In this week’s reading I began to think of my years in
beginning art classes when the narrator was discussing the way in which the
“reflection of your own knowledge” causes you to not to see something for what
it really is. Novice artists have the unfortunate tendency to draw what they
think they see instead of what they actually see. For instance, if one where to
draw a bottle, they would draw what came to mind when they thought of a bottle
instead of actually looking at and drawing the bottle that is right in front of
them. When they do this the piece doesn’t end up looking like an actual bottle,
because our preconceived notion of a bottle does not do the real thing justice.
Art teachers must train these students to look at the individual lines that
make up the bottle instead of looking at the whole, going as far as to take a
picture, turn it upside down and cover up sections, so that the students will
not see the whole drawing and will only draw unrecognizable parts. Once
students learn to let go of the image they have in their head and really look
at what they see, they begin to draw truly life-like representations of their
subjects. Like those who blocked themselves with previous knowledge and viewed Phaedrus
as insane, artists must take an “oblique route” in order to properly view
something.
A blog dedicated to the in depth study of the book Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, and its author Robert M. Pirsig, by the 2nd period AP Literature Class group.
I am going to begin by saying that this post tickles the artist in me. In short, I agree completely. As an art student, I can relate to the experience of novice artists as Monica describes, and believe me, drawing from direct observation is terribly annoying. When you draw from driect observation, you so desperately want to draw without looking at the object because you sincerely feel that with few minor glances you will be able to depict it for what it actually is, but once you finish and compare the two, they look nothing alike, and frustration ensues. This is a great excercize to incorperate in life too, which is something I appreciate the narrator for recognizing. We cannot judge a person, or a place, or an experience, by looking only at the big picture and making assumptions, but we also cannot dwell too much on every minute detail, because we would be overwhelmed by it. It is important to pick and choose and find a balance between the two, but to even begin to do so, one must first learn to connect and find accuracy between what they see and what is really there. Only then will the portrait be perfect.
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