The Practice & Science Of Drawing phần 10 pot

Schooling has worked out the exact proportion that should exist between a series of quantities for them to be in the same proportion to their neighbours, and in which any two added toget

There is even a glass pen, consisting of a sharp-pointed cone of glass with grooves running down to the point The ink is held in these grooves, and runs down and is deposited freely as the pen is used A line of only one thickness can be drawn with it, but this can be drawn in any direction, an advantage over most other shapes.

Etching is a process of reproduction that consists in drawing with a steel point on a waxed plate of copper or zinc, and then putting

it in a bath of diluted nitric acid to bite in the lines The longer the plate remains in the bath the deeper and darker the lines

become, so that variety in thickness is got by stopping out with a varnish the light lines when they are sufficiently strong, and letting the darker ones have a longer exposure to the acid

Many wonderful and beautiful things have been done with this simple means The printing consists in inking the plate all over and wiping off until only the lines retain any ink, when the plate is put in a press and an impression taken Or some slight amount of ink may be left on the plate in certain places where a tint is wanted, and a little may be smudged out of the lines themselves to give them a softer quality In fact there are no end of tricks a clever etching printer will adopt to give quality to his print

The varieties of paper on the market at the service of the artist are innumerable, and nothing need be said here except that the texture of your paper will have a considerable influence on your drawing But try every sort of paper so as to find what suits the particular things you want to express I make a point of buying every new paper I see, and a new paper is often a stimulant to some new quality in drawing Avoid the wood-pulp papers, as they turn dark after a time Linen rag is the only safe substance for good papers, and artists now have in the O.W papers a large series that they can rely on being made of linen only

It is sometimes advisable, when you are not drawing a subject that demands a clear hard line, but where more sympathetic

qualities are wanted, to have a wad of several sheets of paper under the one you are working on, pinned on the drawing-board

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This gives you a more sympathetic surface to work upon and improves the quality of your work In redrawing a study with which you are not quite satisfied, it is a good plan to use a thin paper, pinning it over the first study so that it can be seen through One can by this means start as it were from the point where one left off Good papers of this description are now on the market I fancy they are called "bank-note" papers.

XXI CONCLUSION

Mechanical invention, mechanical knowledge, and even a mechanical theory of the universe, have so influenced the average modern mind, that it has been thought necessary in the foregoing pages to speak out strongly against the idea of a mechanical standard of accuracy in artistic drawing If there were such a standard, the photographic camera would serve our purpose well enough And, considering how largely this idea is held, one need not be surprised that some painters use the camera; indeed, the wonder is that they do not use it more, as it gives in some perfection the mechanical accuracy which is all they seem to aim at in their work There may be times when the camera can be of use to artists, but only to those who are thoroughly competent to do without it—to those who can look, as it were, through the photograph and draw from it with the same freedom and spontaneity with which they would draw from nature, thus avoiding its dead mechanical accuracy, which is a very difficult thing to do But the camera is a convenience to be avoided by the student

Now, although it has been necessary to insist strongly on the difference between phenomena mechanically recorded and the records of a living individual consciousness, I should be very sorry if anything said should lead students to assume that a loose and careless manner of study was in any way advocated The training of his eye and hand to the most painstaking accuracy of

observation and record must be the student's aim for many years The variations on mechanical accuracy in the work of a fine draughtsman need not be, and seldom are, conscious variations Mechanical accuracy is a much easier thing to accomplish than accuracy to the subtle perceptions of the artist And he who cannot draw with great precision the ordinary cold aspect of things cannot hope to catch the fleeting aspect of his finer vision

Those artists who can only draw in some weird fashion remote from nature may produce work of some interest; but they are too much at the mercy of a natural trick of hand to hope to be more than interesting curiosities in art

The object of your training in drawing should be to develop to the uttermost the observation of form and all that it signifies, and your powers of accurately portraying this on paper

Unflinching honesty must be observed in all your studies It is only then that the "you" in you will eventually find expression in

your work And it is this personal quality, this recording of the impressions of life as felt by a conscious individual that is the very essence of distinction in art

The "seeking after originality" so much advocated would be better put "seeking for sincerity." Seeking for originality usually resolves itself into running after any peculiarity in manner that the changing fashions of a restless age may throw up One of the most original men who ever lived did not trouble to invent the plots of more than three or four of his plays, but was content to take the hackneyed work of his time as the vehicle through which to pour the rich treasures of his vision of life And wrote:

"What custom wills in all things do you do it."

Individual style will come to you naturally as you become more conscious of what it is you wish to express There are two kinds of insincerity in style, the employment of a ready-made conventional manner that is not understood and that does not fit the matter; and the running after and laboriously seeking an original manner when no original matter exists Good style depends on a clear idea of what it is you wish to do; it is the shortest means to the end aimed at, the most apt manner of conveying that personal

"something" that is in all good work "The style is the man," as Flaubert says The splendour and value of your style will depend

on the splendour and value of the mental vision inspired in you, that you seek to convey; on the quality of the man, in other words And this is not a matter where direct teaching can help you, but rests between your own consciousness and those higher powers that move it

5 inches, and the 13-inch line is 1.625 the size of the 8-inch, and the 21-inch line being 1.615 times the 13-inch line, and so on With the mathematician's love of accuracy, Mr Schooling has worked out the exact proportion that should exist between a series

of quantities for them to be in the same proportion to their neighbours, and in which any two added together would produce the next There is only one proportion that will do this, and although very formidable, stated exactly, for practical purposes, it is that between 5 and a fraction over 8 Stated accurately to eleven places of decimals it is (1 + sqrt(5))/2 = 1.61803398875 (nearly)

We have evidently here a very unique proportion Mr Schooling has called this the Phi proportion, and it will be convenient to refer to it by this name

THE PHI PROPORTION

EC is 1.618033, &c., times size of AB,

AC=CDBD=DE, &c

Testing this proportion on the reproductions of pictures in this book in the order of their appearing, we find the following

remarkable results:

"Los Meninas," Velazquez, page 60 [Transcribers Note: Plate IX].—The right-hand side of light opening of door at the end of the room is exactly Phi proportion with the two sides of picture; and further, the bottom of this opening is exactly Phi proportion with the top and bottom of canvas

It will be noticed that this is a very important point in the "placing" of the composition

"Fête Champêtre," Giorgione, page 151 [Transcribers Note: Plate XXXIII].—Lower end of flute held by seated female figure exactly Phi proportion with sides of picture, and lower side of hand holding it (a point slightly above the end of flute) exactly Phi proportion with top and bottom of canvas This is also an important centre in the construction of the composition

"Bacchus and Ariadne," Titian, page 154 [Transcribers Note: Plate XXXIV].—The proportion in this picture both with top and bottom and sides of canvas comes in the shadow under chin of Bacchus; the most important point in the composition being the placing of this head

"Love and Death," by Watts, page 158 [Transcribers Note: Plate XXXV].—Point from which drapery radiates on figure of Death exactly Phi proportion with top and bottom of picture

Point where right-hand side of right leg of Love cuts dark edge of steps exactly Phi proportion with sides of picture

"Surrender of Breda," by Velazquez, page 161 [Transcribers Note: Plate XXXVI].—First spear in upright row on the right top of picture, exactly Phi proportion with sides of canvas Height of gun carried horizontally by man in middle distance above central group, exactly Phi proportion with top and bottom of picture This line gives height of group of figures on left, and is the most important horizontal line in the picture

"Birth of Venus," Botticelli, page 166 [Transcribers Note: Plate XXXVII].—Height of horizon line Phi proportion with top and bottom of picture Height of shell on which Venus stands Phi proportion with top and bottom of picture, the smaller quantity being below this time Laterally the extreme edge of dark drapery held by figure on right that blows towards Venus is Phi proportion with sides of picture

"The Rape of Europa," by Paolo Veronese, page 168 [Transcribers Note: Plate XXXVIII].—Top of head of Europa exactly Phi proportion with top and bottom of picture Right-hand side of same head slightly to left of Phi proportion with sides of picture (unless in the reproduction a part of the picture on the left has been trimmed away, as is likely, in which case it would be exactly Phi proportion)

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I have taken the first seven pictures reproduced in this book that were not selected with any idea of illustrating this point, and I think you will admit that in each some very important quantity has been placed in this proportion One could go on through all the illustrations were it not for the fear of becoming wearisome; and also, one could go on through some of the minor relationships, and point out how often this proportion turns up in compositions But enough has been said to show that the eye evidently takes some especial pleasure in it, whatever may eventually be found to be the physiological reason underlying it.

Accuracy, scientific and artistic, 36

Anatomy, study of, its importance, 36, 122

"Ansidei Madonna," Raphael's, 231

Apelles and his colours, 31

Architecture, proportion in, 230

Art, some definitions of, 18

Balance between straight lines and curves, 220

Balance between flat and gradated tones, 221

Balance between light and dark tones, 222

Balance between warm and cold colours, 223

Balance between interest and mass, 224

Balance between variety and unity, 225

292

"Bank-note" papers, 285

Bastien Lepage, 204

Bath for etching, 283

Beauty, definition of, 23

Beauty and prettiness, 135

Beauty and truth, 22

"Birth of Venus, the," Botticelli's, 163

Black chalk, 179

Black Conté, 280

Black glass, the use of a, 120, 202

Blake, example of parallelism, 145

Blake's designs, 51, 169

Blake's use of the vertical, 155

Blocking in the drawing, 90

Blocking out with square lines, 85, 120

"Blue Boy," Gainsborough's, 223

Botany, the study of, 36

Botticelli's work, 34, 51, 145, 163

Boucher's heads compared with Watteau's, 211Boundaries of forms, 93

Boundaries of masses in Nature, 195

Bread, use of, in charcoal drawing, 276

Browning, R., portraits of, 250

Brush, manipulation of the, 114

Brush strokes, 115

Brushes, various kinds of, 115

Burke on "The Sublime and the Beautiful," 135Burne-Jones, 55, 71, 125, 177

C

Camera, use of the, 286

Carbon pencils, 180

Carlyle, 64

Circle, perfect curve of, to be avoided, 138

Chalks, drawing in, 125

China and Japan, the art of, 59

Colour, contrasts of, 208

Colours for figure work, 273

Colours, a useful chart of, 191

Classic architecture, 148

Claude Monet, 62, 190

Clothes, the treatment of, 253

Composition of a picture, the, 216

Constable, 149

Conté crayon, 192, 277

"Contrasts in Harmony," 136

Conventional art, 74

Conventional life, deadness of the, 270

Corners of the panel or canvas, the, 160

Corot, his masses of foliage, 197, 214

Correggio, 206

Crow-quill pen, the, 283

Curves, how to observe the shape of, 90, 162, 209

Curves and straight lines, 220

Discord and harmony, 173

Discordant lines, 172

Draperies of Watteau, the, 211

Drapery studies in chalks, 125

East, arts of the, 57

Edges, variety of, 192

Edges, the importance of the subject of, 198

Egg and dart moulding, 138

Emotional power of the arts, 20

Emotional significance of objects, 31

Erechtheum, moulding from the, 138

Etching, 283

Exercises in mass drawing, 110

Exhibitions, 57

Expression in portrait-drawing, 242

Eye, anatomy of the, 105

Eye, the, in portrait-drawing, 242

Eyebrow, the, 105

Eyelashes, the, 108

Eyelids, the, 106

"Fête Champêtre," Giorgioni's, 151

Figure work, colours for, 273

"Finding of the Body of St Mark," 123, 236

Fixing positions of salient points, 86

Flaubert, 68

Foliage, treatment of, 196

Foreshortenings, 93

Form and colour, 18

Form, the influence of, 32

Form, the study of, 81

Frans Hals, 246

French Revolution, Carlyle's, 64

French schools, 68

Fripp, Sir Alfred, 91

Fromentin's definition of art, 23

Fulness of form indicated by shading, 102, 124

G

Gainsborough, the charm of, 209, 223

Genius and talent, 17

Geology, the study of, 36

Greek art in the Middle Ages, 130

Greek art, variety in, 133

Greek vivacity of moulding, 134

Greek and Gothic sculpture, 147

Greek type of profile, 140

Greuze, 221

H

Hair, the treatment of, 77, 102

Hair, effect of style upon the face, 180

Half tones, 98

"Hannibal crossing the Alps," Turner's, 163

Hardness indicated by shading, 102

Harsh contrasts, effect of, 171

Hatching, 118

Health, questions of, 269

Henner, the work of, 124

High lights, 94

Hogarth's definition, 136

Holbein's drawings, 99, 179, 247

Holl, Frank, 222

Horizontal, calm and repose of the, 150

Horizontal and vertical, the, 149

Human Anatomy for Art Students, 91

Human figure, the outline of the, 52

I

Impressionism, 195, 257

Impressionist vision, 61

Ingres, studies of, 73, 274

Ink used in lithography, 282

Intellect and feeling, 19

Intuitions, 17

Italian Renaissance, the, 51

294

Italian work in the fifteenth century, 34

Landscapes of Watteau, the, 211

Lang, Andrew, his definition of art, 19

Lawrence, Lord, portrait of, 250

Light and shade, principles of, 51, 95

Lighting and light effects, 202

Likeness, catching the, 240

Line and the circle, the, 137

Line drawing and mass drawing, 48, 50

Lines expressing repose or energy, 163

Line, the power of the, 50, 80

Lines, value of, in portrait-painting, 138

Lines of shading, different, 102, 123