DOI chapter:
18. Henry Peacham
DOI Page / Citation link:https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.65784#0122
18. Henry Peacham
The Art of Drawing with the Pen (1606)
Of Landt-Skip
Landtskip is a Dutch ward, & it is as mach as wee shoulde say in English landschip,
or expressing of the land by Hills, woodes, Castles, seas, valleys, ruines, hanging
rocks, Citties, Townes, &c. as farre as may bee shewedwithin our Horizon. Seldome
it is drawne by it seife, but in respect &for the sake ofsome thing eis: wherfore it
falleth outamong those thing which we call ‘Parerga ’, which are additions oradiuncts
rather of omament, then otherwise necessary: as for example 1 should Draw the
citty of ‘London ’, l would beside the citty it seife shew in vacantplaces (asfar as my
table or Horizon would give me leave) the Country round about, as Shooters Hill,
and the high way winding up there between the woods, the Thames to grow lesse and
lesse, & appearing as it were a dozen mile of, heer and there scattered with shippes
and boats: Greenwitch with the tower there and such like, all which are beside my
purpose, because I was tied to nothing but the citty it seife: this kind ofall other is
mostpleasing, because itfeedeth the eie with varietie. [...]
Generali rulesfor Landtskip
You shall alwaies in your Landtskip shewe afair Horizon, and expresse the heaven
more or lesse either overcast by clouds, or with a cleare sky, shewing the sunne
rising or setting over some Hill or other. [...]
Yfyou shew the Sunne, letall the light of your trees, hils, Rocks, building &c be given
thitherward: shadow also your clouds from the sunne: and you must be very dainty
in lessening yourbodies by theirdistance & have a regard, thefartheryourLandsskip
goeth to those ‘universalia’which as ‘Aristotle’saith (in respectoftheyreparticulars
concealedfrom oursences) are ‘notiora’: as in disceming a building 10 or 12 miles
off, I cannot teil whether it bee Church, Castle, gentlemans house, or the like: So that
in drawing ofit I must expresse no particular signe as bell, portculleis &c, but shew
it as weakly and asfaintly as mine eie iudgeth ofit, because all those particulars are
taken away by the greatnes ofthe distance. [...]
Ifyou laie your Landtskip in coloures, thefartheryou goe, the more you must lighten
it with a thinne and aiery blew, to make it seeme farre off, beginning it first with a
darke greene, so driving it by degrees into a blew, which the densitie ofthe air betweene
our sighte and that place doth (onely imaginarily) effect: your eie may easily bee
deceived in remote thinges, that is when the bodies appeare to your sighte farre
bigger then indeede they are, by the corruption (as wee saie) ofthe Medium.
(Henry Peacham, The Art of Drawing with the Pen, and Limming in Water Colours, more
Exactlie then heretofore Taught and Enlarged with the True Manner of Painting upon Glasse,
120
The Art of Drawing with the Pen (1606)
Of Landt-Skip
Landtskip is a Dutch ward, & it is as mach as wee shoulde say in English landschip,
or expressing of the land by Hills, woodes, Castles, seas, valleys, ruines, hanging
rocks, Citties, Townes, &c. as farre as may bee shewedwithin our Horizon. Seldome
it is drawne by it seife, but in respect &for the sake ofsome thing eis: wherfore it
falleth outamong those thing which we call ‘Parerga ’, which are additions oradiuncts
rather of omament, then otherwise necessary: as for example 1 should Draw the
citty of ‘London ’, l would beside the citty it seife shew in vacantplaces (asfar as my
table or Horizon would give me leave) the Country round about, as Shooters Hill,
and the high way winding up there between the woods, the Thames to grow lesse and
lesse, & appearing as it were a dozen mile of, heer and there scattered with shippes
and boats: Greenwitch with the tower there and such like, all which are beside my
purpose, because I was tied to nothing but the citty it seife: this kind ofall other is
mostpleasing, because itfeedeth the eie with varietie. [...]
Generali rulesfor Landtskip
You shall alwaies in your Landtskip shewe afair Horizon, and expresse the heaven
more or lesse either overcast by clouds, or with a cleare sky, shewing the sunne
rising or setting over some Hill or other. [...]
Yfyou shew the Sunne, letall the light of your trees, hils, Rocks, building &c be given
thitherward: shadow also your clouds from the sunne: and you must be very dainty
in lessening yourbodies by theirdistance & have a regard, thefartheryourLandsskip
goeth to those ‘universalia’which as ‘Aristotle’saith (in respectoftheyreparticulars
concealedfrom oursences) are ‘notiora’: as in disceming a building 10 or 12 miles
off, I cannot teil whether it bee Church, Castle, gentlemans house, or the like: So that
in drawing ofit I must expresse no particular signe as bell, portculleis &c, but shew
it as weakly and asfaintly as mine eie iudgeth ofit, because all those particulars are
taken away by the greatnes ofthe distance. [...]
Ifyou laie your Landtskip in coloures, thefartheryou goe, the more you must lighten
it with a thinne and aiery blew, to make it seeme farre off, beginning it first with a
darke greene, so driving it by degrees into a blew, which the densitie ofthe air betweene
our sighte and that place doth (onely imaginarily) effect: your eie may easily bee
deceived in remote thinges, that is when the bodies appeare to your sighte farre
bigger then indeede they are, by the corruption (as wee saie) ofthe Medium.
(Henry Peacham, The Art of Drawing with the Pen, and Limming in Water Colours, more
Exactlie then heretofore Taught and Enlarged with the True Manner of Painting upon Glasse,
120