Overview

In this text, the author presents a radical theory of pictures. To do this, he has developed a precise vocabulary for describing the representational systems in pictures - the ways in which artists, engineers, photographers, mapmakers and children represent objects. His approach is derived from recent research in visual perception and artificial intelligence and he begins by clarifying the key distinction between the marks in a picture and the features of the scene that these marks represent. The methods he uses are thus closer to those of a modern structural linguist or psychoanalyst than to those of an art historian. Using over 150 illustrations, Willats analyzes the representational systems in pictures by artists from a wide variety of periods and cultures. He then relates these systems to the mental processes of picture production and shows how Greek vase painters, Chinese painters, Giotto, icon painters, Picasso, Paul Klee and David Hockney have put these systems to work. The book is also concerned with why artists from different periods and cultures have used such different systems and why drawings by young children look so different from those done by adults. Willats argues

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9780691087375

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Reviews

In sum, Willats offers clear applications of his ideas to an immense diversity of pictures from various sources. His tour de force will be the jumping-off point for most picture-perception researchers in the near future... It will shape debate about drawing development for many years. -- John M. Kennedy, Nature Art and Representation contains many important distinctions between the various types of drawings made in the history of the world and their different functions. It is the most synthetic attempt I know of to describe precisely what elements actually constitute a drawn line... Willats' insistence on looking very precisely at seemingly the most scattered and accidental marks in children's art, will make the charming drawings on your refrigerator seem at times like highly elaborate encoded signs, which indeed they are. One of the benefits of Willats' dogged cataloguing is that you will never be able to look at a child's drawing, or perhaps any drawing, the same way again. -- Mark Andres, >The Boston Book Review Willats's original and subtle approach to the complexities of visual representation should topple some sacred cows and generate lively discussion. -- ""Choice

In sum, Willats offers clear applications of his ideas to an immense diversity of pictures from various sources. His tour de force will be the jumping-off point for most picture-perception researchers in the near future... It will shape debate about drawing development for many years. -- John M. Kennedy Nature Art and Representation contains many important distinctions between the various types of drawings made in the history of the world and their different functions. It is the most synthetic attempt I know of to describe precisely what elements actually constitute a drawn line... Willats' insistence on looking very precisely at seemingly the most scattered and accidental marks in children's art, will make the charming drawings on your refrigerator seem at times like highly elaborate encoded signs, which indeed they are. One of the benefits of Willats' dogged cataloguing is that you will never be able to look at a child's drawing, or perhaps any drawing, the same way again. -- Mark Andres >The Boston Book Review Willats's original and subtle approach to the complexities of visual representation should topple some sacred cows and generate lively discussion. Choice

In sum, Willats offers clear applications of his ideas to an immense diversity of pictures from various sources. His tour de force will be the jumping-off point for most picture-perception researchers in the near future... It will shape debate about drawing development for many years. -- John M. Kennedy, Nature Art and Representation contains many important distinctions between the various types of drawings made in the history of the world and their different functions. It is the most synthetic attempt I know of to describe precisely what elements actually constitute a drawn line... Willats' insistence on looking very precisely at seemingly the most scattered and accidental marks in children's art, will make the charming drawings on your refrigerator seem at times like highly elaborate encoded signs, which indeed they are. One of the benefits of Willats' dogged cataloguing is that you will never be able to look at a child's drawing, or perhaps any drawing, the same way again. -- Mark Andres, >The Boston Book Review Willats's original and subtle approach to the complexities of visual representation should topple some sacred cows and generate lively discussion. -- Choice

Author Information

John Willats, a sculptor and lecturer on the formal structures in pictures, is the coauthor with Fred Dubery of Drawings Systems and Perspective and Other Drawing Systems. He has published widely in journals, including Perception, Child Development, and The Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology. Willats is an Honorary Research Fellow of the University of Birmingham, England.

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