"Intellectual Realism and Visual Realism are both a Form of Art Representation."

siong hoon wendy tan

Alan Costall’s article A Closer Look at Luquet points that Luquet’s study on children’s drawing is based on his study on his own daughter. The only fault with Luquet’s study on his own daughter is that the finding may be too generalised for all children. There is a difference between the attitudes and the final drawings of two children from two different backgrounds, of clever children and dull ones or of well-cared-for and neglected ones. Based on Luquet’s study it will be useful for our purpose to emphasize on the similarities rather than the differences on children’s drawing; and the similarity is all children draw spontaneously with very little observation. We see in children and primitive work they are non-projective shape because the children and the primitive people simply draw what they know rather than what they see. This process can indeed be described as drawing from knowledge; but it is a knowledge that cannot be taken to be an alternative to seeing (Rudolf, p.165)

Matthews J. author of The Art of Childhood and Adolescence points when the children draw ‘intellectually realistic’ pictures; they are supposedly drawing ‘what they know rather than what they see’. Ultimately, the children will overcome the supposed limitation of their intellectually realistic thinking and gives way to the stage of ‘visual realism’, when drawing ‘what they know’ is replaced by ‘what they see’’ and children become able to organize materials on a higher level. Intellectual realism refers to drawing that captures the basic structure of the object but not from a particular fixed viewpoint; it is how children convey what they know rather than what they see. Some people may view intellectual realism as the supposed inferior stage of representation. It was generally believe that although children who could paint and draw, their best attempts produced are usually regarded as bad painting or bad drawings; that is, when these works are compared with the work of adults and judge by academic standards which is the only standard accepted by the general public. In Alan Costall’s A Closer Look at Luquet, Luquet does not regard intellectual realism as a failure; their own distinctive way of drawing is their choice. The unsophisticated work of a child’s drawing may have the same art content as the work of adult artists. The child plump for intellectual realism because what matter to the child is not the appearance of the object. Their depiction is based on what they know, a generalised knowledge of the objects. Unlike the artists it is less skilfully expressed but it holds the same integrity and frankness.

In an intellectual realism work, children’s interpretation of an object is based on its mental representation of the entire object. Luquet calls that the ‘internal model. The ‘internal model’ serves two functions; one is to explain why children are selective in the details they include. The second is to explain that children simply cannot draw perspective during early development. In the early drawing of children shows they are technically unable to reproduce what they perceive. They lack the concentrated glance or the steady hand of an artist. Their lines sometimes steer an erratic zig-zag course and do not meet exactly where they should. However most of the time it is accurate enough to illustrate what the drawing is supposed to be.

In an experiment I conduct with my 5-year-old son Russell and my 7-year-old daughter Megan, I asked them to draw a rectangular box container with a round knob projected on the top surface on all four corners. The results of my experiment shows that both children’s drawing fits into Luquet’s theory that children will draw only what they know and they are selective in the details they choose to include. Similarly both are trying to show in their drawings the most characteristics features of the object, which in this case it is the rectangular shape of the box and the 4 round knobs on the top surface. They are familiar with the objects but they are not drawing with any accurate observation; however they capture the main axes and structures of the objects, referred to as ‘object-centred’. ‘Object-centred’ is a visual idea about the structure of the object, not about a view of the object. Their lack of understanding in linear perspective is also a reason why they only try to draw the outlines of the objects in an ‘object-centred’ view.

Both Russell’s and Megan’s drawings also fit Piaget’s theory on topological geometry; where topological geometry represents objects in the most elementary spatial relationship such as ‘roundness’, ‘closedness’, ‘straightness’, not at specific ideal embodiment. Most of the time these shapes resemble circle or ball sufficiently to make us understand what is intended to portray. It is also common for children who have not exposed to any formal training to use topological geometry as a basis for their drawings.

In the above drawing, Russell draws a topological view of a single rectangular closure shape representing the entire volume of the box container and circular schema to represent the round knobs; and he chooses to exclude the sides of the box totally. As mentioned in Matthew’s The Art of Childhood and Adolescence, John Willats has suggested, when young children represent a two-dimensional close-shape, or a three-dimensional form, they represent the ‘primary’ property of topological closure, before considering ‘secondary’ properties such as parallel straight sides, or corners (Matthews, 46).

At 7, Megan has a different solution to her drawing. Possibly due to their age differences and her exposure and influence from her elementary school teacher; her representation of the box is slightly more elaborate than Russell’s. Like her brother she begin drawing the box in a single rectangular shape in pink and blue then she adds another larger rectangular box forming an orange segment around the smaller rectangle. This could interpret as meaning the child is using the larger enclosing rectangular shape to represent the entire volume or the 4 sides of the box. Then she adds curve lines to the corners possibly an indication for the corners of the box. Instead of drawing the knobs in an uncontrolled circular motion she has carefully traced the shape of the round knobs into tidy circle shapes.

I did another experiment with a group of 20 tertiary level students during a beginner’s figure-drawing lesson. The background of these students is they do not have much formal drawing training prior to the figure-drawing lessons. During their first semester with the school, they have gone through approximately 60 hours of training on basic drawing skills. Few of these students progress faster than the others whereas the majority are still struggling with the understanding of spatial relationship and accuracy in their drawings.

In the experiment, I bring them outdoor and ask them to do gesture drawing of people walking or sitting along the streets. They are given the instruction not to get caught up with the details of the clothing. They are to observe more on the human body gestures and the body forms. They have been told many times to draw with close observation. After the 2 hours of outdoor session, we went back to school and I had a review on the students’ drawings. On the contrary to what I am expecting from the students, I am surprise to see that the students are going back to their original habit of drawing what they know instead of drawing from observation.

Four different students draw the 4 drawings above. They are in topological representation, the students are trying to capture the enclose volume of the human characters with simple geometrical shapes such as lines and circles rather than the view of the human characters from a particular station-point. Their simple drawings show recognisable objects (human characters doing some actions) and obviously not attempting to copy the human character as close as possible.

This could be a transition stage from intellectual realism to ‘visual realism’. ‘Visual realism’ refers to realistic drawings derived from a good understanding on linear perspective space. In visual realism, children are supposed to overcome all limitation in their abilities and manage to draw an object as real as how they are supposed to look. During this transition stage from intellectual realism to visual realism, in the same drawing we may see a mixture of both stages. Just as Luquet thinks that this transition takes place gradually, usually one has to struggle against firmly entrenched habits. The children must break away from the habit of drawing what they know so as to move towards visual realism. Visual realism does not emerge out of the blue; it usually takes lots of practise and one needs to have an acute sense of conscious awareness between different viewpoints in-order for one to draw with great accuracy.

In the beginner’s figure-drawing class, the students are not expected to draw realistic figure but rather its objective is to study the human anatomy; and the ways and means of creating the illusion of reality in the portrayal of human figure using simple shapes such as sphere, rectangular block and cylinders. The students are taught to conceive the different parts of the body such as the rib cage and pelvis as simple rectangular block-like or the hands and legs as cylinder. Visualizing them in this way, they could clearly decide the direction of each part of the body and compare its size to the other parts. Not only this will helps them to understand the proportion of the human body but also helps to clarify any problem with perspective. The perspective concept will help the students to see the human body in all different view; it is also a device to create the illusion of three dimensions. Hence blocks must always be in the students’ mind. It is necessary for these students to perfect their skills in constructing the human body with blocks or cylinder. Eventually they will need to apply these skills as they progress to design three dimensional animation or games characters for their projects during their final year in school.

The two examples above drawn by a student who has understood the concept of perspective clearly shows the human bodies are simplified into blocks and cylinders. The head is first constructed with block and eventually changes into a sphere-like shape. The hands and legs are represented with cylinders and smaller spheres are used for the joints. The upper and the lower parts of the body are represented with rectangular block while the forms are changed slightly to accentuate the curve and bend of the body.

There are students who are not able to understand the concept of perspective will face the difficulties in representing a foreshortened view. A head-on front view of the human body will not be considered as foreshortened. It does not gives us the real three dimensional shape or the forms of the body. An image is described as foreshortened when all parts of the body do not run parallel to the projection plane; it affects the changes in the body proportions or disappears partly or completely . In the drawing above, the model is kneeing and bending forward with his back facing us; his right leg is pointing towards us at eye level causing a disappearing view of his lower leg as it is also block by the view of his feet. The student is able to see the overlapping of the feet and lower parts of the leg but he is struggling with the representation of the foreshortened view. The upper body on front view is bending forward with another slight foreshortened view but it was represented stiff and upright.

The above example shows the model sits with his back facing us; both his legs in front of the body. Instead of drawing the legs behind the body it is drawn attached at right angle to both sides of the lower body. It is another example of drawing without any observation but rather with the knowledge that the legs are in its right angle when one sits down. As Matthews points one of the difficulties children have in showing before and behind, or in front of and behind relationships is that they are at the level of topological understanding which makes them reluctant to discontinue lines and shapes that they know in reality to be continuous, intact, coherent wholes. Again this student will need to break away from his habit of looking at things and he will also need to spend more time practising his drawing skills in order for him to progress to the next stage.

The younger children may begin their art experience with meaningless scribbling and not worrying about attempting to produce detail representation of objects. However if the older children chose art or design as their career they should put in more focus on their artistic training. Their skills in drawing should not stay at the intellectual realism level but rather continue to develop, polish and perfect them further.This is particularly true as the stage of elaboration and refinement is important if a child is moving towards the field of design, such as interior design, product design, and media design for animation, games and film. It is important for these children to learn the fundamental of art such as drawing, as part of their programme in a design school. For instance students should learn to understand the different line qualities can bring about a change in different expression and each individual line can be beautiful as well as combination of lines. Drawing in tone, or the so-called light and shade can create a 3 dimensional illusion to an object. With such knowledge and skills in drawing, it become practical for the students to advance on various others interesting field of art, such as being a concept illustrator, a storyboard artist, theatrical designer or even art director.

Few examples of illustration concept by a group of student are seen above. It is often desirable for a concept illustrator to create the impression of depth when designing a stage for a film. The purpose of an illustration concept is to indicate the mood and feeling of a set, location, costume and make-up. The concept illustrator’s perspective drawing of an environment can tell a great deal about the angle of the view the filmmaker would like to see. By adding form and volume to an object or the environment, the concept illustrator presents a sense of spatial relationships to things; these background details are particularly useful to study for a filmmaker.

A storyboard artist will also need the required drawing skills for the preparation of the storyboards of a film. A storyboard is a visual script that contains key panels and action, typed description of an action for a film clip (see above drawings). It is designed to make it easier for the filmmaker to gain a sense of visual continuity the entire film. A clear accurate drawing for the storyboard is necessary to get an idea across quickly during the early stages of film production.

Luquet believes that intellectual realism is an alternative to visual realism; both ways are equally valid and it is up to an individual be it young children or adult free to choose either way to represent their drawings. A child has the spontaneous behaviour of scribbling lines as soon as they hold pencils and colours in their hands is a form of expression. Although they are not ‘realist’ in the sense of producing a perspective likeness of things, they are attempting to produce faithfully detailed representations of objects “in themselves” (Costall, p.9). Some artists like Picasso or Paul Klee choose to express their works in a childlike manner and their works seem to adopt an intellectual realism approach. However, for the group of children studying design, intellectual realism drawing is the initial stage they would need to struggle through before they reach visual realism. Intellectual realism drawing is not adequate for them if they are required to draw a conceptual sketch of a product. They would need the sensitive eye for observation and the accuracy of their drawings to convince others of their designs. Just as in architectural and other design fields, artists sometimes create prelimary sketches and plans to determine whether a proposal will meet the aesthetic needs of the client.

I am not suggesting that intellectual realism is less superior to visual realism. I think intellectual realism and visual realism are both a form of art representation. As Luquet puts it, the relationship between intellectual realism and visual realism is analogous to that between ‘idoms’ of verbal languages.

Reference:

Chapman, Laura H. Approaches to Art in Education. 1978. Harcourt Brace Jovanolich, Inc.

Costall, Alan. A Closer Look at Luquet.

Katz, Steven D., Film Directing Shot by Shot - Visualizing from Concept to Screen. 1991. Michael

Wiese Productions.

Matthews, J. The Art of Childhood and Adolescence. 1999. Falmer Press.

Rudolf, A. Art and Visual Perception. 1984. University of California Press.

Rudolf, A. The Split and the Structure. 1996. University of California Press.

R. R. Tomlinson. Children as Artists. 1947. The King Penguin Books. London and New York.