Last spring, the Hudson River Valley Review published my article Explorers, Naturalists and Military Precursors of the Hudson River School. This was deeply gratifying. For many years my teaching had been devoted to promoting drawing as form of literacy, beyond that of poetic endeavors. Like putting words together, drawing gives us a way to transform personal experience into knowledge and ideas. Intensifying our encounters with nature in this way can foster social responsibility and ecological civics. This may smack of Yankee utilitarianism, which as a descendant of literate Congregationalist yeoman farmers, Minutemen, Quaker whale-ship captains, and progressive educators, would be part of my nature. The art-historical narrative has also changed. Titanic cults of individualism and selfhood have today given way to explorations of social justice, human identity, and environmental priorities.
Everyone can learn to draw, just as they can learn to write. This is nothing new. Rembrandt Peale argued that writing is a form of drawing, and drawing is a just mode of writing. Horace Mann described drawing as an essential industrial skill. He also called it a moral force. These voices advocated for a system of universal education, in which drawing was a core subject. This was not to promote self-expression, but to develop a virtuous citizenry that valued knowledge, practiced democracy, and contributed to society.
Being bold enough to go out into the world, to lay down marks, pictures and words promises rich rewards. Anyone can describe anything, once they know it. Drawing sharpens our focus, and deepens our experience, to teach us what we behold. It seems that the best way to demonstrate how this can works is by setting an example.
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Now available to own: Sketchbook Traveler: Hudson Valley
Explore my Quaranteam Dispatches, from April 1-June 8, 2020
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