To explain the essential difference between art and mechanical drawing or mechanical reproduction, a more applicable theory must be found. Compare the art of telling a story. If, to describe an incident in the street you had the entire affair reenacted on the same spot, you would have but made a mechanical reproduction of it, leaving the spectator to simplify the affair, and construct his _own_ conception of it. You have not given _your_ ideas of the event, and so you have not made a work of art. So, if a man draws an object detail for detail by any mechanical process, or traces over its photograph, he has but reduplicated the real aspect of the object, and has failed to give the spectator a simple and intelligible idea of it. Starting out with the generous notion of giving all, that there may be "something for everyone," he has given nothing. He did not originally form an intelligible and simplified idea of the figure, so how can his drawing be expected to give one to others? But how can forms be made _more_ simple and intelligible than by reproducing their aspect with absolute accuracy? Our combined sense of vision and touch comprehends very easily certain elementary solid forms, the sphere, the cube, the pyramid and the cylinder. No forms but these, and their modifications, can be apprehended by the mind in one and the same act of vision. Every complex form, even so simple as that of a kidney, for instance, must be first broken up into its component parts before it can be fully apprehended or remembered. Analogously with the above, Prof. Wundt has shown how the mind can apprehend _as separate units_ any number, of marbles for instance, up to five, after which every number must be split up into lots of twos, threes, fours and fives, or twenties, thirties and so on, before it can realize the full content of that number in one and the same mental picture. So the only way to receive an intelligible idea of a complex form, such as a human figure, is first to discover in the figure itself, and then in all its parts, only modifications of the above elementary solid forms, and the drawing of a conception thus informed must needs be a very clear and intelligible one. The more the artist is capable and practised, the more clearly will he conceive and distinguish in nature each subtle modification of these elementary forms, their direction, their relation to, and their dependence upon one another. The only difference between a good draughtsman and a bad one is the degree of subtlety of his apprehension. Unless the draughtsman has seen some such clear forms in his original, his labour to produce a work of art will be grievous and fruitless. All good drawing is stamped with this kind of structural insight. The more the artist adheres to nature, and the more finished his drawing, the more will the lines and forms that he makes be, so to speak, _in excess_ of those of nature, or dull imitation or photography.