Where Art Begins

David Hume · en
'The first part of the book treats of drawing, and is in the main
     practical in aim and useful as guidance.'--SATURDAY REVIEW.

     'A very useful handbook for beginners.'--GRAPHIC.

     'A book written by a teacher who is an artist, and who fortunately
     remembers that he has been a student, and doubtless this is why the
     sympathies of his readers are promptly enlisted.'--DAILY CHRONICLE.

     '"Lessons in Art" should prove of use to both pupils and
     teachers.'--MORNING POST.

     'As a teacher in the old School of Arts, Edinburgh, Mr. Nisbet may
     be credited with knowing the kind of questions which students are
     likely to ask, and he has here answered them in theoretical and
     practical detail.'--GLASGOW HERALD.

              London: CHATTO & WINDUS, 214 Piccadilly, W.

       [Illustration: A NEW ZEALAND FERN-TREE GULLY [_p._ 129]]




                           WHERE ART BEGINS

                                  BY

                              HUME NISBET

                               AUTHOR OF
           'LESSONS IN ART', 'LIFE AND NATURE STUDIES' ETC.

                            [Illustration]

                        _WITH 27 ILLUSTRATIONS_

                                LONDON

                      CHATTO & WINDUS, PICCADILLY
                                 1892


                               DEDICATED

                       WITH AFFECTIONATE REGARDS

                   TO MY DEAR FRIEND AND WELL-WISHER

                       EDMUND J. BAILLIE, F.L.S.

                              OF CHESTER

[Illustration]




INTRODUCTION


When a few really congenial spirits meet together, it is astonishing how
quickly the subject which perhaps one of the party starts will grow, and
how many branches it will shoot out before its vitality can be
considered exhausted.

My present subject has grown up in a very congenial atmosphere. A number
of sympathetic students, who learnt to appreciate my practical work,
continued to draw from me some ideas partly practical, partly
theoretical, on the subject which has always been a part religion with
me, whether in my working or my dreaming moments--Art and its
all-permeating influence over humanity in the social and spiritual
conditions. I take it that Art permeates the entire body of humanity,
from the flesh-devouring savage to the asphodel-adoring æsthetic, in a
greater or lesser degree, according to the sanitary conditions of their
lives; and as it permeates, so it brings us closer to what we regard as
human perfection.

In this spirit I have written out the following reflections, blending
the practical with the theoretical and personal, as a pendant to my
'Lessons in Art' and 'Life and Nature Studies.' In the first book I have
attempted to give the Alpha of Art; in the second I have given the
Omega, as far as I myself know about Art; and in the present I have
sought to give something of what lies between.