{"id":2014,"date":"2010-07-28T12:55:31","date_gmt":"2010-07-28T12:55:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/meeseeks:5080\/blog\/?p=2014"},"modified":"2010-07-28T12:55:31","modified_gmt":"2010-07-28T12:55:31","slug":"berger-on-drawing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vukutu.com\/blog\/2010\/07\/berger-on-drawing\/","title":{"rendered":"Berger on drawing"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Following Bridget Riley on <a href=\"http:\/\/meeseeks:5080\/blog\/2009\/12\/bridget-riley-on-drawing-as-thinking\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">drawing-as-thinking<\/a>, I have been reading Jim Savage&#8217;s\u00a0fascinating collection of writings by John Berger on the topic of drawing.\u00a0 Although Berger does not say so, he is talking primarily about representational drawing &#8211; the drawing of things in the world (whether seen or remembered) or things in some imagined world &#8211; not abstract drawing.\u00a0 Some\u00a0excerpts:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>&#8220;For the artist drawing is discovery.\u00a0 And that is not just a slick phrase, it is quite literally true.\u00a0 It is the actual act of drawing that forces the artist to look at the object in front of him, to dissect it in his mind&#8217;s eye and put it together again; or, if he is drawing from memory, that forces him to dredge his own mind, to discover the content of his own store of past observations.&#8221; (page 3)<\/li>\n<li>&#8220;It is a platitude in the teaching of drawing that the heart of the matter lies in the specific process of looking.\u00a0 A line, an area of tone, is not really important because it records what you have seen, but because of what it will lead you on to see.\u00a0 Following up its logic in order to check its accuracy, you find confirmation or denial in the object itself or in your memory of it.\u00a0 Each confirmation or denial brings you closer to the object, until finally you are, as it were, inside it:\u00a0 the contours you have drawn no longer marking the edge of what you have seen, but the edge of what you have become.\u00a0 Perhaps that sounds needlessly metaphysical.\u00a0 Another way of putting it would be to say that each mark you make on the paper is a stepping-stone from which you proceed to the next, until you have crossed your subject as though it were a river, have put it behind you.&#8221; (page 3)<\/li>\n<li>&#8220;A drawing is an autobiographical record of one&#8217;s discovery of an event &#8211; seen, remembered or imagined.&#8221; (page 3)<\/li>\n<li>&#8220;A drawing of a tree shows, not a tree, but a tree-being-looked-at.\u00a0 . . .\u00a0 Within the instant of the sight of a tree is established a life-experience.&#8221; (page 71)<\/li>\n<li>&#8220;All genuine art approaches something which is eloquent but which we cannot altogether understand.\u00a0 Eloquent because it touches\u00a0something fundamental.\u00a0 How do we know?\u00a0 We do not know.\u00a0\u00a0We simply recognize.&#8221;\u00a0\u00a0 (page 80)<\/li>\n<li>&#8220;Art cannot be used to explain the mysterious.\u00a0 What art does is to make it easier to notice. Art uncovers the mysterious. And when noticed and uncovered, it becomes more mysterious.&#8221;\u00a0 (page 80)<\/li>\n<li>&#8220;The pen with which I&#8217;m writing is the one with which I draw.\u00a0 And there\u00a0are times, like tonight, when it won&#8217;t flow and when it demands a bath or a hand moving differently.\u00a0 All drawings are a collaboration, like most circus-acts.&#8221; (page 110)<\/li>\n<li>&#8220;where are we, during the act of drawing, in spirit?\u00a0 Where are you at such moments &#8211; moments which add up to so many, one might think of them as another life-time?\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Each pictorial tradition offers a different answer to this query.\u00a0 For instance, the European tradition, since the Renaissance, places the model over <em>there<\/em>, the draughtsman <em>here<\/em>, and the paper somewhere in between, within arms reach of the draughtsman, who observes the model and notes down what he has observed on the paper in front of him.\u00a0\u00a0 The Chinese tradition arranges things differently.\u00a0 Calligraphy, the trace of things, is behind the model and the draughtsman has to search for it, looking <em>through<\/em> the model.\u00a0\u00a0 On his paper he then repeats the gestures he has seen calligraphically.\u00a0 For the Paleolithic shaman, drawing inside a cave, it was different again.\u00a0 The model and the drawing surface were in the same place, calling to the draughtsman to come and meet them, and then trace, with his hand on the rock, their presence.&#8221; (page 123)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><em>Reference:<\/em><br \/>\nJohn Berger [2005]:\u00a0 <em>Berger on Drawing<\/em>.\u00a0 Edited by Jim Savage.\u00a0 Aghabullogue, Co. Cork, Eire:\u00a0 Occasional Press.\u00a0 Second Edition, 2007.<br \/>\nI have written more on the relationships between hand and mind and eye and object <a href=\"http:\/\/meeseeks:5080\/blog\/2010\/08\/hand-mind-eye-co-ordination\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Following Bridget Riley on drawing-as-thinking, I have been reading Jim Savage&#8217;s\u00a0fascinating collection of writings by John Berger on the topic of drawing.\u00a0 Although Berger does not say so, he is talking primarily about representational drawing &#8211; the drawing of things in the world (whether seen or remembered) or things in some imagined world &#8211; not [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8,20,24,33,36],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2014","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-art","category-creativity","category-design","category-hands","category-human-intelligence","p1","y2010","m07","d28","h12"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/vukutu.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2014","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/vukutu.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/vukutu.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vukutu.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vukutu.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2014"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/vukutu.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2014\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/vukutu.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2014"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vukutu.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2014"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vukutu.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2014"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}