METHOD AND PROPORTION

1. The Study of Form.

JEAN FRANÇOIS MILLET said, when asked if an artist should study anatomy, that all knowledge is useful. The questioner had in mind, no doubt, the very frequently expressed opinion that anatomy, and all such-like knowledge, is apt to clog the wheels of the artist's progress. The fear is that the unsophisticated freedom, the "thoughtlessness" of nature will be smothered by palpable study—by book-learning especially. And there are, consequently, many of the artistic fraternity who eschew all such aids, and who point to the long roll of illiterates whose work is immortal. There can be little doubt that this mistrust of knowledge is due to the excess of science in these studies. Some degree of excess there must always be, because all possible demands have to be met, while the artist in his own work can manage to evade what he cannot overcome. Nevertheless, there is often so much science that its application becomes very difficult. The reply of Millet would be truer if it ran—all knowledge is useful if it is usable. What every artist wants is usable knowledge, and of that he will never have any doubts.

Our task in the present case is to find out usable knowledge about the figure, so that when we come to draw it we may be the less likely to fall into error.

Now the form of the figure is revealed by its anatomy, but in order that the facts obtained may be of service to the artist they must be selected from his point of view, and must arise out of his manner of working. In preparing the following pages I have kept this fact constantly before me, and have found it necessary sometimes to suppress information which clearly was usurping a position that belonged to more practical knowledge. For I find, and do not doubt that the experience of all draughtsmen is the same, that one works sometimes "anatomically," sometimes "artistically." When one works anatomically one feels that too much insistence is being placed upon facts which do not apply, and the drawing plainly is getting no nearer being a lively imitation of nature, but more and more an exercise of another kind.

We have, consequently, to base our investigations upon the methods employed by the artist. We have to consider what he sets out to do, and what assistance he wants from us in the execution of his task.

We find the artist's task is twofold. He has to first fix his conception, or idea, of his subject; and he has, in the second place, to technically express his conception.

The conception may be comparatively meagre, or rich, but it is clear that when dealing with the technical part we must assume that the conception is as full and complete as possible. We will not spend words here, then, in pointing out that a shaded drawing indicates an intention to express a fuller conception than a drawing in line would. Obviously, if one goes beyond line, and uses shading, it is because one has more to say—more form, or more delicate form, to exhibit.

Yet although the conception may be rich, and demand all the resource of the painter's craft, the means employed for the representation do not at once leap to the highest level, but proceed from simple to difficult—following that best of laws, that the simple means should be exhausted before the more complex are called forth. We commence our study, therefore, with an examination of the means of expression.

2. Drawing in Line.

IT seems very formal, very didactic, to say that the representation of solid forms in line is based upon the drawing of the cube and the cylinder, and the statement is certainly an exaggeration, but as a practical rule the assertion is true enough. The principle involved is seen in Fig. 1, and briefly is—that a cylinder seen in a foreshortened position is expressed by a curved line, an oval, at either end, and that a cubic form is represented by two lines at an angle, also at either end of it. It will be clear to any one without further explanation that modifications in the form will be followed by modifications in the degree, and kind, of curvature, or angle. However varied the form may be, its expression by line will depend upon the simple law thus indicated. From this law of foreshortening we deduce this axiom—that where two similar lines, as A and B in Fig. 2, occur one beyond the other, the inference is that the smaller (according to perspective) is the more remote and that the surface from A to B recedes. Such a shape as C, if symmetrical side for side, may be a plane receding upwards, or may be a shape seen in its true form, without foreshortening. An addition at the side, as at D, suggests that the form is receding, but only if the bottom line of the addition, d, slopes down. Of course where such is the case the form EF is truer, because the side FF would become shorter than EE. It would often be impossible to tell which end was the nearer without an edge, or side, as shown at H. This edge (H) at once indicates that the smaller end is really the nearer, and that we are looking up at the object. This edge belongs to the cube form—it is the return, or third side, and indicates the nearer end.

The lines by which the shading is produced are as important as the end-lines themselves; indeed, in line-drawing the shading-lines are often the chief exponents of the form.

The application of the principle of the cylinder is seen in Fig. 3. Each part of the body recedes in a certain direction. The near and far ends of each part come, therefore, under the principle, that is, they curve backward, or away from the spectator. The drawing here given is marred by being made to show the application of the rule. Its curves are too regularly circular, and the near and far ends of each part are too equal.

The shading which is done on the principle of the cylinder is of two kinds. It is either made up of strokes side by side, or of strokes crossing. How is the direction of the lines governed? It is difficult and dangerous to give a rule, but this much may be said—that in the single-stroke work each successive stroke seems to be the edge of a new section parallel to the last, and all at right-angles to the direction of the limb. This is illustrated in Fig. 4, where the curvature of the lines varies according to the form to be expressed. It will readily be believed that this method is a dangerous one—a slight misdirection of line, or of curvature, produces false form. But dangers such as these carry with them compensating qualities—directness, and the evidence of good workmanship when things go well. What has one to guard against? I fancy Albert Dürer would have said—making the lines too straight.

If the reader will examine carefully the lines on the engraving by Dürer reproduced (Fig. 6), more particularly in the legs, he will see that the lines are well curved. This curliness of the lines is characteristic of Dürer's work, and indeed of the work of his time, and its effect is to over-model, rather than under-model, the form. Such curly shading is seen over and over again in...