DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.25563#0012
6
only the general sensation of light, and perhaps of the direc-
tion whence it comes, but no distinct seeing. This is the
common case. In the absence of special gifts and of training,
direct or indirect, the sense of natural beauty in most persons
remains dormant, and recovers its normal action only mo-
mentarily, by accident, or when some extraordinary appeal
is made to it: so that what should be a daily refreshment,
as much a part of every man’s life as his meals or his rest, is
regarded as an exotic luxury, a superfluous garnish, not as
any substantial reality.
But Sight is the noblest of the senses. Any thing that
helps to perfect it really enlarges the world for us; for what
passes unnoticed, might, as far as we are concerned, as well
not exist. It is the cheapest and most wholesome of pleas-
ures, subject to no drawback or impediment, out of reach of
no position or condition of life; nor need the amount.of train-
ing which is of the most general importance be difficult of
attainment to any one in this community. Every boy and
girl of healthy taste likes to learn to draw; and the time and
means necessary could be found for all, were elementary in-
struction steadily directed to what is essential, and freed
from unnecessary complication with what is at best extra-
neous. The trouble is, that Drawing, with pupils and with
teachers, too often means picture-making, — the production
by any means, the speedier the better, of something that
shall be thought pretty to look at; a notion tolerably sure to
extinguish any ordinary amount of ability. The short-cut
to picture-making is copying ; that is, the substitution of
another person’s conception and rendering of expression and
effect, at the fourth or the hundredth remove, for one’s own:
and the result is necessarily a vapid mannerism in those who
are content passively to accept what is put before them, and
only the general sensation of light, and perhaps of the direc-
tion whence it comes, but no distinct seeing. This is the
common case. In the absence of special gifts and of training,
direct or indirect, the sense of natural beauty in most persons
remains dormant, and recovers its normal action only mo-
mentarily, by accident, or when some extraordinary appeal
is made to it: so that what should be a daily refreshment,
as much a part of every man’s life as his meals or his rest, is
regarded as an exotic luxury, a superfluous garnish, not as
any substantial reality.
But Sight is the noblest of the senses. Any thing that
helps to perfect it really enlarges the world for us; for what
passes unnoticed, might, as far as we are concerned, as well
not exist. It is the cheapest and most wholesome of pleas-
ures, subject to no drawback or impediment, out of reach of
no position or condition of life; nor need the amount.of train-
ing which is of the most general importance be difficult of
attainment to any one in this community. Every boy and
girl of healthy taste likes to learn to draw; and the time and
means necessary could be found for all, were elementary in-
struction steadily directed to what is essential, and freed
from unnecessary complication with what is at best extra-
neous. The trouble is, that Drawing, with pupils and with
teachers, too often means picture-making, — the production
by any means, the speedier the better, of something that
shall be thought pretty to look at; a notion tolerably sure to
extinguish any ordinary amount of ability. The short-cut
to picture-making is copying ; that is, the substitution of
another person’s conception and rendering of expression and
effect, at the fourth or the hundredth remove, for one’s own:
and the result is necessarily a vapid mannerism in those who
are content passively to accept what is put before them, and