Then model from those into the lights,
rounding as well as you can, on those subtle conditions. In your chalk
drawings, separate the lights from the darks at once all over; then
reinforce the darks slightly where absolutely necessary, and put your
whole strength on the lights and their limits. Then, when you have
learned to draw thoroughly, take one master for your painting, as you
would have done necessarily in old times by being put into his school
(were I to choose for you, it should be among six men only--Titian,
Correggio, Paul Veronese, Velasquez, Reynolds, or Holbein). If you are a
landscapist, Turner must be your only guide (for no other great landscape
painter has yet lived); and having chosen, do your best to understand
your own chosen master, and obey him, and no one else, till you have
strength to deal with the nature itself round you, and then, be your own
master, and see with your own eyes. If you have got masterhood or sight
in you, that is the way to make the most of them; and if you have
neither, you will at least be sound in your work, prevented from immodest
and useless effort, and protected from vulgar and fantastic error.
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