Drawing Is About Learning To See

Teaching the art of observational drawing could be regarded as surplus to requirements in today’s art world:  but The Prince’s Drawing School is proving otherwise.

Many might not have given much thought to The Prince’s Drawing School when it was first founded in Shoreditch under the patronage of Prince Charles ten years ago.  Yet Times Online reports that this school is now buzzing with activity, and has opened a new West London branch in Kensington Palace.

Note this passage in the Times Online article:

‘… Catherine Goodman, a practising artist who previously worked at the Prince’s Institute of Architecture (now the Prince’s Foundation for the Built Environment), came to the Prince of Wales Trust with the idea in 2000.

‘It was a time when the Royal Academy and the Slade were both closing their life rooms, and there didn’t seem to be a serious place where young artists could access models,’  she says.  ‘We take painters, sculptors, video artists, people who work in animation, film …

‘Drawing is really about learning to see, so we take the students’ interests and we encourage that in whatever way we can through drawing.‘ ”    Times Online

This puts rigorous observation back as the foundation of artistic expression in a multitude of disciplines, and that can only be a good thing.  We have been too long in a wilderness where skills of hand and eye are devalued  and mental gymnastics and gimmickry win the artistic accolades.

It used to be said that an artist needs to really know the shape of something, in order to distort it to produce the effect he or she desires.  I still believe that to be the case.  One can’t help wondering if some of the very latest art trends will stand the test of time as well as works from the past that were based on strong practical foundations of observational drawing and the handling of color and tone.

Rigorous observation is not a killer of inspiration, as the current wave of artists, teachers and galleries might think.  Inspiration is clearly at a premium in The Prince’s Drawing School when a teacher tells his student:   “I don’t want to see a copy of what’s in front of you, I want to see you inspired by it.”

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