the real aspect of the object, and has failed to give the spectator a simple and intelligible idea of it. Starting out with the generous notion of giving all, that there may be “something for everyone,” he has given nothing. He did not originally form an intelligible and simplified idea of the figure, so how can his drawing be expected to give one to others?
But how can forms be made more simple and intelligible than by reproducing their aspect with absolute accuracy? Our combined sense of vision and touch comprehends very easily certain elementary solid forms, the sphere, the cube, the pyramid and the cylinder. No forms but these, and their modifications, can be apprehended by the mind in one and the same act of vision. Every complex form, even so simple as that of a kidney, for instance, must be first broken up into its component parts before it can be fully apprehended or remembered. Analogously with the above, Prof. Wundt has shown how the mind can apprehend as separate units any number, of marbles for instance, up to five, after which every number must be split up into lots of twos, threes, fours and fives, or twenties, thirties and so on, before it can realize the full content of that number in one and the same mental picture. So the only way to receive an intelligible idea of a complex form, such as a human figure, is first to discover in the figure itself, and then in all its parts, only modifications of the above elementary solid forms, and the drawing of a conception thus informed must needs be a very clear and intelligible one. The more the artist is capable and practised, the more clearly will he conceive and distinguish in nature each subtle modification of these elementary forms, their direction, their relation to, and their dependence upon one another. The only difference between a good draughtsman and a bad one is the degree of subtlety of his apprehension. Unless the draughtsman has seen some such clear forms in his original, his labour to produce a work of art will be grievous and fruitless. All good drawing is stamped with this kind of structural insight. The more the artist adheres to nature, and the more finished his drawing, the more will the lines and forms that he makes be, so to speak, in excess of those of nature, or dull imitation or photography. It is not to be supposed that able draughtsmen work, or need ever have worked, consciously in this manner. It is, indeed, the virtue peculiar to the artist, as interpreter of form, that he instinctively comprehends the real elemental character of complex forms, whilst the majority of people (on the showing of their own drawings) entertain but confused or no ideas of them. It is because a good drawing reduces the chaos of ideas supplied by the raw material of nature, to one intelligible manner of seeing it, that all lovers of nature welcome it with joy. It is this process of discovery and interpretation that marks the essential difference between art and mechanical drawing or reproduction. Art gives intelligible ideas of the forms of nature, mechanism attempts to reduplicate their aspects.
There are some who hold that drawing is not exclusively a matter of interpreting form, but that great artists have their own “personalities” which they infuse into their work. They will ask, How is it otherwise to be explained that two equally good draughtsmen will invariably make different drawings of the same figure? Is it not for the same reason that one man will divide up a row of eight marbles into groups of four, and another into five and three? The subjectivity of experience governs the different conceptions that good draughtsmen will form of the same object. Accordingly as a draughtsman feels form so will he draw it, and it is only because our sense apparatuses are more or less similarly constituted that we can understand and appreciate one another’s conceptions.
But if the master draughtsman gives the true character of his model’s form, why is it that his drawings are not pleasing to all alike? Whence the doubts and criticism that have been called forth by all original artists? If we first examine the attitude of the average man, artist or layman, towards nature, we can better explain his attitude towards works of art. The average man or artist has not a highly developed appreciation of form per se, whether it be the form of natural or manufactured objects. And it would seem that he is still less a disinterested spectator of the forms and features of his fellow beings and animals, their movements, their colour, their value in a room or landscape. He has sentimental, moral or intellectual preferences. In other words, he likes or dislikes only those faces or figures which hundreds of personal associations have taught him to like or dislike. The riding man’s admiration for the look of a particular horse is based upon the fact that it looks like “a horse to go,” and hence it is what he calls beautiful, while the artist, in the capacity of artist and not of sportsman, is not particular in his choice of horse-flesh, but finds each animal equally interesting for itself alone. Consequently in art any face, figure or object that does not come into the category of what the average man cares for is condemned by him even as it would be in real life, since he is no lover of form for form’s sake, but provided the subject or moral be pleasing the quality of the draughtsmanship is of small account. The picture of a dwarf, or of an anatomy lesson, or of a group of ordinary bourgeois folk would not really please him, even though he were told that the work was by Velazquez, Rembrandt or Manet. We have only to listen to the common criticism of works of art to know that it is founded upon personal predilection only. We do not hear such personal criticism upon drawings of landscape, not because artists do them better, but because natural landscape has no interest for any one other than for its form, or, at least, people do not hold such definite personal likes or dislikes with regard to its various manifestations. But the artist, though his own personal predilections may, and generally do, lead him to work within that agreeable milieu, has, in the capacity of artist, no subjective prejudices; indeed, if he had them, he could not represent them by line, light and shade. He seeks always new varieties of form; hence his subjects, and his manner of posing them, are often unpleasing to the man who is busy with other affairs, and has no great experience of nature’s forms. Let a good draughtsman make a successful likeness of the mother of some average man, and the latter will be delighted, but it by no means follows that he will delight in a drawing of the wife of the artist, though done by the same hand and with equal skill.
If drawing is the art of giving one’s ideas of the forms of nature, then all criticism of drawing must be based upon the question, “How far does such and such a work show an intimate knowledge of or intelligent visualization of the forms we know in nature?” and no other principle of judgment can be applicable to all drawing alike. Hence only those who have by natural endowment a clear sense of the forms of things, and who have made more than ordinary study of them, are in a position to apply to drawings the above criterion with any approach to infallibility. It is a fact that there are, and always have been, a certain number of people who agree perfectly in their appreciation of the works of certain draughtsmen of different times and countries, and who can state reasons for their appreciation in definite and almost identical terms, for it is based upon knowledge and experience. To such people all fine draughtsmanship owes its public fame, and its immortality lies in their safe keeping.
It may be argued that each has a right to his own opinion about form and its representation, on the supposed ground that we all see form in different ways. But there is a fallacy in this argument. If we take the average man’s drawing of any form more complex than a loaf of bread as a fair and only testimony of his power of visualization of forms, we must conclude that most of us see not differently, but wrongly, or rather confusedly and disconnectedly, and that some can visualize form scarcely at all. If this be true, the average person’s sight and ability to judge drawing is seriously diminished. If, then, drawing can be judged and appreciated only by knowledge and experience of the forms of nature, no critical formula could be made out so as to enable a child or savage or ordinary civilized adult to estimate or enjoy it. If it be argued that drawings are to be judged from some abstract or symbolic point of view, independently of its subtle representation of form, then incompetent drawing might be as beautiful as the competent, which would be absurd. However, if the competent characterization of form were admitted as at least the first condition of beautiful drawing, it would follow
