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The Pencil of Nature (1844-46)

by William Henry Fox Talbot

Part IV (cont.): PLATE XVII. BUST OF PATROCLUS.

About The Pencil of Nature
Part I.
Publisher's note, frontispiece, and title page.
Introductory Remarks.
Brief Historical Sketch of the Invention of the Art.
Plate I. Part of Queen's College, Oxford.
Plate II. View of the Boulevards at Paris.
Plate III. Articles of China.
Plate IV. Articles of Glass
Plate V. Bust of Patroclus.

Part II.
Plate VI. The Open Door
Plate VII. Leaf of a Plant
Plate VIII. A Scene in a Library
Plate IX. Fac-simile of an Old Printed Page
Plate X. The Haystack
Plate XI. Copy of a Lithographic Print
Plate XII. The Bridge of Orleans.
Part III.
Plate XIII. Queen's College, Oxford, Entrance Gateway
Plate XIV. The Ladder.
Plate XV. Lacock Abbey in Wiltshire.

Part IV.
Plate XVI. Cloisters of Lacock Abbey.
Plate XVII. Bust of Patroclus.
Plate XVIII. Gate of Christchurch
Part V.
Plate XIX. The Tower of Lacock Abbey
Plate XX. Lace
Plate XXI. The Martyr's Monument
Part VI.
Plate XXII. Westminster Abbey
Plate XXIII. Hagar in the Desert.
Plate XXIV. A Fruit Piece.


PLATE XVII. BUST OF PATROCLUS.

ANOTHER view of the bust which is figured in the fifth plate of this work.

It has often been said, and has grown into a proverb, that there is no royal road to learning of any kind. But the proverb is fallacious: for there is, assuredly, a royal road to Drawing; and one of these days, when more known and better explored, it will probably be much frequented. Already sundry amateurs have laid down the pencil and armed themselves with chemical solutions and with camer® obscur®. Those amateurs especially, and they are not few, who find the rules of perspective difficult to learn and to apply -- and who moreover have the misfortune to be lazy -- prefer to use a method which dispenses with all that trouble. And even accomplished artists now avail themselves of an invention which delineates in a few moments the almost endless details of Gothic architecture which a whole day would hardly suffice to draw correctly in the ordinary manner.

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