May 4) 1882] 



XA TURE 



Mac- 



A PRIMER OF ART 

 A Primer of Art. By John Collier. (London 

 millan and Co., 1882.) 



IN this admirable little work Mr. Collier has succeeded 

 in bringing clearly into view the helpful relation in 

 which science may stand to the Arts of Design—sculpture, 

 drawing, and pre eminently painting. The aim of the 

 primer is to give the outlines of such knowledge of the 

 artistic field of vision, of the visual powers, and of the 

 means of delineation, as may best aid the student to 

 acquire that power of strict imitation of natural objects 

 which is the artist's first qualification. 



The notion hitherto prevailing and perhaps somewhat 

 superciliously held to on the part of art— that because 

 the primary functions of science and of art respectively 

 are widely different, therefore no legitimate help can be 

 rendered by one to the other— is practically discredited 

 in every page of Mr. Collier's little work. Throughout, 

 his object is to pioneer the student to an artistic goal ; 

 throughout, the means employed have all the security of 

 clear scientific principle. The theory of the Primer is 

 that by knowing with scientific accuracy how some things 

 are, the task of exhibiting artistically how other things 

 appear may be greatly simplified. 



After devoting a few charming pages to the latest sup- 

 positions concerning the origin of sculpture and drawing 



pages illustrated by specimens of prehistoric and even 



paleolithic art— Mr. Collier quits " dcbateable ground" 

 for that on which surer scientific light can be shed for the 

 guidance of the student in the practice of art. 



And here nothing is overlooked. Boundaries, Light 

 and Shade, Texture, Perspective, Colour, and Contrast 

 are the headings of so many terse and luminous little 

 chapters, through each of which comes some word to the 

 learner from the invisible world where science works, 

 warning him how, unless he gives heed to certain hidden 

 actualities within and without him, he may and probably 

 will go many times wrong before he lights on the best 

 E ay of rendering the natural objects before him. 



Accurate seeing is necessary to ensure accurate delinea- 

 tion. The facts of simple appearance ate what the art 

 student needs to lay hold of. Science, whose constant 

 business is with facts of every order, aids him here with 

 suggestions how to discriminate between sight and infer- 

 ence—between that actual aspect of an object which is 

 due to its present relation to the sight of the observer, 

 and that compound mental view of it which is due to the 

 mixed memory of many previous aspects. A perusal of 

 Mr. Collier's pages on the nature of perspective, on the 

 undulatory theory of light, on the action of a lens, on the 

 structure and nervous mechanism of the eye, and on the 

 physiological rationale of the phenomena of colour show 

 how much scientific information can be given without the 

 use of a single technical phrase. 



Having learnt to see, the art student must further learn 

 to delineate. Here again, in discussing the painter's 

 media, it is still with the authority of science the teacher 

 speaks. The chapter on " Turbid Media" clears up the 

 difficulty respecting the varying behaviour of pigments as 

 used on different "grounds." Here, too, as elsewhere, 

 each practical suggestion is accompanied by a scientific 

 reason why the means advocated should be adopted, such 



reason being always backed by some absolutely lucid 

 explanation of the nature of the difficulty to be sur- 

 mounted, or of the effect to be aimed at. 



With the subject of landscape painting comes up the 

 question of aerial perspective ; and thereupon follow some 

 admirable pages on the constitution of the atmosphere 

 and the refraction of light. In dealing later with certain 

 necessary discrepancies between natural appearances and 

 their painted imitations, Mr. Collier clears out of the way, 

 by a simple scientific consideration, an insidious problem 

 with which the artistic beginner is apt needlessly to per- 

 plex himself— namely, how correctly to represent effects 

 of light and shade within the very limited range of 

 luminosity afforded by his materials. The solution lies 

 within the sphere of optics. The eye takes next to no 

 heed of the degree of total illumination ; the absolute 

 luminosity of the picture therefore does not signify. All 

 that is needful is to render the relative proportions of 

 light and shade in the object or scene depicted; the effect 

 will then be accurate, since sight adapts itself readily and 

 unconsciously to any scale of illumination that may be 

 visible at one time. 



For the rest, this little work of Mr. Collier pos- 

 sesses all the attributes of a first-rate primer. As 

 we have observed, it is terse, clear, simple, instruc- 

 tive, and alluring. While the student receives aid from 

 various departments of knowledge, calculated at once to 

 forward his progress in painting, and to enrich his ideas 

 of the world in which he works, there is nothing attempted 

 to which the finished artist— aware as he is of the part 

 played by imagination and by an incommunicable sense 

 of harmony in the production of the finest art-work —can 

 yet take any exception. Mr. Collier frankly admits the 

 limitations of science with regard to these points, and 

 leaves untouched all vexed questions concerning harmony 

 of line and colour, on the ground that, important thi 

 they are, too little is known about them to make discussion 

 profitable. 



Vet that there is no real antagonism between accurate 

 knowledge wherever it can be had, and the loftiest artistic 

 imagination, and further, that science may help to free 

 that imagination by giving it mastery over its means of 

 expression, are truths borne witness to throughout the 

 eighty-eight pages of the primer. The scientific reader will 

 recognise in Mr. Collier's successful endeavour to link 

 the rival sisters (Art and Science) in friendly partnership 

 for the better portrayal of that Nature of which both are 

 students, a welcome sign of the times, and an indication 

 of the direction in which we may look for firmer ground 

 than has hitherto been found for fruitful artistic dis- 

 cussion. L. S. BEVINGIOX 



OUR BOOK SHELF 



A Treatise on Rivers and Canals. By L. F. Vernon- 

 Harcourt, M.A. Vol. I. Text, 352 pp.; Vol. II. Plates, 

 21 PI. (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 18S2.) 

 This work was intended (see Preface) to present "in a 

 simple and concise form descriptions of the principal and 

 most recent works on rivers and canals, and the principles 

 on which they are based." It appears to have had its 

 origin in a course of lectures delivered at the School of 

 Military Engineering, Chatham, in 18S0, but has been so 

 carefully revised as to be free from the defects of a mere 



