Abstract
This reflections on practice essay is organized into three parts; Development, Structure and Application, as a way to describe through drawing and writing the building of a ‘Taxonomy of Drawing’. The first part on Development focuses on the period from 2005–2010 and the roll that different genera of drawing played as enabling tools in the development of the taxonomy. Structure was developed during the period from 2010–2012, and tracked drawn images from the point of origination within the domain of two-dimensional representation through to their emergence as drawings that are products of one or other of the six genera. Finally, the last part Application, tracks the journey of six sample drawings through the taxonomy. This essay is illustrated by the 12 line drawings used in the development and testing of the taxonomy.
A landscape drawing of drawing, 2005, pen and ink
Development
For the past seven years, I have been engaged in constructing a definitive drawing of drawing. I say ‘constructing’ because the thought process surrounding the making of what in the end I wanted to be just one drawing focused on developing strategies for joining together the component parts of what I saw as the bigger picture of drawing, not drawing something that I, or to the best of my knowledge anyone else, had already pictured as a whole. I started the project by making a series of drawings (Farthing, 2005: 9) 1 that were pictorial deliberations that worked to first identify, then position, the key components of the bigger picture of drawing.
Each drawing represented drawing as a terrain. In each there was a high ground occupied by artists, some slopes where designers worked, then beneath them a plain where road traffic markings, the markings we define sports fields with and the shadow of the sun dial’s gnomon were grounded. After those images there was nothing, just the edges of the paper.
By the time I had finished writing, I was fairly certain that drawing, writing and notation all worked in different ways towards a common purpose, the translation, that is, of multidimensional events into comprehensible two-dimensional matter. I was, however, fairly sure that my first drawings of drawing as a landscape were fundamentally flawed because they gave the impression that fine art controlled the landscape, which is clearly not the case.
By 2006, I had moved away from pictorial hierarchical thinking and turned my thoughts towards a flatter more diagrammatic way of setting up the relationships and the possibility that Harry Beck’s London Underground map 2 might serve as the matrix.
The drawing I ended up with was structured around six intersecting thematically determined ‘train’ lines that served to support the ‘stations’ that were the types of drawing that appropriately sat on that line. Junctions were the points at which lines converged and drawing methods interconnected. Line 1 carried Decorative Outcomes; Line 2 – Control Systems; Line 3 – the Development of Ideas; Line 4 – the Communication of Instructions; Line 5 – the Recording of Information; and Line 6 – Play. So since they were both types of drawing, Graffiti and the Markings on Sports Fields became the junctions that connected Line 2 – Control Systems and Line 6 – Play.
I had moved away from an image of drawing as either a map or landscape and begun to see it more diagrammatically as a taxonomy. In an essay titled ‘Palin and the Bear’, 3 I established Drawing – along with Writing, Mathematics and Musical Notation – as a domain concerned with recording, sharing and discovery. I argued there were two distinct and different lines of descent, the Pictorial and the Conceptual.
I offered a cluster of dots drawn onto a window pane that marked the position of the stars as they were in last night’s sky as an example of Conceptual drawing and a line drawn around the edge of the virtual image on a mirror, as an example of the Pictorial. What separated them, I argued, was not what they depicted, or how or with what they were drawn but how we read them. The Pictorial, I suggested, relied on our ability to recognize things by their outline, the Conceptual on a more complex translation process that was dependent on our ability to make sense of abstractions.
Since presenting this argument, I have come to the conclusion that what separates drawing from written and notational forms of two-dimensional representation is its inability to develop the one-to-one equivalencies that the written and notational have structured themselves around. That said, while describing the difference between Conceptual and Pictorial drawing in a catalogue essay (Farthing, 2011), I fell back on the idea that drawings could be read and written:
The reading of both [the Conceptual and Pictorial] begins with us intuitively placing the drawing into one of the two species, then proceeds with us either seeing a need for an associated narrative, ‘key’ or ‘legend’ to inform our reading, or us forging ahead and relying on our ability to recognize shapes and patterns as we proceed.
Later in the same essay I went on to say:
The real distinction between the two species is not simply how we read them, but where their narratives are physically located. Conceptual drawings don’t have a built in narrative, theirs is either located in the margin, or beyond, the Pictorial however, relies for the most part on the narrative being embedded in the image.
I describe a taxonomy that sifts drawings according to the reason why they were made, by grouping them as either Definitive or Speculative, then either Instructive or Descriptive (Fig. 2).
Plan De Dessin (black and white version), 2006, digital drawing
Pictorial image of the first taxonomy of drawing, 2010, pen and ink
I concluded the essay by illustrating in words how the taxonomy might serve to differentiate between two circles, one drawn freehand, the other with a compass. Within the taxonomy, drawings of circles would first be classified as Conceptual, then after that the freehand version would become ‘Descriptive’ and ‘Speculative’, while the compass-drawn version, although also Descriptive, would be classified as ‘Definitive’. With this as my starting point, I started work on a second ‘Taxonomy of Drawing’ during April 2012.
Structure
This second ‘Taxonomy of Drawing’ was constructed to test my first. The first used the reason or reasons why a drawing was made as the means of locating it within the taxonomy; the second used the reader’s understanding of the draftsman’s visual representation strategies as the means. The second does not supersede the first but simply looks at the same set of evidence from a different angle. The point of both taxonomies is to first establish a shareable way of understanding where the boundaries of drawing might lie and then through that knowledge develop a better understanding of Drawing’s relationship with notation and the written word.
I developed both the first and the second taxonomy using a dedicated empiricist’s approach, all the time working with the same basic assumption, that Drawing, Notation and Writing existed within a Domain that was focused on the representation of multidimensional events as ‘readable’ two-dimensional images.
The Second Taxonomy
The Second Taxonomy (Fig. 4) begins in the Domain of Two-Dimensional Representation. The Domain comprises three well-defined, frequently cross-fertilizing Kingdoms. The first, The Kingdom of Writing, uses symbols to represent the sound of the spoken word; the second, Annotation, uses symbols to represent, relationships, values and things; then, finally, The Kingdom of Drawing uses line, tone and colour to represent relationships, values and things. Over time, the Kingdoms of Drawing and Annotation have openly embraced writing. Drawing has however, remained distinct and different from its fellow kingdoms by only cautiously embracing the one-to-one equivalencies that make notations and writing readable.
Diagrammatic sketch for the second ‘Taxonomy of Drawing’, 2012, pen and ink
Diagrammatic sketch for the sketching genus showing photography, 2012, pen and ink
The Divisions
The second Taxonomy splits the Domain into two divisions.
Conceptual Drawings that use abstractions as a means of description.
Pictorial Drawings that use visual appearances as their driving force.
The Second Taxonomy assumes, like the First, that when we review a drawing we look for a narrative. If we discover a narrative (which may not always be the case), it will be embedded either in the image, in which case we know the drawing is Pictorial or sitting beyond the image in the margins, as a ‘key’, ‘legend’ or associated text, in which case the drawing is Conceptual. From this point on, the Second Taxonomy is distinct and different from the First.
The Classes
The Second Taxonomy has two classes of drawing: the Systemic and the Improvised. While Systemic drawings use a single set of established, shared conventions, Improvised drawings freely mix conventions and inventions. If we raise one hand and quickly draw it with the other, we will most probably produce an improvisation. If we place one hand flat on a sheet of paper, then draw around its perimeter with the other, our drawing – because we have used a template – will be systemic. Although the Second Taxonomy accommodates hybrids, users are encouraged to respond to tendencies towards one pole or the other, not simply leave drawings in a grey middle ground.
The Orders
The Second Taxonomy works with the assumption that all drawings are built from measurements that are either instrument or estimation led. The orders separate drawings into two groups with no ‘grey’ between; they are either the Measured and the Estimated or both. When Vasari described Giotto’s perfect hand-drawn circle, he positioned it in this taxonomy’s Estimated category; when Leonardo took up a pair of compasses and drew a circle around Vitruvian man, he positioned it as Measured.
The Families
The Second Taxonomy has two families that have a grey zone between. The families divide drawings between those made using a mechanical interface and those made freehand. An example of a hybrid might be a hand-drawn line on a sheet of graph paper, or a drawing made using a camera lucida.
Application: The Genera and Species
The penultimate layer of the taxonomy comprises the Genera of drawing (Fig. 6): the Traced, the Mapped, the Diagrammatic, the Scored, the Technical and the Sketched (Fig. 4). The Genera are the point in the taxonomy where the reasons why and how a drawing was made meet.
Pictorial sketch for the second ‘Taxonomy of Drawing’, 2012, pen and ink
The Diagrammatic Genus visually represents values and relationships as schematic images. Examples of types of drawing include: Venn Diagrams, Histograms, Tree Diagrams, Graphs, Flow Charts, Pie Charts, Transit Maps, Assembly Instructions and Contemporary and Modern Art. Fig. 7 is a Pictorially driven, Systemic (in that it uses the X-section), Estimated, Freehand Diagram of the human eye.
Diagrammatic Drawing of an Eye, 2012, pen and ink
The Mapping Genus accurately measures events and relationships, then records the information collected as a terrain or surface. Examples of this species included: Anatomical Drawings, Maps and Maritime Charts, and Contemporary Art. Fig. 8 is James Cook’s first expedition to the South Pacific (which involved spending three years on board HMS Endeavour) reduced to a two-dimensional image; as such, it is a Conceptual, Systemic, Estimated, Freehand Map.
Map of Cook’s First Voyage, 2009, pen and ink
The Tracing Genus visually tracks movement and transfers sets of information to new surfaces. The species that grow out of this Genus include: The Sundials Image, Pantography, a drawing on glass of what is beyond, Sky Writing, Air Traffic Control Screens, Historic and Contemporary Art, X-Ray, Ultra Sound and Radar Imaging. Fig. 9 is a Pictorially driven, Estimated, Freehand Tracing that demonstrates how the points between bright stars in the sky can be joined to produce an asterism. Within this image, selected stars of the multidimensional Constellation of Pleiades are joined by lines to reveal a (seen in the sky) two-dimensional image of Walt Disney’s Mickey Mouse.
Tracing Mickey in the Pleiades, 2009, pen and ink
The Technical Genus describes in accurately measured line how an event or object might function or be constructed. The Species include: Geometric Drawings, Architectural and Engineering Drawings, Lighting Plans and Assembly Instructions. Fig. 10 is a Conceptual, Systemic, Measured, Mechanical, Technical Drawing of a garden (in plan).
Technical Drawing for a garden with mirror and pond, 2012, pen and ink
The Scoring Genus represents music and movement symbolically, it additionally creates tallies and eliminates by deletion. The species generated by this genus might typically include: Musical Scores, Alban Notation, Deletion Mark, Tally Marks and Contemporary Art. Fig. 11 sets out some possibilities available within the Scoring Genus – they are, in general, Conceptual, Systemic, either Measured or Freehand Notation.
Scoring Tally, Music, Delete, 2012, pen and ink
The Sketching Genus comprises estimated (as opposed to accurately measured), usually speculative, pictorially driven renderings of things seen, imagined and remembered as two-dimensional images. The species will include: Form-Free Mark Making, Scribbling and Pictorially Driven Images, of which there are two broad categories: Portraits (of people and things), and Landscapes. Fig. 12 is a Pictorial, Improvised, Estimated, Freehand, Sketch Portrait (of a tree and rock in the Sinai desert).
Sketch of a Tree in Sinai, 2012, pen and ink
Conclusion
My conclusion puts the taxonomy to work by steering a photograph of a haystack taken in 1844 by William Fox Talbot through the taxonomy. As a means of simplifying an already complex diagram, the taxonomy as it is shown in Fig. 4 purposely excludes ‘erratic’ examples; by that, I mean individual cases that are not easily clustered within bigger groups. Photography shown in Fig. 5 cuts its own route through the taxonomy to emerge – perhaps surprisingly to some – in the Sketching Genus. By entering the taxonomy through the Kingdom of Drawing, as a drawing with light, it progresses through the pictorial division to the Systemic Class, then on to become a part of the Measured Order and Mechanical Family from where it passes though the Sketching Genus to emerge as a Portrait (of a haystack), made with a camera.
Footnotes
Notes
Biographical Note
STEPHEN FARTHING is an artist, Royal Academician and Rootstein Hopkins Professor of Drawing at the University of Arts London. Since his appointment as a Professor of Drawing in 2005, he has developed an AHRC-funded drawing network with RMIT Melbourne, headed up the development of a cross-disciplinary drawing curriculum for the UAL Awarding Body and become a lead person in the UAL Centre for Drawing.
Address: Chelsea College of Art and Design,16 John Islip Street, London SW1P4JU, UK email: