Lectures on Landscape | Page 5

of it. Use any
means in your power to do that, and don't think of the person for whom
you are drawing as a connoisseur, but as a person of ordinary sense and
feeling. Don't get artist-like qualities for him: but first give him the
pleasant sensation of being at the place, then show him how the land
lies, how the water runs, how the wind blows, and so on. Always think
of the public as Molière of his old woman; you have done nothing
really great or good if you can't please her.
15. Now beginning wisely, so as to lose no time or labor, you will learn
to paint all the conditions of quiet light and sky, before you attempt
those of variable light and cloud. Do not trouble yourselves with or
allow yourselves to be tempted by any effects that are brilliant or
tremendous; except only that from the beginning I recommend you to
watch always for sunrise; to keep a little diary of the manner of it, and
to have beside your window a small sketch-book, with pencil cut over
night, and colors moist. The one indulgence which I would have you
allow yourselves in fast coloring, for some time, is the endeavor to
secure some record at the instant of the colors of morning clouds; while,
if they are merely white or gray or blue, you must get an outline of
them with pencil. You will soon feel by this means what are the real
difficulties to be encountered in all landscape coloring, and your eyes
will be educated to quantity and harmonious action of forms.
But for the rest--learn to paint everything in the quietest and simplest

light. First outline your whole subject completely, with delicate sharp
pencil line. If you don't get more than that, let your outline be a finished
and lovely diagram of the whole.
16. All the objects are then to be painted of their proper colors,
matching them as nearly as you can, in the manner that a missal is
painted, filling the outlined shapes neatly up to their junctions;
reënforcing afterwards when necessary, but as little as possible; but,
above all, knowing precisely what the light is, and where it is.[3]
[Footnote 3: Make a note of these points:
1. Date, time of day, temperature, direction and force of wind.
2. Roughly, by compass, the direction in which you are looking; and
angle of the light with respect to it.
3. Angle subtended by picture, and distance of nearest object in it.]
17. I have brought two old-fashioned colored engravings,[4] which are
a precise type of the style I want you to begin with. Finished from
corner to corner, as well as the painter easily could; everything done to
good purpose, nothing for vain glory; nothing in haste or affectation,
nothing in feverish or morbid excitement. The observation is accurate;
the sentiment, though childish, deep and pure; and the effect of light,
for common work, quite curiously harmonious and deceptive.
[Footnote 4: From a "Picturesque Tour from Geneva to Milan" ...
engraved from designs by J. Lory of Neufchâtel. London: Published by
R. Ackermann, at his Repository of Arts, 1820.]
They are, in spite of their weaknesses, absolutely the only landscapes I
could show you which give you a real idea of the places, or which put
your minds into the tone which, if you were happy and at ease, they
would take in the air and light of Italy.
I dwell on the necessity of completion especially, because I have lost
much time myself from my sympathy with the feverish intensity of the

minds of the great engravers; and from always fastening on one or two
points of my subject and neglecting the rest.
18. We have seen, then, that every subject is to be taken up first in its
terminal lines, then in its light and shade, then in its color.
First of the terminal lines of landscape, or of drawing in outline.
I think the examples of shell outline in your copying series must
already have made you feel the exact nature of a pure outline, the
difficulty of it, and the value.
But we have now to deal with limits of a more subtle kind.
The outline of any simple solid form, even though it may have complex
parts, represents an actual limit, accurately to be followed. The outline
of a cup, of a shell, or of an animal's limb, has a determinable course,
which your pen or pencil line either coincides with or does not. You
can say of that line, either it is wrong or right; if right, it is in a measure
suggestive, and nobly suggestive of the character of the object. But the
greater number of objects in a landscape either have