It is painting without nature that will
give a man this, and not painting directly from her. He must do both
the one and the other, and the one as much as the other.
The Model and the Lay-Figure
It may be doubted whether they have not done more harm than good.
They are an attempt to get a bit of stuffed nature and to study from
that instead of studying from the thing itself. Indeed, the man who
never has a model but studies the faces of people as they sit
opposite him in an omnibus, and goes straight home and puts down what
little he can of what he has seen, dragging it out piecemeal from his
memory, and going into another omnibus to look again for what he has
forgotten as near as he can find it--that man is studying from nature
as much as he who has a model four or five hours daily--and probably
more. For you may be painting from nature as much without nature
actually before you as with; and you may have nature before you all
the while you are painting and yet not be painting from her.
Sketching from Nature
Is very like trying to put a pinch of salt on her tail. And yet many
manage to do it very nicely.
Great Art and Sham Art
Art has no end in view save the emphasising and recording in the most
effective way some strongly felt interest or affection. Where there
is neither interest nor desire to record with good effect, there is
but sham art, or none at all: where both these are fully present, no
matter how rudely and inarticulately, there is great art.
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