Drawing: Seeing and Observation by Ian Simpson (review)

164 Books Arts Magazine (April 1970): (1) The artist may construct the piece. (2) The piece may be fabricated. (3) The piece need not be built. So, ‘conceptual’ artists have done away with art objects. But no, a new movement appears-not Realism in the old manner, but Photo-Realism, filling galleries in New York City with examples to be sold at high prices. It is here that Hilton Kramer, the art critic of the New York Times, let slip his comment ‘to lack a persuasive theory is to lack something crucial’. Wolfe emphasizes the ‘something crucial’. These artists themselves fall into pedantry. Jacques Barzun in Tire Use and Abuse of Art (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton Univ. Press, 1974) writes: ‘The artist was tempted and turned pedant. Read the interviews with young and old before an opening, or scan the creator’s “statement” in the printed notes or programs and you see how lacking in “autonomy” the artist is, whatever his productions may be. His views most often consist of jargon patterned on scientific or metaphysical discourse. It has to sound distinctive and profound, it must suggest heroic grappling with problems hitherto unimagined and now at last solved.’ Wolfe’s insistence that artists can profitably go their own way if they have consistent support from the fashionable world I find somewhat oversimplified. It is true that the visual fine arts are more elitist than literature and music, but for these, too, the taste-makers are seduced by wealth and it is not the individual reader or music lover who determines the success of a writer or of a musician. The process for the latter, though, is more democratic. Wolfe’s theme that as regards the visual arts ‘the public is not invited (and never has been)’, with his estimate that only about 10,000 individuals scattered about the world, principally in the major cities, support the entire art movement, is true, though I find that he oversimplifies the relationship between the groups that make up the ‘art world’ and neglects the effects of time and chance. He has produced a satire, carefully researched, but flamboyantly presented to attract attention. Wolfe may have learned his often atrocious manners from some of the art groups that he criticizes. Or has he been secretly reading Samuel Butler, Zola, Shaw, Wilde and H. L. Mencken? Whatever the source of his sarcasm, I found his book stimulating and interesting as an expos6 of some of the practices in the U.S.A. that are rarely brought to light. It has attracted considerable attention (especially of the art critics that he has maligned). Drawing: Seeing and Observation. Ian Simpson. Van Nostrand Reinhold, London, 1973. 168 pp., illus. E3.95. Reviewed by Rahel Shavit* ‘Drawing-for my purpose in this book is translating, directly from observation, three dimensional information into marks on a two dimensional surface.’ With this statement in his introduction the author explains clearly the fundamental aim of his basic course in drawing. Excellent illustrations (cf. Figs. 29-37, 67-89) provide the reader with both information on how one may look at things and a good example of professional draftsmanship. He shows connections between geometrical forms, such as the cube and cylinder, and a variety of objects that meet the eye in nature. For curved surfaces, the author introduces use of tone, light and shadow. Qualities of texture are discussed, as well as ways to give an impression of movement and tension in a drawing. In thelast chapter he deals with the problem of ‘personal language’. He is aware of its importance, yet he does not realize that his systematic teaching may cause a complete distortion of a ‘personal language’. Instead of encouraging the development of an artist’s ‘handwriting’, he concentrates the reader’s attention on the logic of forms. 1 recommend Simpson’s system to artists who have *7 Harimon St., Rehovot, Israel. already developed a personal style of drawing, for a re-examination of the fundamental aspects of drawing is useful. For the beginner interested in developing a ‘personal language’ of drawing, a better source of ideas will be found in the book by Kimon Nicolaldes entitled The Natural Way to...