visual
nature are incorporated. From this wealth of visual material, to which
must be added the knowledge we now have of the arts of the East, of
China, Japan, and India, the modern artist has to select those things
that appeal to him; has to select those elements that answer to his
inmost need of expressing himself as an artist. No wonder a period of
artistic dyspepsia is upon us, no wonder our exhibitions, particularly
those on the Continent, are full of strange, weird things. The problem
before the artist was never so complex, but also never so interesting.
New forms, new combinations, new simplifications are to be found. But
the steadying influence and discipline of line work were never more
necessary to the student.

The primitive force we are in danger of losing depends much on line, and
no work that aims at a sublime impression can dispense with the basis of
a carefully wrought and simple line scheme.

The study, therefore, of pure line drawing is of great importance to the
painter, and the numerous drawings that exist by the great masters in
this method show how much they understood its value.

And the revival of line drawing, and the desire there is to find a
simpler convention founded on this basis, are among the most hopeful
signs in the art of the moment.

V

MASS DRAWING

In the preceding chapter it has, I hope, been shown that outline drawing
is an instinct with Western artists and has been so from the earliest
times; that this instinct is due to the fact that the first mental idea
of an object is the sense of its form as a felt thing, not a thing seen;
and that an outline drawing satisfies and appeals directly to this
mental idea of objects.

But there is another basis of expression directly related to visual
appearances that in the fulness of time was evolved, and has had a very
great influence on modern art. This form of drawing is based on the
consideration of the flat appearances on the retina, with the knowledge
of the felt shapes of objects for the time being forgotten. In
opposition to line drawing, we may call this Mass Drawing.

The scientific truth of this point of view is obvious. If only the
accurate copying of the appearances of nature were the sole object of
art (an idea to be met with among students) the problem of painting
would be simpler than it is, and would be likely ere long to be solved
by the photographic camera.

This form of drawing is the natural means of exp