Any little failure must not be made the source of discouragement; and in case the Student should not have succeeded altogether so well as could be wished, in the first attempt, he ought by all means to persevere until completely successful; carefully endeavouring, in his renewed efforts, to avoid the same errors. This mode will assuredly be followed with far greater improvement than can possibly attend hasty transitions from one subject to another, without producing perfection in either.
The best and surest method of obtaining instruction from the Works of others is not so much by copying them, as by drawing the same subjects from Nature immediately after a critical examination of them, while they are fresh in the memory. Thus they are seen through the same medium, and imitated upon the same principles, without preventing the introduction of sufficient alterations to give originality of manner, or incurring the risk of being degraded into a mere imitator.
If the mind be fixed and sincere in pursuit of the Art, difficulties will be easily surmountable: they will rather quicken than damp the desire for improvement; for it is only where talent is required that Genius can be active. The accomplishment of one task will only give additional stimulus for the performance of another. Increasing pleasure will naturally flow from progressive improvement. The mind will ever be busily and pleasingly employed; for “the effect of every object that meets a Painter’s eye may give him a lesson.”
ON LIGHT AND SHADE, AND EFFECT.
It is here that the Art begins to display its varied and inexhaustible beauties, and to reward the patient and improving Student. The outline being completed in the manner prescribed by the foregoing instructions, Light and Shade, and Effect, should be studied in sepia or Indian ink, by which a clearer conception of each will be acquired than if practised in colours; the variety of the latter tending to perplex the mind, and to divert it from the main object. Colouring is a distinct and subsequent branch, and is only to be learnt by long and minute observation of the diversified tints and hues of Nature. The principle of Light and Shade, on the contrary, is established by theory. This subject has already been so admirably treated on, that it will be impossible to give a better insight into it than is contained in the following passages extracted from a celebrated Work.
“Shadow is a diminution of light occasioned by the interposition of some opake body, which receiving and intercepting the light that should be cast on the plane it is placed on, there gives a shadow of its own form: for light being of a communicative nature, diffuses itself on every thing not hid from it, particularly on every thing that is plain and smooth; but where there happens the least elevation, a shadow is produced which exhibits the figure of the illumined part on the plane.
“The diversity of luminaries occasions a difference of shadows; for if the body that illumines be larger than the body illumined, the shadow will be less than the body. If they be equal, the shadow will be equal to the illumined; and if the luminary be less than the object, the shadow will be continually enlarging as it goes farther off.
“From what has been observed we draw this conclusion: that the same object may project shadows of different forms, though still illumined on the same side; the sun giving one form, the torch or lamp another.
“The sun always makes its shadow equal to the object; that is, projects it parallel-wise. It is certainly of consequence to observe these rules precisely, and not take the rules for candles, lamps, and the like, in lieu thereof.
“The shadow of objects given by a torch or lamp is not projected in parallels, but in rays proceeding from a centre: whence the shadow is never equal to the object, but always larger; and grows larger as it recedes further.