THE ROYAL College of Art recently announced ''The reintroduction of drawing, as a discipline''. That this should qualify as news may surprise some people. Drawing ''reintroduced''? Where had it gone? And how come drawing, for centuries the bedrock of fine art education, had disappeared from Britain's most famous college of art and design in the first place?
Bryan Kneale, formerly the RCA's Professor of Sculpture, is its first ever Professor of Drawing. The draughtsman's contract seems, on the face of it, a favourable one. A new Department of Drawing has been created and spacious drawing studios built, with the assistance of funds from Rowney, on the seventh floor of the Royal College. In this eyrie, overlooking the rooftops of SW7, Kneale presides over the classic mise-en-scene of art education - a naked woman sits on a kitchen chair, under intense scrutiny from about half a dozen pencil-wielding students - and answers questions about the role of drawing in British art schools.
He thinks that ''drawing has perhaps been neglected in the recent past''. That is an understatement. The fact is that drawing from observation all but vanished from British art schools in the 1960s and 1970s. It per-sisted in a few places: most of the Scottish art schools; in London, at the Slade, where the strength of Wil-liam Coldstream's influence, even after his death, ensured its survival. These were exceptions. Ron Bowen, Senior Lecturer at the Slade, says that ''Observation simply ceased to be of interest to most students and tutors. Even here, where the life class has remained central in the education of students, its role was chal-lenged.''
This requires explanation. First, then, a historical outline; a quick sketch, in black and white, of the de-cline of drawing in art schools.
For more than 300 years, artists were trained...
