Drawing Photographs
Recently I've observed marriage makes for strange
liaisons. Why does a giant fall in love
with a petite woman who could fit in a little girls playhouse? Why is a
skinny man drawn to an ample woman? Why does a man who love cars,
marry a woman who loves sewing? Yet even stranger still, if this were possible, after
thirty years of marriage, they dress alike, act alike, look alike. How
is
that? They say opposites attract. That may very well be, but what is
the attraction?
I began drawing long before I
took up a camera, and took up a camera for the exact reason I
drew. Yet, who anymore sees the connection between photography and
drawing?
Drawing from life traces its modern roots all the way back to the
Quatrocento. The Renaissance was the age of linear perspective of the
camera obscura and
the figure.
Artz says: "No beauty seems to exist
outside the human form, a thesis
of Michelangelo that was deeply significant for the whole century."
It was also
the age of Science. Leonardo was
as much a scientist as artist, Who enjoyed drawing a figure as much as
uncovering the laws of physics. Artz again of Leonaro: "Only in Plato
was the same passionate desire for knowledge united with the same
ardent love of beauty."
A permanent image form the camera obscura would wait until the 19th
century. The 19th was the age of invention, science, academic drawing
and quest for a renewed realism that birthed historic photography.
The initial appeal of art is scale. Drawing is the illusion of three
dimensional space on paper. When proportion is right, like a good
film or drama, disbelief is held in suspension and we see the
real. Even if only paper and sleight of hand. The appeal is
irresistible, we relate. But this is merely academic, the real
artist looks for the attraction.
The artist draws the figure not just to accurately portray his
subject, but equally to explore his sensibilities, his
perceptions, his understanding of the world around him, and then to
explore his response. He draws his sense of beauty, he draws his love. It's akin
uncovering the laws
of physics.
A
preliminary sketch explores perception, it weighs and measures
discovered feeling against intuition, it tests, it tries to make concrete, it
makes paper hold the ineffable. A study is to look carefully at the whole
world in intimate detail, to measure feeling against what is, and
finally realize it on paper. One draws to discover how the finished
image will look, to weigh its effect, think its thoughts, dance in its light.
At
least on this side of
heaven, this too is photography.
Life drawing is scaled realism. A head too big, a line misplaced, one
misplaced note is feeling
spoiled. Photography that is art is measured not just in matter, but
the senses. The camera obscura renders accurate proportion
effortlessly. It takes a seasoned artist to to get to the sense of
it. The figure is common center and measure
of both.
© 2006 Timothy Martin Gillan
Photography
