Drawing Distinctions: The Varieties of Graphic Expression / Edition 1

by Patrick Maynard

Overview

"If our procedure is to work steadily in the direction of drawing as fine art, rather than (as we so often find) beginning from examples of such art, where shall we begin? One attractive possibility is to begin at the beginning—not the beginning in prehistory, which is already wonderful art, but with our personal beginnings as children. From there it will be the ambitious project of this book to investigate 'the course of drawing,' from the first marks children make to the greatest graphic arts of different cultures."—from the Introduction

Patrick Maynard surveys the rich and varied practices of drawing, from the earliest markings on cave walls to the complex technical schematics that make the modern world possible, from cartoons and the first efforts of preschoolers to the works of skilled draftspeople and the greatest artists, East and West.

Despite, or perhaps because of, its ubiquity, drawing as such has provoked remarkably little philosophical reflection. Nonphilosophical writing on the topic tends to be divided between specialties such as art history and mechanics. In this engagingly written and well-illustrated book, Maynard reveals the interconnections and developments that unite this fundamental autonomous human activity in all its diversity. Informed by close discussion of work in art history, art criticism, cognitive and developmental psychology, and aesthetics, Drawing Distinctions presents a theoretically sophisticated yet approachable argument that will improve comprehension and appreciation of drawing in its many forms, uses, and meanings.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780801472800
Publisher:	Cornell University Press
Publication date:	10/10/2005
Edition description:	New Edition
Pages:	296
Product dimensions:	7.00(w) x 10.00(h) x 0.69(d)
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

Patrick Maynard is Professor of Philosophy at the University of Western Ontario. He is the author of The Engine of Visualization: Thinking through Photography, also from Cornell.

What People are Saying About This

David Hills

Patrick Maynard maintains that drawing is a tool kit, an open-ended family of relatively autonomous techniques for controlling the marks we humans have the power to make on various available surfaces—techniques we deploy in endless combinations and permutations, in the service of countless different aims and projects. He proceeds to assemble a remarkably rich and versatile array of graphic concepts, instructing us in the proper use of each as he adds it to our stock. Maynard loves his subject and studies it with a rare and welcome patience.

Editorial Reviews

Drawing Distinctions is about drawing, very comprehensively conceived, from children's drawing to the map of the London Underground, and engineering diagrams to drawing by Dürer and Michaelangelo.... It is a remarkable book of great breadth and refined argument.... It should be part of the 'tool-kit' of any art historian or philosopher of art; it should also be obligatory reading for anyone in an art school teaching drawing.

British Journal of Aesthetics - Michael Podro

Drawing Distinctions is about drawing, very comprehensively conceived, from children's drawing to the map of the London Underground, and engineering diagrams to drawing by Dürer and Michaelangelo.... It is a remarkable book of great breadth and refined argument.... It should be part of the 'tool-kit' of any art historian or philosopher of art; it should also be obligatory reading for anyone in an art school teaching drawing.

--Michael Podro "British Journal of Aesthetics"

From the Publisher

"Patrick Maynard maintains that drawing is a tool kit, an open-ended family of relatively autonomous techniques for controlling the marks we humans have the power to make on various available surfaces—techniques we deploy in endless combinations and permutations, in the service of countless different aims and projects. He proceeds to assemble a remarkably rich and versatile array of graphic concepts, instructing us in the proper use of each as he adds it to our stock. Maynard loves his subject and studies it with a rare and welcome patience."

David Hills