Disegno Lectures / The Basics of Drawing
1. Elementary Units of Drawing
Every drawing begins with elementary visual units — dots, straight lines, and curved lines.
These are the building blocks of visual language, comparable to letters in writing or notes in music.
Through their arrangement, rhythm, and relation, these simple marks form complex visual structures that give rise to recognizable forms.
Each unit functions as a sign — a visible element that stands for a part of the object represented.
In this sense, drawing transforms perception into a system of signs that allows us to think through what we see.
2. Drawing as Gesture
Each mark on the page is the trace of a movement.
It contains the energy, rhythm, and direction of the hand that made it.
To draw, therefore, means to connect body and perception — to turn seeing into doing.
The gesture of drawing is not just mechanical; it carries intention, emotion, and thought.
It translates the invisible — what is felt or imagined — into the visible.
Thus, drawing is a bodily form of thinking, an embodied reflection of how we engage with the world.
3. Representation and Abstraction
A drawing may appear naturalistic or abstract, depending on how closely its signs relate to what we perceive as the “original.”
Yet this difference is always relative.
Even the most realistic drawing is already an abstraction, because it reduces the complexity of the world to a visual code.
The artist decides how far to move between representation (recognizable form) and abstraction (form as idea).
This movement defines not only style but also the conceptual focus of the drawing: whether it describes what is seen, or investigates how seeing itself occurs.
4. Formal Tension
The quality of a drawing does not depend on imitation but on aesthetic coherence — how each line, curve, and dot contributes to the overall composition.
This is what we call formal tension:
the vivid interplay between the dynamic energy of execution and the static state of the finished work.
A strong drawing feels alive because the viewer’s eye can reconstruct the movement of its making.
The act of perception completes the drawing, transforming its apparent stillness into renewed motion.
5. The Temporal Nature of Drawing
Every drawing unfolds in time.
Each line marks a decision, a hesitation, a change of direction — a record of thinking in motion.
The page becomes a field where time, gesture, and thought intersect.
This temporal rhythm is not only visible but also felt: it’s what gives a drawing its inner pulse.
The viewer, by tracing the lines with their eyes, repeats this rhythm.
Thus, the drawing becomes a shared temporal experience between artist and observer.
6. Drawing as Knowledge
Drawing is more than depiction; it is a way of knowing.
By translating perception into line, the artist analyzes how the world appears and how it can be transformed.
Each drawing reveals a form of inquiry — an attempt to understand relationships between form, movement, and meaning.
This is why drawing has always been considered the foundation of the arts (disegno in the Renaissance sense):
it unites the hand’s craft and the mind’s invention.
7. The Universal Language of the Line
From prehistoric cave drawings to digital tablets, the act of drawing has remained constant:
a human impulse to trace, to connect, to give form to what we perceive and imagine.
Every line is both record and projection, trace and invention — the meeting point of body, matter, and thought.
Through drawing, we learn to see — not only what is before us, but also how we ourselves take shape within it.