Where is the drawing visible except in the result? How beautifully
concise it is, and yet it is large, supple, and true without excess of
reality. Can you detect anywhere a measurement? Do you perceive a
base, a fixed point from which the artist calculated and compared his
drawing? That hat, full of the ill-usage of the studio, hanging on the
shock of bushy hair, the perspective of those shoulders, and the round
of the back, determining the exact width and thickness of the body,
the movement of the arm leaning on the table, and the arm perfectly in
the sleeve, and the ear and the shape of the neck hidden in the shadow
of the hat and hair, and the battered face, sparely sown with an
ill-kempt beard, illuminated by a fixed look which tells us that his
thoughts are in pursuit of an idea--this old Bohemian smoking his
pipe, does he not seem to have grown out of the canvas as naturally
and mysteriously as a herb or plant? By the side of this drawing do
not all the drawings in the gallery of English, French, Belgian, and
Scandinavian seem either childish, ignorant-timed, or presumptuous? By
the side of this picture do not all the other pictures in the gallery
seem like little painted images?
Compared with this drawing, would not Holbein seem a little
geometrical? Again I ask if you can detect in any outline or accent a
fixed point from whence the drawing was measured, calculated, and
constructed.
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