bad writing
as in good,--sometimes even more. It may be entertaining to some to
guess at the artist's character from his works by this process of
inference and comparison, but it is unreasonable to imagine that
"individuality," as such, can be made a serious criterion of aesthetic
judgment. The only individuality a draughtsman can show directly by his
drawing is his individual way of conceiving the forms of nature, and
even this is immaterial provided the conception and drawing be good.

A word or two are necessary upon "style," which unfortunate word has
made much mystery in criticism. The great draughtsmen of every time and
country are known by their own words, as well as their works, to have
been infinitely respectful to the form of every detail in nature. Their
drawings always recall to our minds reality as we ourselves have seen it
(provided we have studied from nature and not from pictures). The
drawing of a hand, for instance, by Hokusai, Ingres or Durer, revives in
us our own impressions of the forms and aspects of real hands. In short
there is manifest in all good drawings, whatever their difference of
medium or superficial appearance, an entire dependence upon the forms of
nature. Hence we cannot imagine that they were conceived and executed
with the conscious effort to obtain some abstract style independent of
the material treated. The style they plainly have can spring from this
common quality, their truthful and well understood representation of
forms. Style, then, is the expression of a clear understanding of the
material from which the artist works. Unless a drawing shows this
understanding it would be as impossible as it would be gratuitous to
argue that it could have style. But it would seem that some people mean
by style nothing more than the mere superficial appearance of the work.
They would have a draughtsman draw "in the style of Holbein," but not
"in the style" of Rembrandt. This kind of preference, as remarked above,
is superficial, for it overlooks the main issue and purpose of drawing,
viz. the representation, by any means whatever, of the artist's ideas of
form. It is as though one should prefer a letter from Holbein to one
from Rembrandt, though both were equally expressive, simply because
Holbein's handwriting was prettier than Rembrandt's. Each draughtsman
manifests a kind of handwriting peculiar to himself even in his most
faithful rendering of form; and by this we can immediately recognize