DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.18972#0143
LETTER I.]
ON FIKST PRACTICE.
115
thrown in by thousands without special intention,
and might just as well go one way as another, so only
that there be enough of them to produce all together
a well-shaped effect of intricacy: and you will find
that a little careless scratching about with your pen
will bring you very near the same result without an
effort; but that no scratching of pen, nor any fortu-
nate chance, nor anything but downright skill and
thought, will imitate so much as one leaf of Durer's.
Yet there is considerable intricacy and glittering
confusion in the interstices of those vine leaves of his,
as well as of the grass.
When you have got familiarised to his firm manner,
you may draw from Nature as much as you like in
the same way; and when you are tired of the intense
care required for this, you may fall into a little more
easy massing of the leaves, as in Fig. 10. (p. 102.)
This is facsimiled from an engraving after Titian,
but an engraving not quite first-rate in manner, the
leaves being a little- too formal; still, it is a good
enough model for your times of rest; and when you
cannot carry the thing even so far as this, you
I 2
ON FIKST PRACTICE.
115
thrown in by thousands without special intention,
and might just as well go one way as another, so only
that there be enough of them to produce all together
a well-shaped effect of intricacy: and you will find
that a little careless scratching about with your pen
will bring you very near the same result without an
effort; but that no scratching of pen, nor any fortu-
nate chance, nor anything but downright skill and
thought, will imitate so much as one leaf of Durer's.
Yet there is considerable intricacy and glittering
confusion in the interstices of those vine leaves of his,
as well as of the grass.
When you have got familiarised to his firm manner,
you may draw from Nature as much as you like in
the same way; and when you are tired of the intense
care required for this, you may fall into a little more
easy massing of the leaves, as in Fig. 10. (p. 102.)
This is facsimiled from an engraving after Titian,
but an engraving not quite first-rate in manner, the
leaves being a little- too formal; still, it is a good
enough model for your times of rest; and when you
cannot carry the thing even so far as this, you
I 2