Drawit for word pres5/16/2023 The relative spatial positioning, directional movements, and scaling of one part to another can be tested and worked out. Unaided by the seductive romances of tone, color and texture, the play of line in a drawing can inform us about what we are and are not seeing, allowing us to address problems before they’re embedded in complicated visual embroideries. The ensemble stands or falls in that clarifying light.Ī linear drawing builds its riffs from a similarly austere palette, drawing its unique power from elimination, reduction, and distillation of the rich sensory experiences of the eye. In the absence of recording-studio colors and effects, the integrity of the basic idea is revealed. Working with line is like the visual counterpart of MTV’s “Unplugged” series where musicians leave all their technological wizardry at the door and just play the music. John Berger wrote that for Vincent Van Gogh drawing was “a way of discovering and demonstrating why he loved so intensely what he was looking at…”Īt the beginning of a drawing class we focus on line and all of the various ways it can be played. The searching, tentative quality of a sketch is more like a soliloquy than a sermon, the artist’s interior dialogue groping toward a mystery. Line drawing, like writing, can be declamatory or expository a way of persuading viewers or a means to simply engage with the world beyond the self. It will pay you to seriously ponder this question: did they become masters in spite of copying, or because of it? In the gallery below you will find some wonderful “covers” of masterworks of drawing and painting made by artists who in turn became great masters themselves. It cuts you off from great streams of influence that can help you in your journey to figure out what you’re doing and what you’re trying to say with your art. It locks you out of the great ongoing conversation that all great artists, alive or dead, have had with the history of art. But shutting yourself off from art and influence doesn’t make you more original it just makes your work more predictable and typical. It’s natural to want your work to be your own and not just another iteration of some recognizable genre or established style. Preoccupation with finding an original style is a common curse of young artists. ![]() What I do is the result of reflection and study of the great masters of inspiration, spontaneity, temperament I know nothing.” “ I assure you no art was ever less spontaneous than mine. History regards Degas as one of the most daring, original, and groundbreaking artists of all time and yet he himself made this confession: It spoke to his own unique questions, intentions, and needs. He copied because that art was alive to him. Why did he copy older art? Was he just being the dutiful student, eating his vegetables and taking his vitamins? No. In his twenties Edgar Degas spent several years in Italy living with relatives, painting their portraits and assiduously copying older art in the churches and museums. However bright, sophisticated, ingenious and successful he may be, he remains, as an artist, naïve.” On the practice of drawing from the masters, Mercedes Matter, teacher and founder of the New York Studio School, said, ” Any young artist without insight into these forms of expression, without a key to understanding the art of other times and places, who is tuned in only to current ideas, is indeed poverty-stricken. It’s a mirror you’re looking at, not somebody else’s drawing. The fact that it captures your attention is what matters. You don’t have to know why you find a particular drawing or painting captivating. They reveal who you are as an artist and who you will be. When you look through the catalog of what came before you you will find your own patterns of fascination. Why did Michelangelo copy Ghirlandaio? Same reason. ![]() Why did the Beatles study Chuck Berry and Big Bill Broonzy? Because those older artists were cool they had the stuff, the sound, the vibe. Great artists throughout history also “covered” earlier precedents on the way to figuring out what they were up to. Every great rock band you can think of started out by covering the songs of earlier artists. The surest path to developing your own original voice in art is to study the masters.
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