The Likeness of a Beautiful Thing - 04

In the early 1990s this was given first as a speech to a class at the Lancaster County Art Association, and in briefer form afterwards on a couple of other occasions.
Some of the illustrations come from the text, others from references to physical works that Johannes brought with him, and one from live demonstration.                                                                                                (4th of eleven sections)  

   E.   Practical Knowledge

        Philosophical reflections may lead the artist to many profitable understandings. Practical knowledge, it is said, leads him directly toward action. But, as insight must inform us what is, and what is not, a worthwhile practice, we must not proceed unphilosophically when we enter into action, in order not to paint ourselves into a corner.

1. The Foundation Program:  I take the closest interest in the first year of instruction at the college level. For, if that program is the product of a sharply focused mind, it can teach with unmatchable lucidity how the many labors of an artist ought to be pursued. Moreover, later – in more specialized activity – neither so crystalline a clarity nor this great variety are altogether possible.

           Though we shall look at works far surpassing a beginning education, foundation study will be
            the perspective from which we pay attention to them.

      2.  The Parts of Art: To study our English tongue we were taught to parse a sentence into its
            grammatical elements and the parts of speech. We thus looked precisely at the constituents
            of language and learned how each one helps to build the whole.

           The Foundation Program has the very same assignment. It divides the body of the artist’s
            learning into the parts of Art, in order to resolve with certainty what each part really is
            and how it therefore can contribute to the entire realm.

      3.  Descriptive Geometry: Classical art instruction teaches two scientific disciplines, Anatomy
            and Descriptive Geometry. The latter has longer reach and is hence the more important.
            Descriptive Geometry is the scientific study of three-dimensionality, and deals with volumes
            whose surfaces are of three types:

• Volumes of the Straight Plane type – Pyramids and Cubes
• Volumes whose surfaces include Curved Planes – Cones and Cylinders
• Volumes whose surfaces are Double-Curved – such as Sphere and Ovoids, and also the Tire.

3)  (Descriptive Geometry, cont’d)

1. As a first year course this study may end with the scientific consideration of perspective.

           

      3 .  (Descriptive Geometry, cont'd)

             Since every basic study prepares the way for more advanced instruction, we should take
            note – whether or not a given art school offers it – what this advanced work ought
            to be: In Descriptive Geometry that is the combination of volumes in a study
            the Intersection of Form, and the scientific study of light, including – beyond light
            and shade –  Mirror Optics and Refraction.
     

      4.  Drawing and Observation: This includes learning the use of the pencil as a Sighting Rod
           for the exact spatial disposition of all objects and their parts. But description at its best
           is not a copy of the subject in various shades of gray.

• The play of light produces a warehouse-full of shape configurations hidden from the lay observer, but equipping the artist with a repertory he could never imagine, let alone design, solely on his own. Once such observations are accustomed work, shaping can be freely altered – even dark and light reversed – for better clarity and more eloquent design. 
  

• To draw the figure, we must differentiate the subtle balance of obliques in the Living Form from the right angles that mostly rule the man-made world. 
  

• Human Anatomy is not Foundation Study. It leads ultimately to a map of muscles, lifelong in the artist’s mind, which is induced upon the skeleton but a little more inclusive than the essential minimum. The study which makes this sparse but lasting memory of a possibility has to be a great deal more elaborate and thorough.

• The skeleton of animals may be a sufficient clue to the shape and placement of the basic muscle groups, since the principles of leverage remain unaltered, so that a detailed knowledge of Comparative Anatomy – though good to have – will not be indispensable for a persuasive rendering of animalic muscularity.
  

Comment:
     Sometimes college-level students have called the above course material unnecessary for training a visual arts student -- your opinion . . . .