Eugene-Emmanuel Viollet-le-Duc 
Learning to Draw, or the Story of a Young Designer [PDF ebook] 

Whilst the greatest effort has been made to ensure the quality of this text, due to the historical nature of this content, in some rare cases there may be minor issues with legibility. It is peculiarly characteristic of his comprehensive method of instruction; and, while starting from so simple a text as a child’s sketch of a cat, it embraces in its moderate compass a very wide range of information, all of which is shown to belong to a proper comprehension of the business of learning to draw. Le Duc maintained that the perceptive faculties must be thor oughly developed and cultivated before it is possible to know whether or not the student possesses any creative power. He insisted, further, that it is possible to cause art and what is admirable in man’s handiwork, as well as the beauty of God’s creation, to be comprehended by undeveloped as well as by educated minds; and this belief formed the keynote of much of his life’s work. With this end in view he addressed himself with as much earnestness to young students as to servants, and always took pains to find the simplest methods of expressing the instruction he had to give.