Comment on Open thread, 21-27 April 2014

Wed, 23 Apr 2014 05:55:23 GMT

Drawing on the Right Side is great for this reason. The hemisphere stuff is quite tangential to the book's utility.

If you want to see examples of "visual symbols", look at the drawings of children. In particular, look at drawings of the human face. The prototypical symbols for something like an eye, just don't look that much like a human eye. This sounds obvious, but it's very hard to just draw what you see, and not draw what you "think you ought" to see.

For example, imagine a face lit from one side. Visually, the illuminated side of the face will show the "expected" details: You'll see the folds in both lids of the eye, and the fine curves of the face and ear. But the dark side of the face will look nothing like this. You'll only see broad dark areas and broad light areas. However, most people who'd identify as "bad at drawing", will draw the same details on both sides of the face, and will be genuinely unaware that this isn't what they really "see".

This isn't to say that artists don't make use of visual symbols, etc, but skill is the ability to take both approaches.

I'd actually advance this as a example of the fundamental analysis of one type of "talent". The "good at drawing" people grokked the connection between seeing and drawing, and the "bad at drawing" people didn't.

I've wondered for some time if something similar isn't present in musical talent, where the basic "mindset" has to do with some connection of sound to expression, rather than a connection between sound and physical ritual.

Discuss