Sir Anthony van Dyck (1599–1641)Two Seated Male Figures, Pen and black ink on buff laid paper, 3 15/16 × 3 1/16 in (10 × 7.7 cm)
LINE IS THE MOST BASIC AND MOST VERSATILE VISUAL ELEMENT
Line is a primal and fundamental component of visual thought. Some of the earliest known works of art are line drawings of seals on a cave wall in Nerja, Spain, that are approximately 42,000 years old. The construction of a line requires the most simple of mechanical means: a point is moved across a surface leaving behind a long, narrow mark. Almost all tribal cultures make images with lines, sometimes incised into a surface and sometimes drawn onto surfaces with a variety of implements and mediums. It appears, therefore, that the formation of representational shapes using combinations of lines is a very basic human behavior.
In more complex cultures, line has achieved enormous descriptive and expressive power. In Western art, various qualities of line are admired, including clarity, precision, stylishness, fluidity, flexibility, and strength. Matisse, one of the great masters of line, observed, “Drawing is like making an expressive gesture with the advantage of permanence.”
In practice, line can be used in a great variety of ways:
• To create simple divisions.
• To construct shapes and designs.
• To make letterforms, signs, and symbols.
• To render or suggest form by using varying weight in the line.
• To create dynamic movement by using the “pull” of the line. The viewer apprehends the way the line was made and interprets the speed of travel.
• To create a powerful sense of expression by exaggerating the weight and movement of the line.
• To suggest three-dimensional space.
• To create a patina or texture.
• To transmit the touch or “hand” of the artist.
• To describe form by delineating contours.
• To build into tone through hatching.
• To be used in combination with tone or color, offering limitless possibilities.
Sir Anthony van Dyck (1599–1641)
Two Seated Male Figures, Pen and black ink on buff laid paper, 3 15/16 × 3 1/16 in (10 × 7.7 cm)
Van Dyke uses a pen line to suggest the pose of two figures in preparation for a composition. Here line is used as shorthand for more elaborate rendering to come later. There is considerable pleasure in the free movement and energy of the line.
Vincent van Gogh (1853–1890)
Ploughman in the Fields near Arles, 1888, Reed pen and brown ink over graphite on wove paper, 9 15/16 × 13 7/16 in (25.3 × 34.1 cm)
Here Van Gogh uses line in multiple ways. It creates movement, particularly in the trees where the “pull” of the line carries the eye upwards along twisting paths. Line is also used here to suggest three-dimensional space, building textures by massing lines of various qualities.
Laxe dos carballos petroglyph, in Campo Lameiro, Galicia, 4th–2nd millennium BCE
Drawings made by incising designs into rock faces (petroglyphs) are one of the earliest uses of line.
Eugène Delacroix (1798–1863)
Charioteers, Pen and black ink with black wash on wove paper, 16 3/16 × 14 9/16 in (17.3 × 37 cm)
One of the great romantic artists, Delacroix uses an energetic line and a fast open technique to infuse his composition with dynamism and movement.
