A NOTE ON THE DRAWING OF MOVEMENT 



25 



a subject, thereby approaching the condition of human 

 sight. It showed the rim and spokes of the wheels dis- 

 tinct and exact where the tyres touched the ground, 

 but blurred and pulled forward at the top where they 

 were advancing more rapidly.* 



The duty of the spokes, which are the legs of the 

 machine, is to thrust forward the axle to which the car 

 is attached, just as its foot and leg thrust forward the 

 horse. We are so much inclined to watch the mass of 

 the horse as it gallops that we think of it as swinging 

 its legs to and fro past the indistinct landscape ; we do 

 not observe the hoof stationary upon the ground pro- 

 pelling the animal forwards. Yet this is actually what 

 occurs, and such pauses in the motion affect our impres- 

 sions, so that as a man or animal leaps, fights or dances, 

 a tail, a sword, a piece of drapery, a foot, a hand will 



* Some reader may perhaps exclaim "one part of a wheel can't advance more 



rapidly than another ! " Rotate faster, no ; advance, yes. 



The diagram shows the positions of two points on opposite sides of the wheel called 



A' and B', and the positions called A- and B- which they hold when the wheel has 



made a half rotation. It is clear that B', 

 by dipping to the ground and rising again 

 to B^, has only advanced the distance 

 between 2 and 3 on the ground plan, while 

 A' travelling over the top of the wheel to 

 A-, has advanced the whole distance from 

 I to 4. It would next be A's turn to lag 

 and B's to advance rapidly. 



sometimes seem to hover or lag behind, even making 

 the limb appear too long. 



The artist in his truth to his impression will be led 

 insensibly to see and use such accurate " inaccuracies " 

 upon which the exact effect depends. For such " in- 

 accuracies " are but normal alterations of appearance 

 due to movement, which correspond in principle to the 

 fact that colour is modified by the colour that is placed 

 against it, or that a white flagstaff, which looks light 

 against a house, looks darker and thinner where it comes 

 against the evening sky above it, and must be so painted 

 to give the effect, although we know it to be actually of 

 the same tone throughout its length. And so it is not 

 only for the pattern of the picture that the leg which is 

 too long in Rubens, the limb which is deformed in 

 Degas, are right, but also in truth to the natural appear- 

 ance for those who can see. Or to take another instance, 

 are not trees at a distance certainly as green of leaf 

 as those near by ? Yet who would argue that we ought 

 to paint them so, denying the modification to blue due 

 to intervening atmosphere ? And yet the first distant 

 trees painted blue must have shocked the early art patron. 

 An artist who is constantly watching and enjoy- 

 ing motion like Degas, to whom such changes are 

 familiar, and who accepts them as part of natural 



