THINKING THROUGH DRAWING: PRACTICE INTO KNOWLEDGE

THINKING THROUGH DRAWING: PRACTICE INTO KNOWLEDGE 49

Tara Geer

interest them, and compose around that. The mean-

ings, the “things,” in these drawings tend to be more

ambiguous. Even known objects tend to seem more

specific rather than iconic; a man is seen in the par-

ticulars of a moment, certain lighting, a feeling, a

viewpoint, a conundrum, a task, an intimacy. In the

5th century, Wang Wei explained that painters must

go beyond line, “The ancients did not make their

paintings simply as records... to mark out the limits

of towns, villages and watercourses. The [paintings]

had their origin in forms, but these were made to

blend with the spirit and to excite the heart. If the

spirit had no perception of them, they exercise no

influence; the eyes can only see the limits, but not

the whole thing.”(Wei, 845)

DETAIL-ACCESS VISION:

•    Edges  are not the only,   nor the most    impor-

tant lines

•    Lines  are multi-purpose   and modulate,   

even disappear

•    The    meaning tends   to  be  more    ambiguous   

•    The    objects are usually not bounded by  lin-

guistically or conceptually defined borders

•    There  are relationships   of  shapes  and orga-

nization of space, including the emptiness

•    Even   known   objects tend    to  be  more    spe-

cific rather than iconic, seen in the particu-

lars of the moment, the lighting, a feeling, a

viewpoint, specific irregularities

Associative Agnostics drawings

Another way of considering detail-access vision

is through the drawings of associative agnostics.

Associative agnosia is the rare loss or diminution

of the ability to recognize familiar objects or stimuli

usually as a result of brain damage. People with

associative agnosia fail in assigning meaning to an

object that they can see clearly. Most have injury to

the occipital and temporal lobes. The clinical “defi-

nition” of the disorder is when an affected person is

able to copy or draw things that they cannot recog-

nize. What seems extraordinary is how capable they

are at seeing detail, and how their drawings share

qualities with those of experienced drawers –par-

ticularly a very sensitive line: If they are copying a

tea bag, and the string bends twice, than theirs will

too, whereas most people will think, this is a string,

I’ll convey that with a quick line the bends are

unimportant. When copying a shining ring, they

copy the exact number of shine lines, which a nor-

mal person would never think of (see the images in

Farah, Visual Agnosia.) Someone with associative

agnosia is not able to name or recall objects –has no

access to the identifying so clear in normative draw-

ings—but they do seemingly have unusual access

Figure 3. With permission from G.W. Humphreys and M. J. Riddoch, To See But Not To See: A Case Study
of Visual Agnosia (London and Hillsdale, NJ, Lawrence Erlbaum associates,1987) p.70