198 ON TASTE IN ORNAMENTAL DESIGN. Paet II. 



admirable practice for any one in the free use of the pencil 

 even at this day. 



Accuracy of eye and command of hand were also the 

 merit of that circle, which led to the well-known saying, 

 " more round than the O of Giotto ;" and it is as necessary 

 first to acquire perfect drawing as it is to copy from nature 

 for a long time before attempting ideal figures. Those who 

 advise students to sketch with the brush are only right when 

 they recommend it after great and successful practice with 

 the crayon ; as it then tends to give freedom and boldness of 

 execution ; and if by the term " sketching " they mean only 

 copying landscape, they are wrong in so speaking of drawing, 

 which is applicable to other and to higher purposes. Great 

 advantages are also to be derived then from drawing at once 

 in pen and ink ; which, not admitting of correction, requires 

 the eye and hand to be certain of their work before each 

 stroke is given ; but those who think that " an outline should 

 be very slight," forget that thin or thick, light or dark, it is 

 equally a conventional mode of representing form, and that 

 the less firmly it is marked the less proof it gives of pre- 

 vious thought and of the power of execution. Nor will the 

 practice of accurate drawing lead any but those of the lowest 

 capacity into a hard style ; and the outline, whether strong or 

 light, will be easily abandoned when the coloured is substituted 

 for the linear form. Indeed, it would be well if, in learning 

 to draw, our early attention were more directed to the human 

 figure and the variety of lines than to landscape, where form 

 soon ceases to be carefully followed, and where the brush is 

 often employed before the use of the pencil has been mastered. 

 18. [But while drawing is so essential, it must be recol- 

 lected that the use of the hand, and the direction given it by 

 an accurate eye, will not suffice to form taste; they only 

 afford the means of execution ; and while we admire the skill 

 of the French in drawing, and admit their inventive talent 



