A still more clear effect of light is got in the Bonnard tailpiece, where, by simply breaking the window sash with the light fold of a curtain, he makes us feel the color of the curtain from the top to the bottom of the picture. We should advise you to practice in any medium, endeavoring to get similar effects, as they are most valuable in saving a drawing from monotony. In the Brun drawing, for example, no casual observer■
Drawn by Verdyen, probably on ruled scratch-board (see tones in the sky), with crayon, in sky, and with brush, in figures; the plate very much retouched by hand.]
■{ 94} would appreciate the white pillars, and an untrained draftsman would be likely to cover them with tones, but as a matter of fact they help immensely to give variety to the drawing. In an architectural exhibition we are frequently tired by the monotony of similar drawings where the draftsmen, in their desire to render texture and local color, cover such surfaces with lines meant to represent stone, brick or mortar.
We would remark also that just as our own repetition of the Watts analysis apropos of the Bonnard’s Choudieu portrait was intentional, so the apparent conglomeration of portrait studies, landscapes and buildings is not the result of careless arrangement on our part, but is intentional, that it may be shown that a certain principle in drawing, studied from one object, may be applied to any other. If you draw a friend’s face by lamplight and pick out the lights upon it and his cuff, as in the Bonnat Cogniet, you will be prepared to pick out similar lights on portions of buildings as in the pillars in the Brun drawing; or on window curtain folds as in Bonnard’s tailpiece.
It may be interesting to printers for us to narrate the difficulty of preparing a proper legend for the Choudieu. It was a tailpiece to an article in a French magazine, and bore no legend. To all appearances it was the portrait of one Mr. Dangers, but knowing how liberal the French are in their use of cognomens, we took the precaution to investigate. A Frenchman may be born Smith, but in manhood is known to the public by one or a dozen other names. He may marry Miss Brown, and, therefore, parade as Mr. Brown; his Uncle Jones■