Free and easy: how European drawing finally caught up with China

This year’s Jerwood drawing prizewinners epitomise a welcome looser style, showing us a whole new generation of pencil pushers

Recently I was looking at Renaissance drawings with a Chinese friend. The works we were looking at were vast and made with a complex mix of coloured media. She explained that it’s hard to describe drawings like this in Chinese because there is just one word for “drawing”, which simply suggests a flowing sketch. China’s art has always been based on this kind of free drawing, while European art has a long history of being tightly disciplined and studious.

Today, as this year’s Jerwood drawing prize shows, the west has caught up with China: this drawing is so open, free and unpredictable it can be almost anything – from the study of a work by Joseph Beuys (step forward student prizewinner Bryan Eccleshall) to a construction made of thread by Lois Langmead, who won the other of this year’s student prizes.

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