THE INTELLIGENCE OF SEEING An inquiry into the relationships between perception theory, communication theory, and the practice and teaching of drawing. Submitted in candidature for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy of the University of Wales by HOWARD RILEY School of Art and Design Swansea Institute of Higher Education May 2001. IMAGING SERVICES NORTH Boston Spa, Wetherby West Yorkshire, LS23 7BQ www.bl,uk BEST COpy AVAILABLE. VARIABLE PRI NT QUALITY To the memory of my parents, Glenys and Harry Riley. Also to my wife Lon, and our son Dyfed Harry. ii Acknowledgements Cyswllt yn unig 1 In 1987 a sabbatical at the Royal College of Art was granted to me by the School of Art and Design, Curtin University, Western Australia, and kindly arranged for me by Dr Christopher Frayling, then Professor of Cultural History at the College. The culmination of my research was an exhibition of drawings and paintings held at Curtin in June 1988. In the catalogue notes, I suggested: The tension-laden contradiction between the unpredictability of chaos and its boring inevitability drives humans to devise systems of order so that Nature may be stabilised with meanings relevant to cultural aspirations at any given time. Perhaps this is the basis ofIdeology, the psychological space within which those systems that transform Nature into Culture are generated. But any ideology which becomes dominant quickly marks out its own boundaries by authorising only those meanings that maintain the cultural status quo. Just as there is no perception of space without the perception of a background surface, so any ideological space is similarly defined by a boundary which separates it from other alternative spaces as yet suppressed, undetected, or even simply forgotten. My own preoccupation happens to be drawing, but most other transformational systems that communicate experiences of a three-dimensional world upon a two-dimensional surface generally rely upon some conception of Geometry - that ghostly insertion between the individual and the surfaces and edges of the material world. Thanks to the Russian Fonnalists and the Australian-based school of social semiotics led by Michael Halliday and developed in the visual arts by Michael O'Toole, among others, a credible platfonn for the elaboration of Saussure's original proposal of a semiology has been established which allows such visual iii codifications of human belief systems as geometry to be analysed so as to reveal the ideological assumptions which underlie their conventions. Riley (1988) The themes adumbrated in the above extracts continued to inform and develop my teaching and practice of drawing in Australia, Malaysia, and from 1991 in my homeland, Wales. In 1995 I read Robert Witkin's new book Art and social structure. In it, he wrote: ... the construction and depiction of 'bodies' in representations of human figures and inanimate objects [is] in some sense an analogue of the construction of social relations; that, at the level of aesthetic form (rather than content), social structure [is] made visible in works of art. Witkin (1995 : ix-x) If these disparate lines of inquiry and the ideas of the individuals from different academic disciplines mentioned here could only connect with, and inform, the day to day teaching and practice of drawing, then perhaps a discipline of drawing as visual philosophy relating theory and practice in a socially relevant manner may be established. Such was my initial motivation, and this thesis may not have been completed but for the stimulating ideas of those mentioned above. It certainly would not have been written without the inspiration from the work of Professor Michael O'Toole, of the School of Human Communication, Murdoch University, Western Australia, and the encouragement from Paul Green-Armytage, my close colleague of twelve years at Curtin University. I offer thanks to Dr John Willats who has kindly permitted reproduction of several figures illustrating geometrical projection systems. At Swansea, I have received the support of the Institute and my supervisors, Dr Bill Gaskins, recently retired from the Deanship of the Faculty of Art and Design, and Dr Anne Price-Owen.· Both have offered constructive advice based on their close reading of IV the drafts of this thesis. My sincere thanks to Jennifer Stapleton, who processed these many thousands of words with efficiency and patience. Gwyn Jones, my I. T. guru, facilitated the processing ofthe images. Staff at the Townhilllibrary have been friendly and helpful at every opportunity. Life drawing classes don't work without the presence and energy of models; the most stalwart of these in recent times have been Cassie Whittaker and David Hemmings. Teaching and learning are collaborative practices. I would like to offer my final thanks to all the students I have worked with from 1980 to 2000 in Australia, Malaysia and Wales who collaborated with enthusiasm and good humour. Note 1. The illustration Simultaneous contrast phenomena under Cyclopean stimulation is from Bela Julesz 1971 Foundations o/Cyclopean perception. Univ.ofChicago, Chicago, Ill. References RILEY, H. 1988 Back to square one. Exhibition catalogue, Curtin University, Perth, W.A. WITKIN, R. W.1995 Art and social structure. Polity, Cambridge. v Prifysgol Cymru SUMMARY OF THESIS University of Wales This summary sheet should be completed by the candidate after having read the notes overleaf. The completed sheet should be submitted by the candidate to his Head of Department together with two copies of the thesis, two copies of Section 1 of the combined Notice of CandidaturelReport and Result form and either a certificate regarding fmancial obligations or the required fee. Candidate's Surname: RILEY Institution at which study pursued: Candidate's Forenames: HOWARD SWANSEA INSTITUTE OF HE Candidate for the Degree of PhD (MPhil or PhD or Doctor by Examination and Thesis or Eng D) Full title of thesis: The intelligence of seeing. An inquiry into the relationship between perception theory, communication theory, and the practice and teaching of drawing. -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------_ ... -------------------------------------... --- Summary: The aim of this research is to develop a method of teaching drawing that empowers fine art undergraduates' practice by broadening their awareness of the inter-relationships between ways of seeing, social belief-systems, and ways of drawing. The domain of drawing is explored via a synthesis of perception and communication theories. This combination is mapped as a matrix integrating the social functions of drawing with the systems of semiotic choices and levels of perception which facilitate students to realise meaning in drawings, and which facilitate viewers to negotiate meaning from existing drawings. The matrix builds on, and develops, existing material in the field of systemic-functional semiotics. Within the parameters of a constructivist paradigm of research, a new drawing­ teaching programme is designed, tested over a p,eriod of two academic years, and evaluated using the recognised criteria of authenticity proposed by Egon Guba and Yvonna Lincoln. Two classes of data are collected and analysed. Primarily, those gathered using Rensis Likert's method, which elicits group attitudes, indicate positive shifts in the student groups' attitudes to ontological constructs concerning relationships between perception, communication and drawing. Secondly, students' drawings, analysed using the systemic-functional semiotic matrix, provide visual evidence of an expansion in the range of ontological constructs. Analysis of the data demonstrates the validity of the hypothesis: that a drawing­ teaching programme based on a synthesis of perception and communication theories may expand students' awareness and understanding of a range of constructions of reality, which ultimately may empower their drawing practice. vi TABLE OF CONTENTS VOLUME 1 Declaration Title Page Dedication 11 Acknowledgements III Summary of thesis VI List of Figures Xl INTRODUCTION 1 The Three R's revisited The fundamental problem identified The hypothesis Structure ofthe thesis Paradigms of research and criteria of assessment Summary SECTION 1: DRAWING IN HISTORY 13 Introduction 14 1.1 Drawing in history: Teaching and professional practice 14 1.1.1 From the early Italian academies to the English 15 Schools of Arts and Crafts 1563-1914 1.1.2 Vkhutemas and Bauhaus 1917-1933 27 1.1.3 Art schools in England and Wales Post-1933 42 1.2 Alternative philosophical bases for the teaching and 55 practice of drawing Summary 62 SECTION 2 : PERCEPTION 63 Introduction 64 2.1 Empiricism, Rationalism and Immanuel Kant 67 2.2 Behaviourism 71 2.3 The Gestaltists 73 2.4 Critique of Ernst Gombrich's position 80 2.5 The ecological approach to visual perception 84 2.6 The computational theory of vision 91 vii Summary 98 SECTION 3: COMMUNICATION 102 Introduction 103 3.1 The Age of Relativity 103 3.2 Principles of structuralism 106 3.3 Functions of language and art 109 3.4 Language and reality 119 3.5 Communication in a social context 121 Summary 126 SECTION 4 : PERCEPTION AND 128 COMMUNICATION Introduction 130 4.1 Geometries of vision 131 4.1.1 Perception and geometry 1 : Transformations and 132 invariants. 4.1.2 Perception and geometry 2 : Drawing conventions 139 4.1.3 Primary geometry and secondary geometry 149 4.1.4 Viewer-centred, and object-centred representations 151 4.2 The Ecological theory of perception related to drawing 156 4.2.1 Surfaces and pictures 156 4.2.2 Drawing or copying? 158 4.2.3 Perspective in perspective 160 4.2.4 Principles of line drawing 163 4.2.5 Ambiguous drawings and reversible figures 164 4.2.6 James J Gibson and semiotics 167 4.2.7 Gibson and children's drawing 168 4.3 The computational theory of vision related to drawing 169 4.3.1 John Willat's adaptation of David Marr's theory 170 4.3.2 Denotation systems, scene primitives, and picture 172 primitives. 4.3.3 Marr, Willats, and children's drawing 173 4.3.4 Marr and Gibson: common ground 177 4.4 Visual perception and cultural communication.