on art and composition

Started my day by reading this relevant piece:


Art began with the first touch of man to shape things toward his ideal, be that ideal an agreeable composition, or the loftiest conception of genius. Art is head-and-hand work and a creation deserves the name of art according to the quality and quantity of this expended on it. Simply sit down squarely before a thing and imitate it as an ox would if an ox could draw, with no thought or intention save imitation and the result will cry from every line, ‘I am not art but machine work,’ though its technique be perfection.

Toil over arrangement and meditate over view-point and light, and though the result be the rudest, it will bear tell you art begins when man with thought, forming a standard of beauty, commences to shape the raw material toward it. In other words when he exhibits choice and preference, when, in short, he composes. :)


--- from H.R. Poore's Pictorial Composition And The Critical Judgment of Pictures, quoting for my friend Perrine Renoir whose impressive doodles inspire me.