Studio: international art (38.1906)

English Drawing

changeless in character, to become personal and
wayward. It becomes this in a fascinating degree
when we look for individuality, recognising as draw-
ing, t°°! the very quality of the touch with which
pencil is put to paper. We know that the artist’s is
an educated vision, that he has extended the boun-
daries of normal vision, that his art changes for him
the appearance of life before he can change life back
into his art; nature seldom looks as if she were
drawn in grey pencil, but in grey pencil any mood
of nature can be translated. There is a school of
drawing which is chiefly concerned with and aims
at the vivid realisation of an idea or object for the
sake of the object or the idea associated with it,
and another school which finds its pleasure simply
in actual drawing itself for the sake of drawing.
The artist of the first would be attracted towards
the rendering of some beautiful drapery or costume,
some charm of a face; the latter would be drawn
towards his subject by some happy conjunction of
lines which could be artistically rendered. The
first school is the preparatory one to the second,
which comes to the principle of pure art unrelated
to its subject; rendering a
beauty which is quite as
likely to be found in an
ugly subject as in a beauti-
ful one, using the word ugly
in its conventional sense.

Their recognition of the
independence of beauty to
subject makes for the finest
art. A fine artist cannot
escape beauty, it lurks for
him everywhere, born out
of his own vision ; every-
where accident arranges it
for him with a charmed
fatality. His dreams have
a counterpart in the actual

world that is so disappoint-
ing to many of us. It
requires a great artistic per-
ception, perhaps, this con-
sciousness that life cannot
escape beauty if it would,
that everywhere about our
feet the net of beauty is
laid. The supreme artist
may touch any part of life
and find it inspiring, whilst
others settle with bent
brows to thrash the beauty
out of a sunset or rescue

at Leighton Llouse

a reminiscence of beauty from old - fashioned
subjects.

Drawing was the primary artistic instinct in man;
as an afterthought came the embellishment of
colour. It would now almost seem as if colour
was made the first aim, and as an afterthought
sometimes comes the embellishment of drawing.
Recognising that art has always been impression-
istic, concerned with the appearance of things
and indirectly only with their actual construction,
if the artist wishes to get actual representa-
tion of an object and not only a rendering of
colour, he will invite drawing into his picture—he
will entertain it, if even as an angel unawares.
There is no drawing in tone or shadow as such,
any more than there is in colour. A square piece
of tone cut out of a shadow means nothing, whilst
a beautiful square of colour means something in
itself. Colour, unlike drawing, has an existence
unrelated to the fact which it expresses in the
painting. And, too, whilst the colour of a thing is
caused and varied by light, its form, buried in these
changing phenomena, is a secret unalterable; though

A STUDY

BY FRANK BRANGWYN

61