se, therefore, in all
modesty, this question for discussion, by such artists as will favor me
with answer,[65] giving their names:--_How ought the pen to be used to
outline a form of varied contour; and ought outline to be entirely pure,
or, even in its most elementary types, to pass into some suggestion of
shade in the inner masses?_ For there are no examples whatever of pure
outlines by the great masters. They are always touched or modified by
inner lines, more or less suggestive of solid form, and they are lost or
accentuated in certain places, not so much in conformity with any
explicable law, as in expression of the master's future purpose, or of
what he wishes immediately to note in the character of the object. Most
of them are irregular memoranda, not systematic elementary work: of
those which are systematized, the greater part are carried far beyond
the initiative stage; and Holbein's are nearly all washed with color:
the exact degree in which he depends upon the softening and extending
his touch of ink by subsequent solution of it, being indeterminable,
though exquisitely successful. His stupendous drawings in the British
Museum (I can justly use no other term than "stupendous," of their
consummately decisive power) furnish finer instances of this treatment
than any at Basle; but it would be very difficult to reduce them to a
definable law. Venetian outlines are rare, except preparations on
canvas, often shaded before coloring;--while Raphael's, if not shaded,
are quite loose, and useless as examples to a beginner: so that we are
left wholly without guide as to the preparatory steps on which we should
decisively insist; and I am myself haunted by the notion that the
students were forced to shade firmly from the very beginning, in all the
greatest schools; only we never can get hold of any beginnings, or any
weak work of those schools: whatever is bad in them comes of decadence,
not infancy.

45. I purpose in the next essay[66] to enter upon quite another part of
the inquiry, so as to leave time for the reception of communications
bearing upon the present paper: and, according to their importance, I
shall ask leave still to defer our return to the subject until I have
had time to reflect upon them, and to collect for public service the
concurrent opinions they may contain.

FOOTNOTES:

[64] _Art Journal_, vol. iv., pp. 33-5. February 1865. The first word
being printed in plain capitals instead of with an orna