rand enough to be natural. The drawings in the park and the forest,
are, I believe, almost facsimiles of sketches made from nature; yet it
is evident at once that in all of them nothing but the general lie and
disposition of the boughs has been taken from the tree, and that no
single branch or spray has been faithfully copied or patiently studied.

This want of close study necessarily causes several deficiencies of
feeling respecting general form. Harding's choice is always of tree
forms comparatively imperfect, leaning this way and that, and unequal in
the lateral arrangements of foliage. Such forms are often graceful,
always picturesque, but rarely grand; and when systematically adopted,
untrue. It requires more patient study to attain just feeling of the
dignity and character of a purely formed tree with all its symmetries
perfect.

Sec. 31. Local color, how far expressible in black and white, and with what
advantage.

One more cause of incorrectness I may note, though it is not peculiar to
the artist's tree-drawing, but attaches to his general system of
sketching. In Harding's valuable work on the use of the Lead Pencil,
there is one principle advanced which I believe to be false and
dangerous, that the local color of objects is not thereby to be
rendered. I think the instance given is that of some baskets, whose
darkness is occasioned solely by the touches indicating the
wicker-work. Now, I believe, that an essential difference between the
sketch of a great and of a comparatively inferior master is, that the
former is conceived entirely in shade and color, and its masses are
blocked out with reference to both, while the inferior draughtsman
checks at textures and petty characters of object. If Rembrandt had had
to sketch such baskets, he would have troubled himself very little about
the wicker-work; but he would have looked to see where they came dark or
light on the sand, and where there were any sparkling points of light on
the wet osiers. These darks and lights he would have scratched in with
the fastest lines he could, leaving no white paper but at the wet points
of lustre; if he had had time, the wicker-work would have come
afterwards.[78] And I think, that the first thing to be taught to any
pupil, is neither how to manage the pencil, nor how to attain character
of outline, but rather to see where things are light and where they are
dark, and to draw them as he sees them, never caring whether his