AN ORCHID BY MR. JAMES.
A Kensington Museum student would have drawn that flower carefully
with a lead pencil; it would be washed with colour and stippled until
it reached the quality of wool, which is so much admired in that art
training-school; and whenever the young lady was not satisfied with
the turn her work was taking, she would wash the displeasing portion
out and start afresh. The difference--there are other differences
--but the difference we are concerned with between this hypothetical
young person of Kensington education and Mr. James, is that the
drawing which Mr. James exhibits is not a faithful record of all the
difficulties that are met with in painting an orchid. A hundred
orchids preceded the orchid on the wall--some were good in colour and
failed in drawing, and _vice versa_. Others were excellent in drawing
and colour, but the backgrounds did not come out right. All these were
destroyed. That mauve and grey orchid was probably not even sketched
in with a lead pencil. Mr. James desired an uninterrupted expression
of its beauty: to first sketch it with a pencil would be to lose
something of his first vividness of impression. It must flow straight
out of the brush. But to attain such fluency it was necessary to paint
that orchid a hundred times before its form and colour were learnt
sufficiently to admit of the expression of all the flower's beauty in
one painting.
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