Visual Proportion

Visual proportion can be thought of in different ways. For instance, we can use it to think about how the relative sizes of different parts of an artwork may shape meaning. In this case proportion is about the relationship of the size of one element when compared to another, something that can also be thought of as relative visual weight. Rudolf Arheim defined visual weight as a, "visual force" or, "psychological attraction" that determines an element's prominence, balance and "pull" within a composition. Size when thinking of proportion is the main element, however other factors also have to be taken into consideration. They are of course the basic visual elements that any art and design foundation student would have to explore during their first term, but it is perhaps worth setting them out again and thinking about how proportionally they might effect the read of any situation, as all forms in a composition can have their visual presence enhanced or diminished by applying any of the visual elements below, in any combination.

Colour: Warm colours advance and tend to visually weigh more than cool colours. Red is often considered the heaviest or most energetic colour and yellow the lightest but a colour can be tonally dark or light and have a different saturation, so a light red might be outweighed by a mustard yellow.
Tone or value: On a white ground, dark elements have more visual weight than light elements.
Position: Elements located higher in the composition are usually perceived to weigh more than elements located lower in the composition. The further from the centre or dominant area of a composition, the greater the visual weight an element can have. Elements in the foreground carry more weight than elements in the background. However this can depend on the shape of the rectangle the elements have to operate within; a long thin horizontally orientated rectangle, may reinforce the visual weight of other horizontal elements within the lower part of the rectangle.
Texture: Textured elements appear heavier than non-textured objects. Texture can make an element appear three-dimensional, which can give apparent mass and therefore implied physical weight to a form.
Shape: Objects with a regular, clear shape appear heavier than objects with an irregular or softer edged shape. This can be related to: Depth of field and focus: Just as with a camera you can bring something into and out of focus, you can draw forms softer or sharper in relation to an imagined depth of field, the objects in focus having more visual weight. 

Orientation: Vertical elements can in certain instances appear visually more powerful than horizontal objects and in some cases diagonal elements carry the most weight. Orientation is very closely allied to position and of course you can mix and blend any of the above to give the eyes an exciting time.

As you bring these various elements together you will find that other issues become more important, such as contrast: Contrast draws attention to an element. so it will appear visually heavier than its surroundings. You can use contrast with any of the elements above and in various ways such as by using the 70/30 rule, which is explained in detail in the later part of this post. Therefore you could have a majority of elements having hard edges and clearly defined shapes and just one with soft focus; in this case you may well find the normally insignificant soft edged object becomes the most forceful. You may also want to think about density: Packing more elements into a given space increases the visual weight of the space. For example compare images of Annette Messager's 'My Vows', with Malevich's Black Circle. However in this case we also have to consider the fact that Messager's circle hangs in the lower half of the frame, therefore the emphasis is on its weight, whilst Malevich's sits in the top half, therefore it appears to rise up and float.

Density relates to perceived physical weight: We know that an elephant weighs more than a balloon. An image of an elephant can therefore feel as if it weighs more visually than an image of a balloon, because we transfer a real world expectancy into the imagined world of an image.

Laura Such: lead balloon 

However any rule is easily broken.

Intrinsic interest: Some things are more visually interesting than others, they might for instance be very intricate or unusual, but it might simply be that the observer has a fascination for something, perhaps they are a tree surgeon and therefore any tree in a composition will stand out for them. Intrinsic interest is related to the fact that visual weight can also be about relative psychological or social importance. For instance when we find this situation in Children's, Egyptian or Medieval paintings and drawings, visual weight might also have to account for the fact that one thing is drawn much bigger than another, because it is more important to the person constructing the image. For instance a child they may well think of themselves as being more important than a house.

From the Kellogg Collection

In Egyptian painting social class or ranking is primarily conveyed through hierarchical scale, whereby major gods and pharaohs are depicted largest to signify their power.

Egyptian painting: Social position is represented by size

Cecco di Pietro: Madonna and Child with Donors

In the Cecco di Pietro image above the donors are tiny in relation to the Madonna, because they are relatively unimportant. 

Miró

The artist Miró was someone who used to play with proportion to give psychological energy to his paintings. The red form that dominates the image above is in dialogue with both the linear elements and another circular blue shape and although these forms are non figurative, we still feel that some sort of psychological positioning is taking place. Proportion in this case being used quite differently to Rothko, who uses proportion as a form of spatial division. 

Rothko

You feel in Rothko as if he uses proportion more as a landscape metaphor. A large block of colour resting in the upper half of a canvas, triggering a sensation similar to one we get when looking at a flat landscape that is dominated by sky.

In all of these cases artists are using proportion for effect. By manipulating it, a subject can be made to seem psychologically strong, supportive, weak, unimportant etc. but it can also be something that can trigger feelings of elation, mystery, vastness, claustrophobia etc.

However proportion can also refer to what is 'right' and in proportion. Sometimes this is fixed by a canon. For instance, the Ancient Greek canon of proportion, as formulated by Polykleitos in the 5th century BC, established a mathematical, system for representing the ideal human form.

Doryphoros: After Polykleitos of Argos (Greek, ca. 480/475–415 BCE)

Polykleitos created a measurement system based on a mathematical formula in which the human body was divided into measured parts that all related to one another. The end result, as in the 'Spear Thrower' above, was an expression of what was called symmetria. In art of the High Classical period (ca. 450–400 BCE), symmetria was not only about proportion and balance, it was also a way to give life to the inanimate. The body of the Spear Thrower, (Doryphoros) stands in a contrapposto position. I.e. his weight rests on his right leg, freeing his left to bend. This causes the right hip to shift upwards in relation to the left; the left shoulder therefore rises and the right drops. His body is both brought into a state of equilibrium and energised through this counterbalancing act. Always in movement but at the same time balanced and in proportion. 

Although closely related, this type of visual construction is sometimes confused with proportional measuring, the technique of comparing the sizes of different parts of a subject to each other (e.g., width to height) rather than using absolute, fixed units, as in the canon of Polykleitos. It involves using a tool like a pencil at arm's length to establish ratios, a checking process that is supposed to ensure accurate and consistent scaling when drawing from life. 

Euan Uglow: Loaf

Euan Uglow's studio when painting 'Loaf' in the 1980s

The measurement of visual proportion relies on establishing relationships and you can see in the image of Uglow's studio above, how tricky this can be. 

I was looking at this recently in my post on the vertical. These two different approaches to proportion are though closely related, because in order to develop a canon of proportion, many measurements had to be taken from actual examples. For instance Albrecht Dürer developed a comprehensive, mathematical canon of human proportion, as was laid out in his 1528 treatise Four Books on Human Proportion, which looked at the construction of faces and bodies using geometric measurements. His system, diverged from the canon of Polykleitos and other's by recognising the diversity of human measurements, and trying to reconcile these with consistent measurements for constructing the head. I.e. he realised that all canons would at one time or another have begun with measuring what was actually out there and a canon would have been fixed by then finding a best average. But one person's best average is different to another's and in fact Durer's heads that rely on his proportional system always look very stylised and awkward to me.  

Durer: a study in human proportion

However we can also exaggerate proportions to emphasise something. For example, a cartoonist may distort a proportion in order to create an image that highlights a particular quality of character that they wish to give to the subject. 

Dave Brown: Gordon Brown and Peter Mandelson

By elongating Mandelson's tongue the cartoonist Dave Brown suggests how he was able to get into Gordon Brown's head. It is also interesting to see how Dave Brown exaggerates the proportions of their relative faces, Gordon Brown becoming like an old saggy featured Basset Hound, and Mandelson more like a sharp-featured spiv with elf ears.

As well as the various canons in art, we have proportional rules, these are in fact proportional ratios, such as the typical screen aspect ratio for TV and contemporary film, which is 16:9. (Width is always first, then height) In painting the 70/30 rule is supposed to create visual interest and balance by having a larger area (70%) for background and a smaller, contrasting area (30%) for details, accents or focal points, which is supposed to prevent monotony and to guide the eye to look for the point of interest. This principle applies to colours, textures, detail levels, as well as the overall composition, which is supposed to 'create dynamic yet harmonious visuals, whether in a painting, illustration or interior design.' (sic). The way it works is to set up opposites, such as light vs. dark, warm vs. cool, big vs. small, red vs. green, finished vs. unfinished, man made vs. natural and obviously to have 70% of one and 30% of the other. In painting for instance loose brush strokes can be set against sharp detail, in the case of the Richard Schmid portrait, by having 70% of the surface area loosely treated, the more detailed head is now the focal point for the observer.

Richard Schmid

This can work for warm and cool contrasts as well. A small amount of warm colours can make a larger area of cool colours vibrate. In the image below, the pinks on the cheek and the red sitting over the man's left shoulder are used to excite the cools.

Harley Brown: Pastel

I'm not personally convinced by this rule but the idea that a small amount of one thing can be set in contrast against another, in order to achieve a visual effect is clearly something often used by artists to create off symmetry visual interest. I.e. differing proportions are aesthetically useful. 

People use this idea much more clearly when we sit outside of the art business. A pie chart for instance works by representing data as proportional slices of a circle, where the entire circle equals 100% (or 360°) of a total dataset. Each slice's area and angle correspond to the size of a specific category, allowing for easy comparison of parts-to-whole relationships.

A pie chart representing what the arts are worth to Southeast Alaska. Painting, carving, theatre, music and other creative pursuits generate at least $60 million a year in business.

In the image above we can see how the arts are represented to the world of business. But artists can use the idea too. For instance, Christine Sun Kim, an artist I have written about in the past, uses pie charts to map personal experiences.

Christine Sun Kim 

Proportion is very closely related to scale, which is another of those important visual elements that I haven't yet got round to writing about in this blog, so there is going to have to be a post on that too in the near future. But for now I'll leave you with Goya's 'Colossus', an image that uses scale dramatically and which has always made the hairs on my neck rise. The atrocities of war we enact on each other, are in Goya's mind, a result of letting loose a giant monster that dwells within all of us, Goya's image makes visible that inner demon which has now stepped out into the world. As we look at Goya's painting, we can perhaps see our own monsters, those inner thoughts we rarely acknowledge, thoughts that have to emerge at times or we will like my grandfather, have to beat our heads against the door lintel in order to quieten that inner clamour.  War is upon us unfortunately once again, and we need to remind ourselves that this should not be the only way to resolve differences. As boys we used to play with soldiers, our inner needs satisfied by model wars. The more I listen to the news it seems as if some politicians play at war as if it still involves only toys; the consequences are though to those involved all too real; their suffering is beyond comprehension, as children die as a result of bombs and missiles raining down from the sky, we are all complicit in not demanding an end to conflicts driven by the foolishness of old men. 

Goya

See also:

The vertical

Drawing, measuring and the body

Mathematics, rightness and underlying beauty 

Mathematical shapes of interest

Translation between languages

Life drawing

Hanging work for an exhibition

I shall miss you David Hockney

Tea Painting in an Illusionistic Style: 1961

David Hockney seems to have been in the background or somewhere about ever since I decided to become an artist in the 1960s. The first ever etching I made was of a Typhoo Tea packet. "Just do something", I was told. I thought if Hockney could make something interesting out of a Typhoo Tea image, so could I. I wonder where those prints went? Of course he had got there first but we all need to get some sort of leg up when we get started. It was the fact he was working class that endeared him to me. He wasn't from an arty family, and he had enough confidence in himself to go where only the rich, posh boys used to go. If Hockney could escape Bradford, I could escape Dudley. 

He could draw and draw well. Frank Lisle had taught him when he was a student in Bradford and it was Frank, the then college principal who ran the rule over myself when I pitched up at the Jacob Kramer College in Leeds. Frank insisted that all his staff had to be able to draw; not long after I started he sat in on a life drawing class I took, telling me afterwards what I had done wrong, what I had missed and what he thought I had done well. However he saw enough to keep me on as a part-timer. Frank would make all the staff draw from the model, he liked to test people out and he was very wary of any staff who couldn't draw as well as he expected. This attitude forced me to draw more and improve on my basic ability, which wasn't really that good. I was never a 'natural' drawer, but I did know that if you persisted at it you could get better. After all these years I'm still practicing, each week finding out something else about either myself or the world around me, things that you can only grasp through drawing. I can imagine Frank setting Hockney some hard tasks, but I'm also sure Hockney would have surprised Frank with his ability. Frank would have made an impression on the young Hockney. He only had one eye and wore an eyepatch, rather like a pirate, he was a commanding figure and had a military air. He fitted his role as principal very well, somehow he had fused his military and artistic personas, accuracy in drawing being a training that would also equip you as a rifleman. 

Hockney turned up at Newport once when I was a DipAD student. I think it was John Selway that brought him in, they had both been at the Royal College at the same time. Selway back in the 60s being perhaps the more successful young artist but a return to Wales didn't do his career any favours. I remember Hockney showing us a drawing whereby a big plant obscured the feet of the model, he laconically told us he put the plant there because he didn't like drawing feet. I don't remember much else, I think I had a hangover that day, I did tend to drink far too much in those days. I was also going through a very conceptual phase in my work and had decided that Hockney was rather old fashioned, so I was not in a very receptive mood when he came. More fool me. 

The first exhibition that I had work in that Hockney did too was New Art in Yorkshire, which was held in Leeds in 1987. New Art in Yorkshire was something that emerged out of the workings of the Yorkshire Contemporary Art Group and was spearheaded by James Hamilton, who had recently taken over what had been the Park Square Gallery in Leeds. I was part of the organising group and had been asked to become one of the selectors. The others, if I remember rightly, were Sutapa Biswas, whose 'Housewives with Steak-Knives' image had recently gone viral and Joanna Mowbury, who had just completed the first sculpture focused residency for the Artist in Industry project and had just held a well received one person show of the work she had completed as part of that residency. Alongside them I felt like I often do as if I didn't belong, my impostor syndrome kicking in big time.

 

The New Art in Yorkshire catalogue

I don't know how it had been organised, but David Hockney had some work in the exhibition, but it didn't go through the selection process, he was an invited artist and as a selector, so was I. I would have to wait until 2020 until we were both in an exhibition together again. In the exhibition 'Untitled, 2020. Three perspectives on the art of the present’ at the Palazzo Grassi, Punta della Dogana, in Venice, I was showing work from 1991, 'Confessions of a house owning socialist', 12 etchings with aquatint and Hockney was showing drawing work from 1983, 'Ian and me ii', 'Ian and me iii' 1983 and 'Ian and me iv'. Just to have occasionally had work in the vicinity of his was a privilege. 

Moving to Yorkshire meant that I was constantly reminded of Hockney's presence, even though he had moved over to the States to live, he was seen in Yorkshire as an ever present icon. At one time I was asked to comment about his work on a TV program, I think it was 'Look North', I was asked about the artistic worth of his drawings for a new telephone directory cover; in those days it was big news him getting engaged in such things. I thought it was wonderful that he could still have an obvious fondness and affection for the area and that I thought he was working in the tradition of Raoul Dufy. Not that hardly any of the viewers would have known who Dufy was. 

Bradford and District telephone directory 1989

The older I got the more I looked again at Hockney's work and in fact as I have just had work on exhibition at Salt's Mill, I spent quite a lot of time recently re-looking at his art and it doesn't disappoint. They still have in Salt's Mill his fax machine work done in the same year as the telephone directory.

Tennis: Fax machine print

They also have many of the prints made from IPad drawings and work from his Bradford College of Art days. He is a very good illustrator as well as a fine artist. 

Above all Hockney was a very bright thinker. He understood the visual world better than most and he saw opportunities within what for some people could be quite mundane situations. He was still working through the legacy of Cézanne, therefore it wasn't about the things portrayed, it was about how what was portrayed was looked at and seen. That makes everything interesting, because the struggle is to find a form that carries something within itself that reveals how it was perceived. 

Three Vases on a Table, Inside, August: 2025 Acrylic on canvas with collage

The image above painted less than a year ago exemplifies his interests. It's not a great image, but it contains a raft of ideas, some of which we have seen Hockney deal with more successfully in the past, but as an 87 year old, he could be excused from having not been in the best of form when he made the image. The image's problem is one of reconciliation between the various elements. Yes they all sit in the same pictorial space, but they don't 'belong' in the places that they have been put. The views out of the windows are too static, the use of photography to indicate the far distance is too easy a solution. He is though still searching for that image that will finally resolve for him that conundrum of active seeing and the still image. The best of his images that take on the same or similar issues resolve these issues and you not oinly believe in the spaces he constructs and the forms that he renders but their internal logic gives them a gravitas that sits him in a company with Piero. 

I watched him from a distance one day when he was going round Tate Britain looking at paintings. He was mainly looking at Frances Bacon paintings, and was totally absorbed. Bacon was obviously doing something that fascinated him. You might think that the two painters would be in sensibility matters miles away, but I could guess what he was looking at. Bacon manages to compress movement into his images by the way he handles the paint.  I'm sure Hockney was trying to learn something from the way the paint was handled. In particular how Bacon was able to trap time in paint. 

The last encounter where I really felt his recent presence was when I was part of the team that was dismembering his Bridlington studio in 2013. The college had been contacted by one of Hockney's team and we were told that Hockney had instructed them to contact a local art college and see if they wanted to take what they could from the studio he was vacating. Of course we would. The college hired a lorry and three of us went over to Bridlington to get what we could. The studio was on an industrial estate, and we drove the lorry straight in from the street, the industrial roller door being of a scale to allow large trucks to transport work in and out. One wall had been fitted with wooden blocks that were obviously there so that canvases could be fitted together on the wall to create his huge landscape images. There were brushes with long handles, wide brushes, long bristle, short bristle and other types of good quality brushes, buckets of paint tubes and several unused linen canvases. We were not allowed to take anything with a mark on it, so for instance I remember one canvas with just a single brush stroke on it and his team wouldn't allow us to have it. There were models of exhibitions made of foam board, with small images of his works glued in where they should go and several empty  sketchbooks, that were made of excellent quality watercolour paper, as well as a pile of excellent unused art papers but most of all for myself it was about the experience of an empty space that had his ghostly traces everywhere you looked. While we worked to load the lorry, Hockney's assistants were either cataloging all his works on paper, which we never got to see, or just checking on us, making sure we did not accidentally hoover up something of importance. We took everything we could and all of it was given out to students over the next two to three years. I would have liked to have had a sketchbook, but it was all put away in containers and the process of eking out the materials to the students, so that they lasted for a couple of years, was something managed by the then technician and painting staff. It was so generous of Hockney an his team, a result I suppose of them all needing to get out of Bridlington as fast as possible after the unfortunate death of one of his assistants. 

But now he is gone. But he is also everywhere. I'm in Chichester at the moment and this morning we visited a small private gallery to see a flower painting exhibition and in the foyer was a copy of David Hockney's 'Dog Days', another reminder that he could make interesting images of most things that came his way. He is so popular because people can usually find something that he has made pictures of that they recognise as being part of their world. He is therefore, people think, both approachable and understandable. 

Hockney must have touched many lives because of his global media presence. I saw several Facebook posts this week about him, each one detailing the moment or moments where people's paths had crossed with his or connections made. We seem to have to measure ourselves in some way in relation to how much star dust we have managed to collect from our vicarious contacts with those who are famous. Most of us will at some time be guilty of the, "I knew him/her once" comment, usually followed by a sort of, "There but for fortune go you or I" quip, as the song has it. 

I still go back to his work, especially when he is questioning how we see. His graphic invention when trying to draw intangible things like water, being of the highest level and because of this I have included examples of his work several times in this blog. 

Above all I always felt that his art was generous and open, he never hid behind dense theory and yet at the same time he was always happy to explain himself in simple, direct language. He could draw well and more importantly drew with purpose. There is a straightforward love of looking that comes through in nearly everything he made and therefore a reminder that joy in seeing and a celebration of life, are wonderful gifts to pass on to others. 

I shall miss you David Hockney, I shall miss your eloquence and common sense attitude to the business of making art; you were able to make it both accessible and wonderful at the same time, never letting its mystery and magic go unacknowledged and yet at the same time opening doors for ordinary people to gain entry into its appreciation. 

See also:

Drawing water

Pouring water

More drawing devices

David Hockney retrospective

RIP John Selway

Drawing a life

For a while now I have been contributing to an on line project called 'Drawing a Life'. We began the project because some of us had been part of an earlier online experiment concerned with drawing the body. Drawing Correspondence ran a six week program, 'THE BODY I AM IN' that lasted from the 19th October to the 23rd November 2021. The participants were from the UK, as well as various parts of Europe. After the sessions were over some of us wanted to continue, so a new group was formed and because of wider interest new people joined, whilst others for a variety of reasons didn't continue.

There was a lot to think about. In particular, what type of knowledge about other people and their bodies, could you communicate through drawing, especially if the information was accessed via the computer screen? This question has sustained us for a while but it has gradually been apparent that simply seeing people on screen and drawing them isn't enough. A few of us had similar questions and we have been undertaking projects designed to test out how we could take some of the ideas further. I think, for myself, it’s about the nature of the hand made portrait in a post selfie world. How can a growing awareness of the narratives surrounding other people's lives be visualised and woven into an image that evolves out of contact with that other person. As we have evolved as a group, we have been changing how we communicate, initially it was simply about spending time looking at each other via the computer screen and making drawings in response to what we saw. But then the more we talked, the narratives that surrounded the images started to become more interesting, the issue now being how could the narratives shape the imagery, without having to resort to simply adding text? We began exchanging things, making things such as puppets, thinking about animal forms that we could inhabit and above all telling stories about ourselves. The image below emerging from a complicated session, whereby I began by working on two joined together large sheets of watercolour paper, an image which I then took into digital print in order to intensify the colour and find more coherence between te image's parts.

C

The image below, was made after a the member of the group gave a theatrical  presentation about their life. As in the image above I worked across two large 5 by 4 feet sheets of watercolour paper, as they presented aspects of their story. Initially working on two separate sheets and then joining them together.

L

We had also begun to exchange things by post. This to establish an actual physical link, to give each other something tangible to hold and to break away from the thin screen presence. Once the sent objects entered the studio, they became the catalyst for more work and new narratives started to emerge.

A new narrative emerges

Working in this way reminded me of why I had decided to join 'THE BODY I AM IN' project in the first place. It was because I wanted to make myself more aware of that 'body I am in'. I was thinking about what it must be like to make a self-portrait if you had never seen a mirror or any other images of yourself. You would know what others look like and would be aware that you were a human just like them. You would also know that everyone had a different external appearance and that these differences in appearance lay within the bounds of a certain ‘human’ template. No one was over a certain height, noses were nearly always set between two eyes and heads were always within a certain set of proportions in relation to bodies. However, you would also be aware that you had a feeling tone that was you. Your optimism or pessimism index, your sense of bravery, your introvert/extrovert levels and all of those other feelings that make up a sense of yourself, such as whether or not you are in love, in pain or feeling lonely. What Jacob von Uexküll called the 'unwelten' or phenomenological world of any particular creature. This 'unwelten' being dependent upon the body form that perception was housed within. Therefore, a portrait ought to be able to assess these things as part and parcel of the process of depicting a human being. Internal feelings, (interoception) being perhaps even more important than the external appearance of someone. However, there is a powerful paradox in the middle of this and that is that we can never be sure about what another person is thinking or feeling. They may lie, they may have facial expressions that are very inexpressive or not easily linked to internal feelings and many of us are to one extent or another autistic, often high-functioning, therefore not noticed, but nevertheless, something to be aware of.

Interoceptual portrait

The observation of perception considered through drawing, is a research project held under the umbrella of the University of Porto, my role is to use drawing to explore the role of interoception as part of our perceptual experience. Because the world of seeing is like an ever expanding dictionary of what has been seen, things that are not visually seen but which are still being experienced, such as pain or anxiety, are when drawn, usually drawn in such a way that certain aspects of what have been seen are used in those depictions. Metaphor and analogy are important, because meaning is made by making connections with other things. A pain might for instance feel very sharp, or be more like a dull throb, in each case we have an implied form, one sharp, bright and pointed, the other lumpy, grey and soft. From such a basic starting point, a language of form can be developed. 

A throbbing pain felt within the body

But feelings can also be associated with more figurative imagery. A memory of a particular soft, cuddly toy might be brought to the fore, every time someone needed a mental cuddle. My felt understanding of ‘leftness’ involves a feeling of pain in my left arm, coupled with an image of a carbuncle that grew in the crook of that arm when I was a small boy. I still see that image whenever I have to think about the difference between left and right. It is part of my internal language and makes no sense to any one outside of my body. 

An image I made when involved with 'The Body I am in'

Sometimes therefore in order to give more information an image of an inner feeling might be located within a simple drawing of the body. In the case below a stomach condition effecting the chest area. 

The longer the ‘Drawing a life’ group stays together, the more I gather insights into the worlds of the other people in the group. The fact that 'L' has decided to tell the group a story whilst applying layers of clay to her face and painting it, opens new doors, ones that suggest to me that perhaps we ought to have a period of time when we exclude vision and rely entirely on sound to communicate. Then gradually we might bring the senses together again in order to construct portraits that don’t just rely on external appearance. If only we could touch and smell and taste each other too.

L

These two earlier versions of 'L' were made directly from the screen, drawn as 'L' told us about her life. However at that time the portraits made were mainly of heads drawn directly from screen presences, more recently performative presentations have made me reconsider how the normally invisible narratives of our lives, can be transcribed into an image without having to rely on existing illustrative conventions.

When we went to our daughter's final exhibition in Wimbledon, I met Adam Pearson, he had been life modelling for the students there and was also an actor who lives with neurofibromatosis, a genetic condition that causes non-cancerous tumours to grow on nerve tissue, the result of which is that he has severe facial disfigurement. He is also like our daughter and her sister an identical twin, his brother having the same inherited condition, but without the facial disfigurement. (There is a film about their life available at: https://vimeo.com/315774991)

We went for a drink after the opening and we talked about what it was like to be so clearly different to others. Eventually he had to go to get his train and he asked me to walk with him as a form of protection. He had been attacked several times in the past when walking alone, simply because some people just couldn't bear to see him and wanted to literally remove him from the family of forms that make up the possibilities of the human animal.

Adam Pearson

As we talked his features became 'normalised' it was as if the more I saw him as being just another person interested in why people are like they are, the more his external appearance didn't matter, perhaps didn't matter is the wrong term, the less difference it made. I was again reminded of the issues the novel the Picture of Dorien Gray and its various film versions, brought forward, something I wrote about in an earlier post, Adam was I thought, like a first man, bringing forth a whole new series of thoughts about what it is to follow the template of being human. 

Typical image of Dorian Gray's portrait

Meeting Adam had helped me to distrust external appearances. To not take them at face value as we say in English. A phrase that when looked up tells us that we are advised to look beyond the surface, questioning the initial appearance or literal words of a situation, person, or statement to find deeper meaning, hidden motives, or truth. It involves critical thinking and verification rather than blind acceptance. What therefore is an honest face? Again on looking up a definition new problems arise as to how we understand facial appearance. An "honest face" I am told, refers to a facial appearance that instantly signals sincerity, trustworthiness, and innocence, leading others to perceive the person as genuine and free of deceit. This definition is though followed by another statement, 'This subjective impression is often linked to soft features, high symmetry, and "baby-faced" traits rather than hardened or intense features.' After I had left Adam at the station my feeling was that his face was perhaps the most 'honest' I had ever come across.

See also:

What is a portrait?

The portrait as witness and control

Interoceptual portraits

The Lamed Vavniks

Invisible worlds

Reflections on 'The Body I am in'

Pilates and interoception

The sleep of reason

Oh how we battle in our minds with reason. At one moment logic seems to be the answer to our collective follies and then it seems as if reason is befouled by the very creatures that use it, our limitations as a species being embedded into the core structures of logic, so that what at one time could seem to liberate us, at another seems to chain us into our place. Sometimes I think it might be only our imaginations that can free us from this dilemma, but the roots of the imagination lie in the subconscious mind and that may itself release monsters. 

Goya wrote a caption for his famous print "The Sleep of Reason produces monsters", it stated, "Imagination abandoned by reason produces impossible monsters; united with her, she is the mother of the arts and source of their wonders". The two parts of the title sum up the quandary we find ourselves in. 

Goya: Imagination abandoned by reason produces impossible monsters; united with her, she is the mother of the arts and source of their wonders

'Los Caprichos' is a body of 80 etchings published in 1799 wherein Goya responded to the political, social and religious abuses of his time. As is often the case with great artists he was also responding to the changing materials of his craft; aquatint had just emerged as an etching technique, allowing large areas of tone to be quickly and relatively easily built up within an etching plate and it could be used to develop dark areas with an emotional register alongside the etched line work. It was as if this new technique could carry the feeling tone as well as the tonal value of our dark subconscious reality. 

The title, "Imagination abandoned by reason produces impossible monsters; united with her, she is the mother of the arts and source of their wonders", is an affirmation that Goya as an artist understood that imagination should never be totally renounced in favour of the rational. Our conscious and subconscious selves need to find a balance if we are to attune ourselves properly to life; logic without the imagination that reveals its consequences, breeding war. However, without imagination in combination with reason, we would also have no innovation. Goya's title is often shortened to "Imagination abandoned by reason produces monsters" and is used to argue that we need to be more rational in our approach to life, an approach that echoes the rise of the Enlightenment view. Building on the principles of science, this view advocated the application of rational principles to social and political reform. There was a belief that the evils of war, poverty and ignorance could be eradicated by scientific education. I notice that this belief lies behind a new attempt to seek an escape from our current seemingly irrational social and political woes. A new report by the World Inequality Lab aims to be the most comprehensive attempt yet to navigate the crises that are pushing the world toward climate breakdown, political extremism and ever greater economic and social tension and division. At its core is the concept of sufficiency – the idea that people can enjoy a prosperous, healthy life without constantly striving to consume or accumulate more material possessions, a process that degrades the natural world on which all life depends.

The authors envisage three interrelated moves. "More than halving average working time from 2,100 hours a year to 1,000 hours, roughly equivalent to a two-and-a-half-day working week; encouraging people to eat less red meat, which is the main driver of deforestation and ecological destruction and refocusing the economy toward low-consumption activities by more than doubling education spending to £7,250 a person" as well as increasing the healthcare spend. I was interested in the fact that the report has an understanding that more education leads to lower consumption. This link between education and rational beliefs is I believe similar to the one propagated during the Enlightenment. Before the First World War, educational rates had improved but the associated technological advances that were a consequence of scientific thinking led to the development of war machines that had unbelievable consequences in terms of mass slaughter. My grandfather was still suffering from the effects of having to fight in that war, continuing to relive his experiences of 1917/18 trench warfare while he was living with us in the 1960s and early 70s. He refused to speak about his time in the trenches and would occasionally be found beating his head against a doorframe, in a vain attempt to remove the still active visions of a Hell that remained in his mind. I would like to think that this new report would guide us towards a better world, but am sceptical, as it seems to rely too much on rational thinking and fails to take into account the unpredictable nature of people's desires. I sometimes think we all need counselling and to be given time to confront our dark inner recesses and only then will we be able to escape the landmines that we set in our own backyards.

As an artist Goya reminds us of our worst impulses. The Inquisition took an interest in Capricho No. 23 entitled 'Aquellos polvos...trajeron estos lodos.' (Those specks of dust...brought this sludge). The caption referring, not to the prisoner as it seems at first glance, but to the way court processes had been hijacked by the then religion dominated government. In a time of fascist aggression, any small transgression can be taken up and used by legal processes to frame innocent people, especially those who happen to think differently. In Goya's print the accused is framed in pure white, while the court and the accusers are collectively made grey by the covering aquatint, suggesting that mob rule, led by the man reading the accusation, will prevail when sentencing any individual who has been seen to speak of or represent an alternative truth. 

Goya: Those specks of dust...brought this sludge

Our contemporary social media allows for similar things to happen. It is becoming clear that as a tool for disruption and the engineering of collective hate, it is very powerful. Typical of the type of incident that seems to be occurring more and more, was one that arose in Epsom earlier this year. A young woman bumped her head after a night out, however, in a confused state, she had told the police she thought she had been gang raped. It turned out she hadn’t, but by the time this was clarified, a lot of damage had been done. 

The far-right used her testimony to galvanise hatred and fear. Bloggers, influencers and right-wing journalists spread ideas of an associated racist conspiracy. As they did mainstream politicians and magazines were sucked into the argument, giving the initial off the cuff, often racist social media posts more credence; an initial confused statement, now becoming a 'fact', around which was being stoked racial hatred. 

In those nine days, the Surrey Police were in the uncomfortable position of investigating a crime that hadn’t happened and this became a gap in time for the far-right to work up its arguments. Angry protests were organised online, white Englishmen it was stated would soon be forced to do “very, very bad things". The Surrey police it was claimed were demonstrating the “epitome of two-tier policing", a claim I see again being put forwrd in response to the more recent Southampton stabbing. 

The Spectator gave space to an article about the anger of locals and the article strongly implied that the perpetrators of the assault were brown migrants. The article again complained about two-tier policing. Robert Jenrick, who was now a Reform party member, but who had been a former Conservative Secretary of State for Justice, lectured the police from a position on Elon Muck's platform X, to insist they “communicate ASAP” about “the horrific rape.” Something of course that never actually happened, but which by now didn't really matter, because thousands of people believed it had happened and not only that they had been fed a very clear message as to who the perpetuators were. 

Notice how the arguments escalate, all without any grounding in facts, taking advantage of a gap in information, in this case using the nine days that it took the police to find out what had actually occurred. Thank goodness the police did find out that nothing actually happened, in a more pressured future, would they have been able to hold a proper investigation? They may well at another time, under the eye of a more right-wing government, be coerced to make a snap judgement, based on populist sentiment. 

This is the other side of "the sleep of reason", Goya's observations still ringing true after many years have passed, human nature it seems is not changing. This is why his work is still important, it is a reminder of who we are and who we might become, a warning and a wake-up call. 

The Global Village was a term coined by the theorist Marshall McLuhan, it was a sociological concept describing how the world had been brought closer together by electronic media, thus making distant events feel as local as if happening in the village, but it is also a reminder that even though communication systems were now global, our instincts and ways of operating as human beings remain rooted in the past. McLuhan developed the phrase before the rise of internet hosted social media platforms, communications now being even more global and almost instantaneous. Not that long ago there were devastating waves of violent pogroms taking place in villages in Eastern Europe. Some of my family arrived in England at the end of the 19th century as a result of those now nearly forgotten events. I really hope the global village doesn't have to suffer it own similar events in the future, especially as there may be no open-armed England to escape to. 

Interoceptual portrait of a fascist 

See also:

Freud and drawing invisible forces

Lacan and Drawing

The Borromean knot

Life lines