Pen Drawing - An Illustrated Treatise by Charles Maginnis
page 10 of 66 (15%)
page 10 of 66 (15%)
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key,--brilliant blacks and large light areas, with often just enough
half-tone to soften the effect. His wash-drawings, on the contrary, are so utterly different in manner as to have nothing in common with the others, distinguished as they are by masses of low tone and small light areas. Compare Figs. 1 and 5. Observe that there is no straining at the technical capacity of the pen or of the brush; no attempt to obtain an effect in one medium which seems to be more naturally adapted to the other. Individuality is imparted to each by a frank concession to its peculiar genius. [Illustration: FIG. 2 MAXIME LALANNE] [Side note: _Examples of Good Style_] I have said that the chief characteristic of pen methods is Directness. I think I may now say that the chief element of style is Economy of Means. The drawing by M. Maxime Lalanne shown in Fig. 2 is an excellent example of this economy carried to its extreme. Not a stroke could be spared, so direct and simple is it, and yet it is so complete and homogenous that nothing could be added to make it more so. The architecture is left without color, and yet we are made to feel that it is not white--this subtle suggestion of low color being obtained by a careful avoidance of any strong black notes in the rendering, which would have intensified the whites and lighted up the picture. Fig. 3, by the same artist, is even more notable by reason of the masterly breadth which characterizes the treatment of a most complicated subject. A comparison of these with a drawing of the Restoration House, at Rochester, England, Fig. 4, is instructive. In the latter the method is almost painfully elaborate; nothing of the effect is obtained by suggestion. The |
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