To Draw is to be Human

         I have to admit before anything that I wanted to marry the whole first page of this essay, because not only was it beautifully written, but Emma Dexter was basically taking my own thoughts on drawing as it applies to the world and put it in prettier words and phrases.

         We later had our differences, however: I'm baffled by the fact that she believes drawing was only recently "discovered," and how apparently drawing trumps painting in its ability to bring to life a scene. When I was reading about the drawing revolution of the 1990s, I just wanted to pitch da Vinci’s Virgin and Child with Saint Anne at her. Drawings may have always been only the beginning in a long journey of creating a complete piece of artwork, but to me, they were the unspoken treasures of the many centuries in which art has been created. While they were not always as technically complete or aesthetically pleasing as paintings, sculptures, or buildings, but they had a merit all their own – to put it kind of bluntly, I believe that drawings were, and still are, the hipsters of all art forms. Dexter may not have seen them as real contenders because they were hiding underground this whole time!

         At this point, though, I have to speak against the side I was just rooting for: I'm not a painter, but I believe that the process of painting is just as (if not more) capable of creating a world in which the viewer can indulge themselves; I suppose that the primal, eternally incomplete drawing is able to reel the viewer into the mind of the artist easier, so they can more clearly interpret the scene said artist had in mind, but the colors, textures, lines, and forms created in painting allow the viewer to connect to and retreat within themselves.

         But, that being said, I have, do, and always will love drawing above all else. Like Dexter wrote, there's something about the incomplete quality of a bunch of lines usually haphazardly scribbled onto a page that can never be replicated in any other art form. I like that she noted that drawings almost always are the stepping stones to the rest of the art world, because almost every artist needs to at least sketch down the idea for a sculpture/painting/installation/what have you before he or she can build upon it. Some of those sketches, even, can stand alone without a more detailed or thought out piece attached to it, because drawings hold that first second of an artist’s idea taking shape. It’s like movies – sequels can almost never out-do an original movie, and the same thing can be said about drawing: nothing can ever beat that feeling of holding a newly birthed sketch of a whole new universe clasped within the palms of your hands.