diagrams

 

Dear Drawing,

Ooh, I love these diagrams!  I found them in a book of paintings of birds, and they are really wonderful.  They are more compelling than the actual paintings, but I give you a few of them, so you can see for yourself.  I love the compositions of the shapes, untethered from their landscape.  If you are crazy curious about the books, you can see one here, and the other, there.

The whole thing has got me thinking about the outlines, the minimum that you need to tell the tale of identity, and I am also considering the circled numbers; the corresponding text.  Is that the compelling part?  Is the appeal the way this diagram hopes to instruct?  When we see a diagram, do we get ready to receive direction?

What if, say, I took a whole lot of outlines, of things, like leaves, cups, pillows, fruit; and I put some numbers on, or near, and I painted it all up in a nice buttercup color?  That sounds like it would be swell, doesn't it?  The outlines would have maybe the barest hint of reference to them, just enough to make you think, and then we can enjoy contemplating the question posed by having these varied objects in the same picture.