I
should be glad to direct your studies, but the work on which I am
engaged leaves me no time to dispose of." I asked if I could not
sometime see him working; but he replied that it was quite impossible
for him to work with any one looking on.
I asked him where, to his mind, was the principal want of the modern
schools. He replied, "In execution; there is intellect enough, intention
enough, and sometimes great conception, but everywhere a want of
executive ability, which enfeebles all they do. They work too much with
the crayon, instead of studying with the brush. If they want to be
engravers, it is all well enough to work in charcoal; but the execution
of an engraver is not that of a painter. I remember an English artist,
who was in Paris when I was a young man, who had a wonderful power in
using masses of black and white, but he was never able to do anything in
painting, much to my surprise at that time; but later I came to know,
that, if a man wants to be a painter, he must learn to draw with the
brush."
I asked him for advice in my own studies; to which he replied, "You
ought to copy a great deal,--copy passages of all the great painters.
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