Studio: international art (34.1905)

A Spanish Painter

" DON QUIXOTE "

ness as in Don Quixote and the Windmill. " I
have tried," says the artist, " to make my rendering
as windy and awhirl as possible, composing it, with
this endeavour, of circular lines and practically
nothing else." In this he must be said to have
succeeded to the top of his desire, establishing
once more a truth too frequently neglected by even
the most ambitious draughtsmen. A circular line
—a rolling cloud, a wave, a wheel—is Nature's
synonym for motion. It is the womb or bosom
of the sail that urges the vessel onward; the
flattened sail that stops to seek a mirror in the
listless sea.

But, as I say, this elemental truth is far too often
thrust aside. Speaking of Turner's Bridge of the
Moselle, Ruskin made bold to state as follows :*
"Not only does it slope away unequally at its sides,
but it slopes in a gradual though very subtle curve.
And if you substitute a straight line for this curve
(drawing one with a rule from the base of the tower
on each side to the ends of the bridge, in Fig. 34,
and effacing the curve), you will instantly see that
the design has suffered grievously." This last
assertion is bad enough; but worse remains

* "The Elements of Drawing."

BY J. M. CARBONEKO

behind. " Well, as curves are more beautiful than
straight lines, it is necessary to a good composition
that its continuities of object, mass, or colour
should be, if possible, in curves rather than straight
lines or angular ones."

This thesis is ridiculous in itself, and also, by
the insertion of the pusillanimous " if possible,"
ridiculously worded. It illustrates, as well as
anything in Ruskin's writings, his aggravating dog-
matism in opposition to inevitable natural laws.
The straight line and the curve, each in its own
appointed place, is paramount in beauty. Look at
Millet's Sower—the wheel-like revolution of the
legs and body, the right arm whirling round upon
its ageless task. The furrows, too, are slightly
curved upon the swelling matrix of the soil.
Perfect beauty, perfect unrepose. Look at the
Angelus — straight lines innumerable. Perfect
inaction, perfect beauty. Even the furrows are
at rest.

The studies of rolling cloud which The Studio
published recently, or else this present instance of
Moreno Carbonero's, or indeed a thousand ex-
amples of conscientious painting, such as occur to us
at any moment are amply powerful to demonstrate

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