Part 7 (1/2)
You will all, I think, be disposed, on exa it, to exclaim, Hoonderful! and even to doubt the possibility of every page in the book being coain, here are three of s, executed with the pen, and Indian ink, when I was fifteen
They are copies froine that most of my pupils would thinkof the kind theraving like this,[X] or this,[X] either of which contains, alone, as es of the s as mine, you look upon its effect as quite a matter of course,--you never say 'hoonderful' _that_ is, nor consider how you would like to have to live, by producing anything of the same kind yourselves
[Illustration: II
The Star of FLORENCE]
115 Yet you cannot suppose it is in reality easier to draw a line with a cutting point, not seeing the effect at all, or, if any effect, seeing a gleaht instead of darkness, than to draw your black line at once on the white paper? You cannot really think[Y] that there is so complacent, sympathetic, and helpful in the nature of steel; so that while a pen-and-ink sketchcleverness in the sketcher, a sketch on steel coent metal; or that the plate is woven like a piece of pattern silk, and the pattern is developed by pasteboard cards punched full of holes? Not so Look close at this engraving, or take a sine it to be a drawing in pen and ink, and yourself required similarly to produce its parallel! True, the steel point has the one advantage of not blotting, but it has tenfold or twentyfold disadvantage, in that you cannot slur, nor efface, except in a very resolute and laborious way, nor play with it, nor even see what you are doing with it at the moment, far less the effect that is to be Youwith it, and know precisely what you have got to do; how deep, how broad, how far apart your lines must be, etc and etc, (a couple of lines of etceteras would not be enough to imply all you : take your pen--your finest--and just try to copy the leaves that entangle the head of Io, and her head itself; re always that the kind of work required here is
Nevertheless, take a slass to this--count the dots and lines that gradate the nostrils and the edges of the facial bone; notice how the light is left on the top of the head by the stopping, at its outline, of the coarse touches which form the shadows under the leaves; examine it well, and then--I humbly ask of you--try to do a piece of it yourself! You clever sketcher--you young lady or gentlelassed dilettante--you current writer of criticism royally plural,--I beseech you,--do it yourself; do the merely etched outline yourself, if noneedle this way, as you would a pencil, nearly; and then,--you scratch with it!
it is as easy as lying Or if you think that too difficult, take an easier piece;--take either of the light sprays of foliage that rise against the fortress on the right, pass your lens over them--look how their fine outline is first drawn, leaf by leaf; then how the distant rock is put in between, with broken lines, ain, I pray you, do it yourself,--if not on that scale, on a larger Go on into the hollows of the distant rock,--traverse its thickets,--number its towers;--count how many lines there are in a laurel bush--in an arch--in a casement; some hundred and fifty, or two hundred, deliberately drawn lines, you will find, in every square quarter of an inch;--say _three thousand to the inch_,--each, with skillful intent, put in its place! and then consider what the ordinary sketcher's work must appear, to the ht not more have been done by three thousand lines to a square inch?” you will perhaps ask Well, possibly Ittheir work thoroughly, er than three thousand less sure of their aim We shall have to press close home this question about numbers and purpose presently;--it is not the question now Suppose certain results required,--atmospheric effects, surface textures, transparencies of shade, confusions of light,--then, s of this modern school, of which, with respect to their particular aim, it may be said, most truly, they ”cannot be better done”
Here is one just finished,--or, at least, finished to the eyes of ordinary h its fastidious , by Mr Charles Henry Jeens; (in calling it pure line, I mean that there are no , but all is steady hand-work,) fro any of the highest clairace ious art; and is so sweet in the fancy of it as to deserve, better than raver to ine the evening of the day when the father and h Jerusale water; St Joseph passes on,--but the tired Madonna, leaning on the well's in, asks wistfully of the women if they have seen such and such a child astray Noill you just look for a while into the lines by which the expression of the weary and anxious face is rendered; see how unerring they are,--how calm and clear; and think howthe most minute portion of any one,--its curve,--its thickness,--its distance fro, invisibly, where it ends Think what the precision e of the lip, andwith disappointment, or in these which have made the eyelash heavy with restrained tears
117 Or if, as must be the case with many of my audience, it is impossible for you to conceive the difficulties here overcome, look merely at the draperies, and other varied substances represented in the plate; see how silk, and linen, and stone, and pottery, and flesh, are all separated in texture, and gradated in light, by the most subtle artifices and appliances of line,--of which artifices, and the nature of the ive you to-day aBut as I shall have to blaeneral result, and I do not wish any word of general blame to be associated with this most excellent and careful plate by Mr Jeens, I will pass, for special examination, to one already in your reference series, which for the rest exhibits round, and figures; the Belle Jardiniere of Raphael, drawn and engraved by the Baron Desnoyers
You see, in the first place, that the ground, stones, and other coarse surfaces are distinguished froled lines Those broken lines cannot be executed with the burin, they are etched in the early states of the plate, and are a ravers; partly because the older , but chiefly because even those ere acquainted with it would not employ lines of this nature They have been developed by the i, and have produced some valuable results in small plates, especially of architecture But they are entirely erroneous in principle, for the surface of stones and leaves is not broken or jagged in this anic texture, which cannot be represented by these coarse lines; their general consequence has therefore been to withdraw the mind of the observer froround, and eventually to destroy the very school of landscape engraving which gave birth to the iti one part of the plate surface in order to throw out the delicate tints froh field But the same effect was produced with less pains, and far ravers, who employed purely ornamental variations of line; thus in Plate IV, opposite - 137, the drapery is sufficiently distinguished frorass by the treatrain of wood is elaborately engraved by Marc Antonio, with the saiven in your Standard Series
118 Next, however, you observe what difference of texture and force exists between the sraved_ You must take some pains to understand the nature of this operation
The line is first cut lightly through its whole course, by absolute decision and steadiness of hand, which you may endeavor to i a circle with your co your penholder so that you can push the point like a plow, describing other circles inside or outside of it, in exact parallelism with the mathematical line, and at exactly equal distances To approach, or depart, with your point at finely gradated intervals, may be your next exercise, if you find the first unexpectedly easy
119 When the line is thus described in its proper course, it is plowed deeper, where depth is needed, by a second cut of the burin, first on one side, then on the other, the cut being given with gradated force so as to take away radated depth in the plate has to be thus cut eight or ten tis to smooth and clear all in the close
Jason has to plow his field ten-furrow deep, with his fiery oxen well in hand, all the while
When the essential lines are thus produced in their several directions, those which have been drawn across each other, so as to give depth of shade, or richness of texture, have to be farther enriched by dots in the interstices; else there would be a painful appearance of network everywhere; and these dots require each four or five jags to produce thes ravers alike call 'feeling,'--the sensibility, that is, of a hand coht, the dots look soft, and like touches of paint; but ar and hard
120 Now, observe, that, for every piece of shadow throughout the work, the engraver has to decide hat quantity and kind of line he will produce it Exactly the same quantity of black, and therefore the saiven with six thick lines; or with twelve, of half their thickness; or with eighteen, of a third of the thickness The second six, second twelve, or second eighteen, o between thele And then the third six may be put between the first six, or between the second six, or across both, and at any angle In the network thus produced, any kind of dots may be put in the severally shaped interstices And for any of the series of superadded lines, dots, of equivalent value in shade, ht in dots altogether) Choice infinite, with multiplication of infinity, is, at all events, to be made, for every minute space, from one side of the plate to the other
121 The excellence of a beautiful engraving is primarily in the use of these resources to exhibit the qualities of the original picture, with delight to the eye in the , when once you begin to understand it, is, in these respects, so fertile, so ingenious, so ineffably subtle and severe in its grammar, that you ation, as you would the scholarshi+p of a lovely literature
But in doing this, you would withdraw, and necessarily withdraw, your attention frora ht And the exquisitely raver's ence of the careful draughtsmen of Europe; so that since the final perfection of this translator's power, all the men of finest patience and finest hand have stayed content with it;--the subtlest draughtsht e, and ht And, in sum, I know no cause reat schools of European art, than the perfectness of reat and profoundly to be regretted influence I will prove and illustrate to you on another occasion My object to-day is to explain the perfectness of the art itself; and above all to request you, if you will not look at pictures instead of photographs, at least not to allow the cheap merits of the chemical operation to withdraw your interest froraver Here is a little vignette froers' poe, half pleased and half afraid, 'Neath sister elms, that waved their suhtly,) that of all difficult things to express with crossed black lines and dots, the face of a young girl must be the irl, radiant in light, transparent, ,--her dark hair involved in delicate wreath and shade, her eyes full of joy and sweet playfulness,--and all this done by the exquisite order and gradation of a very few lines, which, if you will exa the lip, and cheek, and chin, so strongly that you would have fancied they could only produce the effect of a griuide them into beauty, and inflame them with delicatest life
123 And do you see the size of this head? About as large as the bud of a forget-ine the fineness of the little pressures of the hand on the steel, in that space, which at the edge of the almost invisible lip, fashi+oned its less or more of smile?
My chehtly concerning the arts, I very urgently advise you to throw all your vials and washes down the gutter-trap; and if you will ascribe, as you think it so clever to do, in your h your own heads and fingers, and apply your solar energies to draw a skillful line or two, for once or twice in your life