A NOTE ON THE DRAWING OF MOVEMENT 



23 



in his statues is created is, I am afraid, not much of a 

 working rule, applied as such. Is it not rather one of 

 the rules to which Sir Joshua Reynolds refers in his 

 Sixth Discourse ? " The rules by which men of extra- 

 ordinary parts, and such as are called men of Genius, 

 work, are either such as they discover by their own 

 peculiar observations, or are of such a nice texture as 

 not easily to admit being expressed in words . . . Un- 

 substantial, however, as these rules may seem, and difficult 

 as it may be to convey them in writing, they are still 

 seen and felt in the mind of the artist ; and he works 

 from them with as much certainty as if they were em- 

 bodied, as I may say, upon paper. It is true, these 

 refined principles cannot be always made palpable, like 

 the more gross rules of art ; yet it does not follow, but 

 that the mind may be put in such a train that it shall 

 perceive, by a kind of scientific sense, that propriety 

 which words, particularly words of unpractised writers, 

 such as we are, can but very feebly suggest." 



What, then, can we discover " by a kind of scientific 

 sense " from Rodin ? Confidently to give play, I think, 

 to our instinctive preferences when in front of nature, 

 allowing her to disclose to us what she will, and to try 

 through the study of successful effects, both our own 

 and others, to discover the cause of their effectiveness. 



For as Reynolds says earlier in the passage from which 

 I have already quoted, " It must of necessity be, that 

 even works of Genius, like every other effect, as they 

 must have their cause, must likewise have their rules : 

 it cannot be by chance that excellencies are produced 

 with any constancy or any certainty, for this is not the 

 nature of chance." The proper manner of such inquiry 

 is given by Browning in a letter of advice upon the work 

 of a young poet, in which he tells him to " study the 

 secret of the effectiveness, whatever poetry does affect 

 him — not repeating, or copying those effects — but 

 finding out, I mean, why 

 they prove to be effects, 

 and so learning to become 

 similarly effective." 



I have attempted something 

 of the sort in this article, and 

 I hope that it may help to the 

 better understanding of the work 

 of certain men, by showing that 

 there is reason for and truth 

 in the effects that they employ. 

 I think also that our attempts 

 at analysis should encourage the 

 artist. If there is a reasonable- 



t/0r 



