Ruskin, John: The elements of drawing: in three letters to beginners (London, 1857)

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THE ELEMENTS OF DRAWING. [letter ii.

stick; and the rounded bushes on the bank are made
to look more rounded because their line is continued
in one broad sweep by the black dog and the boy
climbing the wall. These figures are placed entirely
with this object, as we shall see more fully hereafter
when we come to talk about composition; but, if
you please, we will not talk about that yet awhile.
What I have been telling you about the beautiful
lines and action of foliage has nothing to do with
composition, but only with fact, and the brief and
expressive representation of fact. But there will be
no harm in your looking forward, if you like to do
so, to the account, in Letter III. of the " Law of Ra-
diation," and reading what is said there about tree
growth: indeed it would in some respects have been
better to have said it here than there, only it would
have broken up the account of the principles of com-
position somewhat awkwardly.

Now, although the lines indicative of action are
not always quite so manifest in other things as in
trees, a little attention will soon enable you to see
that there are such lines in everything. In an old