ABSTRACT
In the Life of Lines Ingold develops a philosophical and ecological anthropology that is at once expansive, integrative, and inclusive. This chapter explains drawings are comprised of lines, and these lines, according to Gibson, delineate features of the environment that have come to the notice of the draughtsman and that he wishes to commit to a surface. Gibson is adamant in his rejection of the more traditional view of drawing, tied to classical optics, according to which the draughtsman mentally projects, onto the page, an image that has first been formed in his mind, and then physically traces the outlines. Whether painted, drawn or written, lines pour from the fusion of the affective and the cosmic as colours pour from tar. Thus, while one might draw objects in the sky, such as clouds or the moon, whose outlines are specified by the angles they subtend at the eye, one cannot draw the sky itself, whether by day or by night.
