One good way to stimulate invention in composing pottery shapes is to
evolve them from rectangles. In the straight line there is strength; a
curve is measured by a series of straight lines connected in rhythm. No.
32a. This principle is recognized in blocking out a freehand drawing,—a
process often misunderstood and exaggerated.
Curved profiles are only variations of rectangular forms, for example the
bowl in No. 32b.
[No. 32. Pottery Forms.]
Change the height and a series of new shapes will result. As the top and
bottom lines remain the same we have to compare the curved sides only.
Another effect (c) comes from varying the width; and still another (d) by
changing both height and width. In No. 33 are students’ drawings of
pottery profiles evolved from rectangles. For brushwork, in this exercise,
it is well to indicate the lines of the rectangle in pale red, the pottery
in black. Make many sketches, select the best profiles, improve them by
tracing in ink, and compare with historic pieces. Drawing from the finest
examples of pottery, and making original variations of the forms, will aid
in drawing from the cast or the nude, because of the intimate study of the
character of curves.
[No 33. Pottery Forms Derived from Rectangles.]
FLOWERS and other forms as LINE‐MOTIVES. The rectangular space may be
subdivided, as was the square, by a simple line‐motif,—flower, fruit,
still life, animal or figure,—following some Principle of Composition. In
chapter III, under Subordination, an exercise was suggested and
illustrated; it could be taken up again at this point, with new subjects,
for a study of Variation. As rectangular compositions will be found under
Notan and Color, it is not necessary to consider them further here as pure
line, except in the case of Landscape, to which a special chapter is
given.