CRITIQUE AND THE DEVELOPMENT OF JUDGMENT

During nearly four decades of teaching drawing at The Cooper Union, both in the School of Architecture and, until 1992, at the School of Art, I’ve had many occasions to visit other institutions. In art schools it is not typical to devote half the allotted class hours to critique. In schools of architecture, however, pin up and critique are more rigorously and frequently employed. In 1978, when I started to reframe the Freehand Drawing program, more frequent critique became the norm.

I believe drawing is best learned with the hand in motion, so initially I was reluctant to relinquish precious studio hours to critique. Yet drawing is thought extended through the fingertips. Strands of thought appear as marks on a field of paper: the eye perceives the embryonic image, the thinking/marking process takes place, the drawing emerges. Though I once believed that the act of making trumps debate, when teaching architects I discovered that the work progresses dramatically with frequent class critique—far beyond the rate at which it develops without it.

It is essential in a foundation program to devise assignments that are clear and that build upon and incorporate the concepts introduced in the preceding weeks. The assignment specifies the parameters, such as the subject, materials, number of drawings, and time allotted for each, and clarifies the portion of the assignment that is open-ended. Each assignment concludes with a freestyle drawing, in which the student has complete authority over material, size, or manner of drawing—that aspect commonly referred to as style.

At the beginning of each critique session, I ask the students what they discovered in exe- cuting the assignment, apart from achieving the implicit pedagogical goal. The pea-pod sequence is an introduction to careful observation. In the assignments that follow, students will investigate a variety of forms that illuminate concepts of drawing. These include the voluptuous, bodylike forms of bell peppers (see pp. 21–23), the curvilinear volumes that describe the human figure (see pp. 30–34), and the planar nature of paper bags (see pp. 62–65). These goals aside, the students always encounter unexpected ideas and epiphanies during the process. As the result of class discussion and student work, the assignments have evolved over the years. We learn from each other.

The judgment of the students is valuable from the beginning, although it must be honed and developed. At the weekly critique meetings, students select a favorite or compelling drawing from the walls—one that begs for discussion. It is with these drawings chosen by members of the class that the critical dialogue begins. The pedagogical goals in the assignment are recognized and internalized only as the work of each individual is presented and discussed. It is through their participation in these conversations that students begin to discover and develop their individual critical faculties. There is the given assignment, but there is also the assignment each student gives him/herself. There are no absolute rules or principles concerning drawing, only certain commonalities. It is these aspects of drawing that are valuable to explore.

Most projects continue for three to four weeks, and the drawings executed in subsequent weeks expand upon and incorporate the critique from the previous weeks. As the first-year course evolves, I introduce the layering of physical and psychological space. This complexity and randomness, in which “real” space is occupied by living beings, is the stuff of which art is made. This is what architecture shelters and celebrates.