“Talent is what we have, genius is what has us”
These words come from the introduction of The Practice and Science of Drawing, by Harold Speed. He talks of the dangers of academics to the artist in that if he is not careful, he knows all too well the exact techniques and mechanics of an art, but lacks true creative genius. The true artist’s talent is just a vehicle for expressing what is truly inside him. Many of the finest artists in history were self taught, and had so much talent they hardly needed the advice of anybody and usually ended up outshining their masters early on.
The truth is, however, we can not all be Leonardos and Picassos, and a little education will always do us some good. But to say these geniuses didn’t seek knowledge and learning would be a false presumption. Self education is still education, and a powerful one. Leonardo carried around his notebook with him and constantly jotted down peculiarities he saw and wanted to learn more about. Curiosity was a strong point with him, and he was constantly learning.
Project Gutenberg Ebooks
In this day and age we have the world at our fingertips, and learning has never been easier. Even without a penny you can get a full education from MIT’s free online courses, as well as from many other self-teaching avenues. The internet makes it almost impossible to not find what you’re looking for, no matter what subject. As far as art goes, there is an endless supply of resources for your education and entertainment whether you are looking to seriously increase your art skills or just find a few pointers on how to be a “Sunday painter.”
Most of the material now in the public domain is old, dated from earlier than 1923. The beauty of this book is that its subject is timeless. No matter where art goes in the future, no matter how “modern” you think art can get, the fundamentals will never change, and while technology gives us digital art, Photoshop, and other painting programs, a pen or pencil and a sketchpad are always a staple for the artist. Basic drawing will always be useful for sketching out ideas for bigger projects, sketching a subject, jotting down ideas, practicing, or as a mode of expression in itself.
The Practice and Science of Drawing
One of the decent books I found is called The Practice and Science of Drawing. You can see the whole book, with hundreds of illustrations at Project Gutenberg. Drawing here is defined as “the expression of form on a plane surface,” so we’re not just talking pencil and ink drawing, but basically all two dimensional compositions, including painting. In fact, many of the examples are well known paintings. If you’re looking specifically for “how to paint,” you can always check out my two cents on the subject at my How To Paint article series.
I found this book very informative and full of pictures and diagrams which will be very useful for beginners and intermediate artist brushing up on the basics.
It dissects some famous paintings to study their compositions. Note the differences in the line contours and how they express mood in the following two paintings, “The Birth of Venus,” and “The Battle of San Romano,”:
It is loaded with anatomy studies:
The last one above is a drawing by Michelangelo. Other examples from important artist in history include, clockwise, from upper left- Rubens, Titian, Velazquez, EL Greco, Correggio, Veronese:
Contents include chapters on vision, line drawing, mass drawing, the study of drawing, rhythm, portrait, procedure, materials, and more. It’s definitely worth checking out. Once again you can click here to be redirected to Project Gutenberg’s ebook The Practice and Science of Drawing.
See also:
How To Paint: Subject and Composition
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