2 D Grod Drawing

2 D Grod Drawing

The Grid as a Theme

The grid has, over time, become a theme all by itself in art. This essay by Rosiland Krauss is perhaps one of the most influential pieces of writing about the appearance of the grid in art as thesubjectof art rather than the underpinning of its creation. In it, Krauss proposes that

Unlike perspective, the grid does not map the  space of a room or a landscape or a group of figures onto the surface of a painting.  Indeed, if it maps anything, it maps the surface of the painting itself. It is a  transfer in which nothing changes place. The physical qualities of the surface, we  could say, are mapped onto the aesthetic dimensions of the same surface. And  those two planes-the physical and the aesthetic-are demonstrated to be the same  plane: coextensive, and, through the abscissas and ordinates of the grid, coordinate.

Krauss asserts that the grid emerges in modernist art just as other more worldly subjects are disappearing. Once artists embark upon their journey to true abstraction, the grid is more and more often the subject of art, representing the schism that appeared in the modern psyche around the turn of the 20th century.

That's a pretty academic way of saying that grids emerged as a subject in painting only recently. Chuck Close, in the documentary below, is probably one of the more accessible artists with work where grids feature prominently. Close is interesting to me because his portraits feature grids as both subject and organizing principle.

2 D Grod Drawing

Source: https://2d.community.uaf.edu/grid/