Why Drawing Still Matters

Abstract

This chapter explores drawings of Greek vases from three turning points in the history of ceramic studies and in archaeological thinking more broadly: they reveal how these objects were made sense of through the emergent taxonomies of early modern antiquarianism, how Neoclassical critics reinterpreted the materiality of the painted decoration as form and reconceptualized the act of drawing itself, and finally how drawing allowed painted pottery to be accommodated in the all-embracing classifications of scientific archaeology that crystalized in the twentieth century. The final section considers how drawing aided the formation of processes of knowing, inviting the consideration of touch, embodied viewing, and craft in general into object-based research. Throughout, the aim is to shift the conversation from evaluating drawings of vases as more or less accurate visual records to the transformations which the practice of visualization itself accomplishes—how it shapes the viewer’s perceptions and has given rise to new frameworks of interpretation.