chapter 5

When you think about it, how can lines show us emotions and feelings. how can simple lines 'unite' our 5 senses? In chapter 5. called "Living in line", McCloud explains how lines can portray any kind of feeling, emotion, or idea. A line can be soft and mellow--depicting gentleness, serenity, peacefulness...or it can be harsh, thick and bold-- depicting anger, loudness and madness. McCloud uses examples such as the famous painting "The Scream", by Edvard Munch. Munch uses long curved jaggered lines, to express the movement and flow of the painting. The screaming figure is surrounded by lines that flow around it, in the same upwards movement so show this fluent flow through the painting.

The author also refers to Vincent Van Gogh's self portrait and Wassily Kandinsky'd paintings. all three artists have very different lines styles and this effects the different moods and feelings being expressed. As and example, look at Walt Disneys animations. They all have villians and heros, and through their linework, it is easy to destinguish evil from good. I watched Aladdin recently, and found that the artists have drawn the good guys-- Aladdin, jasmine, the dad etc with smooth and rounded curved lines. This emphasises the fact that they are the good guys, expressing warmth and happiness to the viewers. But once Jafar comes on screen, all the lines used to depict him and his surroundings are sharp edged and ridged. Jafars face and clothes are drawn with hard, angular and sharp lines. This emphasises anger and evilness, and it is obvious that Jafar is the villian within the story. I can see how this technique is very effective and influences us veiwers greatly in how we perseive the characters.

Aladdin and Genie--soft smooth linework


contrasting linework between Aladdin and Jafar Jafar--linework all sharp and harsh, his face is very slick and...evil.

Through lines, artists have developed different ways of showing the unseen elements within reality. Things such as smell lines, movement lines, air movement...to anger and stess lines, lines that show emotions and feelings. In the comic strips of "Garfield", I like how the artist has found ways of showing certain invisible forms. In the comic strip below, we can see how the artist has used the symbols of water droplets to emphasis sweat beads jumping off the characters stressed faces. These sweat beads are obviously not there , as sweat doesnt just fall off you like that, but they are there, and they sybolise sweat beads, and everyone kows that. There are also small lines around the faces when the characters move their heads very quickly. This shows movement...but it is invisible and the lines wont obviously be hter in real life. I find that this is a very effective and efficient way of showing something that is quite difficult to show through a picture...through lines in general.
McCloud also talks about how in different cultures and societies, different symbols have developed and evolved for the same ideas and meanings. Looking at Japanese manga for example, the Japanese artists have developed hundreds of different symbols to depict different moods and facial expressions. Using different strokes and shapes, the artists are still however able to depict and portray the same emotions as any other styled arists would be able to depict. As an artist myself i know how important 'Lines' in general are to portraying moods and expressions in artworks. With simply a few lines, a whole story can be told through the way they are drawn...through shape, angle, tecture, movement and flow, heaviness, intricasy and so on... I think that the points that McCloud has mentioned throughout this chapter pretty much covers the effectiveness and the importance on linework.