It is the custom, in this as in most other academies, for the student to begin with the Antique, and finish with the Life. The object of this is of course to avoid multiplying difficulties at first, and to accustom him to draw from an inanimate object before he proceeds to copy one that is always more or less moving.
I should, however, very much wish that those who are ambitious of following the highest walk of art would supplement their life studies by a return to the antique.
They would then perceive beauties which they little dreamt of during their apprenticeship. They would acquire a fine taste for form, and would learn to generalize the knowledge they had acquired in the life schools.
I would make this class of students the highest in the Academy, so that no one should feel that by returning to the antique he was being subjected to degradation. In this last stage of the student’s education, artistic studies from the antique should be made, and not what are called finished drawings, such as are at present executed to compete for prizes. The character and beauty of the antique should be given rapidly, and by simple means.
Before proceeding to speak of the difficult problem of drawing objects in motion, I should wish to impress on your minds the importance of being able to draw tolerably from memory.
All drawing is, strictly speaking, an effort of memory. You cannot look at your model and trace lines on your paper at one and the same time; there must be an interval of a second or two, and all that you have to do to acquire facility in drawing from memory, is gradually to prolong this interval.
If you visit a large forge, you are sure to see men in violent action, either working the rolling-mill, or forging large masses of iron under the Nasmyth hammer. You may be certain that their action is perfectly natural, and that it is not only natural but most appropriate to the work they are about. Men who have been rolling boiler-plate for years are sure to set about their work in the most practical way. Sketching on these occasions is impossible, except, perhaps, to a newspaper correspondent, but there is nothing to prevent your watching the action of these men intently.
You will notice the various positions the body arms, and legs assume to accomplish various tasks; how each action is fitted to the work. You will endeavor to draw from memory what you have noticed. Your drawings will doubtless be very imperfect, but they will be infinitely better than what you could have produced before taking stock of what you saw at the forge.
In London you may not have opportunities of seeing much in the way of action that is worth drawing, but even in London people skate, play lawn tennis, and other games which give rise to action, and in the country there is always plenty to observe if you keep your weather eye open.
Every one cannot become a Horace Vernet, but I think that any fairly good draughtsman may, after examining an object carefully, learn to reproduce it two or three hours later when he reaches home; and this kind of power (though never cultivated in academic schools) is one which every young artist ought to endeavor to acquire. Very young children (unless they are asleep) cannot be studied in the deliberate manner in which a professional grown-up model is studied. Wild animals, again, are difficult things to draw, because they cannot be depended upon to retain the same position for any length of time.