Part 15 (2/2)

_Fromentin_

CLXXVIII

A painter ht; it is all little enough You know, I suppose, that this period of the day between daylight and darkness is called ”the painter's hour”? There is, however, this inconvenience attending it, which allowance must be made for--the reds look darker than by day, indeed alht blues turn white, or nearly so This low, fading light also suggests es of the brush in a picture but newly coinally intended, but which often provevery beautiful in these foret it fixed!--for when I draw near the canvas the vision is gone, and I have to go back and creep up to it again and again, and, at last, to hold th of my arm before I can fix it, so that I can avail myself of it the next day The way to paint a really fine picture is first to paint it in the ly and distinctly as possible, and then to sketch it while the i and vivid

[Illustration: _Puvis de Chavannes_ HOPE]

I have frequently shut myself up in a dark roo to iine a scene I was about to paint, and have never stirred till I had got it clear in my mind; then I have sketched it as quickly as I could, before the impression has left me

_Northcote_

DECORATIVE ART

CLXXIX

Decoration is the activity, the life of art, its justification, and its social utility

_Bracque is to animate wall-spaces Apart froer than one's hand

_Puvis de Chavannes_

CLxxxI

I want big things to do and vast spaces, and for common people to see them and say Oh!--only Oh!

_Burne-Jones_

CLxxxII

I insist uponfor three reasons--first, because it is an exercise of art which dee only to be obtained by honest study, the value of which no one can doubt, whatever branch of art the student ht choose to follow afterwards; secondly, because the practice would bring out that gravity and nobility deficient in the English school, but not in the English character, and which being latent ht out; and, thirdly, for the sake of action upon the public mind For public i but simple excellence should be scattered abroad as widely as possible At present the public never see anything beautiful excepting in exhibition roo naturally disturbs the intellectual perceptions It is a st those that surround us has any pretension to real beauty, or could be put simply into a picture with noble effect And as I believe the love of beauty to be inherent in the human mind, it follows that there must be some unfortunate influence at work; to counteract this should be the object of a fine-art institution, and I feel assured if really good things were scattered a before satisfactory results exhibited themselves

_G F Watts_

CLxxxIII

I havegone for great ainst one another, the only bright local colour being the blue of the workmens' coats and trousers I have intentionally avoided the whole business of ”flat decoration” by ”s part of the walls,”

as one is told is so important On the contrary, I have treated them as pictures and have tried tolight and shade goes; in the figures I have struggled to keep a certain quality of bas-relief--that is, I have avoided distant groups--and have woven round of the pictures, as without this I felt they would lose their weight and dignity, which does seem to me the essential business in a reat decorator far more than his flat mimicry of fresco does Tintoretto, in S