by John Ruskin
PREFACE.
It may perhaps be thought, that in prefacing a Manual of Drawing, Iought to expatiate on the reasons why drawing should be learned; butthose reasons appear to me so many and so weighty, that I cannot quicklystate or enforce them. With the reader's permission, as this volume istoo large already, I will waive all discussion respecting the importanceof the subject, and touch only on those points which may appearquestionable in the method of its treatment.
In the first place, the book is not calculated for the use of childrenunder the age of twelve or fourteen. I do not think it advisable toengage a child in any but the most voluntary practice of art. If it hastalent for drawing, it will be continually scrawling on what paper itcan get; and should be allowed to scrawl at its own free will, duepraise being given for every appearance of care, or truth, in itsefforts. It should be allowed to amuse itself with cheap colours almostas soon as it has sense enough to wish for them. If it merely daubs thepaper with shapeless stains, the colour-box may be taken away till itknows better: but as soon as it begins painting red coats on soldiers,striped flags to ships, etc., it should have colours at command; and,without restraining its choice of subject in that imaginative andhistorical art, of a military tendency, which children delight in,(generally quite as valuable, by the way, as any historical artdelighted in by their elders,) it should be gently led by the parents totry to draw, in such childish fashion as may be, the things it can seeand likes,--birds, or butterflies, or flowers, or fruit. In lateryears, the indulgence of using the colour should only be granted as areward, after it has shown care and progress in its drawings withpencil. A limited number of good and amusing prints should always bewithin a boy's reach: in these days of cheap illustration he can hardlypossess a volume of nursery tales without good woodcuts in it, andshould be encouraged to copy what he likes best of this kind; but shouldbe firmly restricted to a _few_ prints and to a few books. If a childhas many toys, it will get tired of them and break them; if a boy hasmany prints he will merely dawdle and scrawl over them; it is by thelimitation of the number of his possessions that his pleasure in them isperfected, and his attention concentrated. The parents need givethemselves no trouble in instructing him, as far as drawing isconcerned, beyond insisting upon economical and neat habits with hiscolours and paper, showing him the best way of holding pencil and rule,and, so far as they take notice of his work, pointing out where a lineis too short or too long, or too crooked, when compared with the copy;_accuracy_ being the first and last thing they look for. If the childshows talent for inventing or grouping figures, the parents shouldneither check, nor praise it. They may laugh with it frankly, or showpleasure in what it has done, just as they show pleasure in seeing itwell, or cheerful; but they must not praise it for being clever, anymore than they would praise it for being stout. They should praise itonly for what costs it self-denial, namely attention and hard work;otherwise they will make it work for vanity's sake, and always badly.The best books to put into its hands are those illustrated by GeorgeCruikshank or by Richter. (See Appendix.) At about the age of twelve orfourteen, it is quite time enough to set youth or girl to serious work;and then this book will, I think, be useful to them; and I have goodhope it may be so, likewise, to persons of more advanced age wishing toknow something of the first principles of art.
Yet observe, that the method of study recommended is not brought forwardas absolutely the best, but only as the best which I can at presentdevise for an isolated student. It is very likely that fartherexperience in teaching may enable me to modify it with advantage inseveral important respects; but I am sure the main principles of it aresound, and most of the exercises as useful as they can be renderedwithout a master's superintendence. The method differs, however, somaterially from that generally adopted by drawing-masters, that a wordor two of explanation may be needed to justify what might otherwise bethought wilful eccentricity.
The manuals at present published on the subject of drawing are alldirected, as far as I know, to one or other of two objects. Either theypropose to give the student a power of dexterous sketching with pencilor water-colour, so as to emulate (at considerable distance) theslighter work of our second-rate artists; or they propose to give himsuch accurate command of mathematical forms as may afterwards enable himto design rapidly and cheaply for manufactures. When drawing is taughtas an accomplishment, the first is the aim usually proposed; while thesecond is the object kept chiefly in view at Marlborough House, and inthe branch Government Schools of Design.
Of the fitness of the modes of study adopted in those schools, to theend specially intended, judgment is hardly yet possible; only, it seemsto me, that we are all too much in the habit of confusing art as_applied_ to manufacture, with manufacture itself. For instance, theskill by which an inventive workman designs and moulds a beautiful cup,is skill of true art; but the skill by which that cup is copied andafterwards multiplied a thousandfold, is skill of manufacture: and thefaculties which enable one workman to design and elaborate his originalpiece, are not to be developed by the same system of instruction asthose which enable another to produce a maximum number of approximatecopies of it in a given time. Farther: it is surely inexpedient that anyreference to purposes of manufacture should interfere with the educationof the artist himself. Try first to manufacture a Raphael; then letRaphael direct your manufacture. He will design you a plate, or cup, ora house, or a palace, whenever you want it, and design them in the mostconvenient and rational way; but do not let your anxiety to reach theplatter and the cup interfere with your education of the Raphael. Obtainfirst the best work you can, and the ablest hands, irrespective of anyconsideration of economy or facility of production. Then leave yourtrained artist to determine how far art can be popularised, ormanufacture ennobled.
Now, I believe that (irrespective of differences in individual temperand character) the excellence of an artist, as such, depends wholly onrefinement of perception, and that it is this, mainly, which a master ora school can teach; so that while powers of invention distinguish manfrom man, powers of perception distinguish school from school. All greatschools enforce delicacy of drawing and subtlety of sight: and the onlyrule which I have, as yet, found to be without exception respecting art,is that all great art is delicate.
Therefore, the chief aim and bent of the following system is to obtain,first, a perfectly patient, and, to the utmost of the pupil's power, adelicate method of work, such as may ensure his seeing truly. For I amnearly convinced, that when once we see keenly enough, there is verylittle difficulty in drawing what we see; but, even supposing that thisdifficulty be still great, I believe that the sight is a more importantthing than the drawing; and I would rather teach drawing that my pupilsmay learn to love Nature, than teach the looking at Nature that they maylearn to draw. It is surely also a more important thing for young peopleand unprofessional students, to know how to appreciate the art ofothers, than to gain much power in art themselves. Now the modes ofsketching ordinarily taught are inconsistent with this power ofjudgment. No person trained to the superficial execution of modernwater-colour painting, can understand the work of Titian or Leonardo;they must for ever remain blind to the refinement of such men'spencilling, and the precision of their thinking. But, however slight adegree of manipulative power the student may reach by pursuing the moderecommended to him in these letters, I will answer for it that he cannotgo once through the advised exercises without beginning to understandwhat masterly work means; and, by the time he has gained someproficiency in them, he will have a pleasure in looking at the paintingof the great schools, and a new perception of the exquisiteness ofnatural scenery, such as would repay him for much more labour than Ihave asked him to undergo.
That labour is, nevertheless, sufficiently irksome, nor is it possiblethat it should be otherwise, so long as the pupil works unassisted by amaster. For the smooth and straight road which admits unembarrassedprogress must, I fear, be dull as well as smooth; and the hedges need tobe close and trim when there is no guide to war
n or bring back theerring traveller. The system followed in this work will, therefore, atfirst, surprise somewhat sorrowfully those who are familiar with thepractice of our class at the Working Men's College; for there, thepupil, having the master at his side to extricate him from suchembarrassments as his first efforts may lead into, is _at once_ set todraw from a solid object, and soon finds entertainment in his effortsand interest in his difficulties. Of course the simplest object which itis possible to set before the eye is a sphere; and practically, I find achild's toy, a white leather ball, better than anything else; as thegradations on balls of plaster of Paris, which I use sometimes to trythe strength of pupils who have had previous practice, are a little toodelicate for a beginner to perceive. It has been objected that a circle,or the outline of a sphere, is one of the most difficult of all lines todraw. It is so; but I do not want it to be drawn. All that his study ofthe ball is to teach the pupil, is the way in which shade gives theappearance of projection. This he learns most satisfactorily from asphere; because any solid form, terminated by straight lines or flatsurfaces, owes some of its appearance of projection to its perspective;but in the sphere, what, without shade, was a flat circle, becomes,merely by the added shade, the image of a solid ball; and this fact isjust as striking to the learner, whether his circular outline be true orfalse. He is, therefore, never allowed to trouble himself about it; ifhe makes the ball look as oval as an egg, the degree of error is simplypointed out to him, and he does better next time, and better still thenext. But his mind is always fixed on the gradation of shade, and theoutline left to take, in due time, care of itself. I call it outline,for the sake of immediate intelligibility,--strictly speaking, it ismerely the edge of the shade; no pupil in my class being ever allowed todraw an outline, in the ordinary sense. It is pointed out to him, fromthe first, that Nature relieves one mass, or one tint, against another;but outlines none. The outline exercise, the second suggested in thisletter, is recommended, not to enable the pupil to draw outlines, but asthe only means by which, unassisted, he can test his accuracy of eye,and discipline his hand. When the master is by, errors in the form andextent of shadows can be pointed out as easily as in outline, and thehandling can be gradually corrected in details of the work. But thesolitary student can only find out his own mistakes by help of thetraced limit, and can only test the firmness of his hand by an exercisein which nothing but firmness is required; and during which all otherconsiderations (as of softness, complexity, &c.) are entirely excluded.
Both the system adopted at the Working Men's College, and thatrecommended here, agree, however, in one principle, which I consider themost important and special of all that are involved in my teaching:namely, the attaching its full importance, from the first, to localcolour. I believe that the endeavour to separate, in the course ofinstruction, the observation of light and shade from that of localcolour, has always been, and must always be, destructive of thestudent's power of accurate sight, and that it corrupts his taste asmuch as it retards his progress. I will not occupy the reader's time byany discussion of the principle here, but I wish him to note it as theonly distinctive one in my system, so far as it is a system. For therecommendation to the pupil to copy faithfully, and without alteration,whatever natural object he chooses to study, is serviceable, among otherreasons, just because it gets rid of systematic rules altogether, andteaches people to draw, as country lads learn to ride, without saddle orstirrups; my main object being, at first, not to get my pupils to holdtheir reins prettily, but to "sit like a jackanapes, never off."
In these written instructions, therefore, it has always been with regretthat I have seen myself forced to advise anything like monotonous orformal discipline. But, to the unassisted student, such formalities areindispensable, and I am not without hope that the sense of secureadvancement, and the pleasure of independent effort, may render thefollowing out of even the more tedious exercises here proposed, possibleto the solitary learner, without weariness. But if it should beotherwise, and he finds the first steps painfully irksome, I can onlydesire him to consider whether the acquirement of so great a power asthat of pictorial expression of thought be not worth some toil; orwhether it is likely, in the natural order of matters in this workingworld, that so great a gift should be attainable by those who will giveno price for it.
One task, however, of some difficulty, the student will find I have notimposed upon him: namely, learning the laws of perspective. It would beworth while to learn them, if he could do so easily; but without amaster's help, and in the way perspective is at present explained intreatises, the difficulty is greater than the gain. For perspective isnot of the slightest use, except in rudimentary work. You can draw therounding line of a table in perspective, but you cannot draw the sweepof a sea bay; you can foreshorten a log of wood by it, but you cannotforeshorten an arm. Its laws are too gross and few to be applied to anysubtle form; therefore, as you must learn to draw the subtle forms bythe eye, certainly you may draw the simple ones. No great painters evertrouble themselves about perspective, and very few of them know itslaws; they draw everything by the eye, and, naturally enough, disdain inthe easy parts of their work rules which cannot help them in difficultones. It would take about a month's labour to draw imperfectly, by lawsof perspective, what any great Venetian will draw perfectly in fiveminutes, when he is throwing a wreath of leaves round a head, or bendingthe curves of a pattern in and out among the folds of drapery. It istrue that when perspective was first discovered, everybody amusedthemselves with it; and all the great painters put fine saloons andarcades behind their madonnas, merely to show that they could draw inperspective: but even this was generally done by them only to catch thepublic eye, and they disdained the perspective so much, that though theytook the greatest pains with the circlet of a crown, or the rim of acrystal cup, in the heart of their picture, they would twist theircapitals of columns and towers of churches about in the background inthe most wanton way, wherever they liked the lines to go, provided onlythey left just perspective enough to please the public. In modern days,I doubt if any artist among us, except David Roberts, knows so muchperspective as would enable him to draw a Gothic arch to scale, at agiven angle and distance. Turner, though he was professor of perspectiveto the Royal Academy, did not know what he professed, and never, as faras I remember, drew a single building in true perspective in his life;he drew them only with as much perspective as suited him. Prout alsoknew nothing of perspective, and twisted his buildings, as Turner did,into whatever shapes he liked. I do not justify this; and wouldrecommend the student at least to treat perspective with commoncivility, but to pay no court to it. The best way he can learn it, byhimself, is by taking a pane of glass, fixed in a frame, so that it canbe set upright before the eye, at the distance at which the proposedsketch is intended to be seen. Let the eye be placed at some fixedpoint, opposite the middle of the pane of glass, but as high or as lowas the student likes; then with a brush at the end of a stick, and alittle body-colour that will adhere to the glass, the lines of thelandscape may be traced on the glass, as you see them through it. Whenso traced they are all in true perspective. If the glass be sloped inany direction, the lines are still in true perspective, only it isperspective calculated for a sloping plane, while common perspectivealways supposes the plane of the picture to be vertical. It is good, inearly practice, to accustom yourself to enclose your subject, beforesketching it, with a light frame of wood held upright before you; itwill show you what you may legitimately take into your picture, andwhat choice there is between a narrow foreground near you, and a wideone farther off; also, what height of tree or building you can properlytake in, &c.[198]
Of figure drawing, nothing is said in the following pages, because I donot think figures, as chief subjects, can be drawn to any good purposeby an amateur. As accessaries in landscape, they are just to be drawn onthe same principles as anything else.
Lastly: If any of the directions given subsequently to the studentshould be found obscure by him, or if at any stage of t
he recommendedpractice he finds himself in difficulties which I have not providedenough against, he may apply by letter to Mr. Ward, who is my underdrawing-master at the Working Men's College (45 Great Ormond Street),and who will give any required assistance, on the lowest terms that canremunerate him for the occupation of his time. I have not leisure myselfin general to answer letters of inquiry, however much I may desire to doso; but Mr. Ward has always the power of referring any question to mewhen he thinks it necessary. I have good hope, however, that enoughguidance is given in this work to prevent the occurrence of any seriousembarrassment; and I believe that the student who obeys its directionswill find, on the whole, that the best answer of questions isperseverance; and the best drawing-masters are the woods and hills.
FOOTNOTES:
[198] If the student is fond of architecture, and wishes to know more ofperspective than he can learn in this rough way, Mr. Runciman (of 40Accacia Road, St. John's Wood), who was my first drawing-master, and towhom I owe many happy hours, can teach it him quickly, easily, andrightly.
THE
ELEMENTS OF DRAWING.