THE ELEMENTS OF DRAWING

Ruskin’s The Elements of Drawing has been in the cannon for decades. I only became aware of it a couple of months ago. As expected, the book’s orientation supports Representational Spacetime: the entire point is to get you to draw in THE culturally approved manner. Still, it is fun to read an artifact like this and look, as always, for sympathies toward the fundamentals of Transparent Drawing. And we do find a few.

ON YOUR REACTION TO YOUR DRAWING
“You need never hope to get on, if you are the least anxious that the drawing that you are actually at work upon should look nice when it is done.” p.110.

ON ANALYSIS OF FORM
“Try always, whenever you look at a form, to see the lines in it which have had power over its past fate, and will have power over its futurity.” p. 98.

ON LINE AND TONE
“But, inasmuch as the perfect way of drawing is by shade without lines.” p.81.

ON THE PURPOSE OF DRAWING A TREE
“…your object at present being not to draw a tree, but to learn how to do so.” P37.

ON OPACITY
“This mixing of white with the pigments, so as to render them opaque, constitutes body-color drawing as opposed to transparent-color drawing and you will, perhaps, have it said to you that this body-color is ‘Illegitimate’”. p 141.

ON HOLISTIC UNITY
“Nature is resolved on expressing an encompassing limit; and marking a unity in the whole tree, caused not only by the rising of its branches from a common root, but by their joining in one work, and being bound by a common law.” p. 192.

ON DRAWING STRAIGHT LINES:
“A great draughtsman can, as far as I have observed, draw every line but a straight one.” p35.

As you can see by the quotes, the book is fun. Ruskin has this humble yet haughty tone to his writing: you feel like you are being both encouraged and admonished at the same time. I bought mine, but online PDF versions are easily obtained. And there is much to learn regarding drawing technique: it was only after reading Ruskin that I started to use sandpaper on drawings.

1. Ruskin, John. The Elements of Drawing. 2010. Aquitaine Media Corp.