Rembrandt above all others delighted in setting down his ideas in this way; and there are still in existence nearly nine hundred of these vital drawings of his. I think I shall not be contradicted when I say that the method by which these Rembrandt sketches were produced defies analysis: they are not outline drawings, nor are they drawings of light (like Daumier’s sketches), they are a kind of pictorial calligraphy—as Sir Charles Holmes once pointed out—closely allied to the Japanese method of brush drawing, though they are infinitely more varied and are not a set of symbols constantly rearranged and adjusted for each new problem; as is often the case in Japanese drawings; and also in the case of our modern illustrators—who serve up again and again a few threadbare receipts for hats, boots, facial expressions and so forth. With these draughtsmen the line has all the hardness that one would expect from the use of a metal point; the quill pen is incomparably a more sympathetic instrument than the metal pen, and it is to be hoped that, as methods of reproduction improve (and they are improving) draughtsmen will again take to using the quill.
Rembrandt has shown us that the quill or reed pen can give a more flexible line than any other instrument or medium (except perhaps a brush) that the artist has at his disposal. Even chalk has not quite the same possibilities in this particular respect, because the point is continually crumbling as it is worn away, and the pencil—so suitable for crisp or delicate work—cannot be used for emphatic statement without the risk of happening upon that heavy quality that is so unpleasant.
It is at about this stage that I feel some sort of an essay on drawings and drawing in general is expected of me. However, as I do not expect it of myself it is not likely to happen; and he who does must, I fear, be disappointed. I hold the opinion, as I have already said, that a drawing is a thing to be looked at and not written about and I therefore content myself with the simple statement that a drawing is a symbolic arrangement of marks made by an intelligent person with a pointed instrument on a more or less plain surface. Now, though these three essentials—the symbology, the arrangement and the intelligence of the person—may all be excellent, the question of whether he may claim to be really a draughtsman or why and when he may not be allowed any such claim will ultimately always be decided by the quality of the marks; in a drawing these are more usually curved lines; but to decide whether they have the right quality or the wrong quality is a matter most subtle, eclectic and erudite.
Hans Holbein the Younger
In Manchester, and the north of England generally, business men call an artist’s personal style in drawing and design “his handwriting.” And indeed the phrase has a nice aptness, for the quality of a man’s line in pen or pencil work is as personal to himself and as unlike another’s as is his calligraphy—and, like it, may charm or offend us. However—no one ever has had any doubt about the charm and rightness of the quality of Holbein’s lines.... “These are no imitations of classic suggestion but a new creation on parallel lines ... there are men who can create with the same naïveté and beauty as the Ionians. And let it be noted, too, that these curves ... are the farthest removed in all art from the insipidity of the Renaissance flourishes, which we sometimes teach as a poisonous miasma in our art schools. These are curves of extreme tension, as of substances pulled out lengthwise with force that has found its utmost resistance, lines of strain, long cool curves of vital springing, that bear the strength of their intrinsic unity in their rhythms.” So wrote Ernest Fenollosa—one of the few great writers on art. He was not writing about Holbein, but how well he might have been! What an admirable commentary it makes on the drawings of this master draughtsman—“curves of extreme tension ... cool curves of vital springing.” ... Look at the drawings of the Duchess of Suffolk; Thomas Watt; Bishop Fisher or the Family of Thomas More (reproduced here, p. 29) or any other portrait drawing by Holbein and I think it cannot but be agreed that it is a perfect description of that most difficult thing to describe—Holbein’s line. It must be admitted that Holbein as a decorator seems to have been a different being—“Renaissance flourishes” were then his stock in trade; they sprout from every available excrescence. But most fortunately, in his portraits, he had no use for the flourish; and here we are only concerned with his portrait drawings.
Michelangelo
One cannot study Michelangelo without realizing or at any rate suspecting that all presentment of psychology essentially depends upon proportions, subtly observed; and though one cannot expect a master in an art school to allow his pupils to draw the model in inaccurate proportions as a general rule he might, one thinks, occasionally with advantage—say one day a week—order them to decide in their minds first what type, psychologically, they most wish to suggest by the human figure and to think out, then, what proportions would best convey the idea of it—deliberately falsifying, where necessary, the proportions of the model to achieve their purpose. The proportions in a Michelangelo drawing are not, accurately, those in a human figure. But, by a general concensus of opinion, they are accepted as suggesting a psychology more divine than human. This then must have been Michelangelo’s intention. How did he do it. If we cannot learn the secret by studying his drawings we have little else to help us except the following cryptic receipt, that legend tells us came from him, and which has still remained undeciphered—“a figure should be pyramidal, serpentine, and multiplied by one two and three.” Is there any connection between it and the occultists’ formula—“the one becomes two, the two three, and the three seven,” and their axiom that “Seven is the perfect Number”?
The principle of selecting deliberately where the proportions shall be inaccurate to observed fact, for the purpose of suggesting a desired type, is not unlike the principle that Rodin used to convey the idea of action in a figure:—he taught that movement could best be suggested by including in the pose at least two more or less instantaneous positions or movements which could not, accurately, occur simultaneously in a human figure.