s
and relief on the flat surface of the canvas, this morning, by daylight,
I found out my mistake. Ah! to achieve that glorious result I have
studied the works of the great masters of color, stripping off coat
after coat of color from Titian's canvas, analyzing the pigments of the
king of light. Like that sovereign painter, I began the face in a slight
tone with a supple and fat paste--for shadow is but an accident; bear
that in mind, youngster!--Then I began afresh, and by half-tones and
thin glazes of color less and less transparent, I gradually deepened the
tints to the deepest black of the strongest shadows. An ordinary painter
makes his shadows something entirely different in nature from the high
lights; they are wood or brass, or what you will, anything but flesh
in shadow. You feel that even if those figures were to alter their
position, those shadow stains would never be cleansed away, those parts
of the picture would never glow with light.

"I have escaped one mistake, into which the most famous painters have
sometimes fallen; in my canvas the whiteness shines through the densest
and most persistent shadow. I have not marked out the limits of my
figure in hard, dry outlines, and brought every least anatomical detail
into prominence (like a host of dunces, who fancy that they can draw
because they can trace a line elaborately smooth and clean), for the
human body is not contained within the limits of line. In this the
sculptor can approach the truth more nearly than we painters. Nature's
way is a complicated succession of curve within curve. Strictly
speaking, there is no such thing as drawing.--Do not laugh, young man;
strange as that speech may seem to you, you will understand the truth in
it some day.--A line is a method of expressing the effect of light upon
an object; but there are no lines in Nature, everything is solid. We
draw by modeling, that is to say, that we disengage an object from
its setting; the distribution of the light alone gives to a body the
appearance by which we know it. So I have not defined the outlines; I
have suffused them with a haze of half-tints warm or golden, in such a
sort that you can not lay your finger on the exact spot where background
and contours meet. Seen from near, the picture looks a blur; it seems
to lack definition; but step back two paces, and the whole thing becomes
clear, distinct, and solid; the body stands out; the rounded form comes
into relief; you feel that t