DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.19950#0010
LO
introduction".
you find yourself at a loss. You copy very correctly, and
put down all you see, but when you have finished your
sketch you have before you a tame, dull transcript of what
is perhaps a bright and glowing scene. "Why ? Because
although you have put down all you have seen, you have
not seen all that is there. Numberless little touches of
variety of colour you have passed over as one tint. Many
beautiful instances of contrast, both of colour and of light
and shade, you have taken no notice of. Your distance is
perhaps too green, or too brown, perhaps too much made
out; the middle distance pale and unmeaning; the fore-
ground wanting in power. There is a sameness throughout
A our a\ ork—a dullness and poorness you cannot account for.
How is this ? From want of knowledge and from want of per-
ception. In copying pictures you have been able to produce
the effect of the original—that is, you have given colour for
colour and tint for tint as you found them there; and you
wonder why you cannot do this out of doors, and give the
colours of Nature in the same manner. But when you
copied those pictures you did not know what made them
beautiful. You did not understand the construction of the
picture. They were painted by one who knew why he used
those particular colours in conjunction—why he placed one
colour in opposition to another; why that dark mass was
placed there, and that light spray relieved it—unobtrusively
perhaps, because cleverly, and for that very reason more
difficult to analyse.
You must go to Nature again and again, and search for
beauty. She furnishes plenty of instances if you will but
introduction".
you find yourself at a loss. You copy very correctly, and
put down all you see, but when you have finished your
sketch you have before you a tame, dull transcript of what
is perhaps a bright and glowing scene. "Why ? Because
although you have put down all you have seen, you have
not seen all that is there. Numberless little touches of
variety of colour you have passed over as one tint. Many
beautiful instances of contrast, both of colour and of light
and shade, you have taken no notice of. Your distance is
perhaps too green, or too brown, perhaps too much made
out; the middle distance pale and unmeaning; the fore-
ground wanting in power. There is a sameness throughout
A our a\ ork—a dullness and poorness you cannot account for.
How is this ? From want of knowledge and from want of per-
ception. In copying pictures you have been able to produce
the effect of the original—that is, you have given colour for
colour and tint for tint as you found them there; and you
wonder why you cannot do this out of doors, and give the
colours of Nature in the same manner. But when you
copied those pictures you did not know what made them
beautiful. You did not understand the construction of the
picture. They were painted by one who knew why he used
those particular colours in conjunction—why he placed one
colour in opposition to another; why that dark mass was
placed there, and that light spray relieved it—unobtrusively
perhaps, because cleverly, and for that very reason more
difficult to analyse.
You must go to Nature again and again, and search for
beauty. She furnishes plenty of instances if you will but