Drawing with wire: Picasso and Calder

Poster for the Exhibition

Wireframe drawings that are the result of CAD software have been with us for some time now and they have a history that goes back to the Renaissance. They have a particular aesthetic and are very useful when making ideas that require a very clear linear understanding of certain types of 3D space. 
However wire is itself a very interesting drawing material and it can be used to bridge that interesting gap between 2D and 3D thinking. 
I was in Paris recently and the Picasso museum was hosting an exhibition of Picasso and Calder. 

Picasso

Calder

This is how the museum introduced the aesthetic connections between the two artists.

'A key connection can be found specifically in their exploration of the void, or the absence of space, which both artists defined from the figure through to abstraction. Calder and Picasso wanted to present or represent non-space, whether by giving definition to a subtraction of mass, as in Calder’s sculpture, or by expressing contortions of time, as in Picasso’s portraits. Calder externalised the void through curiosity and intellectual expansion, engaging unseen forces in ways that challenge dimensional limitations or what he called 'grandeur-immense'. Picasso personalised the exploration, focusing on the emotional inner self. He brought himself inside each character and collapsed the interpersonal space between author and subject.'

These are fascinating issues and they extend some of the ideas I have touched on before in this drawing blog. In particular the way that an interior space, the space constructed by a mind deliberating on what it is to be, can be seen to be no different in essence to a cosmic space, one that looks to hold within itself all of creation. 

So don't forget the humble florist's wire and if at any time you feel that your drawing is becoming too flat, or does not begin to capture the spatial nature of an experience, remember that a wire construction may well help you both realise the experience and open a doorway into a new idea. 

Related earlier posts

Absence, emptiness and the void
This post includes comments on David Edgar's conference paper ‘Agitating the void: phenomenology and its practical application in drawing’ 
Cross contour drawing
3D Printing: solidified drawing
Some reflections on Sara Barker's wire drawings seen in a Glasgow exhibition