Page:EB1911 - Volume 08.djvu/575

 and sold in a foreign country on the same terms as goods from countries where they are untaxed. It differs from a bounty in that the latter enables commodities to be sold abroad at less than their cost price; it may occur, however, under certain conditions that the giving of a drawback has an effect equivalent to that of a bounty, as in the case of the so-called sugar bounties in Germany (see ). The earlier tariffs contained elaborate tables of the drawbacks allowed on the exportation or re-exportation of commodities, but so far as the United Kingdom is concerned the system of “bonded warehouses” practically abolished drawbacks, as commodities can be warehoused (placed “in bond”) until required for subsequent exportation.

 DRAWING, in art. Although the verb “to draw” has various meanings, the substantive drawing is confined by usage to its artistic sense, delineation or design. The word “draw,” from a root common to the Teutonic languages (Goth, dragan, O.H.G. drahan, Mod. Ger. tragen, which all have the sense of “carry,” O. Norse draga, A.S. drazan, drazen, “draw,” cf. Lat. trahere), means to pull or “drag” (a word of the same origin) as distinct from the action of pushing. It is thus used of traction generally, whether by men, animals or machines. The same idea is preserved in “drawing” as applied to the fine arts. We do not usually say, or think, that a sculptor is drawing when he is using his chisel, although he may be expressing or defining forms, nor that an engraver is drawing when he is pushing the burin with the palm of the hand, although the result may be the rendering of a design. But we do say that an artist is drawing when he uses the lead pencil, and here we have a motion bearing some resemblance to that of traction generally. The action of the artist in drawing the pencil point with his fingers along the paper is analogous, e.g., to that of a horse or man drawing a pole over soft ground and leaving a mark behind. The same analogy may be observed between two of the senses in which the French verb tirer is frequently employed. This word, the origin of which is quite uncertain, was formerly used by good writers in the two senses of the verb to draw. Thus Lafontaine says, “Six forts chevaux tiraient un coche”; and Caillières wrote, “Il n’y a pas longtemps que je me suis fait tirer par Rigaud,” meaning that Rigaud had drawn or painted his portrait. At the present day the verb tirer has fallen into disuse amongst cultivated Frenchmen with regard to drawing and painting, but it is still universally used for all kinds of design and even for photography by the common people. The cultivated use it still for printing, as for example “cette gravure sera tirée à cent exemplaires,” in the sense of pulling. A verb much more nearly related to the English verb to draw is the French traire (Lat. trahere), which has trait for its past participle. Traire is now used exclusively for milking cows and other animals, and though the analogy between this and artistic drawing is not obvious at first, nevertheless there is a certain analogy of motion, since the hand passing down the teat draws the milk downwards. The word trait is much more familiar in connexion with art as “les traits du visage,” the natural markings of the face, and it is very often used in a figurative sense, as we say “traits of character.” It is familiar in the English portrait, derived from protrahere. The ancient Romans used words which expressed more clearly the conception that drawing was done in line (delineare) or in shade (adumbrare), though there are reasons for believing that the words were often indiscriminately applied. Although the modern Italians have both traire and trarre, they use delineare still in the sense of artistic drawing, and also adombrare. The Greek verb  appears in English in “graphic” and in many compounds, such as photograph, &c. It is worth observing that the Greeks seem to have considered drawing and (q.v.) as essentially the same process, since they used the same word for both. This points to the early identity of the two arts when drawing was a kind of writing, and when such writing as men had learned to practise was essentially what we should call drawing, though of a rude and simple kind. Even in the present day picture writing is not unfrequently resorted to by travellers as a means of making themselves intelligible. There is also a kind of art which is writing in the modern sense and drawing at the same time, such as the work of the medieval illuminators in their manuscripts.

The Art of Drawing.—Rather than attempt here a historical survey of the various so-called “styles” of drawing, or write a personal appreciation of them, it seems of greater use to give a logical account of drawing as an art, applicable to all times and countries. Reference to the teaching of drawing will be occasionally given rather to illustrate the argument than with a view to its being of practical use.

At the outset a distinction must be made between drawing as a means of symbolic or literary expression and drawing as the direct and only means of expressing the beauty of form. If Pharaoh wants to have it known that a hundred ducks were consumed at one meal in his court, he employs a draughtsman to register the fact on a frieze by picturing a row of cooks occupied in preparing the hundred ducks. The artist in this case does not represent the scene as he must have known it in the kitchen, with all its variety of movement and composition (as an early Greek vase painter conceived the interior of a vase factory), but all he does and is required to do is to give the sufficient number of figures and ducks. The more uniform the figures the greater will be the effect of number. Drawing has been employed here to tell a story, and it succeeds in so far as it tells the spectator plainly what could be told, perhaps less conveniently, in words. It matters not whether the figures and objects be feelingly rendered and harmoniously composed. So, to-day, a child, or any one who has a simple trick of symbolizing figures and objects in nature, can describe any event or moral by this process, provided the plot be not too elaborate to be expressed by a scene, or series of scenes, enacted by dumb symbolic figures. It is plain that the amusing pictures in Punch or Fliegende Blätter would be none the more amusing if they were done by the hand of Michelangelo, nor would the mystic designs of Blake be more full of meaning if drawn by Rembrandt, for in neither case do these works depend upon any subtle rendering of the forms of nature for their success, but upon the dramatic or intellectual imagination of the man who conceived them. When the witty or ethical man is at the same time a master draughtsman his work has two values, the “literary” content and the beauty of his drawing of natural objects. But it must be borne in mind that these values are fundamentally distinct; so much so that the spectator who has no appreciation of the forms of nature enjoys the story told and remains blind to the qualities of draughtsmanship, whilst the lover of nature’s forms may or may not trouble to unravel the literary plot but finds perfect satisfaction in the drawing. By far the greater part of illustration, and of artistic production generally, must be classed as symbolic art. Magazine stories to-day are sometimes illustrated even by photography, for the hand of the artist is not required. Symbolic art describes indirectly and in a necessarily limited scope what literature can do directly and with unlimited powers. The only content of symbolic drawing is its literary meaning; as drawing it may be quite worthless.

Pure drawing, however, whether it represent a dramatic event or a knee-joint, has a content that cannot be expressed by words, and is not necessarily directed towards literary expression. Just as a fragment of good sculpture pleases the connoisseur without any reference either to the whole original or to its spiritual significance, fine drawing can appeal to the lover of nature independently of indirect considerations.

What is the content of pure drawing? It is held by some that drawing or monochrome can suggest colour, and many people, some consciously, others unconsciously, attempt to represent in drawings the colours of figures and landscape. It seems a strange aberration to argue that by different intensities of the one colour various other colours can be suggested: it would not be more unreasonable to maintain that E flat and F could be suggested by striking the note G with varying strength. Now the draughtsman employs various intensities of his monochrome as light and shade by which to give roundness to his forms. But if on the same drawing he uses the same means in his attempt to express colour, a conflict would be at once set up