DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.19950#0039
KEEPING.
39
famous Turner, that his memory was so true that he painted
a man-of-war from recollection between breakfast and
dinner, and put in with exactness and truth all its rigging,
masts, and spars.
First learn how to produce certain effects, and you wiH
not then find it difficult to store them in your memory for
use as you require them. You are learning nothing new
in the Art of Painting—thousands have gone through this
process before you; you are only seeking to chronicle
your own experience. The scenes you commit to paper
have, and will have, a peculiar charm to you, and perhaps
to your friends if you represent them faithfully. They
may be new scenes, but they are not seen under new effects.
These have been already witnessed again and again; you
yourself have seen the same effect represented in former
pictures; but the charm lies in producing them yourself
from Nature. You recognise, in fact, the effect that you
see—you have admired it elsewhere. Aim, then, at facility
in producing these effects in general, and you will easily
apply and vary that knowledge as you require it. Aim at
acquiring a kind of grammar of effect, just as in reading
music the habitue recognises a certain set of notes from
their frequent recurrence, and which is even called by
musical people a phrase, alluding to the similar re-
currence of certain words in the composition of a sentence.
This habit will tend to rapidity of execution far more than
any hurried manner of using the brush. It is knowledge
that leads to decision, which is the secret of rapidity.
Tone is scarcely to be expected in a Sketch, which is
39
famous Turner, that his memory was so true that he painted
a man-of-war from recollection between breakfast and
dinner, and put in with exactness and truth all its rigging,
masts, and spars.
First learn how to produce certain effects, and you wiH
not then find it difficult to store them in your memory for
use as you require them. You are learning nothing new
in the Art of Painting—thousands have gone through this
process before you; you are only seeking to chronicle
your own experience. The scenes you commit to paper
have, and will have, a peculiar charm to you, and perhaps
to your friends if you represent them faithfully. They
may be new scenes, but they are not seen under new effects.
These have been already witnessed again and again; you
yourself have seen the same effect represented in former
pictures; but the charm lies in producing them yourself
from Nature. You recognise, in fact, the effect that you
see—you have admired it elsewhere. Aim, then, at facility
in producing these effects in general, and you will easily
apply and vary that knowledge as you require it. Aim at
acquiring a kind of grammar of effect, just as in reading
music the habitue recognises a certain set of notes from
their frequent recurrence, and which is even called by
musical people a phrase, alluding to the similar re-
currence of certain words in the composition of a sentence.
This habit will tend to rapidity of execution far more than
any hurried manner of using the brush. It is knowledge
that leads to decision, which is the secret of rapidity.
Tone is scarcely to be expected in a Sketch, which is