FINE ARTS.
DRAWING FROM MODELS. DRAWING FROM MODELS.
Now that drawing is found to be a really useful acquirement, and regarded as an essential branch of popular education, the absurd prac- tice of setting the learner to copy prints or sketches is falling into dis- repute, and the direct and rational method of teaching to draw actual realities at once, which we have always advocated, is now becoming general. Besides the Drawing-classes at Exeter Hall, where the costly and complicated apparatus of M. DUPUIS is used by Mr. BUTLER Wu.- LIJA1S, two small sets of models for home and school use have been published by different teachers : one set designed by Mr. A. 0. DEACON, the other by Mr. WATERHOUSE HAWKINS, and both very ingenious and veil adapted to their purpose. It is possible to learn to draw without either copies or models : boxes and desks, chairs and tables, any thing, in short, of regular form would serve : but objects of many parts are puzzling to the beginner ; and therefore models of simple geometrical forms—compact masses with smooth sides and sharp outlines—are desi- rable in initiatory practice with the pencil; not only for the study of perspective, but to acquire the habit of viewing objects in their masses. At the Marylebone Literary Institution, on Wednesday, Mr. DEACON delivered an interesting lecture oil drawing front real objects; in which he explained his theory and practice of teaching to draw, and exemplified by diagrams the application of models to the imitation of nature, in a very convincing manner. He enforced his arguments in support of the su- perior quickness and efficacy of this method by two or three very striking anecdotes : one was a remarkable instance of the futility of the Copying system, in the case of a young lady, who, though she had learnt from nature; several years, was unable to copy the simplest flower '?om nature; another showed the enfeebling influence of copying in he case of an adult pupil of Mr. DEACON, who, after a few months' study
from models, had acquired some facility its sketching from nature, but having been induced to try the copying-system, found at the expira- tion of a year or more, that he could not draw any real object so cor- rectly or so readily as before. This is accounted for by the copying- process being merely imitative—an affair of eye and hand without the mind being exercised—while in drawing from realities the understand- ing is called into action. The utility of the models was shown by their combinations exhibiting forms closely approximating to those of castles, churches, &c., actually existing.
Mr. WATERHOUSE Fliwarics's models are on a smaller scale than Mr. DEACON'S, comprised of a much greater number of pieces, and are more elaborately contrived. They are designed expressly to illustrate the properties of geometrical forms, and their application to the study of drawing in estimating the proportions and relative quantities of dif- ferent shapes : they also combine together so as to form buildings, composed of numerous parts, and with more curvilinear surfaces than Mr. DEACON'S, which are massive, simple, and chiefly rectilinear. Mr. Hawkiics's models consist of six cubic divisions, contained in a book- shaped box of the size of a volume of the Pictorial Bible, and lettered Hawkins's Rational System of Drawing; so that it may go upon a shelf in the library. Each cubic division is composed of a number of pieces : thus one separates into eight small cubes ; another is a hollow cube, containing an octagon and four prisms ; a third encloses two hemi- spheres, one solid the other hollow ; a fourth comprises a pyramid, having a cone cut into the different sections within it ; a fifth contains a cylinder, divided in different ways ; and the sixth is subdivided into a variety of rectilinear forms. In the little treatise on drawing enclosed in the box, Mr. HAWKINS condemns as strongly as Mr. DEACON the practice of copying : both teachers follow the same line of argument, and a similar course of instruction; but Mr. HAWKINS lays particular stress on the geometrical construction of his models, and the value of this principle in the study of form.
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