103 lines
5.3 KiB
Markdown
103 lines
5.3 KiB
Markdown
---
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created_at: '2017-01-06T03:41:42.000Z'
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title: 'John Berger: Drawing is discovery (1953)'
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url: http://www.newstatesman.com/culture/art-and-design/2013/05/john-berger-drawing-discovery
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author: Thevet
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points: 63
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story_text:
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comment_text:
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num_comments: 7
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story_id:
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story_title:
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story_url:
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parent_id:
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created_at_i: 1483674102
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_tags:
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- story
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- author_Thevet
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- story_13333737
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objectID: '13333737'
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year: 1953
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---
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For the artist drawing is discovery. And that is not just a slick
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phrase, it is quite literally true. It is the actual act of drawing that
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forces the artist to look at the object in front of him, to dissect it
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in his mind’s eye and put it together again; or, if he is drawing from
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memory, that forces him to dredge his own mind, to discover the content
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of his own store of past observations.
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It is a platitude in the teaching of drawing that the heart of the
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matter lies in the specific process of looking. A line, an area of tone,
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is not really important because it records what you have seen, but
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because of what it will lead you on to see. Following up its logic in
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order to check its accuracy, you find confirmation or denial in the
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object itself or in your memory of it. Each confirmation or denial
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brings you closer to the object, until finally you are, as it were,
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inside it: the contours you have drawn no longer marking the edge of
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what you have seen but the edge of what you have become. Perhaps that
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sounds needlessly metaphysical. Another way of putting it would be to
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say that each mark you make on the paper is a stepping stone from which
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you proceed to the next, until you have crossed your subject as though
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it were a river, have put it behind you.
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This is quite different from the later process of painting a “finished”
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canvas or carving a statue. Here you do not pass through your subject,
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but try to recreate it and house yourself in it. Each brush-mark or
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chisel-stroke is no longer a stepping stone, but a stone to be fitted
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into a planned edifice. A drawing is an autobiographical record of one’s
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discovery of an event – either seen, remembered or imagined. A
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“finished” work is an attempt to construct an event in itself. It is
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significant in this respect that only when the artist gained a
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relatively high standard of individual “autobiographical” freedom, did
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drawings as we now understand them begin to exist. In a hieratic,
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anonymous tradition they are unnecessary. (I should perhaps point out
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here that I am talking about working drawings – although a working
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drawing need not necessarily be made for a specific project. I do not
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mean linear designs, illustrations, caricatures, certain portraits or
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graphic works which may be “finished” productions in their own right.)
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A number of technical factors often enlarge this distinction between a
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working drawing and a “finished” work: the longer time needed to paint a
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canvas or carve a block; the larger scale of the job; the problem of
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simultaneously managing colour, quality of pigment, tone, texture,
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grain, and so on – the “shorthand” of drawing is relatively simple and
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direct. But nevertheless the fundamental distinction is in the working
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of the artist’s mind. A drawing is essentially a private work, related
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only to the artist’s own needs; a “finished” statue or canvas is
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essentially a public, presented work – related far more directly to the
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demands of communication.
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It follows from this that there is an equal distinction from the point
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of view of the spectator. In front of a painting or statue he tends to
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identify himself with the subject, to interpret the images for their own
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sake; in front of a drawing he identifies himself with the artist, using
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the images to gain the conscious experience of seeing as though through
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the artist’s own eyes. It is this which explains why painters always
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value so highly the drawings of the masters they admire and why the
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general public find it so difficult to appreciate drawings – except for
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sentimental reasons, or in so far as they are impressed by purely manual
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dexterity.
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All this is prompted by the exhibition of 500 Old Master drawings
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(Pisanello to Ingres) now at Burlington House. The distinction I have
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tried to make is relevant for on it are based the standards with which
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one approaches such a show. A few of the works – the Rowlandsons and the
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portrait of Gentile Bellini by Giovanni for instance – come under the
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category of “finished” works. Most, however, can be called “working”
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drawings. In appreciating these, deftness, charm, ingenuity are, in
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themselves, beside the point. Everything originally depends upon the
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quality of discovery. Mannerisms, however elegant, are barriers to
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discovery as clichés are barriers to thought; look, for instance, at the
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Pietro Longhis and some (not all) of the younger Tiepolos.
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Then, by contrast, go to the Raphael Head of a Muse and feel how he
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discovered the fullness of the form growing under his hand like a pot on
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a wheel; how Dürer discovered the direction of every fold and fissure as
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though he were reading Braille, how Guercino discovered the sensuality
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of his Venus as though he were sleeping with her, how Guardi discovered
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the space of a room as though he were filling it with air from a pair of
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bellows; how Rembrandt discovered his figures as though encompassing
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them with the knowledge of a father. In every case one senses their
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surprise.
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