DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.18975#0387
PREFACE
348
true contours are voluntarily and habitually departed from,
the essential qualities of every beautiful form are neces-
sarily lost, and the student remains for ever unaware of their
existence.
4. The second error in the existing system is the en-
forcement of the execution of hnished drawings in light
and shade, before the student has acquired delicacy of sight
enough to observe their gradations. It requires the most
careful and patient teaching to develop this faculty;
and it can only be developed at all by ZYxpzW and
practice from natural objects, during which the attention
of the student must be directed only to the facts of the
shadows themselves, and not at all arrested on methods
of producing them. He may even be allowed to produce
them as he likes, or as he can; the thing required of him
being only that the shade be of the right darkness, of the
right shape, and in the right relation to other shades round
it; and not at all that it shall be prettily cross-hatched, or
deceptively transparent. But at present, the only virtues
required in shadow are that it shall be pretty in texture
and picturesquely effective ; and it is not thought of the
smallest consequence that it should be in the right place,
or of the right depth. And the consequence is that the
student remains, when he becomes a painter, a mere manu-
facturer of conventional shadows of agreeable texture, and
to the end of his life incapable of perceiving the conditions
of the simplest natural passage of chiaroscuro.
5. The third error in the existing code, and, in ulti-
mately destructive power, the worst, is the construction
of entirely symmetrical or balanced forms for exercises in
ornamental design; whereas every beautiful form in this
world, is varied in the minutiae of the balanced sides. Place
the most beautiful of human forms in exact symmetry of
position, and curl the hair into equal curls on both sides,
and it will become ridiculous, or monstrous. Nor can any
law of beauty be nobly observed without occasional wilful-
ness of violation.
348
true contours are voluntarily and habitually departed from,
the essential qualities of every beautiful form are neces-
sarily lost, and the student remains for ever unaware of their
existence.
4. The second error in the existing system is the en-
forcement of the execution of hnished drawings in light
and shade, before the student has acquired delicacy of sight
enough to observe their gradations. It requires the most
careful and patient teaching to develop this faculty;
and it can only be developed at all by ZYxpzW and
practice from natural objects, during which the attention
of the student must be directed only to the facts of the
shadows themselves, and not at all arrested on methods
of producing them. He may even be allowed to produce
them as he likes, or as he can; the thing required of him
being only that the shade be of the right darkness, of the
right shape, and in the right relation to other shades round
it; and not at all that it shall be prettily cross-hatched, or
deceptively transparent. But at present, the only virtues
required in shadow are that it shall be pretty in texture
and picturesquely effective ; and it is not thought of the
smallest consequence that it should be in the right place,
or of the right depth. And the consequence is that the
student remains, when he becomes a painter, a mere manu-
facturer of conventional shadows of agreeable texture, and
to the end of his life incapable of perceiving the conditions
of the simplest natural passage of chiaroscuro.
5. The third error in the existing code, and, in ulti-
mately destructive power, the worst, is the construction
of entirely symmetrical or balanced forms for exercises in
ornamental design; whereas every beautiful form in this
world, is varied in the minutiae of the balanced sides. Place
the most beautiful of human forms in exact symmetry of
position, and curl the hair into equal curls on both sides,
and it will become ridiculous, or monstrous. Nor can any
law of beauty be nobly observed without occasional wilful-
ness of violation.