Charles Stier > Teaching > Additional Reading

Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519)...from the Notebooks, Volume II, XIV, I. Anatomy.

"I wish to work miracles;--it may be that I shall possess less than other men of more peaceful lives, or than those who want to grow rich in a day. I may live for a long time in great poverty, as always happens, and to all eternity will happen, to alchemists, the would-be creators of gold and silver, and to engineers who would have dead water stir itself into life and perpetual motion, and to those supreme fools, the necromancer and the enchanter.

And you, who say that it would be better to watch an anatomist at work than to see these drawings, you would be right, if it were possible to observe all the things which are demonstrated in such drawings in a single figure, in which you, with all your cleverness, will not see nor obtain knowledge of more than some few veins, to obtain a true and perfect knowledge of which I have dissected more than ten human bodies, destroying all the other members, and removing the very minutest particles of the flesh by which these veins are surrounded, without causing them to bleed, excepting the insensible bleeding of the capillary veins; and as one single body would not last so long, since it was necessary to proceed with several bodies by degrees, until I came to an end and had a complete knowledge; this I repeated twice, to learn the differences.

And if you should have a love for such things you might be prevented by loathing, and if that did not prevent you, you might be deterred by the fear of living in the night hours in the company of those corpses, quartered and flayed and horrible to see. And if this did not prevent you, perhaps you might not be able to draw so well as is necessary for such a demonstration; or, if you had the skill in drawing, it might not be combined with knowledge of perspective; and if it were so, you might not understand the methods of geometrical demonstration and the method of calculation of forces and of the strength of the muscles; patience also may be wanting, so that you lack perseverance. As to whether all these things were found in me or not, the hundred and twenty books composed by me will give verdict Yes or No. In these I have been hindered neither by avarice nor negligence, but simply by want of time. Farewell."

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Henry Moore Notes on Sculpture

"This is what the sculptor must do: He must strive continually to think of, and use, form in its full spatial completeness. He gets the solid shape, as it were, inside his head--he thinks of it, whatever its size, as if he were holding it completely enclosed in the hollow of his hand. He mentally visualizes a complex form from all round itself; he knows while he looks at one side what the other side is like; he identifies himself with its center of gravity, its mass, its weight; he realizes its volume, as the space that the shape displaces in the air."

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John Ruskin The Stones of Venice

"...because it so perfectly explains the significance of form in art: "You must not cut out a branch of hawthorn as it grows, and rule a triangle round it, and suppose that it is then submitted to law. Not a bit of it. It is only put in a cage, and will look as if it must get out, for its life, or wither in the confinement. But the spirit of triangle must be put into the hawthorn. It must suck in isoscelesism with its sap. Thorn and blossom, leaf and spray, must grow with an awful sense of triangular necessity upon them, for the guidance of which they are to be thankful, and to grow all the stronger and more gloriously."

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Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749-1832)

"Unfettered spirits will aspire in vain to the pure heights of perfection. He who wills great things must gird up his loins; only in limitation is mastery revealed, and law alone can give us freedom."

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Rembrandt van Rijn

"Nothing counts in this world except the inner spirit of things: the immortal soul of everything ever created. Perhaps three or four in every hundred will be able to understand that. At the most, four. The others will never know what we are talking about, but they will have their revenge. They will let us starve to death."

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Kurt Blaukopf Great Conductors

Integrity is the highest degree. Felix Weingartner set this thought out with the greatest precision and made five concrete demands on the conductor:

1.) "The conductor must in the first place be true to the work he wishes to perform; true to himself; and true to the public. He must not think, as soon as he takes up a score, what can I make of this, but--what did the composer want to express.

2.) He must study the same so thoroughly that during the performance the score is to be nothing more than "an aid to memory", but it should not keep his thoughts in a vice.

3.) When, as a result of a study of the work, he has created a picture for himself, he must reproduce this picture in its entirety and not bit by bit.

4.) He must always bear in mind that he is the most important, the responsible person in the realm of music. By means of good and well-styled performances he can educate the public, thus bringing about an all-around purification of artistic appreciation; by means of bad ones and such that are out to tickle his vanity, he can render the soil unfit for the real cultivation of art.

5.) To have performed a beautiful work beautifully should be his greatest triumph; the justified success of the composer, his own."

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Ch'ing Tsai T'ang
Discussion of the Fundamentals of Painting
from the Mustard Seed Garden Manual of Painting (1679)

Among those who study painting, some strive for an elaborate effect and others prefer the simple. Neither complexity nor simplicity is enough.

Some aim to be deft, others to be laboriously careful. Neither dexterity nor conscientiousness is enough.

Some set great value on method, while others pride themselves on dispensing with method. To be without method is deplorable, but to depend entirely on method is worse.

You must learn first to observe the rules faithfully; afterwards, modify them according to your intelligence and capacity. The end of all method is to seem to have no method.

Among the masters, it was a different matter. Ku Ch'ang-k'ang applied his colors sprinkling and splashing, and the grass and flowers seemed to grow at the movement of his hand. Han Kan, whose picture The Yellow Horse was unique, used to pray before he painted, and his brush was inspired. At a later stage, therefore, one may chose either to proceed methodically or to paint seemingly without method.

First, however, you must work hard. Bury the brush again and again in the ink and grind the inkstone to dust. Take ten days to paint a stream and five to paint a rock. Then, later, you may try to paint the landscape at Chialing. Li Ssu-hsun took months to paint it; Wu Tao-tzu did it in one evening. Thus, at a later stage, one may proceed slowly and carefully or one may rely on dexterity.

First, however, learn to hold in your thoughts the Five Peaks. Do not concentrate on the whole ox. Study ten thousand volumes and walk ten thousand miles. Clear the barriers set by Tung and Chu, and pass straightway into the mansions of Ku and Cheng. Follow Ni Yun-lin painting in the style of Yu Ch'eng: when he painted , mountains soared and springs flowed, waters ran clear and forests spread vast and lonely. Be like Kuo Shu-hsien, who with one stroke of the brush released a kite on a hundred-foot string, who painted with equal facility the large and the small--towers and many-storied buildings as easily as the hair of oxen and the thread of a silkworm. Thus, at a later stage, an elaborate effect is acceptable and a simple one is equally acceptable.

[continuation of Discussion of the Fundamentals of Painting from the Mustard Seed Garden Manual of Painting (1679) by Ch'ing Tsai T'ang]

If you aim to dispense with method, learn method. If you aim at facility, work hard. If you aim for simplicity, master complexity.

The Six Canons of Lu Fa

1.) Circulation of the Ch'i (Breath, Spirit, Vital Force of Heaven) produces movement of life.
2.) Brush creates structure.
3.) According to the object draw its form.
4.) According to the nature of the object apply color.
5.) Organize composition with the elements in their proper places.
6.) In copying, seek to pass on the essence of the master's brush and methods.

Lu Ch'ai, citing one school of thought, adds:

All but the First Canon can be learned and practiced to the point of true accomplishment. As for the ability to make manifest the aspects of the Ch'i in its constant revolving and mutation, one has to be born with that gift.

The Six Essentials of Lu Yao

1.) Action of the Ch'i and powerful brushwork go together.
2.) Basic design should be according to tradition.
3.) Originality should not disregard the li (the principles or essence) of things.
4.) Color (if used) should enrich.
5.) The brush should be handled with spontaneity.
6.) Learn from the masters but avoid their faults.

The Six Qualities of Lu Ch'ang

1.) To display brushstroke power with brushwork control.
2.) To possess sturdy simplicity with refinement of true talent.
3.) To possess delicacy of skill with vigor of execution.
4.) To exhibit originality, even to the point of eccentricity, without violating the li of things.
5.) In rendering grace by leaving the silk or paper untouched, to be able nevertheless to convey nuances of tone.
6.) On the flatness of the picture plane, to achieve depth and space.

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