Page:Every Woman's Encyclopedia Volume 1.djvu/703

 Blocking in a figure by means of squares and straight lines, a mcthcd apt to give a mechanical and lifeless effect an animal) and to convey it to others. From this, through hieroglyphics (or picture writing), to the shorthand we call script, the signs of which can be tabulated and memor- ised, and so to the conveying of abstract ideas from one to another in print was but a matter of time. As an instance of how closely primitive education of the hand and eye may be bound up with the most recent results of modern science, I may mention that I have heard a celebrated English general say that, having expressed astonishment at the way Japanese troops, otherwise almost mediaeval in their stage of development, accustomed themselves to the handhng of the most complicated mechanism of modern artillery and other engines of war, he was told by an officer of their staff that they attributed it to the fact that every Japanese soldier could write his language. He went on to say that Japanese writing, which is a form of ideograph, was so difficult that it took five years to acquire it ; and as a training for the hand and eye comprised a liberal education in itself, giving the other- wise ignorant soldier a pow'er of under- standing construction and a delicacy of handling that was remarkable, and could be explained in no other way. If, then, we allow that education is the development of the mind by the acti'ities of our environment, so we find that drawing can become one of the most valuable of these activities, and the more clearly we think out the process of putting our obser- vations graphically on paper, the better will we understand them ourselves, and convey our impressions to others. Shortly, good drawing means clear thinking. There are various methods of setting about the drawing of an outline, and I think it well to give here the more important of them, with some^of the objections that have 677 TMB ARTS been offered again.st ca( h ; for as in art one must take what one needs whenever one can find- it, any of them may help a begmner forward at some stage of his development. Perhaps the method most commonly in use IS to sketch in the main mass or mas.scs of the object with faint guiding lines, and a few vertical and horizontal lines are often ruled on the paper to assist the eye in judging these. At the same time the student should endeavour to get the whole of the object he wishes to draw comfortably within the boundaries of the paper. This i's an important consideration always, because on this setting in the paper depends the intensity, or pic- turesqueness, of the vision he wishes to convey. So it is well to practise it irom the first. The guiding hues will help the eye to find the exact outhne wanted, which is then placed over them with as precise a line as the artist can command ; finally, the guiding lines can be rubbed out and the real outhne remains to be strengthened or inked in as desired. This is a perfectly safe method. The chief objection urged again.st it is that it may lead to a great deal of tentativeness and timidity, with the accompanying result of feebleness of expression. Some, again — among them have been some very distinguished painters — believe that all drawing depends on variations of the oval, or, as they say, " all drawing is an egg." They profess that this is the way nature herself works. With these ovals they build up the skeleton of the mass, and then work on the outline much as in the previous case. Though use- ful, especially in figure drawing, i n helping the eye to build up the differ- ent parts, the trouble with this theory is that it is apt to develop into manner- ism, and leads to a lumpi- ness of form which often becomes grotesque ; for the egg form is pu c down at all costs, instead of trying to train the eye to appreciate the dehcacy and nicety of 4 _ the curves in ' nature, as in f»V' * '*'*'^'"* **" k ^S!*"* J*f^ ^*"^ , • i_ "n Cyprus, now m the British Museum. a drawing by '^ Wamor receiving a helmet." Holbein, say. R*pn>d,utd by ptrmissiOH /n>m a btauti/Ht „, , ■' coUund Hate in " The Joumal of HtUenu Others use a stHdusr y«i. xii.