ility of the average person to
associate an unconventional mode of life with anything but riotous
dissipation. A conventional life is not the only wholesome form of
existence, and is certainly a most unwholesome and deadening form to the
artist; and neither is a dissipated life the only unconventional one
open to him. It is as well that the young student should know this, and
be led early to take great care of that most valuable of studio
properties, vigorous health.

XX

MATERIALS

The materials in which the artist works are of the greatest importance
in determining what qualities in the infinite complexity of nature he
selects for expression. And the good draughtsman will find out the
particular ones that belong to whatever medium he selects for his
drawing, and be careful never to attempt more than it is capable of
doing. Every material he works with possesses certain vital qualities
peculiar to itself, and it is his business to find out what these are
and use them to the advantage of his drawing. When one is working with,
say, pen and ink, the necessity for selecting only certain things is
obvious enough. But when a medium with the vast capacity of oil paint is
being used, the principle of its governing the nature of the work is
more often lost sight of. So near can oil paint approach an actual
illusion of natural appearances, that much misdirected effort has been
wasted on this object, all enjoyment of the medium being subordinated to
a meretricious attempt to deceive the eye. And I believe a popular idea
of the art of painting is that it exists chiefly to produce this
deception. No vital expression of nature can be achieved without the aid
of the particular vitality possessed by the medium with which one is
working. If this is lost sight of and the eye is tricked into thinking
that it is looking at real nature, it is not a fine picture. Art is not
a substitute for nature, but an expression of feeling produced in the
consciousness of the artist, and intimately associated with the material
through which it is expressed in his work--inspired, it may be, in the
first instance, by something seen, and expressed by him in painted
symbols as true to nature as he can make them while keeping in tune to
the emotional idea that prompted the work; but never regarded by the
fine artist as anything but painted symbols nevertheless. Never for one
moment does he intend you to forget that it is a painted picture you are