And how noble the ambition!

In our present civilization some men are moved to philanthropy, some
to science, some to be rulers of men. Some men are brimful and running
over with harmonies that will live forever. Other men's hearts beat in
unison with the symphonies of the spheres, and Homer and Milton and
Dante become household words. You seek another expression of the good
that is in you. You will be painters and sculptors. Color, form, and
mass are to you what the pen, the sword, and the lute are to those
others who have gone before, or are now around you. Your mission is as
distinct as theirs, and it is as imperative that you should fulfil
it. Paint what you see and as you see it. Nothing more nor less. See
only the beautiful, and if you cannot reach that content yourself with
the picturesque. It is a first cousin but once removed.

MASS

The difference between composition and mass is that a composition is a
mere outline of pen or pencil, each object taking its proper place in
the square of a canvas, while mass is the filling in between these
outlines either of varied color or in lights or darks, their
gradations but so many guides to the spectator's eye marking not only
its perspective, form and atmosphere, but, if skilfully done, telling
the story of your subject at a glance.

To do this the student must find the lightest light and darkest dark
in the subject before him and, having found it, adhere to it to the
end of his work. For as the sun dominates the sky and earth so do its
rays dominate parts of the whole, making more luminous than the rest
only one object upon which its light falls. To make this more
explicit it is only necessary to look at an egg upon a white
table-cloth. Here is a natural object devoid of local color except in
reflected lights, and yet you will find that where the round of the
egg reflects the light the highest light is found, while in the edge
of the shadow, where the egg turns into the round--between that high
light and the reflected light from the table-cloth, I mean--is found
its darkest dark. But only one portion of that shadow, a point as
large as the point of a pin, is the darkest dark. Everything else is
gradation, from the highest light to the lowest light, the lowest
light being almost a shadow; and from its darkest dark to its lightest
dark the lightest dark again being almost a light.

In landscape art these problems are greatly simplified. The sun is
always