weeks on a broom-handle, and hoped to
finish it in a few days more. Frans Hals would paint a head in an
hour. The French painter Meissonier paints the high light on every
button of a trooper's coat, and De Neuville barely paints the button
at all. What way are you to turn? Which are you to choose? We have a
great deal said nowadays against detail in painting. Much is said of
breadth and broad painting. Which is right?

=True Breadth.=--The answer lies in the central idea of the picture.
There are times when detail may be very minute, and times when the
greatest freedom is essential. True breadth is compatible with much
even minute detail in the same canvas. For breadth does not mean
merely a large brush. It never means slap-dash. It is the just
conception of the amount of detail necessary (and the amount necessary
to be left out) in order that the idea of the picture may be best
expressed.

Detail is out of place in a large canvas always, and in proportion to
its size it is allowable. A decorative canvas, a picture which is to
be seen from a distance, or is to fill a wall space, wants effect,
much justness of composition and color. Largeness of conception and
execution, and only so much detail as shall be necessary to the best
expression compatible with that largeness. On the other hand, a
"cabinet picture," a small panel, will admit of microscopic detail if
it be not so painted that the detail is all you can see. And just here
is the heart of the whole matter. Whether you use much or little
detail, it is not for the sake of the detail, not for any interest
which lies in the detail itself, but for what power of expression may
lie in it. If the picture, large or small, be largely conceived, and
its main idea as to subject and those qualities of aesthetic meaning I
have spoken of are always kept in view, and never allowed to lose
themselves in the search for minuteness, then any amount of detail
will take its place in true relation to the whole picture. If it does
not do this it is bad.

The relations of parts to the whole are the key to the situation
always.

Nothing is right which interferes with the true relations in the
picture. This is where the working for detail is most likely to lead
you astray. It takes great ability and power to keep detail where it
belongs. Detail is always the search for small things, and they are
almost sure to obtrude themselves to the neglecting of the more
important things. Details w