Lines of Beauty

In June, I experimented with drawing a human face. I drew many details around the eyes, nose, mouth, jawline, forehead, ears, etc. The more I drew, though, the less real it looked. I stared at it for a while and then reached for my eraser. Maybe I'll take out this line, I thought. But I didn't take out just one. I erased many lines until there were only a few left. Somehow it looked much better, but I didn't understand why.

A few weeks later, my drawing teacher told the class about how the eye can only focus on one point and the rest of what you see blurs. When you take a picture, for instance, the camera usually captures every little detail and it looks flat and unreal. However, one thing that makes a photo look good is when it gives you a focal point and blurs the background, like the example below:

This is because it shows information the way the eye sees it. 

I thought about this when I looked at people versus their portraits. When I am with people, I see one detail at a time, one shadow at a time, and one line at a time. In real life, as my eye moves across their features, one aspect comes into focus while the other one blurs. The combination of line and blur makes people appear softer and more 3-dimensional. Unless a camera is under the manipulation of a skilled photographer, it will pick up every detail of a subject and flatten it onto a single plane. Features therefore appear harsh or caricatured because we see them all at once. It's uncomfortable because it is not how we absorb information naturally. 

When I look back at my drawing of a person, I understand why it works: the lines I erased became the blur and made it look more real. This idea of seeing only one focal point makes me think about how people perceive beauty every day and I wonder which lines we like to see and which ones we prefer to blur.