Art, with its finite means, cannot hope to record the infinite variety and com-plexity of Nature, and so contents itself with a partial statement, addressing this to the imagination for the full and perfect meaning. This inadequation, and the artificial ad-justments which it involves, are tolerated by right of what is known as artistic convention; and as each art has its own particular limitations, so each has its own particular conventions. Sculpture reproduces the forms of Nature, but discards the color without any shock to our ideas of verity; Painting gives us the color, but not the third dimension, and we are satisfied; and Architecture ispurely conventional, since it does not even aim at the imitation of natural form.The Conventions of Line Drawing, Of the kindred arts which group themselves under the head of Painting, none is based on such broad conventions as that with which we are immediately concerned-the art of Pen Drawing. In this medium, Nature's variety of color, when not positively ignored, is suggested by means of sharp black lines, of varying thickness, placed more or less closely together upon white paper; while natural form depends primarily for its representation upon arbitrary boundary lines. There is, of course, no authority in Na-ture for a positive outline: we see objects only by the difference in color of the other objects behind and around them. The technical capacity of the pen and ink medium, however, does not provide a value corresponding to every natural one, so that a broad interpretation has to be adopted which eliminates the less positive values; and, that form may not likewise be sacrificed, the outline becomes necessary, that light objects may stand relieved against light. This outline is the most characteristic, as it is the most indispensable, of the conventions of line drawing. To seek to abolish it only involves a resort to expedients no less artificial, and the results of all such attempts, dependent as they necessarily are upon elaboration of color, and a general indirectness of method, lack some of the best characteristics of pen drawing. More frequently, however, an elaborate color-scheme is merely a straining at the technical limitations of the pen in an effort to render the greatest possible number of values.It may be worth while to inquire whether excellence in pen drawing consists in thus dispensing with its recognized conventions, or in otherwise taxing the technical re-sources of the instrument. This involves the question of Style, -of what characteristic pen methods are, -a question which we will briefly consider
About the Author: Charles Donagh Maginnis ( 1867 - 1955 ) was an Irish architect. He emigrated to Boston at age 18, trained as an architect and went on to form the firm Maginnis & Walsh, designing ecclesiastical and campus buildings across America. From 1937 to 1939 Maginnis held the office of President of the American Institute of Architects. Maginnis was born in County Londonderry, Ireland on January 7, 1867. He was educated in Dublin, emigrated to Boston at age 18 and got his first job apprenticing for architect Edmund M. Wheelwright as a draftsman. In 1900 he became a member of the Boston Society of Architects, serving as its president from 1924 to 1926. Though he worked in a number of styles, Maginnis became a distinguished proponent of Gothic architecture and an articulate writer and orator on the role of architecture in society. His pioneering work both influenced and was influenced by fellow Gothicist Ralph Adams Cram. In 1898, Maginnis went into partnership with Timothy Walsh and Matthew Sullivan to form Maginnis, Walsh and Sullivan. This was the same year he designed St. Patrick Roman Catholic Church in Whitinsville, Massachusetts. This commission started his career designing buildings for the Roman Catholic Church. In 1906 Mr. Sullivan withdrew and the firm was renamed Maginnis & Walsh. This firm would become one of the leading architectural firms in the first half of the 20th century. In 1909, Maginnis & Walsh won the competition to build the new campus of Boston College in Chestnut Hill, Massachusetts. The collegiate Gothic design was deemed "the most beautiful campus in America" by The American Architect magazine and established the firm's reputation in collegiate and ecclesiastical architecture. Maginnis & Walsh went on to design buildings at over twenty-five colleges and universities around the country, including the main buildings at Emmanuel College, Boston MA, the chapel at Trinity College and the law school at the University of Notre Dame. Moreover, the design of Gasson Tower at Boston College is considered a predecessor of the dominant towers of collegiate Gothic campuses such as Harkness Tower at Yale University and the chapel tower at Duke University by Horace Trumbauer of 1930-35..