Leonardo

Drawings as Structures and Non-Structures

Author(s): L. Alcopley
Source: Leonardo, Vol. 1, No. 1 (Jan., 1968), pp. 3-16
Published by: The MIT Press
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Press1968.Printedin GreatBritain
Vol. 1, pp. 3-16. Pergamon
Leonardo,

STRUCTURES
DRAWINGS AS
AND
NON-STRUCTURES
L.Alcopley*
Abstract-A drawing is defined as an image in which the compositionof lines
predominates over considerations of color. Drawings are conceived by the
author as structures and non-structures, although any drawing is bound to be
structural. In the drawings as non-structures, the elements of the unexpected,
accidental, and automaticplay a dominantrole. In a drawing as a structure,
any line must be deeplyfelt, and drawn on a surface with the conviction that
it is necessary where it is placed. By surface is meant the entirepicture surface
whichcannotbe dividedor separatedto showmerelyanyportion coveredby lines.
These drawings are considered as structures, because in them there is the
arrangementof all theparts to the whole. The structuredrawingsare discussed
underthefollowing seven groupings:structuresof things (includinglandscapes),
structures of space, structures of the spoken, structures of signs, structures
drawn to poems, dimension of time structuresand structuresdrawn to music.
The significance of size and of proportions in drawings as structures and
non-structuresis stressed, and special consideration is given to the largeness
inherent in certain small-sized and even tiny-sized works of art. The author's
minimum drawings are discussed both as single pictures and as assemblages.
Three-dimensionalityis shown not merely in superimposed drawings, but
also in the author's vertical sky-scraperpictures and his horizontalpromenade
pictures, in which the dimension of time enters in the viewing of the picture
by the beholder. The author emphasizes that his pictures, both drawings and
paintings, differfundamentallyfrom the pictures by artists of ancient China
and Japan, because of the entirelydifferentconceptionsof space.
An attempt is made to correlate today's world view of science as a product
of Western thought and the author's letterless writing. The latter is not any
form of calligraphyeither practiced in the orient or in abstractionsby modern
artists-of the Westand East-who still suggest some definitemeaningof letters,
ideograms,or hieroglyphs.

do not appear to dominate them. I cannot attempt

to make an analysis of these forces in my work,
since, in general, little is known about the so-called
'creative process' in the arts or other human activities.
In my work as an artist I have no preference for
the activities of painting or of drawing, although
painting can provide a greater challenge. In painting, the values of color and their composition rule
the picture. I view with sheer joy the paintings of
painters whose work I love. The richness inherent
in the play of colors cannot be conveyed in drawings,
which does not mean that drawings are bound to be
without joy.
I am giving an account of my drawings because,
I think, it may assist those who ask about the
meaning of my pictures, both paintings and drawings, or what they are all about. My account is not
meant to give explanations, but to serve as a guide
into the world of a contemporary which he attempts
to form in his pictures. It is the same world we all

I. INTRODUCTION
My drawings may be classified as structuresand nonstructures. The former are conceived as compositions or arrangements of lines, while for the latter
I make no such attempts.
In the non-structure drawing, the element of the
unexpected and of the accidental plays a dominating
role. As in life, the accidental seems to come from
nowhere, but has the peculiar strength in pointing
to a new direction or forcing itself upon one.
The automatic, which is not identical with the
accidental, is done-as the term implies-without
conscious thought, and seems to be essential in
many non-structure drawings.
The elements of the unexpected, the accidental
and the automatic enter to some extent, into the
process of drawing structures, but these elements
*Artist living at 50 CentralPark West, New York, N.Y.

1967).
10023,U.S.A.(Received10 September

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L. Alcopley

live in, a world characterized by changes which are

simultaneously steady, explosive, destructive and
constructive on all levels of human endeavor.
To my way of seeing, our contemporary world is
not unlike life as a biological entity, which as far
as may be known about, appears to be possibly
'somewhat' less chaotic and certainly less disturbing, except if disease threatens one's life.
To those readers who do not know about my
double identity, let me say at the outset of this
account that besides being a practicing artist, I
am-under a different name-also a practicing
scientist in the biological and medical sciences.
As an experimental physiologist I am preoccupied
with the processes of life and its disorderswhich may
ensue in death.
I say 'yes' to our contemporary world in spite of
the numerous alienations thrust upon us contemporaries, as social and biological beings. We live
in a world of developments for which we are neither
prepared for sufficiently nor have adequate controls, or about which we are utterly ignorant and
helpless. My saying 'yes' to this indivisible world
permeates, I trust, my work as an artist. It is this
deep feeling of the oneness of our world that is the
motivation for my pictorial visions.
A drawing is an image in which the composition
of lines predominates over considerations of color.
This definition separates drawings from painting
in which the composition of colors plays the primary role in the formation of the image.
II. TECHNIQUES
Some of my contemporaryartist colleagues like to
exclude the skill in the use of the hand and rely on
certain mechanical devices to convey their visions.
To me, the direction and the skill in the use of the
hand-this marvelous instrument given to our
human species-is the prerequisite for my performing the act of drawing.
About my techniques there is little to say that is
not known as a general practice.
As I do not employ motorised or other mechanical devices, the tools I use are pens, brushes, styli,
needles, knives, crayons, chisels, among other lineproducing objects. I employ mainly the pen and
the brush. It is in the amount of pressure which
I apply in holding the brush or the pen on the surface that I regulate and vary with my hand the
quality of the drawn line. This use of the hand can
be limited mainly to the thumb and index finger,
which hold the pen, crayon, pencil or fine brush,
but it may involve more than the finger tips, if
large surfaces are used for the drawing. Then, the
entire arm or even the whole body may become
involved in the act of drawing, as if I with my whole
being would throw myself into the picture, extricating that part of my being which may remain alive
in the picture in living its own life to the
beholder.
The skill to draw can be acquired possibly by
almost everyone, as it is the result of practice and

knowledge. Thus, the perfection of execution is

readily visible as the draughtsmanship or workmanship. However, for any artist, skill is required
beforehand as a necessary condition, and in no
way suffices to produce a work of art. This is
equally true for the practice in all the arts, and,
obviously, is not limited to drawing.
I have used Chinese and Japanese brushes in
many drawings for a number of years, but I never
felt them to be the tools for expressing adequately
the ideas and thoughts in pictorial composition
which I wanted to convey. My use of these brushes
tended to evolve a style which approaches the style
of the Chinese and Japanese artists of the past,
whose work I admire greatly. But I do not intend
to follow their style or ways, as they are alien to
my conceptions of our contemporary world, which
is entirely a development of Western civilization
and thought.
As materials for the picture surface, I have used
paper, plastics, silk, ceramics (including porcelain),
cement walls, wood, metal, bark, stones, linen,
cotton, parchment, and glass. These materials
from all kinds of origin can vary widely in color
and in texture from very smooth to different
degrees of roughness. The material I prefer to draw
on is paper, and the 'color' I like most is white in
any of its numerous shades. The paper can have
differenttextures, and may contain various amounts
of glue, which alters the gloss. If non-sized, the
paper will permit spreading of lines applied with
inks, and can be utilized to permit a more 'fuzzy'
character of the line, if it is desired. Usually I
employ simple papers, but I have used precious or
even rare papers. Actually, I am very fond of
paper of a very high quality, although I am no
expert. With rare and very fine papers, I feel that
their surfaces should not be disturbed by anything
drawn on them. A Japanese scientist friend of
mine, who is also a great scholar of Chinese and
Japanese papers, made me several gifts of rare
papers from China and Japan, but after years of
having these precious papers in my possession, I
still hesitate to use them.
I employed only in some of my drawings nonlinear tones as washes and, in general, I use lines
without textures. I admire the mastery in the use
of washes by Rembrandt or of texture by Seurat,
Klee and other masters.
In the history of drawings one can detect the
artists' preferences which differ markedly. In the
Orient almost all drawing was done with brushes,
and in the Far East, writing, which was practiced
as calligraphy, and drawing merged into painting.
The latter was accomplished by varying the degree
of dilution of inks, and using black inks of a large
variety of 'color', that is, of hues and shades.
In the West, drawing was practiced much less
with the use of the brush, and at different periods,
individual artists used varying techniques, many
of which are still employed today. I should like
to amplify briefly and at random some of these
techniques by giving a few examples. Pieter Brueg-

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Drawings as Structuresand Non-Structures

hel the Elder might have diluted the ink in his pen
drawings more for the background than for the
foreground to give an illusion of space. Besides
employing silverpoint on blue ground, Leonardo
da Vinci used pen and ink over red chalk notation.
Hans Holbein the Elder achieved a subtlety of
modeling through the merging of fine lines drawn
with silverpoint. The cross hatching with red chalk
was rubbed in some areas by Michelangelo Buonarroti to secure varying degrees of plasticity. Peter
Paul Rubens modeled lines of hatching to complement the contours, while Giovanni Battista Tiepolo used contours with great freedom on washes
about which he knew so much. Rather solid areas
were brushed by Francisco Goya to provide light
and dark contrasts in space. Very broad strokes
were accomplished by the use of a reed pen by
Vincent van Gogh, who used dots for luminosity.
Color or sculpture are suggested by the sensuous
lines of Henri Matisse, and Pablo Picasso proved
to be a virtuoso with lines, tonalities, and textures.
The lines and textures of Paul Klee can be highly
inventive. I have learned from these artists and
many other masters of ancient times up to the
present.
In general, a drawing of mine becomes valid as
a formed image only if it is drawn, so-to-speak,
out of my own being. It needs some meditation
or reflection, a kind of musing, a wordless dialogue
between the surface to be used and myself. It is as
if the continuity becomes anchored within the surface on which I draw. This gives it also the appearance of spontaneity when drawn with a pen, a
brush, or any other tool which transmits without
hindrance through a process of flow the pictorial
ideas and commits them to paper.
Many of my drawings are done in different
colors and on surfacesvarying in color, but for most
of them, I prefer black on white.
m.

DRAWINGS AS STRUCTURES

In my appraisal, there is no artist in the Western

world whose drawings are grander in conception,
and warmer in execution, than those of Rembrandt
van Rijn. His abstractions from landscapes are of
extraordinary vision, power, and insight. To my
knowledge, it has never been appreciated,or at least,
no one has commented on it in writing, that it was
Rembrandt who, with all his tender warmth,
heralded in his landscape drawings the age of our
contemporary world. This great person considered
the whole of the drawing, done by pen and brush,
which is determined and ruled by lines. Rembrandt
thus emphasised drawing as a structure. The wash
he employs is subordinated to the lines, and so are
always the parts to the whole.
In my landscape drawings, I do not use any
wash, and I attempt to give (in these abstractions
directly drawn from nature) a structure solely
built with lines, a theme I shall develop later.
Cezanne was alleged to have said that by painting

he was drawing. Still, when I look at his extraordinary paintings, they do not change into drawings
as I, an admiringbeholder of his paintings, see them.
They are rich in immensely varied ideas, carefully
composed on the superb spatial conceptions, and
painted in harmonies of color as pure structures.
When I look at many of Cezanne's drawings, I
can be disturbed, even pained, by his often meaningless use of lines, which detract from the image.
I never could understand Cezanne's failure to form
in his drawings what he so incomparably succeeded
and advocated in his paintings.
Thus, to me, a line in a drawing as a structure
has to be meaningful. By this I understand that
its presence must be deeply felt, and drawn on a
surface with the conviction that any line placed in
the drawing is necessary where it is placed. Each
line has to be related to another one or to many
others. This arrangement has to be further varied
by the thickness of the lines, their lengths, directions,
whether and how they are curved, their thinning or
broadening, etc. Any of my drawings as a structure
is only successful to me, if it has these attributes.
It is imperative that a most delicate balance between
the lines must be maintained, regardless whether
the lines are bold or fine or of varying intensity
and density. These drawings are structures, because in them there is the arrangement of all
the parts to the whole. Each of these drawings,however fluid it may appear, is constructed. The
possibilities, relating the parts to a whole, are
endless.
In writing about certain of my drawings in 1962,
I introduced for them the term structures [1].
I grouped the four kinds of my pictures as structures
of things (landscapes), structuresof space, structures
of the spoken, and structures of signs. To these
different kinds of structures, I am adding the
following: dimension of time structures, structures
drawnto music, and structuresdrawnto poems.
The above groupings do not stem from a desire
to pigeonhole the structures I am preoccupied with
in my drawings. Some of them may well be placed
in more than one of these arbitrary groupings.
They are offered merely for orientation.
By 'surface' in my drawings as structuresis meant
the entire picture surface, regardless of size, dimensions or materials onto which lines are drawn.
The entire surface needs to be viewed for all those
drawings, which I call structures. This surface
cannot be divided or separated for the purpose to
show merely the portion(s) or area(s) covered by
lines. Any portion, when separated from the whole,
ceases to be the drawing formed as a structure,
even though it may contain most or all of the lines
drawn in the particular picture.
1. Structuresof things
The structuresof things have a special position in
my drawings as structures because they are representational pictures. They are abstracted directly
during my viewing a landscape, a figure, a flower,
etc. Although the drawing may contain comparably

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L. Alcopley

few lines, each line is drawn often after long reflection and is meant to give, together with the
other lines, a likeness of what is represented. It is
not rare that the beholder could then actually
recognise the particular landscape, architectural
edifice, the person portrayed, etc. (Fig. 1).
In the structures of things, I attempt to make
visible what, to my feeling and way of seeing, is
essential for the pictorial representation. I would
see, as anyone else would, many lines in whatever
is in front of me. It then becomes as essential for
the representationto consider which of the observed
lines to delete and which of them to retain. Thus,
the areas of the surface uncovered by the lines of

* A.

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three decades I have been an experimental biologist

and therefore have lived in a world of the smallest
natural phenomena. At the same time, I have tried,
by the continuous practice of drawing, to catch
some of their aesthetic and expressive values until
finally the setting of lines crystallised into new signs.
They correspond to certain thoughts which I can
only express in the movement of these lines' [1]
(Fig. 2).
3. Structuresof space
The drawings as structures of space can be defined as expressing certain movements which are
made usually by a brush or several brushes and

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Fig. 1. Drawingas a structureof things:ReykjavikHarbor,Iceland, 12.3x 17.8 cm, 1950.

the drawing are as significant for the image as those
covered by them. In this sense, the structures of
things, although representational, do not differ
from the non-representational structures.
I like to draw from nature not merely because it
affords an exercise in craftsmanship, but also it
gives me an occasion to enter into a relationship
with the world around me in my task of portraying
or representing a selected part of it in the form of
the unity of a drawing.
2. Structuresof signs
The structures of signs are assemblies of lines.
The word 'sign' is used here loosely. I proposed
the structures of signs to have a specific meaning,
about which I wrote in 1962:
'They spring from my personal experience of
nature, and the special phenomena with which I
am concerned in my scientific work. For more than

give an image of lines in space. Some of these

drawings are done in continuous motions, which can
be followed in one or the other direction. Thus they
do not appear to have a beginning or an end.
In contrast to these drawings, there are those in
which the motions of the brush are arrested (Fig.
3).
4. Structures of the spoken
The structures of the spoken came into being
when I participated in a colloquy on 'Art and
Thinking' held at the University of Freiburg im
Breisgau in 1958 [1]. This colloquy developed into
a dialogue between the philosopher Martin Heidegger and the Zen Master Hoseki Shin'ichi
Hisamatsu. These structures originated while I
was listening to these two thinkers. I wrote about
these structures as follows:
'These drawings appear to record the sense of their

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Drawings as Structuresand Non-Structures

thoughts rather than the movement of the words
as they were spoken, as they produced in me an
echo which I could transform and express in another
medium and project onto paper to be contained
within the given space of a page' [1].
5. Structuresdrawn to poems
Structuresdrawnto poems are drawings which are
not illustrations, but follow a procedure which is
perhaps best described by what I wrote in 1959 [2]
to the German poet Siegfried Broese:

sion of time in viewing them. The ancient Chinese

and Japanese artists have used this approach in their
horizontal, story-telling scroll pictures. As it was
customary for the reader of a manuscript to unroll
one part of the scroll with one hand, and rolling
the read part with the other hand, such scroll
pictures might have been viewed usually in this way
of unrolling and rolling the scroll.
In my dimension of time structures, the picture
needs to be viewed always in its entirely stretchedout position. If the picture is a vertical one, the

Fig. 2. Drawingas a structureof signs, 22-8x 15'1cm, 1967.

'With your poems I followed the procedure of
reading the poem, reading it again and again to
comprehend it deeply. Then, your thoughts or
your mood, so-to-speak took over my hand and
guided it. Naturally, I was not merely a medium
as Klee speaks about himself and his work, but I
composed consciously within the limitation of the
sheet of paper which I had in front of me' (Fig. 4).
6. Dimension of time structures
Those of my pictures, which cannot be seen as a
whole at one sight, are grouped under dimension
of time structures. The beholder needs the dimen-

beholder will need to move his eyes and head up and

down. He could begin at any part of the picture,
but he will have to do it either in the upward or
downward direction in order to comprehend the
image. For the horizontal dimension of time
structure,he will have no choice other than, wherever
he chooses his departure, to move to the left or to
the right, in taking a walk along the entire length
of the picture. It differs markedly from viewing
a long horizontal scroll or from a sequence of pictures in any film, motion picture or in many manifestations of kinetic art. In the latter instances, the
viewer is obliged to see the sequence of pictures in

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L. Alcopley

one direction. He cannot go backward or forward

at will or at random. However, in front of a dimension of time structure, he can do as he pleases,
and he is free to decelerate or accelerate his pace
of viewing.
The dimension of time structures,which I executed
as drawings or paintings, vary appreciably in size.
For the horizontal kind [3,4], the so-called promenade pictures, they were up to 25 m in width and

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sion of time structure of about 8 m in height and

60 cm in width. It was placed on a wall of the
museum's entrance hall, which it covered over its
entire height. Upon entering the museum, the
beholder could see it with minimum movements of
his head. However, the closer he came to the picture, the more he had to move his head upward
in order to view the entire picture. Thus, the vertical
dimension of time structures of great height in-

Lj

Fig. 3. Drawingas a structureof space,30-4x 22-8cm, 1967.

from 1 cm up to 3 m in height. For the vertical
kind [5,6]-the so-called skyscraper picturesthey were up to 10 m in height and from 1 cm to
up to 70 cm in width. It became necessary to lower
the height of these vertical pictures in accordance
with a narrower width. Otherwise, the viewer
would not be able to discern the lines in the entire
drawing regardless of whether any of its portions
was less or more removed from him.
At an exhibition in 1959, held at the Musee de
l'Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris, I showed a dimen-

volve more viewing time the closer the beholder's

position is to the picture. On the other hand, the
horizontal dimension of time structures depend
much more on the time of viewing than the vertical
ones.
7. Structures drawn to music
Since 1945, I have made drawings as structures
as well as non-structureswhile listening to music.
The structuresdrawn to music (Fig. 5) were composed in a way similarto the structuresof the spoken.

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Drawings as Structures and Non-Structures

Some reflection even of very brief duration was

needed after my listening to certain sounds of the
musical composition to translate them into lines
and compose these lines on the paper to form a
structure. These drawings to music as structures
differ markedly from those as non-structures,

kinds of structures have in common the translation

of a composition from the art forms of music and
poetry into the entirely different one of drawing.
Of interest here is the reverse, that is, the 'translation' from my drawings as structures into musical
compositions. This was done recently by the com-

do

LL

Fig. 4. Structure drawn to poem by Robert Lowell, Prometheus Bound derivedfrom Aeschylus.

'Prometheus:Now that I am chained here, I suppose I am almost free at last' [7] 18-7x
25-2cm, 14thJuly 1967.

because the latter are placed on paper with instantaneous rapidity, as if the lines drawn chase continuously after the sounds, and just about manage
to catch up with them.
The structures drawn to music, although produced similarly to the structures of the spoken,
are more akin to those drawn to poems. Both

poser Otto Gmelin in sonatas or structures for

organ and piano [8].
IV. DRAWINGS AS NON-STRUCTURES
In our Western ways of seeing it goes without
saying that all drawings are structural, even though
they are not conceived as structures.

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L. Alcopley

10

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Fig. 5. Drawing as a structure to music by Claudio Monteverdi (1567-1643), Il Ballo delle

Ingrate (The Dance of the Heartless Ladies). TownHall, New York, 10-2 x 15-2 cm, 24 January

1967.

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Fig. 6. Drawing as a non-structureto music by Edgard Varese(1883-1965), Poeme Electronique.

Columbia University, New York, at a Service in Memory of Le Corbusier, 9-4 x 12-5 cm,

18 October, 1965.

Drawings as non-structuresI have practiced, for

instance, in drawn recordings of sounds while
listening to music. As soon as I perceived the
sounds they were translated instantaneously and
projected onto the paper. In these recordings there
is little, if any, time to reflect about the position
and qualities of the lines (Fig. 6). The produced
recording has hardly a composition, and, if it

has one at all, it is rather vague. Yet these nonstructure drawings may have a certain interest to
the viewer.
As drawings they can be quite incomplete and
to some extent non-formed. They may simulate
sounds in a musical composition without simulating
their organizedform. They may be the drawn echoes
of the sounds, which they follow immediately by

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Drawings as Structuresand Non-Structures

the movement of the pen, and the hand holding and
leading it. The main characteristics of these curious transcriptions may be the spontaneity and
unexpectedness of the direction, thrust, and movements of lines which can be quite inventive.
The drawings as non-structures while listening
to music are unlike the structures of the spoken.
These structures, although drawn 'on the spur of
the moment', have been drawn quickly only after
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I would not know how to gauge any degrees of

'formlessness'. Since in the arts, both their originators, the artists themselves, and the beholders
view the appearance of a work of art with their
naked eyes, findings of submacroscopic viewing,
which would reveal all kinds of structures,would be
utterly meaningless.
In the Western world, the so-called 'formless'
in the visual arts has never been appreciatedas in the

I
Fig. 7. Enlargedminimumdrawing,1949,[10].
I had sufficient time to reflect about the sense of
the thoughts in the spoken words, and, therefore,
do not 'record' the movements of the sounds of
spoken words. I could probably make drawings
as non-structures of the spoken word while listening
to words of languages which I do not know.
I have practiced drawings as non-structures in
many other ways, including those which were meant
to be representations, and I employed different
techniques.
I am not quite clear whether any of my nonstructure drawings can be entirely 'formless', and

Far East. In Zen art, according to the Zen master

Hoseki Shin'ichi Hisamatsu [9], 'the highest
form of beauty is present where no form and no
structure are left'.
V. ON SIZE AND PROPORTIONS
It is always the entire area of a page which serves
as the surface for a drawing as a structure, regardless whether it is tiny, small, large or immense.
Therefore, the presentation of the pictures, when
drawn as structures, would not permit any kind of

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12

L. Alcopley

limitation by passe-partout or any other covering

of the edges of the surface. This also holds true for
any reproduction, regardless how small an area of
the drawing as a structure might contain the lines.
Any reduction or enlargement in size must account
for the entire surface. The proportions of each
drawing as a structure becomes thus all-important.
There is a general belief that the actual size of a
work of art testifies to its significance, and that
small-sized or tiny-sized works of art could never

original size by a photographic process. After he

had the enlarged drawing on the wall of his studio
for many months, he and another artist friend wrote
in 1951 an article about my enlarged tiny drawings
and on my other drawings. The article contained
also several enlargements of the tiny drawings,
some of which covered an entire page of the magazine [10] (Fig. 7).
My drawings employing tiny sizes originated in
1946. Many of these drawings, which were much

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Fig. 8. Assemblageof minimumdrawings,14 x 10-8cm, 1960.

have the importance of works of very large size.
This assumption can be proven wrong merely by
giving as one example the Venus of Willendorf
(Moravia) about 29,000 B.C., Upper Paleolithic
Period of the Pleistocene cultures. There is hardly
another work of art, regardless of its size, that may
be considered more powerful than this figure of
10-9 cm in height.
A painter friend of mine convinced me about the
largeness in some of my very small drawings in
making in 1950 the following experiment. He had
one of my drawings of about 3 cm in height and
in width enlarged to approximately thirty times its

smaller than postage stamp size, were drawn either

on small sheets of paper, and then cut to the desired
size or drawn on tiny areas which were of the final
size, often after the tiny paper had been glued on
card paper which was usually of a different color.
This colored carton was meant to act as a kind of
mat, and not for the sake of its color, in order to
draw attention to the glued-on, tiny islet, which was
the drawing.
These drawings as non-structures, which I refer
to as minimumdrawings,remind me of an exhibition
of an artists' group in which I participated in 1948
at the Riverside Museum in New York, where I

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Drawings as Structuresand Non-Structures

showed them publicly. I pinned on a board, about
90 x 60 cm in size, forty-eight of these drawings,
each mounted on a differently uni-colored cardpaper, of approximately 8 x6 cm, in eight rows,
each of six pictures. I took care that this assemblage
was adequately arranged to make it appear as one
single picture of the size of the board. Each drawing,
varying from 0-5 cm to 2-5 cm in height or width,
was fastened to the board by a pin.
From forty-eight to fifty-four minimum drawings
were also drawn on paper in form of an assemblage
[11]. They were, alongside and below each other,
on single sheets of about 12 x 9 cm. This kind of
assemblage (Fig. 8) differed from the presentation
at the Riverside Museum exhibition, where not only
each drawing was mounted on differently colored
paper, but also because each was further apart
from its neighbor. In the assemblages on single
white sheets of paper, the drawings are, therefore,
close together. It is not rare that both size and
proportions of the minimum drawings on each row
of these assemblages differ markedly. Some of
them can be found to be 1-2 mm in height and 9
cm or more in width. Reproductions of some of
these assemblages are contained in the book of my
drawings, conceived by the Amsterdam painter and
typographic artist Dick Elffers, who made the
maquette.
Numerous minimum drawings cover the pages
of many unpublished tiny books of about 3-3 x
2-4 cm in size. They were drawn directly on the
pages of these miniature books, which I found in
toy shops in Japan in 1960. My Japanese friends
were quite amazed at seeing me drawing on the
pages of these books which, hitherto, they had
considered as toys for small children.
Since 1950, I made drawings on translucent
silicone sheets. These sheets of about 6 x 10 cm
in size, clipped together or bound, are employed
for the cleaning of microscope lenses. I found them
a fascinating material to draw on, because the
transparency of each sheet, containing the drawing,
permitted varying numbers of the drawings in the
book to be viewed together as one single drawing.
It was the intention to superimpose as many sheets
as possible simultaneously to arrive still at one
single picture. This viewing becomes even more
effective, when the sheets are held up against daylight or artificial light. The viewer can vary the
number of sheets, and then secure not merely
different pictures, but, to some extent, a three-dimensional space.
The principle of superimposingdifferentdrawings
I applied later in another form of three-dimensional
drawing. This was realised in small rectangular,
rather narrow boxes, constructed of translucent
sheets of plastics, which were not covered with lines.
The box contained the drawings on translucent
plastic sheets of different shapes and curvatures,
placed and anchored inside at different angles to
the vertical planes of the box.
The idea of using different proportions was first
applied by me in 1945, to paintings in a vertical

13

position. I called them, as mentioned above,

skyscraper pictures, which I showed first in 1948
in New York at the annual exhibition of the American Abstract Artists group. When I exhibited the
highest in Paris, beginning in 1953 at the Salon des
Realites Nouvelles, they became known as peintures
gratte-ciel [5]. As drawings, the elongated formats
were first used in 1948 in composite pictures, containing many drawings of different sizes on a given
surface. Later, I used these formats in single drawings both in the vertical and horizontal position.
(More is said about these elongated pictures under
Dimension of Time Structures.) My original
thought was to have the vertical pictures along the
height of skyscrapersor very tall buildings, and the
horizontal picturesalong the width of large buildings
or any of its sections, as a single band.
The application to architecture was first demonstrated in 1955 with a skyscraper painting, 6 m
in height and 32 cm in width, mounted within an
elongated iron frame, in an exhibition of the Groupe
Espace, held in the Park National de Saint-Cloud,
at the Premiere Exposition Internationale de
Materiaux et Equipements du Batiment et des
Travaux Publics [6]. A promenade painting, 15 m
in width and 3 m in height was realised in 1958 at
the University of Freiburg im Breisgau as a mural,
commissioned by the State of Baden-Wuerttemberg
[3].
A modification of the idea of a dimension of time
picture is its application to sky-writing. Instead
of using words advertising some product, I thought
to have the sky-writers making, with the smoke or
fumes emanating from their planes, huge drawings
as non-structures in the sky. These sky-drawings
might be alternated with aphorisms, words of
wisdom or with poems. These are fleeting and
perishable kinds of drawings, akin to those familiar
ones, such as are made in sand on a beach or in
butter.
For the reproduction of drawings as structures
it is necessary to show, if possible, the entire structure, whether largely decreased or increased in size,
in its actual proportions. This, however, is not
possible on a page of a book or on a conventionally
sized print of a picture, for instance, with a drawing
as dimension of time structure. In this case, a
portion of the drawing can be reproduced as a
fragment, and identified as such.
In the book of my drawings Voies et Traces,
the architect Rolf Jaehrling, who designed the
maquette, made the reproductions of each drawing
in its actual size on sheets which were not bound
[12].
In another book of my drawings, to which I gave
the title You Don't Say, the reproductions of the
drawings on card paper were also made in their
actual size [13]. In this book, designed and produced by the typographic artist Diter Rot, one side
of each card, measuring 20x 3 cm, carries the
drawing in black on white, while the other side has
the same drawing in white on black. These elongated cards are pierced near one end and attached

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14

L. Alcopley

to a metal screw which holds them together. This

mode of binding is (with the exception of the screw)
similar to a method of binding of manuscripts,
practiced in ancient India. The book of drawings
is viewed in moving each page around the axis of the
screw. The drawings, bound by the screw, are kept
in a box similar to those employed for scrolls in
China and Japan.
VI. TODAY'S WORLD VIEW OF SCIENCE
AND ON LElTERLESS WRITING
The conception of space in my pictures has been
erroneously identified with the conception of
space in the pictures by artists of ancient China
and Japan. At a first glimpse, the Eastern conception of space and my conception of it seem to be very
close, but they are altogether different. The decisive distinction is that the feeling for space in my
pictures is that of Western man, experiencing and
practicing Western thought. For us, reared in
Western civilization, space, as we feel it, contains
all entitities or objects. For the Asian artist, experiencing and practicing Far Eastern thought,
space is the void which cannot be seen, but permeates
everything as an active agent [14, 15].
In my pictures, the basic vision is related to
modern science and the world view derived from
it. As I am actively engaged in fundamental
research pertaining to the study of processes of life,
I am constantly aware of a world, where everything
is in motion. The visualisation of the world view
of modern science in my formed images is possibly
the most original aspect in my artistic endeavours.
I do not set out to represent the ultrastructureof a
minimal part of a cell, of an organism or of an
inanimate particle, as seen in the electron microscope or by any other optical means. Such attempts
to give a representation or a naturalistic picture of
parts of nature, only accessible to us by the use of
microscopes and other fine instruments, is of no
interest to me.
I do not deny that forms which I have seen with
the aid of instruments, employed in the sciences,
which I practice, may, in some abstracted way,
become elements in my drawings. However, I have
no intention of abstracting from these visual recordings or any others, which are known to everyone,
because of their wide popularisation by the various
media of mass communication.
What then is the basic vision in my work as related to science? It is the flow or motion of elementary spatial processes which I experience in my
scientific activities. For instance, there are giant
molecules which occur in the living matter of plants,
animals, and men, as well as in certain synthetic
materials.
(No one nowadays is unaware of the ubiquitous
use of plastics, which are composed of synthetic
giant molecules, and the artist depends upon
many of these materials as paints, sheets, blocks,
brushes, glues, etc.)
Our world view of science originated with several

pre-Socratic Greek philosophers who lived about

500 B.C. [16]. Democritus had the inspiration
to propose that matter is made up of tiny particles
which he called atoms and which he thought to
be constantly in motion. There was Heraclitus who
said, 'It is not possible to step twice into the same
river', and who is better known for the saying
o
Trdvr

pel

'Everything flows'.

It took more than two thousand years for the

contemporary scientist to catch up with the powerful insights which originated with these giants
of Western thought. As we cannot see an atom,
its unseeable structure was visualised in recent
times as clouds of electrons, moving constantly
around dense cores. This was done by scientists
with brilliant reasoning and deductions, both by
the use of physical apparatus and of mathematics. As is generally known, atoms band together with other atoms of their own kind or
with other elements and form molecules of
different size, structure, and properties. The giant
molecules or polymers (from the Greek, meaning
many parts), with which I am preoccupied in
some of my scientific work, stimulate my pictorial
vision.
The holding together or so-called bonding of
atoms of carbon can lead to chains of giant
molecules. The shape of these chains is due to
the assemblage or arrangement of non-branched
or branched, sometimes cross-linked, flexible or
inflexible, aligned or non-aligned polymer chains.
In these molecular arrangements, the distribution
of space plays a significant role in their structures.
The properties of the assemblages or arrangements of giant molecules can be measured by the
methods of the science of rheology which is the
science of flow and deformation of matter. This
modern physical science has been traced to the
insight of the pre-Platonic thinker Heraclitus [17].
It is this science with which I have been particularly
associated during the past thirty-five years, and
which I, as a physiologist, applied to biological
systems, especially to the flow of blood and to its
relation to the blood vessel wall.
It seems to me that perhaps the knowledge of my
particular background as a scientist may be of aid
to the beholder, when viewing my pictures. Not
that I think that such knowledge is a prerequisite
for an understanding of my work. It may help the
reader to comprehend more fully what I mean
above by the world view of modern science, as
based on Western thought, and by its new feeling
of space, as I attempt to show in my drawings and
paintings (Fig. 9).
The conception of space in my pictures is filled
with elementary processes, similar to those of
inanimate origins. The pictures are not representative of any particles or organisms or their parts,
which we see with our eyes, aided or nonaided.
My pictures were designated by the philosopher
Heinrich Bluecheras 'a kind of a "letterless"writing'

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__
--- _ _ "r-"

.^^^w^^^^^^B^^^^---P^^^^F

ii--

3?rr'
r?"

'9.

elm^^^

- - 0 -lag

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Fig. 9. A Letterless Writing, 26 5 x 203 cm, 1967.

[facingp. 14]

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Drawings as Structuresand Non-Structures

(14). It is as though the universe reveals itself here.
Many persons have mistaken my letterless
writing for calligraphy. This misunderstanding
probably came about because calligraphy is used
in pictures by many modern artists, beginning with
the work of Kandinsky, Klee, Torres-Garcia, Miro,
among others. A definite meaning of letters or
hieroglyphs appears to be still suggested in these
writings of modern artists.
Writing in the conventional usage is the action of
fashioning letters, numbers, words, or characters,
and committing them to manuscript with a pen
or, as was common practice in both the Near and
Far East, with a brush.
Calligraphy in the West is elegant penmanship,
often highly styled, and is practiced as a craft.
Calligraphyin the Far East is the writing of characters or ideograms specially arranged and brushed
usually on white paper with inks of different shades
of black. Calligraphy has been developed and
mastered as a Fine Art by the great painters of the
Orient.
In both the East and West, calligraphy has thus
been always associated with letters, words, or
sentences. In my work, letterless writing or writing
withoutwordbecomes drawing, in which the imparting of motion has as its actuatingforce the experience

of the unsayable. It is as if a breath would form the

world in which all is moving and alive.
VII. CONCLUSIONS
The numerous alterations of the line, its position,
direction, and thrust in space have to be sensed
in the process of composing or designing the
drawing. By design in a drawing as a structure or
as a non-structure I do not mean the customary
usage of the word close to its etymology 'to mark
out' (from the Latin designare),but the composition
of interrelating lines with the intention to produce
the image. Design is thus identical with the originating process, and is practiced as freely as my
sensibilities and capabilities would permit.
In a poem-picture drawn for a lithograph [18],
which I made in 1964, I tried to translate into words
what may be found in my drawings:
Line and line
Drawn into being
Thoughts run after
Line through line
The word is born
And other thoughts
From Line to Line.

REFERENCES
1. L.Alcopley, Alcopley-Listening to Heidegger andHisamatsu. Reproductions of structures

by Alcopley. Texts in German,Japaneseand English. Maquetteby Shiryu Morita.

(Kyoto: BokubiPress, 1968,in press).

2.

15

L. Alcopley, 'Einsichten' Drawings by Alcopley to Poems by S. E. Broese (Freiburg im

Breisgau: Eberhard Albert, 1959).

3. Will Grohmann,Kunst an den FreiburgerUniversitaetsbauten-AlcopleyQuadrum9,

28 (1960).
4.

L. Alcopley, Little Promenades With My Friend Will, Fourteen lithographs (New York:

5.

EduardTrier, Kalligraphien und Wolkenkratzerbilder, Frankf. Allg. Zt. No. 200,30 (Aug.

UNA Editions, 1967).

1957).
6. Anon., Exhibitionof the Group 'Escape',Generalview, paintingon linen by Alcopley,
7.

Arts & Architecture, p. 13 (October 1955).

Robert Lowell, Prometheus Bound Derived from Aeschylus, New York Review of Books

8.

Otto Gmelin, Alcopley-Structuresfor OrganandPiano. Record and text. Reproductions.

17-24 (13 July 1967).

of drawingsby Alcopley. (6914Hohenweiler:OttoGmelin,to be published,spring1968).

Hoseki Shin'ichi Hisamatsu, Alcopley-Listening to Heidegger and Hisamatsu (Kyoto:

Bokubi Press, 1968, in press).
10. Willem de Kooning and Franz Kline, On Worksof Mr. Alcopley (Kyoto: Bokubi-Beauty
of Black and White, July 1952) No. 16 p. 11.
11. Michael Seuphor, Ecritures-Dessins d' Alcopley (Paris: Editions Les Nourritures
9.

1954).
Terrestres,1954;Dutch edition,Amsterdam:Meijer-Wormerveer

12. Will Grohmann, Alcopley-Voies et Traces (Wuppertal: R. Jaehrling Galerie Parnass,

1961).
13. L. Alcopley, 'You Don't Say' (Reykjavik: Florag ed., 1962).
14. Heinrich Bluecher, Alcopley. Drawings (New York: Byron Gallery, 1964) Publication

No. 2.
15. Karl Jaspers, The Great Philosophers, Vol. II, The Original Thinkers, Hannah Arendt,

Ed. Hao-Tzu.(New York: Harcourt,Brace, 1966)p. 388.

16. K. Freeman, Ancilla to the Pre-Socratic Philosophers. A complete translation of the

Fragments in Diels, Fragmenteder Vorsokrafiker(Cambridge: Harvard University Press,

1956).

17. A. L. Copley, On the Validity of Classical Fluid Mechanics in Biorheology, in: Symposium
on Biorheology, A. L. Copley, Ed. (New York: John Wiley and Interscience, 1965).
18. L. Alcopley, Structures of Travels, Seven lithographs including a poem-picture, Edizioni
del Grattacielo, Milano, Stamperia d'Arte 'I1Torchio', (1962).

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16

L. Alcopley
Dessins en tante que Structureset Non-Structures
Resum--Un dessin se definit comme une image dans laquelle la disposition de lignes
l'emporte sur les considerations de couleur. Les dessins ont ete con,us par l'auteur
en tant que structures et non-structures,bien que tout dessin soit obligatoirement
structure. Pour ce qui est des dessins consideres comme non-structures,les elements
tels que l'inattendu, l'accidentel et l'automatisme jouent un role essentiel. Dans un
dessin considere'comme structure chaque ligne doit avoir ete profondement sentie et
dessinee sur une surface avec la conviction qu'elle doit s'y trouver necessairement
ou elle est placee. On entend par surface la totalite du tableau qui ne saurait etre
divisee ou separee du reste, afin de ne montrer qu'une portion de 1'ensemblerecouverte
de lignes.
Ces dessins sont dits en tant que structures parce qu'en ce qui les concerne il y a
correlation entre toutes ses parties et l'ensemble. Les dessins en tant que structures
ont ete classes dans les sept groupes ci-apres: structuresd'objets (y compris les paysages), structures de l'espace, structures de la parole, structures de signes, structures
dessinees d'apres des poemes, dimension dessinees d'apres structure temporelle, et
structuresde la musique.
La significationde la dimension et des proportions des dessins consideres en tant que
structureset non-structuresest soulignee mise en evidence tandis qu'une consideration
particuliere est accordee a l'espace inherent a certaines oeuvres d'art de petites ou tres
petites dimensions. Les minimumdessins de l'auteur sont consideres aussi bien en tant
qu'oeuvres isolees que comme des ensembles.
La tri-dimensionalite est visible non seulement dans les dessins superposes mais
aussi bien dans les tableaux gratte-ciels, verticales de l'auteur que ses tableaux
panoramiqueshorizontales dans lesquels la dimension temporelle entre dans la vision
de l'oeuvre par le spectateur. L'auteur insiste sur le fait que ses oeuvres, a la fois des
dessins que ses peintures, sont essentiellement diff6rents de celles realisees par les artistes de l'ancienne Chine et du Japon, en raison de leur conception entierement
diff6rentede l'espace.
II a tente de faire un rapprochemententre la conception universelle, moderne de la
science comme un produit de la pensee occidentale et l'ecrituresans lettres de l'auteur.
Cette ecriture n'est pas une forme quelconque de la calligraphie pratiquee en Orient
ou des abstractions realisees par les artistes modernes-en Occident ou en Orientqui suggerent encore une signification definie des lettres, des ideogrammes ou des
hieroglyphes.

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