Drawing for Instruction - Talbot Rice

"We should talk less and draw more. Personally I would like to renounce speech altogether and, like organic nature, communicate everything I have to say in sketches," proclaimed Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, establishing drawing as the paramount form of human communication. Renouncing speech may be slightly extreme, but this sentiment highlights the essential function of illustration as a means of conveying and gaining knowledge of a particular object or concept.

The Talbot Rice Gallery's first show of 2010, Drawing For Instruction, explores this didactic function of drawing across a wide range of academic disciplines, juxtaposing early 19th century life drawings from the Edinburgh College of Art with digital drawings (viewed through 3D glasses) from the School of Chemistry.

The plethora of material explores the role of drawing as a form of communication and thus illustrates its importance within the world of academia. It suggests that aesthetic value can be found in explanatory drawings, something that is displayed in James Turner Murray’s vast canvas of a skeletal horse and rider situated in the lower gallery. The painting that usually hangs in the Royal Dick School of Veterinary Studies explores the contrasts between the anatomy of the horse and the human. With the addition of painterly details such as the wry smile, earrings and gilded tunic motif of the rider, Murray commands the viewer to acknowledge not only the educative but the aesthetic value of the piece.

Upon entering the upper gallery the viewer is confronted with Andrew Kennedy's erotic, surreal and often disturbing sketches, and a plan to reorganize Edinburgh society by William Bartholomew from the archives of the Lothian Health Service; offering an insight into the mind of a psychiatric patient and exploring notions of drawing as a means of therapy.

In an increasingly technological world it is often difficult to discern whether drawing holds as important a role as it did for previous generations. Through its rich and diverse collection and its unusual juxtapositions, Drawing for Instruction reminds us of the importance of drawing as a vital tool for human communication, whether it be in developing an understanding of the human form in a life drawing class or expressing the laws of chemistry on a molecular level.