The Practice and Science of Drawing

rom the earliest times; that this instinct is due to the fact that the first mental idea of an object is the sense of its form

a very great influence on modern art. This form of drawing is based on the consideration of the flat appearances on the retina, with

s of nature were the sole object of art (an idea to be met with among students) the problem of painti

reducing of a complicated appearance to a few simple masses is the first necessity of the painter. But

at

NTURY CHINESE WORK BY L

masters had developed the

us. Whereas I do not think it would be an expression the Eastern mind would use. With them the spiritual essence of the thing seen appears to be the more real, judging from their art. And who is to say they may not be right? This is certainly the impression one gets from their beautiful painting, with its lightness of texture and avoidance of solidity. It is founded on nature regarded as a flat visi

masses to suspect the necessity of painting to a widely diffused focus, they had got very near considering appearances as a visual whole. But it was not until Velazquez t

de more or less out of focus, those on the extreme right being quite blurred. The reproduction here given unfortunately does not show these subtleties, and flattens the general appearance very much. The focus is nowhere sharp, as this would

and the objects are within. Placed as it is in the Prado, with the light coming from the right as in the picture, t

and makes but a cold impression on those not interested in the technique of painting. With the cutting away of the primitive support of fine

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. BY VELAZQ

painted entirely from the visu

o An

sionist Po

m the new point of view, form consists of the shape and qualities of masses of colour on the retina; and what objects happen to be the outside cause of these shapes matters little to the impressionist. Nothing is ugly when seen in a beautiful aspect of light, and aspect is with them everything. This consideration of the visual appearance in the first place necessitated an increased dependence on the model. As he does not now draw from his mental perceptions the artist has nothing to select the material of his picture from until it has existed as a seen thing before him: until he has a visual impression of it in his mind. With the older point of view (the representation by a pictorial description, as it were, based on the mental idea of an object), the model was not so necessary. In the case of the Impressionist the mental perception is arrived at from the visual impression, and in the older point

int of view and used only to seeing the " feel of things," as it were. The first results were naturally rather crude. But a great amount of new visual facts were brought to light, particularly those connected with the painting of sunlight and half light effects. Indeed the whole painting of strong light has been permanently affected by the work of this group of painters. Emancipated from the objective world, they no longer dissected the object to see what was inside it, but studied rather the anatomy of the light refracted from it to their eyes. Finding this to be composed of all the colours of the rainbo

movement as it affected form, and must a

as indeed little, although, had the impression been realised to a sufficiently definite focus, the sense of touch and solidity would probably have been satisfied. But the particular field of this new point of view,

oint of view, it is beginning to be realised that it has failed somehow to satisfy.

ble meaning; the eye sees in it what

in Carlyle's French

with the mind. The ultimate effect of any picture, be it impressionist, post, ant

re is to be a true representation of this, the significant facts must be sorted out from the mass of irrelevant matter and presented in a lively manner. The impressionist's habit of painting before nature entirely is not calculated to do this. Going time after time to the same place, even if similar weather conditions are waited for, although well enough for studies, is against the production o

ade to the power of expressing light, yet by destroying the definitions and enveloping everything in a scintillating atm

r for art is to be gleaned. And everywhere painters are selecting from t

ccupied by objects in the field of vision, observing the flat appearance of things as they are on the retina. This is, of course, the only accurate way in which to observe visual shapes. The difference between this and the older point of view is its insistence on the observat

case the lines are the contours of felt forms and in the other the boundaries of visual masses. In the Michael Angelo the silhouette is only the result of the overlapping of rich forms considered in the round. Every muscle and bone has been mentally realised as

d. Instead of the outlines being the result of forms felt as concrete things, the silhouette is everywhere considered firs

and the hand holding the tired ankle-how individual it all is. What a different tale this little figure tells from that gi

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TO MICHAEL ANGELO

sulting from the overlapping forms. The visual appearance is arrived a

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DEGAS (LU

tte the spaces occupied by the different masses in the field of vision; how the ap

to

with this! Instead of an individual he gives us the expression of a glo

ges 192 et seq., variety of edges). It is this feeling for rhythm and the sympathetic searching for and emphasis of those points expressive of character, that keep this drawing from being the mechanica