It was raining when I dropped off VR and I didn't fancy putting on the spare. A local garage did the dirty work and charged me £5. This cheered me, I added a fiver, decided it was hardly worth going home now so I joined VR and her class. It seemed churlish not to attempt something artistic. I borrowed an 8B pencil (deliciously soft) and drew my left hand, not very well as you can see.
I have an O-level in art but that was in 1951. Gradually an important rule re-established itself - when working from real life take information only from the eyes, never from the imagination. It seems obvious, doesn't it? And yet untutored clods tend to draw lines where they think lines should go, rather than where lines do go.
Another thing. You draw a bum line, realise it's bum, then draw a better line closely adjacent. The drawing starts to look furry. Half-wittedly you tell yourself this is “art”.
I noticed the gap between the thumb and index finger was too wide. Time to start again but tables were already being folded. I’d enjoyed myself. I’d like to do it again but there just isn’t time. I rehearsed Hugo Wolf’s Nun Wandre, Maria and wrote this post.
VR makes time and did the pic below.
VR's picture is quite nice. I like yours, too. Not bad for someone who's last art class was the year I was born.
ReplyDeleteColette: 1951 was the year I started work. Entered the adult world. First saw my name as byline to an article (although I was still shy about revealing my first name and opted for "by R. N. Robinson"). Fell madly in love for the second time but knew it would come to nothing. Read Evelyn Waugh but failed to understand him. If I'd known and if the stars had been alignment I could have taken a steamship, popped over and sketched you in your cot, gently refusing your parents' blandishments to act as your godfather.
ReplyDeleteInstead I missed you by just over 2000 miles. In astronomical terms that's your neighbour's back yard.
Very nice by VR! And your explanation of realistic sketching is spot on.
ReplyDeleteedsbath: The ultimate non-commentable comment. No, wait! In the UK "nice" has become a pejorative adjective implying smallness of scale, lack of energy and ambition, a despatch from a land where gentility overrules all human endeavour. But you weren't to know that, were you? Upstate New Yorkers talk rural tough and chew the heads off nails. That's nails which get hammered.
ReplyDeleteBut wait again. Have I been insensitive here? After a delicious black-pudding sandwich for lunch (an admission which may well rule me out of all civilised discourse for the foreseeable future) I have spent some time mulling over my reaction. If it is to stand it deserves further explanation.
And there's a US/UK parallel to this regarding another short qualifier "quite". Whatever that word's origins I think the UK meaning is, more often than not, downbeat. To say "His work is quite good" may mean it is good, perhaps even surprisingly good (implying low expectations), but may also mean "just about acceptably good". In effect, damning with faint praise. It is my opinion (and I'm regularly wrong) that in the US "His work is quite good" means it's pretty good. Somewhere well short of very good but nevertheless positive.
In the UK "nice" - at best - means "not bad". At worst, all the things I've listed above. If spoken, the inflection would help hint at one or the other of these options. It may also be the last resort of someone who is unenthusiatic about what's on offer but doesn't want to cause offence.
In the US I conclude that "nice" is only used positively. Which is what I said originally, albeit with excessive slangy entanglement.
Too much blather? I could have deleted my re-comment and inserted a Walt Whitman quote. But controversialist that I am I sought discussion.
Whoo - eee! The sound of ambiguity, acknowledging that all this could go either way. Tell me I'm wrong.
You K'ers seem to be big quite fans. When you first mentioned quite I was sure it was going to be a comment on its use as a one word exclamation "expressing agreement with or understanding of a remark or statement." Undoubtedly a shortening of "quite so". But I was quite ("totally, absolutely, altogether") wrong. You are correct in your belief that "quite good work" would be fairly high praise in the US, but seldom used in the rural districts. "Pretty good" would be more common, but not as decisively positive - more of the praise damner you refer to. Of course inflection tells a great deal.
ReplyDeleteNice is NOT used only positively in the US, and was not the best choice in describing my opinion of VR's obviously skillful and charming painting. Nice is often used here pejoratively and sarcastically ("Nice...Trump embarrassed us again today.") or as lukewarm, as while viewing a gallery of artworks, "neither offensive nor brilliant, on to the next." A good example of how context (and inflection, and facial expression, AND posture) hint at meaning meaning might be found in pondering a person saying" "We've had quite a day" - easily said of hours spent romping through Paris... or hours struggling to quell a child's sickness. Leaving the adjective out (as so often happens following "quite") makes meaning wholly dependent on context.
MikeM: I was thinking purely adjectivally and only skimmed the surface. "Quite", utterly alone, can be eloquent in all sorts of ways.
ReplyDeleteInnocent (Just back from Mars): "That Trump guy is weird, doesn't seem to be aware what he's saying."
Ironist (Wanting to be kind): "Quite."
Or...
First round. Inexperienced boxer takes wild swing, misses his opponent completely, spins through full 360 deg, trips over his shoe-lace, falls head first through the ropes, grabs upper rope in a panic, contrives to knot it round his neck, falls into the lap of a sport who paid $2500 for a ringside seat, garrottes himself while splitting his (boxer) shorts.
Sport: Nice one.
Contributory factor: Multiplicity of events shrunk into that single word "one".
Thanks for your thoughtful reply. But we should save some of this stuff for a rainy day. Heck, who else reads comments they haven't written? Just us chickens.
"Nice" is often used in the U. S. to express "not-nice" or "ridiculous" or "overflow of sarcastic effluvium." The intonation with drawn-out vowel has to be right, though.
ReplyDeleteLove the godfather refusal!
My daughter just posted something about how she wrote, read, drew, painted, sang, played an instrument on a daily instrument in high school but now does none. Sad.
Drawing is lovely--helps us see. You did pick the hardest thing to draw, though. And that is so you!