I drew this picture of a dog the other day at dinner and this is the reaction that I got from my friend, the only other adult present out of four people: "That is the worst picture of a dog I have ever seen." The reaction was swift and definitive. There was no deliberation or hesitation at all.
I'm not sure that the picture deserved such a harsh critique, since it is, in fact, instantly recognizable as a dog. So at least, if nothing else, it is representational. It does convey the actual visual details that constitute the appearance of a dog. So even though it is not a particularly satisfying piece on an intellectual level, it does convey visual information. I agree that something a little less literal might have allowed me to express the more ethereal aspects of what it is that actually constitutes "dogness" in a more general sense, but I was actually going for something more documentary than that.
I think the worst picture of a dog ever would be a picture that conveys neither the representational details of the animal, nor a sense of the dynamic aspects of his being that make him who he is (or at least who he is to us.) So even though this piece fails to get at the more expansive emotive aspects of what a dog means, it is an acceptable stab at simply depicting a dog, and so I can easily conceive of a far worse picture of a dog than this.
Figure 1: Is this really the worst picture of a dog ever?
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Figure 2: I guess writing a story about a dog is something a little closer to my comfort zone than drawing.
Enlarge Photo Labels: animals, images, weird