Chapter Title: advancing the drawing course

Book Title: Drawing Distinctions

Book Subtitle: The Varieties of Graphic Expression
Book Author(s): patrick maynard
Published by: Cornell University Press

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Drawing Distinctions

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 10. advancing the drawing course

A quotation from Saul Steinberg introduced the graphic signs and an ideology, a visual system
theme of"all kinds of drawing" at the beginning of of values. Nowadays, comics, television im-
this study: "The whole history of art influenced agery and especially photographic images ...
me," he wrote. "Egyptian paintings, latrine draw- and other advertising material, are over-
ings, primitive and insane art, Seurat, children's whelming all other artistic possibilities, even
drawings, embroidery, Paul Klee." Another line in Far Eastern countries. All children are feel-
from that source helps us rejoin our account of the ing this pressure, especially between the ages
course of drawing where we left it, back in our of eight and twelve. Good teachers can keep
study of the drawings of childhood (the age when genuine art going for them. But many chil-
most of us abandoned drawing as serious partici- dren begin to despair of being able to make
pants): "I am among the few who continue to draw images "as good as" those the media show
after childhood is ended, continuing and perfect- them, so they give up. Some of those who
ing childhood drawing-without the traditional carry on may become artists and work on be-
interruption of academic training." 1 This raises half of those of us who have given up. 2
two questions. The first, which we can only briefly
mention here, is why most people stop then. Since The four theses that I have numbered state (1)
almost all young children draw spontaneously, just an alleged phenomenon: only a few children keep
as they dance, sing, and play imaginative games, drawing; (2) its evaluation: this is a shame; (3) a
the decline of drawing in individual development reason for the evaluation: we no longer learn to see
raises questions of cause and of significance, about by drawing; and (4) an attempt to explain the phe-
which the drawing theorist and historian Philip nomenon: our culture overwhelms us and we give
Rawson offers these four: up. Taking up Rawson's fourth, "curse of drawing"
point, similar ideas are widely expressed and no
[1] Out of the many, many children who draw doubt have some truth; still, we have already won-
and learn by drawing, only a few go on draw- dered how far they go. We have little indication
ing into their teens and adult life. [2] This is a that in the past or in other societies children con-
great shame, [3] for it means that the process tinue to draw. Also, in modern societies we find
of learning to see by drawing stops. [4] It most older children not continuing to sing and
seems that as children get older the culture dance either; indeed, few of us who have had early
they belong to gradually imposes its standards training on an instrument keep it up. To some ex-
and types upon them, as well as a repertoire of tent this too may be owing to technological devel-

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opments-amateur playing of music by adults mainly in techniques centered on the following
sharply declined during the twentieth century, simple point. As we often recognize objects by their
partly due to radio and recording-but that still shapes (in the various kinds of that described), but
leaves much unexplained. 3 In chapter 5, following tend to draw them by their object-classifications, all
ideas of Willats, I suggested that children en- we need do is learn techniques for drawing them by
counter their own, internal problems in drawing. their shapes rather than by their names. 5 Such tech-
Thus one impediment may be a cultural failure to niques include tracking along contours of objects
transmit simple geo 2 rules that would help chil- without looking at the drawing surface: indeed,
dren deal with 3D topological features, also with probably too much of this has been made, as
other aspects of layouts that are part of their imag- though it were a drawing procedure, rather than as
inative as well as real worlds. That might be one ex- a therapeutic treatment for inadequate procedures. 6
ample of a general failure to make available to chil- Teachers of life (nude) drawing stress main axes,
dren enough of the available drawing tools to help notably those of the chest and hip for standing fig-
them develop their imaginations graphically, along ures, along with the main vertical line of balance.
that endless list of qualities and characteristics Students are taught interval measures, or propor-
opened in chapter 7. Alas, it may be that modern tions, and how to get approximately right the "neg-
ideas of self-expression have stultified self- ative shapes" between parts of things that they are
expression. Whatever the causes, the result is that drawing, their relationships among each other and
such imaginative activities play an important role to the positive shapes. Such are additional examples
in early individual development and then cease to, of transfers: of availing ourselves in our drawing
and active participation is largely abandoned. procedures of what works in actual vision-that is,
Closer to themes of this part of the book is Raw- the shapes of things, notably their contours from
son's third point, about significance. It might be ar- different points of view. The great gain is not only
gued that in most cases ceasing to draw is not very more "effective" depiction in Gombrich's sense but
important to development: after all, people go on to also a revelation of the interest of shapes and of
other challenges not available to children. In reply, their relationships independent of objects. Once
Rawson's speculations are at least interesting. He these shapes are made interesting in themselves, the
believes that something important to human devel- student is well positioned in the course of drawing,
opment is thereby lost, which might not have able to deal with many situations. Once these
been-what he calls a "process oflearning to see by shapes and what they describe are related to one an-
drawing." What is that process, and why might it be other and to the surface in interesting ways, the stu-
important, both for those who draw and for those dent begins to draw not just things and their fea-
who continue to look closely at drawings? Accord- tures but pictures-something which most people
ing to Rawson, children's drawings typically "objec- do not easily comprehend, which is most difficult,
tify" their conceptions and feelings, "externalise the but approaches what we mean by "art."
internal processes of the psyche," but do so in terms However, any such talk of techniques-tools for
of "graphic forms" that tend to correspond with the drawing kit-raises a problem for our project of
those of speech,4 that is, verbal categories: thus the working through all kinds of drawing in the direction
standard issue of "knowing" and "seeing" in chil- of drawing as art. For Steinberg also remarked that
dren's and others' drawings. This would perhaps be "to make a good drawing, a poetic invention of the
better described as an issue of objects and shapes. It moment, ... demands the elimination of all our tal-
is easy to show that drawings of objects, from ob- ent (ready-made vocabulary). It demands genuine
servation or not, tend to be controlled by identifica- clumsiness. In fact," he added, "the best clumsy ones
tions of distinct objects and their parts, often ver- are Cezanne and Matisse." 7 Mention of Matisse,
bally, as Rawson says: heads (with eyes, nose, among the greatest of modern draftsmen, brings to
mouth), necks, bodies, arms-in that order, as we mind his own comments about teaching: "Gustave
have a strong tendency to draw the body from the Moreau loved to repeat 'The more imperfect the
top down (the shoulder is a non-anatomical entity means, the more the sensibility manifests itself.' And
of particular difficulty for novices). didn't Cezanne also say: 'It is necessary to work with
There are standard "therapies" for such object- coarse means'?"8 Just as we are to embark on the am-
category tendencies, upon which drawing courses, bitious project of describing the historically devel-
and best-selling books, are based. Some consist oped drawing tool kit, progressing in the direction of

138 DRAWING'S RESOURCES

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art, modem artists and teachers tell us that art in- tion and culture to another. This must be kept in
volves abandoning any kit, and we will soon hear the mind even for artists who reject these traditions.
same from other traditions. We are no longer talking As a first step, Meder reminds us that medieval
about technical drawing, nor can we rely on vision and Renaissance teachers alike insisted that "the path
research. Simply stated, the challenge is this: for any to art begins in conscientious use of what has been
drawing technique added to the kit, we can find its already accomplished, in drawing from the best ex-
abundant, accomplished use in work that is artisti- isting" works, according to the old workshop rule
cally empty; for any technique, we can find its ab- that "copying must form the basis of instruction."
sence, abrogation, in works that are artistically great. Thus in "Giotto's day as in Rembrandt's previously
Three points in reply to this challenge outline existing masterworks offered the same examples for
Part III. The first point addresses our concern with outlining, comparison of sizes, relationships between
cases in Part III. All drawing as art uses some of the near and distant objects, and sensitivity to light and
basic drawing techniques we will be examining, shade" 10-all topics of the present chapter-and
usually crucially, but these being tools, we must give Chinese traditions offer much the same. Dangers of
close attention to how they are used (or disdained) restricting oneself to copy work are also stated in
in specific works of art, and not rely on generalities. these different traditions. A statement in Joshua
The next two points define the structure of Part III. Reynolds's "Second Discourse"-"! consider general
The present chapter undertakes a survey of the ad- copying as a delusive kind of industry.... How inca-
vanced course of drawing, providing information pable of producing anything of their own those are
necessary to any theoretical treatment of drawing who have spent most of their time in making finished
that hopes to connect with real phenomena. It then copies, is an observation well known to all those who
develops Gombrich's continuity principles, as set are conversant with our art"-may be put beside that
forth in Part II, but as it progresses a theme will de- of Tung Ch'i-ch'ang a century and a half earlier:
velop, that of the draftsman's autonomous use of "Those who study the works of the masters of the
those nature-based perceptual resources. Chapters past and do not introduce some changes are garbage
11 and 12 consist in an argued series of steps beyond that should be disposed of by a fence. If one imitates
those perceptual resources, showing the increasing the models too closely one is often farther removed
autonomy of the medium of drawing itself for the from them." 11 Yet though such strict copy traditions
production of artistic meaning. The third point of hardly exist today, the technical devices that they in-
reply to the challenge is that we now enroll in the stilled have become constituents of every kind of
advanced course with the good guidance of theo- drawing, widely used in illustration and commercial
rists and drawing teachers with broad and deep un- imagery, and standard to photography, television,
derstandings of art. Let us meet them. and cinema. We need to become acquainted with
them.
Rawson begins his account in a more modem
THE DRAWING KIT "elements" idiom, congenial to Part II. In his trea-
tise Drawing and the more popular Seeing through
Just as Part I followed lines of thought developed by Drawing, he advances, as Gombrich does in his first
Ferguson, Booker, Panofsky, and Tufte, and Part II principle, a resolutely anti-imitation theory of draw-
those advanced by Willats, Walton, and Gombrich, ing and depiction, arguing for a strong perceptual
we begin a new set of topics in companionship with autonomy in drawings, in terms of what he calls
Rawson and a few other authors, including Joseph their own "grammar" and "syntax." 12 "It should be
Meder, from whose classic The Mastery ofDrawing I obvious," he remarks, "that drawing never copies
have borrowed the phrase "the course of." 9 This things in any simple-minded way; it creates a con-
chapter addresses the standard Western advanced viction of reality in our minds in its own special
course of drawing, for, pace Steinberg, we can hardly terms" (StD, 35). Like us, Rawson wishes to assem-
understand the significance of drawing for many ble a better set of analytic tools for describing draw-
mature people with an account of a kit assembled in ing. "There are no accepted names for the facts of
childhood. As Gombrich insisted, the history of artistic execution as there are for the facts of musical
drawing is one of consolidated traditions and tech- language," he observes; indeed, it will be difficult "at
nical developments, of discovered and recovered first for the reader to pick out the visual facts, be-
techniques of rendering, passing from one genera- cause there is no traditional method of identifying

ADVANCING THE DRAWING COURSE 139

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Fig. 69. Zou Fulei, "A Breath of Spring," 1360. Handscroll, ink on paper, 34.1 x 221.5 em. Freer Gallery of Art, Smithsonian Institu-
tion, Washington, D.C.: Purchase, F1931.1.

them ... and no one has picked them out before" in see, which can make a great difference to a draw-
certain cases (D, vii). In accord with our course of ing's appearance and meaning (see StD, 14). This is
drawing account, he approaches his subject "from a topic we reached late in the last chapter in our
the point of view of the maker of drawings" though discussion of decoration, and the term "location"
in the direction of drawing appreciation (D, vi). used there was due to Rawson (StD, 14). Rawson
Next, just as in Part II we began, as Rawson recom- begins there. Tone or value-that is, degree of dark
mends, "concretely, from what is unquestionably and light-is another obviously crucial feature that
visible in a drawing as a marked surface before us," we have barely mentioned. Again the location and
for his part, Rawson's terms "are chosen because direction of marks, or clusters of them, on the sur-
they designate things that can actually be found in face is a noticeable feature. That bare fact of format
drawings by looking, and because they can be ex- is the beginning of what Rawson, borrowing a dis-
plained clearly and consistently" (D, vi). Finally, as tinction from Henri Focillon, identifies as two
just mentioned, when he comes to describe what is broad classes of approach to design: "I'espace limite
unquestionably visible, Rawson, too, begins with and l'espace milieu, space as limit and space as en-
marks on a surface. But here we note a significant vironment" (D, 201). We reached the limited for-
difference between the accounts: Rawson's great mat idea in chapter 9 when considering how fresco
contribution is that he avails himself of richer re- decorations divide wall spaces up proportionally,
sources than we have so far, yet he is able to proceed in patterns usually related to the shapes of the ar-
systematically. We began Part II with Willats's in- chitectural surfaces they cover. Rawson adds that,
sights about marks considered only dimensionally, typically, also with space as limit, "Indian drawing
and we followed this lead through other kinds of begins by accepting the format as an estab-
spatial attention before turning to the topic of de- lished ... area, which it then subdivides . . . on the
piction, which somewhat freed us from the purely basis of a rhythmic design," whereas by contrast,
spatial conceptions of drawing that dominate theo- with space as environment, "Far Eastern drawn de-
retical work on the subject. Rawson invites us to signs are based upon a few nuclei scattered over the
look afresh at the marked drawing surface to see open surface of the format," from which "the de-
what is "unquestionably visible there," and that is sign evolves outward into the negative, undefined
not confined to spatial characteristics. area of the surface, never enclosing it all or defining
it, implying always that it extends without a break
beyond the limits of the format" (D, 203). Our
RAWSON'S RESOURCES Chauvet Cave drawings provide other examples. A
common basis for such differences is the shape of
Rawson begins literally from the ground up by de- the ground itself. Modern Western people are used
scribing the kinds of material supports in drawing to drawing surfaces rather like screens-smooth,
and pointing out the obvious importance of size or monochrome, rectangular drawing formats (thus
scale. As observed in chapter 9, the fact that a the phrase "the blank canvas")-the edges of
drawing is done on silk, paper, or flesh, or as graf- which are brought into perceptual play against the
fito on the side of a bridge, is something that we marks. However, this has not always been so: for

140 DRAWING's RESOUR CES

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example, again not in Paleolithic times (fig. 70). dividual marks and groups of marks usually have a
This does not mean that physical format alone de- seeming direction relative to the surface or to the
termines whether space as limit or space as envi- viewer's framework. When looking at them in
ronment is possible. Drawings on strongly shaped drawings, we tend to see them in terms of group-
areas can appear to extend beyond them, and it is ings, as spreading, as going up and down or diago-
possible for a cave drawing or one on any open ex- nally, and so forth. Lines can seem to run in direc-
panse to suggest a limited space. Following such tions along their 1D lengths, even to vary in speed
ideas out even slightly would carry us into ques- as they do so. Thus we speak, for example, of a
tions of form and composition for which we are "spiraling line" or otherwise use suffixes to de-
not yet prepared. For now it is enough to state what scribe marks. Lines, seen as such, appear to us to
we might otherwise take for granted: that the rela- have many qualities; thus a note in one of Pierre
tion of marks to format may be a basic "visual fact" Bannard's pocket sketchbooks: "Relaxed lines,
of importance to how the display looks. sober lines, turbulent lines, oscillating lines, solid
Even brief mention of marks on surfaces sug- lines," to which Antoine Terrasse adds that Bon-
gests an important factor we have barely touched nard-who, like Rembrandt, is known for the vari-
on: the shapes and apparent movements of groups ety of his marks-"responded to the demands of
of marks. Rawson's term "scattered" certainly de- his physical sensibilities, expressing each by a
scribes the visible appearance of some groups of different sign: a dash, a stroke, a comma or a spiral
marks, and a host of other such terms naturally scroll." 15 Particularly with regard to modern art,
occur in our descriptions, some of which, like much has been written about what Rawson calls
"scattered," may also suggest a process of produc- such "kinetic" aspects of drawn marks for their
tion. In a typical passage of Chinese connoisseur- own sake. With regard to lines, Paul Klee's note is
ship, the ninth-century writer Chang Yeng-ytian famous: "An active line on a walk, moving freely,
observes that in the sixth century "Chang Seng- without goal. A walk for a walk's sake. The mobility
yu made his dots, dragged strokes, hacking agent is a point, shifting its position forward."l6
strokes. . .. His hooked halberds and sharp swords Rawson, too, gives early attention to such factors,
bristle as dense as forests." 13 Such movements are emphasizing contextual effects more than isolated
displayed magnificently in Zou Fulei's "A Breath of marks' qualities-that is, attending more tl!an Klee
Spring" of 1360 (fig. 69). Types of brush strokes to "directional value in relation to the co-ordinates
were named by Chinese teaching in terms of "tex- of the field," to orientation left and right (D, 84,
ture strokes": "hemp fiber," "ornamental dot," 92), and then, as we shall soon see, to line as a di-
"cutting mountain," "uniform and connected vider. Above all, Rawson gives understandable em-
water," and so forth, 14 but formative descriptions phasis to the relationships of lines-notably, to
are also made without metaphorical reference to what he calls "transverse" relationships of lines
physical questions. For example, we saw in chapter across the drawing surface. For a modern sculptor
4 how symmetry patterns may be seen in terms of a such as William Tucker drawn lines may be
generating principle and can seem to develop in weighted parts of a structure, independent of issues
one or two dimensions, moving in directions. In- of movement or facture (fig. 71). 17

ADVAN CI N G THE DRAWING COURSE 141

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Fig. 70. Two lions, End Chamber, Chauvet Cave. From Jean Clottes, ed., Chauvet Cave: The Art ofEarliest Times (Salt Lake City: Uni-
versity of Utah Press, 2003), by kind permission ofJean Clottes.

142 DRAWING's RESOURCES

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 ADVANCING THE DRAWING COURS E 143

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THE BLOB to introduce rather technical language in order to
abstract important aspects from "the visual facts"
Just as, according to Rawson (D, 127), distinct before us. "Blob" is literally a more concrete term
drawn lines can make continuities by running the than our spatial lexicon has been, given that "con-
same way, so can his account and our own. To crete" means the coalescence or growing together
bring Rawson's ideas into even closer connection of various factors into one. Though one draws
with our earlier course of drawing account, let us lines, regions, and shapes, one hardly draws
begin with his observations about drawn lines- blobs: thus the difference between them is more
particularly about contour lines, which we intro- than spatial. Nevertheless, if we do not exactly
duced earlier. An indication of how Rawson's is a draw them we may still draw with them, for ex-
more physical, "factured" account than ours so ample, Rawson points out, with the Chinese po-
far may be found in what he sets in contrast with rno technique, as in Shih-t'ao's "Ten Thousand
line (1D) marks and primitives. In chapter 5 we Ugly Ink Dots" of1685, and the dots (tien) speck-
began thinking, with Willats, of lines in terms of ling his leaf for the Elder Yii (fig. 72). It is also to
"effective extendedness" before moving on to pic- be noticed that, while contrasting with lines,
ture primitives, in the same terms. However, blobs enter into important combinations with
while Rawson also thinks of lines dimensionally, lines in many drawings, for example, either as
his main unit of contrast is more than dimen- smears along or puddles at the ends of ink
sional: it is "the blob." "Blob" applied to drawing strokes; they are often used for shadow. Rawson
immediately conjures not just a shape but a way has interesting things to say about the visual
of making one. Our work in Part II should be use- meaning of blobs (D, 81-83), in their varying con-
ful in explaining the paradox of such "shapeless" texts; however he has far more to say about lines.
shapes. Blobs are shapes dimensionally-that is,
they are possibly oD, as spots or speckles, but
more likely 211_ Blobs will not usually have shapes WESTERN LINES
of 1D or even of pronounced 210 extension, and
will tend to be lacking in axis, direction, and out- Rawson's treatment of lines also runs along with
line shape. The reason for this is their chance or ours, beginning dimensionally, then moving to
randomly constituted appearance. The category shapes-particularly to what he, too, calls "enclo-
"blob" thus appears to combine shape (and sures"-focusing on contour, and working through
shapeless) categories with a causal one: the shape the third dimension. Rawson's inquiry also encoun-
as due to the productive process. There is there- ters perspective in its proper rather than usual
fore an important lesson about drawing in the place. Dimensionally, Rawson begins rather as we
blob-as in the smear, splotch, blot, scratch. In- did in chapter 4, considering drawing as the trace of
deed, we see and describe drawing marks more what he calls "a point that moves" (D, 15) over a 2D
easily in terms of such combinations of shapes surface. I had described that trace in terms of an ac-
and productive processes than, for example, in tion that leaves "as the trace of its path a mark of
our simply dimensional ways, for which we had some kind," therefore as the result of "an inten-
tional physical action"-an idea further developed
in our treatment of categorials of purposive pro-
duction in chapter 8. Rawson's approach is slightly
different. While not stressing the intentional aspect
so explicitly, he again makes far more use of the
temporal, physical process of drawing. In other
words, regarding "things that can actually be found
in drawings by looking," Rawson insists that in the
drawn line we see "a mark that records a two-
dimensional movement in space," holding that
there is in "every drawing an implied pattern of
those movements through which it was created" (D,
Fig. 71. William Tucker, drawing, 1974. Ink on paper, 21.6 x 28.0 15), which we can all learn to appreciate. Let us
em. Author's collection. defer critical consideration of this claim to chapter

144 DRAWING'S RESOURCES

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Fig. 72. Shih-t'ao, leaf from Album for Taoist Yii, leaf 160-3. Ink and colors on paper, 27.5 x 23.75 em. Formerly in C. C. Wang Family
Collection.

12 and consider first what Rawson has to tell us number of different ways. Some draughtsmen, es-
about the more strictly spatial aspects ofline in pro- pecially in the Far East, have produced very long
ducing our essential quartet of shape, contour, en- linear shapes which are virtually single marks," he
closure, and 3D effects, as we turn now to what he writes; but, "At the other extreme, many Western
describes as a "discussion of lines, enclosures, and artists have repeatedly gone over their drawn
volumes ... devoted to the kind of visual concepts marks, which are usually short, single strokes, re-
used in addition to the purely kinetic expression of vising and modifying them, rubbing them out and
lines" (D, 93). redrawing." 18 Much of what Rawson has to tell us
"Shapes," writes Rawson, "are made out of about drawing simply concerns the uses that the
marks" (StD, 27). Although lacking both Willats's West has given that shortened drawing line. And
dimensionality concepts and his explicit distinc- "shortened" seems the appropriate word, since, as
tion between marks and picture primitives, this use we go back in our course of drawing account, it is
of the noun "shape" to name a thing on the sur- not one that comes early: "Children," he points
face, rather than just a characteristic of something out, "nearly always draw with longish lines" (StD,
there, aligns Rawson's vocabulary with Willats's 30 )-an observation that seems borne out by all
conception of picture primitives. That correlation our illustrations. His general claim also seems
is most significant when Rawson conjectures a borne out in Paleolithic works (see fig. 69).
simple but basic cultural distinction between Before considering the uses of the shorter line,
marks. "Drawn shapes can be created in a large we can hardly avoid mentioning its likely causes,

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Fig. 73. Shen Shih, "Sunset in an Autumn Valley: Landscape with Man in House," 1544. Detail, hanging scroll, ink on paper, ca. 96.5
x 30.5 em. Collection the University of California, Berkeley Art Museum. Photographed for the UC Berkeley Art Museum by Ben-
jamin Blackwell.

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Fig. 74. Michelangelo, "Study for the Figure of Adam," ca. 1510. Red chalk over charcoal, 19.0 x 25.7 em, corpus 134 recto. © Copy-
right The British Museum.

which introduces another formative factor that we Botticelli's Primavera in the Uffizi. Still, there is an
have so far overlooked: the physical materials and important truth to such ideas, as Rawson points
motor activities by which lines are laid down. Raw- out regarding the long, subtly varying curves that
son, like many others, observes that differences in characterize much Chinese and Japanese drawing,
writing tools and habits come into play here: for "to draw such lines firmly and clearly demands-
instance, the Asian vertical brush holding, free-arm as well as an unsupported hand- a sustained act of
technique of the standing artist, contrasted with concentration of a kind not natural to Western
the Western habit of elbow-supported finger and artists. Western lines tend to be short-breathed"
wrist action with stylus, pen, pencil executed while (D, 91-92): speaking of breath, Zou Fulei's "A
sitting (D, 88- 89). Such remarks, though valid, are Breath of Spring" (fig. 70) is a scroll220 em wide,
easily exaggerated. Shen Shih's brush marks and displaying many "long-breathed" marks of over 25
primitives seem short (fig. 73), whereas it is stan- em in varied directions.
dard academic practice in the West to draw just as There are great advantages to long lines, partic-
we paint, with a free arm, from a standing position ularly to long contours, and artists in all traditions
at an easel, and an underhand grip on the chalk, strive to sustain them. However there are trade-
brush, or charcoal. Similarly, though there is much off's, since, according to Rawson, "long lines are in-
to Rawson's comment that "graphic habits, derived trinsically two dimensional," and he continues:
from their customary manner of reading a page" "You read them by following them over the surface
affect a culture's drawing and appreciation activi- of the paper. When a linear draughtsman wants to
ties, this should not be understood complacently. If convey the third dimension, he has to use special
Western pictures tend to "read" left to right, due to devices, and avoid joining all his lines up into a
Western writing habits, this is not true of such single continuous silhouette," which will appear
canonic Western works as Michelangelo's Creation flat (StD, 30). So rare is surviving useful commen-
of Adam (see study in fig. 74) in the Sistine and tary on drawing from ancient times, it is remark-

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able to find clear corroborating testimony of con- into a two-dimensional silhouette.... [s]
cern about this very matter from Pliny, in praise of But every drawing style that seeks to go fur-
Parrhasios: "He is unrivalled in the rendering of ther has to evolve some procedure to deal
outlines [yet] ... where an artist is rarely successful with the fact that all lines are intrinsically
is in finding an outline which shall express the con- two-dimensional separators.... The 'life'
tours of the figure. For the contour should appear and independent volumes of notional [de-
to fold back, and so enclose the object as to give as- picted] bodies are, as it were, in bondage to
surance of the parts behind, thus clearly suggesting the fact that lines on a plane surface can only
even what it conceals." 19 Since conveying the third ever present some form of two-dimensional
dimension happens to be something particularly cut-out. This means that to achieve a three-
valued in the West, let us consider how it is done. dimensional sense in drawing it is not
enough simply to give continuous outlines
to objects the drawing represents. Some-
DRAWING DISTINCTIONS: SPACE AND thing more is always needed. [6] There are
RELIEF many possibilities; and most of them repre-
sent some means for driving the eye away
Trained up as we are with dimensional ideas, we from the outline towards the centre of the
can set out the issue that will guide the whole chap- outlined form. (D, 95, 97)
ter as follows. On a two-dimensional surface, a
zero-dimensional implement moves, producing Rawson's sixth remark raises a question about a
one-dimensional traces that are perceived as one- topic just discussed: the independent interest of
dimensional entities, lines. Whether or not these lines. Hence another observation should be added:
are used to form two-dimensional enclosures, their
tendency is to produce two-dimensional partitions
of the surface. However, that works against three- [7] Generally speaking, any emphasis upon
dimensional effects. As a depictive technology, the expressive quality of line as such ...
then, those are among the trade-offs of linear tends to emphasize the flatness of the cut-
drawing, which require either non-volumetric outs; and so those styles of drawing which
drawing traditions or repertoires of volumetric are interested in an independent three-
compensatory techniques-for which Rawson dimensional plastic presence have tended to
provides us valuable cross-cultural histories. The play down both the immediately expressive
following extended passage from Rawson states his and the decorative quality of their lines in
ideas so clearly that it only remains to insert num- favour of two major linear resources. (D,
bers to separate and order them logically: 104)

[1] Since the essential fact about line is that it These "resources," which we will take in order,
is a two-dimensional trace on a plane, it has are what Rawson calls "depth-slices" and three-
in itself no three-dimensional value. [2] dimensional "sections"; but he goes on to mention
When a line is recorded on a flat drawing five more resources, mostly linear, for suggesting
surface the mind always accepts it first as volume in bodies and then four more, including
functionally a separator ... simply to mark perspective, for "deep space." There is a good rea-
off one side of itself from the other.... [3] son for separating the resources into two such
At bottom, lines represent limits, borders. groups, namely, a tradition of distinguishing two
And when they are applied to defining no- kinds of three-dimensional rendering in drawing,
tional [depicted] realities such as human fig- which we encountered earlier. Thus, at this point
ures ... they are used to establish the two- we mark a basic drawing distinction, which both
dimensional limits of the objects .... [4] guides the next few sections and links them to our
The effect of drawing continuous, unbroken study of the early "course of drawing." When Raw-
outlines round any notional object is always son refers to the three-dimensional in the above
to bind such an outlined object closely into statements, the topic is the depiction of bodies, not
the plane of the picture surface, turning it their locations in space-a distinction between

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Fig. 75. Arnout Vinckenborch, "Study of Male Figure." Charcoal heightened with white, 37·5 x 28.5 em. Fitzwilliam Museum, Cam-
bridge.

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what Meder calls Korperplastik and Raumplastik. 20 RENDERING VOLUME I: DEPTH-SLICES AND
Meder's first expression means something like PLAN-SECTIONS
"shaping bodies in volume," the experience of
space belonging to bodies themselves, whatever Regarding relief, Rawson's remark 3, on "two-di-
kind of general system they might or might not mensional limits of the objects," introduces the
find places in. It seems close to Panofsky's descrip- idea of "enclosures" (regions) on the drawing sur-
tion of space "as an aggregate or composite of face, especially those with the function of defining
solids and voids," rather than "as a homogeneous depicted objects. This significantly narrows that
system within which every point, regardless of more basic function ofline as a perceptual separa-
whether it happens to be located in a solid or in a tor, indicated in remark 2. When in chapter 5 we
void" (see chap. 2, para. P4). Most careful descrip- considered line both as a mark and as a picture
tions of space in drawings, depictive or not, regis- primitive, we were not yet in position to consider it
ter this difference. For example, Booker writes that fully perceptually: that had to wait for chapter 8's
"drawing is essentially a transformation of solid treatment of depiction. Previously to that treat-
objects or space relationships into a two- ment we had considered lines in terms of proper-
dimensional medium."21 ties such as dimensionality, topology, length, and
A simple sign of difference in spatial concep- shape rather than in terms of what they have us
tions is that while we are used to describe depicted imagine when we see them. However, artists such as
space as receding (notably in perspective), we are Mondrian are known precisely for presenting lines
equally used to speaking of depicted volumes as ad- as perceptual dividers of the picture surface while
vancing or pushing out toward us--or, as Rawson avoiding enclosure effects and open contours. Such
puts it, "making the near parts of forms seem to nonfigurative effects help us appreciate the extent
advance" (StD, 35). The latter effect is "relief" (in to which even works that do rely on enclosure may
Italian, rilievo), about which Arnout Vincken- in addition give their lines an independent dividing
borch's Rubensian picture tells more than a thou- function. To be sure, as Rawson writes, "One of the
sand words (fig. 75). 22 Emphasis on bodily bulk, as most important things lines can do is to create
more than the recession into space that depth-slice shaped enclosures." Though he says "shaped," we
occlusions produce, brings us back to our chapter 5 have learned from Willats that what Rawson actu-
consideration of the forms of space that things can ally intends is our topological concepts of continu-
be given in drawings. There, readers will recall, we ity combined with separation, for he adds: "Chil-
halted the account just as children began adding dren use such complete enclosures very often" to
local shapes to dimensionality and overall shape in mark off separate units. "To enclose it in an outline
their enclosure markings. We were beginning to is the fundamental graphic way of visualising the
consider contour shape but then confronted the separate identity of a thing-concept." Rawson adds,
formidable topic of depiction, which occupied "But, in practice, good draughtsmen go beyond
most of the balance of Part II. Besides, at the men- simple closed outlining of shapes" to produce "im-
tion of contour we also confronted another large plied shapes which are ... left open-ended, so that
topic: that of drawn shapes as they reflect "projec- they run into each other, join and overlap."
tions," including perspective. Now, while our basic Thereby they "define the spaces between those
topic, marks and drawing primitives and how they things, the spaces that bodies need to move in, the
yield an experience of shape and volume, is closely space that surrounds them, or shapes which bond
related to the topic of projection, it should not be parts of different things to each other" (StD, 34-
subsumed under that concept, and certainly not 35), which perhaps even our almost three-year-old
under "perspective," since marks and primitives was already doing (fig. 51). In chapter 6 we already
have far older, broader, and still independent his- followed Kaupelis's advice to make that part of our
tories. Faced with these twin issues of depiction concept of" contour drawing" itself.
and perspective, throughout the rest of Part II we Now "depth-slices." The short overlaps in draw-
only managed to keep the project of shape and vol- ing, cited in chapter 5 earlier by Kaupelis's "rule of
ume moving fitfully, for example, through atten- thumb," already introduced Rawson's key "depth-
tion to contour line. We now recover that topic, for slices" technique, practiced by most cultures. That
the child as for the advanced drafter. consists in "drawing ranks of overlapping edges ...

150 DRAWING's RESOURCES

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Fig. 76. Albrecht Diirer, "Samson Killing the Lion," 1498. Woodcut, sheet 40.6 x 30.2 em. From Willi Kurth, ed., The Complete
Woodcuts of Albrecht Durer (London: W. and G. Foyle, 1927), by permission of Dover Publications, Inc.

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stressing the overlaps." The device is immediately there is a vigorous conflict between a highly-
recognizable as a suggestion of occlusion, the most developed two-dimensional surface unity,
dependable source of depth effect. In review, Raw- and a highly-developed three-dimensional
son holds that while contour-indicating outlines plasticity. The higher the point to which
tend to bound planes flat on a surface, it is still pos- both are developed, the stronger the draw-
sible, by controlled sequences of short contour ing.... Usually one side or the other tends
strokes with at least one open end, to set up layers to predominate, but one is never allowed to
of such planes and so suggest depth. "Each linear swamp the other.... Although there is no
edge thus stays in its own notional two- doubt at all that a dense, flat structure ap-
dimensional plane," he states, "whilst the plasticity pears in all good drawing, there is equally no
of the whole notional object is created by an accu- doubt that unless such a structure is chal-
mulation of suggested slices depicted by elevation- lenged by a strong three-dimensional coun-
sections of the object. So strong can the effect of terpoise, it remains wall-paper. (D, 79, 81) 23
phrasing be that it can create the impression that a
continuous contour linking a series of depth-slices Rawson applies this to the best artists, "much of
actually runs back into depth" (D, 105). Thus whose effort was spent trying to create vivid bodies
Durer carries us off into vistas in "Samson Killing in the third dimension as well as a taut surface, and
the Lion" (fig. 76), having depth-slices walk us who wanted their darks to have a double value,
through the middle foreground. This is one advan- boili two-dimensional and three-dimensional." 24
tage of the shortened line. Here as elsewhere Rawson takes perceptual "ten-
Looking back to our full Rawson quotation sion or conflict" to be a positive drawing resource.
about line and relief, we begin to work up our main According to Rawson a main technique fol-
theme of artistic autonomy. While firmly accepting lowed (though not invented) by European drafters
an anti-imitation principle akin to Gombrich's consists in suggesting positive enclosures by depth-
first and related Gulf principles, so great is Raw- slice markings. Indicating the volume of bodies is
son's insistence on the autonomy of drawing that usually done not by drawing around the whole en-
he would not only reject Gombrich's Incompatibil- closure but rather by leaving some of its sides open,
ity Principle, he would not accept even the terms of a method reinforced when "pairs or triads of con-
Gombrich's Beholder's Share Principle of compen- tours relate to each other across the surface so as to
sation. Thus the phrases "play down" and "some- suggest slice-enclosures, ... whilst its ends are kept
thing more is needed" in Rawson's statement 7 do 'open' for ilie sake of plastic continuity" (D, 155-
not mean, as they would with Gombrich, that 156). So effective is this technique that the line-
drawings provide incomplete or ambiguous infor- segments need not even form T junctions, so long
mation and are therefore in need of supplement. as their phrasing is right (D, 155). For drawing or-
For Rawson there is indeed a perceptual conflict ganic bodies-particularly human ones-we noted
between the 2D emphasis of lines and 3D imagi- the normal Western teaching that the segments be
nary space; however, this conflict is not, as it is on kept curved and convex, to indicate double-
Gombrich's Incompatibility Principle, one of mu- curvature. We can look to a leading teacher of
tual exclusiveness. Rawson writes that "in most of human figure drawing, Robert Hale, for statement
the world's best drawings a very large part of their of the standard rule: "There are hardly any concave
vigour and expression derives from a kind of ten- planes in the human body," he remarks. "Beginners
sion or conflict between the two-dimensional and are forever taking great bites out of the body with
the three-dimensional," and he then states a basic concave lines. But a study of the masters will show
drawing principle of his own: that they do not use concave lines to outline their
forms, except in the rarest of circumstances."25
The methods which follow will include those Something similar holds for the planes and con-
which have as their purpose the develop- tours of animals and plants. Consider Leonardo's
ment of the two-dimensional aspect, of the most familiar "Vitruvian Man" (fig. 77). The drafts-
three-dimensional, or of both together. My man there maintains a manner of strong ortho-
point here is that in those drawings which graphic linear silhouette, scribing continuous pas-
are universally recognized as masterpieces sages of sure contour lines. Yet, along with this

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Fig. 77. Leonardo da Vinci, "Vitruvian Man." Gallerie dell'Accademia, Venice.

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Fig. 78. Lion Panel, End Chamber, Chauvet Cave. From Jean Clottes, ed., Chauvet Cave: The Art ofEarliest Times (Salt Lake City:
University of Utah Press, 2003), by kind permission ofJean Clottes.

"firm, factually delimiting contour" (D, 114) ern drawing is devoted to just this function. "One
Leonardo imparts a sense of volume by use of short, of the most important groups of Western tech-
phrased depth-slices. Where contour concavity niques," he repeats, "clusters about the problem of
seems to occur (for example, where wrists meet creating a sense of the full three-dimensional vol-
forearm muscles and thighs knees), we reinterpret ume of bodies and things. A great deal of artistic
it as junctions of convexities, with an immediate ef- invention has gone into them. They are used to
fect of experienced volume. An interesting case is supplement the more universal technique of over-
the figure's right knee in abduction, where we can lapping" (StD, 37). It is standard, for example, to
see how, as Leonardo's beautiful linear outlining pick out, emphasize, or exaggerate curved edges
curve approaches the knee, it comes in conflict with within bodies. This is perhaps why, as we saw in
his indication of convexity, resulting in a blob. chapter 2, the illustration violated the very per-
One might claim that the convex contour spective rules Durer was teaching in the shoulder
depth-slice is one of the first tools in the kit, as it is of his urn (fig. 32). In many drawings attention is
handled with assurance in cave drawings at least given to the curve oflines depicting eyelids to indi-
thirty-thousand years ago (figs. 66, 78). cate the roundness of eyeballs, and Rawson points
out that Greek pottery painters used the outline of
While Rawson argues further important devel- the pectoral muscle (as in the Leonardo) to indi-
opments with depth-slice regions, let us focus on cate 3D sections, while ripples along the edges of
the related "plan-section" method, which involves drapery were emphasized by medieval and Renais-
exploiting bends, particularly along true edge con- sance artists, including sculptors. 27 Rawson relates
tours, to indicate volume, without relying on oc- these to the arrow junctions that characterize engi-
clusion. As remarked in chapter 5, from early neering drawing systems, which we noted in chap-
childhood drawn lines are often used to indicate ter 2 when discussing isometric and oblique prac-
the picture primitives we called regions or enclo- tices: "the three-dimensional effects such lines
sures.26 In fact, much of Rawson's theory of West- achieve depend upon the angles or curves at their

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Fig. 79. Giovanni Battista Tiepolo, "Fantasy on the Death of Seneca," ca. 1735-40. Pen and brown ink with brush and brown wash,
over black chalk on ivory laid paper (creased), 34 x 24 em.© Reproduction, the Art Institute of Chicago. Helen Regenstein Collec-
tion, 1959.36.

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Fig. 80. Aristide Maillol,."Reclining Nude," ca. 1931. Red conte crayon with touches of charcoal on white laid paper, 53.8 x 77.8 em.
Photograph by Greg Williams. Gift of Mr. and Mrs. William N. Eisendrath, Jr., 1940.1044. © Reproduction, the Art Institute of Chi-
cago.

corners" (D, 107). We find the plan-section tech- more so when tilted down (fig. 74), as they help
nique used in many kinds of drawings, where carry the volume from the chest clear around to the
drafters wishing to indicate volume stress the top of the back (the acromion of the "shoulder"
curved edges of cylindrical objects such as cups and blades, or scapulae) over difficult terrain, while con-
bowls (fig. 79), although tipping them forward into necting the upper arm to the rib cage and shoulder
true circles, as in the axonometric method, tends to girdle in a convenient arc round the cylinder of the
flatten the result. neck. 28 Plan-section lines for the neck cylinder are
Projection, and especially perspective, bears an also sought, especially where human design has con-
interesting general ' relationship to plan-section veniently provided necklines (fig. 58), neck clasps,
techniques. Studies of perspective normally say little and necklaces, the contours of whose tipped curves
about its use in drawing the human body-as op- may also be seized upon. The other important girdle
posed to placing it in ambient space-but practi- is of course the pelvic, and it is common to make
tioners know of its great importance for suggesting constructional lines for the horizontal axes of both,
coherent masses in depth. Artists are fond of tipping controlling our sense of axis shape for the whole fig-
the cylinder and egg shapes into which they must ure. Rigidity is a basic fact about that lower girdle,
simplify the masses of living bodies, so as to exploit providing what Hale calls "a constellation of fixed
curves along sections through their axes. The tipping points," more dependable for showing not only the
is more visible because of the rough mirror symme- volume but the horizontal attitude (pitch and yaw)
try of the human body (thus males' nipples are not of the whole mass, which also serves to push parts of
useless). The bony prominence of our double- the figure forward or back. These landmarks not
curving clavicles or collar bones are additional being evident, however, it is important, as Hale
Designer-sent landmarks for the drafters (fig. 79)- urges, to know one's "pelvic points," notably the

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forward prominences, and to stress them. 29 The slide into texture and then shaggy pelt contour
Fleming Arnout Vinckenborch (see fig. 75) also marking. This is a representative example of a basic
knew his posteriors around the sacral triangle drawing principle: a kind of mark can serve several
(which he makes more visible than it would be), and distinct functions simultaneously or successively as
though few can draw so well in modern times, the it moves along.
sculptor Maillol knew to fix a pelvis that way (fig. According to Rawson, another technique for
So). Give an artist two triangles, quips Hale, and get rendering volume by suggested enclosures is suffi-
back a pelvis. ciently distinct to say that it came to prominence
only in sixteenth- and seventeenth-century Eu-
rope. This is the oval or "bubble" method, which
RENDERING VOLUME II: BRACELETS, "consists of drawing pairs of opposing convex
BUBBLES, FACETS, AND OVOIDS curves which our eye reads as outlines containing
between them a rounded volume" (StD, 39). The
Having just considered imaginary plan sections, curves may also be contours, limiting a thigh or
similar advantage is taken of real bracelets on forearm-as we see in the Leonardo (fig. 77). Once
limbs to indicate smooth recession in space, which again, however, artists are free to invent such
introduces the familiar device of "bracelet shad- "parentheses" forms as they like and to build up
ing." So familiar is this tool that we may be sur- objects out of chains of them, adding side shadows
prised to learn of a dramatic historical account. and highlights for each (fig. 81).
Within the Western tradition of depicting volume Rawson next gives attention to two embellish-
in bodies, Rawson places the invention of bracelet ments of drawing by enclosures that also bring
shading as late as the work of fifteenth-century shade and shadow into play: the "facet" method
German artists, with their habit of"deeply curved" and what he calls "ovoid stylization." The facet
lines. It was adopted by Durer, from whom, Raw- method works by adding lines within the contours,
son reports, it passed to Leonardo and Raphael, re- building up suggestions of raised facets between
placing the Italian technique of parallel shadow them-that is, of prominences with receding sides.
hachure lines-for, as we notice in our earlier illus- Such inner "shed lines" are perhaps most familiar
trations (figs. 58, 77), in the 1480s Leonardo was as the boundaries of tonal areas (D, 160-161). 'The
still working with the parallel. Rawson conjectures principal artistic aim is to shift the viewer's atten-
that via engravings bracelet shading passed to tion away from edges to frontal faces" (D, 161),
other parts of the world, notably to Indian artists in Rawson writes, and we shall further see how this
the Mogul court (D, 107, 109-110). development of techniques for "driving the eye
We briefly considered Durer's woodcut drawing away from the outline" is part of an important
methods in chapter 6, relating rendering tech- trend in Western art. It is certainly a well-used
niques to new reproductive technologies. It is in- technique for articulating masses in the human
teresting to look in detail at the interaction of body, it being standard practice to conceive of the
image-making technologies in such work (fig. 76). body in terms of a series of boxes, with front and
For his 1498 "Samson Killing a Lion" cut, the lines side plane junctions further beveled into facets,
defining the back contour of the hero's leg illustrate often by means of tones. The front of the knee pro-
Rawson's depth-slice technique, while bracelet vides a good example of this, the kneecap present-
shading on his thigh further indicates volume ing the frontal facet of a box that widens as it runs
through shadow and section. On the adjacent lion, back, thus presenting visible side planes that are
curved lines pass from indicating fur texture to often darkened (fig. 81). 30 We will consider this
convex then concave surface contours that signify again when the subject is shade.
cast shadow, breaking our convex contour rule as Rawson suggests that such facetting, with a
they reach the animal's haunch, where we also find roughly frontal face accompanied by foreshortened
a little cross-hatching. (Above, parallel lines show and opposed side planes, produces something like
the relative darkness of sky against clouds.) Speak- a stereometric or binocular effect (D, 175). True
ing of hairy beasts, the body and limbs of Doctor facetting invites shadowing on at least one side of a
Seuss's Cat in the Hat are often rendered by shed line (as in Rubens), with significant results.
bracelet shading strokes, which, like the Durers, Regarding tonal enhancement, it should be added

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 Fig. 81. Sir Peter Paul Rubens, "Seated Nude Youth." The Pierpont Morgan Library, New York. I, 232.

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that one usually reserves the strongest contrasts for enclosure slices are related to opposite lines within
what are to be the dominant plane breaks, the ones them, suggesting "a complete ovoid or ovoidal
that fix the axes and volumes of the main masses, cylinder" (D, 160). That discovery might rather be
using the darkest tones on one side and bringing in termed a rediscovery, for, according to Rawson, it
brighter light where it meets another facet, then belongs to various historical times and cultures, in-
treating the subsidiary breaks with less contrast. cluding Athenian pottery decoration, Roman
One of the best ways to lose the sense of volume- Pompeii, and India. It is found in Leonardo and in
our main topic here-is by not establishing domi- Durer ("who understood it imperfectly"), from
nant breaks: that partly accounts for the compara- whom it passed to Dutch and Flemish art, notably
tive lack of volume in drawings based on Titian, Veronese, Rubens, Poussin, to be rediscov-
photographs. Still, as always, departures from a ered by Delacroix, Cezanne, and others (D, 16o-
rule of art, intentional or not, can lead in interest- 161). Perhaps Michelangelo's drawings and his Sis-
ing directions. For example, that medieval artists tine paintings show this technique in use-al-
seem not to have well understood the depth-slices though always auxiliary to the contours. Rather
and shading of classical depictions of drapery than Adam's rib, let us consider his groin at Cre-
meant that they were free to produce beautiful sur- ation, notably the rendering of the flexed adductor
face patterns with them, which served their decora- muscle of his left thigh adjacent to it-the muscle
tive interests. that gets sore from horseback riding. Both in the
A good place to look for overall facetting is in preparatory cartoon and in the fresco (where
drawings of the human back (as in fig. 75), a part of Michelangelo brought his ovoids selectively for-
the body that clearly provides the drafter less to ward by painting lighter shapes over middle tones)
work with than the front, even in males. It is nor- the adductor constitutes a Rawson "ovoid." Hale
mal there simply to invent planes along construc- discusses that very muscle's rendering in study
tional lines that do not correspond to any con- drawing, in a way that also illustrates the Rawson-
tour.31 Facets indicate edges, even when, as usual in ian front-lit, side-shaded "facet" effect: "If I throw
drawing people, these are clothed in rounded a light on the oval as Michelangelo has done, I get
forms. In Creation of Adam (see fig. 74), both the feeling of a light front plane and a dark side
drawing and fresco, Michelangelo negotiates one plane. I grade the values to give the illusion of
on that figure's left side, producing a marvelous roundness and the oval form becomes clearer. I am
concavity by sequences of convexities along a dark using a language, a language of expression." 35
facet coming up to a lit front face. 32 Sometimes Hale's final point applies throughout this chapter:
constructional lines for facets are visible, but even according to Gombrich's first trio of principles, the
when not, one frequently senses their presence. drafter deploys graphic effects that are based on
This is hardly a matter of advanced connoisseur- natural ones, not according to nature, but as he or
ship; it is clear that the draftsman, in laying down she wishes, to get depictive effects: as Hale puts it,
strokes, is starting and stopping along invisible the drafter "invents all kinds of lines he cannot see
lines. Facetting's providing such a nice Gom- at all." 36
brichian first- and second-principle nonimitative Finally, neither ovoid nor shadow is called on in
device, it is interesting to consider the thesis of art a technique taught by another of our drawing
historian Millard Meiss that this technique may teachers, Nicolaides, who emphasizes that Meder's
find its origins in a drawing procedure, epigraphy, "Korperplastik" is a matter of weight: "weight is the
the facetting of three-dimensionally drawn essence of form," he insists, criticizing "cast-iron
initials. 33 Paul Hills suggests that marquetry and clouds and balloon-like women" of many
intarsia work also "lent themselves to crisp divi- pictures.J? His book teaches a technique for show-
sions between planes," as different woods and ing bulk that involves working from the "core, the
stones, cut geometrically, were contrasted in juxta- imagined center" of the depicted mass-not of the
position; and, certainly, the decorative environ- flat shape-outward toward the contours, rather
ments of Italian pictures are rich in such work. 34 like a sculptor modelling clay around a wire near
According to Rawson "a fundamental discov- the figure's core. Although this chapter began with
ery" in rendering convexity in bodies was the line, Nicolaides instructs, "Your drawing will not
method of "ovoids." Here the convex contours of show anything that looks like a line. It should be a

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solid, dark mass," with marks working outward to indicate volume. In classical Greek, Roman, me-
from what is perceived as the core (34-35). Thereby dieval, and Indian traditions we often find "the
the artist exposes yet another error of projection- dark tone of the outlines extended by shading in
based approaches to drawing. As the psychologist towards the centre of forms," Rawson observes,
Leyton has pointed out, our category "living often by "many small strokes" parallel to the con-
things" is of things that "grow and evolve" from a tour, sometimes by small bracelet strokes and by
center, "and it is this history that is seen in them," cross-hatched combination of both, showing "the
whereas the assembled objects of Part I "are usually graded recession of the surface towards its edges"
the simple concatenation of box-like elements."38 (D, 109-110; cf. StD 39-40). Commonly, however,
Projection cannot represent this basic, formative- this is done in a single stroke, by a "polarity"-that
topological aspect of perception-worse, as in is, by maintaining a sharper edge on the outside of
much photography, it so suppresses the experience a contour than on the inside. We see this already at
as to make us forget its importance. Every ampli- Chauvet Cave, where the feathered inside contour
fier is a suppressor. can also be joined to outright tonal filling (figs. 1,
We may summarize the theme of this section, 66, 78). Such shading, still a dependable method of
Rawson's remark 6 concerning techniques for counteracting the flattening effect of descriptive
"driving the eye away from the outline," with a outlines, has been a main drawing and painting
well-known comment by Delacroix: "The Classic tool for millennia in many traditions. Although
artists grasped things by their centres, the Renais- documents are scarce, by luck we have a general
sance by line." 39 Summary should not serve as con- statement from Theophilus: "By this method,
flation, however, since our understanding of draw- round and rectangular thrones are painted, draw-
ings depends not only on an effect of volume but ings round borders, the trunks of trees with their
on the means taken to produce that effect. Accord- branches, columns, round towers, seats and what-
ing to Rawson a technique common to such di- ever you want to appear round .... white is on the
verse artists as Leonardo, Rubens, and Cezanne- inside and black on the outside." 41 An interesting,
drawing things as "convex in all directions" by simple explanation of shade is that it indicates
lines with "shading ... used to 'help out' such foreshortening of side planes--or, as the artist
phrased contours"-was "violently" rejected by William Hogarth well put it in the mid-eighteenth
Rembrandt in favor of an autonomously tonal ap- century, it shows "how much objects, or any parts
proach (D, 163-164). It may surprise some that of them, retire or recede from the eye." 42 Thus, for
Rembrandt's work, though much admired by his a familiar example, Antoine de Saint-Exupery
contemporaries, was also criticized for its "neglect loosely rimmed the asteroids of Le Petit Prince in
of clear draftsmanship, which was thought to ne- watercolor inside his contour pen lines. A similar
cessitate complete outlining." 40 Even today some effect is derived in photography by axial lighting,
artists do not to care for it for the same reason. called the "limb effect," where the light source is
Here as always, when discussing tools in the kit we directed along the axis of convex, especially
must never forget that deeper values than tech- rounded bodies placed against a light back-
nique are at issue. This will be even clearer as we ground-a cliche today in magazine cover photos.
now turn to techniques of tone. The photographer Ansel Adams described the ef-
fect of such lighting: "As we approach the edge of
the curve, most of the light is reflected away from
SHADE AND SHADOW the camera, and if the object is against a light back-
ground, its edge appears quite dark. ... Forms are
"Tone," Pliny informs us, is a term for strength, revealed by variation of line and surface values
and everyone knows that tonal or "value" differ- rather than by juxtapositions oflight and shade." 43
ences are powerful volumetric shapers. "Shading" We see this at work in the red chalk drawings of the
is perhaps the best colloquial term, but in one of its modern sculptor Aristide Maillol (fig. 8o). Chapter
meanings "shade" denotes a different effect than 7 raised a Gombrich Same Mill Principle question
shadow, in nature as well as art. Long before of the basis for the universally used contour line it-
drafters began taking advantage of shadow effects, self. Some have thought that this line is in part due
shading was worked along the contours of objects to such shade effects in nature. 44

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 Shade, however, differs from shadow, which uniform. Rawson presents the distinction grace-
implies a blocking of light ("holes in the light") fully: "In fact, a vast amount of European drawing
reaching a portion of a surface, either by another has been based upon equating the dark marks
object or by the opposite side of the object itself. made by pen, crayon and brush with the shapes of
Shade effect is not due to light being intercepted shadows on the unlit sides of bodies, and of shad-
but rather to its being spread over a greater area, as ows which bodies cast onto other bodies by inter-
a surface turns away from its light source. It is rupting the light" (StD, 41). Usually "cast shadow"
therefore sometimes called "slant/tilt" shading. means shadows projected from one body onto the
This is the phenomenon that makes the sunlight surface of another, while "attached shadow" means
stronger when it is higher overhead, making winter self-shadowing-for example, the difference be-
different from summer. 45 In addition, as any sur- tween night and day as one side of the globe blocks
face turns further from a light source, it proceeds the sun's light on the opposite side. For terrestrial
to self-shadowing, beginning with half-light, or objects, however, bathed in the earth's atmosphere,
penumbra. Such transitions from slant/tilt shading it is less a matter of black and white, since their
to partial then full self-shadowing can be amplified shadowed surfaces are lit by lesser secondary lights
by micro-shadowing and highlight, or specular re- from the sky and other objects. In his 1740 "Fantasy
flection, due to textures. As Rawson remarks, on the Death of Seneca" (fig. 79), Tiepolo clearly
open-weave fabrics such as nylon stockings are de- separates cast from self-shadow by emphatically
signed thereby to make limbs look more volumet- darkening the former, as though it cuts out the sec-
ric and shapely (D, 113). ondary lights as well, while in 1635 Poussin's inter-
By contrast, true blocked-light or shadow ef- weaving of the two kinds was part of the melody of
fects in nature, as in art, are usually divided be- his composition (fig. 82).
tween cast shadow, on the one hand, and attached Understandably, some writers (for example,
shadow, modelling, and self-shadow, on the Gombrich) use the term "attached shadow" differ-
other-the terminology being unfortunately not ently, to denote a very important group of cast

Fig. 82. Nicolas Poussin, "La Fete de Pan," ca. 1635. Pen and brown ink, brush and brown wash, over faint black chalk underdrawing,
13.3 x 20.6 em. All rights reserved, The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Purchase, David T. Schiff Gift, 1998 (1998.225).

AD VAN CI NG THE DRAWING COURSE 161

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shadows: those that run continuously from the cinema and television-have strongly thematized
dark side of a lit object to the ground it rests on. cast shadows. These modern media might make
Correspondence of topological continuity of shade and the two kinds of shadow (attached and
marks on a drawing surface is a strong cue for an cast) seem obvious tools for the picture-making
important 3D topological continuity in the scene kit, but, as often observed, throughout world his-
depicted, as it makes the object look like it is in tory drafters have been reluctant to exploit them,
contact with the ground. We only need to look at especially cast shadow. Their use is rare in chil-
comics to see the importance of that kind of conti- dren's pictures, and virtually unknown to some
nuity: when it is broken, signifying that the object great drawing traditions. Meder summarizes the
is just above the ground. Many cartoons that use situation thus, interestingly stressing the Waltzian
no other kind of shade or shadow have little spots function:
attached to and beneath figures to signify ground
contact, which are called "Waltzian" in honor of a Cast Shadows ... were a fact which was only
psychologist who extensively studied that cue in slowly accepted by the arts. It is hard to un-
nature. 46 However it is remarkable, going through derstand why painters and draughtsmen so
newspaper cartoon strips, how infrequently any long neglected the value of the cast shadow
kind of shade or shadow effect is used. Among as a measurer of space and a "pointer" to the
children's classics, neither Laurent de Brunhoff's light source, unless they were so much more
Babar books nor Herge's Tintins use cast shadows interested in mere convexity than they were
except for special effects, say, when attention is in depth, or so jealous for the harmony of
given to sun- or moonlight, and shade finds very their compositions, that they did not like
limited use there. Babar drawings, for example, are dark stripes hitched to the feet of their fig-
almost devoid of even Waltzian shadows; surpris- ures. Gothic pictures, from Giotto on, were
ingly, so are the Tintin drawings, despite a suave almost shadowless, and fourteenth-century
use of perspective and parallel projection tech- drawings give figures floating in the air for
niques and indications of reflection on polished or lack of shadows to hold them to earth. Even
wet surfaces. H. A. Rey's Curious George drawings in the early Renaissance emphatic cast shad-
feature cast shadows, often not continuous with ows were avoided, and draughtsmen con-
the figure, to show the mischievous monkey in tented themselves with short, dark
flight above the ground. Here again the term "con- strokes ... starting from the feet of the fig-
vention" is useless; these are situations in which ures.47
graphic devices whose rendering effects seem
clearly based on natural ones are deployed (or not) Gombrich, too, observes that the modelling
depending on what the drafter wishes to accom- self-shadow "was destined to become the distin-
plish, for the trade-offs with shadow effects seem guishing mark of the Western tradition," and he
to be considerable. adds: "It was different with cast shadows, which
Photography (including moving pictures), not seem to have come and gone, very much like our
being a line medium, comprises a tonal family of shadows when walking along a lamplit road." 48
media and is therefore much more dependent than Self-shadow seems to be held in reserve throughout
drawing on shadow, tone, and local value differ- the history of Western art, but after classical times
ences. Indeed, some of the resistance to color, in it may not have been fully exploited in Europe
both photography and cinema, is due to color's until early in the fifteenth century, when its model-
tendency to detract from the continuous tonal gra- ling technique "gradually eclipsed" shading, ac-
dations that both chemical and electro-optical cording to Rawson, "with the development of
photography have made easily obtainable. Largely chiaroscuro ... first in Flanders and then in Italy"
lacking the resources of line as a divider, one of (StD, 41). Slowly the tone of contour lines them-
photography's challenges is categorial: the separa- selves was taken into this chiaroscuro structure, re-
tion of different objects and features from one an- versing the auxiliary relationship that had pre-
other, since false attachment and other ambiguities vailed when tone was restricted to enforcing the
are so prevalent there. However, photography- linear effects of contour, depth-slices, and
and not just the so-called film noir but much of facetting. The use of side lighting, as contrasted

162 DRAWING'S RESOURCES

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with that of front and back, came to be empha- consolidation by two expositors who combine real
sized, although "side" is not quite the term for the understanding of art with contemporary empiri-
usual source, which is closer to forty-five degrees in cal research about light, shadow, and human vi-
front of the plane and from above. Furthermore, sion. These are Paul Hills and Michael Baxandall,
secondary front and side lights are commonly em- who sum up and advance the preceding observa-
ployed to keep shadows from being blocked. A tions as follows. 52 "For representing 'relief,'"
dark contour on one side and a lighter one on the writes Baxandall, "two main rationales of tonal
other came to signify shadow and light, and modelling have commonly been used in European
thereby the direction of the light source (fig. 81). art since the Renaissance, often in combination."
As we noted before with facetting, self- The first comprises the shade and shadow meth-
shadowing was a specially important technique in ods just reviewed, which assume a main source of
figure modelling. When extended, it produces cast light. The second "rationale" implies no such
what has been called the "third contour." This is a source-or at most a diffuse illumination such as
subtle, fairly continuous terminator line or broader one finds indoors. European art was pretty much
zone, which separates the lit and self-shadowed content with the second rationale "for something
surfaces and whose changes carry information very like a thousand years, from the decline of Classical
much like that of the occluding contours, but be- Roman painting to the thirteenth century." 53 This
cause it is situated between them, it provides a is what Baxandall calls the "modelling tone"
sense of relief. 49 Particularly as used on human fig- method, and it is very similar to slant/tilt shading,
ures (fig. 79), the main plane breaks thus indicated where facing surfaces are always lighter, with in-
become very useful for indicating the directions of creasingly tilted surfaces proportionally darkened
the main axes of things. These axes may then be or- as they are depicted turning away along the direc-
chestrated perspectivally or by other projection tion of sight, thus darkest at occluding contours.
methods. Besides this Raumplastik use, they have The first rationale, which had in ancient times
greater use for Korperplastik and for composition. suggested directional illumination, was reintro-
Thus in drawing the figure Hale advises: "By think- duced in the early Renaissance gradually, with
ing of the dominant plane break, you establish the Giotto, by presenting the modelling tone as due to
concept of the controlling or dominant masses, a light source: an even, low-contrast illumination
which will give strength to your design and charac- from the direction of the beholder, but now ro-
ter to your drawing. You then create the strongest tated slightly to the side: "This accommodates any
contrast of values between the front and side planes second-rationale elements into any first-rationale
of these dominant masses." 50 A more subtle ex- frame of reference ... ; it licenses them (at what-
ample than Tiepolo's is the right forearm model- ever level of awareness) as more or less consonant
ling in Rubens's study for a painting of Daniel (fig. with front lighting." With the introduction of lin-
81), where Hale has us notice that the plane breaks ear perspective, however, the school of Masaccio
are not in straight lines, that values move in two di- introduced directional light and shadow as an ad-
mensions, and that the contrast for the main outer ditional framework, systematizing it while down-
break (on our right) is greater than that for the playing the modelling-shadow "second ration-
ulnar furrow, keeping "the big massing of the arm" ale" -indeed, swinging "the light source round to
clear (88). The subtlety is broadly compositional, the side, only a little in front, and sometimes even
too, as Laning points out that "the third contour, behind the picture-plane" (147). More subtly,
the turn of the form," comes into this drawing at "Masaccio often accents his terminators" to get
the knee, is carried into the arm's cast shadow on that third contour effect, as his "terminators regis-
the thigh, runs up the contour shadow of the left ter a section of the object running straight through
arm, loops shoulder to forearm, asserts clenched the picture, perpendicular to the picture sec-
knuckles, then defines larynx, chin, nose, brow, tion" -or nearly so. Thereby "foreshortened (thus
ending at Daniel's right eye, which "points sharply stimulating us to conceive depth) on this side of
upward," its glance carrying beyond the frame. 51 the object," these terminator lines are "projected
by our stimulated minds for the other invisible
With this introduction, we are now ready for side, giving us an armature on which we can con-
somewhat higher studies, a clear and systematic ceive it as a rounded volume" (148).

ADVANCING THE DRAWING COURSE 163

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Fig. 83. Francisco Jose de Goya y Lucientes, "Two Prisoners in Irons," 182o-23, from fol. 8o. Sepia with brush, wash, 20.6 x 14.3 em.
All rights reserved, The Metropolitan Museum of Art.

164 DRAWING'S RESOURCES

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 Such is a basic account, according to which a Thinking about local variations provides an op-
long course of art history might be illustrated with portunity, in the midst of these considerations
a few objects and a circling lamp. Naturally, there about shade and shadow, to recall that the broader
are more subtle variations of the method, two of topic is tonal: the place of dark and light among the
which involve combination and local variation. As clear "visual facts" that provide resources for
for the first, Baxandall stresses that we will find both drawing. Even regarding light, we must not imply
the old and new systems used together in the same that drawing always treats it in terms of modula-
drawings. Next, recalling our earlier thought about tion by surfaces, lest we again become theoretically
higher "derivatives," contemporary vision research "spaced out." As Matisse, for example, several
allows us to articulate the "second rationale" use of times stated, "The drawing should generate light,"
dark/light effects. That is, dark/light contrast at and it may be misleading to describe figures in me-
different points of drawings often turn out to regis- dieval art as illuminated from without-say, by
ter local contrasts there, where a middle tone run- axial lighting. An important, often overlooked task
ning throughout an entire drawing (say, as on a of depictive drawing is to provide a sense of differ-
toned ground) represents at any point in the draw- ent substances, textures, things: a sense that flesh is
ing only the local average value, which fluctuates softer and warmer than stone, that stone is of a
across the drawing surface, so that tones above or different texture than wood; and something simi-
below it at any point only represent relative bright- lar could be said of much nonfigurative drawing.
nesses relative to their local meaning (149-151). We These effects are often suggested by combinations
seem to work by local effects: just as a line in a of darks and lights so that, by contrast, different
drawing may vary between implying occlusion and untouched areas of the surface will appear, to our
defining edge contours to indicate an object, a stimulated minds, to be of differing brightness.
crack, or a shadow (see fig. 76), so one tone-even Matisse again: "In the absence of shadows or half-
that of the drawing ground-can represent differ- tones expressed by hatching ... I modulate with
ent levels of brightness within the same picture, de- variations in the weight of line, and above all with
pending on the local depictive environment. Per- the areas it delimits on the white paper. I modify
haps related to this is Jan Koenderink's finding that, the different parts of the white paper without
regarding changes in light, we have a much better touching them, but by their relationships. This can
local than global awareness. Rather like commuters be clearly seen in the drawings of Rembrandt,
with Beck's diagram, we need not burden ourselves Turner, and other colourists in general": 55 thus our
with fuller spatial maps, since, as Koenderink ar- Tiepolo (fig. 79) and Goya (fig. 83). Another fault
gues, by "ecological optics" we "may take the consis- of "shades of perspective" approaches to illumina-
tency of the world for an axiom" and focus on local tion is that everytlling in a drawing may appear to
fragments of it. 54 My suggestion is that, by the Same be of the same texture and temperature. Just as see-
Mill Principle, depiction transfers this way of work- ing involves the other senses, so does imagining
ing (if only sometimes to frustrate it). seeing.
These points have a more general reference
which will become increasingly important through
the arguments of subsequent chapters. I will call it SHADOWS STEAL
reciprocity. For one might ask here, of these rela-
tively simple matters, How it is possible that per- Tone was brought into the account subsidiary to
ceived pictorial elements that evoke, in what line effects. Yet felt tensions between continuous
Baxandall calls "our stimulated minds," vivid ex- contour, however indicated, and shadow modelling
periences of imagined seeing could rely for their ef- may be ancient, judging by the testimony of
fects upon local subject-matter identifications? In- Dionysios of Halikarnassos. "In ancient painting
deed, a similar question might arise regarding the scheme of coloring was simple and presented
depth-slices or occlusion, which are accepted as no variety in the tones," remarks this first-century
the strongest of all depth indicators: Does not the B.c. writer, "but the line was rendered with exqui-
very interpretation "occluded form" already pre- site perfection, thus lending to these early works a
suppose an established depth ordinal relationship? singular grace. This purity of draughtsmanship was
"By context" is probably a right answer to such gradually lost; its place was taken by a learned
questions, just not a very specific one. technique, by the differentiation of light and

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shade." As Rawson reports (StD, 41), with the de- drawing, as in life, how we distinguish cast-shadow
velopment of Renaissance chiaroscuro, artists in patterns on things from real contours, holes, and
Venice particularly began to break up lit-side oc- local color variations such as Hale's "edge of the
cluding or edge contours in favor of this inner con- model's sunburn." 61 Cast shadow forms, after all,
tour, as we see in the Tiepolo. This might seem a are not actually things; they are not even properties
minor natural development, yet its significance of the surfaces they modify, but mainly informa-
must have appeared great, judging by the reactions. tion about other objects cast on them as a screen,
Even two centuries on, William Blake, champion sometimes causing interruptive contrasts. Never-
of "firm and determinate lineaments unbroken by theless artists learned to deploy cast shadows effec-
shadows," felt that morally this use of chiaroscuro tively, a famous case being the shadow of the out-
was going over to the dark side: "The great and stretched hand in Rembrandt's misnamed Night
golden rule of art, as well as of life, is this: That the Watch group portrait, which has been discussed by
more distinct, sharp, and wirey the bounding line, the philosopher Merleau-Ponty. 62 Finally, there is
the more perfect the work of art." 56 Thus he dis- the large psychological issue of darkness, especially
dained Rembrandt, Rubens, the Venetians, the when it is, as so often with shadow, indicated by
Flemish, and the rest of what he termed "the slob- blobs out of which actual forms must emerge.
bering school." The following is typical of his For Titian, the greatest Venetian scorned by
polemics: "If the Venetian's Outline was Right, his Blake, the use of attached-shadow techniques for
Shadows would destroy it & deform its appear- suggesting volume might have seemed a natural
ance.... Broken Lines & Broken Masses are evolution of the linear techniques. Rawson sug-
Equally Subversive of the Sublime." 57 gests that Titian's greatest contribution to drawing
Similar reactions have led to psychological may have been his production of the ovoid forms
speculations, both negative and positive, about the we considered earlier but made "entirely out of
loss of contour and the entry of shadows. As late as tone"-even losing contour outline: "It takes the
1917 Harold Speed (who, as we saw, thought of con- eye away from its hypnotic attachment to edges,
tour in terms of touch) expressed old reservations and focuses it on the centres of volumes, the sur-
about the Impressionists' "loss of imaginative ap- faces nearest to it. It can then move over these,
peal consequent upon the destruction of contours from centre to centre, in a due hierarchy of order
by scintillation, atmosphere, etc., and the loss of and emphasis which offers a true psychological
line rhythm it entails." 58 Later, the psychologist scale of attention. For in perceiving anything real
Marion Milner would remark about her own draw- one does not look at its edges but at it, at its
ings that "the outline represented the world of fact, middle" (D, 166-167)-looks along what, as noted
of separate touchable solid objects.... So I could in chapter 2, Alberti called the "centric ray" or
only suppose that in one part of my mind, there re- "prince of rays." Cezanne's work, for which he is
ally could be a fear of losing all sense of separating often considered "the father" of modern pictorial
boundaries; particularly the boundaries between art, may have been motivated just this way, judging
the tangible realities of the external world and the by remarks of his that hark back to the preceding
imaginative realities of the inner world of feeling section: "The eye becomes concentric by looking
and idea." 59 and working. I mean to say" (he explains, with a
That is one worry; another concerns what hap- remark reminiscent of Delacroix's) "that there is a
pens when not only lights but darks are brought in culminating point and this point is always-in
to dissolve descriptive contour. Even modern, spite of the formidable effect of the light and
avant-garde aesthetics could see that as a problem, shadow and the sensations of color-the point that
as when the critic Jacques Riviere complained in is nearest the eye." And his dictum was, "Bodies
1912 that illumination is not just "a superficial seen in space are all convexes."63
mark" arresting objects at a moment of time but
one "profoundly altering the forms" of objects, Of course artists of Titian's tradition learned
which "prevents things from appearing as they again to thematize shadows, combined them with
are," the essential features of objects being "ob- other tones in their drawings, and showed that ob-
scured in the shade, while those highlighted are of ject anxieties could be overcome. Seurat, for ex-
the least interest." 60 It is an interesting issue in ample (fig. 84), worked shadows together with his

166 DRAWING's RESOURCES

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other darks to discover distinctive silhouetted artistiC constructs. .. . The term 'selection' de-
forms for individual objects-to be sure, at the ex- scribes the process so inadequately that it is virtu-
pense of the relief his colleagues valued. Rather less ally useless" (D, 23). Regarding light, Hale points
autonomously, more common uses of shadow pro- out that the artist "understands that light can cre-
duce a sense of volume and three-dimensional ate or destroy form: thus, he must be the creator or
space. In chapter 9 we considered a low-relief effect destroyer of light." He continues: "Skilled artists
in decoration which involves simulating self- can create these light conditions even though they
shadow on architectural features such as columns do not exist. An accomplished artist is able to create
and walls (fig. 68). Recent magazine design shows his own light ... sources, disregarding, if he
how merely an indicated cast shadow around some wishes, those that do exist. ... I assure you that it is
sides of a picture can seem to lift it slightly off the possible to arrange your sources of light so that a
page. Here we have, by a simple mirror reversal of cylinder looks like the window of a prison cell and
that ancient polarized line of shade suggesting the a sphere like a soiled poker chip."64
curvature of an object, an indication of its cast Thus on the Sistine ceiling, within figures still
shadow separating it from the plane. All these cases strongly controlled by closed contours, Michelan-
tend to confirm Gombrich's first two principles: gelo mainly uses self-shadowing to model his fig-
that drafters do not "select" from a scene before ures volumetrically while their cast shadows on
them but rather (even when there is such a scene) nearby surfaces help place them with the local ar-
build up drawings by putting marks down on sur- chitecture, real, imagined, or both, without much
faces, marks that work effects of certain sorts, de- concern about consistency between panels. The ef-
pending on the contents and mastery of the tool fect is a locally consistent modelling of shade and
kits available. As Rawson emphasizes in a related self-shadow within the scenes. In the fresco depict-
context, "works of art are, in fact, made; they are ing the creation of Adam, for example, modelling

Fig. 84. Georges Pierre Seurat, "Woman Seated by

an Easel." Conte crayon, 30.5 x 23.3 em. Courtesy
of the Fogg Art Museum, Harvard University Art
Museums. Bequest from the Collection of Maurice
Wertheim, Class of 1906.

ADVANCIN G THE DRAWING COURSE 167

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enhances the collar-bone girdle effect mentioned covered by shadow marks will greatly increase,
above, and the artist combines it with a cast with inevitable distraction from contour. That
shadow (of the Creator) introduced for dramatic blind people understand contour perhaps suggests
effect. Cast shadow, however, is a complex kind of that dark and light are not essential to it, even with
information, whereby part of something's occlud- recession. 66 But with shadow, as tone or value
ing contour shape is used to indicate the form and differences become more significant in a drawing,
volume of something else. Without careful control, and the dark increases, tonal balance itself becomes
this can constitute instead a kind of visual noise, as a new resource and a fresh issue, and so does every-
often happens in photographs, with one message thing that this balance can mean, from figure-
muddled by interference from an irrelevant one, ground relations to deep psychology. An important
and there are many warnings about the careless use drafter's tool that emerges is due to the fact that
of cast shadow-including, in portraits, the ones shadows, as quasi-objects, tend to make up or be-
under our noses and chins that suggesting mus- come autonomous subjects-which, in addition to
taches and beards on women. the double meanings just mentioned, can cause in-
By themselves, shadow borders or contours, we terference. Also, groups of shadows, sometimes
all know, can be a serious problem for environ- with noticeable contours, as we saw with Rubens's
mental vision. Fortunately, our sun has a broad "Daniel," can form their own patterns-what
enough disk that its rays produce a softening Rawson calls "shadow paths." These may compete
penumbral transition to shadow edges that it casts; with the contours of actual objects, as we see in the
even so, its illumination contrast can be excessive. Tiepolo and magnificently in the Poussin "Baccha-
As perceptual psychologists point out, "Although nal" (fig. 82). Thus, shadow mass and shadow path
shadow borders are a nuisance for object segrega- became main resources of picture making, some-
tion processes, they may be useful for recovering times imparting psychological meaning. Pity is
the relief of the surface on which the shadow that Blake did not know about his great contempo-
falls." 65 We see this in a select part of the fresco: rary Goya, who like him, was able to look at all of
otherwise Michelangelo skips cast shadow entirely, human nature. In his tableau "Three Soldiers Car-
as on the left leg of our "Study for Adam" (fig. 74), rying a Wounded Man" (fig. 85), probably also
except for the toes (entirely occluded in our draw- from the late "F album" of 1815-20, a stricken com-
ing)-which in the fresco are not among his better batant, pale with pain, carried by two comrades,
creations. Rawson's point is that within the Euro- consoled by another, exits down right the field of
pean tradition, great artists such as the late Titian, action. Talk of "topological values" and contain-
Rembrandt, and Goya gave real autonomy to ment: two tipped ovals of encircling arms support
shadow as well as to the dark markings that depict the burden, while the negative oval region that
them. In Goya's "F album" sepia drawing, ''Two links them and the arched one below it knock holes
Prisoners in Irons" (fig. 83), important as are the through the sad procession. Goya's attachment of
broken contours for describing figures, and the the great rock at the sheet's left margin pushes the
oblique-projection diagonal at lower right for indi- wounded figure, face white as paper, out from the
cating depth, the system of shades and shadows has surface. And it yields a false attachment: a shadow
become prominent, their darknesses combining on the rock has us imagine the left bearer like an
with color darkness. angel flying in from that side, while that bearer's
actual white legs seem to be those of the victim,
who is then imagined toppling into his depicted
SHADOW'S PATHS pose. Thus ambiguities about regions, enforced by
independence from depicted figures of the dark ink
Thus shadow cast into drawing more than several regions (which in Goya's albums we may hesitate
powerful ways of suggesting volume and relief, to penetrate), create multiple interpretations, or-
and-it is high time to say-much more, when chestrated in a slow rhythm of glide symmetry
shadow achieves autonomy from volume. Whether translations through the hunched figures.
the marks that depict shadows are blobs, parallel A second large issue that shadow introduces is
hachure lines, or curved strokes to impart trans- one already mentioned: that oflight and its source,
parency and relief-shape, the amount of surface as we see in both our Goyas, the Tiepolo, and oth-

168 DRAWING's RESOURCES

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Fig. 85. Francisco Jose de Goya y Lucientes, "Three Soldiers Carrying a Wounded Man," 1812-23. Brush with brown ink and brown
and gray wash over black chalk on ivory laid paper, 20.5 x 14.5 em. Clarence Buckingham Collection, 1960.313. Photograph by Kath-
leen Culbert-Aguilar, Chicago.© Reproduction, the Art Institute of Chicago.

ADVANCING THE DRAWING COURSE 169

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ers. In nature every cast shadow carries informa- to ourselves as located in space. We have begun to
tion about the shape and tilt of the surface where it consider not only groups of such depicted things
falls, about what we call the "scrim" that casts it, but also imagined entities that correspond to no
and about the nature and position of the light substances at all. Always keeping in mind the au-
source or sources. 67 But it is important to realize tonomous characteristics of marks and primitives
that in depictions shadow effects do not necessarily such as lines and enclosures, we have added to our
imply a light source. We noted that drafters of drawing kit the more abstract framework charac-
many traditions have used subdued self-shadow to teristics of direction of light and perspective. So,
provide some convexity to figures as simply a way just as traditional studio training students were al-
of drawing figures, without thinking about the lowed to graduate to "composition," now that we
light source. Still, the most frequently represented have completed rilievo or volume-rendering effects
but undepicted individual in the history of depic- in this chapter's crash course, perhaps we qualify
tion is probably our sun, whose position (Meder's for study of literally the bigger picture.
"pointer") and influence is sensed in many pic-
tures-even when not thematized, as it is, fa-
mously, in Dutch painting and Impressionism. FIELDS
Aside from its sources, illumination is itself a great
theme of the visual arts of many traditions, Nonobjective shapes of any of the kinds that we
whether they show shadow or not. When given have investigated should not be considered, as in
uniform direction throughout a picture (as we see our Goyas, as alternatives or rivals to the objec-
in a number of our illustrations for this chapter), tively depicted ones. To begin again by easy steps,
illumination becomes akin to what we saw per- in the image traditions of many cultures strong
spective to be in chapter 2: an autonomous or- shapes serve to constitute groupings of various
ganizing force rather like gravity, capable of pow- sorts. Earlier we noted that depth-slices, even when
erful control of the appearance of everything in the not implying object enclosures, can indicate rela-
picture, according to a few interacting variables. tive occlusion depths of multiple entities, such as
We have seen how Western traditions in drawing trees or mountains rising from mists, as in Chinese
have been identified by use of one or the other of drawing, or Durer's almost willow-ware fantasies
these organizers, and when they are successfully in "Samson." In all traditions strong enclosure
brought together they create immediately recog- forms contain multiple objects. In many drawings,
nizable "field" effects distinctive to it-that is, such such as Goya's "Wounded Man," we may first be
structures of pictures can be noticed at a glance, aware of a strong enclosure design and only then
even before object recognition is very far along. In- begin to investigate the depictive forms they bind
deed they interact at each point, for one of the or blend. In others, overall enclosure and enclosed
technical tasks of academic perspective study was shapes are perceptually more equal, as for example
to draw cast shadows in perspective and to shadow in our Michelangelo fresco, where the Creator's
forms correctly so as to clarify perspective. cloak, enclosing the unborn, provides a familiar
In review, we began this chapter, Villard-like, example. However, that example also introduces a
with lines, and we stayed with the individual sub- significant compositional factor not shared by
stances they delineate, considering ways in which most groupings of depicted objects through the
drawing techniques make these substances--espe- overall shapes or forms that run through them. In-
cially their corporeal volumes-not just legible but deed, according to Rawson, "we reach the point
perceptually effective and vivid to our imagina- which represents the unique technical achievement
tions. There is an excellent reason for that strategy, of European art, the method of linked bodies in
since in both individual and historical develop- space," which he holds to be its "most transcendent
ment things that are spatially characterized and re- or symphonic" achievement, late arrived at and
lated serve as the main basis of our drawing proj- thereafter mainly lost to figurative art. It "goes be-
ects. That account has broadened from its basis, in yond the graphic symbols and elements" we have
the vivid depiction of the spatial existence of indi- been considering, while presupposing them, he
vidual objects in relationship, to the spatially de- says, and it is a method of organizing the picture so
scribed marks and grounds that present them, and that "all the positive bodies in it compose

170 DRAWING's RESOURCES

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closely ... interlinked sequences, with an inherent time nexus generates what I call a "field."
direction, over a basis of negatively conceptualized (StD, 49-50)
areas in which open space is treated virtually as
'substanceless body'" (D, 177-179 ). Such form, as a Goya's "Wounded Man," with its complex chains
continuous corporeality running through objects, of human links, appears to exemplify such a sense
may be achieved by all the means we have just con- of time and action.
sidered, since it depends on "a vivid three- Of course many traditions, such as our Mayan
dimensional sense" in both the recessional and the vase painting (fig. 65), narrate human interactions,
volumetric sorts that we have been considering. showing both bodily and mental attitudes. Further-
Poussin's bacchanalian drawing (fig. 82) provides a more, many link the depicted forms into patterns.
good example. Regarding subject matter depicted Rawson's point seems to be that a continuity of de-
this way, Rawson adds the following: velopment in bodily volume or in pictorial depth
was necessary for setting up such time-space
Humane figurative art, which focuses on the "fields," although he holds that once discovered, no
expression ofhuman feeling and of personal such literal narrative is required, given that modern
interaction, by representing people moving art has made the field "the artist's principal goal"
in their world, is capable of developing com- (StD, 54). From the European idea of organizing
plex images of shape by means quite un- entire pictures not just as great chains of beings but
known to other styles. The artist can com- as chains of human ones, that seems (almost) pre-
pose a network of implied bodily movements dictable. That there should be such a development,
among the living ... figures he constructs within that tradition, of methods of rendering ob-
which take on all kinds of subtle spatial sig- jects in bulk, of depicting shape and spatial rela-
nificance.... [T]hey may suggest complex tionship, should be even less surprising when we
patterns of going and coming, turning and consider how, for millennia, a main function of the
acting, the meeting of hands and eyes, the tradition was to serve sacred narratives through
shifting groups of feet and heads, encounters dramatic physical and psychological interactions, in
of whirling drapery. All these may suggest which the corporeal, anatomically functioning
what has just happened and what may be human body often served as the principal agent of
about to happen, backward and forward in expression. 68 Thus our frequent recourse in this
time. (StD, 48-49) chapter to examples from life drawing. This ap-
proach seems grounded in human psychology,
As for the individual figures, they "seem poised in given that much of our imaginative life concerns
the course of varied movements which need both living beings, particularly humans, with a good deal
time and space to complete" (StD, 54). This of emphasis on their bodies in action. How the ac-
achievement, Rawson holds, presupposes the spa- tions of these bodies are conceived is a basic issue in
tial devices we have considered, and was fully de- the understanding of drawing. It is interesting that
veloped in the West in the post-Renaissance pe- Heinrich Wolfflin should report that Michelangelo
riod, when disapproved of Durer's scheme of bodily propor-
tions for not basing itself on anatomy. We know
artists composed interwoven chains of that, for all his work on anatomy, Leonardo favored
three-dimensional bodies, which are linked soft, slender bodies, while it is largely to Michelan-
by all the varied resources of flat design gelo that we attribute the dynamics of strong mus-
across the surface. But our eye reads conti- cular, skeletal action (developed by subsequent
nuities of sense running through them along drafters, down to modern comics), which strength-
which it is able to interpret ... a developing ened practices of drawing from the nude-about
human interaction .... Our sense of space which Meder's comments are still worth reading. 69
may be extended by events which we under- Through such practices perspective became a sig-
stand to be progressing in time, and hence to nificant factor within the handling of human fig-
need more room to complete themselves ures.
than the picture actually shows. So time may Philosophically, it is revealing to compare that
be incorporated into the image; this space- late Western approach with that of other traditions,

ADVANCING THE DRAWING COURSE 171

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including European ones. While providing "fields," garity. His 'truth' is a truth of feeling, where what
the antiheroic narratives of Rembrandt and Goya are matters is a continuum of sensual response to pol-
antianatomical with their main forms (figs. 83, 85). ished surfaces, conveyed by fluid lines running over
Max ]. Friedlander wrote perceptively about Pieter unbroken, generalized areas symbolic of volumes"
Brueghel's movement-based rejection of the classic (D, 23).
technique with the human body, based on an object- As to the general topic of "interwoven chains,"
centered "straight and upright figure" (fig. 77), en- which includes the Western bodily forms, although
riched "by a displacement, a foreshortening, an incli- Rawson thinks that we can find something like it in
nation, a turn." Brueghel, he remarks, "never seems the rock "dragon veins" method of the Yiian dy-
to apply foreshortening to an ideal figure, but begins nasty artist Wang Meng, he remarks that most Chi-
with the action, and from one particular angle seizes nese art "emphatically does not use it" (D, 183).
the ever-changing contour as a whole," as a distinc- Wholeness in that tradition tends to reside instead
tive silhouette (including dress): "Therein lies these- in a spaciousness of nature (see fig. 72), out of
cret of the manifold variety of movement" in his fig- which human, animal, and other forms emerge,
ures.70 Even regarding individual aspects of human whereas by the "linked bodies in space" method,
bodies, where with Hale's help we considered the the main forms tend to be human ones involved in
rendering of the shoulder girdle in Western life- dramatic actions. One of Rawson's favorite ex-
drawing traditions, Rawson provides a contrasting amples for the post-Renaissance technique is
case: "An Indian Rajput draughtsman never bothers Poussin, who in some works (fig. 82) orchestrates
to delineate and define the complex of bone and complex interweavings of forms and surfaces gen-
muscle at the front of the neck and shoulder, where erated by this method, through complicated
the collarbone and breastbone meet. To do so would human dramas-where he often disregards conti-
be an artistic irrelevance, a totally unnecessary vul- nuity and quality of contour.?'

172 DRAWING'S RESOURCES

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