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 THE CRAYON
VOL. I. NO. 14. NEW YORK, APRIL 4, 1855. $3 PER ANNUM.

W. J. STILLMAN & J. DURAND, EDITORS AND PROPRIETORS. PUBLICATION OFFICE, 237 BROADWAY, COR. OF PARK PLACE.

THE ARTISTAS TEACHER. feel more sensitively the degrees of beauty, temple?if he has been
earnest, conscien
We have of the func and so approach the perfect ideal. tious and where we could fol
repeatedly spoken He, by clear-sighted
tion of the Artist as a Teacher, and perhaps his life's labor, must develop the highest low him, we may follow him, also,
fearlessly
it is as well, before we go further, that we forms of beauty, which we only and where he can see and we cannot. The
feebly
idea of our discover. From the rude and im student
should give some more explicit dimly humble, reverent, of Nature is
in this expression, than we have perfectly developed forms of Nature lie alone fit to become the master in Art.
meaning
heretofore given. And first, we must dis draws, by her own indication, that which But let us, in all our
being taught,.not for
claim the position that Art is to take the is divine. Thus Raphael, by his artistic get that we see Nature Art?-never
through
chair of Science, and tell tis simply of the inspiration, from the passion-stained faces letting our vision rest satisfied with the
facts of the outer world?that the meadow around him, brought out that which, with work of the Artist until we have learned
is studded with the rock cov us, stands as the and we to see
its prototype in Nature. Let not
butter-cups, purely heavenly,
ored with or that the clouds are justly call him Sanzio, who thus made holy the stand for the That
lichens, priest religion.
divided into their and have their that which he found sin-marked and de which Art out to us is not our own
classes, points
laws of construction. and formed. until we have confirmed the
This, botany indication, by
meteorology will tell us much more con This is but one of the forms inwhich the our own observation. Before that it isw
and if Art do no more it is nothing ideal calls on the Artist to teach. Buona
cisely, formation; after?Tcnowledge.
nobler than the rotti, in his marble types of
power and
photograph.
We need to be con
told these majesty, and Titian, in his glow of harmo
things
for though we that because nious color, were, equally, idealists; and
stantly, imagine
we open our eyes we see all that is before the man who from the thousand
ON LANDSCAPE FAINTING.
qualities
of Nature NO. VI.
the watchful man finds himself ever selects one, and drawing it from
them,
new in the most its concealing combinations presents In my
it clear last I threw out some hints or
discovering something .
and to the mind, us atmospheric gradation. It was there
familiar few of us could tell single gives still his
things. Very as a principle, that this gradation
own A is told of stated,
wherein the fractures of slate differ from ideality. story Turner, was most and
apparent invariable in the
those of gneiss, or the leaf of the maple from that when a lady once complained that she darks or shaded portions of the landscape,
that of the oak. We may have been look could not see in Nature the qualities which under a clear sky, such portions
partaking
he had in his drawings, more and more the color of the sky as they
at the sky for a quarter of a century, he replied, "No,
' ing recede. The natural cause for this effect
and not have learned that its clouds are madam, but do you not wish you could V is the same as that which produces the
classified. We could tell slate from This was just, because Turner, instead of blue of the sky?the intervention of the'
gneiss
when we see it, or a maple tree from an idly attempting to give all that Nature great body of atmosphere between the
showed earth, and the utter darkness of surround
oak, and five minutes after, if questioned, him, had wisely taken the particu
ing space. A luminous, transparent white,
not be able to say where was the difference lar quality he desired, and nothing else;
spread over black, becomes blue in propor
we distinguished are and the fact that she did not see it in Na as
by which them. We tion to its purity; and, the atmosphere
not acquainted with their characteristics i. e. ture, proved that she needed the instruc is less pure near the earth, so the sky
tion of his Art. observers is less blue at the horizon, thence gradually
we lack Science, which would impress these Superficial
to the zenith. The' blueness of
on ns by its laws. imagine that they see all that is increasing
things generally the distant mountain and the intermediate
But the may. know all these to be seen, while the man who has passed are subject to this law.
painter gradation, *
and still be only a botanist or geolo his half century in the closest study of Na It was also stated, in my last letter, that
things
that each return to her gives this was and ^
gist in his feeling. In this case he would, ture, knows regular gradation interrupted,
the effect of atmosphere complicated, by
as an Artist, teach us nothing, but would him some new insight. the intervention of clouds and other vapors;
us of that which shall we know whether the
simply remind science had How, then, but, previous to an examination of suob
first informed us of, or if he told us any Artist teach us truly, and that it is not let us take into consideration
phenomena,
it would be no more than a some of a diseased mind which the influence of sunlight.
thing new, vagary
Sunshine is the joyous expression of Na
scientific fact. The Artist must know all he gives us as a mystery of Nature ? It is
these since on this since the visions of the most
ture, the lovely smile that lights up all her
things, positive truth truly difficult, so and all it
beauty, changing adorning
all Art is based; but he must go beyond highly illumined minds are so nearly, in rests upon, as to seem itself creative*
this in order to teach
us anything as Artist. their first appearance, like the ravings of Mingling with the fitful humors of the at
mosphere, it'develops the full power of
He must pass from
the merely actual into insanity, that the world often mistakes the
color, and evolves the interminable variety
the ideal of Nature, and not only tell us one for the other. if the Artist has
But, of light and shade which constitutes the
that flowers exist, but that there is a per first based himself on that science which magic of chiaroscuro?that controlling ele
more can comprehend ment of effect which theorists have in vain
fect type of the flower, fully beauti we, equally with himself,
we endeavored to portion and systemize.
ful than any which see?free from all and judge?if he has laboriously and con
"Who does not feel that'existence is a bless
imperfection of accident and circumstance. scientiously passed through the actual, and
ing and the world beautiful, when, after
It was for this that his sense of beauty was shown us by his humility at the threshold tedious days of sullen cloud and storm, and
made keener than another's, that he might that he was to enter into the inner worse monotonous drizzle, suddenly the'
worthy
VOL. I. NO. XIV.