Beaux-Arts Instruction (Part 3 of 4)

Earl Shinn, writing in The Nation magazine in 1869, described the terms of criticism that students heard most commonly from teachers in the École des Beaux-Arts, especially from Jean-Leon Gérôme. These terms, and the concepts they represent, provide an insight into the aesthetics that were valued in an academic figure study. Quoting Shinn: 

"Too insipid, too weak and soft.
This is said of the flesh, or, as the French say, the skin."

"Inlaid. 
This condemns our anatomy, when it has the look of being patched on the surface rather than woven under from the bone."

"False sentiment.
This stricture is not necessarily applied to a Della Cruscan* elegance, but has been heard over a drawing of the Laocoön expressing too much passion and motion instead of the wonderfully caught rigidity of the original."

“You have not seized the movement.
 This is one of the commonest of our difficulties; the word may apply to the most inert things, as the sweep of a lock of hair ; the lay of a fold of drapery, or of patterns on the fold; the expression of a supine hand, etc."
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*Note: These criticisms have nothing to do with the painting above. "Della Cruscan" refers to members of a late 18th-century school of English writers of pretentious, affected, rhetorically ornate poetry.
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BOOK SIGNING TOMORROW

Exhibit of DINOTOPIA originals in Stamford Connecticut through May 25

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The Nation, Volume 9, July 22, 1869, Page 68. "ART-STUDY IN THE IMPERIAL SCHOOL AT PARIS." by Earl Shinn
Previously in "Beaux-Arts Instruction" Series: Part 1, Part 2

Other GJ posts: Technique and Training and Gérôme’s Critics

Plane Heads

Art teachers have proposed various schemes for simplifying the head into an arrangement of flat planes. Here are two plane breakdowns by Andrew Loomis, author of Figure Drawing for All It's Worth and Drawing the Head and Hands. 

The one on the left is a simple breakdown, with front, side, and bottom planes. The one on the right subdivides the planes further. To be precise, some of these "planes" aren't perfect planes in the geometric sense, such as the curving planes on the top of the cranium.

Fred Fixler, a student of famed Art Students League instructor Frank Reilly, came up with a slightly different plane breakdown for an idealized male head. There are some rounded forms too. The cranium is a ball with the sides sliced off. 

Sculpting the plane head brings the plane analysis into the realm of reality. This one is by painter and teacher John Asaro, who has a website called "Planes of the Head." He has taught head painting using his plane head. 

Many academic instructors have used plane heads as models before going to the live human, because it's much easier to accurately judge the values and color notes of each plane, compared to the infinitely variegated tones and curving forms of a real face. 

Drawing and painting from plane heads is a central part of Chinese and Russian academic practice, and various companies have resurrected some of these art school models, such as this 21-Inch plaster head.

This mini plaster head is very different from a European or American standard head, and the planes are broken down into a mosaic of small forms. But the ear is treated as a single plane.

People will debate the merits of these commercially available heads, but I've never been completely satisfied with any of them. I think it's a great exercise for any student to come up with their own analysis, and that's what I did when I was in art school. Before I knew about Sculpey, I made this the hard way, sculpting a plastilina original, and then making a two-piece mold and casting it in plaster. Mine was inspired mainly by Loomis and George Bridgman.

I have set up my little plane head and painted him in colored light.

Once a student has had practice drawing and painting from idealized plane heads, and even sculpting their own breakdowns, then I think the next best step is to look at real human models and break the planes down in a unique way for that individual model. 

This was the method taught in a seminar I took from Art Center instructor Paul Souza, and here's an exercise I did in that class, scumbling white oil paint over chip board sealed with shellac.


In truth, there is no single ideal plane head, and even an individual model's face can be analyzed in various ways.

Yvon's Academic Drawing Manual

Many of you are familiar with the drawing course by Charles Bargue and Jean-Léon Gérôme. Painter and teacher Darren Rousar has procured another drawing manual from the period called "Methode de Dessin" by Adolphe Yvon.

This was the method used by John Singer Sargent when he studied in Paris. According to Rousar, copies of this manual are extremely rare, and he has generously offered to put his copy online for free, but first he's inviting French/English translators to help him render it into English.

Here's a preview of one of Yvon's plates. I'm just guessing from the plate, but it seems to be a slightly different process from Bargue. He still uses the straight lines, but rather than bounding the outside of the form in an envelope or polygonal shape, he seems to find the most general big line going through the contour. The vertical line appears to be a record of measurements and alignments, subdivided into smaller measurements, probably made with the plumb line.

Here's one of Bargue's plates for comparison, with the outside bounding envelope going from the forehead to the tip of the nose and the nose to the chin, with the plumb-line measurements marked on a line drawn inside the form.

Sargent said that the plumb line (basically a weight dangling at the end of a string) was essential:
"When drawing from the model, never be without the plumb line in the left hand. Everyone has a bias, either to the right hand or the left of the vertical. The use of the plumb line rectifies this error and develops a keen appreciation of the vertical."

If you'd like to participate in translating some of first pages (or just read them in French), here's a link to Darren Rousar's studio blog. 
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Charles Bargue's method from Amazon

Know the Skeleton

Edward Poynter (1836-1919) of the Royal Academy

If you study the skeleton well enough to draw it from any angle, it will give your figure drawing much more authority. The study by Poynter shows him locating the two bony landmarks of the elbow visible here: the lateral epicondyle of the humerus (the bump on the left) and the olecranon process of the ulna (the elbow bump facing us).

In this Russian figure drawing book, the anatomy is well understood from the inside out. It looks dynamic because the artist has enough of a knowledge to simplify to essentials.

I hasten to add that my own knowledge of the skeleton is pretty basic compared to some of my colleagues who have really made a study of it.

When I need answers, here are some of the places I turn:
Books: Atlas of Human Anatomy for the Artist
Figure Drawing for All It's Worth
Model Skeletons:
33" high model skeleton

Life Size Human Skeleton Model

I use a Revell plastic model that's only a foot tall, which dangles from my studio wall. A model skeleton should be rigged so that you can hold it in any pose to echo what the model is doing. Every art school should have a model skeleton in the figure drawing room.

Thanks, Rob Nonstop

Small Figures

About 35 years ago, when I was in art school, my buddies and I would take turns posing for each other in one minute costumed poses. 

In the series at the upper left I tried to capture the basic gesture of the folds of the costume using pencil and white gouache. At upper right is more of a tubular form emphasis, using just light and shadow and no outline.

In the middle row, I used a brush and ink to try to capture the black silhouette. In the bottom row, we moved the light around to the back and I tried drawing edge-lit silhouettes, where the light side becomes the paper color.

Drawing directly with the brush, I first drew the side away from the light before sorting out the complex lit side. This way of sketching gives a very photographic effect.

Proko starts his figure drawing videos tomorrow

Over the last year, Stan Prokopenko, also known as "Proko" has produced some of the best online tutorials on head drawing.


Here's "How to Draw the Head from Any Angle" (Direct link to YT Video). Proko studied at the Watts Atelier starting when he was in high school, and later was a teacher there. His way of drawing and teaching is like a 21st century version of art instruction legend Andrew Loomis.

Now he is polishing up the next series, which will be on figure drawing (video link). The first episode of the new series will launch tomorrow.


For viewers who like getting their stuff free online, he is committed to continue producing short videos, but he also offers paid content that's longer and more comprehensive. There is already a DVD and download available of his head drawing material. The figure drawing videos will have premium versions available for a fee.
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The Proko YouTube Channel
Proko's website (for newsletter signups and products)
Book: "Creative Illustration" by Andrew Loomis

Fialetti's figure drawing books

For many centuries young artists have trained by drawing together from sculptures and diagrams. This etching by Odoardo Fialetti (1573-1638) shows apprentices copying casts in a painter's workshop.

In 1608 Fialetti produced a very early figure drawing manual called Tutte le parti del corpo hvmano diuiso in piu pezzi. (All parts of the human body divided into several pieces)

One diagram shows how to place the features on a foreshortened head.

 He also includes diagrams of difficult-to-draw details such as feet, ears, and hands.

According to Alexandra Greist, who wrote her dissertation on the topic, these instructional manuals are known as "libri da disegnare." "Libri da disegnare are groups of printed images that instruct in drawing the human body through a progression, whether by means of line-by-line instructions, following steps from outline to shaded, or building up the body from its individual features. Intended for both professional and amateur audiences, these printed sources were soon copied throughout Europe where they influenced drawing education for the next 400 years."

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Download the whole book for free at Archive.org

Book: Learning to Draw: Studies in the Cultural History of a Polite and Useful Art

Stop motion figure drawing

Life Drawing at The Book Club from Wriggles & Robins on Vimeo.
(Direct link to video) This video is made up of separate figure drawings made by a group of twelve artists arrayed in a circle. As the intervals speed up, the individual drawings merge into a three-dimensional sense of the figure as an animated form.
Thanks, Mary

Discussion: Convex lines and the figure

I have run across the idea that the human form should be drawn only with convex lines because "there are no concave lines in the figure." The argument goes that the outer contours are governed by the bulging masses of the bones and muscles. Even when you cup your hand, your hollow palm is made up of a set of smaller convex shapes. Convexity is synonymous with life, volume, and fullness. Even on a thin person, the planes and lines should gently curve outward. Concave contours can be conceived as a series of overlapping convex forms.

The opposing view is that the figure is made up of a variety of lines and planes, including straight and concave. Some artists emphasize only straight lines, especially in the layin. Regarding concave contours, elastic skin stretched across any acute angle will form a concave shape, such as on the inside of the elbow or the curve of the neck. This would be true even on Mr. Universe or a heavyset person. Concavity is expressive of receptivity and inertness. Variety is the spice of life, and good drawing is a product of contrast.

I haven't made up my mind yet on this issue, and would be interested in your comments. Maybe you can make one case or the other better than I can. What have you been taught, and what thought process produces the best for you? You can also add your vote to the poll at left.

Part 4. The golden mean and the human body

Yesterday we considered how even the most skeptical scientists agree that the golden mean is expressed in nature at the level of crystals, seed clusters, and leaf stems.

Then we followed the history of how golden mean geometry became accepted into art training, often accompanied by broader claims that golden mean geometry "permeates all structures" in nature, especially the human form.

The first question for today is: Can we believe assertions that golden mean geometry underlies the human form? 

This is more than just idle philosophical speculation for us as artists, because in order to draw accurately, we must always be looking for hidden proportions in the figure.

Art teachers have developed diagrams showing what appear to be golden mean relationships in the proportions of the face and the bones of the hand, and in other measurements of the figure. Below, the ratio of successive phalangeal bones of the digits appears to match the golden mean.

Are these measurements somehow baked into the human form as a kind of universal geometry, or are they convenient coincidences that inevitably appear to those who are looking for them? 

The advocate will point to the diagrams themselves as proof. Just look at the evidence. It's right in front of you.

The skeptic will argue that these measurements are a form of pareidolia, a phenomenon of perception where a random stimulus is given special meaning, such as seeing faces in clouds or hearing hidden messages in music. To convince the skeptic, one would need to demonstrate a physical mechanism, a logical cause, by which those relationships become manifest in humans. Such mechanisms have been proposed for golden mean properties of plants.

In the absence of such scientific evidence, this debate can never be settled rationally. Logically speaking, no skeptic can prove that golden mean geometry is not operating, and no believer can win over the skeptic with more and more examples, no matter how compelling. 

Let's pivot to the second question for today, which is much more practical:

Are golden section diagrams of the figure the most useful kind of structural understanding for us to use as artists? Or are we better off relying on Vitruvian diagrams (that is, diagrams based on whole number divisions)? 

Below is a classic Vitruvian diagram of the human head, broken down in halves and thirds, (from Drawing the Head and Hands, by Andrew Loomis).

My answer to the question, as it is with any argument about rival methods, is to learn them both and use what works for you. But don't overlook the Vitruvian system. These whole-number fraction systems have been used by artists for a long time—that's what Leonardo professed to be illustrating with his Vitruvian Man drawing, after all.

And Vitruvian systems were used in the 19th century Ecole des Beaux Arts, the Royal Academy, and the Art Students League. Why throw out those classic methods in favor of something Le Corbusier and the Bauhaus (second diagram) promoted?  

The prime measurement in the "divine proportions" analysis is the navel. That may have cosmic significance, but it's not a very important structural point for figure drawing. Vitruvian measurements are easy to see, measure, replicate, and subdivide on the drawing. It's much easier to place a mark in the 2/3 position than in the .6180339 position. When you're filming a dynamic scene with a video camera, it's easier to place a figure on the 1/3 position than in the golden mean position. 

No one is claiming that Vitruvian measurements have any mystical significance (except maybe Leonardo). They're just there as a convenient guide, to be replaced by another if it works better.

Regardless of what system one prefers, it's good to keep in mind that real humans don't fit any rule, thank goodness. We're not Barbie and Ken or Venus and Apollo, and any system of measurement is just a starting point for observation. Like many movements of anthropometry, claims of "divine proportions" in human figures are at best idealistic, and at worst unrealistic. Even if you average a lot of data, the measurement to the navel from the ground is higher than phi in men, and lower than phi in women.

Final note: I'm just trying to take a logical approach to this subject, to try and sort fact from misinformation. I'm not against mystical approaches--far from it. And I'm ultimately pragmatic. Whatever works to improve your art is good. What I'm going after are authoritative, scientific sounding assertions that students aren't allowed to question.

Tomorrow I would like to approach the last—and perhaps biggest—question: Is the golden mean rectangle somehow more attractive than other rectangles? 

GurneyJourney series: Mythbusting the Golden Mean

Part 1: Debunking claims about The Parthenon

Part 2: The golden mean and Leonardo
Part 3: How the golden mean caught on with artists
Part 4: The golden mean and the human body
Part 5: Last question about the golden rectangle

Also: Pareidolia and Apophenia

Additional reading:

New York Times: "Proportion Control"

Book: Drawing the Head and Hands by Andrew Loomis
Book: The Golden Ratio: The Story of PHI, the World's Most Astonishing Numberby Mario Livio
YouTube video: "Nature by Numbers"
Finger measurement slide from here.

Line Direction

A blog reader named Whiskey asked a question about line direction:

If we're drawing so that shading lines describe the contour and volume of an object, how should it be done? Should the lines go in the direction of the light source? Or along a perspective line?

I've attached a little jpg to illustrate my question because I'm not sure if I've made any sense. Which way is best for the lines to go?

Answer:
It's a good question. Actually there are no rules. Both ways you've suggested can describe the form well.

The one marked A is often called "shading along the form" or "along the axis." B is sometimes called "bracelet shading" which I mentioned on another post. In that case, the lines (or brushstrokes, if you're painting) are going around the axis of the form.

On a larger compositional level, your choices often depend on the feeling you want to create.


For example, in this fantastic world drawn by Franklin Booth, the lines on the far mountains are vertical, which reinforces the feeling of soaring majesty.



In this detail of a drawing by Polish artist Stanislaw Bohusz-Siestrzencewicz (1869-1927), the lines on the horse's neck wrap around the cross section of the form, but he's also connecting diagonal movements from the horse to the man to suggest action.


In this drawing by the same artist, the lines spiral diagonally around the form to suggest the relaxed, informal posture of the woman.

So I'd say: experiment with both kinds of shading: along and across the axis. Also, try shading diagonally if you want to suggest atmosphere or action. Once you're comfortable with the choices, it will become automatic, and you can mix them up in the same drawing.
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Thanks, Paul Mendonca for the Siestrzencewicz files.
More samples of Stanislaw Bohusz-Siestrzencewicz
Andrew Loomis talks about a similar topic, stroke direction in painting, in his excellent book Creative Illustration, which has just been republished.

Line of Action

I'm not going to write a whole treatise on the "line of action" because the veteran Disney animator Preston Blair already did.

From his book Animation: Learn How to Draw Animated Cartoons (How to Draw Series 26), which has been republished as Cartoon Animation .
You can also find versions of it online.

Mythological Twist

In the 1700s, it was a common practice to give an academic figure study a mythological twist. For example, this 1756 painting by Nicolas-Guy Brenet isn't just any reclining figure. It's "Sleeping Endymion." 

Endymion was a shepherd who had attracted the loving attention of the moon goddess Selene. She caused him to fall into an eternal sleep (with his eyes open) to preserve his beauty and youth. She would then be able to visit him every night.

Here's a similar pose but a different mythological setting. The painting, by Jean-Bernard Restout (1736-1796), is called either "Somnus," "Morpheus," or "Hypnos." Hypnos is the god of sleep or resides in a cave of eternal darkness. He is often shown with wings coming from his head, but here he looks more like an angel resting against his wings.

Adding these mythological layers can seem extraneous or gratuitous if the story doesn't guide the entire conception from the start. But when it's done thoughtfully, it offers both the artist and the viewer many new layers of feeling and association.

The problem for artists these days is that the audience is generally not familiar with the stories and the characters of the Greek and Roman mythology or of the Bible. An artist can count on everyone knowing what a cupid or a mermaid is, but viewers might not be as familiar with characters such as Sisyphus. Despite Hollywood's recent attempts to popularize mythic stories, the characters most people recognize tend to be comic book superheroes, which are trademarked and owned by big corporations.
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Here's another interpretation of Endymion
Wikipedia / Endymion
Wikipedia / Hypnos