PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION

(1851)

THE purpose of this work has already been stated in the Introduction to the First Volume of the text.¹ A few words are still necessary respecting the manner of its execution.

Had I supposed myself to possess the power of becoming a painter, I should have devoted every available hour of my life to its cultivation, and never have written a line. But the power of drawing, with useful accuracy, objects which will remain quiet to be drawn, is within every one’s reach who will pay the price of care, time, and exertion. This price I have paid; and I trust, therefore, that the drawings which either now, or at any future period, I may lay before the public, will not be found deficient in such ordinary draughtsmanship as may be necessary to the fulfilment of their purposes; while, on the other hand, they will never lay claim to any higher merit than that of faithful studies.²

I never draw architecture in outline, nor unless I can make perfect notes of the forms of its shadows, and foci of its lights. In completing studies of this kind, it has always seemed to me, that the most expressive and truthful effects were to be obtained (at least when the subject presented little variation of distances) by bold Rembrandtism; that is to say, by the sacrifice of details in the shadowed parts, in order that greater depth of tone might be afforded on

¹ [See Vol. IX. p. 8, and advertisement below, p. 313.]

² [For other passages in which Ruskin refers to his own drawing, see Vol. VIII. pp. 4, 276, and Modern Painters, vol. iii., preface, §§ 5,6.]

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[Version 0.04: March 2008]