SKETCHING FROM NATURE IN WATER-COLOURS.* FEW greater blessings in the
way of education can be conferred .on a child than a love of drawing from nature. We should be in- clined to place some knowledge of this art as next in importance to the "three R's" of traditional memory. It leads up to all science in an indirect manner, and so greatly enhances the plea- sures of travel that history and geography share the benefit. A
• Sketching from Nature in Water-Colours. By Aaron Penley. London: John Camden Rotten.
habit of current sketching would seem to be invented for the ex- press purpose of baffling Satan in finding mischief for idle hands to do.
The series of lessons now put forward by Mr. Penley are illus- trated by large plates in chromo-lithography, after water-colour drawings. Two of these are extremely natural in colour, greens and greys apparently printing off with little change. The other plates are perfectly clear in purpose, and equal in naturalness to the chromo-lithographs which are accepted by modest purses as substitutes for originals. Altogether the volume makes a charm- ing Christmas present for a young girl or boy who already possesses some knowledge of drawing, such as may be ob- tained by anyone who will conscientiously grind through Harding's-elementary books, and Mr. Penley's own preparatory work, the English School of Painting in Water-Colours, which begins at the beginning. We say "anyone," because we believe there is really no child of average mental capacity who could not learn by means of Harding's books to imitate form with tolerable correctness, and be then instructed in drawing from models. Colour presents more difficulties, but just as the people who literally cannot learn the tune of a popular song are few and far between, so we believe there are very few who, if properly taught in childhood, could not learn to paint sufficiently well to afford themselves constant pleasure, and a most valuable aid to mental development. In the lifetime of the present generation an im- mense effort has been made to popularize the musical art ; and the workpeople of our large towns, no less than the young people of our middle-class families, begin to have some real notion of the meaning and of the history of music. In that most delightful of musical novels, Charles Auchester, is described the art-drilling of the population of a manufacturing town (Bir- mingham), and the electrical effect of Mendelssohn's personal presence among them. The arts of painting and design cannot act upon numbers in so communicative a manner, and yet some- thing of the passion for beauty of form and colour which must have possessed the Athenians of olden times may be felt in modern Munich at the present day. King Louis could never have created that marvellous town if from the body of the German people a generation of artists had not uprisen.
We have wandered- away from Mr. Penley, but it is the privi- lege of true art that its merest outline or softest bar suggests all its possibilities. Says he himself, " 6 a sketch from nature' should imply such a representation of the scene as will give a general impression of it without over-much detail, and yet without any such omission as might alter the character or injure the effect pro- duced on the mind. But to secure this generalization without loss of resemblance, an educated eye, a practised hand, and a thorough knowledge of the forms under treatment are necessary." And in the same manner, an elementary work based upon thorough know- ledge of its subject becomes interesting, because it leads up to a knowledge of the complete achievements of the masters of Art.
It need hardly be said that Mr. Penley insists constantly on accurate drawing. " Trees are felt to be very difficult to the amateur. I cannot draw a tree,' is constantly sounding in my ears, and this arises from a want of appreciation of the construc- tion of stems, limbs, and foliage In the treatment of grass there is also a general failure, and this I attribute to the same non-appreciation of the form that we find in regard to foliage." Assuredly truth, so far as one goes, is the first requisite of the pursuit of any accomplishment. " Wapping Old Stairs" is a sweet melody if correctly sung, and Beethoven a frightful howl if badly rendered.
Another point of note in Mr. Penley's lessons is the recommen- dation to copy a drawing twice, and then to reproduce it a third time from memory. The great difficulty with ordinary children, and with some students who are not children, is to make the mind work. Now to reproduce a drawing from memory makes a pull upon quite a different set of faculties to those required for merely copying it. Nobody could recollect the various tints of a drawing without attaching some sort of reason to their existence, and thus making a step towards an understanding of nature,—and the understanding of nature is at once the aim and the reward of the student of Landscape Art.
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