"Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain" is a book that aims to teach how to draw using an educational approach that aims to discover their own creative resources (that is the very source from which should rise to the capacity / ability to draw).
Betty Edwards's work is based on theories of hemispheric specialization of the brain, supported primarily by research carried out in the '50s and '6 O by Sperry and his students Michael Gazzaniga, Levy Jerre, Colwyn Trevarthen, Robert Nebesa, and others.
According to this theoretical approach «(...) both hemispheres perform higher cognitive functions but each specializes in different and very complex ways of thinking, complementary. "
The functions of the left hemisphere would mainly verbal, analytical and rational, while the right hemisphere would be non-verbal, synthetic, and intuitive analog.
could somehow say that our brains are "double" and each half has its own way of learning and perception of external reality. Each of us has, so to speak, two minds, two minds, mediated and integrated by a cord of nerve fibers that lies between the two hemispheres.
It has been shown that the two hemispheres work together in different ways. Sometimes they cooperate with each half, contributing to its specific capacity and assuming that part of the task that is best suited to his way of processing information. Sometimes however, the two hemispheres working alone, namely that one of them is active and 1'altro is more or less inactive. It also appears that the two hemispheres can come into conflict with each other, so one of the half trying to do what the other "knows" could do better. "
it was found that, between the two hemispheres, one that tends to predominate 1'emisfero is left. This is also due to the fact that our culture emphasizes in particular the characteristics of the latter at the expense of those "right" The right hemisphere functions are functions intuitive, subjective, relational, global, free from the concept of time . These aspects are not very appreciated by our culture, and are associated with the left hand and the concept of weakness. Just think of how the education system in our country, is all set to the development of the hemisphere verbal, rational, and time, to almost total expense right brain. The teaching is done in stages, children learn by progressive stages, according to a linear scheme.
The main subjects belong to the sphere of verbal and numeric reading, writing, arithmetic. Follow the schedules. The children sit in rows. Ask questions and give answers. Right hemisphere can not be taught almost anything. Sure, there are arts education and technical applications, and today secolastici programs include music education, but no school offers courses of imagination, visualization techniques, spatial perception, creativity as a subject independent of intuition or imagination. "
Scientific research on brain function and visual information processing have shown that the ability to draw depends on access to the right hemisphere, "disabling" to a certain extent the left. Betty Edwards, exactly from this point for the elaboration of his method of teaching.
According to the author, if the design depends on the right hemisphere, this automatically mean that all have the potential to do so.
Not all of us, however, we are able to utilize this potential, and because we have never been "trained" to do so, or because they simply we do not have the habit.
In fact, most adults in the western world, never more than a lot of the artistic level reached to the nine or ten years. This is the age that corresponds to the crisis of development of artistic skills in a child: "The development of artistic skills of the child takes place in parallel with the maturation of the brain. In early childhood the two hemispheres are not specialized in different functions. The process of lateralization - that is, the emergence of specific functions in either half of the brain - occurs gradually during childhood all'aqcuisizione set of language and that of symbols, which constitute the art of the child.
This process is usually complete in around the age of ten, and this time coincides with the emergence of conflicts in artistic expression due to windward of the symbolic system on the functions of perception, which interfere with the ability to draw precisely what we see. It could be argued that conflict is due to the fact that the child uses the "wrong" of the brain - the left - to perform a task that is best suited to the right. Perhaps the problem is that at that age you can not find a way to access your right brain, that around ten years is already specialized in the function of the design. In addition, to the tenth year, the left hemisphere has already consolidated its dominant position, so names and symbols are imposed at the expense of spatial perception and global, further complicating things. "
What happens more often when an adult medium is proposed to draw, is that her left brain wants to do the job, although not possessing the right tools to do so. It prevents the right brain into action, replacing the ability to see in analog mode, intuitive, concrete and comprehensive you have to draw, with pre-made symbols and rudimentary.
The first step is therefore to perform a retrospective examination of their artistic expressions by children, so you can trace the building of its system of artistic symbols, and, later, abandoned. The author takes the reader in this process, so as to enable the move towards a more adult level of artistic expression, relying appropriate cerebral hemisphere, that is the right one. It is essential also to learn how to independently access and fluidity of the right mode, so you can make use when designing. This is one of the main purposes of this book three-quarters proposes a series of exercises and strategies to "trick" the left hemisphere, the dominant tendency, and allow the right to "direct their operations." The moment this happens, the person enters a state of consciousness different from the usual features, including 1'altro, a distinct way of seeing things and a dilation of time perception.
Learning to recognize this state will also gradually be able to summon when necessary. «(...) Exercises that you will find in this book are designed to help you make that mental shift, with two advantages: first, to get in contact, through an act of will conscious, with the right half of your brain, experiencing a new kind of consciousness we might call slightly altered, the second, to see things in a different way. Only by developing these two skills you will learn to draw. Many artists said they see things differently while drawing, and have often mentioned that the plan be focused on a slightly alters their state of consciousness. That particular subjective state is often described as a feeling of carrying a "feeling one with the drawing and at the same time you realize you perceive a series of reports that usually are not able to grasp. You do not notice the passage of time, and the world of words withdraws from consciousness. Anyone familiar with this condition say they feel alert, but at the same time relaxed and free from anxiety, with the mind active and in a pleasurable, almost mystical. "
S functions are:
Minutes: use of words to describe and define.
Analytics: solving problems step by step, addressing one aspect at a time.
Symbolic use of symbols to represent objects.
Abstract: extrapolation of a given part is used to represent the whole object.
Thunderstorms: passage of time, application of a subsequent order to the objects, actions, etc.. (Things to do first, what to do next).
Rational: drawing of conclusions based on assumptions and facts.
Computistiche: use numbers as in the computation.
Logic: drawing of conclusions based on logic, development following a logical order (eg, mathematical theorems, reasoning set correctly).
Linear: thinking based on ideas related (a thought directly following another, and often both of lead in convergence to the same conclusion).
D functions are:
Non-verbal aware of things without any recourse to words.
Synthetic: combination of the elements of a situation to form a whole.
Concrete: view of things as they are the present moment.
Analog: perception of the similarities between objects, relationships based on understanding of metaphor.
Timeless: lack of sense of time.
not rational: lack of need for the facts and circumstances, willingness to stay the proceedings.
Space: observation of the location of objects relative to other objects, and parts to a whole.
Intuitive: illuminating moments of sudden understanding of things, often based on incomplete patterns, impressions, sensations or visual images.
Global: contemporary view of all aspects of an object or fact, the perception of patterns and structures to complete, often geared to different conclusions.
summary sheet by Cristina Prampolini
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