DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.18975#0118
80
THE ELEMENTS OF DRAWING
on the free side; with Alfred Rethel's and Richter's ^ on
the severe side. But in so doing you will need to notice
the following points:
92. When either the material (as the copper or wood)
or the time of an artist does not permit him to make a
perfect drawing,—that is to say, one in which no lines shall
be prominently visible,—and he is reduced to show the
black lines, either drawn by the pen, or on the wood, it
is better to make these lines help, as far as may be, the
expression of texture and form. You will thus hnd many
textures, as of cloth or grass or flesh, and many subtle
effects of light, expressed by Leech with zigzag or crossed
or curiously broken lines; and you will see that Alfred
Rethel and Richter constantly express the direction and
rounding of surfaces by the direction of the lines which
shade them. All these various means of expression will
be useful to you, as far as you can learn them, provided
you remember that they are merely a kind of shorthand;
telling certain facts not in quite the right way, but in the
only possible way under the conditions: and provided in
any after use of such means, you never try to show your
own dexterity; but only to get as much record of the
object as you can in a given time; and that you continu-
ally make efforts to go beyond such shorthand, and draw
portions of the objects rightly.
93. And touching this question of direction of lines as
indicating that of surface, observe these few points:
If lines are to be distinctly shown, it is better that, so
far as they indicate anything by their direction, they
should explain rather than oppose the general character of
the object. Thus, in the piece of woodcut from Titian,
Fig. 10, the lines are serviceable by expressing, not only
the shade of the trunk, but partly also its roundness, and
the flow of its grain. And Albert Durer, whose work
* See, for account of these plates, the Appendix on " Works to be
studied." i
* [Below, pp. 222-224; but the Appendix is headed "Things to be Studied.' ]
THE ELEMENTS OF DRAWING
on the free side; with Alfred Rethel's and Richter's ^ on
the severe side. But in so doing you will need to notice
the following points:
92. When either the material (as the copper or wood)
or the time of an artist does not permit him to make a
perfect drawing,—that is to say, one in which no lines shall
be prominently visible,—and he is reduced to show the
black lines, either drawn by the pen, or on the wood, it
is better to make these lines help, as far as may be, the
expression of texture and form. You will thus hnd many
textures, as of cloth or grass or flesh, and many subtle
effects of light, expressed by Leech with zigzag or crossed
or curiously broken lines; and you will see that Alfred
Rethel and Richter constantly express the direction and
rounding of surfaces by the direction of the lines which
shade them. All these various means of expression will
be useful to you, as far as you can learn them, provided
you remember that they are merely a kind of shorthand;
telling certain facts not in quite the right way, but in the
only possible way under the conditions: and provided in
any after use of such means, you never try to show your
own dexterity; but only to get as much record of the
object as you can in a given time; and that you continu-
ally make efforts to go beyond such shorthand, and draw
portions of the objects rightly.
93. And touching this question of direction of lines as
indicating that of surface, observe these few points:
If lines are to be distinctly shown, it is better that, so
far as they indicate anything by their direction, they
should explain rather than oppose the general character of
the object. Thus, in the piece of woodcut from Titian,
Fig. 10, the lines are serviceable by expressing, not only
the shade of the trunk, but partly also its roundness, and
the flow of its grain. And Albert Durer, whose work
* See, for account of these plates, the Appendix on " Works to be
studied." i
* [Below, pp. 222-224; but the Appendix is headed "Things to be Studied.' ]