the drawing and the line

DISEGNO | COURSE SYLLABUS

May 10, 2026 No Comments

Veronika Wenger
DISEGNO – THE DRAWING AND THE LINE
A three-part course exploring the line as operation, medium, and world principle

International Studio Course of Experimental Painting Department
Hubei Institute of Fine Arts, Wuhan

This course investigates the line not as representation, but as a fundamental operation that connects us to the world. Through three interconnected modules, we explore how the line functions as material, as ordering principle, and as communication – before it becomes drawing, decoration, or language.

Module I:
Line as Drawing – Line as Material

What is the line before it becomes representation?
How does the line function as both operation and medium/form?

The line is not an abstraction of something – it is a concrete operation.
Graphite on paper, ink on silk, pixels on screen: material trace, physical presence, operative distinction.
This module explores the paradox that the line is both abstract and non-abstract simultaneously.

Theoretical Anchor Points:

1. Spencer-Brown: Draw a distinction – the primordial act
2. Luhmann: Form and communication
3. Three modes of observation (based on Veronika Wenger’s research):

Direct observation of nature
From memory
With knowledge

Exercise with horizontal/vertical as primary distinction – exploring marked/unmarked space without representation.

Module II:
Line as Ornament – Line as Pattern

The line, as such, on a surface is not an abstraction – it is a line.

This seemingly simple statement contains a fundamental insight: the line is not abstraction from something. It is concrete operation. Ornament is not decoration, but a world principle – repetition with variation, endless concatenation. Before narration, before symbolism: Byzantine vessels with waves, spirals, branches reveal a universal principle that precedes cultural differentiation.

Distinktion Ornament/Pattern:

Ornament	Pattern
Living, dynamic	Often mechanically repeated
Always specific	Never purely abstract
Organic	Dictated
Part of world principle	Copied

Theoretical Anchor Points:

1. Niklas Luhmann: “The ornamental line is part of nature”
2. Leonardo da Vinci: “The divine nature […] that repeats all visible works”
3. Bernhard Lypp: “Murmurings of the world”

Module III:
Line as Rhythm – Line as Communication

Drawing is a communicative operation, not representation.

When you draw a line, what are you doing? You might say: ‘I am making a mark. Creating form. Expressing something.’ But consider this: you are communicating. Not in the sense of ‘sending a message’ (though that can happen). Something more fundamental: a relationship. Between your hand, the paper, the space, yourself – and whoever will come next. This is not a thing. It is an event. And every event is temporal.

Rhythm is not mere repetition – it is repetition WITH difference. Like a heartbeat: regular, but responsive to the body. Variable, alive: step by step, each unique. The line carries the rhythm of the body within it – slow vs. fast, hesitant vs. confident. Hand, arm, posture determine the stroke.

Chinese calligraphy has long understood this: Qi (energy), the stroke as world energy, participation of the entire body.
Western approaches are often more cognitive-mechanical.

Drawing is a communicative operation, not representation.

Multiple patterns (not rigid grids) enable structure that can unfold.

These three modules are interconnected: the material line becomes ornamental through repetition, and communicates through rhythm. Each module can stand alone, yet they form a coherent exploration of what drawing is before it becomes image, symbol, or language.

Theoretical Anchor Points:

1. Michel Foucault: The transition from trinitarian to binary observation
2. Niklas Luhmann: Form, medium, and communication
3. George Spencer-Brown: “Draw a distinction”
4. Bernhard Lypp: “Connecting of distinctions”

NEWS

May 14, 2019 No Comments

Veronika Wenger, *take I*, 2014, 240 x 240 cm, carbon and spray on wall. Photo © Klaus Mauz

Historically, drawing was not an autonomous medium. Nobody gave much thought as to whether a drawing was abstract or non-abstract, it merely existed to design something or to find a sign for something. Drawing was used for sketching, studying, or preparing a painting.

For me, the most important aspect of drawing is the difference between the line and the drawing itself. The line is able to visualise movement in space, for instance, dancing, writing or speaking. A line can represent a word, a leaf that flies, a passer-by, an accidental or conscious movement. The recorded movement maps a form onto the surface. A line segment from point A to point B.

A–––––––––––––––B

I have to draw a line to mark the line segment. I have to draw a line to visualise movement. Writing therefore, is a good example. Writing visualises speech through a line. It also shows a movement; from left to right, top to bottom, or right to left. Then, is speech movement? It at least has a direction and duration, which is shown linearly by writing or by the recording of a waveform.

Why do I draw? Why do I need to visualise something? It is not to get something off one’s mind, or to remember something, because sometimes I try to erase traces to disperse anything that has left too many marks.

Spoken language is always changing, so it can only be defined temporarily. The written language, however, remains a sign which does not loose validity over time. Its meaning remains, both as a sign and as a registered movement.

The drawing represents the visible and uncovers imagination, ideas, reflections and intuitions. Drawing can come in many forms; it can be documentation, information or art. But it is always communication.

The rhythm of the movement over time has to be in the line, by itself. Finding the right rhythm, composition, or the right movement, is to draw a distinction between abstraction and non-abstraction. In the end the difference is that if I draw a dancer, the movement of a dancer, this is in a way abstract because there is content, but the spectator can also appreciate the way in which I drew the dancer.

Veronika Wenger, *draw a distinction*, 2018, 160 x 125 cm, marker on plastic

But if the movement is only shown by the line, the distinction is shown by the line, then the rhythm is the line– the drawing shown by the pure line. In this case the line is not an abstract line. It is a line. This line forms the drawing, and now the spectator has to deal with it as if it were a part of a language (in the sense that it is the base of the form) in the same way you make sense out of a string of letters. Speech, for example, is not abstract. The sound is a part of reality, as is the letter. It is real, only the meaning, the imagination, and the sensation the letter represents is in a way abstract.

Veronika Wenger, *red line*, 2016, 135 x 150 cm, pencil and marker on plastics. Photo © Klaus Mauz

A line on a surface marks a border or a sign on the unmarked or marked space. So the line visualises the negative space and becomes a form. The line is the unmarked space of the drawing or writing.

What is abstraction?

Veronika Wenger, *drawing03*, pencil, marker on paper, 160 cm x 150 cm, 2015

The dancer – the drawing is an abstraction of nature in a composition of drawing or writing. But the line on the surface is not an abstraction – it is a line – especially a line marked by tape is no abstraction. It is a line, it is (a piece of) reality.

Veronika Wenger, *Black Line*, marker pencil on wall, Istanbul Art Fair Tüyap 2017
Photo © Rhythm Section

It is a line, it is (a piece of) reality. You have to think about what a line is in your imagination, in your mind or in reality.

Veronika Wenger, Ж, 2018, 160 x 125 cm, tape and marker on plastic

A line on a surface can be conscious or unconscious, it can mark something or trace something. This is what I like when I am walking around, finding a composition on a wall or a floor created by accident, made by ‘real life’, the imprint of the world.

To draw or work with the line as an artist seems easy, but the truth is that it is very difficult to find the right line.

An abstract drawing means to find a balance between making ‘the invisible visible and the visible visible’ influenced by the history of drawing.

———————-

Veronika Wenger, Guangzhou, March, 2019

Many thanks for assistance in the translation to Michael Wright and Simon Eastwood

A lecture in the context of an international symposium at the Guangzhou Art Academy on the topic THE PAST AND THE FUTURE OF ABSTRACT ART

DISEGNO | COURSE SYLLABUS

Veronika Wenger DISEGNO – THE DRAWING AND THE LINE A three-part course exploring the line as operation, medium, and world principle

International Studio Course of Experimental Painting Department Hubei Institute of Fine Arts, Wuhan

Module I: Line as Drawing – Line as Material

Module II: Line as Ornament – Line as Pattern

Module III: Line as Rhythm – Line as Communication