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BRIEF AND GENERAL IDEA

O F

DRAWING and PAINTING

I N

WATER COLOURS ;

Intended for the Amusement of the Curious, rather than for the Inftruction of Artists.

I shall not meddle with perspective: yet, it may

not be improper to hint, that persons who are unacquainted with it can be no proficients in drawing, as is manifest from the works of fome painters of no small fame, in whose works a mathematical eye discovers very grofs abfurdities. We have many good authors of our own, as well as translations from other languages, on the subject of perspective; from which any one may eafily gain a general conception of the art, and by a little labour become a master of it.

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Perspective is principally neceffary in regular buildings, where many straight lines run through the various parts of them, of which all that are parallel must meet in one point. In other fubjects a thorough knowledge of perspective is not so abfolutely neceffary; yet a due regard for it is always to be had; as in landscapes, to diminish every thing according to its fupposed distance from the eye; for, by making the dif tant figures the leaft, and drawing them in finer or fainter lines than you do those that come forwards in your picture, they naturally seem to be more diftant; and when you come to finish fuch picture, your extreme diftant objects fhould appear fo faint, or fo fecure, as not to be difcovered to be of any precife form or colour; for fo it is in natural objects far diftant from our fight. As objects draw nearer they may be made a little more expreffive; and fo on, more and more, till you come to the nearest objects of all in the fore-ground of the picture, which fhould be finished with great strength, and brighter colouring: for it must always be confidered, that fuch objects as have really in themfelves a very bright colouring, if they are re

moved to a little diftance from the eye, will Jose (by the interpofition of the air) fome of their luftre; and by being farther removed they will lofe more of it, till they appear, as it were, colourless: for if feveral men, cloathed in feveral very different and glaring colours, be placed on a distant mountain's edge, juft within the utmost reach of the eye, we may discover thefe men as objects diftinct from each other, but without any other colour than what is caused by feeing them through a great fpace of greyish air; fo that very diftant objects may properly be faid to have neither light, fhadow, nor coJour. Any common obferver may perceive, when he commands an extenfive profpect, where there are ranges of distant hills one behind another, that the most diftant are of a flat, faint, bluish colour, without any lighter or darker parts, and consequently without any distinct objects vifible on them; therefore, if you would make a picture appear like nature, your greateft distances must be faint. Thofe hills, that lie a little nearer, may fhew fome fmall diftinction between wood-lands and the bare furface of the ground; on others, ftill nearer, we may diftin

guish churches and villages, till we come nearer ftill, where particular houfes, men, and cattle, may be perceived, and fo on, till we fee diftinctly every visible object about us.

A theory of this fort is abfolutely neceffary in every painter who would imitate nature in almost any respect. To run it over again; from a near view to a distant place, let your first or nearest objects have pure and bright colours, according as the nature of the fubjects may require. These should be finished with great lights and ftrong fhadows: those at a little distance should be fomething lefs bright in their ground-colours, not fo high in their lights, or fo deep in their fhadows; and as they are farther diftant, they fhould diminish more in the purity of colour, as well as in light and fhadow, till they have neither light, fhadow, colour, or distinct form ; for all is confused, and mixed at very great difAs one goes backwards in a picture, much finishing is to be spared; the windows of a house are not fuppofed to be visible at fome miles distance, though the house, in its general form, may be feen. As to little ornaments in

tances.

dress,

dress, they are always to be let alone, if a figure be at any distance, for we know that the but

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tons on a man's coat, or a lady's trinkets, are invifible at a little distance.

In fpeaking of colours, I fhall not perplex the reader, as the common books on the fubject of drawing, &c. have done; which tell you what to mix together for a ship, trees, the earth, a brick house, lion, fox, &c. for thefe particulars are trifling and fuperfluous. The way to colour well is, when we are provided with all neceffary colours, to confult the natural colours of the objects we would reprefent; then by cafting the eye over the colours we have ready prepared, it is very likely we may find something that in many cafes will ferve our turn, pure and unmixed; but if we cannot, let us confider the colours in a compound fenfe. We have an object, for example, which is purple; amongst our colours we do not find that, but by mixing. red and blue it is produced. Blue and yellow produce green. Red and yellow make an orangecolour. Red, blue and yellow, make browns and cloth-colours of all kinds, by varying the

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