Studio: international art (57.1913)

Studio- Talk

about Rousseau’s relation, directly or indirectly,
to art.

There is a passage in the “Confessions ” in which
Rousseau makes reference to his taste for drawing.
He says: “ The coloured plates of our geometricians
had given me a taste for drawing; accordingly I
bought colours and began by attempting flowers
and landscapes. It was unfortunate that I had but
little talent for this art, for my inclination was
wholly disposed to it, and while surrounded with
crayons, pencils, and colours I could have passed
whole months without wishing to leave them. I
was so absorbed in this occupation that they had
to tear me away from it.” Though, as he adds,

this, like other inclinations, was too much a passion
of the hour, yet it reveals artistic sensibility.

But the observations on drawing in “ Emile ”
go far to show that Rousseau was, in addition,
endowed with the artistic temperament, that he
could no more brook in art than in life the sub-
stitution of the false for the true, of convention
for nature, of a mere copy, the “ imitation of an
imitation,” for the rendering of the spirit of the
original. Elegance of line, lightness of stroke',
perception of picturesque effect, these might or
might not come later on, but the elementary ac-
quirements of Emile in this branch of his instruc-
tion were to be the correct eye, the sure and

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