Landscape by Claude. 



DRAWING-PAINTING-SCULPTURE. 



AS a means of refining the taste, and opening 

 up new and ever-varying sources of enjoy- 

 ment, the art of drawing occupies an important 

 place. The person who has acquired a knowledge 

 of botany, feels a new pleasure in examining the 

 parts of a hitherto unseen plant ; he who has 

 acquired a knowledge of geology, is interested in 

 passing along a road the side of which displays a 

 deep section of strata, or from which he may view 

 various granitic elevations ; he who has acquainted 

 himself with the principles of machinery, experi- 

 ences an enjoyment in contemplating the intri- 

 cacies of some great engine which another knows 

 nothing of; and in the same manner, he who has 

 studied drawing, discovers a source of new and 

 innocent gratification in the innumerable forms 

 and tints of external nature. Things formerly 

 passed with a careless eye and a vacant mind, 

 then assume a character which arrests attention 

 and awakens thought. Those faculties of the 

 mind which perceive and appreciate the figure, 

 colour, and arrangements of objects, and trace in 

 all a natural and appropriate beauty, exist only in 

 embryo until cultivated. When they are once 

 called into vigorous exercise, a new association of 

 our mysterious being with the physical world 

 around us is practically established ; and the 

 value of existence becomes proportionally en- 

 hanced. Nor, while the art is being acquired 

 with this view, may it be without some results of 

 a more directly useful kind. In many situations 

 when wandering in our own, or roaming in 

 foreign countries we may see objects of which we 

 should be glad to carry away some memorandum, 

 and of which the slightest pencil-sketch would 

 93 



be sufficient to awaken a recollection at any other 

 time. And yet, for want of a few elementary 

 lessons in drawing, many of even those who 

 travel for the purpose of informing the public, 

 are unable to commemorate such objects, or, at 

 the best, can give only a few rude scratches in 

 outline, which a professional artist has afterwards 

 to fashion into shape a shape, of course, in which 

 correct representation is not to be looked for. In 

 this point of view, drawing takes its place, as a 

 useful art, by the side of writing, being, like it, a 

 means of description, and one which may occasion- 

 ally be even more serviceable than that art, though 

 certainly not capable of so general an application. 



PENCIL-DRAWING. 



Black-lead pencils for the purpose of drawing 

 possess various degrees of hardness, indicated by 

 letters stamped upon them H, signifying hard ; 

 HB, hard and black ; B, black ; BB, blacker still ; 

 and so on each additional letter signifying an 

 increase of the quality of which the letter is the 

 initial. 



The best pencils for general use are the HB, B, 

 and BB the HB being used in the lighter parts 

 of the drawing, especially in the distance, the B in 

 the foreground, and the BB to give the strongest 

 and most spirited touches. 



The paper used should be rather of a soft tex- 

 ture, having but little size in its composition, and 

 smooth, but not glazed. 



A drawing-board is a useful, but not an indis- 

 pensable auxiliary ; any flat surface, if sufficiently 

 smooth, will do tolerably well, such as the top of 



