Having got nearly half way through the drawing skill course, I have only just realised, I think, what drawing is all about.
I was reading "Rocks and flesh" an argument for British Drawing, selected by Peter Fuller from the Norwich school of art gallery.
The light slowly dawned as I read " a drawing is not so much the reproduction of the image of something seen, as a record of something made."
Ruskin pointed out that everything we see is like patches of different colours in various shades. This explains why I see everything in paint not line. Of course I don't see line. It is not there!
Lines and contours are concepts. A drawing is always created not just a visual image of the subject.
Vasari said that drawing starts with the intellect of the artist and Zuccari said that what is revealed through art starts with the mind. In other words, the idea comes first.
Ruskin believed that only through observation of nature could one see the visible handiwork of God. From this came the belief that painting landscape would be a means of conveying moral and religious ideas.
This was thrown into controversy when Darwins' Origin of the Species was published. The debate on nature versus God led to drawing dwindling into more mundane expression of forms.
Henry Tonks.. Taught at he Slade and helped change the concept of drawing.
The drawings in this book are works showing the different approach to drawing and how it changed during the last 100 years.
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