Etching is a process of reproduction that consists in drawing with a steel point on a waxed plate of copper or zinc, and then putting it in a bath of diluted nitric acid to bite in the lines. The longer the plate remains in the bath the deeper and darker the lines become, so that variety in thickness is got by stopping out with a varnish the light lines when they are sufficiently strong, and letting the darker ones have a longer exposure to the acid.
Many wonderful and beautiful things have been done with this simple means. The printing consists in inking the plate all over and wiping off until only the lines retain any ink, when the plate is put in a press and an impression taken. Or some slight amount of ink may be left on the plate in certain places where a tint is wanted, and a little may be smudged out of the lines themselves to give them a softer quality. In fact there are no end of tricks a clever etching printer will adopt to give quality to his print.
The varieties of paper on the market at the service of the artist are innumerable, and nothing need be said here except that the texture of your paper will have a considerable influence on your drawing. But try every sort of paper so as to find what suits the particular things you want to express. I make a point of buying every new paper I see, and a new paper is often a stimulant to some new quality in drawing. Avoid the wood-pulp papers, as they turn dark after a time. Linen rag is the only safe substance for good papers, and artists now have in the O.W. papers a large series that they can rely on being made of linen only.
It is sometimes advisable, when you are not drawing a subject that demands a clear hard line, but where more sympathetic qualities are wanted, to have a wad of several sheets of paper under the one you are working on, pinned on the drawing-board. This gives you a more sympathetic surface to work upon and improves the quality of your work. In redrawing a study with which you are not quite satisfied, it is a good plan to use a thin paper, pinning it over the first study so that it can be seen through. One can by this means start as it were from the point where one left off. Good papers of this description are now on the market. I fancy they are called "bank-note" papers.
XXI
CONCLUSION
Mechanical invention, mechanical knowledge, and even a mechanical theory of the universe, have so influenced the average modern mind, that it has been thought necessary in the foregoing pages to speak out strongly against the idea of a mechanical standard of accuracy in artistic drawing. If there were such a standard, the photographic camera would serve our purpose well enough. And, considering how largely this idea is held, one need not be surprised that some painters use the camera; indeed, the wonder is that they do not use it more, as it gives in some perfection the mechanical accuracy which is all they seem to aim at in their work. There may be times when the camera can be of use to artists, but only to those who are thoroughly competent to do without it—to those who can look, as it were, through the photograph and draw from it with the same freedom and spontaneity with which they would draw from nature, thus avoiding its dead mechanical accuracy, which is a very difficult thing to do. But the camera is a convenience to be avoided by the student.
Now, although it has been necessary to insist strongly on the difference between phenomena mechanically recorded and the records of a living individual consciousness, I should be very sorry if anything said should lead students to assume that a loose and careless manner of study was in any way advocated. The training of his eye and hand to the most painstaking accuracy of observation and record must be the student's aim for many years. The variations on mechanical accuracy in the work of a fine draughtsman need not be, and seldom are, conscious variations. Mechanical accuracy is a much easier thing to accomplish than accuracy to the subtle perceptions of the artist. And he who cannot draw with great precision the ordinary cold aspect of things cannot hope to catch the fleeting aspect of his finer vision.
Those artists who can only draw in some weird fashion remote from nature may produce work of some interest; but they are too much at the mercy of a natural trick of hand to hope to be more than interesting curiosities in art.
The object of your training in drawing should be to develop to the uttermost the observation of form and all that it signifies, and your powers of accurately portraying this on paper.
Unflinching honesty must be observed in all your studies. It is only then that the "you" in you will eventually find expression in your work. And it is this personal quality, this recording of the impressions of life as felt by a conscious individual that is the very essence of distinction in art.
The "seeking after originality" so much advocated would be better put "seeking for sincerity." Seeking for originality usually resolves itself into running after any peculiarity in manner that the changing fashions of a restless age may throw up. One of the most original men who ever lived did not trouble to invent the plots of more than three or four of his plays, but was content to take the hackneyed work of his time as the vehicle through which to pour the rich treasures of his vision of life. And wrote:
"What custom wills in all things do you do it."
Individual style will come to you naturally as you become more conscious of what it is you wish to express. There are two kinds of insincerity in style, the employment of a ready-made conventional manner that is not understood and that does not fit the matter; and the running after and laboriously seeking an original manner when no original matter exists. Good style depends on a clear idea of what it is you wish to do; it is the shortest means to the end aimed at, the most apt manner of conveying that personal "something" that is in all good work. "The style is the man," as Flaubert says. The splendour and value of your style will depend on the splendour and value of the mental vision inspired in you, that you seek to convey; on the quality of the man, in other words. And this is not a matter where direct teaching can help you, but rests between your own consciousness and those higher powers that move it.
APPENDIX
If you add a line of 5 inches to one of 8 inches you produce one 13 inches long, and if you proceed by always adding the last two you arrive at a series of lengths, 5, 8, 13, 21, 34, 55 inches, &c. Mr. William Schooling tells me that any two of these lines adjoining one another are practically in the same proportion to each other; that is to say, one 8 inches is 1.600 times the size of one 5 inches, and the 13-inch line is 1.625 the size of the 8-inch, and the 21-inch line being 1.615 times the 13-inch line, and so on. With the mathematician's love of accuracy, Mr. Schooling has worked out the exact proportion that should exist between a series of quantities for them to be in the same proportion to their neighbours, and in which any two added together would produce the next. There is only one proportion that will do this, and although very formidable, stated exactly, for practical purposes, it is that between 5 and a fraction over 8. Stated accurately to eleven places of decimals it is (1 + sqrt(5))/2 = 1.61803398875 (nearly).
We have evidently here a very unique proportion. Mr. Schooling has called this the Phi proportion, and it will be convenient to refer to it by this name.
Testing this proportion on the reproductions of pictures in this book in the order of their appearing, we find the following remarkable results:
"Las Meninas," Velazquez, page 60 [Transcribers Note: Plate IX].—The right-hand side of light opening of door at the end of the room is exactly Phi proportion with the two sides of picture; and further, the bottom of this opening is exactly Phi proportion with the top and bottom of canvas.
It will be noticed that this is a very important point in the "placing" of the composition.
"Fête Champêtre," Giorgione, page 151 [Transcribers Note: Plate XXXIII].—Lower end of flute held by seated female figure exactly Phi proportion with sides of picture, and lower side of hand holding it (a point slightly above the end of flute) exactly Phi proportion with top and bottom of canvas. This is also an important centre in the construction of the composition.
"Bacchus and Ariadne," Titian, page 154 [Transcribers Note: Plate XXXIV].—The proportion in this picture both with top and bottom and sides of canvas comes in the shadow under chin of Bacchus; the most important point in the composition being the placing of this head.
"Love and Death," by Watts, page 158 [Transcribers Note: Plate XXXV].—Point from which drapery radiates on figure of Death exactly Phi proportion with top and bottom of picture.
Point where right-hand side of right leg of Love cuts dark edge of steps exactly Phi proportion with sides of picture.
"Surrender of Breda," by Velazquez, page 161 [Transcribers Note: Plate XXXVI].—First spear in upright row on the right top of picture, exactly Phi proportion with sides of canvas. Height of gun carried horizontally by man in middle distance above central group, exactly Phi proportion with top and bottom of picture. This line gives height of group of figures on left, and is the most important horizontal line in the picture.
"Birth of Venus," Botticelli, page 166 [Transcribers Note: Plate XXXVII].—Height of horizon line Phi proportion with top and bottom of picture. Height of shell on which Venus stands Phi proportion with top and bottom of picture, the smaller quantity being below this time. Laterally the extreme edge of dark drapery held by figure on right that blows towards Venus is Phi proportion with sides of picture.
"The Rape of Europa," by Paolo Veronese, page 168 [Transcribers Note: Plate XXXVIII].—Top of head of Europa exactly Phi proportion with top and bottom of picture. Right-hand side of same head slightly to left of Phi proportion with sides of picture (unless in the reproduction a part of the picture on the left has been trimmed away, as is likely, in which case it would be exactly Phi proportion).
I have taken the first seven pictures reproduced in this book that were not selected with any idea of illustrating this point, and I think you will admit that in each some very important quantity has been placed in this proportion. One could go on through all the illustrations were it not for the fear of becoming wearisome; and also, one could go on through some of the minor relationships, and point out how often this proportion turns up in compositions. But enough has been said to show that the eye evidently takes some especial pleasure in it, whatever may eventually be found to be the physiological reason underlying it.
INDEX
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W
A
Absorbent canvas, 192
Academic drawing, 34
Academic and conventional, 68
Academic students, 68
Accuracy, scientific and artistic, 36
Anatomy, study of, its importance, 36, 122
"Ansidei Madonna," Raphael's, 231
Apelles and his colours, 31
Architecture, proportion in, 230
Art, some definitions of, 18
Artist, the, 27
Atmosphere indicated by shading, 102
Atmospheric colours, 39
Audley, Lady, Holbein's portrait of, 248
B
"Bacchus and Ariadne," Titian's, 154, 193
Balance, 219
Balance between straight lines and curves, 220
Balance between flat and gradated tones, 221
Balance between light and dark tones, 222
Balance between warm and cold colours, 223
Balance between interest and mass, 224
Balance between variety and unity, 225
"Bank-note" papers, 285
Bastien Lepage, 204
Bath for etching, 283
Beauty, definition of, 23
Beauty and prettiness, 135
Beauty and truth, 22
"Birth of Venus, the," Botticelli's, 163
Black chalk, 179
Black Conté, 280
Black glass, the use of a, 120, 202
Blake, example of parallelism, 145
Blake's use of the vertical, 155
Blocking in the drawing, 90
Blocking out with square lines, 85, 120
"Blue Boy," Gainsborough's, 223
Botany, the study of, 36
Botticelli's work, 34, 51, 145, 163
Boucher's heads compared with Watteau's, 211
Boundaries of forms, 93
Boundaries of masses in Nature, 195
Bread, use of, in charcoal drawing, 276
Browning, R., portraits of, 250
Brush, manipulation of the, 114
Brush strokes, 115
Brushes, various kinds of, 115
Burke on "The Sublime and the Beautiful," 135
C
Camera, use of the, 286
Carbon pencils, 180
Carlyle, 64
Circle, perfect curve of, to be avoided, 138
Chalks, drawing in, 125
Charcoal drawing, 54, 111, 113, 192, 275;
fixing solution, 277
Chiaroscuro, 53
Chinese art, 21
China and Japan, the art of, 59
Colour, contrasts of, 208
Colours for figure work, 273
Colours, a useful chart of, 191
Classic architecture, 148
Clothes, the treatment of, 253
Composition of a picture, the, 216
Constable, 149
"Contrasts in Harmony," 136
Conventional art, 74
Conventional life, deadness of the, 270
Corners of the panel or canvas, the, 160
Corot, his masses of foliage, 197, 214
Correggio, 206
Crow-quill pen, the, 283
Curves, how to observe the shape of, 90, 162, 209
Curves and straight lines, 220
D
Darwin, anecdote of, 243
Decorative work, 183
Degas, 66
"Dither," 71
Diagonal lines, 160
Discord and harmony, 173
Discordant lines, 172
Draperies of Watteau, the, 211
Drapery studies in chalks, 125
Drapery in portrait-drawing, 253
Draughtsmanship and impressionism, 66
Drawing, academic, 35
Drawing, definition of, 31
E
East, arts of the, 57
Edges, variety of, 192
Edges, the importance of the subject of, 198
Egg and dart moulding, 138
Egyptian sculpture, 135
Egyptian wall paintings, 51
El Greco, 169
Elgin Marbles, the, 135
Ellipse, the, 138
"Embarquement pour l'Île de Cythère," Watteau's, 211
Emerson on the beautiful, 214
Emotional power of the arts, 20
Emotional significance of objects, 31
Erechtheum, moulding from the, 138
Etching, 283
Exercises in mass drawing, 110
Exhibitions, 57
Expression in portrait-drawing, 242
Eye, anatomy of the, 105
Eye, the, in portrait-drawing, 242
Eyebrow, the, 105
Eyelashes, the, 108
Eyelids, the, 106
F
"Fête Champêtre," Giorgioni's, 151
Figure work, colours for, 273
"Finding of the Body of St. Mark," 123, 236
Fixing positions of salient points, 86
Flaubert, 68
Foliage, treatment of, 196
Foreshortenings, 93
Form and colour, 18
Form, the influence of, 32
Form, the study of, 81
Frans Hals, 246
French Revolution, Carlyle's, 64
French schools, 68
Fripp, Sir Alfred, 91
Fromentin's definition of art, 23
Fulness of form indicated by shading, 102, 124
G
Gainsborough, the charm of, 209, 223
Genius and talent, 17
Geology, the study of, 36
"Giorgioni, The School of," Walter Pater's, 29
Giotto, 222
Glass pens, 283
Goethe, 64
Gold point, 275
Gold and silver paint for shading, 125
Gradation, variety of, 199
Greek architecture, 221
Greek art in the Middle Ages, 130
Greek art, variety in, 133
Greek vivacity of moulding, 134
Greek and Gothic sculpture, 147
Greek type of profile, 140
Greuze, 221
H
Hair, the treatment of, 77, 102
Hair, effect of style upon the face, 180
Half tones, 98
"Hannibal crossing the Alps," Turner's, 163
Hardness indicated by shading, 102
Harsh contrasts, effect of, 171
Hatching, 118
Health, questions of, 269
Henner, the work of, 124
High lights, 94
Hogarth's definition, 136
Holbein's drawings, 99, 179, 247
Holl, Frank, 222
Horizontal, calm and repose of the, 150
Horizontal and vertical, the, 149
Human Anatomy for Art Students, 91
Human figure, the outline of the, 52
I
Impressionist vision, 61
Ink used in lithography, 282
Intellect and feeling, 19
Intuitions, 17
Italian Renaissance, the, 51
Italian work in the fifteenth century, 34
J
Japanese art, 21
Japanese method, a, 47
Japanese and Chinese use of contrasts of colour, 208
K
Keats' definition of beauty, 22
L
Landscapes of Watteau, the, 211
Lang, Andrew, his definition of art, 19
Lawrence, Lord, portrait of, 250
Lecoq de Boisbaudran, M., 260
Lehmann, R., portraits by, 250
Leonardo da Vinci, 51, 206, 227
Light, 38
Light and shade, principles of, 51, 95
Lighting and light effects, 202
Likeness, catching the, 240
Line and the circle, the, 137
Line drawing and mass drawing, 48, 50
Lines expressing repose or energy, 163
Line, the power of the, 50, 80
Lines, value of, in portrait-painting, 138
Lines of shading, different, 102, 123
Lithographic chalk, 192
Lithography, 281
"Love and Death," Watts', 156
M
Manet, 206
Mass drawing, 49, 58, 80, 81, 110
Masters, past and modern, 272
Materials, 271
Mathematical proportions, 228
Measuring comparative distances, 88
Measurements, vertical and horizontal, 88
Medium, the use of, 111
Michael Angelo, the figures of, 33, 53, 56
Michael Angelo and Degas, 66
Millais, 196
Mist, effect of a, on the tone of a picture, 188
Monet, Claude, 118
Morris's definition of art, 19
N
Nature, variety of forms in, 187
Nature's tendency to pictorial unity of arrangement, 186
Newspaper as a background, 99
Norman architecture, 148
O
Oil, surplus in paint, 191
Originality, 76
"Our Lady of the Rocks," L. da Vinci's, 206
Outline drawing, 50
Outline studies and models, 81
P
Paint, the vitality of, 114
Paint, the consistency of, 117
Paint, effect of oil in thick, 191
"Painted Poetry," 46
Painter's training, the object of the, 29
Painting and drawing, 110
Panel or canvas, the, 159
Paolo Uccello, 171
Parallel shading, 100
Parallelism of lines, 145
Parthenon, the, 55
Pater, Walter, 29
Pens for pen-and-ink drawing, 283
Perspective, the study of, 36, 195
Philip IV, Velazquez' portrait of, 194
Photograph, failure of the, 72
Picture galleries, the influence of, 33
Pictures, small and large, treatment of, 183
Planes of tone, painting in the, 122
Pre-Raphaelite paintings, 46
Pre-Raphaelite movement, the, 257
Preparatory drawings, disadvantage of, 121
Primitive emotions, 21
Procedure, in commencing a drawing, 265
Profiles, beauty of, 140
Proportions, 228
Poppy oil and turpentine, the use of, 119
"Portrait of the Artist's Daughter," Sir E. Burne-Jones's, 177
Pose, the, 251
Q
Quality and texture, variety in, 189
R
Radiating lines, 171
"Rape of Europa, The," Paul Veronese's, 163
Reed pens, 283
Rembrandt and his colours, 31, 204, 208
Reproduction, advantages of up-to-date, 104, 269
Retina, effect of light on the, 38
Reynolds' contrasts of colour, 208
Rhythm, definition of, 27, 127, 227
Right angle, power of the, 156
Roman sculpture, lack of vitality in, 133
Rossetti, 55
Royal Academy Schools, 69
Rubens, 162
Ruskin, 17
S
Schools of Art, 68
Scientific and artistic accuracy, 36
Scientific study, necessity for, 36
Scumbling, 111
Shape, variety of, 185
Silhouette, the, 66
Silver-point, 275
Silver-point work, shading in, 101
Sitter, the, 249
Softness indicated by shading, 102, 123
Solar spectrum, the, 38
Solids as flat copy, 84
Spanish school, the, 62
Straight lines indicative of strength, 148
Straight lines and flat tones, analogy between, 209
Strong light in contrast with dark shadow, 206
Study of drawing, the, 80
Stump, the, 54
Style, 288
"Sublime and the Beautiful, The," Burke's, 135
"Surrender of Breda, The," Velazquez', 161, 194
Sympathetic lines, 173
T
Talent and genius, 17
Teachers in Art Schools, 69
Technical side of an art, the, 21
Thickness and accent, variety of, 143
Tolstoy's definition of art, 19
Tone, meaning of the word, 121, 187, 208
Tone values, variety of, 187
Toned paper, drawing on, 125
Tones, large flat, the effect of, 207
Touch, the sense of, 40
Trafalgar Square lions, the, 78
Trees, the masses of, 196
Types, lifelessness of, 134
U
"Ulysses deriding Polyphemus," Turner's, 214
Unity and variety, 132
Unity of line, 144
V
"Vale of Best," Millais', 196
Value, meaning of the word as applied to a picture, 188
Values of tone drawing, the, 122
Van Dyck, his use of the straight line, 151
Variety in symmetry, 142
"Variety in Unity," 136
"Varying well," 136
Venetian painters, and the music of edges, 193
Venetians, the, their use of straight lines, 151
Venetians, system and principles of design of the, 217
"Venus, Mercury, and Cupid," Correggio's, 206
Vertical, the, associated with the sublime, 149
Vertical lines, feeling associated with, 182
Vision, 38
Visual blindness, 47
Visual memory, the, 256
W
Ward, the animal painter, 124
Warm colours, 224
Watteau, the charm of, 209
Watts, G.F., portraits by, 249
Watts' use of the right angle, 156
Windsor, Holbein's portraits at, 247
Whistler, a master of tone, 190, 222, 251
White casts, drawing from, 99
White chalk, 180
White paint, 191
White pastel, 280