Literature Review

Visual Thinking

Drawings, paintings, and other devices serve not simply to convey stories or thoughts but also provide a process in which visual thinking extracts problems from our subconscious and problems solve issues related to the psyche. At times it can be therapeutic, where in which deep seeded problems are uprooted and transformed to paper, canvas or any other ancillary mediums, which evidently reveal themselves to the artist as a form of a self-acknowledgment and mitigation.

Traditional thinking based on logic, critical search, argument and the memory of valuable information has provided the foundation for thought and learning. Education also has been built on this premise and has delivered excellent logical/sequential thinkers. While this type of thinking is indispensable, sequential learning has not suited everyone. We have acknowledged that people learn, and subsequently act, in different styles. Visual thinking approaches a different style that can be helpful. When people want to readily apprehend problems and understand them they are able to manage them via this technique and also deliver this method to others. Therefore the method of visual thinking provides opportunity to meet self-discovery in the process of drawing.

In Rudolf Arnheim’s book (Visual Thinking) “Concepts Take Shape” (116-141), it describes how thoughts rendered to paper can express emotion through memory. In the chapter “Drawing series of a ‘Youth’ theme” Brina Caplan who is a teacher requested her subjects to draw their youth by using as many pieces of paper as they need. They continued drawing until they were satisfied with their drawings. Eleven subjects had an average of nine drawings each. As the experiments proceeded, the subjects’ drawings were getting clearer, specific and more individualized. Also, their drawings were commonly complex at the end of their drawing session. Some of their drawings made no connections with the first and the last drawings, but there was gradual refinement as it progress towards the end. One subject produced thirteen papers for their experiment which showed enrichment of their youth during the end of his depictions.

It is hard to say that there was consistency in everyone’s drawings. But all the subjects were able to experience the process of how they can define the abstract word of Youth. All of the images were not just created by chance, but freely expressed by their thoughts and memory of how they felt. Sometimes it is easier to render how you feel rather than just saying it.

Abigail Angell, another professor, asked mostly fellow students to depict the notion of good and bad marriages using abstract drawings. From a linguistic prospective the word marriage does not indicate its pictorial twosome, but the concept itself involves two physical persons. Therefore, many subjects portrayed marriage with two units in a relationship. One drawing reflected marriage partners as two shapes of units. Both shapes do not reveal themselves as any particular gender.

In Figure 1, the saw-tooth outlines constitute one gender in a bad marriage relationship, as it represents one aggressive partner. Another unit was described with smooth circle. In this, lines in the drawing convey the subjects’ intention.

Figure 1

The coherence of marriage can be indicated simply by the amount of contact among partners. In Figure 2, the shapes juxtapose each other representing a good relationship. There exist a harmonious symmetry between the two shapes, presenting civility, equality, and structure, and unification. Contrary, the shapes below neither overlap nor seem to contain a similar shape size. One can see a dominant partner suggesting inequality, and lack of balance.

Figure 2

In Rudolf Arnheim’s book (Visual Thinking) with the chapter “Personal Problems Worked Out”(251) of “Words in Their Place”, a seven –year old girl who just immigrated to the United States described her situation at her school in a series of drawings. At first she didn’t know what to do at her public school. Because it was freer compared to her strict previous school. In her first depiction, she portrayed herself as being depressed in tears, without arms but with a jump rope. Her friends besides her were also depressed in her drawings. In her next picture, it was a time she was getting closer with her friends. Her rendition included herself with all her friends whole smiling and jumping rope.
The girl was not able to draw these pictures without pointing out her causes her problems. She saw herself alienated and shocked with her given freedom. Later she reached a pleasant settlement of being accustomed to her new environment. By visual thinking the girl found her own pictorial formula and she was able to understand her problems and emotions, and therefore constructively alleviated her plights.

In “Picturing to Learn”(http://www.picturingtolearn.org) Felice Frankel, who is science photographer, describes one can learn science with visual information.
In Massachusetts Institute of Technology research website Fankel also said “For many students, thinking visually and trying to draw for the purposes of communication can hightlights areas of confusion.” Felice Frankel,( http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2006/picturing.html) She explained that hand drawings are helpful to students and teachers for communication with an academic concept.
Since Frankel believed that visual thinking is vital when conveying new theory in studying, she expanded this idea into classroom as a way of learning chemistry.
Donald Sadoway, another professor, who taught introduction to solid state chemistry to freshmen, commented that “This visual exercise program was largely met with enthusiasm.” (Picturing to Learn, http://picturingtolearn.org) Through the program many students were able to have a chance to rethink about physical features such as molecular size and electron configuration by visual information. This exercise was helpful for students to understand deeply basic concepts and they could discover a different way in communicating and learning through visual awareness.

As one medium of perception, language is created by specific rules which has standardized rules to maintain consistency. We speak with language and read letters because those are part of communication, but drawing or pictorial language with shapes can offer various methods of expressing what letters cannot achieve. I envision mind maps for the first step of my experiment of visual information using simple shapes to communicate one another easily. I think it might give me an opportunity to use one’s intuition to develop unique solutions to process, even if produced drawings have random connections. Lastly, I’d like to focus on how we look at numerous objects and see how much deeper they may signify, imagine, and discover what we don’t initially see in them.

Bibliography

- Rudolf Arnheim, “Visual Thinking,” (Univ. of California Press, Renewed1997)

-Sasha Brown, “’Picturing to Learn’ makes science visual,” Massachusetts Institute of Technology News, June 27, 2006.

http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2006/picturing.html

“Picturing to Learn,” http://www.picturingtolearn.org/

- “A Learning Community,” Frye Art Museum http://fryemuseum.org/community_article/4003/

- “A Learning Community,” Frye Art Museum, Uploaded in YouTube, Feb 10, 2011, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bkyrW2-HjT0