The Elements of Drawing Part 4

[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 circ.u.mstances, 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 t.i.tian, 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 princ.i.p.al examples of Turner's later water-color drawing, perhaps the most neglected was that of fis.h.i.+ng-boats and fish at sunset. It is one of his most wonderful works, though unfinished. If you examine the larger white fis.h.i.+ng-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 t.i.tian'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 aerial 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 _a f g l._ Knaresborough.* Tees.*

_m r._ High Force of Tees.* _m q._ Ulleswater.

_a f q._ Trematon. _f m._ Valle Crucis.

_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. _a c g._ Joppa.

_m._ Rock of Moses at _c l p q._ Solomon's Pools.*

Sinai. _a l._ Santa Saba.

_a l m._ Jericho. _a l._ Pool of Bethesda.

_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._ Chateau of Amboise, with _a p._ Rouen Cathedral.

large bridge on right. _f p._ Pont de l'Arche.

_l p r._ Rouen, looking down the _f l p._ View on the Seine, river, poplars on right.* with avenue.

_a l p._ Rouen, with cathedral _a c p._ Bridge of Meulan.

and rainbow, avenue _c g p r._ Caudebec.*

on left.

[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 ma.s.ses, like stones, or complicated arrangements of form, like those of leaves; provided only these ma.s.ses or complexities will stay quiet for you to copy, and do not extend into quant.i.ty 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 cl.u.s.ters of leaves which we could reckon point by point, embarra.s.sing 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 princ.i.p.al or fugitive; and you must give more and more effort daily to the observance of characteristic points, and the attainment of concise methods.