Part-Whole

The Gestalt psychologist, Kurt Koffka, did NOT say, “The whole is greater than the sum of the parts.” What he did say was, “The whole is different from the sum of the parts.” Making a lot of good parts doesn’t necessarily make a good whole. The Gestalt principles concerning part-whole relationships occur in all of our experiences. A life drawing class is a good place to start thinking about this principle. 

In a life drawing class, after positioning the model, students aim to capture the descriptive and expressive character of the model, frequently by looking at and drawing a part at a time. Usually the head is the first “thing” that the student positions. rNo matter how well the student draws the part, that skill is insufficient to capture the descriptive and expressive character of the model. Unless the student draws the part in the appropriate relationship to the whole drawing, the part will not seem correct, no matter how “well-drawn” it is. No amount of attention to the parts alone will be sufficient to bring about the requisite relationship. All parts in the figure drawing, just like every other part in every other painting or drawing, depend upon the part-whole relationship.

An alternative approach to start a figure drawing is to first look at the whole model and draw a center line on the paper, noting the position and size-shape of the parts in relation to the whole. Or rub your hand on the surface and look at the model and the paper while seeing where the parts belong, in relation to the whole.

The part-whole relationship operates when you consider the apparent size of the figure model and the size of the model on the paper. Just like in a melody, the parts of the model are structured relationships, and if the artist maintains those relationships, then the whole, the Gestalt, is preserved and recognized. 

The actual size of the figure model on the model stand has little to do with the student’s choice about the figure model’s size on the paper. The ratios (proportions) among the position and size of the parts within the drawing page determine the size of the figure model. If the student maintains the figure model’s ratios, the proportions, no matter what the actual size of the sheet of paper, the drawing looks correct. 

NOTES:

See Studio Seeing, Chapter 4, More About Seeing.