STRUCTURE AND TRANSPARENCY

Structure is a word that you see in regard to drawing.

“As Klee’s art finds in nature its inspiration for abstraction, at the core of his sketchbook is the idea that the student can grasp, through the observation of physical phenomena, the hidden structure of things beyond what is immediately apparent.” p. 24.  (italics added)  1.

Structure seems to be the default word that we use when we are trying to talk about drawing what you can’t see.  The author of the Metropolis article Post-Digital Drawing, as another example, used the word structure when they were trying to describe something beyond the plane or wall.

The word structure is defined in various art dictionaries.  I found this one at this link.

“Structure is the underlying and connected understructure that holds up the figure, and the same underlying connection can be applied to a picture. The units interlock to create a stable totality.”

Is abstraction simply the desire to draw what you can’t see?  Is abstraction simply the desire to document structure?  Would abstraction even need to be invented at all?  If the Cubists had painted transparently, would the abstraction of Cubism have even been necessary?

Or, as we saw a few pages ago, the desire to document time is what drove the Cubists to abstraction.  Quite possibly, when you account for time, you either must employ abstraction or transparency.   By extension, when you account for time on your paper, you inevitably document what is commonly called structure.

In these pages, we account for time and structure by simply drawing transparently.  Might we say that transparency, be it drawing, painting, collage, etc., solves the problem of abstraction?

1.  Hauptman, Jodi.  Drawing from the Modern 1880-1945.  The Museum of Modern Art:  New York.  2004.