Pen Drawing Part 4

The elements in a perspective drawing which present most difficulties to the architectural draughtsman are foliage and figures. These are, however, most important accessories, and must be cleverly handled. It is difficult to say which is the harder to draw, a tree or a human figure; and if the student has not sketched much from Nature either will prove a stumbling-block. Presuming, therefore, that he has already filled a few sketch-books, he had better resort to these, or to his photograph alb.u.m, when he needs figures for his perspective. Designing figures and trees out of one's inner consciousness is slow work and not very profitable; and if the figure draughtsman may employ models, the architect may be permitted to use photographs.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 46 HARRY ALLAN JACOBS]

Unhappily for the beginner, no two ill.u.s.trators consent to render foliage, or anything else for that matter, in quite the same way, and so I cannot present any authoritative formula for doing so.

This subject has been treated, however, in a previous chapter, and nothing need be added here except to call attention to an employment of foliage peculiar to architectural drawings. This is the broad suggestive rendering of dark leaf.a.ge at the sides of a building, to give it relief. The example shown in Fig. 47 is from one of Mr. Gregg's drawings.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 47 D. A. GREGG]

The rendering of the human figure need not be dealt with under this head, as figures in an architectural subject are of necessity relatively small, and therefore have to be rendered very broadly.

Careful drawing is none the less essential, however, if their presence is to be justified; and badly drawn figures furnish a tempting target for the critic of architectural pictures. Certainly, it is only too evident that the people usually seen in such pictures are utterly incapable of taking the slightest interest whatever in architecture, or in anything else; and not infrequently they seem to be even more immovable objects than the buildings themselves, so fixed and inflexible are they. Such figures as these only detract from the interest of the drawing, instead of adding to it, and the draughtsman who has no special apt.i.tude is wise in either omitting them altogether, or in using very few, and is perhaps still wiser if he entrusts the drawing of these to one of his a.s.sociates more accomplished in this special direction.

The first thing to decide in the matter of figures is their arrangement and grouping, and when this has been determined they should be sketched in lightly in pencil. In this connection a few words by way of suggestion may be found useful. Be careful to avoid anything like an equal s.p.a.cing of the figures. Group the people interestingly.

I have seen as many as thirty individuals in a drawing, no two of whom seemed to be acquainted,--a very unhappy condition of affairs even from a purely pictorial point of view. Do not over-emphasize the base of a building by stringing all the figures along the sidewalks.

The lines of the curbs would thus confine and frame them in unpleasantly. Break the continuity of the street lines with figures or carriages in the roadway, as in Fig. 55. After the figures have been satisfactorily arranged, they ought to be carefully drawn as to outline. In doing so, take pains to vary the postures, giving them action, and avoiding the stiff wooden, fashion-plate type of person so common to architectural drawings. When the time comes to render these accessories with the pen (and this ought, by the way, to be the last thing done) do not lose the freedom and breadth of the drawing by dwelling too long on them. Rise superior to such details as the patterns of neckties.

We will now consider the application to architectural subjects of the remarks on technique and color contained in the previous chapters.

[Side note: _Architectural Textures_]

To learn to render the different textures of the materials used in architecture, the student would do well to examine and study the methods of prominent ill.u.s.trators, and then proceed to forget them, developing meanwhile a method of his own. It will be instructive for him, however, as showing the opportunity for play of individuality, to notice how very different, for instance, is Mr. Gregg's manner of rendering brick work to that of Mr. Railton. Compare Figs. 48 and 49. One is splendidly broad,--almost decorative,--the other intimate and picturesque. The work of both these men is eminently worthy of study. For the sophisticated simplicity and directness of his method and the almost severe conscientiousness of his drawing, no less than for his masterly knowledge of black and white, no safer guide could be commended to the young architectural pen-man for the study of principles than Mr. Gregg. Architectural ill.u.s.tration in America owes much to his influence and, indeed, he may be said to have furnished it with a grammar. Take his drawing of the English cottages, Fig. 50. It is a masterly piece of pen work. There is not a feeble or tentative stroke in the whole of it. The color is brilliant and the textures are expressed with wonderful skill.

The student ought to carefully observe the rendering of the various roofs. Notice how the character of the thatch on the second cottage differs from that on the first, and how radically the method of rendering of either varies from that used on the shingle roof at the end of the picture. Compare also the two gable chimneys with each other as well as with the old ruin seen over the tree-tops.

Here is a drawing by an architectural draughtsman of an architectural _actuality_ and not of an artificial abstraction. This is a fairer ground on which to meet the ill.u.s.trators of the picturesque.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 48 D. A. GREGG]

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 49 HERBERT RAILTON]

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 50 D. A. GREGG]

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 51 WALTER M. CAMPBELL]

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 52 HERBERT RAILTON]

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 53 A. F. JACCACI]

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 54 C. F. BRAGDON]

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 55 HARVEY ELLIS]

[Side note: _Examples_]

Mr. Campbell's drawing, Fig. 51, is a very good example of the rendering of stone textures. The old masonry is capitally expressed by the short irregular line. The student is advised to select some portion of this, as well as of the preceding example to copy, using, no matter how small the drawings he may make, a pen not smaller than number 303. I know of no architectural ill.u.s.trator who hits stonework off quite so cleverly as Mr. Goodhue. Notice, in his drawing of the masonry, in Fig. 8, how the stones are picked out and rendered individually in places and how this intimate treatment is confined to the top of the tower where it tells against the textures of the various roofs and how it is then merged in a broad gray tone which is carried to the street. Mr. Railton's sketches are full of clever suggestion for the architectural ill.u.s.trator in the way of texture. Figs. 7 and 52 show his free rendering of masonry.

The latter is an especially very good subject for study. Observe how well the texture tells in the high portion of the abutment by reason of the thick, broken lines. For a distant effect of stone texture, the drawing by Mr. Jaccaci, Fig. 53, is a fine example.

In this the rendering is confined merely to the organic lines of the architecture, and yet the texture is capitally expressed by the quality of the stroke, which is loose and much broken. The general result is extremely crisp and pleasing. For broad rendering of brick textures, perhaps there is no one who shows such a masterly method as Mr. Gregg. As may be seen in his sketch of the blacksmith shop, Fig. 48, he employs an irregular dragging line with a great deal of feeling. The brick panel by Mr. Bragdon, Fig. 54, is a neat piece of work. There is excellent texture, too, in the picturesque drawing by Mr. Harvey Ellis, Fig. 55:--observe the rendering of the rough brick surface at the left side of the building. A more intimate treatment is that ill.u.s.trated in the detail by Mr. C.

E. Mallows, the English draughts man, Fig. 56. In this drawing, however, the edges of the building are unpleasantly hard, and are somewhat out of character with the quaint rendering of the surfaces.

Mr. Goodhue uses a similar treatment, and, I think, rather more successfully. On the whole, the broader method, where the texture is carried out more uniformly, is more to be commended, at least for the study of the beginner. Some examples of shingle and slate textures are ill.u.s.trated by Fig. 57. It is advisable to employ a larger pen for the shingle, so as to ensure the requisite coa.r.s.eness of effect.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 56 C. E. MALLOWS]

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 57 C. D. M.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 58 C. D. M.]

[Side note: _An Architectural Problem_]

To favorably ill.u.s.trate an architectural subject it will be found generally expedient to give prominence to one particular elevation in the perspective, the other being permitted to vanish sharply. Fig.

58 may be said to be a fairly typical problem for the architectural penman. The old building on the right, it must be understood, is not a mere accessory, but is an essential part of the picture. The matter of surroundings is the first we have to decide upon, and these ought always to be disposed with reference to the particular form of composition which the subject may suggest. Were we dealing with the foreground building alone there would be no difficulty in adjusting the oval or the diamond form of composition to it.*

As it is, the difficulty lies in the long crested roof-line which takes the same oblique angle as the line of the street, and the influence of this line must be, as far as possible, counteracted.

Now the heavy over-hang of the princ.i.p.al roof will naturally cast a shadow which will be an important line in the composition, so we arrange our accessories at the right of the picture in reference to this. Observe that the line of the eaves, if continued, would intersect the top of the gable chimney. The dwelling and the tree then form a focus for the converging lines of sidewalk and roof, thus qualifying the vertical effect of the building on the right.

As the obliquity of the composition is still objectionable, we decide to introduce a foreground figure which will break up the line of the long sidewalk, and place it so that it will increase the influence of some contrary line, see Fig. 59. We find that by putting it a little to the right of the entrance and on a line with that of the left sidewalk, the picture is pleasingly balanced.

[Footnote *: See footnote on page 62.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 59 C. D. M.]

We are now ready to consider the disposition of the values. As I have said before, these are determined by the scheme of light and shade. For this reason any given subject may be variously treated.

We do not necessarily seek the scheme which will make the most pictorial effect, however, but the one which will serve to set off the building to the best advantage. It is apparent that the most intelligible idea of the form of the structure will be given by shading one side; and, as the front is the more important and the more interesting elevation, on which we need sunlight to give expression to the composition, it is natural to shade the other, thus affording a foil for the bright effects on the front. This bright effect will be further enhanced if we a.s.sume that the local color of the roof is darker than that of the walls, so that we can give it a gray tone, which will also make the main building stand away from the other. If, however, we were to likewise a.s.sume that the roof of the other building were darker than its walls, we should be obliged to emphasize the objectionable roof line, and as, in any case, we want a dark effect lower down on the walls to give relief to our main building, we will a.s.sume that the local color of the older walls is darker than that of the new. The shadow of the main cornice we will make quite strong, emphasis being placed on the nearer corner, which is made almost black. This color is repeated in the windows, which, coming as they do in a group, are some of them more filled in than others, to avoid an effect of monotony.

The strong note of the drawing is then given by the foreground figure.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 60 C. D. M.]

Another scheme for the treatment of this same subject is ill.u.s.trated by Fig. 60. Here, by the introduction of the tree at the right of the picture, a triangular composition is adopted. Observe that the sidewalk and roof lines at the left side of the building radiate to the bottom and top of the tree respectively. The shadow of the tree helps to form the bottom line of the triangle. In this case the foreground figure is omitted, as it would have made the triangularity too obvious. In the color-scheme the tree is made the princ.i.p.al dark, and this dark is repeated in the cornice shadow, windows and figures as before. The gray tone of the old building qualifies the blackness of the tree, which would otherwise have made too strong a contrast at the edge of the picture, and so detracted from the interest of the main building.

CHAPTER VII

DECORATIVE DRAWING

In all modern decorative ill.u.s.tration, and, indeed, in all departments of decorative design, the influences of two very different and distinct points of view are noticeable; the one demanding a realistic, the other a purely conventional art. The logic of the first is, that all good pictorial art is essentially decorative; that of the second, that the decorative subject must be designed in organic relation to the s.p.a.ce which it is to occupy, and be so treated that the design will primarily fulfil a purely ornamental function. That is to say, whatever of dramatic or literary interest the decorative design may possess must be, as it were, woven into it, so that the general effect shall please as instantly, as directly, and as independently of the meaning, as the pattern of an Oriental rug. The former, it will be seen, is an imitative, the latter an inventive art. In the one, the elements of the subject are rendered with all possible naturalism; while, in the other, effects of atmosphere and the accidental play of light and shade are sacrificed to a conventional rendering, by which the design is kept flat upon the paper or wall.

One represents the point of view of the painter and the pictorial ill.u.s.trator; the other that of the designer and the architect. The second, or conventional idea, has now come to be widely accepted as a true basic principle in decorative art.

[Side note: _The New Decorative School_]

The idea is not by any means novel; it has always been the fundamental principle of j.a.panese art; but its genesis was not in j.a.pan. The immediate inspiration of the new Decorative school, as far as it is concerned with the decoration of books, at least, was found in the art of Durer, Holbein, and the German engravers of the sixteenth century,--interest in which period has been lately so stimulated by the Arts and Crafts movement in England. This movement, which may fairly be regarded as one of the most powerful influences in latter-day art, was begun with the aim of restoring those healthy conditions which obtained before the artist and the craftsman came to be two distinct and very much extranged workers. The activities of the movement were at first more directly concerned with the art of good book-making, which fructified in the famous Kelmscott Press (an inst.i.tution which, while necessarily undemocratic, has exerted a tremendous influence on modern printing), and to-day there is scarcely any sphere of industrial art which has not been influenced by the Arts and Crafts impetus.

[Side note: _Criticisms of the School_]

This modern decorative renaissance has a root in sound art principles, which promises for it a vigorous vitality; and perhaps the only serious criticism which has been directed against it is, that it encourages archaic crudities of technique which ignore the high development of the reproductive processes of the present day; and, moreover, that its sympathies tend towards mediaeval life and feeling.

While such a criticism might reasonably be suggested by the work of some of its individual adherents, it does not touch in the least the essential principles of the school. Art cannot be said to scout modernity because it refuses to adjust itself to the every caprice of Science. The architect rather despises the mechanically perfect brick (very much to the surprise of the manufacturer); and though the camera can record more than the pencil or the brush, yet the artist is not trying to see more than he ever did before. There are, too, many decorative ill.u.s.trators who, while very distinctly confessing their indebtedness to old examples; are yet perfectly eclectic and individual, both in the choice and development of motive. Take, for example, the very modern subject of the cyclist by Mr. A. B. Frost, Fig. 61. There are no archaisms in it whatever.

The drawing is as naturalistic and just as careful as if it were designed for a picture. The shadows, too, are cast, giving an effect of strong outdoor light; but the treatment, broad and beautifully simple so as to be reconcilable with the lettering which accompanied it, is well within conventional lines. That the character of the technical treatment is such as to place no tax on the mechanical inventiveness of the processman is not inexcusable archaeology.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 61 A. B. FROST]

A valuable attribute of this conventional art is, that it puts no bounds to the fancy of the designer. It is a figurative language in which he may get away from commonplace statement. What has always seemed to me a very logical employment of convention appears in the _Punch_ cartoons of Sir John Tenniel and Mr. Lindley Sambourne.

Even in those cartoons which are devoid of physical caricature (and they are generally free from this), we see at a glance that it is the political and not the personal relations of the personae that are represented; whereas in the naturalistic cartoons of _Puck_, for example, one cannot resist the feeling that personalities are being roughly handled.