Sacramento daily record-union. [volume] (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1875-1891, 1881-12-24
what is the most important step to take -

heo 40 VIC iiiocb ILL puEldut sbep 10 TAKE.
I inquired.
The education of the eve is the most
important. Educate the eye before you
educate the hand. The hand will become
cunning soon enough when the eve
has learnt to see, whereas if the hand be
educated before the eye one NAV never see,
Now, to my mind, all that is not indispen.
sable in picture is distinctly harmful
Redundancy is fatal. Everything should
have its meaning, its place, and its distinct
utility. There is no such thing possible in
a picture as a needless accuracy. When
the accuracy is needless it does actual mis-
chief to the whole. Then again, every
thing in picture should be brought about
naturally and not abruptly. To take
trivial illustration Suppose | am teaching
pupil to paint lady who IS turning. l
do not merely place the model in the mid
die of the room snd make her turn. She
must walk about for while and then turn
naturally. There is education for the eye
in the preliminary stages, and one thus gets
the full value of her turning posture.
what, to your mind, is one OF the
most essential elements of good picture ?"
/ asked.
"Air," answered Carolus Duran enthusi-
astically. Plenty OF air There can
never be too much air in picture. +"
''And color?" l suggested to the great
colorist.
"Color, of course" he replied " but
did it never strike You how the greatest
colorists have always come from the coun-
tries where there is comparatively but
little color? It is not from the sunniest
parts of Italy that we have the greatest
masters of color. No; it ia rather in CON-
paratively gloomy chimes that an artist feels
the full value of colors. This is curious
fact, and if yen look into art history you
viii find l am right"
''And an understanding of the full
value and teaching embodied in subject ?"
inquired.
g Alb, that is of the most vital import.
ance to the artist. ITEMS for example, in
the lessons give my pupils I invariably
point out all the meaning that can be ex.
tracted from subject. Take the victims
of Gree, as an instance. show them the
full lesson embodied in this story, and then
tell them how to treat it, describe to them
the worn-out debauchee, the sot, the glut-
ton. 1t is not necessary that the COM
panions of Ulysses should be depicted with
shouts and tails to show the public that
they have ceased to be men and have
undergone some transformation.
But one of cur leading artists, Britton
Riviere, treated that subject differently.
He gave the pigs a human expression"
s'That, to my mind, is not the proper
treatment, replied Duran. "That sayors
more of caricature than of real art. The
thing to do is to show that the men are
pigs, not that the pigs are men,"
Your lectures must be most interesting
reading" remarked.
81 have file of them l intend publish
ing them some day. They may of service,
perhaps, to art. y
After few more words about the great
masters (by the way. Carolus Duran utterly
despises the idol of Vienna, Hans Mackart)
l took my leave of the greatest French
colorist now living, and one of the most
charming and unaffected men whom Provi-
dence has ever endowed with genius
Whitehall Review.