Robert Dukes

Drawing and painting are very closely combined. This might seem a surprisingly obvious statement: after all, the act of painting could hypothetically be broken down into drawing, colour and tone – yet some serious observational painters nowadays hardly draw at all. For me, regular drawing (with a pencil) is necessary for me to “get my eye in.” In order to perceive colour-shapes clearly, I need to draw first. Drawing — really drawing — is really difficult! The recent Daumier exhibition in London was a perfect manifestation of his contemporary Delacroix’ opinion that “Cold exactitude is not truth.” Line drawing is not putting a silhouette around an object (the reason those who project a photograph on their canvas and fill it in produce dead images). A good drawing, like a good painting, consists of “shape(s) made from a sense of mass, not a sense of shape.” (Frank Auerbach)