Seven Discourses on Art | Page 4

the rudiments. For it may be
laid down as a maxim, that he who begins by presuming on his own
sense has ended his studies as soon as he has commenced them. Every
opportunity, therefore, should be taken to discountenance that false and
vulgar opinion that rules are the fetters of genius. They are fetters only
to men of no genius; as that armour, which upon the strong becomes an
ornament and a defence, upon the weak and misshapen turns into a load,
and cripples the body which it was made to protect.
How much liberty may be taken to break through those rules, and, as
the poet expresses it,
"To snatch a grace beyond the reach of art,"
may be an after consideration, when the pupils become masters
themselves. It is then, when their genius has received its utmost
improvement, that rules may possibly be dispensed with. But let us not
destroy the scaffold until we have raised the building.
The directors ought more particularly to watch over the genius of those
students who, being more advanced, are arrived at that critical period of
study, on the nice management of which their future turn of taste
depends. At that age it is natural for them to be more captivated with
what is brilliant than with what is solid, and to prefer splendid
negligence to painful and humiliating exactness.
A facility in composing, a lively, and what is called a masterly handling
the chalk or pencil, are, it must be confessed, captivating qualities to
young minds, and become of course the objects of their ambition. They

endeavour to imitate those dazzling excellences, which they will find
no great labour in attaining. After much time spent in these frivolous
pursuits, the difficulty will be to retreat; but it will be then too late; and
there is scarce an instance of return to scrupulous labour after the mind
has been debauched and deceived by this fallacious mastery.
By this useless industry they are excluded from all power of advancing
in real excellence. Whilst boys, they are arrived at their utmost
perfection; they have taken the shadow for the substance; and make that
mechanical facility the chief excellence of the art, which is only an
ornament, and of the merit of which few but painters themselves are
judges.
This seems to me to be one of the most dangerous sources of corruption;
and I speak of it from experience, not as an error which may possibly
happen, but which has actually infected all foreign academies. The
directors were probably pleased with this premature dexterity in their
pupils, and praised their despatch at the expense of their correctness.
But young men have not only this frivolous ambition of being thought
masterly inciting them on one hand, but also their natural sloth
tempting them on the other. They are terrified at the prospect before
them, of the toil required to attain exactness. The impetuosity of youth
is distrusted at the slow approaches of a regular siege, and desires, from
mere impatience of labour, to take the citadel by storm. They wish to
find some shorter path to excellence, and hope to obtain the reward of
eminence by other means than those which the indispensable rules of
art have prescribed. They must, therefore, be told again and again that
labour is the only price of solid fame, and that whatever their force of
genius may be, there is no easy method of becoming a good painter.
When we read the lives of the most eminent painters, every page
informs us that no part of their time was spent in dissipation. Even an
increase of fame served only to augment their industry. To be
convinced with what persevering assiduity they pursued their studies,
we need only reflect on their method of proceeding in their most
celebrated works. When they conceived a subject, they first made a
variety of sketches; then a finished drawing of the whole; after that a
more correct drawing of every separate part, heads, hands, feet, and
pieces of drapery; they then painted the picture, and after all re-touched
it from the life. The pictures, thus wrought with such pain, now appear

like the effect of enchantment, and as if some mighty genius had struck
them off at a blow.
But, whilst diligence is thus recommended to the students, the visitors
will take care that their diligence be effectual; that it be well directed
and employed on the proper object. A student is not always advancing
because he is employed; he must apply his strength to that part of the
art where the real difficulties lie; to that part which distinguishes it as a
liberal art, and not by mistaken industry lose his time in that which is
merely ornamental. The students, instead of vying with