American Drawing Books and Their Impact on Fitz Hugh Lane.

Marine painter Fitz Hugh Lane's unique style is attributed to his familiarity with contemporary drawing practices published in drawing books. Close study of Lane's marine scenes--his drawings and his later oil paintings--reveals that his method of rendering perspective parallels the approach suggested by John Gadsby Chapman in The American Drawing Book (1847). Lane's use of diagonals, the emphasis on drawing what the eye sees, and the application of rules of perspective to reflections are based on techniques described by Chapman.