Peter Steinhart is a naturalist and writer who has always liked to draw. As an adult, he reinvigorated his interest by going to life-drawing classes in the Bay Area, where he lives, and found there a community of amateur artists whose passion is simply drawing. In this book, he explores the universal human impulse to draw the world as we see it, and especially his own experiences and those of people he talks to. He also takes a look at the way drawing has become devalued in the contemporary art world, and in art schools, in favor of video, conceptual, and installation art, and traces this phenomenon to the rise of abstraction in the early years of the 20th century. But what Steinhart sees as a renaissance of drawing is his main topic, along with the sheer pleasure of the process. A New York Times Notable Book for 2004. Copyright (C) Muze Inc. 2005. For personal use only. All rights reserved.