Roger Winter - On Drawing

FOURTH EDITION

ROWMAN & LITTLEFIELD PUBLISHERS, INC.

Published in the United States of America
by Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc.
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Copyright 2008 by Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher.

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Information Available

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data:

Winter, Roger, 1934

On drawing / Roger Winter.4th ed.

p. cm.

ISBN-13: 978-0-7425-5915-8 (cloth : alk. paper)
ISBN-10:0-7425-5915-7 (cloth : alk. paper)
ISBN-13: 978-0-7425-5916-5 (pbk : alk. paper)
ISBN-10: 0-7425-5916-5 (pbk.: alk. paper)

I. DrawingStudy and teaching. 2. DrawingTechnique. I.Title.

NC590.W56 2008
741dc22 2007031634

Printed in the United States of America

The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of American National Standard for Information SciencesPermanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI/NISO Z39.48-1992.

To Robert Birmelin and Seymour Leichman for reawakening my interest in drawing

It is not the strongest of the species that survive, nor the most intelligent, but the ones most responsive to change.

CHARLES DARWIN

The great myths show that when you follow somebody else's path, you go astray. The hero has to set off by himself, leaving the old world and the old ways behind. He must venture into the darkness of the unknown, where there is no map and no clear route.

KAREN ARMSTRONG

This book is a major departure from its previous editions. Much has been added, subtracted, and rearranged in an effort to meld historical insights with an open eyed view of drawing at this complex moment in time.

The definition of drawing has been stretched and pushed to the point where a work is often recognizable as drawing only because an artist or curator insists that it is. The skill once associated with drawing is now sometimes seen as a curse to be exorcised as quickly as possible in order to free the mind from the hand. At the same time, some artists and teachers still promote the skill-based values of older European cultures. But neither the vagaries of fashion nor Eurocentric nostalgia represent the last word to an artist looking for a voice in our global dialogue.

Whatever the philosophical bent, drawing requires a constantly active state of minda vigor so unlike the popular conception of drawing as a refined pastime. Some books on drawing lay out a step-by-step method meant to prevent failure, but the user will soon learn that it also prevents success. The best that a safe approach can do is to habituate an artist's work into perpetual mediocrity. Art cannot be made in safe havens.

The worthwhile drawing process takes a hazardous route guided by the most general of concepts and goals. Sometimes a drawing ends in disaster, and sometimes it is brilliantly successful, and the final combination of bold decisions and subtle suggestions that make up the successful work are born, in large part, of subjective, spontaneous discovery. The exercises suggested in the appendix of this book are, for the most part, well known, but they will not translate into a method that moves from A to Z in rational steps. And this is as it should be. It's not through a system, but rather through the gamble, the willingness to take risks, to make mistakes, that we keep our work alive and growing.

The expertise and effort of many, many people went into the making of this book, and I am grateful for all the generous help I received. I especially wish to thank my editor, Ross Miller, his assistant, Ruth Gilbert, and all the other members of the staff at Rowman & Littlefield for their painstaking care in the development and production of this book. I also thank the museums, galleries, private collectors, artists, and others who permitted me to reproduce the works used as illustrations, and also the writers for their quotes used throughout the book. Thanks to the many former students whose work I have relied upon as a source of illustrations; the photographers for their valuable help; the people who appear in photographs; those who helped me translate letters, find addresses, and send permission requests; those who critiqued my ideas; and all the others who were supportive, indulgent, and patient in so many ways. I especially wish to thank Judythe Sieck for her creative role in the design of this book.

Drawing has a primal and elemental character: it enjoys a mythic status as the earliest and most immediate form of image making.EMMA DEXTER

FIGURE 1.1
Photograph of boy with chalk, 1978.
(Copyright by Martha Cooper)

FIGURE 1.2
Sarah's Pet Alien, 2006.
(Copyright by Sarah Sze)

W ho teaches the child to draw? Hopefully, no one. Drawing is a form of play, a birthright. Give any child a piece of chalk and a sidewalk, and within minutes a conglomeration of symbols and images will appear as if by magic [FIGURE 1.1]. Some children draw imaginary playmates hoping they will come alive [FIGURE 1.2]. Some draw symbols of the real inhabitants of their world. But as we grow older, cultural pressures prompt us to see our naturalness, our play, as somehow unworthy. Only those who can't grow up keep contact with their original gifts.

FIGURE 1.3
Untitled(stag), Martin Ramirez (18951963), Auburn, California, c. 19481963, crayon and pencil on pieced paper, 56 29.
Collection of Selig and Angela Sacks.
(Photo by Gavin Ashworth, NY)

The twentieth-century French artist Jean Dubuffet coined the expression art brut (raw art) to describe the artwork of children, the nave, the primitive, the insane, and any others unaware of, or perhaps spiteful of, the rules that cultures impose. Such is the case with the work of artist Martin Ramirez, a schizophrenic who accomplished most of his extraordinary body of work during prolonged stays in hospitals [FIGURE 1.3]. Art brut, sometimes referred to as outsider art or nave art, quite often has magical meaning. In its purest state it is made neither for profit nor fame but for personal pleasure. Based on such criteria, perhaps Dubuffet would have classified the first drawings ever made as art brut.

Prehistory refers to no specific block of time but rather to the time in any geographical location before the emergence of written language. Prehistory in France is far more ancient by the calendar than it is in the United States, although a new archaeological find could change these dates in a moment.