On Drawing

To draw is to look, examining the structure of appearances.

A drawing of a tree shows, not a tree, but a tree-being-looked-at.

Whereas the sight of a tree is registered almost instantaneously,

the examination of the sight of a tree (a tree-being-looked-at) 

not only takes minutes or hours instead of a fraction of a second, 

it also involves, derives from, and refers back to, 

much previous experience of looking,

Within the instant of the sight of a tree is established a life-experience. 

This is how the act of drawing refuses the process of disappearances

 and proposes the simultaneity of a multitude of moments.

Berger On Drawing - John Berger