Perspective, Memory, and NarrativeAuthor(s): Winifrid McNeillSource: Art Journal, Vol. 58, No. 1 (Spring, 1999), p. 86Published by: College Art AssociationStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/777888 .

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Winifrid McNeill

Perspective, Memory, and Narrative

Basic perspective is one of the fundamental skills that a student acquires in a foundation-level drawing class. In the drawing and composition class I teach, I have attempted to interject personal narrative into the technical mastery of

perspective. This lesson, which begins with the recollection of a dramatic, even traumatic, childhood memory, incorporates perspective as a tool to realize the image. My class includes a mixture of art and nonart students. The art students need solid

training, while the nonart ones should leave with an under-

standing of how images create meaning. I begin the lesson on perspective by showing works by diverse artists,

such as Willie Birch, Alfred Hitchcock, Catherine Murphy, Pep6n Osorio, and Giovanni Battista Piranesi, in which interior space plays a dominant role in the narrative. I then ask students to write a short account of an event from their

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LyndaWisniewski. Snake in Kitchen, 1997. Graphite on paper.

childhood that took place in an interior

space. Picturing the room, they list as many details as possible-the furniture, the walls, the time of day, the light, and the point of view from which they witnessed the event.

They also describe how they remembered the mood of the event.

Following this written exercise, I ask the students to orally describe the place, not the event, as specifically as possible. As they talk, one student records the objective details

(knotty pine cabinets, upholstered chairs, checkered floor, and so on), while another writes down the subjective adjectives (old- fashioned, comfortable, cute, cold, warm). The process of reflection and note taking gives each student a substantial amount of information to put into his or her drawing, as well as a motive for making it.

Once this exercise is completed, and before I give any instruction on perspective, I ask the students to begin to make a drawing of the event. The main objective of this assignment is to exag- gerate the mood of the incident by focusing on other formal properties, such as light/dark values and line. As the students work on this drawing, they are

usually frustrated to some degree because they cannot get the room "right." The rules of perspective, introduced at this point, can be used immediately to serve the intention of the composition.

I then ask the students to depict the same event in one-point and two-

point perspective. Beyond the acquisition of these technical skills, the begin- ning student is introduced to several important ideas surrounding the study of perspective, including the critical nature of point of view, the elusiveness of reality, and the subjective nature of perception itself.

Winifred McNeill is assistant professor and teacher certification coordinator in the Art Department at New Jersey City University in Jersey City. She is an artist who exhibits her work widely.

86 SPRING 1999

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