absolutely necessary to you as
a painter. What I shall give is given only because it cannot be wisely
left out, and the form of it as well as the substance and quantity are
determined by the same reason.

As you hope to become a painter, then, do not neglect to study and
think of this part of the book, not merely as a preliminary to the
process of painting, but as containing matter which is continually
essential to it--which is part and parcel of it.

Another reason for the careful reading of these chapters is that any
discussion of the art of painting necessarily demands the use of words
or phrases which must be understood. To speak of technical things
presupposes the use of technical phrases, and without a knowledge of
the words there can be no comprehension of the thought.

CHAPTER XVI

DRAWING

Drawing is basic to painting. Good painting cannot exist without it. I
do not mean that there must be always the outline felt or seen, but
that the understanding of relative position, size, and form must be
felt; and that is drawing. Drawing is not merely form, but implies
these other things, and painting is not legible without them. They go
to the completeness of expression. Movement, and action, as well as
composition and all that it implies or includes, depend upon drawing,
and they are vital to a painting.

=Importance of Drawing.=--Much has been said and written of drawing as
being the most important thing in a picture; so much so, as to excuse
all sorts of shortcomings in other directions. This is a mistake.
Drawing is essential because you cannot lay on color to express
anything without the colors taking shape, and this is drawing. But
still the color itself, and other characteristics which are not
strictly a part of drawing, are quite as important to painting, simply
because the thing without them could not be a painting at all: it
would be a drawing.

All painters fall into two classes,--those who are most sensitive to
the refinements of form, and those most sensitive to refinements of
color and tone. But the great colorists, the painters _par
excellence_, the workers in pigment before everything else, those who
find their sentiment mainly there, these are the men who have made
painting what it is, and who have brought out its possibilities. And
looking at painting from their point of view, drawing cannot be more
important than other qualiti