DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.1183#0036
EDUCATION OP THE EYE. 21
much time spent in these frivolous pursuits, the difficulty will be to
retreat, but it will be then too late; and there is scarce an instance of
return to scrupulous labour, after the mind has been debauched and
deceived by this fallacious mastery "." We find in many of the drawings
of Michael Angelo, RafFaelle, and even Rubens, spme portions carefully
studied and finished with the greatest correctness from the model, some
difficult passage which required labour and finish to overcome, or some
portion of great beauty, which nothing but fidelity could represent.
From the contemplation of the works of the great painters, we perceive a
comparative dryness and stiffness in their earlier productions, compared
with their later pictures, we therefore are naturally led to conclude that
we can accomplish by a shorter method what they have shown us to have
been their aim; breadth, grandeur, and freedom of execution: it will be
found, however, that though a few strokes by the hand of a master often
express in his later works as much as the most careful finishing of his
early pictures, yet that arises entirely from his having acquired, by long
practice, a mastery over his materials, and, by long contemplation, a
" Freedom of execution, or masterly handling, as it is termed, is often taught to pupils that
they may appear to be making great strides in the art. The master frequently finds his pupil too
dull, or too inattentive, to acquire a correct knowledge of his subject, therefore gives him the
power of displaying an appearance of dexterity. To an uneducated eye, a sketch of a tree, for
example, may be hit off by the pupil with sufficient resemblance to satisfy all parties ; the parents
see nothing in the original different from the copy, for that which appears to them but a scribbled
appearance, in the original indicates to the eye of an artist foliage, branches, and shadows;
thus their education seems finished before it is in reality begun, and they leave school without the
power of drawing a line. In after life, when they wish to delineate objects correctly, they find this
dexterity rather an incumbrance; the eye, previously debauched, is incapable of receiving a true
impression; while the hand, necessarily confined to the several spaces allotted to the different
forms, feels cramped and awkward, and obliges them to throw down the pencil in despair. In other
branches of science we find this dexterity checked in its infancy. What would be thought of a
child who had been taught to run over the keys of a pianoforte without any definite meaning ? or
of a master who encouraged the scribbling of a boy to imitate a free hand ? I remember an
artist who always took an opportunity of disconcerting the pretensions of such precocious geniuses
in drawing, by laying down a key or a pair of snuffers for them to delineate.
much time spent in these frivolous pursuits, the difficulty will be to
retreat, but it will be then too late; and there is scarce an instance of
return to scrupulous labour, after the mind has been debauched and
deceived by this fallacious mastery "." We find in many of the drawings
of Michael Angelo, RafFaelle, and even Rubens, spme portions carefully
studied and finished with the greatest correctness from the model, some
difficult passage which required labour and finish to overcome, or some
portion of great beauty, which nothing but fidelity could represent.
From the contemplation of the works of the great painters, we perceive a
comparative dryness and stiffness in their earlier productions, compared
with their later pictures, we therefore are naturally led to conclude that
we can accomplish by a shorter method what they have shown us to have
been their aim; breadth, grandeur, and freedom of execution: it will be
found, however, that though a few strokes by the hand of a master often
express in his later works as much as the most careful finishing of his
early pictures, yet that arises entirely from his having acquired, by long
practice, a mastery over his materials, and, by long contemplation, a
" Freedom of execution, or masterly handling, as it is termed, is often taught to pupils that
they may appear to be making great strides in the art. The master frequently finds his pupil too
dull, or too inattentive, to acquire a correct knowledge of his subject, therefore gives him the
power of displaying an appearance of dexterity. To an uneducated eye, a sketch of a tree, for
example, may be hit off by the pupil with sufficient resemblance to satisfy all parties ; the parents
see nothing in the original different from the copy, for that which appears to them but a scribbled
appearance, in the original indicates to the eye of an artist foliage, branches, and shadows;
thus their education seems finished before it is in reality begun, and they leave school without the
power of drawing a line. In after life, when they wish to delineate objects correctly, they find this
dexterity rather an incumbrance; the eye, previously debauched, is incapable of receiving a true
impression; while the hand, necessarily confined to the several spaces allotted to the different
forms, feels cramped and awkward, and obliges them to throw down the pencil in despair. In other
branches of science we find this dexterity checked in its infancy. What would be thought of a
child who had been taught to run over the keys of a pianoforte without any definite meaning ? or
of a master who encouraged the scribbling of a boy to imitate a free hand ? I remember an
artist who always took an opportunity of disconcerting the pretensions of such precocious geniuses
in drawing, by laying down a key or a pair of snuffers for them to delineate.