W Y L 
 
NATURE'S LAWS 
 
 AND THE 
 
 MAKING OF PICTURES 
 
Natures laws 
 
 AND THE 
 
 MAKING OF PICTURES 
 
 BY 
 
 W. L. WYLLIE, A.R.A. 
 
 LONDON 
 
 EDWARD ARNOLD 
 
 1903 
 
Digitized by the Internet Archive 
 
 in 2013 
 
 http://archive.org/details/natureslawsmakinOOwyll 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 PAGES 
 
 Definition of Horizon and Vanishing-point . . . . .1-2 
 
 Easy Lessons — Figures on flat plains on which are parallel lines — The sun- 
 Shadows — Rays — Rainbows — Vanishing-point of sun's rays . . . 3-7 
 Sloping planes and their vanishing-lines — Ceiling pictures and designs tor pave- 
 ment — Sea-shore and reflections — Curve of earth's surface . . .8-12 
 
 Various slopes — Wheel-marks — Correct sizes of figures — Width of path of glitter 
 
 under sun or moon . . . . . . .13-15 
 
 Strong currents in rivers . . . . . .15 
 
 Water-marks on broken or jagged coast-line . . .16 
 
 Roads running up or down hill . . . . . . .17 
 
 Sun shadows up hill and down dale . . . . . .18 
 
 Drawing of spume on waves . . . . . . .19 
 
 The wind's eye — Vanishing-point of port and starboard tacks — Vanishing- 
 point of wind ........ 20-25 
 
 Curve on surface of sea, and its effect upon parallel lines .... 26-28 
 
 Curve in the under surface of clouds, and its effect on the appearance of 
 
 vanishing lines ........ 28-30 
 
 Wading figures .... .... 3 1 
 
 Reflections in calm and ruffled water, wet roofs, or sloping surfaces . . 32 
 
 Change in apparent size of objects at different distances .... 33 
 
 Change in appearance of objects when seen from near or far . . . 34-38 
 
 Examples from the Old Masters of short and long distance-point pictures . 39-47 
 
 Representation of vanishing lines on a plane surface .... 48-50 
 
 Lessons in the use of the distance-point . .... 51-53 
 
 Lessons in the use of measuring-points ...... 54-55 
 
 Definition of the centre . . . . . . . .56 
 
 Altered appearance of a drawing when the plane of the picture is canted and 
 
 the position of the centre changed ...... 57-61 
 
 The correction of a rough sketch by means of a map and the distance-point . 61-63 
 
 The projection of a plan on to the plane of the picture .... 64-65 
 
 The construction of a drawing from a plan . . . . .66 
 
 The use of a quadrant . . . . . . . .67 
 
 Examples of studies with the angle subtended by the different objects drawn 
 
 in the corner ........ 68-73 
 
 Conclusion ......... 74 
 
Perspective is the art of projecting upon a flat 
 surface the image of any object, situated at any 
 distance, so that it may present to the eye the same 
 appearance with regard to its surroundings as does 
 the real object. 
 
 It is an exact science, and the truth of its rules 
 can be demonstrated to absolute certainty ; so they 
 can no more be ignored than can the multiplica- 
 tion table or the propositions of Euclid. Yet it 
 is a fact that many artists, just because they have 
 never taken the trouble to learn how to use these 
 rules of perspective, abuse the whole subject ; call 
 it a "one-eyed science"; tell you that it has 
 nothing to do with Art ; and even go so far as to 
 say that, if you have to use paper and pencil to 
 prove your case, you must be wrong. 
 
 Even among those painters who believe in a 
 hazy sort of way in its truth, there is a feeling that 
 it is better to leave perspective alone ; an idea that 
 it leads them into many more blunders than it 
 saves them from. No doubt there is a certain 
 measure of truth in this, for the attempt to use 
 
 rules, without understanding them, is apt to lead 
 into all sorts of trouble. 
 
 In the days of the old masters there were no 
 doubt traditions handed down from teacher to 
 student which prevented the grotesque faults one 
 sees to-day in every exhibition, or illustrated book 
 or paper. There is much confusion of thought in 
 the present time ; and the use of photography, 
 instead of helping us to see more clearly, seems 
 only to have led some of us into yet wilder 
 error. 
 
 In the present book I have tried to show how 
 the rules can be used in the construction of pictures 
 and drawings. I have begun with very easy lessons, 
 and the words I have used are the simplest I could 
 find. I hope my reader will pardon me for writing 
 as though he were a child ; my only desire has 
 been to make my meaning as clear as possible. I 
 trust, by commencing with only the most obvious 
 truths, and working up gradually to more difficult 
 problems, and finally to the principles which govern 
 the whole science, to make my method more easv 
 
NATURE'S LAWS AND THE MAKING OF PICTURES 
 
 to follow than that of many books on the same 
 subject. I have endeavoured to remove the grounds 
 for the charge of dulness and difficulty. I hope 
 and believe, from my experience with my own 
 pupils, that by carefully reading these lessons and 
 practising their rules while working out of doors, 
 the student will find problems become simple which 
 before seemed hopelessly complex, and that he will 
 be enabled to " follow nature " with truth and 
 success. 
 
 First of all, it may be well to explain some of 
 the terms used. Horizon is a Greek word mean- 
 ing a boundary ; it is the circle bounding the view 
 where the earth and sky appear to meet. In most 
 perspective drawings a line is ruled across the paper, 
 and is used to enable the artist to draw correctly 
 all horizontal objects, such as lines of moulding, 
 floors, the edges of buildings of all sorts. This, 
 though called the horizon, does not coincide with 
 the visible horizon one sees in nature, looking over 
 a plain or the surface of the sea. The real world 
 is round, and therefore one cannot see a very great 
 distance on it unless mounted on a height. It the 
 beholder's eye is 6 feet above the water, he can 
 only see its surface for 3 miles. Not only does 
 one see but a short distance, but in looking towards 
 the visible horizon one looks, as it were, downhill 
 on every side. This lowering of the visible horizon 
 is called the dip in navigation books, and though 
 at first it might seem a matter too trifling to 
 trouble about in making a picture, yet it is quite 
 easy to see both dip and curve of surface when 
 you draw from nature. Now the builder, when 
 he makes a house, uses a level and a plumb-line, 
 but these do not secure straight lines, for long 
 walls follow the curve of the earth's surface. If 
 the lines of pediment and basement could be con- 
 tinued straight on for a great many miles, they 
 would show as tangents to the surface of the earth. 
 As in most cases the buildings we are repre- 
 senting only extend for a very short distance, it 
 saves a world of trouble to treat the few acres on 
 which they stand as flat. In this case the horizon 
 we make use of represents the plain as stretching 
 
 away into infinity, and if you introduce the sea 
 horizon into your work, it should be represented a 
 trifle lower down than the horizon you have used 
 to draw your near buildings by, just as the navi- 
 gator makes allowance for dip. (See drawing at 
 bottom of opposite page.) 
 
 If you are standing on the platform of a railway 
 station when a train passes through without stop- 
 ping, you will notice how the back of the rear 
 carriage appears to contract rapidly as the train 
 retreats. If there is a straight run of 3 or 4 miles, 
 it will gradually diminish until it is only a speck ; 
 after that it becomes invisible — it has vanished. 
 If we had drawn it at intervals of a quarter of a 
 mile, we should have had to represent it as smaller 
 each time ; but if we could have drawn it on the 
 principle of the cinematograph, we should have had 
 to represent the four corners of the back of the 
 last coach as passing along four gradually con- 
 verging lines until they meet and then vanish. 
 The back of the coach has not shrunk really, but 
 only in appearance. The lines through which the 
 corners have moved have really been parallel, but 
 to the eye they have seemed gradually to come 
 together until they met, and the eye could no longer 
 see them. It is the same with all parallel lines. 
 They all have their vanishing-point. The same 
 fact may be stated in a different way by saying 
 that parallel lines radiate from a point. I shall 
 therefore speak indifferently of lines running to or 
 radiating from the fixed point. 
 
 My first lesson is very simple. I will suppose 
 that you are not upon this round world of ours at 
 all, but upon an absolutely flat plain, stretching 
 without break or curve as far as the eve can see. 
 At some distance a man is standing ; as you draw 
 him you are sitting so that your eye is just on a 
 level with the top button of his waistcoat. The 
 horizon — that is to say, the line where plain and sky 
 seem to meet — -will pass through him immediately 
 behind that button. What is true of him is true 
 of every other man you can put into the picture ; 
 they will all be correct if the line passes through 
 them at the same part of their body. I am 
 
NATURE'S LAWS AND THE MAKING OF PICTURES 
 
 assuming at present that they are all of equal where on the horizon. That point may be a long 
 
 height. way outside the limits of your picture, but you 
 
 All parallel lines there may be upon the plain, must prolong your horizon as far as is needful, 
 
 such as furrows, or lines of paving, or the shadows and, fixing a point, draw all your vanishing lines 
 
 of upright objects, must vanish in a point some- to it. 
 
 The only exception to this universal law is the 
 case of lines exactly sideways to you — that is to 
 say, broad side on, or at right angles to your line 
 of sight. They must be drawn parallel to the 
 horizon, like the sun-shadows of the men in this 
 picture. 
 
 You may say, " But there is no such thing as a 
 plain stretching away on a dead level into infinity." 
 Of course there is not. I have only drawn the 
 horizon to enable me to draw the men, and the 
 vanishing lines, in their proper places. When it 
 has served this purpose it may be rubbed out and 
 anything put in its place, such as hills, or houses, 
 or the walls of a room. 
 
 What I want you to understand is that in this 
 imaginary flat land the horizon represents infinity, 
 or a distance so great that objects on it are too 
 small in size to be measured — that is to sav, thev 
 vanish. 
 
 The length of the shadows will depend on the 
 altitude of the sun. I have supposed here that it 
 is 45° above the horizon. All that I have to do 
 is to draw rays at an angle of 45 from the 
 men's heads to the ground, and they will cut the 
 shadows the right length. If your eye were level 
 with the tips of the men's noses, you would draw 
 all your men with their noses just touching the 
 horizon. 
 
4 
 
 NATURE'S LAWS AND THE MAKING OF PICTURES 
 
 Suppose that when you draw your men you 
 are not on the ground, but raised so that your eye 
 is 9 feet high. It is half as high again as a man ; 
 therefore the horizon will be half the height of 
 each man above his head. That is to say, vou can 
 go on putting as many figures as you please into 
 your picture, and they will all be correct so long 
 as the tops of their heads are two-thirds of the 
 distance from their feet to the horizon. 
 
 I will also suppose that you are looking towards 
 the sun, instead of, as before, having it on one 
 side of you. You will see that the shadows of 
 all upright objects radiate from a point on the 
 
 horizon exactly under the sun. Rays from the 
 sun itself may be used to cut all these shadows to 
 the correct length. If the object throwing the 
 shadow be not upright, or overhang, like the 
 burden on the ass, you have only to drop upright 
 lines from the corners, and cut their shadows to 
 the proper length by rays of the sun. 
 
 These ravs are a good example of parallel lines 
 vanishing or appearing to vanish. For so great 
 is the distance of the sun that tor all practical 
 purposes we may treat the rays we see as parallel. 
 Yet on any misty day you can see them radiating 
 from the sun. 
 
NATURE'S LAWS AND THE MAKING OF PICTURES 
 
 5 
 
 On some days, if you turn your back to the 
 sun, you may see the rays vanishing away towards 
 the shadow of your head on the ground, as on the 
 right-hand side of this example. These rays may 
 be used to cut the shadows to the proper length, 
 just as in the previous instance. I want you to 
 notice that the shadows of upright objects now run 
 towards a point on the horizon exactly over the 
 shadow or your own head. I am supposing that 
 you are sitting, and that consequently your eyes 
 are level with the waists of full-grown people ; 
 the horizon will pass through their waists. If you 
 want to put in a child, whose head in real life only 
 comes up to an adult's waist, in your picture it 
 must only come up to the horizon. If its head 
 would come up to an adult's shoulder, in the 
 
 picture it must be as much above the horizon as 
 an adult's shoulder would be. 
 
 Observe, too, that some of the shadows appear 
 to fall from the right and some from the left. I 
 once had a picture returned to me to correct this 
 " mistake." But it is perfectly correct. The 
 shadows are parallel lines, and are bound to 
 converge ; and they do converge, as you may 
 see any day on a piece of flat ground when 
 the sun is low. 
 
 On a like principle, a rainbow is always a circle 
 round the shadow of your own head ; the sun's 
 rays, like the spokes of a wheel, running to the 
 vanishing-point in the centre. No two people can 
 see exactly the same rainbow ; each sees one round 
 the shadow of his own head. 
 
6 
 
 NATURE'S LAWS AND THE MAKING OF PICTURES 
 
 Now suppose your eye to be 24 feet above the 
 level of the plain. You will make your men just 
 such a size that it takes four of them to reach the 
 horizon — that is to say, that the height of each 
 full-grown man will be one-quarter of the distance 
 from the ground he stands on to the horizon. 
 
 You will notice that all the shadows of the 
 people in this drawing run towards a point on 
 the horizon to the left of the picture. From its 
 
 elevated position your head would cast its shadow 
 exactly under this point. 
 
 It is usual in books on perspective to mark the 
 beholder's shadow by a point only, and to call it 
 V.P.S.R., i.e. vanishing-point of the sun's rays. 
 In the present case I used such a point, and ruled 
 rays to it to cut the shadows of the people to 
 the proper length. Both points are on the left, 
 outside the limits of the picture. 
 
NATURE'S LAWS AND THE MAKING OF PICTURES 
 
 7 
 
 Should you wish to draw figures on a slope, the 
 same rule may still be used ; but you must now 
 make, as it were, a slanting horizon to correspond 
 with the sloping plane on which your figures are 
 to stand. This is called in perspective the "vanish- 
 ing-line of the plane." 
 
 You will recollect that I am dealing up to now 
 with an imaginary earth stretching without break 
 or curve into infinity. So you will find all the 
 hay-makers obeying the rules we have established 
 
 for their height — the furrows vanishing to a point 
 in the far distance ; the shadows cast by the men 
 radiating from another point on the right, just 
 under the sun. 
 
 As a matter of fact, however, sloping plains in 
 nature soon curve into valleys or hills ; so as soon 
 as you have used the vanishing-line to draw your 
 people and their shadows in correct proportion, 
 and to make your furrows converge to the vanishing- 
 point, you will rub it out. 
 
8 
 
 NATURE'S LAWS AND THE MAKING OF PICTURES 
 
 In this drawing I have ruled a line right across 
 the picture to act as horizon to the sloping plane 
 of sand, and have marked it "vanishing-line of 
 sloping sand," because the slope of the shore, if it 
 stretched away to infinity, would appear to end in 
 this line. Now this helps me to make all the men 
 the right size, for all their heads nearly touch the 
 line, even if they are wading, because the slope 
 continues under water. 
 
 Beside the vanishing-line I have ruled the 
 horizon where the surface of the water and the sky 
 seem to meet. All water-marks left on the sand 
 by the retreating tide, and also the margin of the 
 water itself, will vanish at the point where these 
 two ruled lines cross each other, because it marks 
 the intersection of the two planes. 
 
 I have introduced Reflections here. Though 
 often called shadows by unthinking people, they 
 are of a totally different nature. Reflections are 
 only seen in still water, wet mud, polished metal, 
 
 or glass. These do not take light and shade in 
 the same way as dull surfaces do ; they reflect 
 what is around them. It is impossible to throw 
 a shadow upon a looking-glass. If it were very 
 dusty, the dust would take a shadow ; it would 
 not be upon the glass. The laws which govern 
 reflections are also quite distinct from those of 
 light and shadow. Here you will notice that the 
 image in the water is exactly under each man, and 
 that the height of the figure above the water is 
 simply repeated on the surface. In the case of 
 the men on the right, you will bear in mind that 
 their feet are above the level of the water, and that 
 allowance must be made for this additional height. 
 
 Reflections on sloping surfaces such as the wet 
 sand will not be directly underneath the object, 
 but will be drawn or tend to the side from which 
 the slope falls, which is in this case to the right. 
 This can readily be tested in the case of reflections 
 of chimneys on a wet roof. 
 
NATURE'S LAWS AND THE MAKING OF PICTURES 
 
 9 
 
 I will ask my reader to try to fix in his mind 
 the idea that all flat surfaces, if they were continued 
 on into space, must at last be bounded by the sky, 
 just as the sea is at the horizon. Also that parallel 
 lines on this flat surface must, if they be continued 
 far enough, finally meet in points on the horizon 
 of the surface. Stand underneath some tall tower, 
 and look up. You will find that upright sides 
 vanish in a point exactly over your head. Look 
 down some deep well, and if the water is still, you 
 will see the reflection of your own head. This 
 will be the vanishing-point of all the upright lines 
 in the brickwork of the well. If two or more 
 people look down, each will see the upright lines 
 vanishing towards his own reflection. Every up- 
 right object, therefore, vanishes in points. Look- 
 ing upward, they will run towards the zenith over- 
 head ; looking downward, towards the nadir under 
 your feet. Suppose now that you stand close 
 under some great wall like that of the south front 
 of the Ducal Palace in Venice. Looking east, you 
 would be turned towards the vanishing-point of 
 all the horizontal lines, such as the paving, coping, 
 courses of stone, and moulding. Look upward at 
 
 the diagonal patterns of many-coloured stone, and 
 you will see that the chequers vanish towards a 
 point in the sky over the east, 45° above the 
 horizon, whilst the upright pillars and lines of 
 ornament all tend away to a point exactly over 
 your head. If the wall could be continued into 
 infinite space, its horizon would appear as a great 
 semicircle, starting from the east upward to the 
 zenith, then on down to the west. We can call 
 this great semicircle the vanishing-line of the plane, 
 and any parallel lines on the south front of our 
 building must vanish in a point on some part 
 of it. 
 
 You must not think of vanishing your upright 
 lines towards the zenith when you paint a picture 
 that is intended to hang on a wall, because the 
 sides of your canvas and all the upright lines in 
 the picture are already conniving towards that 
 point. If you paint on a ceiling it will be quite 
 correct to do so, and if you design a pavement 
 you can draw the upright lines vanishing towards 
 the nadir. One often sees men at the windows 
 of the attic painted smaller than those on the 
 ground floor, or sailors on the royal-yard half the 
 size of those on deck ; but it is not right to draw 
 them so. 
 
 c 
 
NATURE'S LAWS AND THE MAKING OF PICTURES 
 
 Here is a slope of sand. We are looking along 
 shore, and the vanishing-line inclines across the 
 picture, cutting the horizon just where high-water 
 mark and the margin of the sea seem to vanish. 
 I have marked the spot by a lighthouse. To get 
 this view you must be sitting down with your eye 
 3 feet from the sand. The vanishing-line cuts 
 through the waists of the fisher -folk who are 
 standing erect. The reflections of the men now 
 tend away to the left, as the sand slopes down to 
 the right. 
 
 At first sight it might seem that the horizon 
 should cut the stems of all the boats in the same 
 place as it does in the nearest one. It would do 
 so if the world were flat. But we have now 
 reached the stage at which we can deal with the 
 
 world as it is, i.e. round ; and if you draw your 
 boats from nature, you will find that they rise 
 higher with regard to the horizon line as they sail 
 away, until at last, when they reach it, the whole 
 hull cuts clear against the sky. After this the 
 boat becomes more and more hidden, until it dis- 
 appears from sight, whence the nautical term 
 " hull down." 
 
 You must not gather from this that the visible 
 horizon should be drawn curved instead of ruled 
 straight. From the top of some tremendous 
 mountain on a very clear day it might be possible 
 to see the slightest possible curve, but it would be 
 so slight that you could hardly represent it in a 
 picture. 
 
NATURE'S LAWS AND THE MAKING OF PICTURES 
 
 If you look down on the same scene from a 
 pier, so that your eye is 10 feet above the sand, 
 the subject will look like this. The vanishing-line 
 still slopes across the horizon, just where the waves 
 and water-marks seem to vanish, but the heads of 
 the men are now 4 feet below it. Of course the 
 
 men in the boats, not having anything to do with 
 the plane of sand, have nothing to do with the 
 vanishing-line either. I have ruled a dotted line 
 above the sea-line to show both actual and visible 
 horizon. 
 
 Looking obliquely out to sea, the vanishing-line 
 of the sloping sand runs across rather less sharply. 
 Here your eye is 4 feet above the sand ; so the 
 vanishing-line cuts through just below the shoulders 
 of the fishermen. The waves and water-marks still 
 vanish in the lighthouse, which is, however, a long 
 way to the left, outside ot our picture. The 
 wheel -marks and footsteps vanish in a point on 
 
 the vanishing-line of the plane of sand away to the 
 right. 
 
 Note the reflections in the water are immediately 
 under the objects, and on the slope of the wet 
 sand they incline to the left. 
 
 The rotundity of the earth is again shown 
 bv the boats rising as thev sail away into the 
 distance. 
 
I 2 
 
 NATURE'S LAWS AND THE MAKING OF PICTURES 
 
 When you are looking straight down the slope 
 of the sand, the vanishing-line will be drawn under 
 the horizon and parallel to it. The distance 
 between them will vary with the steepness of the 
 slope ; the steeper the slope, the lower its vanishing- 
 line. 
 
 A practical way of finding the vanishing-line of 
 any slope, if you are painting from nature, is to 
 plant a long stick in the ground some 20 or 30 
 feet from you, and to mark on it the height of 
 
 your eye above the sand. The vanishing-line of 
 the slope will pass through this mark. 
 
 In this picture your eye is 6 feet above the sand ; 
 therefore the heads of the fisher-folk are a little 
 under the dotted line which I have ruled across 
 the sea. Note that the wheel -marks and foot- 
 marks vanish in a point on this line. Of course 
 you will put the points in such places as best suit 
 the composition of your picture. 
 
 Here is another drawing of the same sort. The the waists of the people. You will see that the 
 artist is sitting down, with his eye on a level with pulling women, the footprints, and the lines of the 
 
NATURE'S LAWS AND THE MAKING OF PICTURES 
 
 13 
 
 greased planks all run to a point on the vanishing- 
 line which I have marked by a dog. 
 
 By observing these rules in drawing, your work 
 will become more realistic. It is almost impossible 
 to draw such subjects correctly by merely trying to 
 copy what is before you. Everything is moving : 
 the tide is rising or receding ; the sun moves 
 round and alters all your light and shade ; the 
 boats sail away, or are left high and dry, far from 
 the waves with their play of reflection and dancing 
 light. If you try to build up your subject on dry 
 land, the result is generally very uninteresting. 
 There is a terrible want of "go" about the 
 attitudes of your figures. Instead of a brilliant 
 contrast of flesh tint against sparkling water and 
 bright sky, everything is earthy and dull. We all 
 
 know those built-up pictures the moment we see 
 them in an exhibition. You may depend upon it, 
 it is best, when you have chosen a subject from 
 among your rough sketches, to go out, regardless 
 of discomfort from wind, rain, or sun, and to work 
 on the actual spot. If the tide comes up, keep 
 moving back. If the sun moves round, move 
 round too ; your rules will keep your drawing 
 from going very far wrong, providing you bear 
 them in mind all the time you are painting. This, 
 by the way, is not so easy to carry out as you would 
 think. It is only after considerable practice that 
 the mind is trained to think of theory and rule 
 just at the same moment that the eye and hand are 
 strained to the utmost, the former searching for 
 truth, and the latter vainly trying to record it. 
 
 In nature the slopes seldom run on far at the 
 same angle, so I will show you now how to apply 
 your rules when the slopes vary. Let us suppose 
 that the light dry sand in the foreground is some- 
 what steeper than the dark wet sand lower down. 
 Your eye is the same height above the sand as those 
 of the fishermen in the foreground ; therefore the 
 vanishing-line of the steeper slope will pass through 
 their eyes, and the cart tracks will vanish in points 
 on the line which I have marked by stars. When 
 the tracks reach the less steep slope, they will vanish 
 in points, marked by crosses, in the new vanishing- 
 line just above the breakers. Now if you measure 
 
 the man on the wet sand carrying a spar, you will 
 find he is two-fifths of the height from his feet to 
 the vanishing-line of his sand ; all other figures on 
 the same sand must be two-fifths of the distance 
 from their feet to the same line. By making the 
 very distant figures a little smaller in proportion 
 you can give the notion that the sand slopes again 
 a little more sharply. When you come to the 
 surface of the sea, it will not be perfectly flat, but a 
 very gentle curve. At 26 feet above the level of 
 the water the visible horizon is five minutes of arc, 
 or one-sixth the apparent diameter of the moon, 
 lower down than the horizon you would have to 
 
r 4 
 
 NATURE'S LAWS AND THE MAKING OF PICTURES 
 
 draw if you wished to represent correctly in the is much more marked ; so that if vou look 
 
 foreground of your picture any level surfaces, such from the top of some tall cliff, you will find 
 
 as paving or the edges of walls. quite a considerable curve on the surface of the 
 
 If you paint from higher up, the difference sea. 
 
 This drawing is much the same as the last, but 
 I have introduced sun -shadows on the sea and 
 on the different sloping planes. First there is a 
 rather steep slope of shingle. I was sitting down 
 to draw, so the vanishing-line of this plane passes 
 through the middles of the men standing on it. 
 Next on the gentler slope of wet sand the vanishing- 
 line is more than twice the height ot the men. 
 And last there is the comparative level of the sea, 
 with its horizon four times the height of a man. 
 
 The shadows all vanish to points on their respective 
 vanishing-lines exactly under the sun, which has 
 a bright reflection on the water and on the wet 
 sand. If these were quite smooth like a mirror, 
 there would be a perfect image of the sun instead 
 of a path of shimmering light. 
 
 By the way, it is curious how often this path of 
 glitter is painted much narrower in the distance, 
 just as though it were a common high-road which is 
 subject to the laws of perspective. Now the width 
 
NATURE'S LAWS AND THE MAKING OF PICTURES 15 
 
 of the glitter under the sun depends on the posi- If by chance you see one part of the shining sea 
 
 tion of the sun itself; it is wide when the sun is narrower than another, it is at a place where the 
 
 high, and narrows as it sinks lower. It also varies waves are less steep, and the water calmer. Mere 
 
 a little with the amount of ripple on the water. distance never narrows it. 
 
 If you want to give an appearance of strong according as we are looking up or down stream, 
 
 current to a river, you can do so by making the This picture represents a river rushing out of a 
 
 banks, and the objects floating on its surface, lake. I have made the banks and boat vanish in a 
 
 vanish in points above or below the horizon, point to the left, where I have stationed a native. 
 
 Here we are looking down stream. Accordingly 
 I have drawn the banks and boats running down 
 to points below the horizon. The lower these 
 points, the swifter the river will seem to run. 
 
 "We are as yet only on the threshold of the 
 subject, which becomes more complicated as we 
 go on. 
 
 It is not difficult to stand beside a pupil, and 
 show him how the lines and planes he is trying 
 so hard to copy ought to run. He looks up, 
 and sees that what you sav is the truth. Nature 
 herself is there in corroboration. Having made 
 him see and believe, you can go on to the why 
 and wherefore, and a diagram on the corner of his 
 
i6 
 
 NATURE'S LAWS AND THE MAKING OF PICTURES 
 
 drawing makes the whole thing clear to him in Will the reader shut up the book in disgust ? A 
 
 a moment. Writing on the subject is very certain amount of imagination is required to picture 
 
 different. I wonder to myself, Now is that put these invisible planes stretching away to infinity, 
 
 in such a way that people will understand ? or, The mark left on the sand by the sea after a 
 
 high tide is a good example of a plane of this 
 sort, only visible just where it intersects the slope 
 of the sand. You may often find, when you 
 draw from nature, that these water-marks twist 
 and zigzag about like the contour lines on a 
 military map. It would be far too much trouble 
 to find vanishing-points for all the little short 
 lengths of tide-mark. You will bear in mind, 
 however, that these lines of stranded seaweed are 
 quite level, even if they do twist a bit. Therefore 
 any figures you may introduce into your picture 
 standing upon them must follow the same rules 
 as they would were they standing on a plane. 
 Now the man in the foreground standing at high- 
 
 water mark is as high as one-third of the distance 
 from the sand at his feet to the horizon ; therefore 
 any other figures you may wish to put standing 
 on the same line must also be one -third. The 
 woman on the second water-mark is nearly one- 
 quarter as high as the distance from the sand at 
 her feet to the horizon ; so all the other women 
 alono- this tide-mark must be the same size in 
 proportion to the height to the horizon, which 
 I have supposed to be a little higher up than the 
 visible line of distant sea, which you will notice 
 cuts the masts of the boats lower down, the farther 
 they are away. 
 
 This is the same kind of scene, but viewed 
 
 from lower ground. Here the horizon cuts through the waists of the men on the high-water 
 
NATURE'S LAWS AND THE MAKING OF PICTURES 17 
 
 mark, and is over the heads of the men on the for the curve of the world, as the sketch is taken 
 edge of the river. Here I have allowed very little from so low down. 
 
 This is a drawing of a road running downhill. 
 The sun is on our right hand, and the shadows are 
 thrown across the picture. I have ruled a line 
 for the vanishing-plane, and you will notice that 
 the wheel-marks vanish to different points on it. 
 It passes through the shoulders of the men. By 
 the drawing of the shadow of a tree trunk we can 
 
 give a notion of the ground it falls on. It runs 
 sharply down the bank the tree grows on, is much 
 broken by the ruts on the road, and then rises as 
 it mounts the tufts of grass on the other side of 
 the road. Thus shadows may be very eloquent, 
 and by curving up or down may represent a convex 
 or concave rounded surface. 
 
 The same road, looking uphill. You will notice that the wheel-marks all vanish in different 
 points on the vanishing-line of the plane. 
 
i8 
 
 NATURE'S LAWS AND THE MAKING OF PICTURES 
 
 Many people will say that the rules of perspec- 
 tive are not wanted when you are dealing with open 
 country which slopes up hill and down dale at all 
 sorts of angles. But I think that the following 
 drawing will show that they will help to give 
 realism to even a very slight sketch. There is 
 always a certain charm about a drawing which 
 
 appears to be done easily — where the touches are 
 put on without hesitation, and are left to give what 
 impressions they may of the original scene. Now 
 there are many ways in which perspective will help 
 you to convey with only a few lines a notion of a 
 scene which will tell more than misdirected elabora- 
 tion of the most painful kind. 
 
 I have here sketched a meadow sloping gently 
 downhill. In the foreground is the shadow of a 
 house; near the middle of it is a X marked V. P. S.R. 
 The sun's rays vanish in this cross, and the shadows 
 of upright objects such as the flagstaff, the chimney, 
 and the trunks of the trees vanish awav to a point 
 over it, not on the horizon, but a little below it, 
 where the vanishing-line of the slope is to be 
 
 found. There is a rise on the left, as we may see 
 from the hedgerows running away uphill, and the 
 vanishing-line of this plane crosses the horizon 
 near the middle of the sketch, so that the shadows 
 of the two distant elms on the left run to a point 
 higher up. Thus, by moving the vanishing-points 
 a little, we can suggest any kind of slope we 
 wish. 
 
NATURE'S LAWS AND THE MAKING OF PICTURES 
 
 *9 
 
 Here we have the shadow of another house. 
 V.P.S.R. is much higher up ; therefore we know 
 that the sun is near its setting. 
 
 The long shadows run towards a white house in 
 the distance ; it must therefore be on the vanishing- 
 
 line of the sloping part of our meadow. But there 
 is a second slope away to the right, for the shadows 
 of the distant trees on that side are vanishing to 
 points much higher up than the white house. Thus 
 a rounded shape is given to the hill. 
 
 When you are trying to represent curved 
 surfaces, you will often find the correct per- 
 spective of any pattern or marking on the surface 
 will help you to produce the effect you desire. 
 The design woven on a dress, or the blazon on 
 a flag, can be thus used. 
 
 In this picture I have utilised the spume on 
 
 the surface of the waves to model their shapes. 
 You will see at once how by foreshortening the 
 markings you give a notion of heave and swell 
 to the water. Where the foam is much fore- 
 shortened the slope seems gentle ; and by drawing 
 the pattern as though it were a map, you can make 
 a wave stand up steep. 
 
20 
 
 NATURE'S LAWS AND THE MAKING OF PICTURES 
 
 When the wind blows in straight lines, they 
 vanish in points as other straight lines do. In 
 this drawing I have supposed that what sailors 
 call the " wind's eye," i.e. the point of the com- 
 pass from which the wind is blowing, is behind 
 the lightship with the ball on its mast. You 
 will notice that the smoke is shown as though 
 blowing to the right of vessels to the right of 
 the line between you and the lightship, and to the 
 left of vessels to the left of this line. Compare 
 with this what was said about the sun-shadows in 
 the first part of this book. The crests of the 
 waves are at right angles to the wind, so in this 
 case they may be drawn straight across. If the 
 
 sailing craft were all close-hauled, and all sailing 
 equally close to the wind, they would tend to 
 vanish, those on the port tack in a point on the 
 right side of the picture, those on the starboard 
 in a point on the left side of the picture, each 
 point equally distant from the wind's eye. 
 
 In these six drawings I will suppose that we 
 make a half-turn to the right at each new picture : 
 thus there is a north wind, and in the first drawing 
 we are looking north ; then we turn to the north- 
 east for the next sketch, then to the east, to the 
 south-east, and to the south for the sketch in 
 which the kites are flying, looking at last south- 
 west for the sixth picture. 
 
NATURE'S LAWS AND THE MAKING OF PICTURES 
 
 21 
 
 2 
 
 We are now looking to the right of" the it. To represent some of the craft sailing 
 last subject ; in fact, the two drawings might be nearer the wind than others, I have made them 
 joined side to side. Here you see the vanishing- point more to the left. The vessels on the star- 
 point of the port tack is near the middle of board tack now appear broadside on, sailing to the 
 the sketch, and the barges are all sailing towards north-west. 
 
 In this picture the vanishing-point of the port the wind's direction. This is not always the case 
 
 tack is on the left ; and the vanishing-point of the in nature. Often the real clouds twist about, and 
 
 waves, which are at right angles to the direction therefore run to several different vanishing-points ; 
 
 of the wind, is on the right. In these drawings but, as I will show you later, these points are always 
 
 I have drawn the light upper clouds vanishing a good bit below the horizon which bounds our 
 
 towards the wind's eye, just to give an idea of view on earth. 
 
22 
 
 NATURE'S LAWS AND THE MAKING OF PICTURES 
 
 Once more turn, and we have the point from 
 which the vessels on the starboard tack are sailing 
 right in the middle of the picture. Here let me 
 impress upon you that all these vanishing-points 
 are not hard-and-fast minute dots, as they would 
 be if we were dealing with absolutely straight lines. 
 Even when the wind is most steady, there will be 
 little puffs which come from the right or left. 
 The wave crests will not all be exactly parallel. 
 And even if they were, the surface of the ocean 
 being part of a great sphere, the vanishing lines on 
 the horizon would be some distance apart. 
 
 All boats do not steer exactly the same 
 course ; some skippers keep their craft [nearer 
 the wind than others ; but for all that you will 
 find, if you try to draw any fleet of boats from 
 nature, that the knowledge of these rules will 
 help you to draw them much more correctly than 
 would be possible from merely looking at the 
 moving vessels and then trying to put down what 
 you saw. You will certainly be saved from all 
 the more grotesque errors incidental to this last 
 method. 
 
NATURE'S LAWS AND THE MAKING OF PICTURES 
 
 23 
 
 Looking to leeward, that is to say, towards the 
 point your hat would fly to it it were blown off, 
 you will have the vanishing-point of the wind 
 somewhere near the middle of your subject. I 
 have marked the spot with a windmill. The two 
 points from which the vessels on the port and 
 starboard tacks are sailing would be outside the 
 picture to the right and left. Instead of lying 
 over towards you, the craft will now list away. In 
 fact, if you suppose them to heel very much, you 
 might quite well take a spot up in the sky for all 
 the masts of the vessels on the port tack to vanish 
 to, and another away to the left for all those of 
 vessels on the starboard tack. 
 
 The cross-trees and beams would tend also 
 towards two more points under the first ones, and 
 near the bottom ot the picture. However, all 
 these points would be so far outside the limits of 
 our sketch, that it will be quite sufficient if, when 
 you look to leeward, you draw your boats with 
 their masts leaning slightly towards each other, and 
 when you look to windward, leaning slightly from 
 each other. By the way, the strings that hold the 
 boys' kites would vanish too, though you could 
 not fix on one point for them to run to, because 
 they belly to the wind, so that the farther part 
 ot the curve vanishes higher up than the nearer 
 end. 
 
24 
 
 NATURE'S LAWS AND THE MAKING OF PICTURES 
 
 I drew this subject exactly as I saw it in nature. 
 It shows the vanishing-point of the wind away in 
 the left-hand corner. I have marked the place with 
 
 a windmill. You will notice that the hulls of the 
 boats, which I suppose were head to wind, vanish 
 towards it. 
 
 Nature has in her great storehouse an endless 
 supply of truths. Those who study her are 
 always finding new ones, and there are plenty 
 more where those came from — yes, and more 
 again. There are old truths too, truths that were 
 
 discovered by the great masters of the past, and 
 some of them seem to have been forgotten again 
 since. All of them will help you to construct 
 your pictures, if y ou have the wit to use them 
 rightly. 
 
NATURE'S LAWS AND THE MAKING OF PICTURES 
 
 2 5 
 
 We have turned nearly three-quarters of the 
 way round, and now look towards the point from 
 which vessels on the port tack would sail. On the 
 right is the vanishing-point of the crests of the 
 
 ripples, and on the left, about an inch outside the 
 picture, is the vanishing-point of the wind, towards 
 which the light upper clouds and the smoke from 
 the chimneys on shore are blowing. 
 
 Here again I may point out an advantage we 
 gain from our rules. Correctly applied, they 
 enable us to indicate the relative speed of vessels, 
 for the flags and smoke of moving craft have 
 
 vanishing-points of their own, varying in direction 
 according to their speed. If you watch one steamer 
 passing another, you will see a marked instance of 
 this. 
 
 E 
 
26 
 
 NATURE'S LAWS AND THE MAKING OF PICTURES 
 
 When there is much wind, birds always soar spots. Of course you will not paint them with 
 
 and hover with their heads turned towards it. their heads all exactly the same way, although they 
 
 Water-birds also swim to windward when it blows, generally are so, and when they alight, they always 
 
 and even stand facing the breeze, except in sheltered turn towards the wind. 
 
 This drawing was made in the Suez Canal. It 
 shows the two parallel banks vanishing, not on the 
 
 horizon, but in a point somewhere near the top of 
 the funnel of the distant steamer. It is only the 
 
NATURE'S LAWS AND THE MAKING OF PICTURES 
 
 27 
 
 very farthest part of the margin which vanishes way the curve of the earth asserts itself the moment 
 towards the horizon. This is an illustration of the you begin to draw from nature. 
 
 Here is another sketch made by the sea, and Martello tower on the left. This is again 
 you will notice how the parallel lines of the because we are dealing with a curved surface, 
 waves vanish up somewhere near the top of the and not a plane. 
 
 Here is another coast scene. It was not drawn 
 specially for this book, or to demonstrate any 
 
 theory ; but it shows the curve just as the last 
 two have done. 
 
28 
 
 NATURE'S LAWS AND THE MAKING OF PICTURES 
 
 The roundness is much more apparent in a 
 sketch which only embraces a small section of the 
 horizon than in one which takes in a wide angle, 
 so that you have to turn vour head when looking 
 from one end to the other end of your subject. 
 That is to say, a narrow-angle picture shows up 
 the curve more. 
 
 I have shown that the surface of the sea is 
 always convex, and that any parallel lines upon its 
 surface must vanish in points above the visible 
 horizon. When we try to paint a sky, however, 
 we at once find that the surfaces we are dealing 
 with are concave. 
 
 When poets sing of " heaven's vault " or of 
 the " dome of air," they are only stating actual 
 facts ; and when you try to render on your canvas 
 the forms of the dappled cirrus, and the long lines 
 of mare's-tail or mackerel sky, you will find the 
 task more easy if you bear in mind that you are 
 looking up at the under side of a great vault. 
 
 On some days you may see long streamers of 
 
 fleecy clouds stretching right across the sky from 
 east to west. If you study these carefully, you 
 will find that they vanish in points, and that these 
 points are always a long way below the horizon. 
 
 In this and the succeeding drawings I have 
 tried to show the appearance of the two curved 
 surfaces — -the cup-shaped cloud over the gently 
 rounded sea. 
 
NATURE'S LAWS AND THE MAKING OF PICTURES 
 
 29 
 
 Of course the curve is much more easily seen 
 low down near the horizon, and you will notice it 
 much more when the weather is clear. Even in 
 foggy England, however, you may often see such 
 a little cluster of ribbed cirrus as I have drawn 
 here ; and if you try to follow the twists, you will 
 find that the ridges tend to meet in points a long 
 way beyond the sea-line. The farther the clouds 
 are away, the lower will be the vanishing-points. 
 
 In the tropics, where the air is clear and trans- 
 parent, the dappled sky has a palpable hollow in 
 
 its under surface, and the setting sun lights this 
 up with crimson and gold in a way that would be 
 quite impossible if it were a fiat surface. 
 
 You will often notice that the very distant 
 strata away in the far west are lighted on their 
 upper edges, while at the same moment the nearer 
 layers are illuminated underneath. Then the grada- 
 tions of colour, from yellow in the west, to orange 
 and purple, and at last to ashy gray in the extreme 
 east, will show again the shape of the giant dome 
 overhead. 
 
 Here is another instance of the lines of cloud 
 vanishing away to points below the horizon The 
 wind is blowing from behind the steamer on the 
 right, so the vanishing-point of the crests of the 
 
 waves is a very long way to the left, as they are 
 at right angles to the direction of the wind. The 
 vanishing-point of the vessels on the starboard 
 tack is about two inches to the left of the picture. 
 
NATURE'S LAWS AND THE MAKING OF PICTURES 
 
 In this illustration I have tried to show two 
 surfaces of cloud, and underneath, first a slope 
 of wet shining sand, and then the rounded surface 
 of the sea. The light upper layer of mottled 
 cirrus shows a gently curving under surface, and 
 the lines of dapple vanish away towards points low 
 down on the far right, and nearer in on the left 
 of the drawing. Under this is a bank of fluffy 
 nimbus of all shapes. You will notice that as 
 these woolly clouds stretch away into the distance 
 
 they get more and more behind the horizon, peep- 
 ing up half hidden, and at last disappearing behind 
 the sea altogether. Then take the wet sand : it 
 slopes away towards the sea ; its vanishing-line is 
 somewhere about the hull of the nearest boat, for 
 you notice that the sails of the distant craft are 
 reflected in its surface. This would not be the 
 case if the sand were level, for then the reflection 
 would only be the usual length, viz. the length of 
 the mast repeated underneath. 
 
NATURE'S LAWS AND THE MAKING OF PICTURES 
 
 3i 
 
 When wading figures are introduced into 
 pictures, it is quite a common thing to see them 
 painted with the surface of the water cutting them 
 at various heights, as though some of them were 
 standing in holes in the sand. It is true that in 
 nature the water deepens suddenly at times, but 
 in this case the character and form of the water 
 change too. Here I have supposed the eye of 
 the artist to be as high above the sloping sand as 
 the shoulder-blades of the bathers ; therefore the 
 vanishing-line of that plane cuts through all the 
 figures at that same part. So far all is easy ; but 
 when we come to guess how far up the water cuts 
 them, mistakes may easily be made. For instance, 
 take a pencil and continue downwards the figure 
 of the man on the right, so that the water cuts his 
 knees ; you will see at once how very wrong he 
 looks. 
 
 A simple way to make your figures look 
 correct is as follows : — Mark the position of the 
 heel of your man ; from the margin of the sea 
 rule a line through the heel to some point on the 
 vanishing-line of the plane. Exactly over this 
 point make a dot on the horizon, and from this 
 dot rule a line back to join the first line on the 
 margin of the sea. This will cut the figure at his 
 correct water-line. 
 
 Bv the way, you must rub out the heels of 
 your figures when you have finished using them 
 to measure with, tor in nature v<>u will never see 
 the submerged part in the same correct proportion 
 as the half that is out of water. The refraction 
 of the transparent sea always flattens objects seen 
 beneath the surface. Very few artists are bold 
 enough to copy what they see in nature when 
 they paint people in the water, though the re- 
 fracted part of the form looks very well when it 
 is properly done. (See Millais's " Ophelia.") 
 
 When the surface of water is perfectly smooth, 
 the reflections of upright objects are seen directly 
 underneath them, and of just the same size as 
 the original. The vanishing-lines of the real 
 objects, when they are horizontal, are repeated in 
 the image, so that the lines of the reality and the 
 lines of its reflection vanish in the same points. 
 When the object throwing the reflection is slant- 
 ing, like the bowsprit or the main boom in the 
 drawing, you can drop perpendiculars, making 
 the part below equal to the part above. If you 
 prefer, you can do as I have done in the case of 
 the roof beyond. Take a vanishing-point for 
 the reflection as far below the horizon as that of 
 the real object is above it. All the vertical lines 
 of the building are simply repeated beneath. 
 
32 NATURE'S LAWS AND 
 
 vn 
 
 k 
 
 . VP 3 
 
 When we come to reflections in sloping surfaces, 
 matters are different. According to the direction 
 of the slope, the reflection will be turned to the 
 right or to the left, lengthened or shortened. To 
 be correct, you must drop lines from the corners 
 of your object at right angles to the slope, and 
 then repeat them. The reflections of the chimneys 
 in the wet roofs are instances oi this. 
 
 MAKING OF PICTURES 
 
 Supposing the water to be gently heaving, you 
 will find the reflection to be cut up into a number 
 of zigzags, as the slope of the surface pulls the 
 image to the right or the left. In the drawing 
 of the fishing-boats, I have supposed the swell to 
 be rolling towards you with alternate concave and 
 convex curves. The result is that the image is 
 not only first lengthened and then shortened, but 
 
NATURE'S LAWS AND THE MAKING OF PICTURES 
 
 33 
 
 some parts are reflected upside down, and others 
 the right way up, in the same way that you can 
 see your face in the concave front or in the convex 
 back of a spoon. 
 
 If you study rippled water, you will find an 
 infinite variety of curves and twists, which some- 
 times pull the image into very graceful lines. 
 This is especially the case when the waves are 
 not so steep as to break up the image too much. 
 
 When the face of the water is ruffled by wind, 
 the reflecting surfaces are so much cut up, and 
 lie at so many different angles, that it is quite 
 impossible to trace any shape in the reflection. 
 You will only find certain parts of the water 
 darker where the innumerable little slopes catch 
 each its tiny reflection of the object over- 
 head. As a rule, in this case the colour depends 
 on the hue of the water, not the object. 
 
 •mmn; frh 
 
 If two or more men of equal size stand at 
 different distances from you, they will appear 
 larger or smaller in exact proportion as they are 
 far or near. For instance, the man in the middle 
 of this picture is twice as far off as the man on 
 the right ; therefore he is half his height. The 
 third man is three times the distance, and there- 
 fore one-third the height, and so on as far as the 
 eye can see. 
 
 Now the nearest man may be i o yards from 
 you, and the next man 20 ; or they may be 50 
 and 100 yards respectively : the rule holds good 
 just the same. 
 
 There is a very curious property about this 
 drawing. The men look nearer or farther in pro- 
 portion as you hold the picture near to or farther 
 from your eye. Hold it an inch from your face, 
 and the sailors seem to be standing 8 or 9 feet 
 apart. Now hold it at arm's length, and they will 
 look more than 20 feet apart. Put the picture 
 on the mantelpiece, and look at it across the room, 
 
 and they will seem a long way from you and from 
 each other. 
 
 It is most important that artists should under- 
 stand how different are the effects their work may 
 produce according as it is seen from near or far off. 
 All the alterations of distance you can observe in 
 this little sketch will be much more marked in a 
 large picture, where, owing to the colour and light 
 and shade, there will be a certain amount of illusion. 
 Very often an artist begins to alter a picture which 
 is perfectly right from one point of view, just 
 because he has happened to catch sight of it from 
 another distance. It is quite possible to paint a 
 subject that will be correct in drawing and look 
 fairly right from different points of view, but you 
 must be careful to draw most of your objects in 
 profile. If you paint a figure, you must not make 
 one foot nearer than the other. The moment you 
 introduce into your picture any fixed distance fore- 
 shortened, or any object with lines at right angles 
 in it, such as a box or a house, you fix the distance- 
 
34 
 
 NATURE'S LAWS AND THE MAKING OF PICTURES 
 
 point — that is to say, the distance from which the 
 picture must be viewed in order that it may look 
 right. 
 
 Very few modern artists seem to understand the 
 importance of this simple rule. Having chosen a 
 wide angle for their subject, they give themselves 
 endless trouble, cutting down the sizes of objects 
 in the foreground, and making the whole picture 
 
 look wrong, just because they happen to have 
 caught sight of the work from a little distance. 
 
 This and the following drawing show how a 
 picture differs according as it is painted from close 
 to the subject or from far off — in other words, with 
 a short or a long distance-point. Each of them can 
 be made to look correct, if you only hold it the 
 right distance from your eye. 
 
 This picture was drawn from close under the 
 bows of the ship. You will notice that the bow- 
 sprit is very large, and the mizen mast very small, 
 and that the white bands and lines of the ports 
 taper very rapidly towards the after end of the 
 two-decker. Consequently, seen from a little way 
 
 off, the whole looks out of proportion and dis- 
 torted. In spite of this, however, our battle-ship 
 has an air of importance, not to say grandeur ; and 
 if you look at the drawing from about three 
 inches distance, the twisted appearance goes away 
 altogether. 
 
NATURE'S LAWS AND THE MAKING OF PICTURES 
 
 35 
 
 This shows the ship as she would look if you 
 drew her through a telescope from some miles 
 away. Here, though the direction is the same as 
 in the last plate, everything is as though it were 
 drawn to one scale ; each spar is in exact propor- 
 tion ; the men at the fore end of the ship are just 
 the same size as those at the after end ; the ports 
 and the stripes are the same width all along. Now 
 such a picture might delight a sailor, but it is, 
 nevertheless, rather uninteresting. It only looks 
 correct when held more than six feet from the 
 eye ; and it is no more exciting than a rigging 
 plan from a shipbuilder's drawing office. 
 
 These two pictures touch the two extremes. 
 But you will understand that between the very 
 wide-angle picture and the very narrow you have 
 
 a great range of distances, all of which can be used 
 for different pictures. The main considerations 
 are : first, the place in which your work is likelv 
 to be seen ; second, the effect you wish to produce, 
 or the story you have to tell. Bustle and anima- 
 tion will be best shown in a crowded wide-angle 
 picture ; so also will great size and grandeur ; but 
 it will be at the expense of correct proportion when 
 the work is seen a little way off. The narrow- 
 angle picture is suitable for simple subjects, broad 
 in treatment, and meant to be looked at from a 
 good way off, such as a poster to be seen across a 
 street, or the decoration for a large hall. An altar- 
 piece should only embrace a very small angle, so 
 that it may look well from the body of the 
 church. 
 
36 
 
 NATURE'S LAWS AND THE MAKING OF PICTURES 
 
 In the next four drawings I have tried to show 
 how a figure subject is altered by the choice of a 
 long or short point of view. First we have a very 
 wide-angle picture. You will notice the left foot 
 of the nearest man is very much larger than the 
 right. Though the figures are all fairly close 
 together, yet there is a great difference in the size 
 of them. The shadows in the foreground are more 
 like maps than markings on a foreshortened plane. 
 Observe also that the roof and sides of the little 
 house vanish in points only a short way outside 
 the edges of the sketch. All these are the clear 
 
 and evident signs of a short distance-point picture. 
 The nearest man, indeed, is but eight feet from you. 
 The effect on the mind of the spectator is that he 
 feels that the scene is being enacted quite close to 
 him. For that very reason this point of view is 
 always impressive, if the subject be well portrayed, 
 though the great size of the objects in the fore- 
 ground will cause the picture to look very wrong 
 when it is seen from a little way off. However, if 
 painted very large, and hung in such a position that 
 it can only be seen at short range, such a subject 
 might pass. 
 
NATURE'S LAWS AND THE MAKING OF PICTURES 
 
 37 
 
 In this drawing we have the same five men in 
 exactly the same positions, but as seen from a point 
 farther away. Now when you look at him you no 
 longer feel as though you could stretch out your 
 hand and touch the nearest man on the shoulder. 
 The shadows on the ground are still rather like 
 maps, and there is a good deal of difference in 
 the relative size of the figures. The house is 
 now much larger in proportion, but the vanishing- 
 points of the roof and the sides are still rather too 
 close in ; it will only look right at a distance of 
 about six inches. Clearly, then, it will be better 
 
 tor most purposes to choose a longer distance- 
 point. 
 
 On the next page our point of view is much 
 farther away, and the effect on the picture is to 
 make the figures more of one size. The house is 
 now much larger, and the two vanishing-points are 
 a long way apart ; hence the drawing no longer looks 
 distorted when you see it a little way off. At the 
 same time you will notice that the subject begins 
 to look rather more tame and uninteresting. This 
 cannot be avoided ; the longer the distance-point, 
 the more tame the composition will become. 
 
38 
 
 NATURE'S LAWS AND THE MAKING OF PICTURES 
 
 The same subject, but from a still greater 
 distance. Although the men are standing at 
 precisely the same distance from each other as in 
 the first of this series, there is now very little 
 difference in the sizes of them. It now becomes 
 a very unexciting affair, and to counteract this 
 
 tendency you must put more swing and action into 
 your picture the narrower the angle becomes. 
 Actors have, when they play to a very large house, 
 to exaggerate the movement and make up for the 
 same reason, viz. the distance at which they are 
 seen. 
 
NATURE'S LAWS AND THE MAKING OF PICTURES 
 
 39 
 
 I think I may give an idea of wide and 
 narrow angles by introducing here some of the 
 works of the old masters. First, the wonderful 
 
 short - distance portrait by Van Eyck. This 
 picture must have been painted long before 
 the rules of perspective were formulated ; none 
 
NATURE'S LAWS AND THE MAKING OF PICTURES 
 
 41 
 
 of the lines vanish exactly to any point, and 
 yet, looked at from the right distance, it is 
 quite a marvel how very nearly correct it is. 
 Fancy what an eye the man must have had, to 
 have worked out all those proportions without anv 
 rules to guide him ; yet look how lovingly it is all 
 carried through, even to the reflection in the mirror. 
 The relative size of every little object seems to have 
 been noted, down to the least fraction : even the 
 clogs in the corner are painted different sizes, just 
 because one of them happens to be a trifle nearer 
 than the other. The tiny dog it seems to me 
 would not stay in the foreground whilst the artist 
 worked, and was drawn from farther away. Had 
 he really been as near as he is painted, you would 
 look down more upon his back. I expect, too, that 
 he would have looked a little larger, placed as he 
 is right in the foregound of such a short distance- 
 point picture, and that when Van Eyck came to 
 paint him he had not pluck enough to draw him 
 the right size, but cooked things a bit, just as 
 countless painters since his day have done, when- 
 ever they painted foreground objects in wide-angle 
 pictures. There can be no doubt that this work 
 must have been painted in a small room, and that 
 Van Eyck went right ahead, and simply tried to 
 paint everything just as he saw it. Moreover, the 
 beauty of the handling and the delicacy of the 
 finish would lead people to go close up when they 
 looked at it. Then a family portrait would very 
 
 likely hang in an ordinary room, where it could 
 never be seen from very far off, and thus would 
 always look its best. 
 
 The splendid portrait group on the opposite 
 page is a complete contrast in every way to 
 the Van Eyck. Standing close to it, one feels 
 just as though we were watching the dissection 
 through a telescope from a distance. I fancy 
 that Rembrandt must have painted it to hang 
 in some large hall where the greater part of the 
 people saw it from a long way off. You will notice 
 that the heads of all the students are very nearly the 
 same size, though there is evidently a considerable 
 space between them. The dead man in the centre 
 of the composition is all to one scale, and though 
 his feet are much nearer to you than his head, yet 
 they are only a very little larger than they would 
 have been, had he been drawn in profile. The 
 result is that, when you are too close to the picture, 
 the body and legs look very much too short, and 
 you wonder if the students have been cut out of 
 card, there seems so little room between them. If 
 you slowly step back from the work, the dead 
 man seems to draw out longer and longer the 
 farther you get away, and there is at last plenty 
 of room for the learned doctors to stand without 
 crowding. Though very highly finished, the 
 "Anatomy Lesson" has a longer distance -point 
 than any other picture I know. 
 
 G 
 
Here again is a wide-angle, short distance-point The relative sizes of the heads, the foreshortening 
 picture, for the most part faithfully carried through. of the book, and the money almost close enough 
 
NATURE'S LAWS AND THE MAKING OF PICTURES 
 
 43 
 
 for you to stretch out your hand and pick up, the introduced the ornamental door-head on the right, 
 
 candlestick and piles of deeds, are all in keeping. so evidently painted from quite another position. 
 
 One wonders that the artist, after taking pains The distance-point of the mouldings here must be 
 
 to draw all these objects so correctly, should have much farther away than that of the rest of the picture. 
 
 The pavement in this fine composition of 
 Tintoretto's is evidently worked out by rule, and 
 one might almost fancy that the master may have 
 made use of it in planning the arrangement of all 
 these figures, for it shows through the thin paint in 
 many places, as though it had been one of the first 
 things to be drawn. Notice how carefully the 
 
 scale of everything is made to suit the short 
 distance-point chosen. Also that the vivacity of 
 the action is in a measure owing to the wide 
 angle subtended by the subject. How absolutely 
 different is the effect produced on the mind by 
 the two pictures which follow. 
 
NATURE'S LAWS AND THE MAKING OF PICTURES 
 
 45 
 
 When so many pictures were painted to hang 
 in churches, I have no doubt that certain traditions 
 were handed down from master to pupil, as to the 
 use of perspective. A great many of the old 
 masters were very clever in the means they used 
 to make their pictures look correct from both far 
 and near. This they did partly by keeping the 
 principal group all to one scale, so that the work 
 looked correct even when seen right across the 
 church, and also partly by avoiding foreshortened 
 objects, which might make it seem wrong when 
 seen quite close. 
 
 Notice how careful Raphael has been here to 
 avoid anything which might fix the distance. The 
 angel with the flowers and the girl with her hands 
 crossed may be ten feet away or they might be 
 twenty feet, according as you stand near or far from 
 the picture. The one exception is the pattern on 
 the floor, which certainly does suggest a rather wider 
 angle than one would expect from the grouping of 
 the figures. I think the master may have felt this, 
 and painted the markings rather faint, so that they 
 should not be noticed from far off, but only be seen 
 when the spectator was close to the picture. 
 
 Here is another picture in which the artist has 
 been very careful to avoid anything which should 
 make his work look wrong when seen from too far 
 or too near. You will notice how carefully every 
 foot is hidden ; there are no rows of beams one 
 
 behind the other, or right angles foreshortened ; 
 no moon or sun to fix the number of degrees the 
 subject subtends. In fact, you cannot say that 
 the picture looks better from any one point than 
 from another. 
 
46 NATURE'S LAWS AND THE MAKING OF PICTURES 
 
NATURE'S LAWS AND THE MAKING OF PICTURES 
 
 47 
 
 Here again is a composition in which the artist 
 has been dodgy in avoiding anything which might 
 look out of drawing when the picture is seen from 
 too far or too near. It is quite curious to notice 
 how carefully Rubens has avoided fixing the distance- 
 point. Of course we see that the group of Sabines 
 on the grand stand are farther away than the fat 
 ladies in the front, but there is nothing to show 
 how far ; and the foreshortened horse, which might 
 be expected to show us, has his head cut down 
 small and his hind feet made so indistinct that it 
 would be quite impossible for any one to say how 
 far off he is. Even the architecture seems to have 
 been painted in a soft, friable, drop-scene manner, so 
 that we should not know its distance. The planting 
 of one foot on the ground nearer than the other 
 is most carefully avoided throughout. Perhaps 
 you will say, Why not construct all works of art in 
 such a way that the distance at which they are seen 
 will not affect them ? A great deal can no doubt 
 be done in this way, but just think how many 
 
 scenes would have to be left unattempted. You 
 must never introduce a pattern or any foreshortened 
 surface, such as a carpet, or a wall-paper, or buildings 
 with any equal spaces or ornament upon them, unless, 
 indeed, you draw them in profile like a builder's plan. 
 All figures except those in the distance must stand or 
 kneel in profile, or, if turned any other way, their 
 feet must be hidden from view. All ships and 
 boats, carts, horses, dogs, and cattle must be broad- 
 side on, unless they are a long way off. Of course 
 anything with corners forming right angles, such as a 
 box or table, must either stand square or be left out. 
 I fancy the Greek and Roman painters were limited 
 in their treatment of subjects by those very same 
 ideas, for they seldom foreshortened anything in 
 their designs. 
 
 On the whole, perhaps it is better to be con- 
 fined to one sort of treatment than to produce a 
 work, half of which is painted from one point of 
 view and half from another, and which therefore 
 never looks right from either. 
 
4 8 
 
 NATURE'S LAWS AND THE MAKING OF PICTURES 
 
 I now propose to go on to the geo- 
 metrical part of our subject. I have put 
 this off to the last, because I know how 
 difficult it is to induce a painter to take 
 any interest in accurate measurements, 
 angles, ruled lines, or indeed in any exact 
 methods. The great bulk of artists simply 
 train eye and hand, only trusting to rough 
 sketches and luck when they attempt to 
 depict any rapidly moving scene. Perhaps 
 it is not wonderful that they should. All 
 their lives they have been observing care- 
 fully and transferring with infinite pains 
 what is before them. They know how 
 wonderfully perfect both eye and hand 
 can become, and therefore mistrust any 
 mechanical aid. I would point out, how- 
 ever, that when the mind has been trained 
 to theorise and reason out the problems of 
 vanishing planes and sloping surfaces, the eye is 
 trained at the same time, and is much more keen 
 to observe, noting many truths which before were 
 quite hidden. 
 
 If you stand before a window and look out at a 
 number of parallel lines, such as rays of sunlight, 
 courses of brick, or edges of straight pavement, 
 you will find that the lines look shorter the more 
 they are seen end on ; and when at last you look at 
 a line that is so completely foreshortened that it 
 appears only a dot, you will see that this is the 
 vanishing-point of all the other parallel lines. 
 
 Here is a diagram. AB is the glass of the 
 window, and the sloping lines RRR represent 
 rays of sunlight. To the eye of a spectator 
 at E the rays will appear to vanish in the point 
 V.P.S.R., which is exactly between his eye and 
 the sun. If you wish to represent on the window- 
 pane the exact appearance of the lines as seen from 
 E, you have only to draw them to E.P.S.R., and 
 they will be correct. If the sun is at an altitude 
 of 40", the point on the glass can be found by 
 drawing a line from the eye which makes an angle 
 of 40° with a line drawn to the horizon. 
 
 It is very important that you should fix in your 
 mind clearly that all parallel lines appear to vanish 
 in a point in the far distance, and that, further- 
 more, this point may be represented on a trans- 
 parent plane, such as the glass in a window, by 
 
 simply marking a dot on the glass exactly between 
 your eye and the point, like this • 
 
 By the way, glass windows in real life slightly 
 bend those rays which pass through them at an angle, 
 so we ought to make a small allowance for refrac- 
 tion if we wish to carry these window-pane pictures 
 out exactly. It is hardly worth while troubling 
 about them, though, for it is only in the extreme 
 corners of the pictures that it would be noticeable. 
 
 As there is a good deal of confusion in the 
 minds of artists as to the true principles of the 
 science of perspective, I have tried in the next 
 diagram to show what is meant by projecting 
 objects on to a plane. 
 
NATURE'S LAWS AND THE MAKING OF PICTURES 
 
 49 
 
 Here is a man drawing on a window-pane the 
 objects outside. He need not know any rules 
 to do this. The only important thing for him 
 to remember is to keep his head quite still, and to 
 shut one eye. If he draws round the outline of 
 everything he sees outside, he will make a perfectly 
 correct picture of the subject, which will look right 
 when it is viewed from the proper distance. 
 
 Now, on the pane of glass there must be one 
 point which is nearer to the man's eye than any 
 other part of the surface. We will put a dot on 
 this point, and call it C, the centre ; it is the 
 vanishing-point of all lines at right angles to the 
 sheet of glass. We will call the glass the plane of 
 our picture. If the distance from the man's eye 
 to C, the centre, is laid down along the surface of 
 the glass, it will give us the distance-point D, which 
 is also the vanishing-point ot all lines at an angle 
 of 45" to the plane of the picture. The distance- 
 point may be laid down in any direction, up or 
 down, on the right hand or on the left, or it may 
 be measured in the direction ot any of the corners 
 —in fact, wherever it is wanted. In the present 
 picture I have only used four. I have supposed 
 the house outside to have its side parallel to the 
 plane of the sheet of glass. The end of the house 
 
 with the windows in it is therefore at right angles 
 to the plane of the picture ; and all horizontal 
 lines on it, such as the tops of the windows, the 
 sills and bars, vanish in C, the centre. I have made 
 the roof slope at an angle of 45 ; therefore the 
 roofs painted on the glass vanish in the two Z)'s, 
 the nearer sloping up towards the upper D, and 
 the farther roof vanishing down towards the ]) 
 underneath the centre. The diagonal squares on 
 the pavement vanish towards the D's on the right 
 and left, because the sides of them are at an ansle 
 of 45 . By means of the diagonals we are able to 
 measure any distances we may wish along the fore- 
 shortened side of the house. If the man goes on 
 drawing the view towards the corners of the glass, 
 making his picture take in a wider angle, the 
 picture will look strangely distorted when it is 
 seen from a little farther back. You will notice 
 the lower squares seem to be pulling out into 
 rather long, queer shapes when they are far away 
 from the centre, though they would look quite 
 correct from the man's own point of view, for the 
 lop-sided lozenges drawn upon the glass will seem 
 square when seen foreshortened. 
 
 On the next page there is a picture of the 
 house as drawn by the man. 
 
5° 
 
 NATURE'S LAWS AND THE MAKING OF PICTURES 
 
 
 . D 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 111 
 
 
 
 /' f 3 ^. 
 
 
 
 
 
 Aibrecht Diirer nearly four hundred years ago 
 made use of a glass mounted in a frame with a 
 peep-hole fixed before it to enable him to draw 
 
 more correctly. I only came across this old wood- 
 cut by chance. I introduce it to show the pains 
 he took to train his mind and eye. 
 
NATURE'S LAWS AND THE MAKING OF PICTURES 
 
 
 
 
 r 
 
 
 
 
 
 i^. ~~- ""1*4. ."^ ' --i. **0&kSs* 
 
 
 
 
 
 Distance-points can be used in a great many 
 different ways, as, for instance, to draw a bird's- 
 eye view from an inaccessible point. In this case 
 I have taken a map of a seaport, and have covered 
 it with squares of equal sizes. I have coloured 
 them like a chess-board, to prevent confusion 
 between one square and another. Before squaring, 
 be careful to select the best point of sight, and 
 keep your chess-board parallel to the plane of your 
 picture. Then divide a base-line along the bottom 
 of your sketch into as many equal parts as you 
 have squares along the side of your map, and from 
 each tick run lines away to your centre ; this you 
 will have placed at such a height as you consider 
 best for your purposes. In the present drawing, 
 if we suppose the chequers on my map to be 1000 
 feet square, then my point of sight is 1500 feet 
 above the sea, for the horizon is a square and a 
 half above the base-line. 
 
 When you have ruled all the lines to the centre 
 C, start as many more from the same ticks to the 
 distance-points away outside the edge of your 
 picture. This D may be as far out as you like, 
 but you will bear in mind that a long distance- 
 point will make your picture look right only when 
 it is seen from a good way off. On the other 
 hand, too short a distance-point will cause your 
 picture to look very distorted, unless it is held 
 quite close to your eye. These lines to D are 
 
 really at 45 to the lines running to C ; so, when- 
 ever they cross each other, rule some more lines 
 parallel to the base-line. 
 
 Where the lines to C cross the last of these, 
 
 1 
 
 
 ^2 
 
 
 A 
 
 
 
 
 
 (f \ 
 el 
 
 
 
 
 t 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 M 
 
 1 
 \ 
 
 
 • 
 
 
 
 1 — — - 
 
 
 \ ./ 
 
 
 
 
 ■ : 1 
 
 
 
 run more lines diagonally to D. You can go on 
 making a zigzag into infinity, until the whole 
 surface of your sea is covered with measured 
 distances. After this you have only to trace out 
 on your perspective drawing the outline of your 
 map, and the size of the squares will serve to give 
 
5 2 NATURE'S LAWS AND THE MAKING OF PICTURES 
 
 the right scale to the ships and other objects you may wish to introduce. At an elevation of 
 1500 feet the round of the earth's surface would be well marked. I have kept the visible 
 horizon a good bit below the real one, and the more distant zigzags ought to be 
 flattened also. 
 
 Wherever you have vanishing lines in a picture at right angles to its 
 plane, you will always be able to cut distances along them by using one 
 of the Z)'s. The D over or under the centre can be used to measure 
 distances along upright surfaces, in the same way as the D at the 
 « side is used to mark off equal spaces on horizontal surfaces. 
 
 There are a great many ways of drawing columns, railings, 
 or, in tact, any objects which have to be equally spaced. 
 
 In the present drawing I ruled squares of equal size 
 on a picture of a frieze, and drew an equal number of 
 squares in perspective, using the D over the 
 centre for this purpose, though the one 
 underneath would have served 
 equally well. 
 
NATURE'S LAWS AND THE MAKING OF PICTURES 
 
 53 
 
 I began from the nearest end of the frieze, 
 which I divided into five equal parts with four ticks. 
 From each of these I ran lines away to C, then 
 five more lines to D. Where these crossed the 
 lines to C I ruled five more upright lines, and so 
 on, working zigzags all down the line. After all the 
 squares are drawn, you may colour them, and also 
 the squares on the original, to prevent your losing 
 
 your place, and then all you have to do is to trace 
 the horses and warriors bit by bit. You will notice 
 here that my distance-point is rather too short, 
 and the result is a great difference between the 
 sizes of the nearest horse and of those beyond. 
 For most purposes it will be better to keep D 
 farther away from C. 
 
 In the next three plates I have drawn diagrams 
 on the right, showing in profile the object to be 
 drawn, the plane of the picture, and the artist at 
 work. On the left is the finished drawing, just as 
 it would appear from the painter's point of view ; 
 he is drawing on the window-pane as before. 
 
 The bridge outside will appear to him fore- 
 shortened, and the nearest arch will seem much 
 larger than the middle one, whilst the middle arch 
 also will look a bit larger than the fir one. The 
 horizontal lines will all appear to run towards C, 
 the centre, which is the nearest part of the glass to 
 his eye ; and the lines at 45° will vanish in the 
 point D, the distance-point, which is the vanishing- 
 point of all lines at an angle of 45 to the plane of 
 the picture. This being so, it will be possible to 
 construct a drawing which shall look absolutely 
 correct when it is seen from the right point of 
 view. First we will rule the horizon and mark 
 the centre ; under this we will mark a Z), taking 
 
 o 
 
 care that the distance from D to C is a suitable 
 one for the purpose for which the drawing is 
 intended. By the way, it may sometimes be more 
 convenient to use a D at the top instead of under- 
 neath, but this will not affect the look of the 
 drawing in any way. Next we will rule a line 
 which is technically known as a measuring-staff. 
 As you will see by the diagram on the right, it is 
 always parallel to the plane of the picture. It may 
 be placed in any convenient position. On it you 
 mark off the spaces you wish to project — they may 
 be in feet, inches, or to any scale you may wish- 
 starting from the point where the base of your 
 bridge, continued towards you, cuts the staff ; 
 from these marks you have only to rule a number 
 of lines to D (see left-hand diagram), and where 
 these intersect the base of the bridge, mark up- 
 rights. A line through the crowns of the arches 
 will run to C, as will also all the courses of 
 brick. 
 
54 
 
 NATURE'S LAWS AND THE MAKING OF PICTURES 
 
 If the man draws on the window-pane sloping 
 lines with equal spaces marked along them, such 
 as I have drawn here, the two lines AM and BS 
 will appear to his eye to vanish in the point VP. 
 You can find this point by ruling a line from the 
 eye to the plane of the picture, parallel to AM 
 and BS. It, however, we wish to mark off equal 
 spaces along AM, it will no longer be correct to 
 use lines to D, because AM is not at right angles 
 to the measuring-staff. We must therefore find 
 a measuring-point which will enable us to transfer 
 divisions marked upon the staff to the vanishing 
 lines. This is done as follows. Take the distance 
 from VP to the eye, and with a sweep of your 
 compasses strike an arc from the eye to the plane 
 of the picture. This gives MP, the measuring- 
 point of VP, and because the distance from VP to 
 the eye is equal to the distance from VP to MP, 
 therefore all spaces marked along the measuring- 
 staff can be transferred to the line ^Mby ruling 
 lines to MP. All these measuring-lines which 
 I have ruled parallel to the line from the man's 
 eye to MP will appear to him to vanish in the 
 measuring-point. When we apply these rules to 
 a perspective drawing, it is not necessary to work 
 out from an actual eye standing out from C at 
 some distance from the surface of the paper, unless 
 
 it be to make the principles more plain to a student. 
 In practice we need only mark off the distance 
 from the eye to C, and this, as I have already said, 
 will give us the distance-point. This D may be 
 set off in any direction from C, according to the 
 needs of the drawing. In the present case AM is 
 sloping upwards ; I have therefore used D on the 
 right of the centre, though D on the left would 
 also give the same result. At D you rule a line 
 with the same slope as AM, and where this cuts 
 a perpendicular from C you will mark your vanish- 
 ing-point VP. You will rule your lines AM and 
 BS at any convenient place, and at M erect the 
 measuring-staff and scale. Then take the distance 
 from VP to D, and sweep in an arc to a perpen- 
 dicular dropped from C, and this will give MP, 
 the vanishing-point of all the measuring-lines. 
 Where these cut the line AM you will mark your 
 spaces. If you can once grasp the principles which 
 are involved in making this small drawing, you 
 will find the rest of perspective quite easy to 
 follow. I would advise you to make several 
 drawings of such a diagram before you pass on to 
 the next lesson, sometimes laying the line down 
 on the ground for a change, and making use of 
 vanishing-points and measuring-points laid off 
 along the horizon. 
 
NATURE'S LAWS AND THE MAKING OF PICTURES 
 
 55 
 
 I will now suppose that our man draws on his 
 window-pane a box tilted up at an angle of 50 
 with the horizon. The sides of the box will seem 
 to his eye to vanish in a point on the plane of the 
 glass which I will call VPi. To find this point 
 I simply measured off an angle of 50 at the man's 
 eye. I will suppose the box to be 2 feet long ; 
 so we must, if we want to measure it correctly, 
 find a measuring-point for VPi. So, sticking the 
 point of the compasses in VPi, we strike the arc 
 from the man's eye to the plane of the picture. 
 This gives us MPi, and with a measuring-staff 
 marked with 2 feet it will be easy to run lines 
 from the marks on the staff to MP I. If we 
 suppose the ends of the box to be at right angles 
 to the sides of it, we must find a vanishing-point 
 for them. To do this we need only draw another 
 line from the eye to the plane of the picture 
 which will stand at right angles to the line 
 from VPi to the eye. VPi will be marked where 
 this line cuts the plane of the picture, and is the 
 vanishing-point for all lines at an angle of 40 
 below the horizon. 
 
 In the plan, of course, we need only draw the 
 end of the box at right angles to the sides, top, 
 
 and bottom, but in the perspective drawing the 
 ends will vanish down towards VP 2. 
 
 Now suppose the box to be 1 foot wide and 
 1 foot deep. The width is easy to measure, 
 because the top line of the end of the box is 
 parallel to the plane of the picture — that is to say, 
 the window-pane the man is drawing on. We 
 have simply to take a foot on the measuring-staff, 
 and carry it away at right angles along the end 
 of the box. When it comes to the depth, we 
 must, if we want to draw the ends correctly, find 
 a measuring-point for VP 2. One point of the 
 compasses must be stuck in / Pi, whilst the 
 other point strikes an arc from the eye to the 
 plane of the picture at MPi. The measuring- 
 staff will then be marked with a foot, and the 
 line ruled to MPl as before. 
 
 Although in this case I have made the measur- 
 ing and vanishing points above and below the 
 horizon, they can be quite as well used to the 
 right and left, or indeed they may be used 
 diagonally if needful. If the vanishing and 
 measuring points are used along the horizon line, 
 the measuring-staff will be laid down horizontally. 
 In this case you may call it a base-line. 
 
56 
 
 NATURE'S LAWS AND THE MAKING OF PICTURES 
 
 Should you ask for a definition of the 
 centre, you will often have very strange 
 answers. " Oh, it is a point opposite 
 your eye," or, " Well, it is the centre 
 of vision." What that may mean I 
 cannot say, for your eye moves from 
 one part of the picture to another 
 whilst you look at it ; and every part 
 of this surface may be said to be 
 opposite your eye just at the moment 
 you are looking at it. 
 
 The centre is a fixed point on the 
 plane of your picture. It is the nearest 
 part of that plane to your eye, and 
 cannot be moved from its place except 
 by moving the plane itself, or shifting 
 the position of your eye. 
 
 Let us suppose our man draws on 
 the window-panes of a bow window. 
 He will have a fresh centre for each pane of glass, 
 for the side windows are at an angle to the middle 
 one ; but each centre can only be in one spot, viz. 
 
 the nearest point to his eye on the surface 
 of each sheet of glass. 
 
 If some one should open the window a 
 little whilst our man is drawing on it, the 
 centre would be moved away to a fresh 
 point on the left, and his sketch would 
 have to be rubbed out and begun again, 
 as I will now show you. 
 
 When the window is shut the sides of 
 the squares at right angles to the glass 
 will vanish in the centre, and the sides of 
 the squares parallel to the glass will be 
 simply ruled straight across. If, however, 
 the window is opened a little and the 
 plane ot the glass altered, the squares, 
 though they would still look just the 
 same from the man's point of view, would 
 have to be represented differently on the 
 glass. The sides of the squares, which 
 were ruled straight across in the first case, 
 must now vanish to a point a long way 
 on the left, and the foreshortened lines, 
 which vanished in the point nearest to the 
 man's eye on the glass, now no longer do 
 so, for the glass has changed its angle, 
 moving the centre more to the left; so we 
 must now call the point FPi or 2. The 
 square on the right must now be drawn 
 
 larger than those on the left, which grow smaller 
 and smaller the farther they are from the plane 
 of the picture. 
 
NATURE'S LAWS AND THE MAKING OF PICTURES 
 
 57 
 
 Here are three drawings to show how a scene 
 is changed in appearance by canting the plane ot 
 the picture. 
 
 In the first one I have supposed the centre to 
 be at the foot of the flagstaff on the distant jetty. 
 I have fixed on this point because the Jines of the 
 foreshortened sides of the buildings appear to 
 vanish there. The plane of my picture is there- 
 
 fore parallel to the edge of the quay, and also to 
 the ends of the buildings in shadow. This being 
 so, I have only to rule all their edges square across 
 the picture ; and any equal spaces, such as lines 
 of windows or bricks, need only be measured off 
 equally along them, and the distance-point can 
 be used for all the spacing ot the windows ot the 
 foreshortened faces. 
 
 I 
 
58 
 
 NATURE'S LAWS AND THE MAKING OF PICTURES 
 
 In the next drawing I have supposed the artist 
 to turn a little to the right, slewing the plane ot 
 his picture round with him. The centre must of 
 course move too. I will now suppose it to lie on 
 the nearest pillar of the house in the middle. The 
 vanishing-point under the flagstaff must now be 
 called VP i, and to find VP2 for the quay-side 
 and the near ends of the buildings, you must take 
 a right angle at the eye, and this will cut the plane 
 a long way out on the right. To cut equal spaces 
 along the houses or quay, you must now use 
 measuring-points. MPi is just outside the edge 
 of the picture ; MP 2 is marked with a star ; it 
 
 is just over the left hand of the man in the gondola. 
 I have left all the measuring-lines used in the 
 foreground, so that the reader may understand 
 the method. They are very faint, but can be 
 made out in a strong light. 
 
 You will sometimes see a drawing of buildings 
 where the centre is placed quite near to the edge 
 of the picture. This is not a very good place for 
 it, because a drawing made in this fashion can only 
 look correct when it is seen obliquely, and people 
 as a rule stand in front of a picture when they 
 look at it, not at one side. 
 
NATURE'S LAWS AND THE MAKING OF PICTURES 
 
 59 
 
 It we turn once more to the right, slewing 
 our picture plane still more, we can still draw our 
 building from exactly the same point of view, 
 but everything must be changed, because the 
 centre is in a new position. The nearest point to 
 your eye on the imaginary sheet of glass on which 
 I will suppose this last subject to be drawn, is the 
 opening in the door at the head of the stairs in 
 the middle of the sketch. I P\ at the foot of the 
 flagstaff is now a long way to the left, outside the 
 limits of the drawing ; the measuring-point for 
 this line is just over the stern of the boat on the 
 
 right. VPi is away on the right, not quite so far 
 out as it was in the last drawing, but still a good 
 way beyond the edge ot the sketch. Its MP I 
 have marked with a circle ; it is on the second 
 pillar ot the house on the lett. You will be able 
 to find all the lines and scales I have used to 
 construct the buildings ; some ot the scales or 
 measuring-staffs are in the skv and the others are 
 on the water, but in each case you will notice that 
 they are ruled right across parallel to the plane of 
 the picture. 
 
6o 
 
 NATURE'S LAWS AND THE MAKING OF PICTURES 
 
 In order that these three drawings should be 
 constructed correctly, they had to be pinned on to 
 a large board. D was measured off overhead, and 
 the vanishing-points and measuring-points found. 
 You will notice in many places the marks of the 
 base-lines and measuring-staffs used to space the 
 windows, pillars, and posts, and to keep the 
 tower square and not longer on one side than 
 the other. 
 
 Perhaps I can make this more clear with a 
 diagram. In the upper part of it is the ground 
 plan of a building with a square tower beside it, 
 something like the last three drawings. Near the 
 lower left-hand corner I have marked the position 
 of the observer's eye. From this I have ruled a 
 number of lines to all the corners of the building, 
 and I will ask you to remember that, as all these 
 lines are seen end on, they will appear as dots on 
 
 the drawing. Across these I have ruled three 
 straight lines to represent the planes of the three 
 pictures. The upper one, you will notice, is parallel 
 to the ends of the houses and quay, and at right 
 angles to the line that runs from the eye to the 
 vanishing-point at the foot of the flagstaff. We may 
 therefore call this point the centre. All the lines 
 on the foreshortened sides of the houses will vanish 
 in it, and to cut equal distances, such as the windows 
 and pillars, we can use the distance-point D. This 
 will also help us to make the two sides of the 
 tower of equal width, so that the tower shall look 
 square and not oblong. 
 
 In the next picture the artist is supposed to 
 turn a little to the right, canting his picture plane 
 with him. The centre moves too, and as the building 
 is in no part of it parallel to the plane of this new 
 picture, we must find vanishing-points for the two 
 sides we see before us. To do this, v/e must rule 
 a line from the eye parallel to the long front ot 
 the house. This is a line in the plan, but in the 
 sketch it appears simply as a dot just underneath 
 the flagstaff. We will call it VPi. If you rule 
 another line at the eye at right angles to the last 
 one, it will give you the vanishing-point of the 
 short face of the house. 
 
NATURE'S LAWS AND THE MAKING OF PICTURES 
 
 61 
 
 This will be a long way on the right ; we will call 
 it VPz. You will find both VPi and VP2 marked 
 on the plane of the second picture, and also the two 
 measuring-points, and one of the distance-points, 
 its fellow D being on the left, outside the plan. 
 
 I have ruled the plane of the third picture a 
 
 little more inclined to the right, and have also kept 
 it a little nearer the eye, in order that the three 
 planes should be kept clear ot each other in the 
 diagram. The effect of this shortening of the 
 distance- point is simply to make the resulting 
 drawing a little smaller than the last drawing. 
 
 Here is a rough design for a picture. It is 
 built up from a number of studies and drawings 
 made at different times, and no doubt some of the 
 sketches were taken from objects too near, and 
 others from too far off, for their position in this 
 composition. 
 
 So long as it remained more or less a rough 
 idea for a picture, and not a finished work, it 
 might be possible to fudge along, using only eye 
 and rule of thumb for the proportions of the craft, 
 men, buildings, and bridges. 
 
6 2 
 
 NATURE'S LAWS AND THE MAKING OF PICTURES 
 
 The moment, however, I tried to carry the 
 sketch further, I found that I must fix my distances 
 
 by proper rules ; so I got a map of the City of 
 London, and by ruling lines from St. Saviour's 
 
 Church and the Monument to the spot from 
 which I had taken the original sketches, I found 
 my distance-point. It is marked on the little map 
 introduced here, and you will notice that it is 
 simply the distance from D to C laid off along 
 the plane of the picture. 
 
 When it came to transferring D to my canvas, 
 I had only to make the distance from D to C 
 bear the same proportion to the width of the 
 picture as it does in the map. Then nailing 
 the picture to the floor, face up, I put a bradawl 
 in the place where D should be, and with a chalked 
 string covered the whole surface of the water with 
 squares of equal size, as in the next plate. Then 
 I made a plan of the whole forefront of my 
 subject, also covered with chess-board squares, on 
 which I traced careful lv the water-lines of all the 
 craft in the picture. In the cases where these 
 
 were too long, or seemed twisted or out of ing-points for all my buildings, besides making 
 
 position, I made them right, and then I corrected sure that the keels and beams of my craft were at 
 
 the picture from the plan. right angles to each other. 
 
 By means of D I could also find proper vanish- Now all this ruling of lines and measuring of 
 
NATURES LAWS AND THE MAKING OF PICTURES 
 
 63 
 
 distances may sound very terrifying to any one 
 who has never tried it. In fact, however, it is 
 not at all difficult, provided you understand the 
 principles. And the day or two lost in working 
 out all the positions of your craft and buildings is 
 time well spent. It would, I believe, be quite 
 impossible to represent such a scene correctly 
 
 without rules of this sort to guide you. It was 
 convenient in this case to make the squares the 
 same width as the barges, and three squares equal 
 to the length. In this way I could add more 
 craft in any part of the picture, and yet make 
 sure of drawing them to scale. 
 
6 4 
 
 NATURE'S LAWS AND THE MAKING OF PICTURES 
 
 I was once asked to paint a picture of a squadron 
 of war-ships steaming in three columns. The size 
 of the men-of-war, and the proper spaces between 
 
 the divisions, were all given me, but it was at the 
 time quite impossible to paint the subject from 
 nature, because the ships were at the moment all 
 
NATURE'S LAWS AND THE MAKING OF PICTURES 
 
 65 
 
 in different parts of the world. I therefore made 
 a plan to scale of the vessels in the required posi- 
 tion, and after trying different ways of projecting 
 the plan on to the plane of my picture, I hit on 
 the following method, which, so far as I know, is 
 quite new. The first thing to do was to select a 
 good point of view, and, after one or two trials, I 
 settled on the point J) marked near the lower edge 
 of the plan. This point, once fixed, ties you down 
 to the direction from which all the ships must be 
 seen, and also to their relative sizes. If D were 
 farther back, the ships would be more of a size. 
 If D were closer in, the nearest ship would be very 
 much larger, and the others less in proportion. 
 The plane of the picture, being at right angles to 
 the surface of the sea, can be represented on the 
 map by a line. It was convenient in this case to 
 make the line coincide with the horizon ot the 
 picture I was going to construct, because I could 
 fix the positions of all the vessels by simply ruling 
 lines from D, which in this case represents the eye 
 of the spectator, through the ends of the ships, on 
 till they reach the line representing the plane of 
 the picture. In this way you have at once the 
 proper length of all your ships marked all along 
 the horizon. The next thing to do is to find out 
 the point to which the fore-and-aft lines of the 
 squadron will vanish. To do this it is only 
 necessary to rule on the plan a line from D 
 parallel to the course of the ships ; where this line 
 cuts the plane of the picture you will mark a point 
 to which the lines of ships will vanish. I have 
 marked the spot with a lighthouse, which I will 
 suppose to bear N.N.E. Now we must find a 
 vanishing-point for the yards, bridges, beams, and 
 all lines which are at right angles to the course 
 of the squadron. This is done by ruling a line on 
 the plane at D at right angles to the course of the 
 battle-ships ; then prolong the horizon to the left, 
 until it cuts this line, and you will have the point 
 required. It will bear W.N.W. from D. 
 
 The next thing you have to do is to decide at 
 what height you would wish to place the eye of the 
 spectator. You may fix any position you please. If 
 your eye is level with the foretop, all the tops will 
 be cut by the horizon. If it is level with the 
 bridge, all the bridges in the squadron will come 
 
 up to the horizon. In the present case I have sup- 
 posed the eye D to be just above the decks of our 
 battle-ships ; you can therefore begin drawing our 
 nearest vessel in the space marked off by the rays 
 from D through the ends of the ship marked in 
 the plan. You will keep the line of her deck just 
 below the horizon, and vanish all fore-and-aft lines 
 to the lighthouse. These fore-and-aft lines will 
 cut through all the ships astern in the same way, 
 all the mastheads being on one line, all the funnels 
 on another, and so on. The yards and bridges 
 will vanish towards the point a long way on the 
 left, and which bears W.N.W., and this point will 
 enable you to draw all the ships on the left in 
 proper proportion ; the yards and beams of the 
 ships in the near column being in the same vanish- 
 ing line as those of the farther column. If you 
 rule lines on the surface of the sea through the 
 stems of the ships to the vanishing-point of the 
 yards and beams, you will make the whole squadron 
 appear to " keep station." 
 
 If you wish to give a look of reality to the 
 ripples, you may vanish them away to a point on 
 the right. I have also in this drawing found a 
 point at right angles to it on the left as a vanishing- 
 point of the wind, and have made the clouds run 
 towards it. You will notice, however, that the 
 smoke from the ships' funnels and the signal flags 
 do not vanish towards this point, but to another 
 much more to the right. This is because the speed 
 of the ships through the air would draw the 
 apparent wind more ahead, and cause the smoke 
 and flags to vanish in a point farther aft. I have 
 marked the spot with a round fort. 
 
 This method of projecting a plan directly on to 
 the picture may be found useful for many other 
 subjects — processions of all sorts, artillery waggons, 
 teams ploughing, troops on parade, or for that 
 matter in action, for often in painting a battle we 
 have only plans and descriptions to construct 
 from. 
 
 It is only after a little practice that you learn 
 to choose a good position for the D, the point 
 of view. I may also remark that the horizon 
 I used to construct the picture is now rubbed 
 out ; it was a fraction higher up than the present 
 line. 
 
66 
 
 NATURE'S LAWS AND THE MAKING OF PICTURES 
 
 VP 1 
 
 This little drawing of two battle-ships looks 
 very like the snapshots one sees taken with cheap 
 pocket cameras. The twisted, distorted appearance 
 is due to its small size and the wide angle sub- 
 tended by the picture, but you have only to keep 
 D a little farther away to make the picture fairly 
 pleasing. 
 
 I have supposed that a drawing of two fore- 
 shortened ships had to be constructed, but that we 
 only had the sheer and body plan to work from. 
 
 The first thing to do is to draw the two profile 
 vessels along a base-line. One of them is rubbed 
 out now, but you can still see the marks of the 
 stem and stern, and the dots where her masts were 
 stepped. I will assume that the keels had to be 
 drawn at an angle of 32° with the centre-line of 
 the picture. All we have to do is to rule a line 
 at D at an angle of 3 2° ; where this line cuts the 
 horizon we will mark VPi, the vanishing-point of 
 the keel and all the fore-and-aft lines. Take the 
 
 distance from VPi to D, with a sweep of your 
 compasses down to the horizon. This will give 
 you MPi, by means of which you can transfer all 
 the points along the base-line — stems, masts, funnels, 
 etc. — -to the middle line of your ships. You can 
 transfer the heights of tops, yards, and bridges in 
 the same way. To make the yards and bridges 
 look square, you must draw a line from D at right 
 angles to the line to VPi, and where this cuts the 
 horizon you will mark VP2, the vanishing-point 
 of all beams ; and the distance of this last point 
 to D, taken down to the horizon, will give you 
 MP2, by means of which you can transfer the 
 correct width of the ship from the base-line to the 
 fore-and-aft line of the ship near the funnels. The 
 yards, the tops, or indeed any part of the vessel, 
 can be measured and drawn in the same way. 
 When once you have your vanishing-points and 
 measuring-points, the rest is simply a matter of 
 taking pains. 
 
NATURE'S LAWS AND THE MAKING OF PICTURES 
 
 6? 
 
 Outside the shop where the immortal Captain 
 Cuttle kept watch over the stock-in-trade of 
 Solomon Gills, a wooden midshipman stood, 
 eternally taking observations of the hackney 
 carriages. When you are trying to draw a 
 difficult subject, you will often find it a help to 
 make yourself a sort of rough quadrant like the 
 midshipman's, with a leaf out of your sketch-book, 
 or any square bit of stiff paper, which you can hold 
 up to your eye to measure angles with. The side 
 and lower edge of the right angle may be folded 
 together, and will give you 45 . Fold this again, 
 and you will have 22° 30". Fold it once more, 
 and you will have ii° 15". Tear off the super- 
 fluous paper and leave the shape of a fan, and you 
 will be able to take a number of measurements, 
 which will help you considerably both in drawing 
 what you see before you and also in after days 
 when you are building up a picture from a number 
 of studies painted at different times. Always 
 press the corner of the paper quadrant close into 
 the eye when you are using it, or else the 
 angles will not be measured correctly. As an 
 example of the first, we will suppose you are 
 
 painting some great building covered with com- 
 plicated detail. It will be necessary to use vanish- 
 ing-points for the two sides of it, and though it is 
 not a very difficult task to guess where the sharply 
 foreshortened front on the left will vanish, yet 
 when you try to fix a place for VPi on the right, 
 you will find it by no means easy to make it 
 correspond to that of the real building you are 
 trying so hard to draw. In despair you may at 
 last try to work by eye alone ; but eye alone 
 will only result in a knock-kneed, gingerbread sort 
 of a pile, with corners never quite square, and 
 towers more or less lop-sided. It you hold up 
 your little paper quadrant to the building you are 
 sketching, you can with a little care find out the 
 angle it subtends, and this at once fixes your 
 distance-point. When you have this, you have 
 only to fix the picture on its back in a long room, 
 and knocking one nail in for D and one on each side 
 for J'P\ and J' Pi, you snap in all the vanishing 
 lines with a chalked string. It is also a good plan 
 to write on the back of your picture the length of 
 your distance-point, in this way — D, 7 feet 10 
 inches — so that you can refer to it at any time. 
 
68 NATURE'S LAWS AND THE MAKING OF PICTURES 
 
 When you make studies of objects from nature 
 —carts and horses, buildings, boats, or gear of any 
 sort — you will find that the block or board you are 
 drawing on can be used to take the angles your 
 objects subtend ; and a careful drawing of any sort 
 should have a sector drawn in the corner, showing 
 the number of degrees of arc taken in by the 
 
 object. As an instance of this, I give two studies 
 of the same boat. In the first I was fairly near 
 —7 yards from the stem, which is therefore large. 
 The bow, you will notice, looks much sharper, and 
 the stern narrower, than in the second drawing, 
 which is taken from 14 yards off. Here every- 
 thing is a little changed, the stem is less in propor- 
 
NATURE'S LAWS AND THE MAKING OF PICTURES 
 
 6 9 
 
 tion, and the bow swells out fuller, whilst the stern 
 is much wider. The angle subtended by each is 
 marked in the corners of the drawings. You can 
 quite understand that the first one will not look 
 correct unless introduced large in a picture, whilst 
 the second could be used much smaller. If I 
 wished to use these drawings in the extreme dis- 
 
 tance of a picture, I would have to alter and adapt 
 them considerably before they would look correct, 
 filling out the farther bow, cutting down the stem, 
 and widening the stern. Notice that the anchor 
 shrinks, as you move away, much more than the 
 stern of the boat. 
 
NATURE'S LAWS AND THE MAKING OF PICTURES 
 
 7i 
 
 Here are two drawings of" a church — one, a 
 wide-angle picture drawn from quite close to it, 
 and in consequence having the vanishing-points 
 close in to the edges of the picture ; and the other, 
 a narrow -angle sketch, taken from very much 
 farther off. The vanishing-points have accordingly 
 moved out much farther too ; and at the same 
 time the relative size of the different parts of the 
 church has altered very much. The spire is now 
 very much taller in proportion, and the length of 
 the nave shows very much less. In the corner of 
 each view I have ruled a sector, showing the angle 
 subtended by the width of the building. It would 
 seem hardly necessary to put such drawings as these 
 in this book ; but I have thought it well to intro- 
 duce them, as I have so often noticed, in pictures or 
 
 drawings, buildings such as the larger view intro- 
 duced quite small in the background of a figure 
 subject, without any regard to the perspective of 
 the rest of the picture. I once saw a portrait of a 
 sailor painted standing by the sea. He seemed — as 
 far as one could judge — about 12 feet away, and 
 was not distorted at all ; but there was a little 
 battle-ship on the horizon ; she had a great stem 
 and a very minute stern ; one mast was twice as 
 tall as the other, and the foretop was drawn just 
 as though your eye were looking up at it from 
 only a few yards away. In point of fact, the ship 
 subtended such a wide angle that to make the 
 picture correct you would have to roll the admiral 
 round, so that the top of his cocked hat touched 
 the toes of his boots. 
 
7 2 
 
 NATURE'S LAWS AND THE MAKING OF PICTURES 
 
 The two next subjects are each marked in the 
 same way. The reader will understand how useful 
 the sector in the corner would be, if I wished to 
 add any object to either of the drawings. If, for 
 instance, a tug with a tow of barges had to be put 
 in large, I have only to mark off the distance-point 
 on one side of my drawing, and in a minute or two 
 I can mark off the length of my foreshortened 
 
 craft in any part of my picture. In fact, it is much 
 more easy to draw them by rule, than to try to make 
 a hasty shot at them as they steam by. The sector 
 in the corner will also prevent these little drawings 
 being used as part of a larger composition, where 
 they would look utterly out of place and wrong. 
 If you want to make studies that are intended to 
 be used for this purpose, they should embrace only 
 
NATURE'S LAWS AND THE MAKING OF PICTURES 
 
 73 
 
 a narrow angle. The circular drawing is inserted 
 here to give an idea of my meaning. It only sub- 
 tends 2 of arc, and therefore might form part, just 
 as it is, of a picture 20 feet long. In point of fact, 
 it looks almost a caricature of a narrow angle, and 
 could only be drawn through a powerful telescope. 
 You will notice that, though taken from 150 feet 
 
 above the water, one does not look down upon the 
 decks of even the very nearest barges, which are in 
 fact quite two miles off, and that the curve on the 
 surface of the world shows very much. The craft 
 on the horizon, ten miles away, stand up quite large. 
 There can hardly be said to be a vanishing-point 
 for the waves to run to, or the vessels' to sail 
 
 towards. In fact, to make the drawing quite rules ; but then they could only copy what was 
 
 right, you would have to stick it at the end of before them. The moment a change was made 
 
 your garden, and look at it from the house. in the composition or the light and shade, there 
 
 Turner was the greatest adept at making came possibilities of error on every side, 
 pictures the world has seen. His wonderful De Neuville, the painter of the Franco-German 
 
 knowledge of the laws of nature enabled him to War, once told me of the infinite pains he took to 
 
 build up and perfect those creations before which make his battles correct, placing models on the 
 
 we stand and wonder. Of course a perfect insight actual scene of his subject, and drawing everything 
 
 into the practice of perspective is only one of the just as he saw it, even to unimportant distant 
 
 attributes of the accomplished artist. It is by no figures. He told me at the time that he knew 
 
 means indispensable, for we have often seen very nothing of perspective, and I could not help 
 
 beautiful work by men who knew nothing of its thinking what a lot of trouble he might have 
 
 L 
 
74 
 
 NATURE'S LAWS AND THE MAKING OF PICTURES 
 
 saved himself had he learnt it. Any one who 
 gives his mind to the work can soon find out how 
 to use the rules, and once he has mastered them, 
 a little practice from time to time will keep them 
 in his head. 
 
 The man who will not learn himself, but who 
 engages a draughtsman to work out all the archi- 
 tecture for his picture, and then tries to make his 
 figures fit in with it, often comes to the most 
 awful grief. There are the lines of pillars or 
 windows all nicely spaced and vanishing away in 
 proper fashion, whilst the rest of the subject is 
 built up without any reference to the building. 
 Sometimes we may see a mosaic pattern worked 
 out carefully, and the men or women standing on 
 it without any regard to the measured spaces. 
 Perhaps in one part of the pavement a fore- 
 shortened foot may be drawn as though it were 
 four inches long, and a figure be represented in 
 another part of the same floor standing quite 
 unconcerned with a stride of six feet. 
 
 Then there is the painter who builds up his 
 picture partly from photographs and partly from 
 nature. If he does not understand perspective, he 
 is surrounded on every side by pitfalls. I spoke 
 a little while back of an admiral with a battleship 
 in the distance, but his case is not more wonderful 
 than that of a celebrated architect who was repre- 
 sented standing by a window through which one 
 saw a building twisted out of all likeness to nature 
 by the violent wide-angle view which the artist 
 had chosen. And strangely enough, though the 
 town hall looked just as though it had been 
 photographed quite close with a kodak, all the 
 plans and elevations, which were spread on the 
 table in the foreground of the picture, were painted 
 
 just as though seen from quite a dozen feet away. 
 The effect of the whole was quite bewildering. I 
 could fill pages with descriptions of pictures and 
 drawings of the same sort. 
 
 The painters of old thought a great deal of 
 design and arrangement, never or very seldom 
 attempting to reproduce the real appearance of 
 flesh in the open air, or of brilliant sunshine upon 
 sea or land ; they trusted to contrast of colour 
 and skilful treatment for their effect, not the 
 slavish copying of absolute tact. Towards the 
 end of the last century, when inventions of all 
 sorts crowded in upon us, and our knowledge ot 
 all the sciences increased by leaps and bounds, 
 there came a craving for realism, and in the 
 struggle to depict nature with uncompromising 
 truth, composition and design were often neglected 
 or forgotten. In the present day there seems to 
 be a tendency to return once more to the old 
 ideas, though many of us still cling to natural- 
 istic treatment. We are told that the art of 
 the future will be a combination of design and 
 realism, but if we wish to be capable of rising 
 to such perfection, we must first train our- 
 selves to a complete knowledge of Nature's 
 Laws. 
 
 In conclusion, I must ask the reader to believe 
 that all this was written to help painters to be 
 masters of the rules of their art, not slaves to 
 them. The subject is not an easy one to write 
 about, and I fear I may not have put my facts as 
 clearly as might be. 
 
 If I succeed in inducing my brother artists to 
 think a little more of the useful but much-neglected 
 science of perspective, my work will not have been 
 in vain. 
 
 Printed by R. & R. Clark, Limited, Edinburgh. 
 
GETTY RESEARCH INSTITUTE 
 
 3 3125 01360 4778