Painting dissolves the forms at its command, or tends to; it melts them into color. Drawing, on the other hand, goes about resolving forms, giving edge and essence to things. To see shapes clearly, one outlines them—whether on paper or in the mind. Therefore, Michelangelo, a profoundly cultivated man, called drawing the basis of all knowledge whatsoever.
ATTRIBUTION:
Alexander Eliot (b. 1919), U.S. art historian, critic. Sight and Insight, ch. 6, McDowell, Obolensky (1959).
