Just being pedantic about the assertion that "All curves, in all art, begin with the human body" ... The Abandoned Cradle
watercolour painting as this is something that has mystified me for a long time, as I also stare at the cliffs and hills here in the Dordogne. If you look at the prehistoric cave art in south west France, there are very few representations of the human body. But there are lots of animals. Mostly big animals, which weren't necessarily part of their diet. The depicted animals not only resemble the lines of the hills (as you suggest) but often literally come out of the hills, as the curve of stalactite or rock face is frequently used to depict a back-bone or a trunk of an animal. Representations of the human body (other than the hand print) are rare in the caves but abound as portable sculpture, little figurines, voluptuous 'Madonna's, female fertility & pregnancy. Not so much Hogarth's serpentine line but more like rich, round mounds... which were probably more appealing to an ice-age hunter-gatherer (who was more prone to making an image of a great beast than a babe). Maurice Merleau-Ponty, author of The Primacy of Perception , enlarges on the idea that art is born out of our own corporeal awareness.

Roger Platt Spencer, the man who "taught America how to write," developed an elliptical pattern of Ribbit
original print letters and forms, taking his cue from the "trailing leaves and flowers from the river banks," according to one Michael Sull DVD line. Ellipses in Mr. Platt's mind were more beautiful and easier to produce than circles, such as found in the round hand script current to his time being used in Europe, also known as "Copperplate" or "Engrosser's Script." Thus ushered in the "Golden Age of Ornamental Penmanship" from 1850 to 1920, after which the typewriter took over. Many beautiful signatures were observed during this period and even afterward, as students of Spencerian Penmanship reproduced themselves and grew older.

I'm sending this email from Athens near Santagma Square, and have been sketching in the marvelous The line of Beauty - Straight or Curved?
original cartoon sites dotted around everywhere. Amazingly, to complete the co-incidence with the subject of your letter, I did a cartoon a while back - sort of - on the very subject of the line of beauty including the same Hogarth quote you used.

A piece I recently carved in a Sienna marble is of a snake "curving" its form over a stippled Mantling Hawk
slate sculpture surface. Your description of how the eye follows the curve explains why my eye and those of the other observers return again and again to the shapes of the serpent. Rather than a fearful form, it is an invitation for the eye to follow and the hands to trace.

I had a heavy-duty artist's block after my husband of 48 years, died suddenly--in front of me and I Travelling Through Moving Mist
original painting couldn't save him... I was devastated! I could see nothing in my future for weeks... He was my childhood sweetheart! My life stopped in a moment! Months and months went by. I thought I had lost my creative spark. That was 4 years ago.

I read one of your letters where others were working and overcoming artist block with your advice but I felt I was literally travelling through a moving mist... Then, one day I picked up a pencil and the curve was there on my drawing board... loud and strong! I grabbed a dinner plate... it had to be a perfect rounded curve... I made it stronger... Then out came the gesso and the emulsion paint and the watercolour pencils, and Voila!!! I was back... I had lost my beautiful creative colour, all my blues and oranges had disappeared, my colour response was cream and pale yellow in that time. Only a little bit of orange and tiny bit of gold was there, but I was back.

Now, I am experimenting again. My work has changed from representational and semi-abstract to completely abstract. My life is different but I find meaning around every corner again. Thanks for your presence and your sage (esoterica). They have been a little speck of gold in a sea of turmoil.

Rather than "confusing," perhaps a coin moving in an arc merely distracts the viewer with an intriguing and attention-focusing action. Anything moving in an arc, especially if it's a shiny coin, is visually pleasing, magically attractive and therefore happy-making.

As for the rest of the message, it was intriguing but 'way over my head.' (I'm still a tyro at art...)

What are "activate" and "stutter"?

What are "flats, zips & gradations"?

(RG note) Thanks, Marian

Activate: Where a curved line is broken up into a series of items, as in Warren Criswell's geese, below.

Stutter: A broken line curve, often with stops of diminishing size.

Flats: Flat areas that interact with curved areas

Zips: Lines, sometimes curved, that diminish, such as a flash of light on distant water.

Gradations: Areas, both large and small, that gradate from dark to light or across a range of colours.

I went out on the deck outside my studio one evening at dusk recently and was ambushed by a sight The Punishment
original painting I've seen a thousand times. Seen, as Sherlock Holmes said, but not observed. Highlighted parts of my Prius, my van and the lighted window of my sculpture studio formed a nice shallow curve leading up into the sky -- except there was nothing in the sky. I liked the abstract elements of what I was seeing and made a sketch, but it was an unbalanced composition. Then the next evening a flock of wild geese flew over, yodeling furiously! I didn't see them, just heard them, but they completed my curve. At first I saw it as a parabola with the focus over between the van and the sculpture studio, but as the painting progressed the geese (whose flight and flight paths I had by then researched extensively) chose to deviate from this geometry and instead warped themselves into a more sensually feminine S-curve. They were better magicians that I was; my original plan would have exposed the ploy.

But usually the curves in my paintings aren't so consciously deliberate. After altering the composition of The Punishment several times before finally getting something I liked but not knowing why, I discovered that I had unconsciously created a Fibonacci spiral!

In the eighteenth century, the ideal feminine form was achieved with the stays that women wore a curve Arc
original painting much like Hogarth's line of grace. This led me to think again about the concept of masculine vs. feminine form that Art Historians refer to in a structural analysis of painting or architecture. Because still life is considered the realm of the feminine, I thought it would be interesting to pursue the idea of feminine form in still life compositions and see where it might lead.

It seems there is a mysterious energy to the curve that goes beyond direction. In mathematics and physics, equations dealing with cycles, orbits and trajectory result in elliptical curves. Not only does the curve suggest the feminine form, it also indicates the cyclical, so often associated with Mother Nature, change of seasons, and the arc of the sun across the sky.