It is very likely that in this, as in the other example I have given you, I might, when I came to the actual execution of the picture, adopt a different moment of time and a different treatment to the one which at present seems best to me.
My object in giving you these illustrations is not so much to recommend this or that particular mode of treatment, as to show you how you ought to examine a subject from every point of view before committing yourselves to one particular reading.
In the prize for design which is associated with my name, I purposely gave a whole day (or one third of the time allowed) for the competitors to examine the subject in all its aspects, so as not to commit themselves hurriedly to a treatment of which they might repent when it was too late. For finished pictures, taking three months to paint, one third of the time would be too large a proportion to spend in making up one’s mind about the general arrangement; but even in this case I think that more time might often be advantageously devoted to the design and less to the execution than is generally done.
I cannot refer to these sketches without expressing my great satisfaction at the progress made within a very few years. Some of you probably recollect the first competition, and will doubtless agree with me that not only are the prize sketches greatly superior to those of the first year or two, but the general average is also very much higher.
Now I don’t suppose that (taking the average) you are a much cleverer set of students than your predecessors of six years ago, and therefore the marked improvement of which I have been speaking is due entirely to your attention having been drawn to the very important, and I may add attractive, study of composition.
Although a great advocate for this study, I cannot say I approve of sketching clubs as usually constituted. Experienced painters may perhaps join them with impunity; their evening’s contribution is always a faint echo of something they have done fifty times before, but no good can come of any young artist cudgelling his brains to produce something original in two hours.
I don’t think a professor of music would approve of his pupils meeting once a fortnight to improvise something on a given subject.
The result would be a farrago of stolen melodies and borrowed passages which could not lead to any good. He who had the best memory and the cleverest execution would carry off the honors of the evening.
The original genius, if there happened to be one present, would be nowhere.
The same kind of thing would happen in a sketching club; the thoughtful and fastidious members would become discouraged, and perhaps give up composition altogether.