Drawing - The Art of Form

The facility to master drawing has always been attained by careful study and by what has been called the search for form. What are the general guides to good drawing practice and what method was found to work the best? We look to discover the answers through the practice of the masters themselves. The beginner often shares the general opinion of the public at large that drawing is a kind of agility, a conjuring trick done with clever hands, a tour de force thrown on lightly, with no care or study. Of course, there are varying degrees of talent and where one accomplishes a task with seeming ease, others may flounder. But the history of art shows clearly that a want of facility has not prevented one from achieving great results, while among good instructors, the exhibition of cleverness and smart handling alone is not sufficient to help a painter achieve higher place. That is to say, mastery over technique does not come by casually tracing contours with a pencil, but by more or less painful efforts to track down the subtleties of form. It is difficult to make a beginner understand this, for they suppose that mere practice will give facility, whereas the eye should be trained by exercises demanding rigorous scrutiny of form and needing all the intellectual capacity which can be brought to bear. For our purposes, we look to explore what the practice was in the 19th century, specifically in drawing from the figure, which may be divided into two. The general training had two main types of exercise. One, very important, is the quick sketch, recording the main facts of the figure. Secondly, the in-depth pursuit for completeness with what we call the big look. Generally, the quick sketch deals mainly with movement, flow of line, and character, as shown in the pose. Such work requires supplementing by more searching and detailed expression of form, which enables the student to arrive at the more summary methods of the short sketch. This is an important first step. However, the student who sketches only for quick sketches and for limited periods of time will not be aware of how far he can pursue his analysis. In other words, the artist has not really learned to search for the form in all its fullness. Secondly, comes with the observation and errors that may occur in proportions and in the nuance of accents. Even if drawings, say for a larger work, were required, they should be drawn first to an accurate scale and then enlarged by squaring up on paper or another method. There are some life drawings, as indicated, where the student should, as always, mark the top and bottom of his drawing and at once find the main line from head to foot. The usual training in drawing in the European and American art schools has consisted of long practice in drawing from the model. Often, the student works each half day for a week with the model posing, and the result he attains when he is successful is a pretty accurate portrait, well-constructed, and well-handled. To acquire the ability to draw well in this academic sense of the word is no small accomplishment. It means that the student has learned to see proportions and to record them with truth, and has learned the anatomy of bones and muscles, so that he knows just what he is representing by every line and touch, and recognizes and appreciates subtle differences of value, and that he has learned to use his materials with skill. Only a few of all those who enter the art schools attain to mastery in academic drawing. Such French painters as Jerome stand out with consistency. The 19th century artist next follows the general structure of the figure with a plan lightly sketched in of the masses of dark tone. It is at this point, as with Oyles, that the proportions of the drawing should be scrutinized, and if found lacking, the charcoal strokes, which at first should be light and delicate, can be obliterated with a few flicks of a tissue. It cannot be emphasized too strongly that this stage is most crucial, and tests severely a student's powers of selection and analysis. With the drawing, no matter how many hours or days are required for its completion, be substantially in proportion, and the general scheme of light and dark be established at an early stage. Hence the importance of self-criticism, and if necessary, of beginning afresh. John Sargent, for example, was very strict on this point. To start all over, no alterations of change should be made at a later stage. The time for erasure has then passed, and as the drawing progresses, they convict the pupil of carelessly overrunning his first steps, and of failing to build on a sure foundation. A higher type of drawing, exemplified by the drawing of l'ermite, as shown in any of his studies of peasants at work, is of a higher order. It is more concerned with the expression of character than with the literal facts. The handling is often rough and bold, but strong and in harmony with the homespun men and women, which he draws and paints, often using pastels as well. While we are impressed by the firm construction of his figures, yet this construction is shown often by an omission of details, and an emphasis on some significant line. Those who have had the power to draw well in this larger sense are among the great names in art. The greatest among them are those who work diligently and regularly to perfect their draughtsmanship. Drawing in landscape is an art form. We must recognize the fact that good landscape art also involves good drawing. Trees and clouds and earth cannot be drawn without consideration for their characteristic constructions. Moreover, there is a complexity in landscape which requires a far greater degree of simplification than is required in figure painting. Clouds are constantly changing their forms. They must be drawn from memory after keen observation of typical shapes. The leaves of trees and the grass and vegetation of the fields cannot be drawn literally. The landscape painter who knows what drawing means is skilled in selecting the few lines of cloud or tree or hillside which will express the more important truth of form. Corot was a master in drawing trees so as to express perfectly the essential character of growth with which he was impressed to convey. Now to look at linear perspective, it is hardly necessary to dwell upon the matter of perspective as the term is usually used. In the drawing atelier, it is not usually a popular topic probably because it requires a good deal of care and patience to make a perfectly correct drawing even of a common object like a house and probably most have at some time been overcome with wonder as you watch the effect of increasing size in an oncoming train or watched some other example just as familiar which vividly illustrates the principle of the apparent decrease of size in objects as they move away into the distance. For example, looking down a long avenue in a great city or park which we see so well done by Lefebvre's Lady Godiva, how he pursued the study of perspective and how he even painted pictures simply to work out problems in perspective with a heightened grandeur. The science of linear perspective and probably most would wince at the prospect and think twice about what perspective is and how to be convincing at it because even figures and buildings in the distance were made smaller so far as linear perspective could support. For example, the American artist Childe Hassam in painting figures in the distance represents them with less detail than he puts into nearer figures. All this goes to show how effective a practice it is to learn linear perspective and add the important blur of reality as the eye perceives nature. There is another aspect to form, yes, its color. Colored objects generally appear grayer in the distance and sometimes lose all trace of their actual hues. Color can as effectively describe form as with the linear. In the best hands, it has a powerful feeling and romance that can explain what we see in nature in yet another way. It is still form. For example, green trees may appear gray or purple under certain conditions of the atmosphere. Regard for aerial perspective or the changes of effect for which the atmosphere is responsible belongs to the art of the 19th century as well. It had developed with the plein air movement where whole schools of landscape painting emerged. Beautiful effects of aerial perspective were attained by painters of the Barbizon school and, of course, the Impressionists, but also with the naturalist French painters like Bastien Lepage and his followers. Those who followed the lead of the so-called Impressionists contributed something, but largely among the later landscape painters, they chose to prefer values. Our view is that the true colorist would be Sorolla, who brilliantly combined the near-perfect balance between the two. However, the choices for the painter have as much to do with temperament as it does with training, because talent must be a work in progress. There is also what we refer to as the harmony of forms. It is the balance of factors used in a picture to coordinate the various parts of the picture to work smoothly with and into the whole. This can be seen in the skillful use of multiple figures to where the parts are so well integrated that it is a complete merging of forms. For example, images in the forefront may simply join together as a silhouette where the forms are unified quietly as one unit. There is the harmony of color as well, where it may be that a brilliant yellow or red note placed carefully is dominant but complements the quieter values around it. Every so often artists may choose to make a composition that is worked up with an overall value range of softer tones, then at the last minute place the strongest color note or accent at the end of the session. This technique was used quite well in the past as a way of centering attention when needed and pull the effect together quite skillfully and wonderfully. And finally, we hope you enjoyed this look at the powerful word form as it describes and is used by artists and the various ways that form is used for picture making. The pictorial image is powerful and the painter has as many ways to interpret form as can be imagined. In the words of Joseph de Camp, you never cease trying to improve your interpretation of form. That struggle never ends. So with that we look forward to sharing many more great and talented artists, many long overdue, and will be seen again. Please remember to add a like and thank you to our subscribers. We have come a long way in just a year. So thank you. Until next time. It's bye for now.