8 



FOREWORD 



impersonal facts. Was it Renan who said : " Le plus 

 grand peintre n'aperQoit dans le monde que ce qu'il aime 

 d y voir ; il y a une preference au fond de chaque talent? " * 

 The painter's problem is not to represent facts, but to 

 express the feeling stirred in him by what he sees. It 

 is not so much the man and the horse that interest 



Mr. Luard as the infinite variety of rhythm and music 

 in the toil and struggle that express vitality and life. 



The drawing of movement should appear inevitable 

 and spontaneous, like the lyric in poetry. It must convey 

 with rapidity the keen spell of some intense emotion or 

 experience. The draughtsman's work must run to its end 

 with a rush of swift decision, without halt or obstruction, 

 and in its unity it must incorporate and express the 



* The really great painter has eyes only for what he wants to see in the world 

 about him. At the root of all true talent there lies an instinctive preference. 



unity of the experience which inspired it. Being, in this 

 way, the direct result of creative impulse, it must be red- 

 hot : it cannot be produced in cold blood. Ingres uses a 

 line that is inevitable in its perfection, but a line which 

 is opposed to the expression of movement. In his case it 

 is an instrument forged and tempered by an artist of 

 cold passion, whose instinctive preference was for patient 

 searching observation, only possible of things at rest, 

 one who from his heart hated the swirling Rubens and 

 all his works. 



It follows that the drawing of movement cannot con- 

 form to the ordinary rules and principles that circum- 

 scribe the drawing of a stationary object, and cannot be 

 judged in the same way. As Mr. Luard indicates, there 

 must be apparent transgressions, approximations, abnor- 

 malities. For example, a horse's leg will frequently be 

 more expressive if longer in the drawing than in actual 

 life ; it may be distorted ; it may even be duplicated. 

 In looking at the drawing we must let our mind and eye 

 make the necessary adjustments, just as we make them 

 in looking at nature ; and the drawing must be judged, 

 not as a literal rendering of nature, but as a spiritual 

 interpretation of nature's facts. It will be noticed, 

 for instance, that Mr. Luard is sometimes so keenly 

 interested in the larger problems of his work that he 



