Chapter IV (1)

POWER OF OUTLINE — SHADED DRAWINGS — TEXTURE — LOCAL COLOR AND VALUES — THROWN SHADOW AND MODELING SHADOW — MANNERISMS OF A CARICATURIST — BEGINNER ADVISED TO USE OUTLINE ONLY, BUT HE MAY PRACTICE IN SHADING.

If I have been successful in making every point clear in my foregoing chapters the reader now has such a knowledge of the art of drawing as will enable him to understand, (1) the power of an outline, and (2) to realize that one may become a tolerable draftsman if he will train his eye to see the outline of an object as if marked upon a pane of glass—that is, reduced to one plane; and to realize, moreover, that (3) this learning to see things in one plane involves some knowledge of perspective, of which more anon; but for the present let us leave outline and take up another branch of the subject. In the Luque cartoon the helmet is represented {42} in a new form. The careful observer will see instantly that it differs materially from the helmet in the _Don Chisciotte_ cartoon, shown upon page 37.

Let us make an analysis of this difference. I contemplated no pun when I wrote of a _material_ difference. Yet that is the main point of contrast. We guess that the helmet of the major domo in the _Don Chisciotte_ is metal, but we only guess it. We argue that the Romans wore metal helmets, hence we fancy this is one; but outline rarely indicates texture (we mean by texture the material of an object—wood, wool, stone, linen, etc.) or color. But in the Luque we are very sure that the helmet is of black leather. True, we surmise this only, because we know that modern helmets are apt to be either metal or black patent leather, and this one is too dark for metal, and the high light upon it is just like the white light on a black patent leather helmet. (When the light falls on a rounded object there is nearly always one place upon it where the light strikes, creating a white light—no matter what the color of the object—which artists call the high light. This is always more apparent upon highly polished objects than upon rough objects.)

Now, you see in the Luque we have a very different kind of drawing from a pure outline like the _Don Chisciotte_, or a silhouette like the Grasset. In such drawing the outline is only the framework; after it is put in, the labor is by no means over; to the contrary, every bit of surface has to be covered with an appropriate tint, and two different considerations decide how light or how heavy this tint shall be: first, the consideration of light and shade; secondly, local color. When the artist put a {43} dark mass under Crispi’s mustache he did not mean to suggest that Crispi had been eating blackberry jam, or that he had a negro’s lower lip, but he meant to represent the strong shadow that a thick mustache throws upon a lower lip when the light comes from above; in doing this he noted a “thrown shadow.” When, however, he made the dark line on the lower part of the chin he did not mean to suggest that the upper part of the chin threw a shadow on the lower part, but he represented the part of the chin that rounds under the jaw; this is called a “modeling shadow.” (A circle may represent a ring, or a disk—as in the medal inscribed _Literis et Artibus_ in the Fallström (page 44)—or a sphere; but without shading it is said not to have modeling; and if it is intended for a sphere, it can only suggest a sphere; to make it fully represent one, we shade it; then it is positively not a ring, nor a disk, if the shading is properly done. This shading gives it rotundity, or bulk, and this effect we designate as modeling.) When Luque makes the part of the visor of the helmet to our right darker than the part to our left and leaves a light between, he also models—that is, represents modeling or rotundity; but when he makes both the shaded side and the lighter side dark, and also makes Crispi’s coat black, then he is said to represent local color.

Here you see we have a very advanced form of drawing, and a form I should not advise you to employ in your early efforts to do professional work; if you essay to make a cartoon for your paper, I should advise you to confine yourself to outline or silhouette. But in order that you may fully understand a drawing which at first appears to be outline, but which upon examination turns■

{44}

A caricature by Albert Engström.]

{45}

By John Everett Millais.

This is not a careful study, but shows an artist’s method of “placing” objects. The right-hand figure is evidently that of a minister, and the artist at first intended to have his coat fall over his left thigh but afterwards changed it. The gray lines which thus place the skirt of the coat are those referred to in Chapter V. In the left-hand figure the head was drawn first and the hat added. It is interesting to note how low upon the head the hat rests. The mistake of the beginner is usually to put a hat too high on the skull. (Or perhaps the artist’s first intention was to draw a derby hat, which was afterwards changed to a high hat.)]

■{46} out to be partly shaded, we have introduced in these first chapters this question of modeling and local color. We have pointed out (Chapter II) that Engström sometimes uses pure outline, sometimes outline and silhouette, and sometimes outline, silhouette and shading. His “Fallström,” given with this chapter, is without silhouette effect, but is in outline, shading and local color. The medal referred to is a piece of pure outline. Ordinarily, when an artist draws a thing of this kind—a button, a policeman’s badge, etc.—he makes the lower line a little heavier than the rest so as to suggest the shadow the object throws upon the coat; but Engström has omitted this. In the nose, however, we have not pure outline, but a distinct broadening of the line under the nose giving the same suggestion of its protruding and of its throwing a shadow as does Crispi’s mustache in Luque’s drawing. In the hat, moreover, we have both modeling—very good modeling, too,—and local color.

You should be reminded that Engström is a caricaturist, and takes liberties with the art of drawing as well as with his subjects. The example we gave in Chapter I, his own portrait, was a perfectly consistent drawing, all pure outline; so was the “Hedin” (Chapter II), because silhouette goes perfectly well with outline. But to model a hat as fully as in this “Fallström” drawing, so that under its rim is a shadow, and yet not have it throw a suggestion of a shadow upon the man’s head, is most inconsistent drawing—permitted the caricaturist only. If you were making such a study from nature you would surely see a _thrown_ shadow on the head and you should put it in. {47}

While I say you should not employ shading and local color to any great extent in your early work, yet you may study the theory of it so as to use it sparingly, and that study is best pursued by putting on a table a group of objects of different colors and textures; put a white box beside a brown book, an ink bottle beside a glass, a teacup beside a brown stone jug, and draw each object in relation to the others. Make your ink bottle blacker than your brown jug, but note that both have distinct high-lights upon them. The white box will probably not have a high-light upon it, but one side of it may be all light, while the corresponding side of the brown book will be darkish, though lighter than its side in shadow. (We suppose that you place your table near a window so that the light from it falls on one side of the objects, the other side being in shadow; this is the best arrangement for objects studied for their light and shade. Do not have light come from other windows.) You, therefore, in your drawing, have white paper to represent the light side of the box, but you put on a slight tint to represent the light side of the brown book. The ink bottle you will treat very much like Luque’s helmet; black as it is there will be streaks of white upon it—sometimes high-lights, and sometimes reflection of the window as seen in a mirror. If the cover of the box, because it projects a little, throws a line of shadow upon the side of the box, you will instantly recognize that this is the same kind of a thrown shadow as that which Luque put under Crispi’s mustache and Engström put under Fallström’s nose. Some study of this sort will soon train your eye to see the reason of _spots of light and dark_ in artists’ drawings. {48}

One of the points we admire in an expert’s drawing is the use he makes of black spots. The Japanese have rules of composition, governing this distribution of spots, which they follow, balancing a black here with another there in an admirable manner. In our chapter on wood engraving we shall give some specimens of well distributed blacks. In our tailpiece by Grasset you will notice how on the right-hand side five petals and two buds balance a tri-parted leaf on the opposite side. One of the problems for the designer of printers’ devices is to balance them properly. It is much easier to copy a spray from nature and fill it in with black ink than it is to make that spray balance so that when placed at the end of a chapter or used to divide paragraphs it will balance as perfectly as the letter V or A. It is needless to note that every printer realizes that paragraphs might be separated by the letter I or A or V, but not properly by the letter B or D or E.

Designed by Eugene Grasset.]

{49} CHAPTER V.

HOW TO BEGIN A DRAWING — EDUCATION OF THE EYE THE FIRST THING — MANTELSHELF SEEN FRONT VIEW — SIDE VIEW BUT EXACTLY ON A LEVEL WITH THE EYE — TIPPING DOWNWARD IF ABOVE THE EYE — UPWARD IF BELOW THE EYE — PLACE THE BIG PROPORTIONS OF OBJECTS BEFORE ATTEMPTING DETAIL — THIS SHOULD SHOW PROPORTION AND DIRECTION — SEPARATE COMPLEX SUBJECTS INTO ELEMENTS — MEANING OF ELEMENTS — EVERY OBJECT HAS ITS AXIS — BEGINNING OF EVERY FIGURE SHOULD ALWAYS SHOW ITS ACTION — GENERAL PRACTICE TO PLACE ALL THE OBJECTS IN A PICTURE WITH PENCIL LINES FIRST — SOME EXAMPLES FROM MUNKACSY.

I hear some of my readers ask, “Is there not something a teacher should tell us that will help us whether we are drawing in outline or whether we are shading—something that will teach us _how to begin_ any kind of a drawing?” The reply is “Yes,” and I propose to give such help in this chapter; but it has purposely been delayed till now, because I wished to emphasize the fact that the principal thing is not for me to tell you how to draw, but for me to help you to learn to see so as to know what to draw. For example, I will ask the printer to insert a rule here in a horizontal position, thus:■

■This represents a mantelshelf seen in front view, or one seen in side view exactly on a level with your eyes. Now, it stands to reason, does it not, that anybody can {50} draw such a line? What you need to be taught, is that the mantel is to be drawn that way only under the two circumstances mentioned. The moment you have a side view of it when it is below or above the eyes, you must draw it tipping. Tipping downward (away from you) if above the eye; upward, if below. Thus, if above the eye:

This difference in the direction of line according to the position of the spectator is something the novice does not see, and it is the business of the teacher to point it out. Hence the many references to seeing and the few to drawing which are found in our foregoing chapters.

But there is a suggestion about drawing which I will give you that will help you at the first stage of your study. It is this: Accustom yourself to place something on your paper—some form having a height and a breadth—that resembles the big proportions of your subject, before you attempt to finish any single part of it.

Our illustrations clearly show the working of this method. In the Herkomer study the lower parts of the tree trunks are not finished, they are merely placed. The outlines of the trunks show (1) the relation of the two trunks to one another, (2) their size, and (3) their direction. With the same simple means the artist could have shown contrary facts; for example, that (1) the trees were nearer together, (2) that the left one was■

{51}

The form above the lowest branch, which looks something like a cloud, shows us the artist’s method of “placing” a branch before finishing it; also the lower parts of the trunks show their placing. All objects should be thus outlined before they are shaded.]

■{52} wider than the right, (3) that they tipped at an angle of fifteen degrees to our left.

Again, the mass that at first glance looks like a cloud, is really the “placing” of a branch. Now, before the artist put any of the black in his picture, which suggests the dark colors of a pine, he placed all the principal branches, limbs, and the trunks of the two trees, just as you see them in the unfinished places we have pointed out. The reader should need very little more help than this to fit him to go out to nature and begin a landscape.

Almost any element you may see can be begun in this manner. (I use the word element to cover either one object or a group of objects; we say of some picture that it has four elements: a foreground, a pine tree, a clump of trees and distant hills.) For example, without the line representing the limb below Herkomer’s outline for the unfinished branch might almost stand for a cloud—its outline would then simply be a little less toothed. Its upper part might also stand for a group of distant trees. Now, this branch, no less than the trunks, has its big proportions; it is almost twice as long as it is high, and no amount of pretty drawing of details would ever represent _that_ branch if you should start out with a form twice as high as it is wide. Always look out for these dimensions at first. The branch also has a _direction_—the direction of its axis—which is downward to our left, and no amount of pretty drawing of its details would ever represent _this_ branch if it were represented with a horizontal axis. (The axis of the lowest branch is at a still greater angle; this downward tip is characteristic of the lower branches of the pine, larch, elm, beech, willow, etc.) Now, a cloud has its■

{53}

By Michael Munkacsy.

This shows the placing of the parts of the figure so that it shows _action_, though there is no finish.]

{54}

By Léon Bonnat.

These studies show the placing of the parts of the figures so that they express _action_, though there is no finish.]

■{55} axis, a group of trees, and you must not draw a stratus cloud which lies horizontal as though it were a cirrus or a cumulus cloud blown upward by a contrary wind. In the placing of an element, then, it is not the margin of the outline we think of, but the positions of objects, their general bulk, and the direction of their axes.

In the figure studies we reproduce by Bonnat and Munkacsy, you can plainly see that the action of the figures is graphically portrayed without any attempt at detail, simply by “placing” the parts of the figure in the right place. A good beginning in the case of figure drawing should always show the action; that is to say, show that the man is stooping over, leaning back, standing upright or sitting down, long before the drawing shows that his coat is black or has four buttons on it, or that he has finger nails on his fingers.

It is nearly always the practice with artists to place objects in this way with a pencil line, even if the subsequent drawing is to be in pen or wash. Let your lines be light, and then you can erase them after your ink lines are put over them. Do not be afraid of feeling your way with lines; put down several until you get the right one. Do not expect to get your work right at first. If you get in a branch of a tree and think it is correct, leave it till the tree is complete; but if in the end you see it is too large for the rest of the tree, rub it out and make it smaller. Every artist has to do this many times if his subject is at all complicated.

{56}

{57} CHAPTER VI.

VALUE OF A LINE — WHAT THE ARTIST SEES — LINES, NOT CONTOUR LINES, USED TO REPRESENT ORGANIC PARTS — “PLACING” ELEMENTS A MENTAL TRAINING — MORE IMPORTANT TO THE PRINTER-DRAFTSMAN THAN INTRICATE DETAIL — PLACING-LINES TO BE MADE CAREFULLY — SYNTHESIS OF THE HUMAN ARM REPRESENTED WITH A FEW LINES — THE DELIGHT OF AN ARTIST IN SYNTHETIC STUDIES — JAPANESE MASTERS OF SYNTHETIC DRAWING — GRASSET’S SILHOUETTE — THINK OF YOUR OBJECTS, WHEN PLACING THEM, AS SILHOUETTES — REDUCING CONTOUR LINES TO GEOMETRIC FIGURES — HERKOMER’S PINE TREES MAPPED OUT INTO POLYGONS — THIS METHOD NOT TO BE CARRIED TO EXCESS — CHARACTERISTICS OF OBJECTS TO BE LOOKED FOR — NATURE’S FORMS SOON RECOGNIZED IN SIMPLE POLYGONS.

It is difficult for the amateur to realize the value of a line as fully as the art student realizes it. We give an illustration of the first laying in or placing of a figure, as done in the Parisian art schools. The student who works for months and months in this manner sees a meaning in an artist’s lines that the casual observer misses. Here, for example, all the lines on the arm represent swellings which are not merely temporary but are organic, belonging to every arm. So also with the cross lines on the abdomen; they are not as one might expect, chance lines, but divide the trunk into organic parts. Any model taking this pose would show some such lines, or rather the body would divide itself into {58} some such parts which would produce the wrinkles which these lines represent; no matter whether he were older or younger, stouter or thinner, the markings would be in about the same place. When we come to the analyzation of the human face this fact of representing parts of the body by lines that are not outlines—i. e., not contour lines—will be still clearer to you. Now, the point we want to make is that the method of “placing” objects, recommended in the last chapter, is not a mere process of procedure in drawing, but is quite as important a mental training as the making of the most intricate outline—in fact, for the printer-draftsman it is more important than the latter. If you wish to make a poster design, it is better that you should know how to place “the elements” of a branch of oak or ivy than that you should draw the venation of the leaves or the delicate modeling of the stems, because if printed in flat tones it is the big characteristics—showing the difference between an ivy leaf and an oak leaf—that you need to secure. Therefore, in all your preliminary sketching do not work carelessly just because you are finally going to rub out your placing lines; but rather try to see how much likeness to the object you can get by the most economical means, in your very placing of the object. In the man’s arm, for example, even the inexperienced draftsman, who might not see the correctness of the drawing in the man’s trunk, can realize that we have here the swelling of the deltoid, the curve of the biceps, the extreme width at the elbow, and the inside lines which mark bones and muscles at the elbow; all of which represent the synthesis of _the_ human arm, though perhaps not the similitude {59} of any _one_ arm. Were you, with an artist companion, looking over a collection of drawings by the masters you would be surprised at his delight in many drawings that were carried little further than this study of an arm. The Japanese are celebrated for their synthetic drawing; they have the ability to make a spot of green that is not a lily leaf in all its intricate detail, but which has all the characteristics of a lily leaf which distinguish it from every other kind of leaf, stand for a perfect lily leaf.

If you will turn to the Grasset design on page 39 you will realize that his wisteria is by no means a complete floral drawing, but simply gives the characteristics of the wisteria in its silhouette. Here you see we revert to the subject of our second chapter, and recommend that in placing your objects you think of them as silhouettes. This wisteria design suggests another help for the beginner. The flower itself in its entirety takes the form in nature of a cone, which in silhouette is a triangle; the entire branch of the ornament on page 48 takes the form of a triangle; and since geometrical forms are more easily analyzed than natural forms, it might be well for you to train yourself to notice if an object takes the general form of a quadrangle or a rectangle, a triangle or a polygon. The branches of trees can frequently be mapped out into triangles or polygons with not more than five or six sides, that are very easy to recognize.

We have made a tracing of the pine trees by Mr. Herkomer, in which we have mapped out the branches into polygons, A, B and C (page 60). The lines D E and F G are added to suggest how the tree trunks are■

{60}

{61}

NO. 4—Study of Pine Tree, by Hubert Herkomer, with lines added showing rectangles _w x y z_, containing the whole group; polygons 1 to 14, containing branches, lines going through axes of trunk _e d_, and _f g_, and _p_, plumb-line to which _f g_ is compared—that is, its angle obtained—as shown in diagram NO. 1.]

■{62} first put in as axes, F G being compared with the plumb-line P. W, X, Y and Z suggest a quadrangle, into which the whole tree could first be placed.

We wish to say, however, that we do not consider it advisable to reduce freehand drawings to geometrical forms to too great an extent. The art student in Paris does not think of his model as a combination of cubes and cylinders, but as a human figure; nor when he leaves the atelier does he consider a tree as a combination of cylinders and cones, but as an oak tree, or a maple or a pine; and whether his drawing is a moment’s jotting in a sketch-book, or a week’s study on canvas, he tries to get as much of the characteristics of the pine tree or the oak, in the moment or in the week, as his perception will allow.

You would be surprised, if you practiced this method for a few months, to see how much meaning these first polygons will have to you. If you will map out an elm tree, for example, and then turn to our diagram No. 2, you will instantly recognize that the forms A, B, C, could never be intended for an elm. This negative recognition would be followed by positive recognition, and you would guess at least, if you were not sure, that, in a sketch of a sea coast, certain polygons put more on one side of a line than on the other, which represented a tree trunk, were meant for the branches of a pine!

{63} CHAPTER VII.

ORIGINAL “PLACING” AND FINISHED DRAWING COMPARED — SIZE OF THE FRAME DOES NOT AFFECT THE PROPORTIONS IF THE SAME DIMENSIONS ARE RETAINED — BLOCKING IN SHADOWS BY OUTLINE BEFORE SHADING — ALL PRACTICE IN DRAWING LINES WILL BE HELPFUL — LINES USED FOR CONTOUR BOTH OF OBJECTS AND OF SHADOWS — FINDING THE DIRECTION OF SHADOWS — WHY PLASTER CASTS ARE USED AS STUDIES — JAPANESE ART ENTIRELY WITHOUT LIGHT AND SHADE OF THE SORT MOST USUAL IN OCCIDENTAL MODELING — NOTING VALUES — MERE SHADING NOT THE END OF DRAWING.

In order that there may be no doubt about the method of placing elements, as suggested in the last chapter, we have made skeletons (2 and 4) of the Grasset and the Herkomer cuts, on which we have marked, so that there can be no misunderstanding, the lines given in our diagrams 2 and 3. In the Grasset diagram, No. 3, A B C D correspond to _a b c d_ in skeleton diagram No. 4, while the dotted forms, E and F, No. 3, correspond to _e_ and _f_, No. 4.

In the Herkomer, No. 2, _w x y z_ is the rectangle W X Y Z of diagram No. 1; 1 2 3 4 5 correspond to A, 6 7 8 9 10 to B, 11 12 13 14 to C; while the _d e_ and _f g_ equal D E, F G; _p_ is our plumb-line, P.

It must be distinctly understood that any number of objects may be contained in a rectangle; let a child scribble upon this page, anywhere, a dozen or more■

{64}

■{65} forms, no matter how irregular, and a perpendicular through the extreme right-hand form, one through the left, and a horizontal through the top and the bottom form, and we have a rectangle which has given dimensions. It may be twice as high as wide, or three times as wide as high, no matter, let either of those _proportions_ be preserved, and a rectangle _of the same proportions_, drawn upon a visiting card or covering the wall of a barn twenty feet high, will give you the right proportions for your group. And then, if you will find inside of the rectangle, one or a dozen polygons, like A, B, C, No. 1, and _f_, No. 4, you will be able to “place” the most irregular objects.

We give with this chapter also, two illustrations showing the manner in which shading is done in the art schools, but the main thing I wish you to note about the illustrations is, not the shaded drawing, but the drawing where the shadow is blocked in, Fig. A. Now, this is important to bear in mind: A line is used, not only for drawing the outside outline or _contour_ of objects, but for drawing the outline of shadows _upon_ and within them; therefore, every bit of practice you may have in drawing lines of any kind will be helpful to you when blocking in the shapes of shadows that bring out the form of an object. It is just as imperative, for example, that you compare the inside _margin of the shadows_ upon the wrist (as indicated in Fig. A) with the plumb-line, so as to see their direction, as it is that you compare the trunk of the Herkomer tree with the plumb-line, that you may get its direction. (In obtaining the direction of small shadows the artist very frequently uses his pencil, held vertical, as a plumb-line.)

{66}

Examples of French Art School studies, from plates published under the direction of Bargue and Gérôme, showing method of blocking in a cast, both its outline and its shading.

{67}

Method of shading in simple tones, with very little reflected light or half-tones. (See Fig. A.)]

{68}

{69}

We give another illustration that we trust will interest you, the very beautiful drawing by Fantin-La-Tour. Our object in giving this is twofold: first, to show you the drawing of the cast. We have said that the Bargue-Gérôme studies show how students learn to work in Paris. The truth is that nearly all over the world art students learn to draw from white plaster casts on which the shadows are very distinct. The eye is thus trained to see _form_, as we call it. And it will not be difficult for you to look from the cast drawing in the La-Tour to the head of the standing girl, and see how the form of her face is brought out by shading in the same manner as in the cast.

In publishing a drawing of this kind in a book for printers we do not recommend it as an example of drawing for the press (though it would be an excellent guide for lithography), but it is full of interest in that it exemplifies what artists consider artistic draftsmanship. It is evident that the author of it has studied in an art school and that he gets his effects, not by chance, but by deliberation. He is sensitive to the different degrees of darks upon the several objects. No matter how plainly he may see the shadow upon the cast, he knows that, in order to represent it as a light object, such shadows must _not_ be black. So there is a vast difference between its dark tones and the dark tones of the block on which it stands. Also in drawing the human face he concentrates his darks about the eyes, nose and mouth; the rest of the face is shaded with great delicacy, for he knows that if he puts darks elsewhere he will get the undesirable effect of an old face. The printer is not expected to carry his art as far as this, but we must say {70} frankly that his degree of success depends entirely upon the extent of his knowledge of the truths herein stated. One need not go to an art school to see that a cast is white, and that its shadows are not as black as the shadows upon a bronze; but unless he trains his eye by observation to see this difference in other things, no tricks of pen-technic will help him when he comes to draw a white horse, or a white collar. He does not have to study portraiture in an art school in order to make a drawing in pen and ink, for his paper, from a photograph; but unless he will train himself to observe so that he realizes that in a young face the greatest darks are limited to the eyes, nose, and mouth, he will be likely to make his pen-portrait look more like an old person than a young person, even though in executing the same he imitates the most perfect pen-technic.

Now, as the placing of the shadows in the seated girl’s face is not the same, it is a little difficult for you to realize that it contains the same kind of drawing as the blocked-in cast hand and head.

But the eye becomes trained from drawing casts to see the most delicate modeling of shadows, and the seated girl’s face is really a complex style of drawing, of which the cast head and hand are simple specimens. I mean by “complex style of drawing” a method of getting effects by imitating the light and shade upon objects, as opposed to mere outline style or silhouette style.

Now, therefore, this illustration should indicate to you that it is well to draw from casts, as art students do, if you wish to make finished pictures in black and white.

In the foregoing statements I have been careful in {71} my language. I do not say students _all_ over the world learn to draw in light and shade, for there is a great deal of wonderful Japanese art that is done entirely without knowledge of light and shade of the sort most usual in Occidental modeling. Nor do I say that you _must_ draw from casts to learn to see light and shade, because during the middle ages many great artists learned to draw from life and not from casts. The cast is a comparatively modern art-school accessory.

Another reason for giving this La-Tour drawing is that it brings us a step farther into the consideration of values; we notice that in it the cast appears to be white, the girls’ faces and hands lighter than their gowns, and one girl’s hair lighter than the other’s. Now, when an artist makes a difference between the degrees of the color of objects, we say he notes their values.

Bear this in mind, then, that mere shading is not the end of drawing. You can go a step farther and indicate the color value of a shadow, of which more hereafter.

{72}

Showing method of sketching the outline of a hat.]

{73} CHAPTER VIII.

STUDY BY DAGNAN-BOUVERET — A HAT IN OUTLINE NOT MEANT FOR AN OUTLINE DRAWING — CONNECTING LINK BETWEEN OUTLINE AND SHADED DRAWING — MORE ABOUT ART-SCHOOL METHODS — METHOD OF DRAWING BASED UPON CAST DRAWING — THE BIG SHADOWS VERSUS MINOR SHADOWS — DO NOT DRAW INDIVIDUAL HAIRS — HAIR AND MUSTACHE TO BE CONSIDERED AS A MASS, NOT AS SEPARATE HAIRS — EFFECT TO BE OBTAINED BY MASSES OF SHADOWS — TRAIN THE EYE TO BECOME SENSITIVE TO GRADUATIONS OF LIGHT AND SHADE — LIGHT AND DARK IN THE HEAD INTENDED TO SHOW SHAPE OF THE SKULL, NOT TO INDICATE PARTI-COLORED HAIR — DRAWING FROM PASTEBOARD BOXES GOOD TRAINING IN LEARNING TO SEE LIGHT AND SHADE — CONTRASTING A FINISHED DRAWING (GAILLARD) WITH A ROUGH SKETCH — EQUAL ART IN EACH WHEN BOTH ARE WELL DONE — A NEWSPAPER CUT IN WHICH LIGHT AND SHADE ARE INDICATED BY VARIATION OF THICKNESS IN LINE — BROAD DRAWING RECOMMENDED TO PRINTERS — THE NASO-LABIAL LINE — RÉSUMÉ.

In our illustration by Dagnan-Bouveret we find most interesting indications of how an artist works; and this head may serve as a connecting link between the chapter on outline and the one on shading. The hat is a beautiful piece of outline drawing, which, however, was not meant for an outline drawing. It is simply to serve as the placing of the hat, which would afterward be shaded as are the face and mustache. The eyes, {74} nose and mustache were first outlined in this way, and you will recognize, I think, that this is the same kind of drawing as that of which we treated in our first chapters, though, of course, the hat is not all in one plane.

But before you can thoroughly appreciate the drawing of the face it is necessary that I should explain a little further the study of drawing as it is taught in the art schools. This I will do with the help of the Lœwe-Marchand cut. In this, we see the method pursued in almost all art schools the world over: a method based upon cast drawing. It is found from experience that students learn to see form more prominently from a plaster cast, which is white, than from natural objects; and it is found that the best results are got if the students are taught to see the big shadows of an object rather than the multitude of minor shadows which may be seen upon close scrutiny. So the student is told not to look for these minor shadows, but to half close his eyes, and stand a good distance away from the object—say three times its height—and look for the form that he sees when the object becomes to his half-closed eyes nothing more than a mass with a light and a dark side. You can imagine that after a person has learned to get the effect of a hand and a foot, as in the illustration in Chapters VII and X, by merely noting the shape of the one big shadow, that it is not difficult for him to go farther and put in the minor shadows by opening his eyes and examining the object more closely; and that when he has learned to do this for several months, or perchance several years, in the antique class, and then for as long, or longer, in the life class, that he has become■

{75}

Portrait of M. X., by Lœwe-Marchand.

This drawing was doubtless made on a sheet of charcoal paper, possibly gray in color, and was then photographed for the direct process; and then, in order to indicate the gray paper, the photo-engraver tinted the zinc plate with a Ben Day film, which gives the stipple result. The cross lines in the corner indicate that after the artist made his study he wished to enlarge it upon a canvas preliminary to painting, which was done by covering the drawing with squares and adding a diagonal to the same. These squares and diagonals were repeated on a larger scale on the canvas and the drawing enlarged freehand by placing the different points of the original in the corresponding triangles on the canvas. This method of enlarging drawings has been used for five thousand years.]

■{76} so sensitive to seeing shadows that it is not difficult for him to discern them upon anything and everything. Now, that is the secret of the beautiful drawing of the mustache in the Dagnan-Bouveret drawing. The beginner draws the hairs of the mustache, and tries to get his effect in that way; but you cannot by drawing the pelt of a fox on a barn door get the effect of one with a real live body underneath it. The result in this drawing is due entirely to Dagnan-Bouveret’s sensitiveness to light and shade. The lines, which the casual observer would take to be the hairs of the mustache, are really the shadows thrown by the groups of hairs as they part here and there. It is true that if he were etching this head or drawing it with a fine pen, he might in finishing it put in a few hairs, and even Albrecht Dürer would sometimes get a good effect by drawing the hairs of the mustache or the curls on a head. But in nearly all modern work, the hair, mustache or beard is considered as a mass receiving light and shade, and is so treated, there being no great difference between the golden hair of a child and the white hair of an old woman.

In the beautiful study by Gaillard we see the shape of the skull under the woman’s hair, and there is a very great difference between the part that is in shadow around her ears and the part that is light on the top of her head. This does not mean that the hair was gray on top, and black around the ears, but it means that the light struck the hair on top, while it did not strike it on the sides.

Now, if you can give yourself the time to study from the cast, or even from simple pasteboard boxes, so that your eye will become sensitive to these graduations from■

{77}

By C. F. Gaillard.]

■{78} light to dark, you will soon realize that, while in your drawing for printing you may never in a hundred years’ practice draw anything so delicate as the Gaillard, yet in your simplest drawings you may put in practice the theory upon which it is made. For example, if you are drawing an old woman’s head, even if you only use four or five lines to represent her hair, you will not press upon your pen when you are doing her hair on the top, but you will press upon it when you come within the region of the ears; and that pressure, though it will not represent hairs, nor the actual value of the shadow, will yet give _the difference_ between the light on the top of the head and the shadow behind the ears, and this will suggest to the educated eye the roundness of the cranium.

Now we reproduce also the rough Watts drawing. Let us contrast these two drawings. The one is almost as finished as it can be, the other slight; yet I want you to realize why I recommend this slight drawing to printers and tell you that it is artistic. It is so because in the very heavy lines that you see in the ear, beard and coat there is knowledge of modeling. The artist knew his business just as Gaillard did, and every time he put down a blotty line it was meant to represent the presence of a shadow. This face is from a photograph; hundreds of delicate tones have been left out; and the white hair of the beard is modeled with nothing but thin and heavy lines while the shadows of the photograph were delicate gray tints! A clever penman drawing from a photograph uses darks which the uneducated eye will take to be arbitrary blackening of the drawing, but which an artist knows are the result of intelligent observation.

{79}

An English newspaper cut from _Tid-Bits_, artist unknown. An excellent example of newspaper work. Note that the skull-cap is not represented partly gray and partly black because the artist meant to indicate a cap that was one color in front and another in the back, but he meant to show the rounding of the cranium, just as Gaillard did in varying the tones in the hair of the old woman.]

{80}

Now, in the Gaillard drawing you see a very delicate line running diagonally from the wing of the nose almost to the corner of the lips. This is called the naso-labial line, and is found in every old face. I say again, that though you work for one hundred years as a printer you would probably never draw a delicate line like this. But if you should make studies in pencil and realize that this line is typical of old age, you would be able to put it in such a drawing as the Watts (the artist has used two lines to represent it), where, you will notice, it comes down about as far on the lower lip as in the Gaillard, and you would realize why it was left out in the Dagnan-Bouveret and Marchand younger subjects.

This chapter should be exceedingly interesting to you as indicating two things—one discouraging and the other encouraging. First, that when students of art have the opportunity to work so beautifully, as in the Bargue-Gérôme studies, and afterward from life, as in the Gaillard, they needs must see more than you do, and you must not expect to equal them if you, a busy printer, can only practice a few evenings a week. Therefore you should not attempt subtile renderings like the Gaillard, but should confine yourself to simple means. On the other hand, when I tell you that this is about all the study there is gone through with in an art school (I say about all, for besides blocking-in, students learn a good deal about values; this we shall treat of in a succeeding chapter), it should be interesting to you to realize that if you will simply train yourself to see light and shade like the plinth in the foot studies given in Chapter XII by drawing a pasteboard box, and then afterward draw from life, so as to see that hair is darker {81} in shaded portions than in light ones, and that in an old person the naso-labial line is marked and shows darker than the cheeks, you will, when copying a photograph for your paper, no matter how roughly you work, be able to indicate the shadows in the hair and the dark naso-labial line, as in the Watts portrait. This, I say, should encourage you, and it is the only way for you to learn to draw.

{82} CHAPTER IX.

HEAD BY KNAUS ANALYZED — DRAWN IN THE MANNER OF THE DAGNAN-BOUVERET AND CONTAINING LINES LIKE THE WATTS — THE NASO-LABIAL LINE USED TO DELINEATE OLD AGE — THE SHADOW OF THE NOSTRIL — THE WING OF THE NOSE — THE NOSTRIL USUALLY THE DARKEST SHADOW LINE IN A FACE.

Let us resume the subject of Chapter VIII. We give a fine drawing of an old man’s head by Knaus, and we will ask you to look at it and see if you cannot realize two things about it—first, that no matter how many lines there may be upon the hat, which make it look battered and different in texture from a new silk hat, it was first drawn as was the Dagnan-Bouveret given in the last chapter; secondly, do you notice the oblique naso-labial line, which we spoke of in connection with the Gaillard and Watts? and do you realize one of two things from this also, that, either this line in the original drawing ran up to the wing of the nose but was lost in the several engravings, or else the artist wished to indicate that his model was not a very old man, and he did not make the line very strong in that place? If so, you have learned some important principles that will help you in drawing, for you will be able to sketch any hat you wish to draw by the same process that the best artists employ. Again, you will be able to use proper judgment in introducing the lines into a face. If, for example, you were copying, in pen-and-ink, chalk-plate or wood engraving,■

{83}

Crayon Drawing by Ludwig Knaus.]

■{84} from some half-obliterated etching or from some faded daguerreotype, an old man’s head like the Knaus, you would have the knowledge back of you that would permit you to draw in the naso-labial with proper accentuation. If you knew the original was a centenarian you would most certainly continue the line up to the wing of the nose and draw it continuously without a break; or if he were but a sexagenarian of whom the biographical dictionaries said “he carried his years lightly,” you might purposely break this line as in the Knaus.

So far, so good. And now for some other lines in the face. At the base of the nose we have the shadow of the nostril, and the curved portion of the nose around it called the wing of the nose; these are nearly always introduced into drawings. In the Knaus they are very happily drawn. Revert to the illustrations of the last chapter, and see if you can find them. In the Marchand and Gaillard they are represented by modeling rather than lines, but they are outlined in the Dagnan-Bouveret and the Watts, the former being in pencil. We notice that one of these objects is grayer than the other; which is it? It is the naso-labial line, and the shadow of the nostril is much the darker. The same effect is got in the Watts by using a fine line for the naso-labial line and a thicker line, or a blot, for the nostril. If, therefore, you were drawing the Gaillard in line, can you not realize that you would approximate the effect of our half-tone by making the outline of the wing of the nose the lightest of your lines, the naso-labial line darker, and the shadow of the nostril the darkest of the three? This order can {85} usually be followed in drawing an old person, and in almost every case (young or old) the nostril shadow is the darker of the three lines mentioned. In regard to the nostril being sometimes a line and sometimes a blot, the difference lies in the character of the original; with some persons the nostril is very straight and little of the inside of the nose shows. This was evidently the case in the Knaus original, so the artist uses a line and nothing more for the nostril (you will, however, not fail to note the subtlety of the artist’s touch, which gives us a strongly marked line for the nostril, but a more delicate line for the wing of the nose). In the Dagnan-Bouveret, however, the nostril goes up at quite an angle, exposing much more of the inside of the nose than in the Knaus; therefore, were you rendering this drawing in pen-and-ink, you could use a blot in the nostril similar in heaviness to that in the Watts portrait on page 79.

We should advise you, by the way, in following these chapters, to make tracings of all our half-tone cuts and render them in pen-line like the Watts; this will help you immensely to understand an analyzation of them.

{86} CHAPTER X.

THE ANALYZATION OF THE NASO-LABIAL LINE INDICATES THE FOUNDATION OF ART STUDY — WHEN THE LINE IS PROPERLY SEEN IT MAY BE DRAWN WITH ANY MEDIUM — CHOUDIEU HEAD BY BONNARD — ITS SIMILARITY TO THE WATTS — STRONG MARKING OF THE NASO-LABIAL LINE IN IT — A SIMILAR ANALYZATION TO THAT GIVEN THE WATTS DRAWING — PORTRAIT BY TOUSSAINT — HOW IT MIGHT BE RENDERED IN SIMPLE PEN LINES LIKE THE WATTS — DRAWING BY BONNARD — ITS HEAVY OUTLINE APPROPRIATE TO PRINTING — THE MEANING OF BLACKS IN A DRAWING — DRAWING BY BONNAT — EXAMPLE OF DRAWING BY LIGHT AND DARK MASSES — THE EMPLOYMENT OF WHITES IN SCRATCH-BOARD AND IN WOOD ENGRAVING — BONNARD’S DRAWING OF CURTAIN — BRUN DRAWING CORRECT IN COLOR VALUES — DIGRESSION IN REGARD TO FRENCH NAMES — DRAWING OF A FOOT SHOWING ART SCHOOL METHODS.

Some of the most valuable hints we have given our readers are those of Chapters VIII and IX, in connection with the naso-labial line. In these you will find the foundation of our teaching—that is, we do not say that a human face must be made by putting in a black line running obliquely from the nose to the lip, made with such or such a pen, such or such a crayon, ink, or charcoal, but we point out the line in _nature_, and say that because it is found in nature, artists put it in their drawings. When not found in a face, as that of a young person, then it is left out in a good artist’s drawing of a young face. Whether he uses pen, wash, {87} or crayon, has very little to do with the case. There are some methods of using the pen, wash, or crayon, that are better than others; but, if you are taught to see the naso-labial line in nature, it is very easy to learn to draw it in one of those mediums, and having drawn it in one, it is easier to learn to draw it in other mediums.

We give, with this chapter, the head of Choudieu, in which this line is marked as conspicuously as in the■

Drawn by Pierre Bonnard (probably from a medallion, and possibly with a quill pen), for _La Revue Blanche_.]

■Watts. This drawing might have been made with an ordinary pen, somewhat worn, or (as was probably the case) with a quill pen, or with a camel’s-hair brush, or with a Japanese brush (which, like the quill pen, is a delightful instrument with which to draw heavy lines); but are we not right in surmising that you are better prepared to draw such a head because we pointed out in {88} the last chapter that the naso-labial line was a characteristic mark of an old man’s face than if we had given you directions for using the quill pen or the brush and said nothing about this line? Of course, we do not mean to suggest that, were you making a copy from _this_ line drawing, you would be so careless as to leave out the naso-labial line, but if you were drawing an old man’s face from a photograph, might you not easily overlook this line if it had never been pointed out to you? If you agree with this proposition you will be in thorough sympathy with the spirit in which this work is written, and when our chapter on expression comes you will not at all regret that it is not a technical chapter on the use of a drawing instrument.