Monday, July 12, 2021
Every One Can Draw
Douglas Southall Freeman, R.E. Lee: A Biography, Vol. I (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1943), p. 63 (on the curriculum at West Point; footnote omitted):
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The one added academic study was free-hand drawing of the human figure. This was under the tutelage of Thomas Gimbrede, an amiable Frenchman, a good miniaturist, and a competent engraver, who was not altogether without the blessed quality of humor. It was Mr. Gimbrede's custom to give each class of beginners an introductory lecture, in the course of which he endeavored to prove to unbelieving third-classmen that every one could learn to draw. His proof was: "There are only two lines in drawing, the straight line and the curve line. Every one can draw a straight line and every one can draw a curve line — therefore, every one can draw."
