Speed ​​Chapter 6: "Academic and conventional"

Speed ​​Chapter 6: "Academic and conventional" -
On the GJ Book Club, we study Chapter 6, "The academic and conventional" classic 1917 Harold Speed the practice and science of drawing.

the following numbered paragraphs in italics cite key points, followed by a brief comment of my own. If you want to meet a specific item, you please precede your comment with the corresponding number.
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in this chapter, the speed is in search of the "real matter of art" that rises above correct drawing, accurate, but lifeless.

1. "Inanimate boring job, very finite, imperfectly perfect"
Speed ​​speak later about the mistake many schools art made by be limited to "training students to mechanically observe and depict the thing set before copying them." This is a familiar critique we hear today on students leaving the formation of the modern workshop.

2. "freer system of French schools"

Drawing by Harold Speed ​​

Speed ​​said that in many English schools, with the exception of the Royal Academy, "the artists were rarely used in education. "in RA, a distinguished academician preside invited for a month at a time. This method led to some confusion among students who wanted a defined system.

3." These precise laborious academic studies are very necessary as training the eye to observe accurately. "
I'm glad he said that, because too often complaints refers to academic drawing about those who can not make it, and too often, "artistic" styles are used to justify the art who are not disciplined.

3. "dithering"
Speed ​​said: "It is difficult to explain what is wrong with an academic drawing, and what is the difference between it and a beautiful drawing. "He introduced the concept of" dithering ", a Scottish word meaning loosening or game machine parts which allows a motor to move. in the art, it would mean the search for variety and quality ", a live individual conscience."

4. the point is :. It's only university that can be taught
I do not think Howard Pyle would agree with that. Pyle had students like NC Wyeth enter its summer school for illustration, and he taught them to see with the eye of mind, and how to make their energetic compositions . most Pyle students had already Beaux Arts style cast drawing and experience drawing figure, but he has shown that non-academic skills (such as storytelling skills) can indeed be taught.

5. A drawing is not necessarily academic because it is full, but only because he died.
important distinction. Sealing or completeness are not necessarily bad. Two people can each work methodically on a drawing for weeks, and it can be artistic, and the other not.

6. Waxworks Madame Tussaud
Speed ​​invokes figures Wax Museum to criticize the work that is too realistic without selectivity and expression . The same sort of criticism has recently been addressed to some CGI film animation or visual effects that have too much realism. Speed ​​said that even if one deviates from naturalism and dives into more abstract forms, art work must truly be felt by the artist for them to have an emotional effect. This is a problem faced by artists who blindly adopt the Disney or comic strip manga character formulas.

7. The difficulty and originality fretting after that we see in modern art is certainly a proof of vitality, but one is inclined to doubt anything really original n has never been done in the strength of a way.
as sure now that it was a hundred years ago.

8. Each beautiful work of art is a new creation, the result of special circumstances in the artist's life and the time of its production, which has never existed before and will never be repeated again.
This is a good reminder for all of us who admire past styles. We can learn from Rembrandt or Velasquez, but we can not see fully in the heart of these artists because our worlds are so different. The risk is that all we'll absorb them is the external characteristics of style, the thing we are trying to transcend. Any work we create should address the unique characteristics of our time and our own individual chemistry. By this argument, all the work is contemporary and all the work has the power to surprise its viewers.

Graphite drawing by Adolph Menzel

9. It is through these materials that must find expression.
Speed ​​uses the example of treating hair by sculptors. He said that artists should be fully engaged with the materials they use, whether in stone or bronze or oil, graphite or charcoal. An experienced artist knows the range of possibilities of the medium they use, and selects the aspects of nature that can be translated into this matter with hand tools. The above drawing by Menzel is a prime example, one that transcends the classic, is full of life, and is perfectly adapted to the materials he used.
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The practice and science of design is available in different formats :.
1. Inexpensive paperback Dover (by far the majority of you reading this format)
2. Fully illustrated and formatted for the Kindle
3. Free edition Archive.org online.
4. Project Gutenberg version of
articles on Harold Speed ​​in the studio The studio Magazine, Volume 15, "the work of Harold Speed" by AL Baldry. (XV No. 69.. - December, 1898) page 151.
and The Windsor Magazine, Volume 25, "The Art of Harold Speed" by Austin Chester, at page 335. (thank you, अर्जुन )
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Overview of the series of blog
of GJ club Book Announcement
Chapter 1: Preface and introduction
Chapter 2: Drawing
Chapter 3: Vision
Chapter 4: Line Drawing
Chapter 5: mass Drawing
Chapter 6: academic and conventional
Chapter 7: the study of
drawing Chapter 8: drawing Line, practice
Chapter 9: Mass drawing
Chapter 10: Rhythm
Chapter 11 : Variety lines
Chapter 12: curved lines
Chapter 13: mass Variety
Chapter 14: the mass unit
Chapter 15: Balance
Chapter 16: Proportion
Chapter 17: Portrait Drawing
Chapter 18: visual memory
Chapter 19: procedure
Chapter 20: Materials