DEFINITION OF THE ART OF ENGRAVING. 257 



no lines of importance, and no effect of light whatever ; but all 

 the pleasure given to the eye is in gaiety and variety of colour. 



19. I say, the pleasure given to the eye. The lines on this 

 vase write something ; but the ornamentation produced by 

 the beautiful writing is independent of its meaning. So the 

 moonlight is pleasant, first, as light ; and the figures, first, as 

 colour. It is not the shape of the waves, but the light on 

 them ; not the expression of the figures, but their colour, by 

 which the ocular pleasure is to be given. 



These three examples are violently marked ones ; but, in 

 preparing to draw any object, you will find that, practically, 

 you have to ask yourself, Shall I aim at the colour of it, the 

 light of it, or the lines of it ? You can't have all three ; you 

 can't even have any two out of the three in equal strength. 

 The best art, indeed, comes so near nature as in a measure to 

 unite all. But the best is not, and cannot be, as good as 

 nature ; and the mode of its deficiency is that it must lose 

 some of the colour, some of the light, or some of the delinea- 

 tion. And in consequence, there is one great school which 

 says, We will have the colour, and as much light and de- 

 lineation as are consistent with it. Another which says, We 

 will have shade, and as much colour and delineation as are 

 consistent with it. The third, We will have delineation, and 

 as much colour and shade as are consistent with it. 



20. And though much of the two subordinate qualities may 

 in each school be consistent with the leading one, yet the 

 schools are evermore separate : as, for instance, in other mat- 

 ters, one man says, I will have my fee, and as much honesty 

 as is consistent with it ; another, I will have my honesty, and 

 as much fee as is consistent with it. Though the man who 

 will have his fee be subordinately honest, though the man 

 who will have his honour, subordinately rich, are they not 

 evermore of diverse schools ? 



So you have, in art, the utterly separate provinces, though 

 in contact at their borders, of 



The Delineators ; 



The Chiaroscurists ; and 



The Colourists. 



