Observe, then, the "finish" of fig. 2. as compared with fig. 1. consists, not in its greater delicacy, but in the addition of a truth (shadow), a removal, in a great degree, of a conventionalism (outline). All true finish consists in one or other of these things. Now, therefore, if we are to "finish" farther we must know more or see more about the tree. And as the plurality of persons who draw trees know nothing of them, and will not look at them, it results necessarily that the effort to finish is not only vain, but unfinishes—does mischief. In the lower part of the plate, figs. 3, 4, 5, and 6. are facsimiles of pieces of line engraving, meant to represent trunks of trees; 3. and 4. are the commonly accredited types of tree-drawing among engravers in the eighteenth century; 5. and 6. are quite modern; 3. is from a large and important plate by Boydell, from Claude's Molten Calf, dated 1781; 4. by Boydell in 1776, from Rubens's Waggoner; 5. from a bombastic engraving, published about twenty years ago by Meulemeester of Brussels, from Raphael's115Moses at the Burning Bush; and 6. from the foreground of Miller's Modern Italy, after Turner. art oil paintings online
2. Drawing of Tree-Stems.
All these represent, as far as the engraving goes, simplynothing. They
are not "finished" in any sense but this,—that the paper has been covered with
lines. 4. is the best, because, in the original work of Rubens, the lines of the
boughs, and their manner of insertion in the trunk, have been so strongly
marked, that no engraving could quite efface them; and, inasmuch as it
represents these facts in the boughs, that piece of engraving is more finished
than the other examples, while its own networked texture is still false and
absurd; for there is no texture of this knitted-stocking-like description on
boughs; and if there were, it would not be seen in the shadow,paintings reproductions, but in the light.
Miller's is spirited, and looks lustrous, but has no resemblance to the original
bough of Turner's, which is pale, and does not glitter. The Netherlands work is,
on the whole, the worst; because, in its ridiculous double lines, it adds
affectation and conceit to its incapacity. But in all these cases the engravers
have worked in total ignorance both of what is meant by "drawing," and of the
form of a tree, covering their paper with certain lines, which they have been
taught to plough in copper, as a husbandman ploughs in clay. original oil paintings for sale§ 9. In the next three examples we have instances of endeavors at finish by the hands of artists themselves, marking three stages of knowledge or insight, and three relative stages of finish. Fig. 7. is Claude's (Liber Veritatis, No. 140., facsimile by Boydell). It still displays an appalling ignorance of the forms of trees, but yet is, in mode of execution, better—that is, more finished—than the engravings, because not altogethermechanical, and showing some dim, far-away, blundering memory of a few facts in stems, such as their variations of texture and roundness, and bits of young shoots of leaves. 8. is Salvator's, facsimiled from part of his original etching of the Finding of Œdipus. It displays considerable power of handling—not mechanical, but free and firm, and is just so much more finished than any of the others as it displays more intelligence about the way in which boughs gather themselves out of the stem,oil paintings of flowers, and about the varying character of their curves. Finally, fig. 9. is good work. It is the root of the apple-tree in Albert Durer's Adam and Eve, and fairly represents the wrinkles of the bark, the smooth portions emergent beneath, and the general anatomy of growth. All the lines used conduce to the representation of these facts; and the work is therefore highly finished. It still, however, leaves out, as not to be represented by such kind of lines, the more delicate gradations of light and shade. I shall now "finish" a little farther, in the next plate (3.), the mere insertion of the two boughs outlined in fig. 1. I do this simply by adding assertions of more facts. First, I say that the whole trunk is dark, as compared with the distant sky. Secondly, I say that it is rounded by gradations of shadow, in the various forms shown. And, lastly, I say that (this being a bit of old pine stripped by storm of its bark) the wood is fissured in certain directions, showing its grain, or muscle, seen in complicated contortions at the insertion of the arm and elsewhere. cheap oil paintings on canvas
§ 10. Now this piece of work, though yet far from complete (we will better it presently), is yet more finished than any of the others, not because it is more delicate or more skilful, but simply because it tells more truth, and admits fewer fallacies. That which conveys most information, with least inaccuracy, is always the highest finish; and the question whether we prefer art so finished, to art unfinished, is not one of taste at all. It is simply a question whether we like to know much or little; to see accurately or see falsely; and those whose taste in art (if they choose so to call it) leads them to like blindness better than sight, and fallacy better than fact, would do well to set themselves to some other pursuit than that of art. original oil paintings wholesale
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