Triad 28 of 32 · 2026-10-21 · Difficulty 3 · Genealogy/influence, Shared figure or motif, Oblique/structural
The thread
Leroi-Gourhan argues the first graphism was a rhythmic series of incised lines, abstract from the start, later bent by writing into a ‘needle-sharp, but also needle-thin’ line subordinated to speech. Ingold inherits the thesis, names its paradox, and adds the material history: the ruled line descends from the taut warp-thread of the loom; fully linearized, the line is ‘no longer the trace of a gesture’. Hudson’s study of Agnes Martin’s Night Sea (1963) supplies the case: a six-foot grid of scored, gilded lines ruled with threads borrowed from Lenore Tawney’s loom, whose ‘visual tremolo’ records the arm; after it, Martin linearized her own practice.
The three books
- Gesture and Speech, André Leroi-Gourhan, Anna Bostock Berger (translator), Randall White (contributor); 1964–65 (English 1993). The source: graphism begins as rhythmic, abstract incision; writing linearizes it into a ‘needle-sharp, but also needle-thin’ line; the Jacquard loom exteriorizes the program.
- Lines: A Brief History, Tim Ingold; 2007. The hinge: inherits Leroi-Gourhan’s linearization thesis, names its paradox, and traces the ruled line back to the warp-thread of the loom.
- Agnes Martin: Night Sea, Suzanne P. Hudson; 2016. The test case: a grid of scored, gilded lines ruled with threads from Tawney’s loom; the ‘visual tremolo’ as Ingold’s risk; after 1963 Martin linearizes her own practice.
Notebook
- The obituary: Ingold ‘Linearization … marks not the birth but the death of the line’ (p.151) vs Hudson on Martin painting ‘what was already known’ after Night Sea (pp.17-18) — was her mature method a deliberate linearization (Pye’s workmanship of certainty)? 2. Abstraction first: Leroi-Gourhan ‘graphism did not begin with naive representations of reality but with abstraction’ (p.188) vs Martin’s grid and ‘the innocence of trees’ (Hudson p.45) — the grid as return, not terminus; test against ‘No meaning can be attached’. 3. Who rules the line: warp to ruled guideline (Ingold p.157), Martin’s threads from Tawney’s loom (Hudson p.36), Jacquard program ‘external to the organs of execution’ (Leroi-Gourhan p.250) — guide vs program; the ruler as sovereign (Ingold p.160).
Rabbit holes
Links as checked on the day of the reading.
- Tate Modern, Agnes Martin and Lenore Tawney — https://www.tate.org.uk/visit/tate-modern/display/in-the-studio/agnes-martin-and-lenore-tawney
- Ruskin, The Elements of Drawing (Gutenberg) — https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/30325
- Krauss, ‘Grids’ (1979), via brettworks — https://brettworks.com/2017/11/20/theory-as-poetry-rosalind-krausss-grids-1979/
- Monoskop on Gesture and Speech — https://monoskop.org/log/?p=5540
- Guyet, review of Hudson’s Night Sea (Brooklyn Rail, 2017) — https://brooklynrail.org/2017/06/art_books/Agnes-Martin-Night-Sea
- Cochrane, review of Ingold’s Lines (CAJ 18:3, 2008) — https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/cambridge-archaeological-journal/article/abs/lines-a-brief-history-by-tim-ingold-2007-london-routledge-isbn13-9780415424271-paperback-1999-us30-xii186-pp-63-figs/96B4EB16AC9224C9304B9C27639BC0D2
To carry
“Linearization, in short, marks not the birth but the death of the line.” — Tim Ingold, Lines: A Brief History, p. 151
Themes
abstraction · Agnes Martin · Coenties Slip · exteriorization · gesture · graphism · grid · incision · Jacquard loom · Klee · Kraus · Lenore Tawney · line · linearization · loom · masara · mythogram · Night Sea · Pye · rhythm · Riegl · ruled line · ruler · Ruskin · Semper · thread vs trace · visual tremolo · warp-thread · workmanship of risk · writing vs drawing
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