It has been a while since I have had the chance to write, catching up on so many things but a month ago I had a day in London to catch the Jerwood Drawing Prize before it left town. Having entered myself , unsuccessfully, I was curious to see what had been selected. Sometimes I have been disappointed by the selection but this year there was a good range, inevitably there were those that I find hard to appreciate but many caught my eye. I have never been one for work that looks plain sloppy, rather I want to see evidence of some skill and thought that has gone into the making of a piece. I understand that drawing is a thinking process for some to explore ideas without worrying about a polished finished, but even then some intent should be visible.
This year more of that was obvious with some pieces that evidently required many hours of labour and thought, others more spontaneous still captured scenes with the lightest of touch. Two artists made use of laser cutting technologies within their works to create lines while another showed a selection of carefully folded pieces of thin paper testifying to the broad possibilities that drawing can involve. Overall I found it a better balanced exhibition that some over the last few years and would recommend seeing it at one of the other venues it is moving on to over the next few months.

After the Jerwood I went to the British Museum, if you have not discovered Room 90, tucked up at the back of floor 4, I would highly recommend it, it is part of the prints and drawings department. There is always an interesting selection of work from their collection on display. At the moment it is a range from Picasso to Julie Mehretu spanning most of the last century. There is a mix of the A list names and also a few surprises from some lesser known artists. One for me was a couple of drawings from Charles Seliger, somewhat surreal biomorphic shapes that wanted to move off the page. A later drawing from Philip Guston really showed his draughtsmanship, with a charcoal sketch of some of his classic hooded figures. While a couple from Gerhard Richter added to the sheer range of what he is capable of.

Then I went right back in time to the Ancient Egyptian Book of the Dead exhibition, while not sounding the most cheery of subjects it does show a range of fascinating drawings. The book of the dead was essentially a scroll of spells intended to aid the passage of the deceased’s soul to the afterlife and would be placed in their tomb. As so often happens, the richer you were the more elaborate scroll you could afford to buy for yourself, tailor made to your specifications while other cheaper ones were generic and scribes just added your name in the appropriate places.
The quality of the scrolls on display is amazing considering they range from two to almost four thousand years old. Over the years the spells and nature of the scrolls changed but they remained a combination of text and illustrations which depicted the stages of travel and tests required to reach the afterlife.

Drawing then can have many purposes but has been central to human culture for millennia.