Page 36 - Studio International - January 1966

Drawing and sculpture

by Mervyn Levy
The relationship between drawing and sculpture is so made a better painter than he did a sculptor. His range
close that at a glance one may miss the intimacy with of subject interests, from nudes to flowers, landscape
which the strands of the one activity are interwoven and bible stories, was too wide and fragmented for
with the other. To some extent this is due to the fact development along the narrow and stony path which
that because drawing and painting are usually so widely the sculptor must tread. He possessed none of the
separated, one is inclined to lump all drawing into the concentrated single-mindedness of direction and
same category and think of it as an activity substantially purpose which marks the work of Rodin and Moore.
separate. This concept of drawing as an end in itself Indeed, Cezanne thought more like a sculptor than
springs, of course, from the fact that since there are Epstein.
infinitely more painters than sculptors, our notions of Rodin's primary concern was to exemplify in his
the place and function of drawing in the pattern of sculpture the actions and movements of the human
the visual arts is largely conditioned by the character
and intentions of the drawings of painters. These differ
widely from those of sculptors, primarily because the
painter uses the activity of drawing as a form of
'negative' relaxation ; as a relatively carefree activity
in which he can freely indulge any passing whim of
self-expression, relieved for the time at least of the
necessity to think and act in more elaborate and
responsible terms. Of course, on occasions the painter
makes 'serious studies' for a large-scale work, but in the
main drawing is for him a comparatively frivolous
pursuit which he accepts and practises as a supple-
mentary act of creation. Hence the vast number of
delightful, sensually relaxed drawings of the nude
which are a characteristic aspect of the painter's oeuvre.
These involve him in nothing more serious and
responsible than a spontaneous, fundamentally sexual
reaction to the female form. Even the great masters of
painting have shrugged off sketches in this vein, not
all of them erotically inspired, but nonetheless drawings
in which the sole objective of the artist has been to
make a passing notation for no deeper reason than the
attraction to his eye of a fragment of nature or life.
Rembrandt, Lautrec, Degas and Picasso—these and
countless other masters have indulged frequently, and
often marvellously, the painter's prerogative to produce
exquisite, revealing, and often brilliant drawings
that are almost invariably limited by the simple fact
that the fragmentation of life into areas of transient
sensory experience is itself limited.
Not so the drawings of sculptors, which are so often,
from the outset, conceived as total prefigurations of a
sculptural destiny. Think only at this point of Michel-
angelo and Bernini. Whereas the painter's approach is body as life itself. Not to modify, or symbolize, or
literary, the sculptor thinks in terms of form. Whatever equate by metaphor these living actions and
the ideas he may wish to convey, these will have to be movements, but to channel them first into his drawings,
expressed in the compact materials and restricted and then into the configurations of his sculpture. To
forms of sculpture. He has far less latitude in his this end a great part of his working life was spent in
potential choice of subject than does the painter and making drawings from the moving model, and he
must work in far more harsh and intractable media. employed both male and female models to provide him
The sculptor's drawings must, therefore, conform to a with a continuous play of naked action. Thus, in an age
more rigid and formal pattern than the loosely con- relatively unfamiliar with the unclothed human form
ceived and relatively informal drawing of the painter: Rodin established the sight of nudity as a natural and
where painting is a river, sculpture is a mountain. intrinsic part of the background of his daily life. In this
Sculptor's drawings are less slovenly and wasteful way his studio recreated the atmosphere of the classical
than those of painters, for the sculptor is always gymnasium, and he became as familiar with the nude
preparing for sculptural projects, and the whole figure, and learned to know it as well anatomically, as
direction of his drawing will be orientated to that end. the Greeks. But although Rodin was a passionate
For the present, Auguste Rodin and Henry Moore will admirer of classical art he did not accept the cold, still
serve as illustrations of this thesis, but the test may be forms of the classic vision as the ultimate objective of
applied by a consideration of the work of the other sculpture. He used his immense knowledge of the
great sculptors, all of whom will be seen to fit the human figure to convert the static forms of classicism
pattern. Sculptors who are not in the top flight—such as into action ; into the ebb and flow of living matter; into
Epstein—tend to produce drawings which have no a pattern of muscular tensions and relaxations that
specific or potent bearing upon the making of their wonderfully revealed the spirit within. His drawings
sculpture. Epstein, by instinct a modeller rather than a were always the starting point, and from those
carver, thought like a painter and would indeed have trembling, gossamer distillations, the knowledge and