t
method of going to work: "A fresh piece of wood-carving executed without
a model is distinctly a created work," and that much good work may come
by "chopping boldly at a block without any preconceived design, but
designing as you go on." But he thinks it is best to work from drawings;
"rough, full-size charcoal cartoons, which give the effect wanted by
their light and shade." He also says that he "strongly protests against
the too frequent use of clay or plaster models, because they are often
worse than useless, and not infrequently absolutely immoral in their
tendency, because they absorb time and money, which ought more
legitimately to be spent on the carving itself."

CHAPTER XXI

FORESHORTENING AS APPLIED TO WORK IN RELIEF

Intelligible Background Outline Better than Confused
Foreshortening--Superposition of Masses.

I have spoken of the necessity for careful balance between the outlines
of subject and background: that both should be agreeable in shape. This
becomes complicated and more difficult to arrange when we admit into our
design anything resembling what painters call foreshortening, and the
awkwardness is felt even in the placing of such a small thing as an
apple-leaf, which may be treated in such a way that the intention of the
drawing is entirely lost in the confusion which arises between the
inferred and the actual projection.

In designing such subjects it will be good to bear in mind as a guiding
principle that no matter what excuse there may be in the nature of the
inferred position of the leaf or limb, the outline against the
background must be at once agreeable and explanatory.

Every kind of work in relief develops a species of compromise in the
expression of form, lying somewhere between the representation of an
object on a perfectly flat ground, as in a painting, and the complete
realization of the same form, copied from nature in some solid material,
without any background whatever. In proportion to the amount of actual
projection from the background, of course the necessity diminishes for
that kind of foreshortening which is obtained by delineation. It might
be inferred, therefore, that in very low relief--which is more nearly
akin to the nature of a picture--more liberty may be taken in this
direction. It is not so, however, for where actual depth or projection
exists, as in carving, be it only so much as the depth of a line, it
makes foreshortening well-nigh imposs