Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 7.djvu/467

447 DRAWING 447 strnot tracter of liest art. both traire and trarre, they ase ddineare still in the sense of artistic drawing, and also adombrare. ie Greek The Greek verb ypdfaiv is familiar to the English reader dtjiftv. m graphic &quot; and in many compounds, such as photo graph, &c. It is worth observing that the Greeks seem to have considered drawing and writing 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. &quot; The origin of the hieroglyphics of Egypt,&quot; says Dr Wilson (Pre- Historic Man, chap, xviii.), &quot;is clearly traceable to the simplest form of picture-writing, the literal figuring of the objects designed to be expressed. Through a natural series of progressive stages this infantile art developed itself into a phonetic alphabet, the arbitrary symbols of sounds of the human voice.&quot; 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 mediaeval illuminators in their manuscripts. The mental processes by which man has gradually become able to draw, in our modern sense of the word, may be followed, like the development of a chicken in the egg, by examining specimens at various stages of formation. His first efforts are remarkable for their highly abstract character, because the undeveloped intellect has few and simple ideas, and takes what it perceives in nature without being embarrassed by the rest. It seizes upon facts rather than appearances, and the primitive artist is satisfied when the fact has been clearly stated or conveyed by him. The study of appearances, and the effort to render them, come much later; and the complete knowledge of appearances is the sign of a very high state of civilization, implying most advanced artistic culture both in the artist and in the public to whom he addresses himself. The work of the primitive artist is an affirmation of the realities that he knew without mystery or confusion. In all early Egyptian work you see at once what the artist intended to draw, whereas the finest modern drawing is often so mysterious as to be most obscure to those who have not made a special study of the fine arts. The primitive artist knew that his work was really that of a writer, and as the sign-painter of the present day takes care to make his letters plain in order that they may be read, so the early Egyptian draftsman had no thought of any more delicate truth of appearance that that which sufficed to let people clearly understand what his figures and symbols were intended for. There was no conception of what artists call &quot; effect,&quot; which enters into the greater part of modern drawing, until a very much later period. We may mention briefly two survivals of primitive art in our own day, which have for their purpose a high degree of legibility. These are coats-of-arms and trade-marks. Heraldic drawing, when properly done, is executed on primitive principles, and is a survival of the earliest uses of graphic art, being really a kind of writing intended to be recognizable by the illiterate when they saw it on shield or banner. Modern trade-marks, of which the use has greatly extended of late years, are of the same class, and are often designed with a simplicity of intention like that of remote antiquity. Archaic forms of drawing are thus not all extinct even in our own day, and certain arts are practised among us which compel the modern mind to recover by effort and study something of that simplicity and decision which were instinctive in earlier ages. Book-binding, illuminating, and designing for pottery are often rightly practised in clia n iris of .wincr. these days in an archaic spirit. In some of the best modern caricatures there are peculiarities which belong to early symbolic drawing, in which, as Dr Wilson says, &quot; the figures are for the most part grotesque and monstrous from the very necessity of giving predominance to the special feature in which the symbol is embodied.&quot; The first idea of drawing is always delineation, the Delinei marking out of the subject by lines, the notion of drawing ti n - without lines being of later development. In primitive work the outline is hard and firm, but interior markings are given also. When the outline was complete, the primitive artist would proceed at once in many cases to fill up the space inclosed by it with flat colour, but he did not understand light and shade and gradation. The historical development of drawing may always be seen in the practice of children when left to draw for their amusement. They begin, as the human race began, with firm outlines, re presenting men and animals, usually in profile. The nexfc thing they do, if left to their own instincts, is to fill up the spaces so marked out with colours, the brightest they can get. This is genuine primitive art. By referring to the earliest kind of drawing we perceive how drawing may exist without certain elements which in modern times are usually associated with it. We generally conceive of drawing in close association with perspective, and at least with some degree of light and shade, but it may exist independently of both. This may perhaps help us to a definition of drawing. Such a definition would Difficul need to be exceedingly comprehensive, or else it would of a de certainly exclude some of the many arts into which drawing tlon more or less visibly enters. A modern critic would be very likely to say that a figure was deficient in drawing if it was deficient in perspective, and yet the two are easily separable, as for example in the work of the mechanical draftsman ; or drawing may be associated with a kind of perspective which is visually false, as isometric perspective. We might say that drawing was the imitation of form, but a moment s reflection would enable us to perceive that it may create forms without imitating, as it does in many fanciful conceptions of ornamental designers. It might be suggested that drawing was the representation on a flat surface of forms which are not flat, but the most variously curved surfaces, as in vases, are frequently drawn upon, and flat objects are sometimes represented on rounded surfaces. The Greeks were so logical in their use of ypafbeiv for both drawing and writing that it is not possible to construct a definition comprehensive enough to include all the varieties of drawing without including writing also. If we say that drawing is a motion u hick leaves significant Definit marks, we are as precise as the numerous varieties of the art will permit us to be. The first step in the arts of design is a resolute and Conven decided conventionalism. Drawing always begins with tionalis line, and there are no lines in nature. The natural world presents itself to the eye as an assemblage of variously- coloured patches or spaces, always full of gradation both in shade and colour, but in all this there is no such thing as a real line. Even the sea-horizon, which is commonly spoken of as a line, is not so in reality, it is only the end ing of a coloured space. The conventionalism of the line being once admitted, it may be considered as neither good nor bad in itself, but a simple necessity. Beyond this, however, in the use of the line when it has once been adopted, there may be artistic merit or demerit. All primitive line-drawing gives a version of natural truth which is idealized in one way or the other, and it is always conventional not only in the sense of using conven tional means, but also in th;-t of interpreting natural forms with conventional amplifications or omissions. The temper of a primitive civilization always led its artists to the