ON LINE AND FORM

When does a line become a form? Can a line be a form? What happens to a line when it integrates form? These were the questions I was asking myself as I did the drawing above.

When we generate forms, we usually start by drawing lines. And then after some other drawn lines, even if only a few, a form is generated. In this understanding, a line is defined how it typically is: a connected series of dimensionless (i.e. formless) points in space.

This line of inquiry (pardon the pun) started with my admiration for de Kooning’s drawings. In this example at the left, we see an expressive employment of lines. Some are thin. Some are thicker. Some go from thin to thick. But I think we would all agree that his drawing is a line drawing.

Looking again at de Kooning’s drawing, what if the lines were forms? Not shapes, but forms. Or, what knowledge would it take for the lines to be forms? Form is certainly implied. In fact, form is implied in most of de Kooning’s oeuvre. It is just that he, sadly, arrays implied form across a two dimensional surface.

I started my knowledge investigation with a photo I took in Coimbra, Portugal. It is of a pruned sycamore tree in late afternoon light. The line like quality of the photo is obvious. For the drawing at the top, I used both permanent and water soluble pens. I then brushed tones onto the lines.

Are my tones lines? Or are they forms? Do, or can, the tones combine into form? If they do combine into form, are the tones, if they were a line, no longer a line?

It may very well be that it will be beneficial if we change how we think about line. This redefinition may remove another cultural artefact that impedes our knowledge of form. I invite you to imagine form without line.

This line of inquiry is consonant with other Transparent Drawing modes, Drawing At the Boundary of Form, and Automatic Form.