Where Art Begins

by Hume Nisbet

WHERE ART BEGINS

BY
HUME NISBET
AUTHOR OF
‘LESSONS IN ART’, ‘LIFE AND NATURE STUDIES’ ETC.

DEDICATED
WITH AFFECTIONATE REGARDS
TO MY DEAR FRIEND AND WELL-WISHER
EDMUND J. BAILLIE, F.L.S.
OF CHESTER

INTRODUCTION

My present subject has grown up in a very congenial atmosphere. A number of sympathetic students, who learnt to appreciate my practical work, continued to draw from me some ideas partly practical, partly theoretical, on the subject which has always been a part religion with me, whether in my working or my dreaming moments—Art and its all-permeating influence over humanity in the social and spiritual conditions. I take it that Art permeates the entire body of humanity, from the flesh-devouring savage to the asphodel-adoring æsthetic, in a greater or lesser degree, according to the sanitary conditions of their lives; and as it permeates, so it brings us closer to what we regard as human perfection.

In this spirit I have written out the following reflections, blending the practical with the theoretical and personal, as a pendant to my ‘Lessons in Art’ and ‘Life and Nature Studies.’ In the first book I have attempted to give the Alpha of Art; in the second I have given the Omega, as far as I myself know about Art; and in the present I have sought to give something of what lies between.

Whether I have been lucid enough to enable the reader to follow me, or sympathetic enough to interest him in my subject, I must leave to his own judgment. I can only say that my views are the reflections of one item appealing to other items in the big sum of humanity, written out honestly as the outcome of his own personal experience of the subject which interests him most deeply, and with the hope that he may find some readers who have had similar thoughts upon Art and Mankind, although they may not have been tempted to write them down. With this hope I leave my book to the consideration and judgment of each reader.

HUME NISBET.

Hogarth Club: June 1892.

CONTENTS

CHAPTER		PAGE
	Introduction	[ix]
	A Word Before	[1]
[I.]	Where Art Begins	[5]
[II.]	A Study in Light and Shadow	[26]
[III.]	The Primaries: Yellow, Red, and Blue	[56]
[IV.]	Art in its Relationship to Everyday Life	[97]
[V.]	On Picture Lighting	[119]
[VI.]	Ships: Ancient and Modern	[132]
[VII.]	Illustrative Art: Past and Present	[150]
[VIII.]	Art in Minor Directions	[176]
[IX.]	Dress and Decoration	[196]
[X.]	Some of the Old Masters	[229]
[XI.]	The Sacred and the Comic Sides of Art	[250]
[XII.]	On Various Subjects Connected with Art	[272]
[XIII.]	Nature Worship	[297]
	[INDEX]: [A], [B], [C], [D], [E], [F], [G], [H], [I], [J], [K], [L], [M], [N], [O], [P], [R], [S], [T], [U], [V], [W], [Y], [Z]	[317]

ILLUSTRATIONS

	PAGE
A New Zealand Fern-tree Gully.	[Frontispiece]
Repose.	[Vignette for title-page]
Group of Fisher-Folk. From a photograph by John Foster of Coldstream	[5]
A Group of Working Horses. From a photograph by John Foster of Coldstream	[26]
Ancient Assyrian Hall: The Feast of Sardanapalus. From a sepia sketch by the Author	[56]
An Ancient Egyptian Corridor. From a sepia sketch by the Author	[61]
On the Esk River, Tasmania. From a photograph by Major Aikenhead, Launceston	[97]
A New Guinea Village. A study of lighting from behind	[125]
Noah’s Ark. A process paper drawing	[132]
Ship-of-the-Line, 1815. Pen and ink	[134]
A Viking Boat. Process paper	[138]
Fishing Boats. Pen and ink	[142]
Homeward Bound. Process paper	[143]
The Storm. Pen and ink	[147]
At Rest. Pen and ink	[148]
From Breydenbach’s Travels	[150]
St. Christopher. From ‘A Treatise on Wood-Engraving,’ page 46	[153]
History of the Virgin Mary. From ‘A Treatise on Wood-Engraving,’ page 72	[154]
Albert Dürer’s Apocalypse	[156]
By Christopher Jegher, after Rubens	[158]
A Panel of Black and Gold	[176]
Initial Letter O, and Moonlight	[196]
The Avenue—Hobbema	[229]
Harmony. A night effect	[250]
Art Subjects	[272]
A Garden Scene	[297]
The Ancient Nile	[300]

Note A.—John Foster, of Coldstream, is one of the most accomplished of photographic artists, who has made a specialty of cattle groups, and whose studies are nearly always perfect in their grouping and effect.

Note B.—Major W. Aikenhead, of the Launceston Rifle Regiment, Tasmania, favoured me with some of his finest specimens, with permission to reproduce them. His aerial effects are wonderful and delicate, too tender in most instances for reproduction by process: therefore I have been compelled to give one of his most positive pictures as a specimen of his art and the beauties of the country in which he works.