The Elements of Drawing by John Ruskin (smart books to read .txt) 📕

line is drawn, the lighter it is at the ends, and therefore the more easily joined with other lines, and concealed by them; the object in perfect shading being to conceal the lines as much as possible.

And observe, in this exercise, the object is more to get firmness of hand than accuracy of eye for outline; for there are no outlines in Nature, and the ordinary student is sure to draw them falsely if he draws them at all. Do not, therefore, be discouraged if you find mistakes continue to occur in your outlines; be content at present if you find your hand gaining command over the curves.

[4] If you can get any pieces of dead white porcelain, not glazed, they will be useful models.

[5] Artists who glance at this book may be surprised at this permission. My chief reason is, that I think it more necessary that the pupil's eye should be trained to accurate perception of the relations of curve and right lines, by having the latter absolutely true, than that he should practice drawing straight lines. But also, I believe, though I am not quite sure of this, that he never ought to be able to draw a straight line. I do not believe a perfectly trained hand ever can draw a line without some curvature in it, or some variety of direction. Prout could draw a straight line, but I do not believe Raphael could, nor Tintoret. A great draughtsman can, as far as I have observed, draw every line but a straight one.

[6] Or, if you feel able to do so, scratch them in with confused quick touches, indicating the general shape of the cloud or mist of twigs round the main branches; but do not take much trouble about them.

[7] It is more difficult, at first, to get, in color, a narrow gradation than an extended one; but the ultimate difficulty is, as with the pen, to make the gradation go far.

[8] Of course, all the columns of color are to be of equal length.

[9] The degree of darkness you can reach with the given color is always indicated by the color of the solid cake in the box.

[10] The figure a, Fig. 5, is very dark, but this is to give an example of all kinds of depths of tint, without repeated figures.

[11] Nearly neutral in ordinary circumstances, but yet with quite different tones in its neutrality, according to the colors of the various reflected rays that compose it.

[12] If we had any business with the reasons of this, I might perhaps be able to show you some metaphysical ones for the enjoyment, by truly artistical minds, of the changes wrought by light and shade and perspective in patterned surfaces; but this is at present not to the point; and all that you need to know is that the drawing of such things is good exercise, and moreover a kind of exercise which Titian, Veronese, Tintoret, Giorgione, and Turner, all enjoyed, and strove to excel in.

[13] The use of acquiring this habit of execution is that you may be able, when you begin to color, to let one hue be seen in minute portions, gleaming between the touches of another.

[14] William Hunt, of the Old Water-color Society.

[15] At Marlborough House, [in 1857] among the four principal examples of Turner's later water-color drawing, perhaps the most neglected was that of fishing-boats and fish at sunset. It is one of his most wonderful works, though unfinished. If you examine the larger white fishing-boat sail, you will find it has a little spark of pure white in its right-hand upper corner, about as large as a minute pin's head, and that all the surface of the sail is gradated to that focus. Try to copy this sail once or twice, and you will begin to understand Turner's work. Similarly, the wing of the Cupid in Correggio's large picture in the National Gallery is focused to two little grains of white at the top of it. The points of light on the white flower in the wreath round the head of the dancing child-faun, in Titian's Bacchus and Ariadne, exemplify the same thing.

[16] I shall not henceforward number the exercises recommended; as they are distinguished only by increasing difficulty of subject, not by difference of method.

[17] If you understand the principle of the stereoscope you will know why; if not, it does not matter; trust me for the truth of the statement, as I cannot explain the principle without diagrams and much loss of time. See, however, Note 1, in Appendix I.

[18] The plates marked with a star are peculiarly desirable. See note at the end of Appendix I. The letters mean as follows:—

a stands for architecture, including distant grouping of towns, cottages, etc. c clouds, including mist and aërial effects. f foliage. g ground, including low hills, when not rocky. l effects of light. m mountains, or bold rocky ground. p power of general arrangement and effect. q quiet water. r running or rough water; or rivers, even if calm, when their line of flow is beautifully marked. From the England Series. a c f r. Arundel. a f p. Lancaster. a f l. Ashby de la Zouche. c l m r. Lancaster Sands.* a l q r. Barnard Castle.* a g f. Launceston.* f m r. Bolton Abbey. c f l r. Leicester Abbey. f g r. Buckfastleigh.* f r. Ludlow. a l p. Caernarvon. a f l. Margate. c l q. Castle Upnor. a l q. Orford. a f l. Colchester. c p. Plymouth. l q. Cowes. f. Powis Castle. c f p. Dartmouth Cove.* l m q. Prudhoe Castle. c l q. Flint Castle.* f l m r. Chain Bridge over Tees.* a f g l. Knaresborough.* m q. Ulleswater. m r. High Force of Tees.* f m. Valle Crucis. a f q. Trematon.     From the Keepsake. m p q. Arona. p. St. Germain en Laye. l m. Drachenfels.* l p q. Florence. f l. Marly.* l m. Ballyburgh Ness.* From the Bible Series. f m. Mount Lebanon. c l p q. Solomon's Pools.* m. Rock of Moses at Sinai. a l. Santa Saba. a l m. Jericho. a l. Pool of Bethesda. a c g. Joppa.     From Scott's Works. p r. Melrose.* c m. Glencoe. f r. Dryburgh.* c m. Loch Coriskin.* a l. Caerlaverock. From the Rivers of France. a q. Château of Amboise, with large bridge on right. f p. Pont de l'Arche. l p r. Rouen, looking down the river, poplars on right.* f l p. View on the Seine, with avenue. a l p. Rouen, with cathedral and rainbow, avenue on left. a c p. Bridge of Meulan. a p. Rouen Cathedral. c g p r. Caudebec.*

[19] As well;—not as minutely: the diamond cuts finer lines on the steel than you can draw on paper with your pen; but you must be able to get tones as even, and touches as firm.

[20] See, for account of these plates, the Appendix on "Works to be studied."

[21] See Note 2 in Appendix I.

[22] This sketch is not of a tree standing on its head, though it looks like it. You will find it explained presently.

LETTER II. SKETCHING FROM NATURE.

102. My dear Reader,—The work we have already gone through together has, I hope, enabled you to draw with fair success either rounded and simple masses, like stones, or complicated arrangements of form, like those of leaves; provided only these masses or complexities will stay quiet for you to copy, and do not extend into quantity so great as to baffle your patience. But if we are now to go out to the fields, and to draw anything like a complete landscape, neither of these conditions will any more be observed for us. The clouds will not wait while we copy their heaps or clefts; the shadows will escape from us as we try to shape them, each, in its stealthy minute march, still leaving light where its tremulous edge had rested the moment before, and involving in eclipse objects that had seemed safe from its influence; and instead of the small clusters of leaves which we could reckon point by point, embarrassing enough even though numerable, we have now leaves as little to be counted as the sands of the sea, and restless, perhaps, as its foam.

103. In all that we have to do now, therefore, direct imitation becomes more or less impossible. It is always to be aimed at so far as it is possible; and when you have time and opportunity, some portions of a landscape may, as you gain greater skill, be rendered with an approximation almost to mirrored portraiture. Still, whatever skill you may reach, there will always be need of judgment to choose, and of speed to seize, certain things that are principal or fugitive; and you must give more and more effort daily to the observance of characteristic points, and the attainment of concise methods.

104. I have directed your attention early to foliage for two reasons. First, that it is always accessible as a study; and secondly, that its modes of growth present simple examples of the importance of leading or governing lines. It is by seizing these leading lines, when we cannot seize all, that likeness and expression are given to a portrait, and grace and a kind of vital truth to the rendering of every natural form. I call it vital truth, because these chief lines are always expressive of the past history and present action of the thing. They show in a mountain, first, how it was built or heaped up; and secondly, how it is now being worn away, and from what quarter the wildest storms strike it. In a tree, they show what kind of fortune it has had to endure from its childhood: how troublesome trees have come in its way, and pushed it aside, and tried to strangle or starve it; where and when kind trees have sheltered it, and grown up lovingly together with it, bending as it bent; what winds torment it most; what boughs of it behave best, and bear most fruit; and so on. In a wave or cloud, these leading lines show the run of the tide and of the wind, and the sort of change which the water or vapor is at any moment enduring in its form, as it meets shore, or counter-wave, or melting sunshine. Now remember, nothing distinguishes great men from inferior men more than their always, whether in life or in art, knowing the way things are going. Your dunce thinks they are standing still, and draws them all fixed; your wise man sees the change or changing in them, and draws them so,—the animal in its motion, the tree in its growth, the cloud in its course, the mountain in its wearing away. Try always, whenever you look at a