[lit-ideas] Re: Suggestions for class I'm teaching????

On May 22, 2007, at 11:53 AM, Ursula Stange wrote:


Observational drawing...never heard the phrase.
Two points: I may have made up the term "observational drawing." Colleagues teach "observational painting" courses and I assumed that "observational drawing" must be common parlance for the kind of drawing the people did on, for example, the Grand Tour.
Second point comes from trying to track down that reference re. naval draftstmanship. I think what I was recalling was a paragraph in a wonderful book, John Frazier Henry, "Early Maritime Artists of the Pacific Northwest Coasts 1741-1841" (University of Washington Press, 1984).
"Ship's officers who had taken formal training in navigational schools also received instruction in drawing, enabling them to produce some of the exquisite coastal profiles illustrated in this book. An appreciation for skill in drawing by seamen was one of the major reasons for establishing a drawing school in 1693 at Christ's Hospital in Sussex, England. The drawing school was part of the school of mathematics, training boys for the Royal Navy and the merchant marine. Drawing masters placed primary emphasis on sketching seaviews and coastal profiles, which helped raise the standard of draftsmanship in the navy. Other countries also recognized the importance of such training. Peter the Great established a school of navigation and mathematics in Russia early in 1701."
The itch I'm trying to scratch is that I may have implied that the British navy had a formal and required class in drawing for officers. Naval training was actually more haphazard than that, as the new book by Harr Dickenson will no doubt confirm.
Meanwhile, this chasing down of references has caused me to discover G.S. Ritchie, "The Admiralty Chart--British Naval Hydrography in the Nineteenth Century," so my first morning of post-grading freedom has not been wasted! 

David Ritchie,
reading burns on photos of the Cutty Sark in,
Portland, Oregon

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