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The Art of Cognition

October 7, 2015/ Dave Messing / Advice & Art Tips / 2 comments

“Cognition” is best defined as, “a knowing” and “recognize” is, “to know again”. Learning to be an artist is all about learning to see or re-cognize what you “know ” about the subject you are re-presenting.

Let’s say you are doing a portrait and your subject is wearing a tee shirt. Let’s put aside the myriad of pitfalls in achieving a likeness and just concentrate on the tee shirt. Take a close look at the neck band or hem around the neck of the shirt. It is about a half inch wide and is twice as thick as the shirt. The weave of the fabric radiates as it goes around the neck and you “know” that this hem is sewn so that it stays in place.

So by looking closely just at the neck of this tee shirt you now know that there is a weave direction to the fabric, the neck has a hem , the weave radiates around the neck and you can see the the line of the sewing holding everything in place. When YOU accurately represent what you know or have learned about this shirt those who view your art “re-cognize” what THEY know about a tee shirt and marvel at how well it is rendered.

It’s about learning or knowing what makes things “recognizable”.

Now this sounds terribly detailed but cognition need not be that detailed. It is just about learning or knowing what makes things “recognizable”. Bark usually runs along the length of the tree and branches. Wrinkles usually radiate perpendicular the the direction of the muscles. Bird feathers are offset like shingles on a roof. Eyes and eyelids are usually wet looking. Shiny metallic objects have graduated shades and colors with hard edged highlights. Blue jeans have a distinct seam that just says that they are blue jeans. Wooden objects usually shows a grain characteristic of the wood. Ugh – It never ends! We artists see this stuff everywhere we look! It’s no wonder the rest of the world looks at us like we are nuts .

So just by re-presenting what you are “cognitive” of in a particular subject your viewers will “re-cognize” what they “know” about the subject and there in lies the magic of cognition .