Capital of an Ionic Column

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Almost all of the drawings that I have posted on have been representational. Some have been very realistic, and others have been more imaginary in nature, but they have all been pictures of something rather than abstractions. I have not always been a representational artist however, for the first several years of my career I did only abstract work, and the change over to realist work was very gradual.

I was very sensitive to receiving criticism about working realistically from my contemporaries and still remember very vividly two sayings from my student days about realism. One was “He is a simpleminded realist!” and the other was, “Realists, like the poor, are always with us.”

The second statement I could easily understand, but the idea that realists would be in anyway simpleminded did not make any sense to me until years later when I came to understand completely that the truth of the matter. One cannot draw and paint what one sees but one creates an abstraction of tints and tones that is related to what we see. This drawing of mine of a column capital for example is a situation in which all the colors tints and tones of a complex three dimensional object have been reduced down to four tones, the light yellow of the paper, and three clearly discernible tints of the pencil, whereas in reality there would be many more clearly “seeable” tones just in the highlights. It is all really just an abstraction, just simpleminded abstraction.

This drawing measures 8.75” x 10.75”. It is drawn on off white rag drawing paper with a maroon wax pencil. It is signed in the border along the bottom Richard Britell, September 3, 2001.