What you see is relative to your position in time and space. Most life drawers place on their paper or canvas what they are looking at from a single position. From this position there is one perspective in operation. Every drawing and painting that uses perspective proposes to the beholder that he or she is the unique centre of the world. However, for the Cubists the visible was no longer what confronted the single eye, but the totality of possible views taken from points all around the object or person being depicted.
Upon many occasions I have broken away from the single perspective viewpoint in order to make life-drawing a bit more interesting for myself, but lately I have become much more fascinated by its possibilities. Here is a recent example of where I started by drawing the pose from one location then moved my easel across the studio to add what I was looking at from the opposite side. I moved back and forth a number of times. By this process of exploring the pose on my paper from different directions I seem to be engaging with the pose, with the model, with the anatomy, with my understanding of what I am seeing, at a much greater depth. In addition a narrative often emerges during the making of a drawing in this way (perhaps in this example one might be asking 'what is the relationship between the two?' or 'who's hand is on who's knee?' (I must add that the idea of a narrative emerging is of little consequence during the process, it only really becomes apparent in a post-analytical phase, and is then only an amusing side line).
When the artist has completed the process then the beholder of the drawing will be observing the subject from different points in space and time simultaneously, and yet this single image will derive a complexity from the incorporation of multiple viewpoints, a mobile perspective, simultaneity and multiplicity. Plus my recent fascination with 'overlap' and 'transparency'.
And now for an opposing process but equally significant in contributing to understanding my own Cubism. In these next two examples I do not need to move myself because the model is herself presenting multiple sides to me.
Firstly, the model acrobatically moves within a suspended hoop which is twirled around every so often at varying speeds. Feet and arms are raised and lowered as she twirls. I feel the movement in the drawing.
Secondly, the model sits on a swivel chair which is turned through 90 degrees every 5 minutes for a number of revolutions. The four sides of her head with her chin supported by her hand comes into view a number of times and each time I am able to add and refine. Whereas the symphony of forms of arms and breasts, tummies, thighs and bottoms, roll and blend together and challenge the beholder to unravel and identify which parts of the anatomy have been drawn, or maybe just accept its complexity. Whichever is the response I feel there is a real feeling of mobility in this aspect of my Cubism.
I've just been reading again John Berger's 'Ways of Seeing' Penguin Books 1972, so you may note a phrase or two and some vocabulary of his in the above text, which I acknowledge and I am indebted to his contribution to helping artists to more understand their creative and perceptual processes.
A reminder that all my recent drawings are the outcome of a two-handed mark-making process using fine-liner pens on A1 220gsm white cartridge paper. Occasionally I revert back to graphite pencils and may utilise Derwent tinted charcoal blocks.
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