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

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THE ELEMENTS OP DHAWING. [letter hi.

rally produce white in one place, and brown in
another. Generally speaking, however, breadth will
result in sufficient degree from fidelity of study :
Nature is always broad ; and if you paint her colours
in true relations, you will paint them in majestic
masses. If you find your work look broken and
scattered, it is, in all probability, not only ill com-
posed, but untrue.

The opposite quality to breadth, that of division
or scattering of light and colour, has a certain
contrasting charm, and is occasionally introduced
with exquisite effect by good composers.1 Still, it
is never the mere scattering, but the order dis-
cernible through this scattering, which is the real

source of pleasure; not the mere multitude, but the

•

constellation of multitude. The broken lights in
the work of a good painter wander like flocks upon
the hills, not unshepherded; speaking of life and

1 One of the most wonderful compositions of Tintoret in
Venice, is little more than a field of subdued crimson, spotted
with flakes of scattered gold. The upper clouds in the most
beautiful skies owe great part of their power to infinitude
of division; order being marked through this division.