Reflecting on the first week's return to study.

I have tried to reflect on this week's work and some of the advice provided by Proff. Swindell at Friday's one to one discussion. -   Of the artists that have been recommended to me a look at, are Paul Auster, "New York Trilogy" (which is a graphic book); some of the work by Sophie Call,  and Michel De Certea, and his book such as "practice of everyday life." Inparticular, -"walking in the city" (which is a chapter in his book) he discusses the pan-optic view and the deviation from the grid.

Perhaps the reeal question of this first project is; "How do we interpret space"?
In discussion, our drawing becomes physical, when laid out, the drawing becomes relational (look at the work of Wolfgang Tullmett - fashion photographer for example here). My Prof suggested that we think of the "chessboard" or our view at any one moment, as a grid, - and then relate how we occupy space within it. (Maybe I could think of star constellations or a kit or a modular style drawing perhaps)?

In reflection of the lecture by Dr McDonald on Thursday this week, it encouraged me to think about "drawing as thinking".  The whole notion of drawing is quite incredible really.... It is very immediate, economical, ready to hand, practical, (for example, easy to carry around), and can be done almost immediately. A pencil and paper IS faster than any digital medium to draw with (except photography of course, but that is not "drawing").
A drawing which has been competed by pencil, provides a mode of understanding the world, - and also responding to it immediately...

(Adding on your marks!…)
In analysis, these are the fundamental components;
A line drawing is;
The differentiation of an equilibrium. "It comes out of its background" and is deliberate and intentional. (The work by Frederico Barrocci 1586- "Drawing of a boy").


It is immediately possible to recognise the style of drawing-through the sense of geometry, a three-dimensionality, light and shadow, measured, but ultimately, it is just a set of marks. (Light, tone and shadow).

Consider, in relation to the drawing of the boy by Frederico Borrocci, Drawing of a Boy, 1586.  Yes, it calls forth a sensation of seeing a face, BUT ALSO, a feeling, in effect that equals a "response".

Over the course of history of European and Western drawing, the marks have been 'exploded' into just marks alone;

 for example see the drawing by Joseph Albers 1918 of the female glancing down.
In destroying there is no artifice to say it's a lifelike drawing, but it has been stripped down to the bare minimum. It calls on the viewer to read the image and use their own imagination.


Moving forward in time to Robert Morris and his work "blind time" created in 1973, which is actually just based on the marks themselves and the drawing has no reference to representation at all.

 This style of mark making has continued to progress and can be seen even more so in the work of Bryce Marsden 1987 entitled Ink on Paper.

Any discussion on drawing and mark making must reference the work of Paul Klee, of the Bauhaus and his work in the pedagogical sketchbook. He described drawing as

"an active line on a walk, moving freely without a goal, - a walk for walks sake, whos mobility agent is a point shifting its position forward".

The ideal line.
In classical times the line was associated with pure form such as geometry. This is a direct reference to the culture in Greece at that time and although the philosophers of their days were a little more material and worldly, a line represented something immaterial; example quotes by Plato-the purity of ideal forms. For example, the Sun equalled a circle, - the purest form of all, and Sun rays equalled a straight line.
That type of thinking was forgotten for a thousand years perhaps, but then taken into perspective in the Renaissance (or rebirth).   [See the book, "New principals of linear perspectives" -  written in London in 1719. Within this book the discussion around the rationality of space became apparent. For example I will floor is based on the field of vision. When this book is reviewed, it uses examples of drawings where they appear almost like a single eye on the world, not binocular view].

Within Renaissance perspective drawing, a three-dimensional idealised space became the norm. It was clinical, methodical, mechanical,.… Architectural, Geometrical, structural. The Renaissance provided a way of drawing that allows one to "build it from it".  This is where the word 'design' comes from, its entymology being an italian word which is "Designo". Whenever one sees these style of Renaissance images, it projects an feeling both backwards to antiquity but also forward is to modernisation. During the Renaissance, and the following years everything was about perfection of the symmetrical, even up to drawing bodies (cadavers), and drawings of people.

Now, take a leap forward in time work of Vassily Kandinsky or Alexander Rodchenko in or around 1920. These artists started to experiment with line, and 'what does your eye draw upon in our perception of perspective', - see the work also; Joseph Albers structural constellation of 1950.

 Continuing the theme of exploring the line, sculptural forms of 1970s made artists think more about how people move around an object instead of the actual object itself.

In today's current style and pieces, the "line as outline" is a contemporary, vector-based representation. Artwork is now being produced currently which relies on the use of 'clean lines' as an object. This has arisen owing to the use of digital drawing techniques and the influence on culture of computer-aided design applications; the advantage being that a mathematical vector diagram of the drawing is infinitely scalable and therefore infinitely reproducible at any size.

So in a way, Art has gone full circle to the mathematical geometry described by Plato in the Greek culture!   Have we gone back to the perfect, ideal line, the ideal circle of representation?

Consider a slightly sideways view, in illustration for example.  In the works of Arthur Rackham in around 1900, whilst not an Artist but an Illustrator, he figured some of the work of surrealism drawings in Gulliver's travels like the example "apples came tumbling about my ears".  His drawing brings re-dimensional allergy but also outlined within the same context up when used in the book as illustration these marks and lines generate a view of the world and feelings as well.  His works are far closer to the conteemporary art being produced to day than much of the art being created in-between, (say 1920 to 1980s)...

Finally,  I found a good introduction to mark - making and detailed discussion of line type can be found at http://arttattler.com/archivehatched.html