ible, except to a very limited
extent. There must be, of course, _some_ appearance of this quality, so
a certain conventional standard has been set up, beyond which one only
ventures at one's own risk. Thus, care is taken that every object
composing the subject lies with its _longest lines_ parallel to the
background. In this way the least possible violence is done to the
imagination in completing the picture. As an example, no single leaf
should be represented in relief as turning or coming forward more than
it would do if plucked from the tree and laid loosely down upon a sheet
of paper. A, Fig. 71, is an outline of an apple-leaf pressed out flat. B
is an attempt to present it in violent foreshortening, showing its back
to the spectator, while its point is supposed to be buried in the
background. C is the same leaf turned the other way, and supposed to be
projecting forward; both are exceedingly awkward and unintelligible as
mere outlines, and if expressed in relief would not be any more
convincing as portraits of the thing intended--rather less so, in fact,
than the diagram, which has no projection to interfere with the drawing.
So we must turn our leaf until it presents its long side more or less to
the spectator, as in D; but even here part of the edge is so thin at _a_
that it will be better to turn it a little farther, as in E, showing
more of its surface, as at _b_.

[Illustration: FIG. 71.]

Again, if we take as another example two apples, one partly covering the
other, as in _a_, Fig. 72, where one apple is supposed to be behind the
other, and so implies distance. There is no means of expressing this
distance in carving. Lowering the surface of the hindmost apple would
merely throw out the balance of masses without giving a satisfactory
explanation of its position, while to cut a deep groove between the two
would be an equally unsightly expedient. The difficulty should, whenever
it is possible, be avoided by partially separating the two forms, as in
_b_, where the center of the hindmost apple clears the outline of the
other; thus making it possible to get a division without awkwardness.

[Illustration: FIG. 72.]

[Illustration: FIG. 73.]

A good expedient, where leaf or scroll forms are to be carved, and when
very truthful drawing is necessary to explain their convolutions, is
that adopted by Professor Lethaby at the Royal College of Art. It
consists in cutting the leaf out of a piece of stiffish paper, a