Chance, Work in Progress. Scratchboard, 5 x 7 in. Copyright 2007, Tania Nault.
Here we are a couple days later: I have the rest of Chance’s face done and more of the ruff around her neck. The owner has been in touch and is pleased with the progress to this point, so I’m happy.
As I work, I’m not only paying attention to fur direction and value, I’m also trying to represent the different fur textures: short soft hairs on the face; longer, somewhat coarser hairs as we transition to the body; and the very long, but silky hairs in the ruff. Why so much attention to texture? Why spend all that time trying to visually represent something that can only be experienced by touch? Well, it’s been my experience that when we’re looking at a visual depiction of a real thing, we’re not just processing visual clues - light, shadow, colour – if the artist has done her/his job properly, we’re also processing clues for our sense of touch - texture. For example, when an artist contrasts a smooth surface like an egg with a rough surface like a rock neither texture is actually there, only the visual indicators are, but the feeling remains: the egg is smooth, while the rock is rough.
As a representational artist, this concept was something I accepted at face value and hadn’t given a lot of extra thought, aside from practising getting textures to make sure they “feel right” in my work. But I was watching television the other night, and the Discovery Channel had a program about evolution/changes in humans, The Real Superhumans and the Quest for the Future Fantastic, and one segment caught my attention: artist Esref Armagan, from Turkey. Blind since birth, Armagan paints in a folk arts style, but his work shows a surprising level of sophistication for someone who has never seen the things he paints. His buildings, for example, are in perspective – a concept which sighted artists frequently have to be taught, i.e. as an object recedes in space, it gets smaller.
Tests done on Armagan while he was touching an object before he drew it showed that the parts of his brain, which in a sighted person would be receiving visual stimuli from the eyes, were active. Somehow, his brain was visually processing the information from his fingers. And while he drew, both of the parts of his brain where touch and sight reside were processing information. Apparently, tests done on other blind individuals have shown that the visual part of their brains “light up” when they read in Braille.
As an artist, I find this fascinating. Is this why the depiction of texture is so important to representational, realistic art? When an artist accurately depicts a texture is s/he giving the viewer’s brain enough information to “feel” the differences in texture? Is this why realism in art appeals to many people – because it is being enjoyed by two different senses?
