the idea of a line

It’s been a while since I last updated this blog but on browsing the internet, I found the following article which brought to mind something I have in the past tried to explain: how do I draw?

The article is by Jonathan Jones, the Guardian newspaper’s art critic in which he describes after years spent dissecting the works of the great artists, how and why he decided to put his money where his mouth was - and learn to draw. While the notion of someone being an art critic yet being unable to draw is somewhat confounding, I think he should be respected for trying.

Why, after all, is drawing - or any any art - still so relevant to the world in an age of photography? Jonathan Jones realises that: “Picasso has taught me something about the way we experience the world. All the time, we deny life’s complexity in order to get on with things. A drawing can at least acknowledge this by acknowledging its partiality of viewpoint.” A photograph is a record of what was seen but a drawing, a painting, a sculpture can be so much more about what was felt. Art is about decisions and choices: what is to be included in the representation and what is to be abandoned that we might make sense of things?

A while back, I realised that a perfectly analogy for this might be for you to imagine looking into a stream of clear-running water on a spring day. Barefoot, you stand upon polished pebbles: now pick out the one pebble that best captures the way the coolness of the water, the light upon its surface or the feeling of ‘aliveness’ from being stood there in that exact moment makes you feel. Choosing which would be the one stone to capture all these feelings is just as difficult as choosing which is the ‘right’ line to add to the paper. It is not so easy as it looks.

Jonathan Jones’ article in full:

It's not as easy as it looks