We can’t find any information about the World Freehand Circle Drawing Championship online, but this man, a teacher at the Glebe Collegiate Institute in Canada, claims to hold the title. We will try to invite him to the next meeting of the Kircher Society.

Giotto was said to have performed a similarly impressive feat for the Pope:

Pope Benedict sent one of his courtiers into Tuscany to see what sort of a man he was and what his works were like, for the Pope was planning to have some paintings made in S Peter’s. This courtier, on his way to see Giotto and to find out what other masters of painting and mosaic there were in Florence, spoke with many masters in Sienna, and then, having received some drawings from them, he came to Florence. And one morning going into the workshop of Giotto, who was at his labours, he showed him the mind of the Pope, and at last asked him to give him a little drawing to send to his Holiness. Giotto, who was a man of courteous manners, immediately took a sheet of paper, and with a pen dipped in red, fixing his arm firmly against his side to make a compass of it, with a turn of his hand he made a circle so perfect that it was a marvel to see it Having done it, he turned smiling to the courtier and said, “Here is the drawing.” But he, thinking he was being laughed at, asked, “Am I to have no other drawing than this?” “This is enough and too much,” replied Giotto, “send it with the others and see if it will be understood.” The messenger, seeing that he could get nothing else, departed ill pleased, not doubting that he had been made a fool of. However, sending the other drawings to the Pope with the names of those who had made them, he sent also Giotto’s, relating how he had made the circle without moving his arm and without compasses, which when the Pope and many of his courtiers understood, they saw that Giotto must surpass greatly all the other painters of his time. -Giorgio Vasari, Lives of the Painters, Sculptors and Architects.

Inspired by Giotto, in 1974 the British artist Tom Phillips, previosuly mentioned in the Proceedings for his memento mori hair skulls, produced “Fifty Attempts to Draw a Freehand Circle.” Unfortunately we can’t locate an image online. Finally, Rodcorp (provider of the above quotation) notes that Lego demands that its Master Builder applicants be able to construct a perfect sphere out of square bricks. Also this story on drawing perfection from Italo Calvino’s Six Memos for the Next Millenium:

Among Chuang-tzu’s many skills, he was an expert draftsman. The king asked him to draw a crab. Chuang-tzu replied that he needed five years, a country house, and twelve servants. Five years later the drawing was still not begun. “I need another five years,” said Chuang-tzu. The king granted them. At the end of these ten years, Chuang-tzu took up his brush and, in an instant, with a single stroke, he drew a crab, the most perfect crab ever seen.

[Acknowledgments to Jonathan]