Practice question · Put in order
Arrange the steps of Gombrich's account of how a painter arrives at a likeness.
- Notice where the two disagree
- Begin from an inherited schema, the way this kind of thing has been drawn before
- Correct the schema at that point
- Set the schema beside the motif and look at both
- Repeat until the remaining disagreement stops mattering
Hints
- Making comes before matching, so the schema comes first.
- The process ends by judgement rather than by exhaustion.
Show the answer
- Begin from an inherited schema, the way this kind of thing has been drawn before
- Set the schema beside the motif and look at both
- Notice where the two disagree
- Correct the schema at that point
- Repeat until the remaining disagreement stops mattering
Why
The last step is why the account is not a recipe for photographic accuracy. The painter stops when the disagreement no longer matters for the purpose in hand, and what counts as mattering is set by the period, the genre and the patron, which is how whole centuries of painting can be internally consistent and mutually unlike.
Practise The Pictorial Language
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