Objects and Instruments
LEONARDO DA VINCI
In this beautiful red chalk
drawing we see Leonardo
da Vinci's precision as a
speculative mechanic. He
has described a casting
hood for a mold to make
the head of a horse for
an equestrian statue. It is
shaped in sections with
hooked bars that can be
pulled and tied closely
together. He has described
contour and function at
once, making a clear
instruction to his bronze-
caster of how to make it
and how it will work.
Head and Neck Sections
of Female Mold for the
Sforza Horse
c. 1493
117 / 8 c 8^1 / 4 in (300 x 210 mm)
LEONARDO DA VINCI
T
HE THINGS WE INVENT describe our lives. Common items, from spoons and pens
to chairs and bicycles, are all made bearing the signature of our time and place.
History will be learned from the artifacts we leave behind. Engineers and designers
of our objects and instruments make drawings for many reasons: to test an idea that
is yet to be made, for example, to record an observed detail, or to explain and present
a finished concept to a client.
The Industrial Revolution changed the traditional ways in which objects
were designed, planned, and made. Previously, craftsmen had held plans in their
memory, passing them on to others through the act of making. With the sudden onset
of mass production, drawings were needed to instruct workers on the factory floor.
Technical drawing was speedily developed as a meticulous international code of
measurement and explanation. The precision of engineering drawings evolved
alongside machine tools, each demanding more of the other as they increased in
sophistication. It was in this era that the blueprint was born. Today, even more
advanced drawings are made on computers.
Birds follow instinct to make a nest, and some apes use simple tools, but humans
are the only creatures on Earth who actually design and create great ranges of things.
Our items all have a purpose—practical or ornamental—and all have a meaning, or
can be given meaning. Artists and actors use the meanings of things to communicate
through metaphor. A chair, for example—whether, drawn, sculpted, or used on stage
as a prop—imbued with enough energy or character can "become" a man.
Artists have for centuries studied and expressed composition, design, color,
form, texture, and the behavior of light through making still-life paintings and
drawings. In past eras, these, too, have often carried great weights of allegorical
meaning. Artists also make images of objects that can never exist; fictional realities
that test our logic with a sense of mystery. In this chapter, we look at the importance
of light in the creation of pictorial illusions, and the way in which the brain reacts
to visual stimulus and optical illusions. We also explore volume and form in the
drawing classes by spinning lines to make vessels, illuminating snail shells, and
creating a wire violin.
