On Drawing Trees and Nature: A Classic Victorian Manual

By James Duffield Harding

Book Overview

This classic of art instruction is the work of James Duffield Harding (1798-1863), who served as drawing master and sketching companion to the great Victorian art critic, John Ruskin. Generations of students have benefited from the teachings of this 19th-century master, who sought always to "produce as near a likeness to Nature, in every respect, as the instrument, or material employed, will admit of; not so much by bona fide imitation, as by reviving in the mind those ideas which are awakened by a contemplation of Nature . . . The renewal of those feelings constitutes the true purpose of Art."
This volume consists of direct reproductions of Harding's sketches of vignettes from natural settings. Each is accompanied by a series of lessons emphasizing both practical and theoretical considerations. The edition features the added attraction of 23 outstanding plates from the author's Lessons on Trees.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0486442934
• ISBN13: 9780486442938
• Release Date: August 2005
• Publisher: Dover Publications
• Length: 160 Pages
• Weight: 1.26 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.3" x 9.2" x 12.0"

Customer Reviews

Good info

This inexpensive title is full of great information about a wide variety of European trees. If you need to break out of a rut in your depiction of trees this book will probably do the trick. I give it four stars because of the overly verbose writing typical of the victorian age (the book was published in 1846). It is illustrated with vintage black and white drawings.

A Decided Language Barrier Here!

OK. This is coming from someone who has studied Shakespeare and still needs to use the foot notes to understand a lot of the Shakespearian expressions. Unfortunately, there are no such footnotes for this book. The book was written by a person born in 1798 and in the mid 1800's wrote what may be the very first "How to Draw Book". The people in those days depended a lot on reading for entertainment. They wanted books to last and last. Think of Dickens: words,words, words to get to the point. I am thinking I would like to re-write this book in concise, and modern day language for my own use and edification. Yes, the book does have morsels of wonderful advice on drawing trees. I have not read the entire book at this time, since I just received it yesterday. I have mainly read the chapter on follage, skipping the wordy introduction and beginning chapters since I am most eager to get to the heart of the matter, but the dear author of this book took soooooo long to get to the heart. With each morsel of good advice, the reader must endure a wordy and often times unnecessary and repetitiv explanation. The impatient reader will say, "I get the point, now get on with it". Yet, the dialog is quaint and amusing at times, and is also sincere and quite intelligent. I reccommend this book to artists who are patient enough to search out the jewels of advice within these pages. Oh! I just love it that he calls tree trunks, "stems".

Learning from a MASTER!

I have been a professional artist for decades doing a wide variety of work in graphics, painting, and in the television and motion picture art departments....but as we all know, there is always something new to learn. This book, if one looks closely enough at the creation of the works, and even if one simply enjoys looking at the whole picture, is so inspiring! The "great ones" in ANY field, the arts, sports, etc., all know it's still all about the basics at all stages of your career, and a lot can be learned from the "basics" in this book's work. Even my paintings have been enormously improved by the study of values in these drawings, and the way he moves the eye back drawing the viewer in to participate in the composition by pulling you through 3-4 stages of foreground, middle ground, background...and he makes it look so simple. And his description of his period materials is fascinating. It's not for the first time artist, but all can learn a lot if they look close enough.