Different Ways of Seeing

  


In today's chapter, Crawford accomplished two things I have been waiting for the whole time we've been reading this book.  The first: he made reference to Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance.  For some reason I think about that book every time I start reading this one, or even look at the cover.  It must be the combination of philosophy and motorcycles.  Or maybe it's just the motorcycle on the cover, or the fact that I don't read very many books involving motorcycles, who knows.

The second accomplishment, and this is slightly more serious, is that Crawford finally gave a concrete illustration that I could relate to.  I can't count the number of times my art professors have told my drawing classes to draw what we see, not what we know.  His example about the skeleton he drew is very familiar.  Not only that, but I think he alludes to another idea; the more we know, the more the way we see changes.  As an artist, I will be the first to admit that drawing realistically is hard.  Part of this stems from the fact that we all see differently; I think it's because we focus on different things, so even though my entire drawing class is looking at the same object, we all represent it differently.  In an odd way, this turns around and ties in to the point Crawford made at the beginning of the chapter about the diversity of dispositions.  I wish he had gone a little more in-depth on that subject, because while the stories about his early mechanic training are probably fascinating to someone who understands what he is talking about, they're incredibly boring if you don't.  Also, I would really have liked to read more about the different dispositions he's referring to.  What other ones are there, besides careful and commanding?

(Note: Included for your enjoyment is a drawing I did in my sketchbook last year, for Drawing II.  It sort of relates to the idea of drawing what I saw, not what I know.)
Edit: Trying to get a picture directly from my Flickr account into a blog that I have already written is way more trouble than it's worth.  Gah.
Edit #2: Just as I was going to delete my previously posted blog which had the same content minus the picture, I saw that Becky had commented on it.  So I copied her comment, and will include it here so there can be no doubt that she really did post it:

Becky Gustafson said...

I would also have liked him to go more in depth about the different dispositions. Being at the beginning of the chapter I was looking forward to learning more about those, but instead I also got bored by his rambling on about mechanic training. There is an entire spectrum of different dispositions that would be interesting to look into.