A NOTE ON THE DRAWING OF MOVEMENT 



21 



quieter subject by Botticelli or Watteau, and looking 

 at them upside down. You will soon see if the 

 rhythms are expressive. For by so doing you will 

 be less able to see what the figures are about, or to 

 reason out the action of the picture, and you wiU be 

 more directly affected by the design, so as readily 

 to detect the shortcomings of the group of pulling 

 figures in the picture first instanced, and to enjoy more 

 consciously and fully the effect of great work. To take 

 two pictures by Rubens, you wiU notice how in the 

 " Country Dance " in the Prado Gallery the background 

 contributes to the action of the figures, how the trees and 

 landscape forms dance and turn in sympathy with the 

 group of dancers, and how in his " Lion Hunt " at 

 Munich the shapes made by the shields, plumes, horses' 

 tails and all add to the savageness of the struggle. 



You may also notice in his more violent pictures how 

 little the parts are allowed to hold your attention : that 

 though the details of the heads and other parts are to be 

 found, if you look for them, they are skilfully subor- 

 dinated so as not to arrest your eye for long from follow- 

 ing the swirling pattern. Is not this again a truth 

 to nature ? For when looking on at such a scene we 

 should be watching the action, not noticing details 

 of the actors. 



How far the underlying basic rhythms of such pic- 

 tures resemble nature's rhythms it would be difficult 

 to determine. Yet we are often struck by the vividness 

 and exactness with which some hvely sketch recalls a 

 natural movement. 



Artists must vary as much in their perception of 

 movement as they do in that of colour, tone or form. 

 Some must have quicker eyes than others. The normal 

 eye requires, I think, fourteen films to the second in the 

 cinematograph if it is not to notice any interruption in 

 the continuity of the picture on the screen, though the 

 required number varies with the intensity of the light. 

 Both quick and slow eyes see no doubt beauty and 

 interest invisible to each other. Every artist, then, has a 

 different problem, and must discover for himself how to 

 convey liis impression. He must rely upon his own first- 

 hand observation interfered with as Uttle as possible by 

 the vision of others, or the vision of the camera. 



The following quotation from a conversation with 

 Rodin, given in " L'Art " by Gsell, bears directly upon 

 this question of how the observer's eye is led about a 

 work of art, and shows how admittedly conscious an 

 artist can be of the influence of such principles in his own 

 work. " It is possible," said Rodin, " for a sculptor to 

 create the illusion that the muscles of his statues really 



