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In arriving at these conclusions he takes considerable pains to satisfy himself that he has used the right kind of observation, and that his nature study has been sufficiently deliberate and exhaustive. He is no believer in hasty generalisations, and he has a definite conviction that the artist who is most careful about preliminaries is the one who is most likely to attain satisfactory results. For instance, when he is making a first acquaintance with a new sketching ground, he insists upon a thorough exploration of the whole district before beginning to work, so that he may not only discover the best subjects, but may also decide which are the best conditions under which they should be painted – it is not always, he feels, the most accessible bit of scenery that is worthiest of the artist's attention, and every landscape ought to be studied under its appropriate atmospheric effect.

When he has settled on his subject he aims first of all at obtaining a definite mental impression of it as a whole, and this mental impression he tries to keep clearly before him through all the subsequent stages of his work, so as to avoid any