f marbles for instance, up to five, after which
every number must be split up into lots of twos, threes, fours and
fives, or twenties, thirties and so on, before it can realize the full
content of that number in one and the same mental picture. So the only
way to receive an intelligible idea of a complex form, such as a human
figure, is first to discover in the figure itself, and then in all its
parts, only modifications of the above elementary solid forms, and the
drawing of a conception thus informed must needs be a very clear and
intelligible one. The more the artist is capable and practised, the more
clearly will he conceive and distinguish in nature each subtle
modification of these elementary forms, their direction, their relation
to, and their dependence upon one another. The only difference between a
good draughtsman and a bad one is the degree of subtlety of his
apprehension. Unless the draughtsman has seen some such clear forms in
his original, his labour to produce a work of art will be grievous and
fruitless. All good drawing is stamped with this kind of structural
insight. The more the artist adheres to nature, and the more finished
his drawing, the more will the lines and forms that he makes be, so to
speak, _in excess_ of those of nature, or dull imitation or photography.
It is not to be supposed that able draughtsmen work, or need ever have
worked, consciously in this manner. It is, indeed, the virtue peculiar
to the artist, as interpreter of form, that he instinctively comprehends
the real elemental character of complex forms, whilst the majority of
people (on the showing of their own drawings) entertain but confused or
_no_ ideas of them. It is because a good drawing reduces the chaos of
ideas supplied by the raw material of nature, to one intelligible manner
of seeing it, that all lovers of nature welcome it with joy. It is this
process of discovery and interpretation that marks the essential
difference between art and mechanical drawing or reproduction. Art gives
intelligible ideas of the forms of nature, mechanism attempts to
reduplicate their aspects.

There are some who hold that drawing is not exclusively a matter of
interpreting form, but that great artists have their own "personalities"
which they infuse into their work. They will ask, How is it otherwise to
be explained that two equally good draughtsmen will invariably make
different drawings of the same figure? Is it not for the same reason
t