Line Let Loose is a sustained investigation of the evolution of scribbling, doodling and automatic drawing. Of these three forms of drafting, scribbling is the most basic: it is seen as playing a formative role in the drawings of both children and primates. Doodling, whilst still being a widespread phenomenon, is largely an adult preoccupation, a nomadic form of drawing typically produced during meetings or phone calls. Automatic drawing, on the other hand, even though those who engage in it are not necessarily trained artists, is a more dramatic event: the results of an absent-minded or trance-like state are sometimes astonishing. All three forms of drawing have, because of their amateur and spontaneous character, been adopted by modern artists seeking to escape from the constraints of their professional skills.David Maclagan shows that each of these marginal forms of drawing has its own history, which includes Spiritualism, Surrealism, Abstract Expressionism and Psychedelic Art. Referring to Klee, Pollock, Miró, Twombly and Sol Lewitt, as well as many lesser-known or anonymous artists, he traces the links between them and a pervasive notion of the spontaneous and `unconscious’ creation of forms in art. He suggests that the original novelty of these unconventional drawing processes has begun to wear off, and he explores their new situation in our modern digital culture.
This book is either 1 star or 5 stars. In the end, I split the difference and gave it three which is probably a good compromise. Here's why: The subject is interesting and a worthy academic subject - the idea that scribbling doodling & automatic drawing have relevance to our subconscious and cultural archetypes is cool and worthy of exploration.
The writing is SO INCREDIBLY PEDANTIC that it often made me want to bang my head on my desk until I lost consciousness. Here's a quote at random. Now, I know most people are going to be thinking that I scoured the book trying to find a remotely obscure passage I could make fun of. That's not true... the entire books is made up of the following:
"Here we have various inflections, some spurious, some approving, of what amounts to a psychoanalytically inspired mythology of unconscious forum creation, evidence for which could be found both inside and beyond the conventional boundaries of art. It is a mythology, not because it is misleading but because it gives dramatic meaning to unknown energies that are manifest in pictorial form".
Grumpy old person additional comment: The electronic version doesn't have digital rights for ANY of the illustrations. This is a crippling deficiency in a book about (duh) visual media.
