems ; moreover, these works generally treat less of practice than of theory. The real evil is the incompetent teacher, the unskilful usher of that sanctuary which he himself will never penetrate; the poor painter who pretends to teach and explain what he has never been able to put in * From REVUE DES Deux MONDEs. 6 DRAWING WITHOUT A MASTER. practice, the method of making a good picture. The treatise of Madame Cavé is a timely interposition between these sorry professors and their victims. We must charge to the account of their fatal doctrines, or rather to the absence of all doctrine in their mode of instruction, the few attractions we have all found at the beginning of the career. Who does not remember the pages of noses, ears and eyes which afflicted our child- hood ? Those eyes, methodically divided into three perfectly equal parts—the central one occupied by the eyeball, which was represented by a circle; that inevita- ble oval the point of departure for drawing the head, which is neither oval nor round, as every one knows ; in short, all those parts of the human body, copied endlessly and always separately, and requiring in the end a new Prometheus to construct therefrom a perfect man. Such are the notions beginners receive, and which are through life a source of error and confusion. Can we wonder at the general aversion toward the study of drawing ? Madame Cavé, however, as she says in her preface, would have this study, like reading and writing, form one of the elements of education; by suppressing all false methods, and rendering instruction, not only systematic but easy, she would cause a most happy revolution; she would guide unerringly, the first steps of the artist in the long career before him; and open to persons of leisure, to mere amateurs, a source of enjoyment equally lively and varied. Painting, which imparts such deep pleasure to the connoisseur capable of appreciating the delicacies of this beautiful art, confers still higher good upon those who themselves wield the crayon or the brush, whatever may be the grade of their talent. Without aspiring to composition, one may find real delight in imitating all that nature presents. Copy- ing fine pictures is also a real amusement, which makes study a pleasure; the memory of beautiful works is thus preserved by means of labor unaccompanied by that NOTICE FROM REVUE DES DEUX MONDES, | fatigue and anxiety which the inventor experiences. The trouble and the toil are truly his. The poet Gray used to say that he desired nothing more for his portion in Paradise, than the privilege of reading at his leisure, stretched upon a sofa, his favorite romances; such is the enjoyment of copying. It has been the pastime of the greatest masters, and is an achievement as easy for talent which aims higher, as for the amateur who is not ambitious of overcoming the ut- most difficulties. Among the ancients, the knowledge of drawing was as familiar as that of letters; and how can we suppose it was not like the latter, an element of their education ? The wonders of invention and science which shine not only in the relics of their sculpture, but in their utensils, their furniture, in every article they used, attest that their acquaintance with drawing was as extended as that with writing. There was more poetry with them, in the handle of a saucepan, or in the simplest pitcher, than in the ornaments of our palaces. What critics those Greeks must have been! What tribunal for an artist can be equal to a whole nation of connoisseurs? [t has been repeated to satiety, that the habit of seeing the nude figure familiarized them with the beautiful, and made them quick to discern faults in painting and sculpture. It is, however, a great error to suppose that nudity was as common as many imagine, among the ancients; our familiarity with statuary has fostered this prejudice. The paintings which have been handed down to us from the ancients exhibit them in ordinary life, dressed in every variety of style, wearing hats, shoes, and even gloves, The Roman soldiers wore pantaloons; the Scotch in this respect come nearer simple nature. Rich people, who affected oriental man- ners and costumes were weighed down, as we see the rajahs of India, with ornamental attire, to say nothing of the necklaces, the gilded clasps and varied coiffares 8 DRAWING WITHOUT A MASTER. Even if we suppose that the public games and gymnas- tics in which they habitually indulged made them more familiar than we are in modern times, with the body in motion and entirely nude, is that a sufficient reason for attributing to them a thorough acquaintance with drawing? With us the face is always uncovered—is the sight of such a multitude of countenances productive of many connoisseurs in protraiture ? Nature spreads her land- scapes lavishly before our eyes, yet great landscape painters are none the more common. ‘“ Learn to draw,” says the author of ‘ Le Dessin sans Maitre’ “and you will have your idea at the end of your pencil as the writer has his at the tip of his pen,” learn to draw and you will carry with you in returning from tra- vel, souvenirs far more interesting than would be the journal in which you should endeavor to record every day, your emotions in each locality, before each object. That simple pencil sketch beneath your eyes, recalls with the scene there portrayed, all the associations connected with it—what you were doing before or after—what your friends around you were saying—and a thousand deli- cious impressions of sun, air, and the landscape itself which the pencil cannot translate. More than that, it enables the friend who could not follow you in your journeyings, to enter, as it were, into your emotions, and where is the description, either written or oral, which has ever conveyed a complete idea of the object de- scribed ? I appeal to all who, like myself, have lingered in delight over the romances of Walter Scott, and I select him because he excels in the art of word painting ; is there a single one of those pictures so minutely detail- ed, of which it is possible to have a perfect conception ? It would be amusing to take one of his descriptions and propose to a dozen skilful painters to reproduce upon canvas the objects described by this enchanting writer. I have not the least doubt there would be entire dis agreement in the results, NOTICE FROM REVUE DES DEUX MONDES. 9 I have heard one of the most illustrious writers of our time say that, during a very interesting tour in Germany, he made repeated efforts to transfer upon paper, with letters and words,—those usually docile instruments of his thought—the aspect, the color, and even the poetry of the scenery, with its mountains and rivers, through which he passed, and he fully confessed he was quickly out of conceit with so dry a task; better fitted, in my mind, to weaken reminiscences than to strengthen them. But how shall we learn to draw? The course of study requisite for the lowest degree in College lasts ten years ; ten years, passed under the ferule and upon the bench, scarcely give to ordinary students the general knowledge of the ancient writers. Where shall time be found for the long apprenticeship in which the great masters spent their entire lives, and that in the absence of all method? For there really is none in the study of drawing. ‘The student finds neither in the books nor even in the instructions of a master, anything analogous to rudiments and syntax. The best master, and this will be the one who shall lay aside all those useless prac- tices which mere routine makes habitual—such a master can do no more than place a model before his pupil tell- ing him to copy it as well as he can. A knowledge of nature resulting from long expe- rience, gives to the finished painter a certain skill in the process employed to reproduce what is seen ; but, instinct still remains to him a surer guide than reason. This is why the great masters never stopped to give precepts upon the art they practised so well; the in- spiration of their favorite duty was, undoubtedly, the best of all counsellors to them almost without exception ; they have disdained leaving the least written instruction or traditions of practical method. Albert Direr has treated only of proportions—mathematical measurements taken from an arbitrary base—but that is not drawing. Leonardo da Vinci, on the contrary, in his “ Treatise 1* : 10 DRAWING WITHOUT A MASTER. on Painting,” pleads routine almost exclusively; a new argument in support of our assertions. This universal genius—this great geometrician has made his book only a collection of recipes. There has been no lack of systematic minds, and here Ido not refer to common drawing-teachers, who have rebelled against the impotence of science. Some have drawn by circles, others by squares; they have improvised most extraordinary methods ; Madame Cave’s idea from its very simplicity has never occurred to one of them. “ Learning to draw ” she tells us, ‘is but training the eye correctly,”—it matters little what sort of a machine the professor may be if one’s chief study is the cultivation of the eye; reason, and even sentiment should come afterward. Drawing is not the reproduction of an object as it is —that is the sculptor’s task—but as it appears—and this is the work of the draughtsman and the painter; the latter completes by means of the gradation of tints what the other began with the proper disposition of lines; perspective, in a word, must be wot i the mind, but in the eye of the pupil. “You teach me nothing but truths,” I say to the master, with your exact proportions and your perspective by a plus 6, whereas in art all is illusion; what is long must appear short, what is curved should seem straight, and, reciprocally. What is painting in its literal signification ? The imitation of projections upon a plain surface. Before poetry can be expressed in painting, objects must be brought out from the back ground; and this achieve- ment wus the work of centuries. It began with the cold barren outline, and reached perfection in the marvellous creations of Rubens and Titian, in which the salient points as well as the simple outline, expressed each in proper degree, have concealed art by force of art. There is the ne plus ultra, there is the miracle, and this is the fruit of illusion. NOTICE FROM REVUE DES DEUX MONDES. }] Give, as Madame Cavé says, a piece of clay to a peas- ant, telling him to make a ball out of it; the result will be, with more or less success, a ball. Hand to that novice in sculpture, a sheet of paper and pencils, asking him to solve the same problem with instruments of another kind, drawing the object upon the paper and rounding it off by means of b/ack and white, you will find it difficult merely to make him understand what you require; it will be years before he can model even pass- ably by the aid of drawing. Madame Cavé’s sole aim is to cultivate the eve cor- rectly. Thanks to her method, which is simplicity itself, proportion, contour and grace, will come of themselves and appear on the paper or the canvas, By means of a tracing of the object to be represented upon transparent gauze, her pupil cannot help acquiring a knowledge of foreshortenings, that stumbling-block in all kinds of drawing. She accustoms the mind to all the absurdities and impossibilities it presents. By requiring the repeti- tion from memory of the outline, taken as it were the act, she gradually familiarizes the beginner with diffi- culties; this calls in science to the aid of growing ex- perience, and at the same time opens to the pupil the career of composition, which would be forever closed without the assistance of drawing from memory. Impelled by a similar idea many artists have resort- ed to photography as a means of correcting the errors of the eye, and I agree with them, notwithstanding the opinion of those who criticize the method of teaching by tracing through glass or gauze, that the study of the photograph if thoroughly pursued, may of itself take the place of instruction. Much experience is necessary, however, to derive any benefit therefrom. The photo- graph is superior to the tracing; it is the mirror of the object—certain details, usually overlooked in designs from nature, there assume characteristic importance, and thus introduce the artist into close acquaintance with 13 DRAWING WITHOUT A MASTER. construction; the lights and shades are there reproduced in their true character, that is, with their exact degree of firmness, or softness; a very nice distinction—without which there can be no projection. But we must not lose sight of the fact that the photograph is only a trans- lator whose office it is to initiate us beforehand in the mysteries of nature, for notwithstanding its wonderful truth in some respects, it is still only a reflection of the real, only a copy—false to a certain extent, from the very necessity of being exact. The monstrosities it presents are truly shocking, even though they may Jiterally be those of nature herself; but these imperfections which the machine reproduces with fidelity, do not offend our eyes when we look at the model without this medium; the eye unconsciously corrects the disagreeable exactness of rig- orous perspective; it performs the work of an intelli- gent artist; in painting it is mind speaking to mind, and not science to science. This remark of Madame Cavé is the old quarrel of the letter and the spirit; it is a eriti- cism upon those artists, who, instead of taking the pho- tograph as a counsellor, as a kind of dictionary, make it the picture itself. They imagitie they are following nature much more closely when, by dint of extreme care they have preserved in their painting the results at first obtained mechanically. They are bewildered by the hopeless perfection of certain effects seen upon the sur- face of metal. The more they attempt any resemblance, the more they discover their inability. Their work is, therefore, only a necessarily cold copy of a copy imper- fect in other respects. The artist, in a word, becomes a machine, drawn by another machine. Photography naturally leads me to speak of what Madame Cavé says of portraiture. There is not a more delicate art. A person who moves, who speaks, does not exhibit imperfections like a mute, motionless picture, We always examine a portrait too closely; we notice it more in one day than the original in ten years. ) i ra Py * » © 7 i. “a 4 ‘ ' ’ as ‘ie 4 : * . x . ( j 4 . ia . . . . , a 4 ‘ a eS ‘ . ! 4 f ' . < 3 poo : Sete ges baat) IN ae tf 3 4 SHES \ , ak | NERY HAMA iI Mm | NAVA) | 1} I} HH WNT HA it | | Il ) 1| Mt | HII HL I ll Hil