Universal Principles of Art

87 SUCCESSIVE APPROXIMATION

THE ARTWORK AS A JOURNEY

Successive approximation is a process whereby the artist makes statements that he or she then continually corrects, gradually arriving at the finished statement. The work alternates between creative generation and critical assessment. It proceeds as both a response to the subject matter and a response to what has already been achieved in the work.

This process can be glimpsed in many old master drawings where the artist has launched into the work but then adjusted his first statements in a continuous process. In a drawing by Jean-Honoré Fragonard (1732–1806) illustrating a scene from Don Quixote, multiple marks and erasures are visible, recording the struggle of the artist to arrive at a successful ...