“FRUSTRATED.” (FROM THE PAINTING BY WALTER HUNT.)
(Royal Academy, 1891.)
Referring to the evident want of training amongst our younger draughtsmen, the question was put very bluntly in the Athenæum some years ago, thus:—
Why is not drawing in line with pen and ink taught in our own Government schools of art? The present system in schools seems to render the art of drawing of as little use to the student as possible, for he has no sooner mastered the preliminary stage of drawing in outline from the flat with a lead pencil, than he has chalk put into his hand, a material which he will seldom or never use in turning his knowledge of drawing to practical account. The readier method of pen and ink would be of great service as a preparatory stage to wood drawing, but unfortunately drawing is taught in most cases as though the student intended only to become a painter.
Since these lines were written, efforts have been made in some schools of art to give special training for illustrators, and instruction is also given in wood engraving, which every draughtsman should learn; but up to the present time there has been no systematic teaching in drawing applicable to the various processes, for the reason that the majority of art masters do not understand them.
“ON THE RIVIERA.” (ELLEN MONTALBA.)
The art of expression in line, or of expressing the effect of a picture or a landscape from Nature in a few leading lines (not necessarily outline) is little understood in this country; and if such study, as the Athenæum pointed out, is important for the wood draughtsman, how much more so in drawing for reproduction by photo-mechanical means? A few artists have the gift of expressing themselves in line, but the majority are strangely ignorant of the principles of this art and of the simple fac-simile processes by which drawing can now be reproduced. In the course of twenty years of editing the Academy Notes, some strange facts have come to the writer’s notice as to the powerlessness of some painters to express the motif of a picture in a few lines; also as to how far we are behind our continental neighbours in this respect.