The Crown of Wild Olive

by John Ruskin

  LETTER II.

  SKETCHING FROM NATURE.

  MY DEAR READER:--

  The work we have already gone through together has, I hope, enabled youto draw with fair success, either rounded and simple masses, likestones, or complicated arrangements of form, like those of leaves;provided only these masses or complexities will stay quiet for you tocopy, and do not extend into quantity so great as to baffle yourpatience. But if we are now to go out to the fields, and to drawanything like a complete landscape, neither of these conditions will anymore be observed for us. The clouds will not wait while we copy theirheaps or clefts; the shadows will escape from us as we try to shapethem, each, in its stealthy minute march, still leaving light where itstremulous edge had rested the moment before, and involving in eclipseobjects that had seemed safe from its influence; and instead of thesmall clusters of leaves which we could reckon point by point,embarrassing enough even though numerable, we have now leaves as littleto be counted as the sands of the sea, and restless, perhaps, as itsfoam.

  In all that we have to do now, therefore, direct imitation becomes moreor less impossible. It is always to be aimed at so far as it _is_possible; and when you have time and opportunity, some portions of alandscape may, as you gain greater skill, be rendered with anapproximation almost to mirrored portraiture. Still, whatever skill youmay reach, there will always be need of judgment to choose, and of speedto seize, certain things that are principal or fugitive; and you mustgive more and more effort daily to the observance of characteristicpoints, and the attainment of concise methods.

  I have directed your attention early to foliage for two reasons. First,that it is always accessible as a study; and secondly, that its modes ofgrowth present simple examples of the importance of leading orgoverning lines. It is by seizing these leading lines, when we cannotseize _all_, that likeness and expression are given to a portrait, andgrace and a kind of _vital_ truth to the rendering of every naturalform. I call it _vital_ truth, because these chief lines are alwaysexpressive of the past history and present action of the thing. Theyshow in a mountain, first, how it was built or heaped up; and secondly,how it is now being worn away, and from what quarter the wildest stormsstrike it. In a tree, they show what kind of fortune it has had toendure from its childhood; how troublesome trees have come in its way,and pushed it aside, and tried to strangle or starve it; where and whenkind trees have sheltered it, and grown up lovingly together with it,bending as it bent; what winds torment it most; what boughs of it behavebest, and bear most fruit; and so on. In a wave or cloud, these leadinglines show the run of the tide and of the wind, and the sort of changewhich the water or vapour is at any moment enduring in its form, as itmeets shore, or counterwave, or melting sunshine. Now remember, nothingdistinguishes great men from inferior men more than their always,whether in life or in art, _knowing the way things are going_. Yourdunce thinks they are standing still, and draws them all fixed; yourwise man sees the change or changing in them, and draws them so--theanimal in its motion, the tree in its growth, the cloud in its course,the mountain in its wearing away. Try always, whenever you look at aform, to see the lines in it which have had power over its past fate,and will have power over its futurity. Those are its _awful_ lines; seethat you seize on those, whatever else you miss. Thus, the leafage inFig. 16. (p. 291.) grew round the root of a stone pine, on the brow of acrag at Sestri, near Genoa, and all the sprays of it are thrust away intheir first budding by the great rude root, and spring out in everydirection round it, as water splashes when a heavy stone is thrown intoit. Then, when they have got clear of the root, they begin to bend upagain; some of them, being little stone pines themselves, have a greatnotion of growing upright, if they can; and this struggle of theirs torecover their straight road towards the sky, after being obliged togrow sideways in their early years, is the effort that will mainlyinfluence their future destiny, and determine if they are to be crabbed,forky pines, striking from that rock of Sestri, whose clefts nourishthem, with bared red lightning of angry arms towards the sea; or if theyare to be goodly and solemn pines, with trunks like pillars of temples,and the purple burning of their branches sheathed in deep globes ofcloudy green. Those, then, are their fateful lines; see that you givethat spring and resilience, whatever you leave ungiven: depend upon it,their chief beauty is in these.

  FIG. 17.]

  FIG. 18.]

  FIG. 19.]

  So in trees in general and bushes, large or small, you will notice that,though the boughs spring irregularly and at various angles, there is atendency in all to stoop less and less as they near the top of the tree.This structure, typified in the simplest possible terms at _c_, Fig.17., is common to all trees, that I know of, and it gives them a certainplumy character, and aspect of unity in the hearts of their branches,which are essential to their beauty. The stem does not merely send off awild branch here and there to take its own way, but all the branchesshare in one great fountain-like impulse; each has a curve and a path totake which fills a definite place, and each terminates all its minorbranches at its outer extremity, so as to form a great outer curve,whose character and proportion are peculiar for each species; that is tosay, the general type or idea of a tree is not as _a_, Fig. 17., but as_b_, in which, observe, the boughs all carry their minor divisions rightout to the bounding curve; not but that smaller branches, by thousands,terminate in the heart of the tree, but the idea and main purpose inevery branch are to carry all its child branches well out to the air andlight, and let each of them, however small, take its part in filling theunited flow of the bounding curve, so that the type of each separatebough is again not _a_ but _b_, Fig. 18.; approximating, that is tosay, so far to the structure of a plant of broccoli as to throw thegreat mass of spray and leafage out to a rounded surface; therefore,beware of getting into a careless habit of drawing boughs withsuccessive sweeps of the pen or brush, one hanging to the other, as inFig. 19. If you look at the tree-boughs in any painting of Wilson's, youwill see this structure, and nearly every other that is to be avoided,in their intensest types. You will also notice that Wilson neverconceives a tree as a round mass, but flat, as if it had been pressedand dried. Most people, in drawing pines, seem to fancy, in the sameway, that the boughs come out only on two sides of the trunk, instead ofall round it; always, therefore, take more pains in trying to draw theboughs of trees that grow _towards_ you, than those that go off to thesides; anybody can draw the latter, but the foreshortened ones are notso easy. It will help you in drawing them to observe that in most treesthe ramification of each branch, though not of the tree itself, is moreor less flattened, and approximates, in its position, to the look of ahand held out to receive something, or shelter something. If you take alooking-glass, and hold your hand before it slightly hollowed, with thepalm upwards, and the fingers open, as if you were going to support thebase of some great bowl, larger than you could easily hold, and sketchyour hand as you see it in the glass, with the points of the fingerstowards you, it will materially help you in understanding the way treesgenerally hold out their hands; and if then you will turn yours with itspalm downwards, as if you were going to try to hide something, but withthe fingers expanded, you will get a good type of the action of thelower boughs in cedars and such other spreading trees.

  FIG. 20.]

  Fig. 20. will give you a good idea of the simplest way in which theseand other such facts can be rapidly expressed; if you copy it carefully,you will be surprised to find how the touches all group together, inexpressing the plumy toss of the tree branches, and the springing of thebushes out of the bank, and the undulation of the ground: note thecareful drawing of the footsteps made by the climbers of the littlemound on the left.[220] It is facsimiled from an etching of Turner's,and is as good an example as you can have of the use of pure and firmlines; it will also show you how the particular action in foliage, oranything else to which you wish to direct attention, may be intensifiedby the adjuncts. The tall and upright trees are made to look more talland upright still, because th
eir line is continued below by the figureof the farmer with his stick; and the rounded bushes on the bank aremade to look more rounded because their line is continued in one broadsweep by the black dog and the boy climbing the wall. These figures areplaced entirely with this object, as we shall see more fully hereafterwhen we come to talk about composition; but, if you please, we will nottalk about that yet awhile. What I have been telling you about thebeautiful lines and action of foliage has nothing to do withcomposition, but only with fact, and the brief and expressiverepresentation of fact. But there will be no harm in your lookingforward, if you like to do so, to the account, in Letter III. of the"Law of Radiation," and reading what it said there about tree growth:indeed it would in some respects have been better to have said it herethan there, only it would have broken up the account of the principlesof composition somewhat awkwardly.

  Now, although the lines indicative of action are not always quite somanifest in other things as in trees, a little attention will soonenable you to see that there _are_ such lines in everything. In an oldhouse roof, a bad observer and bad draughtsman will only see and drawthe spotty irregularity of tiles or slates all over; but a gooddraughtsman will see all the bends of the under timbers, where they areweakest and the weight is telling on them most, and the tracks of therun of the water in time of rain, where it runs off fastest, and whereit lies long and feeds the moss; and he will be careful, however fewslates he draws, to mark the way they bend together towards thosehollows (which have the future fate of the roof in them), and crowdgradually together at the top of the gable, partly diminishing inperspective, partly, perhaps, diminished on purpose (they are so in mostEnglish old houses) by the slate-layer. So in ground, there is alwaysthe direction of the run of the water to be noticed, which rounds theearth and cuts it into hollows; and, generally, in any bank, or heightworth drawing, a trace of bedded or other internal structure besides.The figure 20. will give you some idea of the way in which such factsmay be expressed by a few lines. Do you not feel the depression in theground all down the hill where the footsteps are, and how the peoplealways turn to the left at the top, losing breath a little, and then howthe water runs down in that other hollow towards the valley, behind theroots of the trees?

  Now, I want you in your first sketches from nature to aim exclusively atunderstanding and representing these vital facts of form; using thepen--not now the steel, but the quill--firmly and steadily, neverscrawling with it, but saying to yourself before you lay on a singletouch,--"_That_ leaf is the main one, _that_ bough is the guiding one,and this touch, _so_ long, _so_ broad, means that part of it,"--point orside or knot, as the case may be. Resolve always, as you look at thething, what you will take, and what miss of it, and never let your handrun away with you, or get into any habit or method of touch. If you wanta continuous line, your hand should pass calmly from one end of it tothe other, without a tremor; if you want a shaking and broken line, yourhand should shake, or break off, as easily as a musician's finger shakesor stops on a note: only remember this, that there is no general way ofdoing _any_ thing; no recipe can be given you for so much as the drawingof a cluster of grass. The grass may be ragged and stiff, or tender andflowing; sunburnt and sheep-bitten, or rank and languid; fresh or dry;lustrous or dull: look at it, and try to draw it as it is, and don'tthink how somebody "told you to _do_ grass." So a stone may be round andangular, polished or rough, cracked all over like an ill-glazed teacup,or as united and broad as the breast of Hercules. It may be as flaky asa wafer, as powdery as a field puff-ball; it may be knotted like aship's hawser, or kneaded like hammered iron, or knit like a Damascussabre, or fused like a glass bottle, or crystallised like a hoar-frost,or veined like a forest leaf: look at it, and don't try to remember howanybody told you to "do a stone."

  As soon as you find that your hand obeys you thoroughly and that you canrender any form with a firmness and truth approaching that of Turner'sand Durer's work,[221] you must add a simple but equally careful lightand shade to your pen drawing, so as to make each study as complete aspossible: for which you must prepare yourself thus. Get, if you have themeans, a good impression of one plate of Turner's Liber Studiorum; ifpossible, one of the subjects named in the note below.[222]

  If you cannot obtain, or even borrow for a little while, any of theseengravings, you must use a photograph instead (how, I will tell youpresently); but, if you can get the Turner, it will be best. You willsee that it is composed of a firm etching in line, with mezzotint shadowlaid over it. You must first copy the etched part of it accurately; towhich end put the print against the window, and trace slowly with the_greatest_ care every black line; retrace this on smooth drawing-paper;and, finally, go over the whole with your pen, looking at the originalplate always, so that if you err at all, it may be on the right side,not making a line which is too curved or too straight already in thetracing, _more_ curved or _more_ straight, as you go over it. And indoing this, never work after you are tired, nor to "get the thing done,"for if it is badly done, it will be of no use to you. The true zeal andpatience of a quarter of an hour are better than the sulky andinattentive labour of a whole day. If you have not made the touchesright at the first going over with the pen, retouch them delicately,with little ink in your pen, thickening or reinforcing them as theyneed: you cannot give too much care to the facsimile. Then keep thisetched outline by you, in order to study at your ease the way in whichTurner uses his line as preparatory for the subsequent shadow;[223] itis only in getting the two separate that you will be able to reason onthis. Next, copy once more, though for the fourth time, any part of thisetching which you like, and put on the light and shade with the brush,and any brown colour that matches that of the plate;[224] working itwith the point of the brush as delicately as if you were drawing withpencil, and dotting and cross-hatching as lightly as you can touch thepaper, till you get the gradations of Turner's engraving. In thisexercise, as in the former one, a quarter of an inch worked to closeresemblance of the copy is worth more than the whole subject carelesslydone. Not that in drawing afterwards from nature, you are to be obligedto finish every gradation in this way, but that, once having fullyaccomplished the drawing _something_ rightly, you will thenceforwardfeel and aim at a higher perfection than you could otherwise haveconceived, and the brush will obey you, and bring out quickly andclearly the loveliest results, with a submissiveness which it would havewholly refused if you had not put it to severest work. Nothing is morestrange in art than the way that chance and materials seem to favouryou, when once you have thoroughly conquered them. Make yourself quiteindependent of chance, get your result in spite of it, and from that dayforward all things will somehow fall as you would have them. Show thecamel's-hair, and the colour in it, that no bending nor blotting are ofany use to escape your will; that the touch and the shade _shall_finally be right, if it cost you a year's toil; and from that hour ofcorrective conviction, said camel's-hair will bend itself to all yourwishes, and no blot will dare to transgress its appointed border. If youcannot obtain a print from the Liber Studiorum, get a photograph[225]of some general landscape subject, with high hills and a village, orpicturesque town, in the middle distance, and some calm water of variedcharacter (a stream with stones in it, if possible), and copy any partof it you like, in this same brown colour, working, as I have justdirected you to do from the Liber, a great deal with the point of thebrush. You are under a twofold disadvantage here, however; first, thereare portions in every photograph too delicately done for you at presentto be at all able to copy; and secondly, there are portions always moreobscure or dark than there would be in the real scene, and involved in amystery which you will not be able, as yet, to decipher. Both thesecharacters will be advantageous to you for future study, after you havegained experience, but they are a little against you in early attemptsat tinting; still you must fight through the difficulty, and get thepower of producing delicate gradations with brown or grey, like those ofthe photograph.

  Now observe; the perfection of work would be tinted shadow
, likephotography, _without_ any obscurity or exaggerated darkness; and aslong as your effect depends in anywise on visible _lines_, your art isnot perfect, though it may be first-rate of its kind. But to getcomplete results in tints merely, requires both long time and consummateskill; and you will find that a few well-put pen lines, with a tintdashed over or under them, get more expression of facts than you couldreach in any other way, by the same expenditure of time. The use of theLiber Studiorum print to you is chiefly as an example of the simplestshorthand of this kind, a shorthand which is yet capable of dealing withthe most subtle natural effects; for the firm etching gets at theexpression of complicated details, as leaves, masonry, textures ofground, &c., while the overlaid tint enables you to express the mosttender distances of sky, and forms of playing light, mist or cloud. Mostof the best drawings by the old masters are executed on this principle,the touches of the pen being useful also to give a look of transparencyto shadows, which could not otherwise be attained but by great finishof tinting; and if you have access to any ordinarily good publicgallery, or can make friends of any print-sellers who have folios of olddrawings, or facsimiles of them, you will not be at a loss to find someexample of this unity of pen with tinting. Multitudes of photographsalso are now taken from the best drawings by the old masters, and I hopethat our Mechanics' Institutes, and other societies organized with aview to public instruction, will not fail to possess themselves ofexamples of these, and to make them accessible to students of drawing inthe vicinity; a single print from Turner's Liber, to show the unison oftint with pen etching, and the "St. Catherine," lately photographed byThurston Thompson, from Raphael's drawing in the Louvre, to show theunity of the soft tinting of the stump with chalk, would be all that isnecessary, and would, I believe, be in many cases more serviceable thana larger collection, and certainly than a whole gallery of second-rateprints. Two such examples are peculiarly desirable, because all othermodes of drawing, with pen separately, or chalk separately, or colourseparately, may be seen by the poorest student in any cheap illustratedbook, or in shop windows. But this unity of tinting with line he cannotgenerally see but by some especial enquiry, and in some out of the wayplaces he could not find a single example of it. Supposing that thisshould be so in your own case, and that you cannot meet with any exampleof this kind, try to make the matter out alone, thus:

  Take a small and simple photograph; allow yourself half an hour toexpress its subjects with the pen only, using some permanent liquidcolour instead of ink, outlining its buildings or trees firmly, andlaying in the deeper shadows, as you have been accustomed to do in yourbolder pen drawings; then, when this etching is dry, take your sepia orgrey, and tint it over, getting now the finer gradations of thephotograph; and finally, taking out the higher lights with penknife orblotting-paper. You will soon find what can be done in this way; and bya series of experiments you may ascertain for yourself how far the penmay be made serviceable to reinforce shadows, mark characters oftexture, outline unintelligible masses, and so on. The more time youhave, the more delicate you may make the pen drawing, blending it withthe tint; the less you have, the more distinct you must keep the two.Practice in this way from one photograph, allowing yourself sometimesonly a quarter of an hour for the whole thing, sometimes an hour,sometimes two or three hours; in each case drawing the whole subject infull depth of light and shade, but with such degree of finish in theparts as is possible in the given time. And this exercise, observe, youwill do well to repeat frequently whether you can get prints anddrawings as well as photographs, or not.

  And now at last, when you can copy a piece of Liber Studiorum, or itsphotographic substitute, faithfully, you have the complete means in yourpower of working from nature on all subjects that interest you, whichyou should do in four different ways.

  First. When you have full time, and your subject is one that will stayquiet for you, make perfect light and shade studies, or as nearlyperfect as you can, with grey or brown colour of any kind, reinforcedand defined with the pen.

  Secondly. When your time is short, or the subject is so rich in detailthat you feel you cannot complete it intelligibly in light and shade,make a hasty study of the effect, and give the rest of the time to aDureresque expression of the details. If the subject seems to youinteresting, and there are points about it which you cannot understand,try to get five spare minutes to go close up to it, and make a nearermemorandum; not that you are ever to bring the details of this nearersketch into the farther one, but that you may thus perfect yourexperience of the aspect of things, and know that such and such a lookof a tower or cottage at five hundred yards off means _that_ sort oftower or cottage near; while, also, this nearer sketch will be useful toprevent any future misinterpretation of your own work. If you have time,however far your light and shade study in the distance may have beencarried, it is always well, for these reasons, to make also yourDureresque and your near memoranda; for if your light and shade drawingbe good, much of the interesting detail must be lost in it, ordisguised.

  Your hasty study of effect may be made most easily and quickly with asoft pencil, dashed over when done with one tolerably deep tone of grey,which will fix the pencil. While this fixing colour is wet, take out thehigher lights with the dry brush; and, when it is quite dry, scratch outthe highest lights with the penknife. Five minutes, carefully applied,will do much by these means. Of course the paper is to be white. I donot like studies on grey paper so well; for you can get more gradationby the taking off your wet tint, and laying it on cunningly a littledarker here and there, than you can with body-colour white, unless youare consummately skilful. There is no objection to your making yourDureresque memoranda on grey or yellow paper, and touching or relievingthem with white; only, do not depend much on your white touches, normake the sketch for their sake.

  Thirdly. When you have neither time for careful study nor for Dureresquedetail, sketch the outline with pencil, then dash in the shadows withthe brush boldly, trying to do as much as you possibly can at once, andto get a habit of expedition and decision; laying more colour again andagain into the tints as they dry, using every expedient which yourpractice has suggested to you of carrying out your chiaroscuro in themanageable and moist material, taking the colour off here with the drybrush, scratching out lights in it there with the wooden handle of thebrush, rubbing it in with your fingers, drying it off with your sponge,&c. Then, when the colour is in, take your pen and mark the outlinecharacters vigorously, in the manner of the Liber Studiorum. This kindof study is very convenient for carrying away pieces of effect whichdepend not so much on refinement as on complexity, strange shapes ofinvolved shadows, sudden effects of sky, &c.; and it is most useful as asafeguard against any too servile or slow habits which the minutecopying may induce in you; for although the endeavour to obtain velocitymerely for velocity's sake, and dash for display's sake, is as banefulas it is despicable; there _are_ a velocity and a dash which not onlyare compatible with perfect drawing, but obtain certain results whichcannot be had otherwise. And it is perfectly safe for you to studyoccasionally for speed and decision, while your continual course ofpractice is such as to ensure your retaining an accurate judgment and atender touch. Speed, under such circumstances, is rather fatiguing thantempting; and you will find yourself always beguiled rather intoelaboration than negligence.

  FIG. 21.]

  Fourthly. You will find it of great use, whatever kind of landscapescenery you are passing through, to get into the habit of makingmemoranda of the shapes of shadows. You will find that many objects ofno essential interest in themselves, and neither deserving a finishedstudy, nor a Dureresque one, may yet become of singular value inconsequence of the fantastic shapes of their shadows; for it happensoften, in distant effect, that the shadow is by much a more importantelement than the substance. Thus, in the Alpine bridge, Fig. 21., seenwithin a few yards of it, as in the figure, the arrangement of timbersto which the shadows are owing is perceptible; but at half a mile'sdistance, in bright sunlight, the timbers would not be se
en; and a goodpainter's expression of the bridge would be merely the large spot, andthe crossed bars, of pure grey; wholly without indication of theircause, as in Fig. 22. _a_; and if we saw it at still greater distances,it would appear, as in Fig. 22. _b_ and _c_, diminishing at last to astrange, unintelligible, spider-like spot of grey on the lighthill-side. A perfectly great painter, throughout his distances,continually reduces his objects to these shadow abstracts; and thesingular, and to many persons unaccountable, effect of the confusedtouches in Turner's distances, is owing chiefly to this thoroughaccuracy and intense meaning of the shadow abstracts.

  FIG. 22.]

  Studies of this kind are easily made when you are in haste, with an F.or HB. pencil: it requires some hardness of the point to ensure yourdrawing delicately enough when the forms of the shadows are very subtle;they are sure to be so somewhere, and are generally so everywhere. Thepencil is indeed a very precious instrument after you are master of thepen and brush, for the pencil, cunningly used, is both, and will draw aline with the precision of the one and the gradation of the other;nevertheless, it is so unsatisfactory to see the sharp touches, on whichthe best of the detail depends, getting gradually deadened by time, orto find the places where force was wanted look shiny, and like afire-grate, that I should recommend rather the steady use of the pen, orbrush, and colour, whenever time admits of it; keeping only a smallmemorandum-book in the breast-pocket, with its well-cut, sheathedpencil, ready for notes on passing opportunities: but never beingwithout this.

  Thus much, then, respecting the _manner_ in which you are at first todraw from nature. But it may perhaps be serviceable to you, if I alsonote one or two points respecting your _choice_ of subjects for study,and the best special methods of treating some of them; for one of by nomeans the least difficulties which you have at first to encounter is apeculiar instinct, common, as far as I have noticed, to all beginners,to fix on exactly the most unmanageable feature in the given scene.There are many things in every landscape which can be drawn, if at all,only by the most accomplished artists; and I have noticed that it isnearly always these which a beginner will dash at; or, if not these, itwill be something which, though pleasing to him in itself, is unfit fora picture, and in which, when he has drawn it, he will have littlepleasure. As some slight protection against this evil genius ofbeginners, the following general warnings may be useful:

  1. Do not draw things that you love, on account of their associations;or at least do not draw them because you love them; but merely when youcannot get anything else to draw. If you try to draw places that youlove, you are sure to be always entangled amongst neat brick walls, ironrailings, gravel walks, greenhouses, and quickset hedges; besides thatyou will be continually led into some endeavour to make your drawingpretty, or complete, which will be fatal to your progress. You neednever hope to get on, if you are the least anxious that the drawing youare actually at work upon should look nice when it is done. All you haveto care about is to make it _right_, and to learn as much in doing it aspossible. So then, though when you are sitting in your friend's parlour,or in your own, and have nothing else to do, you may draw any thing thatis there, for practice; even the fire-irons or the pattern on thecarpet: be sure that it _is_ for practice, and not because it is abeloved carpet, nor a friendly poker and tongs, nor because you wish toplease your friend by drawing her room.

  Also, never make presents of your drawings. Of course I am addressingyou as a _beginner_--a time may come when your work will be precious toeverybody; but be resolute not to give it away till you know that it isworth something (as soon as it is worth anything you will know that itis so). If any one asks you for a present of a drawing, send them acouple of cakes of colour and a piece of Bristol board: those materialsare, for the present, of more value in that form than if you had spreadthe one over the other.

  The main reason for this rule is, however, that its observance willmuch protect you from the great danger of trying to make your drawingspretty.

  2. Never, by choice, draw anything polished; especially if complicatedin form. Avoid all brass rods and curtain ornaments, chandeliers, plate,glass, and fine steel. A shining knob of a piece of furniture does notmatter if it comes in your way; but do not fret yourself if it will notlook right, and choose only things that do not shine.

  3. Avoid all very neat things. They are exceedingly difficult to draw,and very ugly when drawn. Choose rough, worn, and clumsy-looking thingsas much as possible; for instance, you cannot have a more difficult orprofitless study than a newly-painted Thames wherry, nor a better studythan an old empty coal-barge, lying ashore at low-tide: in general,everything that you think very ugly will be good for you to draw.

  4. Avoid, as much as possible, studies in which one thing is seen_through_ another. You will constantly find a thin tree standing beforeyour chosen cottage, or between you and the turn of the river; its nearbranches all entangled with the distance. It is intensely difficult torepresent this; and though, when the tree _is_ there, you must notimaginarily cut it down, but do it as well as you can, yet always lookfor subjects that fall into definite masses, not into network; that is,rather for a cottage with a dark tree _beside_ it, than for one with athin tree in front of it; rather for a mass of wood, soft, blue, androunded, than for a ragged copse, or confusion of intricate stems.

  5. Avoid, as far as possible, country divided by hedges. Perhaps nothingin the whole compass of landscape is so utterly unpicturesque andunmanageable as the ordinary English patchwork of field and hedge, withtrees dotted over it in independent spots, gnawed straight at the cattleline.

  Still, do not be discouraged if you find you have chosen ill, and thatthe subject overmasters you. It is much better that it should, than thatyou should think you had entirely mastered _it_. But at first, and evenfor some time, you must be prepared for very discomfortable failure;which, nevertheless, will not be without some wholesome result.

  As, however, I have told you what most definitely to avoid, I may,perhaps, help you a little by saying what to seek. In general, all_banks_ are beautiful things, and will reward work better than largelandscapes. If you live in a lowland country, you must look for placeswhere the ground is broken to the river's edges, with decayed posts, orroots of trees; or, if by great good luck there should be such thingswithin your reach, for remnants of stone quays or steps, mossymill-dams, &c. Nearly every other mile of road in chalk country willpresent beautiful bits of broken bank at its sides; better in form andcolour than high chalk cliffs. In woods, one or two trunks, with theflowery ground below, are at once the richest and easiest kind of study:a not very thick trunk, say nine inches or a foot in diameter, with ivyrunning up it sparingly, is an easy, and always a rewarding subject.

  Large nests of buildings in the middle distance are always beautiful,when drawn carefully, provided they are not modern rows of patterncottages; or villas with Ionic and Doric porticos. Any old Englishvillage, or cluster of farm-houses, drawn with all its ins and outs, andhaystacks, and palings, is sure to be lovely; much more a French one.French landscape is generally as much superior to English as Swisslandscape is to French; in some respects, the French is incomparable.Such scenes as that avenue on the Seine, which I have recommended you tobuy the engraving of, admit no rivalship in their expression of gracefulrusticity and cheerful peace, and in the beauty of component lines.

  In drawing villages, take great pains with the gardens; a rustic gardenis in every way beautiful. If you have time, draw all the rows ofcabbages, and hollyhocks, and broken fences, and wandering eglantines,and bossy roses: you cannot have better practice, nor be kept byanything in purer thoughts.

  Make intimate friends of all the brooks in your neighbourhood, and studythem ripple by ripple.

  Village churches in England are not often good subjects; there is apeculiar meanness about most of them, and awkwardness of line. Oldmanor-houses are often pretty. Ruins are usually, with us, too prim, andcathedrals too orderly. I do not think there is a single cathedral inEngland from which it is
possible to obtain _one_ subject for animpressive drawing. There is always some discordant civility, or jarringvergerism about them.

  If you live in a mountain or hill country, your only danger isredundance of subject. Be resolved, in the first place, to draw a pieceof rounded rock, with its variegated lichens, quite rightly, getting itscomplete roundings, and all the patterns of the lichen in true localcolour. Till you can do this, it is of no use your thinking of sketchingamong hills; but when once you have done this, the forms of distanthills will be comparatively easy.

  When you have practised for a little time from such of these subjects asmay be accessible to you, you will certainly find difficulties arisingwhich will make you wish more than ever for a master's help: thesedifficulties will vary according to the character of your own mind (onequestion occurring to one person, and one to another), so that it isimpossible to anticipate them all; and it would make this too large abook if I answered all that I _can_ anticipate; you must be content towork on, in good hope that nature will, in her own time, interpret toyou much for herself; that farther experience on your own part will makesome difficulties disappear; and that others will be removed by theoccasional observation of such artists' work as may come in your way.Nevertheless, I will not close this letter without a few generalremarks, such as may be useful to you after you are somewhat advanced inpower; and these remarks may, I think, be conveniently arranged underthree heads, having reference to the drawing of vegetation, water, andskies.

  And, first, of vegetation. You may think, perhaps, we have said enoughabout trees already; yet if you have done as you were bid, and tried todraw them frequently enough, and carefully enough, you will be ready bythis time to hear a little more of them. You will also recollect that weleft our question, respecting the mode of expressing intricacy ofleafage, partly unsettled in the first letter. I left it so because Iwanted you to learn the real structure of leaves, by drawing them foryourself, before I troubled you with the most subtle considerations asto _method_ in drawing them. And by this time, I imagine, you must havefound out two principal things, universal facts, about leaves; namely,that they always, in the main tendencies of their lines, indicate abeautiful divergence of growth, according to the law of radiation,already referred to;[226] and the second, that this divergence is neverformal, but carried out with endless variety of individual line. I mustnow press both these facts on your attention a little farther.

  You may perhaps have been surprised that I have not yet spoken of theworks of J. D. Harding, especially if you happen to have met with thepassages referring to them in "Modern Painters," in which they arehighly praised. They are deservedly praised, for they are the only worksby a modern draughtsman which express in any wise the energy of trees,and the laws of growth, of which we have been speaking. There are nolithographic sketches which, for truth of general character, obtainedwith little cost of time, at all rival Harding's. Calame, Robert, andthe other lithographic landscape sketchers are altogether inferior inpower, though sometimes a little deeper in meaning. But you must nottake even Harding for a model, though you may use his works foroccasional reference; and if you can afford to buy his "Lessons onTrees,"[227] it will be serviceable to you in various ways, and will atpresent help me to explain the point under consideration. And it is wellthat I should illustrate this point by reference to Harding's works,because their great influence on young students renders it desirablethat their real character should be thoroughly understood.

  You will find, first, in the title-page of the "Lessons on Trees," apretty woodcut, in which the tree stems are drawn with great truth, andin a very interesting arrangement of lines. Plate 1. is not quite worthyof Mr. Harding, tending too much to make his pupil, at starting, thinkeverything depends on black dots; still the main lines are good, andvery characteristic of tree growth. Then, in Plate 2., we come to thepoint at issue. The first examples in that plate are given to the pupilthat he may practise from them till his hand gets into the habit ofarranging lines freely in a similar manner; and they are stated by Mr.Harding to be universal in application; "all outlines expressive offoliage," he says, "are but modifications of them." They consist ofgroups of lines, more or less resembling our Fig. 23.; and thecharacters especially insisted upon are, that they "tend at their innerends to a common centre;" that "their ends terminate in [are enclosedby] ovoid curves;" and that "the outer ends are most emphatic."

  FIG. 23.]

  Now, as thus expressive of the great laws of radiation and enclosure,the main principle of this method of execution confirms, in a veryinteresting way, our conclusions respecting foliage composition. Thereason of the last rule, that the outer end of the line is to be mostemphatic, does not indeed at first appear; for the line at one end of anatural leaf is not more emphatic than the line at the other: butultimately, in Harding's method, this darker part of the touch standsmore or less for the shade at the outer extremity of the leaf mass; and,as Harding uses these touches, they express as much of tree character asany mere habit of touch _can_ express. But, unfortunately, there isanother law of tree growth, quite as fixed as the law of radiation,which this and all other conventional modes of execution wholly losesight of. This second law is, that the radiating tendency shall becarried out only as a ruling spirit in reconcilement with perpetualindividual caprice on the part of the separate leaves. So that themoment a touch is monotonous, it must be also false, the liberty of theleaf individually being just as essential a truth, as its unity ofgrowth with its companions in the radiating group.

  FIG. 24.]

  It does not matter how small or apparently symmetrical the cluster maybe, nor how large or vague. You can hardly have a more formal one than_b_ in Fig. 9. p. 276., nor a less formal one than this shoot of Spanishchestnut, shedding its leaves, Fig. 24.; but in either of them, even thegeneral reader, unpractised in any of the previously recommendedexercises, must see that there are wandering lines mixed with theradiating ones, and radiating lines with the wild ones: and if he takesthe pen and tries to copy either of these examples, he will find thatneither play of hand to left nor to right, neither a free touch nor afirm touch, nor any learnable or describable touch whatsoever, willenable him to produce, currently, a resemblance of it; but that he musteither draw it slowly, or give it up. And (which makes the matter worsestill) though gathering the bough, and putting it close to you, orseeing a piece of near foliage against the sky, you may draw the entireoutline of the leaves, yet if the spray has light upon it, and is everso little a way off, you will miss, as we have seen, a point of a leafhere, and an edge there; some of the surfaces will be confused byglitter, and some spotted with shade; and if you look carefully throughthis confusion for the edges or dark stems which you really _can see_,and put only those down, the result will be neither like Fig. 9. norFig. 24., but such an interrupted and puzzling piece of work as Fig.25.[228]

  Now, it is in the perfect acknowledgment and expression of these _three_laws that all good drawing of landscape consists. There is, first, theorganic unity; the law, whether of radiation, or parallelism, orconcurrent action, which rules the masses of herbs and trees, of rocks,and clouds, and waves; secondly, the individual liberty of the memberssubjected to these laws of unity; and, lastly, the mystery under whichthe separate character of each is more or less concealed.

  I say, first, there must be observance of the ruling organic law. Thisis the first distinction between good artists and bad artists. Yourcommon sketcher or bad painter puts his leaves on the trees as if theywere moss tied to sticks; he cannot see the lines of action or growth;he scatters the shapeless clouds over his sky, not perceiving the sweepsof associated curves which the real clouds are following as they fly;and he breaks his mountain side into rugged fragments, whollyunconscious of the lines of force with which the real rocks have risen,or of the lines of couch in which they repose. On the contrary, it isthe main delight of the great draughtsman to trace these laws ofgovernment; and his tendency to error is always in the exaggeration oftheir authority rather than in
its denial.

  FIG. 25.]

  Secondly, I say, we have to show the individual character and liberty ofthe separate leaves, clouds, or rocks. And herein the great mastersseparate themselves finally from the inferior ones; for if the men ofinferior genius ever express law at all, it is by the sacrifice ofindividuality. Thus, Salvator Rosa has great perception of the sweep offoliage and rolling of clouds, but never draws a single leaflet or mistwreath accurately. Similarly, Gainsborough, in his landscape, has greatfeeling for masses of form and harmony of colour; but in the detailgives nothing but meaningless touches; not even so much as the speciesof tree, much less the variety of its leafage, being ever discernable.Now, although both these expressions of government and individuality areessential to masterly work, the individuality is the _more_ essential,and the more difficult of attainment; and, therefore, that attainmentseparates the great masters _finally_ from the inferior ones. It is themore essential, because, in these matters of beautiful arrangement invisible things, the same rules hold that hold in moral things. It is alamentable and unnatural thing to see a number of men subject to nogovernment, actuated by no ruling principle, and associated by no commonaffection: but it would be a more lamentable thing still, were itpossible to see a number of men so oppressed into assimilation as tohave no more any individual hope or character, no differences in aim, nodissimilarities of passion, no irregularities of judgment; a society inwhich no man could help another, since none would be feebler thanhimself; no man admire another, since none would be stronger thanhimself; no man be grateful to another, since by none he could berelieved; no man reverence another, since by none he could beinstructed; a society in which every soul would be as the syllable of astammerer instead of the word of a speaker, in which every man wouldwalk as in a frightful dream, seeing spectres of himself, in everlastingmultiplication, gliding helplessly around him in a speechless darkness.Therefore it is that perpetual difference, play, and change in groups ofform are more essential to them even than their being subdued by somegreat gathering law: the law is needful to them for their perfection andtheir power, but the difference is needful to them for their _life_.

  And here it may be noted in passing, that if you enjoy the pursuit ofanalogies and types, and have any ingenuity of judgment in discerningthem, you may always accurately ascertain what are the noble charactersin a piece of painting, by merely considering what are the noblecharacters of man in his association with his fellows. What grace ofmanner and refinement of habit are in society, grace of line andrefinement of form are in the association of visible objects. Whatadvantage or harm there may be in sharpness, ruggedness, or quaintnessin the dealings or conversations of men; precisely that relative degreeof advantage or harm there is in them as elements of pictorialcomposition. What power is in liberty or relaxation to strengthen orrelieve human souls; that power, precisely in the same relative degree,play and laxity of line have to strengthen or refresh the expression ofa picture. And what goodness or greatness we can conceive to arise incompanies of men, from chastity of thought, regularity of life,simplicity of custom, and balance of authority; precisely that kind ofgoodness and greatness may be given to a picture by the purity of itscolour, the severity of its forms, and the symmetry of its masses.

  You need not be in the least afraid of pushing these analogies too far.They cannot be pushed too far; they are so precise and complete, thatthe farther you pursue them, the clearer, the more certain, the moreuseful you will find them. They will not fail you in one particular, orin any direction of enquiry. There is no moral vice, no moral virtue,which has not its _precise_ prototype in the art of painting; so thatyou may at your will illustrate the moral habit by the art, or the artby the moral habit. Affection and discord, fretfulness and quietness,feebleness and firmness, luxury and purity, pride and modesty, and allother such habits, and every conceivable modification and mingling ofthem, may be illustrated, with mathematical exactness, by conditions ofline and colour; and not merely these definable vices and virtues, butalso every conceivable shade of human character and passion, from therighteous or unrighteous majesty of the king, to the innocent orfaultful simplicity of the shepherd boy.

  The pursuit of this subject belongs properly, however, to theinvestigation of the higher branches of composition, matters which itwould be quite useless to treat of in this book; and I only allude tothem here, in order that you may understand how the utmost nobleness ofart are concerned in this minute work, to which I have set you in yourbeginning of it. For it is only by the closest attention, and the mostnoble execution, that it is possible to express these varieties ofindividual character, on which all excellence of portraiture depends,whether of masses of mankind, or of groups of leaves.

  Now you will be able to understand, among other matters, whereinconsists the excellence, and wherein the shortcoming, of thetree-drawing of Harding. It is excellent in so far as it fondlyobserves, with more truth than any other work of the kind, the greatlaws of growth and action in trees: it fails--and observe, not in aminor, but in a principal point--because it cannot rightly render anyone individual detail or incident of foliage. And in this it fails, notfrom mere carelessness or incompletion, but of necessity; the truedrawing of detail being for evermore _impossible_ to a hand which hascontracted a _habit_ of execution. The noble draughtsman draws a leaf,and stops, and says calmly--That leaf is of such and such a character; Iwill give him a friend who will entirely suit him: then he considerswhat his friend ought to be, and having determined, he draws his friend.This process may be as quick as lightning when the master is great--oneof the sons of the giants; or it may be slow and timid: but the processis always gone through, no touch or form is ever added to another by agood painter without a mental determination and affirmation. But whenthe hand has got into a habit, leaf No. 1. necessitates leaf No. 2.; youcannot stop, your hand is as a horse with the bit in its teeth; orrather is, for the time, a machine, throwing out leaves to order andpattern, all alike. You must stop that hand of yours, however painfully;make it understand that it is not to have its own way any more, that itshall never more slip from, one touch to another without orders;otherwise it is not you who are the master, but your fingers. You maytherefore study Harding's drawing, and take pleasure in it;[229] and youmay properly admire the dexterity which applies the habit of the handso well, and produces results on the whole so satisfactory: but youmust never copy it, otherwise your progress will be at once arrested.The utmost you can ever hope to do, would be a sketch in Harding'smanner, but of far inferior dexterity; for he has given his life's toilto gain his dexterity, and you, I suppose, have other things to work atbesides drawing. You would also incapacitate yourself from everunderstanding what truly great work was, or what Nature was; but by theearnest and complete study of facts, you will gradually come tounderstand the one and love the other more and more, whether you candraw well yourself or not.

  I have yet to say a few words respecting the third law above stated,that of mystery; the law, namely, that nothing is ever seen perfectly,but only by fragments, and under various conditions of obscurity.[230]This last fact renders the visible objects of Nature complete as a typeof the human nature. We have, observe, first, Subordination; secondly,Individuality; lastly, and this not the least essential character,Incomprehensibility; a perpetual lesson in every serrated point andshining vein which escape or deceive our sight among the forest leaves,how little we may hope to discern clearly, or judge justly, the rentsand veins of the human heart; how much of all that is round us, in men'sactions or spirits, which we at first think we understand, a closer andmore loving watchfulness would show to be full of mystery, never to beeither fathomed or withdrawn.

  FIG. 26.]

  FIG. 27.]

  The expression of this final character in landscape has never beencompletely reached by any except Turner; nor can you hope to reach it atall until you have given much time to the practice of art. Only tryalways when you are sketching any object with a view to completion inlight and shade, to draw
only those parts of it which you really seedefinitely; _preparing_ for the after development of the forms bychiaroscuro. It is this preparation by isolated touches for a futurearrangement of superimposed light and shade which renders the etchingsof the Liber Studiorum so inestimable as examples and so peculiar. Thecharacter exists more or less in them exactly in proportion to the painsthat Turner has taken. Thus the AEsacus and Hesperie was wrought out withthe greatest possible care; and the principal branch on the near tree isetched as in Fig. 26. The work looks at first like a scholar's insteadof a master's; but when the light and shade are added, every touch fallsinto its place, and a perfect expression of grace and complexityresults. Nay even before the light and shade are added, you ought to beable to see that these irregular and broken lines, especially where theexpression is given of the way the stem loses itself in the leaves, aremore true than the monotonous though graceful leaf-drawing which, beforeTurner's time, had been employed, even by the best masters, in theirdistant masses. Fig. 27. is sufficiently characteristic of the manner ofthe old woodcuts after Titian; in which, you see, the leaves are toomuch of one shape, like bunches of fruit; and the boughs too completelyseen, besides being somewhat soft and leathery in aspect, owing to thewant of angles in their outline. By great men like Titian, this somewhatconventional structure was only given in haste to distant masses; andtheir exquisite delineation of the foreground, kept theirconventionalism from degeneracy: but in the drawing of the Caracci andother derivative masters, the conventionalism prevails everywhere, andsinks gradually into scrawled work, like Fig. 28., about the worst whichit is possible to get into the habit of using, though an ignorant personmight perhaps suppose it more "free," and therefore better than Fig. 26.Note, also, that in noble outline drawing, it does not follow that abough is wrongly drawn, because it looks contracted unnaturallysomewhere, as in Fig. 26., just above the foliage. Very often themuscular action which is to be expressed by the line, runs into the_middle_ of the branch, and the actual outline of the branch at thatplace may be dimly seen, or not at all; and it is then only by thefuture shade that its actual shape, or the cause of its disappearance,will be indicated.

  FIG. 28.]

  One point more remains to be noted about trees, and I have done. In theminds of our ordinary water-colour artists, a distant tree seems only tobe conceived as a flat green blot, grouping pleasantly with othermasses, and giving cool colour to the landscape, but differing nowise,in _texture_, from the blots of other shapes, which these painters useto express stones, or water, or figures. But as soon as you have drawntrees carefully a little while, you will be impressed, and impressedmore strongly the better you draw them, with the idea of their_softness_ of surface. A distant tree is not a flat and even piece ofcolour, but a more or less globular mass of a downy or bloomy texture,partly passing into a misty vagueness. I find, practically, this lovelysoftness of far-away trees the most difficult of all characters toreach, because it cannot be got by mere scratching or roughening thesurface, but is always associated with such delicate expressions of formand growth as are only imitable by very careful drawing. The penknifepassed lightly _over_ this careful drawing, will do a good deal; but youmust accustom yourself, from the beginning, to aim much at this softnessin the lines of the drawing itself, by crossing them delicately, andmore or less effacing and confusing the edges. You must invent,according to the character of tree, various modes of execution adaptedto express its texture; but always keep this character of softness inyour mind and in your scope of aim; for in most landscapes it is theintention of nature that the tenderness and transparent infinitude ofher foliage should be felt, even at the far distance, in the mostdistinct opposition to the solid masses and flat surfaces of rocks orbuildings.

  * * * * *

  II. We were, in the second place, to consider a little the modes ofrepresenting water, of which important feature of landscape I havehardly said anything yet.

  Water is expressed, in common drawings, by conventional lines, whosehorizontality is supposed to convey the idea of its surface. Inpaintings, white dashes or bars of light are used for the same purpose.

  But these and all other such expedients are vain and absurd. A piece ofcalm water always contains a picture in itself, an exquisite reflectionof the objects above it. If you give the time necessary to draw thesereflections, disturbing them here and there as you see the breeze orcurrent disturb them, you will get the effect of the water; but if youhave not patience to draw the reflections, no expedient will give you atrue effect. The picture in the pool needs nearly as much delicatedrawing as the picture above the pool; except only that if there be theleast motion on the water, the horizontal lines of the images will bediffused and broken, while the vertical ones will remain decisive, andthe oblique ones decisive in proportion to their steepness.

  A few close studies will soon teach you this: the only thing you need tobe told is to watch carefully the lines of _disturbance_ on the surface,as when a bird swims across it, or a fish rises, or the current playsround a stone, reed, or other obstacle. Take the greatest pains to getthe _curves_ of these lines true; the whole value of your carefuldrawing of the reflections may be lost by your admitting a single falsecurve of ripple from a wild duck's breast. And (as in other subjects) ifyou are dissatisfied with your result, always try for more unity anddelicacy: if your reflections are only soft and gradated enough, theyare nearly sure to give you a pleasant effect. When you are takingpains, work the softer reflections, where they are drawn out by motionin the water, with touches as nearly horizontal as may be; but when youare in a hurry, indicate the place and play of the images with verticallines. The actual _construction_ of a calm elongated reflection is withhorizontal lines: but it is often impossible to draw the descendingshades delicately enough with a horizontal touch; and it is best alwayswhen you are in a hurry, and sometimes when you are not, to use thevertical touch. When the ripples are large, the reflections becomeshaken, and must be drawn with bold undulatory descending lines.

  I need not, I should think, tell you that it is of the greatest possibleimportance to draw the curves of the shore rightly. Their perspectiveis, if not more subtle, at least more stringent than that of any otherlines in Nature. It will not be detected by the general observer, if youmiss the curve of a branch, or the sweep of a cloud, or the perspectiveof a building;[231] but every intelligent spectator will feel thedifference between a rightly drawn bend of shore or shingle, and a falseone. _Absolutely_ right, in difficult river perspectives seen fromheights, I believe no one but Turner ever has been yet; and observe,there is NO rule for them. To develope the curve mathematically wouldrequire a knowledge of the exact quantity of water in the river, theshape of its bed, and the hardness of the rock or shore; and even withthese data, the problem would be one which no mathematician could solvebut approximatively. The instinct of the eye can do it; nothing else.

  If, after a little study from Nature, you get puzzled by the greatdifferences between the aspect of the reflected image and that of theobject casting it; and if you wish to know the law of reflection, it issimply this: Suppose all the objects above the water _actually_ reversed(not in appearance, but in fact) beneath the water, and precisely thesame in form and in relative position, only all topsy-turvy. Then,whatever you can see, from the place in which you stand, of the solidobjects so reversed under the water, you will see in the reflection,always in the true perspective of the solid objects so reversed.

  If you cannot quite understand this in looking at water, take a mirror,lay it horizontally on the table, put some books and papers upon it, anddraw them and their reflections; moving them about, and watching howtheir reflections alter, and chiefly how their reflected colours andshades differ from their own colours and shades, by being brought intoother oppositions. This difference in chiaroscuro is a more importantcharacter in water painting than mere difference in form.

  When you are drawing shallow or muddy water, you will see shadows on thebottom, or on the surface, con
tinually modifying the reflections; and ina clear mountain stream, the most wonderful complications of effectresulting from the shadows and reflections of the stones in it, minglingwith the aspect of the stones themselves seen through the water. Do notbe frightened at the complexity; but, on the other hand, do not hope torender it hastily. Look at it well, making out everything that you see,and distinguishing each component part of the effect. There will be,first, the stones seen through the water, distorted always byrefraction, so that if the general structure of the stone shows straightparallel lines above the water, you may be sure they will be bent wherethey enter it; then the reflection of the part of the stone above thewater crosses and interferes with the part that is seen through it, sothat you can hardly tell which is which; and wherever the reflection isdarkest, you will see through the water best, and _vice versa_. Then thereal shadow of the stone crosses both these images, and where thatshadow falls, it makes the water more reflective, and where the sunshinefalls, you will see more of the surface of the water, and of any dustor motes that may be floating on it: but whether you are to see, at thesame spot, most of the bottom of the water, or of the reflection of theobjects above, depends on the position of the eye. The more you lookdown into the water, the better you see objects through it; the more youlook along it, the eye being low, the more you see the reflection ofobjects above it. Hence the colour of a given space of surface in astream will entirely change while you stand still in the same spot,merely as you stoop or raise your head; and thus the colours with whichwater is painted are an indication of the position of the spectator, andconnected inseparably with the perspective of the shores. The mostbeautiful of all results that I know in mountain streams is when thewater is shallow, and the stones at the bottom are rich reddish-orangeand black, and the water is seen at an angle which exactly divides thevisible colours between those of the stones and that of the sky, and thesky is of clear, full blue. The resulting purple obtained by theblending of the blue and the orange-red, broken by the play ofinnumerable gradations in the stones, is indescribably lovely.

  All this seems complicated enough already; but if there be a strongcolour in the clear water itself, as of green or blue in the Swisslakes, all these phenomena are doubly involved; for the darkerreflections now become of the colour of the water. The reflection of ablack gondola, for instance, at Venice, is never black, but pure darkgreen. And, farther, the colour of the water itself is of three kinds:one, seen on the surface, is a kind of milky bloom; the next is seenwhere the waves let light through them, at their edges; and the third,shown as a change of colour on the objects seen through the water. Thus,the same wave that makes a white object look of a clear blue, when seenthrough it, will take a red or violet-coloured bloom on its surface, andwill be made pure emerald green by transmitted sunshine through itsedges. With all this, however, you are not much concerned at present,but I tell it you partly as a preparation for what we have afterwards tosay about colour, and partly that you may approach lakes and streamswith reverence, and study them as carefully as other things, not hopingto express them by a few horizontal dashes of white, or a few tremulousblots.[232] Not but that much may be done by tremulous blots, when youknow precisely what you mean by them, as you will see by many of theTurner sketches, which are now framed at the National Gallery; but youmust have painted water many and many a day--yes, and all daylong--before you can hope to do anything like those.

  * * * * *

  III. Lastly. You may perhaps wonder why, before passing to the clouds, Isay nothing special about _ground_.[233] But there is too much to besaid about that to admit of my saying it here. You will find theprincipal laws of its structure examined at length in the fourth volumeof "Modern Painters;" and if you can get that volume, and copy carefullyPlate 21., which I have etched after Turner with great pains, it willgive you as much help as you need in the linear expression ofground-surface. Strive to get the retirement and succession of masses inirregular ground: much may be done in this way by careful watching ofthe perspective diminutions of its herbage, as well as by contour; andmuch also by shadows. If you draw the shadows of leaves and tree trunkson any undulating ground with entire carefulness, you will be surprisedto find how much they explain of the form and distance of the earth onwhich they fall.

  Passing then to skies, note that there is this great peculiarity aboutsky subject, as distinguished from earth subject;--that the clouds, notbeing much liable to man's interference, are always beautifullyarranged. You cannot be sure of this in any other features of landscape.The rock on which the effect of a mountain scene especially depends isalways precisely that which the roadmaker blasts or the landlordquarries; and the spot of green which Nature left with a special purposeby her dark forest sides, and finished with her most delicate grasses,is always that which the farmer ploughs or builds upon. But the clouds,though we can hide them with smoke, and mix them with poison, cannot bequarried nor built over, and they are always therefore gloriouslyarranged; so gloriously, that unless you have notable powers of memoryyou need not hope to approach the effect of any sky that interests you.For both its grace and its glow depend upon the united influence ofevery cloud within its compass: they all move and burn together in amarvellous harmony; not a cloud of them is out of its appointed place,or fails of its part in the choir: and if you are not able to recollect(which in the case of a complicated sky it is impossible you should)precisely the form and position of all the clouds at a given moment, youcannot draw the sky at all; for the clouds will not fit if you draw onepart of them three or four minutes before another. You must trytherefore to help what memory you have, by sketching at the utmostpossible speed the whole range of the clouds; marking, by any shorthandor symbolic work you can hit upon, the peculiar character of each, astransparent, or fleecy, or linear, or undulatory; giving afterwards suchcompletion to the parts as your recollection will enable you to do.This, however, only when the sky is interesting from its general aspect;at other times, do not try to draw all the sky, but a single cloud:sometimes a round cumulus will stay five or six minutes quite steadyenough to let you mark out his principal masses: and one or two white orcrimson lines which cross the sunrise will often stay without seriouschange for as long. And in order to be the readier in drawing them,practise occasionally drawing lumps of cotton, which will teach youbetter than any other stable thing the kind of softness there is inclouds. For you will find when you have made a few genuine studies ofsky, and then look at any ancient or modern painting, that ordinaryartists have always fallen into one of two faults: either, in roundingthe clouds, they make them as solid and hard-edged as a heap of stonestied up in a sack, or they represent them not as rounded at all, but asvague wreaths of mist or flat lights in the sky; and think they havedone enough in leaving a little white paper between dashes of blue, orin taking an irregular space out with the sponge. Now clouds are not assolid as flour-sacks; but, on the other hand, they are neither spongynor flat. They are definite and very beautiful forms of sculptured mist;sculptured is a perfectly accurate word; they are not more _drifted_into form than they are _carved_ into form, the warm air around themcutting them into shape by absorbing the visible vapour beyond certainlimits; hence their angular and fantastic outlines, as different from aswollen, spherical, or globular formation, on the one hand, as from thatof flat films or shapeless mists on the other. And the worst of all is,that while these forms are difficult enough to draw on any terms,especially considering that they never stay quiet, they must be drawnalso at greater disadvantage of light and shade than any others, theforce of light in clouds being wholly unattainable by art; so that if weput shade enough to express their form as positively as it is expressedin reality, we must make them painfully too dark on the dark sides.Nevertheless, they are so beautiful, if you in the least succeed withthem, that you will hardly, I think, lose courage. Outline them oftenwith the pen, as you can catch them here and there; one of the chiefuses of doing this will be, not so much the memorandum so obtained asthe
lesson you will get respecting the softness of the cloud-outlines.You will always find yourself at a loss to see where the outline reallyis; and when drawn it will always look hard and false, and willassuredly be either too round or too square, however often you alter it,merely passing from the one fault to the other and back again, the realcloud striking an inexpressible mean between roundness and squareness inall its coils or battlements. I speak at present, of course, only of thecumulus cloud: the lighter wreaths and flakes of the upper sky cannotbe outlined--they can only be sketched, like locks of hair, by manylines of the pen. Firmly developed bars of cloud on the horizon are ingeneral easy enough, and may be drawn with decision. When you have thusaccustomed yourself a little to the placing and action of clouds, try towork out their light and shade, just as carefully as you do that ofother things, looking _exclusively_ for examples of treatment to thevignettes in Rogers's Italy and Poems, and to the Liber Studiorum,unless you have access to some examples of Turner's own work. No otherartist ever yet drew the sky: even Titian's clouds, and Tintoret's, areconventional. The clouds in the "Ben Arthur," "Source of Arveron," and"Calais Pier," are among the best of Turner's storm studies; and of theupper clouds, the vignettes to Rogers's Poems furnish as many examplesas you need.

  And now, as our first lesson was taken from the sky, so, for thepresent, let our last be. I do not advise you to be in any haste tomaster the contents of my next letter. If you have any real talent fordrawing, you will take delight in the discoveries of natural loveliness,which the studies I have already proposed will lead you into, among thefields and hills; and be assured that the more quietly andsingle-heartedly you take each step in the art, the quicker, on thewhole, will your progress be. I would rather, indeed, have discussed thesubjects of the following letter at greater length, and in a separatework addressed to more advanced students; but as there are one or twothings to be said on composition which may set the young artist's mindsomewhat more at rest, or furnish him with defence from the urgency ofill-advisers, I will glance over the main heads of the matter here;trusting that my doing so may not beguile you, my dear reader, from yourserious work, or lead you to think me, in occupying part of this bookwith talk not altogether relevant to it, less entirely or

  Faithfully yours,

  J. RUSKIN.

  FOOTNOTES:

  [220] It is meant, I believe, for "Salt Hill."

  [221] I do not mean that you can approach Turner or Durer in theirstrength, that is to say, in their imagination or power of design. Butyou may approach them, by perseverance, in truth of manner.

  [222] The following are the most desirable plates:

  Grande Chartreuse. AEsacus and Hesperie. Cephalus and Procris. Source of Arveron. Ben Arthur. Watermill. Hindhead Hill. Hedging and Ditching. Dumblane Abbey. Morpeth. Calais Pier. Pembury Mill. Little Devil's Bridge. River Wye (_not_ Wye and Severn). Holy Island. Clyde. Lauffenbourg. Blair Athol. Alps from Grenoble. Raglan. (Subject with quiet brook, trees, and castle on the right.)

  If you cannot get one of these, any of the others will be serviceable,except only the twelve following, which are quite useless:--

  1. Scene in Italy, with goats on a walled road, and trees above.

  2. Interior of church.

  3. Scene with bridge, and trees above; figures on left, one playing apipe.

  4. Scene with figure playing on tambourine.

  5. Scene on Thames with high trees, and a square tower of a church seenthrough them.

  6. Fifth Plague of Egypt.

  7. Tenth Plague of Egypt.

  8. Rivaulx Abbey.

  9. Wye and Severn.

  10. Scene with castle in centre, cows under trees on the left.

  11. Martello Towers.

  12. Calm.

  It is very unlikely that you should meet with one of the originaletchings; if you should, it will be a drawing-master in itself alone,for it is not only equivalent to a pen-and-ink drawing by Turner, but toa very careful one: only observe, the Source of Arveron, Raglan, andDumblane were not etched by Turner; and the etchings of those three arenot good for separate study, though it is deeply interesting to see howTurner, apparently provoked at the failure of the beginnings in theArveron and Raglan, took the plates up himself, and either conquered orbrought into use the bad etching by his marvellous engraving. TheDumblane was, however, well etched by Mr. Lupton, and beautifullyengraved by him. The finest Turner etching is of an aqueduct with astork standing in a mountain stream, not in the published series; andnext to it, are the unpublished etchings of the Via Mala and Crowhurst.Turner seems to have been so fond of these plates that he keptretouching and finishing them, and never made up his mind to let themgo. The Via Mala is certainly, in the state in which Turner left it, thefinest of the whole series: its etching is, as I said, the best afterthat of the aqueduct. Figure 20., above, is part of another fineunpublished etching, "Windsor, from Salt Hill." Of the publishedetchings, the finest are the Ben Arthur, AEsacus, Cephalus, and StonePines, with the Girl washing at a Cistern; the three latter are the moregenerally instructive. Hindhead Hill, Isis, Jason, and Morpeth, are alsovery desirable.

  [223] You will find more notice of this point in the account ofHarding's tree-drawing, a little farther on.

  [224] The impressions vary so much in colour that no brown can bespecified.

  [225] You had better get such a photograph, even if you have a Liberprint as well.

  [226] See the closing letter in this volume.

  [227] Bogue, Fleet Street. If you are not acquainted with Harding'sworks (an unlikely supposition, considering their popularity), andcannot meet with the one in question, the diagrams given here willenable you to understand all that is needful for our purposes.

  [228] I draw this figure (a young shoot of oak) in outline only, itbeing impossible to express the refinements of shade in distant foliagein a woodcut.

  [229] His lithographic sketches, those, for instance, in the Park andthe Forest, and his various lessons on foliage, possess greater meritthan the more ambitious engravings in his "Principles and Practice ofArt." There are many useful remarks, however, dispersed through thislatter work.

  [230] On this law you will do well, if you can get access to it, to lookat the fourth chapter of the fourth volume of "Modern Painters."

  [231] The student may hardly at first believe that the perspective ofbuildings is of little consequence: but he will find it so ultimately.See the remarks on this point in the Preface.

  [232] It is a useful piece of study to dissolve some Prussian blue inwater, so as to make the liquid definitely blue: fill a large whitebasin with the solution, and put anything you like to float on it, orlie in it; walnut shells, bits of wood, leaves of flowers, &c. Thenstudy the effects of the reflections, and of the stems of the flowers orsubmerged portions of the floating objects, as they appear through theblue liquid; noting especially how, as you lower your head and lookalong the surface, you see the reflections clearly; and how, as youraise your head, you lose the reflections, and see the submerged stemsclearly.

  [233] Respecting Architectural Drawing, see the notice of the works ofProut in the Appendix.