1. The act of drawing
1.3 The complexity of the drawing act and of drawing skill
Drawing is a particularly complex procedure (Feagin, 1987; Frith & Law, 1995; Cohen, 2005; Seeley & Kozbelt, 2008). It involves a variety of cognitive, perceptual, and motor processes. The activity involved is both bodily and conceptual in character, with bodily aspects sometimes overshadowing the conceptual, and sometimes the other way round. It therefore needs to be viewed in cognitive as well as physiological terms. We can ask different sorts of questions about drawing skill: how it is attained, how it is stored in memory, how it is summoned in appropriate settings, and how it develops to expertise.
Drawing skill furthermore involves different kinds of knowledge and is used in diverse real world contexts. The drawing act is thus complex. How should this complexity be
represented? In order to address this question I will pause to consider some attempts to
understand the mechanics of drawing, as well as broader but pertinent contributions regarding issues of skill and know-how.
Frith and Law (1995) suggest that an initial internal representation (in what they call the
‘inner eye’) is needed to compute the sequence of muscle movements needed to draw a cube from memory. Alfred Gell (1998: 45) proposes that the act of drawing a chair begins with the desire to make an index, which will refer to this chair. This act of drawing is preceded (whether the object is present or not) by an act of visualisation or “inner rehearsal”2 of the drawing to be made. Characteristically, for Gell:
Because one’s hand is not actually directly controlled by the visualised or anticipated line that one wants to draw, but by some mysterious muscular alchemy which is utterly opaque to introspection, the line which appears on the paper is always something of a surprise (1998: 45).
Here one is little more than a spectator of one’s own attempts at drawing, which involve a series of ‘generate and test cycles’. Frith and Law likewise admit that how that image is interpreted or how it generates movements to create similar images in the outside world is highly resistant to explanation.
Gombrich (cited in Feagin, 1987: 164) argues that even the most skilful artist cannot be expected to control every quality of the stroke. He proposes an “impulse and subsequent guidance” account of drawing where subsequent marks are made in response to the visual feedback from what is already drawn. Feagin expresses doubt that these subsequent strokes can be “mere impulses” and proposes a third possibility between controlling every detail and impulse: a guided system that allows for muscular variations and/or randomising within limits. She describes the process as typically starting with a mental representation, intention, memory, perception or an idea that is used to generate representations of actions one can perform. When one has learned to draw by developing this kind of control, the process is no longer a matter of using a means to achieve a separately conceived end, “but one where the end is integrated into the representation of the action performed” (1987:
164). Skill depends on the degree of integration of the action sequence, which in turn partly depends on the experience with the actual material with which the drawing is done.
2 Such “initial internal representations” or “acts of visualisation” or “inner rehearsal” should probably not generally be conceived of as being highly determinate – as determinate as external representations tend to be. Below we will discuss research indicating that the internal and external representations function very differently.
Because drawings are products of actions, drawing skill requires “an integrated mental representation” of what is drawn, rather than of what is pictorially represented” (Feagin, 1987:
163). Feagin differentiates between pictorially representing things and drawing by pointing out that one does not learn to pictorially represent but you do learn to draw. Making a drawing requires a kind of psychological control which governs or informs the action, which is not the case for pictorial representation. She proposes that the integrated mental representation is not a representation of a muscular sequence, but of an action ‘content’ which allows certain freedoms of physical movement. Since the intimate connection which exists between drawing something and the action one performs is not present in the case of pictorial representations, drawing should more closely resemble what an action theory identifies as an action rather than pictorially representing or merely placing marks on a paper (1987: 166).
In order to appreciate what actions are integral to the skill evident in an act of drawing, Feagin (1987: 167) distinguishes skills as ranging between extremes of physical skills and mental skills. Mental skills require comparatively less physical and more cognitive development (such as logical inferences or skill at chess which does not reside in one’s behaviour): “nothing would be lost by another person’s performing the physical motions under instruction from, say, a paralysed chess player”. The behavioural component of drawing however is not replaceable, as one cannot learn to draw from books. It requires feedback during the process of drawing, becoming aware of what movements will produce what kinds of lines, tones, and shapes. One’s perceptions need to be united with the mechanics by the use of feedback and control. “However, a major component of learning to draw is mental. It involves a change in one’s conceptual apparatus in a way that is commonly described by the phrase ‘learning to see.’ This does not involve somehow acquiring more sensory input, but “changing the cognitive use to which sensations are put”
(1987:167). Since the development of drawing skill involves a change in mental states or activities, i.e., a change in content, it cannot only be described extensionally. The degree of competence involved in drawing involves the character of what is psychologically
governing the performance. Drawing skill is consequently often described by referring to the character of one’s mental competencies or failings, for instance by saying: “he’s just not very good at analysing relations between volumes” (1987:168).