1000 Drawings of Genius. Victoria Charles

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СКАЧАТЬ of each period. Every chapter is accompanied by a text written by a contemporary theorist or artist, in order to give the reader a better understanding of each period’s concerns and approaches to art in general, and to drawing in particular.

      An extract from John Ruskin’s The Elements of Drawing, first published in 1857, has been chosen as the general introduction to this history of Western drawing. The focus, however, has not been placed on his detailed descriptions of how to practise the art of the line with the pen or pencil, or how to apply shade and colour. It may be of more interest to the reader to know the author’s recommendations and warnings for those who desire to become artists. What is interesting about Ruskin is that he acts as a kind of link between the traditional and modern approaches to art. It is very possible that Ruskin may not, today, sound very modern; his sometimes strict recommendations seem to contradict the contemporary notion of absolute creative freedom. But while he retains many values of traditional art, Ruskin was also a champion of modern figures such as Turner and the Pre-Raphaelites at a time when it was not fashionable to be so, especially of the latter.

      Of course, these are the recommendations of only one particular art theorist, but Ruskin was a very important one. It is very interesting to know which artists he considers best (and worst) for a young person to admire, as well as the literature he should read. Ruskin’s is a great example because it places the reader in a time when rigid academic values were beginning to be challenged; it is here that one finds the very roots of contemporary art:

“Preface.

      “It may perhaps be thought, that in prefacing a manual of drawing, I ought to expatiate on the reasons why drawing should be learned; but those reasons appear to me so many and so weighty, that I cannot quickly state or enforce them. With the reader’s permission, as this volume is too large already, I will waive all discussion respecting the importance of the subject, and touch only on those points which may appear questionable in the method of its treatment.

      “In the first place, the book is not calculated for the use of children under the age of twelve or fourteen. I do not think it advisable to engage a child in any but the most voluntary practice of art. If it has talent for drawing, it will be continually scrawling on what paper it can get; and should be allowed to scrawl at its own free will, due praise being given for every appearance of care, or truth, in its efforts. It should be allowed to amuse itself with cheap colours almost as soon as it has sense enough to wish for them. If it merely daubs the paper with shapeless stains, the colour-box may be taken away till it knows better: but as soon as it begins painting red coats on soldiers, striped flags on ships, etc., it should have colours at command; and, without restraining its choice of subject […], it should be gently led by the parents to try to draw, in such childish fashion as may be, the things it can see and likes, birds, or butterflies, or flowers, or fruit. In later years, the indulgence of using the colour should only be granted as a reward, after it has shown care and progress in its drawings with pencil. A limited number of good and amusing prints should always be within a boy’s reach: in these days of cheap illustration he can hardly possess a volume of nursery tales without good woodcuts in it, and should be encouraged to copy what he likes best of this kind, but should be firmly restricted to a few prints and to a few books. If a child has many toys, it will get tired of them and break them; if a boy has many prints, he will merely dawdle and scrawl over them; it is by the limitation of the number of his possessions that his pleasure in them is perfected, and his attention concentrated.

      […]

“Appendix II. Things to be studied.

      “The worst danger by far, to which a solitary student is exposed, is that of liking things that he should not. It is not so much his difficulties, as his tastes, which he must set himself to conquer, and although, under the guidance of a master, many works of art may be made instructive, which are only of partial excellence (the good and bad of them being duly distinguished), his safeguard, as long as he studies alone, will be in allowing himself to possess only things, in their way, so free from faults, that nothing he copies in them can seriously mislead him, and to contemplate only those works of art which he knows to be either perfect or noble in their errors. I will therefore set down, in clear order, the names of the masters whom you may safely admire, and a few of the books which you may safely possess. In these days of cheap illustration, the danger is always rather of your possessing too much than too little. It may admit of some question, how far the looking at bad art may set off and illustrate the characters of the good; but, on the whole, I believe it is best to live always on quite wholesome food, and that our enjoyment of it will never be made more acute by feeding on ashes; though, it may be well sometimes to taste the ashes, in order to know the bitterness of them. Of course the works of the great masters can only be serviceable to the student after he has made considerable progress himself. It only wastes the time and dulls the feelings of young persons, to drag them through picture galleries; at least, unless they themselves wish to look at particular pictures. Generally, young people only care to enter a picture gallery when there is a chance of getting to run a race to the other end of it; and they had better do that in the garden below. If, however, they have any real enjoyment of pictures, and want to look at this one or that, the principal point is never to disturb them in looking at what interests them, and never to make them look at what does not. Nothing is of the least use to young people (nor, by the way, of much use to old ones), but what interests them. And therefore, though it is of great importance to put nothing but good art into their possession, yet, when they are passing through great houses or galleries, they should be allowed to look precisely at what pleases them: if it is not useful to them as art, it will be in some other way. The healthiest way in which art can interest them is when they look at it, not as art, but because it represents something they like in Nature. If a boy has had his heart filled by the life of some great man, and goes up thirstily to a Van Dyck portrait of him, to see what he was like, that is the wholesomest way in which he can begin the study of portraiture. If he loves mountains, and dwells on a Turner drawing because he sees in it a likeness to a Yorkshire scar or an Alpine pass, that is the wholesomest way in which he can begin the study of landscape; and if a girl’s mind is filled with dreams of angels and saints, and she pauses before an Angelico because she thinks it must surely be like heaven, that is the right way for her to begin the study of religious art.

      “When, however, the student has made some definite progress, and every picture becomes really a guide to him, false or true, in his own work, it is of great importance that he should never look, with even partial admiration, at bad art; and then, if the reader is willing to trust me in the matter, the following advice will be useful to him. […]

      “First, in galleries of pictures:

      “1. You may look, with trust in their being always right, at Titian, Veronese, Tintoretto, Giorgione, Giovanni Bellini, and Velázquez, the authenticity of the picture being of course established for you by proper authority.

      “2. You may look with admiration, admitting, however, question of right and wrong, at Van Eyck, Holbein, Perugino, Francia, Angelico, Leonardo da Vinci, Correggio, Van Dyck, Rembrandt, Reynolds, Gainsborough, Turner, and the modern Pre-Raphaelites. You had better look at no other painters than these, for you run a chance, otherwise, of being led far off the road, or into grievous faults, by some of the other great ones, as Michelangelo, Raphael, and Rubens; and of being, besides, corrupted in taste by the base ones, as Murillo, Salvator, Claude, Gaspar Poussin, Teniers, and such others. You may look, however, for examples of evil, with safe universality of reprobation, being sure that everything you see is bad, at Domenichino, the Caracci, Bronzino, and the figure pieces of Salvator.

      “Among those named for study under question, you cannot look too much at, nor grow too enthusiastically fond of, Angelico, Correggio, Reynolds, Turner, and the Pre-Raphaelites; but, if you find yourself getting especially fond of any of the others, leave off looking at them, for you must be going wrong some way or other. If, for instance, you begin to like Rembrandt or Leonardo especially, you are losing your feeling for colour; if you like Van Eyck or Perugino especially, you must be getting too fond of rigid detail; and if you like Van Dyck or Gainsborough especially, СКАЧАТЬ