DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.19388#0010
INTRODUCTION.
It is usual for the compilers of Drawing-books, not only to complain of the
ignorance and inaccuracy of all that have preceded them, but to raise new
expectation without any sense of the danger of new disappointment. The
author of the following sheets, however, intends not,_ by depreciating the
labours of others, to procure that credit for his own, which the same arts of
supplantation may as effectually destroy: from a sincere love for the art itself,
from a desire of communicating the means of improvement to others, and from
a well-established hope, that the science of painting (for in historical compositions
it is surely more than an art) is reviving in all its splendour in this island,
he has been induced to recommend the incomparable examples in this book;
and he is persuaded they will contribute to the proficiency of every one, whose
happy genius urges him to excel in a study, that not only leads to the know-
ledge of true beauty, but directs the application of it to innumerable purposes
of entertainment and use.
It was indeed, at first, determined to give only the outlines and finished
heads, with an explanation of the characters, from a consideration that such
a collection was peculiarly adapted to the use of painters, or at least of those
who had already attained to a competent degree of excellence in the art.
But, as no bounds can be set to the genius of youth, so no limits ought to
be put to the means of improvement; and, in order to render this work useful
to the learner as well as the proficient, it was afterwards thought necessary
to prefix some examples even of the rudiments of design, as well as of those
of the most elegant of the human form, and to give with them the best in-
structions that could be collected: and as it is undoubtedly true, that the
Grecian and Italian schools are the only treasuries of design, from which
could examples be taken with so much propriety as from the Grecian statues
and the works of Raphael? Accordingly, all the examples have been taken
from them, except the geometrical figures and the bones and muscles of the
It is usual for the compilers of Drawing-books, not only to complain of the
ignorance and inaccuracy of all that have preceded them, but to raise new
expectation without any sense of the danger of new disappointment. The
author of the following sheets, however, intends not,_ by depreciating the
labours of others, to procure that credit for his own, which the same arts of
supplantation may as effectually destroy: from a sincere love for the art itself,
from a desire of communicating the means of improvement to others, and from
a well-established hope, that the science of painting (for in historical compositions
it is surely more than an art) is reviving in all its splendour in this island,
he has been induced to recommend the incomparable examples in this book;
and he is persuaded they will contribute to the proficiency of every one, whose
happy genius urges him to excel in a study, that not only leads to the know-
ledge of true beauty, but directs the application of it to innumerable purposes
of entertainment and use.
It was indeed, at first, determined to give only the outlines and finished
heads, with an explanation of the characters, from a consideration that such
a collection was peculiarly adapted to the use of painters, or at least of those
who had already attained to a competent degree of excellence in the art.
But, as no bounds can be set to the genius of youth, so no limits ought to
be put to the means of improvement; and, in order to render this work useful
to the learner as well as the proficient, it was afterwards thought necessary
to prefix some examples even of the rudiments of design, as well as of those
of the most elegant of the human form, and to give with them the best in-
structions that could be collected: and as it is undoubtedly true, that the
Grecian and Italian schools are the only treasuries of design, from which
could examples be taken with so much propriety as from the Grecian statues
and the works of Raphael? Accordingly, all the examples have been taken
from them, except the geometrical figures and the bones and muscles of the