Lectures on Landscape | Page 7

sometimes thick and sometimes slender, a scientifically
accurate outline is perfectly equal throughout; and in your first practice
I wish you to use always a pen with a blunt point, which will make no
hair stroke under any conditions. So that using black ink and only one
movement of the pen, not returning to thicken your line, you shall
either have your line there, or not there; and that you may not be able to
gradate or change it, in any way or degree whatsoever.
24. Now the first question respecting it is: what place is your thick line
to have with respect to the limit which it represents--outside of it, or

inside, or over it? Theoretically, it is to be over it; the true limit falling
all the way along the center of your thick line. The contest of Apelles
with Protogenes consisted in striking this true limit within each other's
lines, more and more finely. And you may always consider your pen
line as representing the first incision for sculpture, the true limit being
the sharp center of the incision.
But, practically, when you are outlining a light object defined against a
dark one, the line must go outside of it; and when a dark object against
a light one, inside of it.
In this drawing of Holbein's, the hand being seen against the light, the
outline goes inside the contour of the fingers.
25. Secondly. And this is of great importance. It will happen constantly
that forms are entirely distinct from each other and separated by true
limits, which are yet invisible, or nearly so, to the eye. I place, for
instance, one of these eggs in front of the other, and probably to most
of you the separation in the light is indiscernible. Is it then to be
outlined? In practically combining outline with accomplished light and
shade there are cases of this kind in which the outline may with
advantage, or even must for truth of effect, be omitted. But the facts of
the solid form are of so vital importance, and the perfect command of
them so necessary to the dignity and intelligibility of the work, that the
greatest artists, even for their finished drawings, like to limit every
solid form by a fine line, whether its contour be visible to the eye or
not.
26. An outline thus perfectly made with absolute decision, and with a
wash of one color above it, is the most masterly of all methods of light
and shade study, with limited time, when the forms of the objects to be
drawn are clear and unaffected by mist. But without any wash of color,
such an outline is the most valuable of all means for obtaining such
memoranda of any scene as may explain to another person, or record
for yourself, what is most important in its features.
27. Choose, then, a subject that interests you; and so far as failure of
time or materials compels you to finish one part, or express one

character, rather than another, of course dwell on the features that
interest you most. But beyond this, forget, or even somewhat repress
yourself, and make it your first object to give a true idea of the place to
other people. You are not to endeavor to express your own feelings
about it; if anything, err on the side of concealing them. What is best is
not to think of yourself at all, but to state as plainly and simply as you
can the whole truth of the thing. What you think unimportant in it may
to another person be the most touching part of it: what you think
beautiful may be in truth commonplace and of small value. Quietly
complete each part to the best of your power, endeavoring to maintain a
steady and dutiful energy, and the tranquil pleasure of a workman.

II.
LIGHT AND SHADE.
28. In my last Lecture I laid before you evidence that the greatness of
the master whom I wished you to follow as your only guide in
landscape depended primarily on his studying from Nature always with
the point; that is to say, in pencil or pen outline. To-day I wish to show
you that his preëminence depends secondarily on his perfect rendering
of form and distance by light and shade, before he admits a thought of
color.
I say "before" however--observe carefully--only with reference to the
construction of any given picture, not with reference to the order in
which he learnt his mechanical processes. From the beginning, he
worked out of doors with the point, but indoors with the brush; and
attains perfect skill in washing flat color long before he attains anything
like skill in delineation of form.
29. Here, for instance, is a drawing, when he