something within and something without, that at times sends such a clamour of harmony through our whole being?  Why do certain combinations of sound in music and of form and colour in art affect us so profoundly?  What are the laws governing harmony in the universe, and whence do they come?  It is hardly trees and sky, earth, or flesh and blood, #as such#, that interest the artist; but rather that through these things in memorable moments he is permitted a consciousness of deeper things, and impelled to seek utterance for what is moving him.  It is the record of these rare moments in which one apprehends truth in things seen that the artist wishes to convey to others.  But these moments, these flashes of inspiration which are at the inception of every vital picture, occur but seldom.  What the painter has to do is to fix them vividly in his memory, to snapshot them, as it were, so that they may stand by him during the toilsome procedure of the painting, and guide the work.

This initial inspiration, this initial flash in the mind, need not be the result of a scene in nature, but may of course be purely the work of the imagination; a composition, the sense of which flashes across the mind.  But in either case the difficulty is to preserve vividly the sensation of this original artistic impulse.  And in the case of its having been derived from nature direct, as is so often the case in modern art, the system of painting continually on the spot is apt to lose touch with it very soon.  For in the continual observation of anything you have set your easel before day after day, comes a series of impressions, more and more commonplace, as the eye becomes more and more familiar with the details of the subject.  And ere long the original emotion that was the reason of the whole work is lost sight of, and one of those pictures or drawings giving a catalogue of tired objects more or less ingeniously arranged (that we all know so well) is the result—­work utterly lacking in the freshness and charm of true inspiration.  For however commonplace the subject seen by the artist in one of his “flashes,” it is clothed in a newness and surprise that charm us, be it only an orange on a plate.

Now a picture is a thing of paint upon a flat surface, and a drawing is a matter of certain marks upon a paper, and how to translate the intricacies of a visual or imagined impression to the prosaic terms of masses of coloured pigment or lines and tones is the business with which our technique is concerned.  The ease, therefore, with which a painter will be able to remember an impression in a form from which he can work, will depend upon his power to analyse vision in this technical sense.  The more one knows about what may be called the anatomy of picture-making—­how certain forms produce certain effects, certain colours or arrangements other effects, &c.—­the easier will it be for him to carry away a visual memory of his subject that will stand by him during the long hours of his labours at the picture.  The more he knows of the expressive powers of lines and tones, the more easily will he be able to observe the vital things in nature that convey the impression he wishes to memorise.