icture is generally "laid in" with the most direct
possible manner of laying on paint, and the other processes are mainly
to modify or to further and strengthen the effect suggested in the
first painting. And generally, also, in all sketches and studies
which are preliminary preparations for the picture, the most direct
painting is used, and the various processes are reserved for working
out more subtle effects on the final canvas.

=Old Dutch Painting.=--Probably there are no better examples of frank
painting than the works of the old Dutchmen. You should study them
whenever you have a chance. Waiving all discussion as to the aesthetic
qualities of their work,--as _painters_, as masters of the craft of
laying on paint, they are unexcelled. And in most cases, too, they
possessed the art of concealing their art. You will have to use the
closest observation to discover the exact means they used to get the
subtle tones and atmospheric effects.

The only obvious quality is the perfect understanding and skill of
their brush-work. In the smoothest as well as in the roughest of their
work, you can note how perfectly the brush searches the modelling, and
with the most exquisite expressiveness and perfect frankness, follows
the structural lines. No doubt there were often paintings, glazings,
and scumblings; but they always furthered the meaning of the first
painting, and never in the least interfered with or obscured the
effect of _naivete_, of candor of workmanship.

It is, however, this simple and sincere brush-work that you should
strive to attain as the basis of your painting. Learn to express
drawing with your brush, and to place at once and without indecision
or timidity the exact tone and value of the color you see in nature at
that point. Until you are enough of a master of your brush to get an
effect in this way, do not meddle with the more complex methods of
after-painting. You will never do good work by subsequent
manipulation, if you have a groundwork of feebleness and indecision.
Direct painting is the fundamental process of all good painting.

Let me take the type of old Dutch painting to represent to you this
quality of direct painting. First of all notice a basis of perfect
drawing,--a knowledge, exactness, and precision which admits of no
fumbling, no vagueness, but only of a concise and direct recognition
of structure. Note that this drawing is as characteristic of the
brush-work as of the drawing which is