The Importance of the Line and Engraving

Recently, Ms. J. has been teaching a unit to demonstrate the importance of the line to her Art Foundations class. As one might imagine, the line is the basis of and the primary building block for many, if not most, artistic endeavors. In order to teach the line, Ms. J. begins with the notion the of gesture--a movement meant to convey an idea or emotion. Students draw a single curvilinear line, which takes up most of their paper, and then draw over the line again and again and again until they accumulated layers of graphite/charcoal that sweeps the original line into an evocative gesture. Additionally, the layered lines create areas of light and dark, which starts to indicate the existence and effects of value.

The students go on to draw true verticals, true horizontals, and diagonal lines. Then they combine these elements to create two-dimensional renderings of three-dimensional objects. They practice cubes and then draw a box from observation... This has mixed results. And is accompanied by very little enthusiasm. Overall, the students are unimpressed by work at the easels. They frequently seem bored and they continually try to abandon their easels to find their friends to talk and gossip. Alternatively, they enjoy "secretly" texting. (Note: Rarely, if ever, are the students actually deft enough to text in secret. It's obvious and they should either brush up on their deception skills or abandon the entire endeavor.)

Sadly, the students don't seem aware of the fact that lines are actually fantastic things, capable of constructing unbelievable works of art. In particular, lines assist engravers and more contemporary artists like illustrators. Let's introduce some examples!

First, engravers, the linear predecessors of illustrators:

Left: Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse

Albrecht Dürer, ca. 1497-98, Woodcut

Right: Knight, Death, and the Devil
Albrecht Dürer, 1513-14, Engraving

If you're going to talk about engraving, you have to talk about Albrecht Durer. Born in Nuremberg, Germany in 1471, Albrecht Dürer became a painter, engraver, and printmaker as well as a mathematician and theorist; he is widely regarded as the greatest artist of the Northern Renaissance. In particular, his command of composition and value are awe-inspiring. And because of the mediums he worked in, he possessed an unbelievable command of line.

The Italian engraver Giovanni Battista Piranesi also utilized line beautifully. In addition to using line to add value in his engravings, Piranesi's lines create complex and even sublime compositions too. He particularly demonstrates this ability in his Carceri series--a group of images depicting terrifying and fantastical prisons.

Carceri Plate XIV - Carceri d'invenzione
Giovanni Battista Piranesi, ca. 1745

Does that image look familiar? Remind you of M.C. Escher, maybe?

M.C. Escher
Relativity, 1953

But what about illustrators? I did mention them, didn't I? Yes I did! And here I'll mention two of my favorites--one who seems to have been influenced by Dürer and another who seems to have a much closer affinity to Piranesi and Escher. First, there is Gustave Doré, a French engraver and illustrator who was born in 1832 in Strasbourg, France. He was commissioned to execute numerous illustrations for literary texts including, but certainly not limited to, Dante's Inferno, Cervantes's Don Quixote, and Poe's The Raven.

Left: Dante's Divine Comedy: Inferno: Schismatics-Mahomet
Gustave Doré, 1857

Right: The Holy Bible - The Deluge
Gustave Doré, ca. 1866

I admit it--those are pretty brutal images. But they are also beautiful for the pristine engraving technique and the use of value and light. Let's lighten this up with a work by our second illustrator, Sir John Tenniel, the famous visual genius behind Lewis Carroll's Alice in Wonderland and its sequel, Through the Looking Glass.

Alice in Wonderland

Sir John Tenniel, 1865

See! Lines are amazing!

So I hope that in spite of their inevitable early teen blasé attitudes, the 9th grade Arts Foundation students eventually realize how wonderful lines can be!