Cyclopedia of Drawing – William Kentridge

Description

Drawn right on top of a 1924 reference manual for technical drawing, this flip book by William Kentridge displays his own technical approach to a mechanical problem much more fanciful than those addressed by the original Cyclopedia of Drawing: that of a man’s transformation into a bird, his brief flight and subsequent reincarnation as a man. Using the skills taught by the manual – mechanical drawing, structural drafting, and freehand drawing to name a few – Kentridge, like a precocious student doodling with fierce concentration in the margins of his textbook, details each stage of the flight on hand numbered and gridded pages. The reader makes it real by turning the pages.