DRAWING LIFE by fred hatt

2012/10/27

Totentanz

Filed under: Art History,Collections of Images — Tags: , , , — fred @ 00:35

Self-Portrait, Skull, 1958, drawing by Alice Neel

In time for Halloween and the Day of the Dead, I give you a collection of skulls and other personifications of death and horror from the art of the past several centuries.  If you’re sensitive to violent, creepy, disturbing imagery, don’t scroll down.

Totentanz (Dance of Death), illustration by Michael Wolgemut from Liber Chronicarum, also known as the Nuremberg Chronicle, 1493, by Hartmann Schedel

In the wake of the famines, plagues and wars of the late medieval period in Europe, there arose a genre of popular allegorical murals, prints, and plays called Totentanz or Danse Macabre, the Dance of Death.  Often there’s a series of images showing corpses or skeletons dancing with commoners and kings, popes and peasants.

Death and the Heathen Woman, from the medieval Preacher Totentanz mural of Basel, copy by Emanuel Büchel, c. 1770

These images say life is fleeting and precarious, death is ever-near.  High-born or low, Death will get you in the end.

Totentanz mural in the Anthony Chapel, St. Nicholas Church, Talinn, c. 1490, by Bernt Notke

Surely the Totentanz was an expression of something deeply felt by the people living in this time, who saw death everywhere around them.  The priest could point to it to urge repentance, since the end could come without warning.  The hedonist could see it as a spur to enjoy the pleasures of the flesh while they last.

Death and the Devil Surprising Two Women, c. 1505, print by Daniel Hopfer

Mortality is not simply an abstract fact for mortals, it is personal.  It comes to take you away from your life and your loved ones.  So it must be personified, and it is often shown as a skeleton or a decaying corpse that is animated, to show the horror we feel at the decay of the flesh.

Dead Lovers, c. 1470, by an anonymous artist

Pieter Bruegel the Elder, a master of deep natural perspective and complex figurative compositions, transformed the simple Totentanz scenes into a panorama of war and executions, famine, torture, and madness.  Click on the image to follow a link to a much larger version of this landscape of hell on earth, big enough to scroll around and see all the horrific details.

The Triumph of Death, 1562, by Pieter Bruegel the Elder

The sense of death as a corruption that devours life from within has been expressed by artists closer to our own time.  For a 1945 movie, directed by Albert Lewin, based on Oscar Wilde’s novel The Picture of Dorian Gray, Henrique Medina made a straight portrait of actor Hurd Hatfield that was gradually, over the course of filming, transformed by painter Ivan Albright into this image of walking decay.  Click here to see before and after versions.

The Picture of Dorian Gray, 1943, by Ivan Albright

Similarly, Francis Bacon transformed Velasquez’ strikingly realistic portrait of Pope Innocent X into a scream of modern existential dread.

Study after Velázquez’s Portrait of Pope Innocent X, 1953, by Francis Bacon

A century or two after the era of the Totentanz, the omnipresence of death was perhaps felt with a little more distance, and the prevailing genre of painting meditating on death was the Vanitas, usually a still-life composition incorporating a skull or skulls.  “Vanitas” refers to the line from Ecclesiastes that declares “Vanity of vanities; all is vanity,” so it has some of the same meaning as the Totentanz, but considerably less of the visceral feeling of horror.

Vanitas Still Life, 1672, by Aelbert Jansz. van der Schoor

The Totentanz and the Vanitas are both considered versions of a more inclusive artistic motif called “Memento Mori” – Latin for “Remember you will die.”

Still Life with a Skull, c. 1650, by Philippe de Champagne

Of course artists also study skulls and skeletons as part of learning anatomy, the better to depict the human form full of life, and many artists become fascinated with bones as elegant forms.  Paul Cézanne, the post-impressionist “painter’s painter” made several Vanitas still-life pictures at the turn of the 20th century, as he faced his own mortality.

Pyramid of Skulls, 1901, by Paul Cézanne

During a brief stint in a classical art academy in Antwerp, where skeletons were studied as part of the curriculum, Vincent van Gogh painted this mischievous smoking skeleton.

Skull with a Burning Cigarette, 1886, by Vincent van Gogh

James Ensor, Belgian satirist and proto-surrealist, depicted pointless struggle in the form of skulls with mismatched jaws, wearing military garb and fighting over a bit of fish.

Skeletons Disputing a Smoked Herring, 1891, by James Ensor

Contemporary sculptor Kris Kulski makes ornate monochromatic constructions, many of them incorporating skeletons.  Here a giant skeleton appears to be building a city along its own spine.

The Decision, 2007, sculpture by Kris Kuksi

Yet another often-revisited motif in the Memento Mori tradition is Death and the Maiden.  This gives the artist the chance to contrast youth and beauty with repulsion and decay, combining sex and death in what artists found to be a potent thematic brew, pushing two primal buttons at once for a creepy frisson.  Hans Baldung was an early master of the erotic horror genre.

Death and the Maiden, c. 1519, by Hans Baldung

Throw in morality and religion with the sex and death, and you can really have your cake and eat it too.

Triptych of Earthly Vanity and Divine Salvation, c. 1485, by Hans Memling

The Death and the Maiden theme has also survived into modern art.  How could the famously death- and sex-obsessed Edvard Munch resist it?

Death and the Maiden, 1894, print by Edvard Munch

Käthe Kollwitz sees the theme from a female perspective, and transforms the maiden into a mother holding a child in this image of death as predator.

Death Seizing a Woman, 1934, print by Käthe Kollwitz

For Hans Bellmer, mortality and sexuality are fundamentally linked in the depths of the psyche, and both are arousing and terrifying: Eros and Thanatos.

Instructions to Sexuality II, 1974, print by Hans Bellmer

The medieval view of death and horror was of something intensely real and palpable.  By the age of enlightenment, artists tend to express a romanticized fear of madness, of the unknown, of the supernatural – something we still feel in some part of our psyches where reason’s light fails to penetrate.

The Nightmare, 1791, by Henry Fuseli

Goya obsessively depicted horror and madness and evil, both in the absurdities of human behavior and the very real devastation of war.

Disparate de miedo (Absurdity of Fear), from Los Disparates, 1815-1823, print series by Francisco Goya

Japanese artists of the same period also display a wonderfully vivid imagination for visualizing the stories of ghosts and horror that abound in Japanese folklore and literature.  Here are works from two masters: Hokusai and Kuniyoshi.

Ghost of Kohada Koheiji, c. 1830, print by Katsuhika Hokusai

Detail from Princess Takiyasha summons a skeletal spectre to frighten Mitsukuni, c. 1845, a triptych of prints by Utagawa Kuniyoshi

In the later nineteenth century, death is seen more in a mournful light than one of terror.  No longer the dancing zombie of the middle ages, Death calmly ferries you to the set of a tragic grand opera.

Isle of the Dead, 1883 version, by Arnold Böcklin

Death is a symbol – the Grim Reaper, horseman of the apocalypse.

Death on a Pale Horse, 1865, by Gustave Doré

In our time, pop culture is full of images of avengers, terminators, furious warriors and inhuman killers, but it’s mostly fantasy, not our everyday reality.

The Death Dealer, 1973, by Frank Frazetta

I can’t think of a painting that gives a more realistic image of the act of killing than Artemisia Gentileschi’s Judith and Holofernes.  It’s far more brutal and horrifying than Caravaggio’s great version of the same scene, and Caravaggio reputedly had real experience with killing.  But Artemisia was an ambitious female painter in a time when ambitious women got no respect, and she must have put the real murderous fury she felt towards men into this chilling work.

Judith Beheading Holofernes, 1612, by Artemisia Gentileschi

The ancient Mesoamerican religions were based around human sacrifice, and figures of death and blood and the underworld abound.

Mayan God of Death, date unknown, stucco sculpture at Palenque, photo by Sherry Hardage

The skull or calavera image survives in today’s Mexican culture in the jaunty decorative skulls and skeletons of the Day of the Dead or Día de los Muertos,  November 1st, a time to honor ancestors and perhaps to be cheerful in the face of death.

Las Calveras, Cancun, Mexico, contemporary photo by Tiffany Shu

Elaborately decorated calaveras are a tradition with endless variations, such as this visionary Huichol psychedelica.

Huichol Beaded Skull, contemporary creation by Our Exquisite Corpse design team

Posada, a popular Mexican illustrator of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, used the calavera as a basic motif for social satire and political cartoons.  This tarantula-skull is a caricature of General José Victoriano Huerta Márquez, Mexico’s brutal dictator at the time.

Calavera Huertista, 1914, print by José Guadalupe Posada

Through the twentieth century, much of the art of horror and death is about war.  The Great War of 1914-18 harvested vast swathes of Europe’s youth and left many more maimed and traumatized.

The Field of the Slain, 1916, by Evelyn De Morgan

The Victorian image of a dark angel, aesthetically romanticized, survived for a while as the predominant artistic depiction of Death.

Prospect Park War Memorial, 1921, sculpture by Augustus Lukeman, 2003 photo by Fred Hatt

At the same time, through this period, European artists like Picasso with his Demoiselles d’Avignon, composer Stravinsky with Sacre du Printemps, and writer Alfred Jarry with the play Ubu Roi, had been discovering the power of a rawer, more primal approach to expression, and many found it the only way to truly depict the horror of war.

Skull, 1924, by Otto Dix

Of the work below, full of chaotic energy, the artist said, “This is a painting I painted after the defeat of the Republicans in Spain.  This is obviously an ironic title [“Angel of the Hearth”] to denote a kind of animal that kills and destroys everything in its path.  That was the impression I had at the time, of what was possible to happen in the world, and in that I was right.”

I think the title “Angel of the Hearth” may refer to the fact that the violent ideologies of Fascism, Nazism and Stalinism begin from a claim to stand as protectors of the homeland, and of the purity of their cultures and races.

L’Ange du Foyer (Angel of the Hearth), 1937, by Max Ernst

Mexican painter Siqueiros went to spain to fight against the Fascists.  His painted response to the war, from the same year as Ernst’s, expresses a more emotional experience of devastation and loss.

Echo of a Scream, 1937, by David Alfaro Siqueiros

Death taking his victims in his pitiless embrace is a timeless image.  Here’s a version painted by Vietnam veteran William Myles.

Death Taking a Soldier, 1997, by William Myles

Henry Moore’s sculpture “Nuclear Energy” is on the campus of the University of Chicago where the world’s first nuclear reactor was built.  It is an abstract image of power, but it evokes both the skull and the mushroom cloud of the nuclear bomb, perhaps to remind the scientists working on that campus that Death is ever near, just as he was six hundred years ago in the time of the Totentanz.

Nuclear Energy, 1967, by Henry Moore, photographer unknown

All images in this post, except for one that is a photograph taken by me, were found on the web.  Clicking on the photos links to the sites where the pictures were found, and in many cases, to larger versions of these images.

2012/09/21

Statuesque

Filed under: Figure Drawing: Energy,Figure Drawing: Models — Tags: , , , , , , , , , — fred @ 14:55

Grief, 2012, by Fred Hatt

Figure drawing sessions are back on at Figureworks after the late summer hiatus.  Randall Harris books great models in his home-like gallery space.  Each session has eighteen poses ranging from two minutes to twenty minutes, an ideal range for me to try out different approaches in my ongoing core practice of studying nature, energy, and expression through the human body and the act of seeing and drawing.  Our models for the first two sessions of the season were Colin and Susannah, both of them tall and strong, with long limbs and elegantly curved bones and muscles.  All drawings in this post are from those two sessions at Figureworks Gallery.

Colin in Light, 2012, by Fred Hatt

I think of drawing as closer to sculpture than to painting.  The eyes are the organs of touch at a distance.  With light and shadow I feel the form, and my markings are the strikes of the chisel and the strokes of the rasp, carving a form out of the block of paper.

About to Rise, 2012, by Fred Hatt

The sculptor’s model and work are on rotating platforms, to check from all sides.  Of course I don’t do that in a 20-minute pose, but the light striking the subject from different angles has different colors and qualities.  By differentiating these various lights and by observing how they fall across the contours of the figure, the form emerges in apparent depth.

Ovoid, 2012, by Fred Hatt

Tall Grass, 2012, by Fred Hatt

A ten minute pose is just enough time to “rough in” the form of the body, its major curves and its relation to the airy space surrounding it.

Holding Over, 2012, by Fred Hatt

The major curves are cut with swoops and swerves, the subtler undulations suggested with scrubbing scribbles.

Side Torso, 2012, by Fred Hatt

Form is energy, and it is the movement of the drawing hand that captures this energy.  There is a pattern of energy that causes matter to grow into the intricate form of a living body, to animate it with tides of breath and streams of blood and electricity of sense and impulse.

Structure of the Back, 2012, by Fred Hatt

The body contains the fire of creation, the dust of stars, the salt of the ocean, and all the memories of life’s evolution.

Above, 2012, by Fred Hatt

A living being is a bubble that rises from the sea of potentiality, floats free for a moment or a century, then falls to merge again into that sea.

Piano Bench, 2012, by Fred Hatt

Earth is our cradle and our crucible.  We grow out of it, walk upon it, and return into it.  We make our Eden or our Hell of it.

Grounding, 2012, by Fred Hatt

The body is a tube, and what passes through that tube is transformed into animal life.  The consciousness is also a tube, and what passes through it becomes a person.

Core, 2012, by Fred Hatt

The mind goes on these philosophical journeys while drawing a ten or twenty-minute pose.  Through the human body I contemplate the nobility and the fragility of being human.

Queen, 2012, by Fred Hatt

These are just sketches on paper, ephemera of an artist’s practice, but while making them I think of them as towering monuments, heroic statues to tell the beings of the future:  we were here, this we saw, this we made.

Resting Power, 2012, by Fred Hatt

The drawings on gray paper are 18″ x 24″.  The ones on white paper are from an 11″ x 14″ sketchbook.  Drawings are made with watercolor and gouache, aquarelle crayons, or a combination of those media.  All images in this post made September, 2012, in open figure drawing sessions at Figureworks Gallery, Brooklyn, New York.

2012/07/27

Cut to the Quick

Filed under: Figure Drawing: Quick Poses — Tags: , , , , , , , , , — fred @ 19:32

Julio Quick Poses, 2012, by Fred Hatt

As the 2012 Olympic Games get underway in London, we’ll have an opportunity to observe the elegance and power of the human body in action, diverse kinds of bodies honed through intensive training for different skills.  Here I salute the occasion with my own studies of the body from figure drawing sessions at Figureworks Gallery in Brooklyn and Spring Studio in Manhattan.   All of these sketches are made with watercolor and brush during sequences of two-minute poses.  The illustrations are presented in random order, and the interspersed text is not specifically related to the adjacent images, but generally to the whole collection.

Alley Quick Poses, 2012, by Fred Hatt

A sequence of quick poses is a kind of dance, as the model moves from one position to another to reveal the anatomical structure and the expressive range of the body.  The artist has only a moment to capture whatever can be captured.  I am fascinated by the variety and dynamism of quick poses – the models can do all sorts of things that would be impossible or painful to hold for even a five or ten minute pose.  Knowing that the timer is relentlessly counting down, I enter into a mode of hyperfocused flow, my eyes and my brush both in constant and coordinated motion.  The only way to get anything interesting is to work with swift efficiency.

Gwen Quick Poses, 2012, by Fred Hatt

Here I’m posting complete sequences, so you’ll see some awkward passages as well as some lovely bits of brushwork that reveal something true of the model’s aliveness or individuality.  Every real brushstroke is a rough approximation of the ideal brushstroke into which the visual cortex is translating the forms it perceives.  I’ve been practicing this for many years, so my approximations are pretty good when my focus is on.  It’s more important that the lines be confident and expressive than that they be accurate.  If I were to stop to measure or take a moment to step back and look critically at the sketch, I would hardly be able to get anything at all in two minutes.  I have to go unhesitatingly with the flow, and trust the flow.

Pedro Quick Poses, 2012, by Fred Hatt

I look for curves – the curve of the spine, of the hip, of the neck, of the knee, and make each curve a stroke of the brush.  I try to emphasize what makes each individual body unique, not to genericize the anatomy.  That uniqueness is in the curves.  The curve of one person’s hip is quite different from that of another’s hip.  I always look for the physical idiosyncracies.

Crolie Quick Poses, 2012, by Fred Hatt

I generally omit or radically simplify faces, hair, hands and feet.  Those parts of the body are detail traps, best saved for more leisurely studies.  But they are also often key to the particular expression of a pose or model, so I try to get some indication of their angles.  The direction of a gaze, the splay or curl of the fingers, the twist of an instep can be the detail that makes the pose come alive in the sketch.  For me, angles and curves are practically the whole of quick drawing.

Eric Quick Poses, 2012, by Fred Hatt

Quick poses are a special exchange of energy between model and artist.  A set of quick poses gives the model an opportunity to perform, to stretch out, to test their limits, to offer contrasts of feeling or form.  As the artist, I cannot let such a gift go unappreciated.  When a model is really giving the energy, drawing is like dancing with a fantastically graceful or dynamic partner – complete abandon is the only appropriate response.

Claudia Quick Poses, 2012, by Fred Hatt

A kind of time dilation can occur during quick poses.  From my own experience as a model, I can tell you that holding a challenging pose can make two minutes seem like an eon.  For the artist, a pose that’s complicated to draw can make two minutes feel like a few seconds.

James Quick Poses, 2012, by Fred Hatt

Observing angles is a quick way to see how one thing relates to another thing in space.  When I’m doing quick sketches, I’m making lots of lines that I don’t draw.  In my mind, I make lines between points to see how they relate in space.  I check the angle going from nipple to nose, or from fold of elbow to bulge of heel, or from where the arm meets the leg to the pubic ridge.  When all of those parts are in the right angular relations to each other in space, proportions will be a fair approximation of the reality.

Robyn Quick Poses, 2012, by Fred Hatt

Sometimes it’s easier to see curves and shapes and angles by looking at the negative spaces, the places where the body is not, and how those places relate to each other.  Or the angles of the body may become clearer by seeing them in relation to straight lines such as a wall or surface, the pole the model holds or the wall on which he leans.

Adam Quick Poses, 2012, by Fred Hatt

I’ve pored over anatomy books, assimilating as much structural understanding of the body as I can, but I depict only details I can see.  The knowledge helps me to grasp these features of the body, but I can’t get lost in an analytical breakdown of the body.  I try to get as many anatomical details into the sketches as I can, because these details individualize the body.

Tin Quick Poses, 2012, by Fred Hatt

Curves and angles, negative spaces, spatial relationships, anatomical details, flow and rhythm – it’s a lot to see and a lot to try to depict in two minutes.  The only way to do it is to merge perceiving and drawing into a unified process.  This is achieved by trying and trying and refining through hundreds of hours of practice.

When you watch an Olympic gymnast, you are seeing someone who has developed a perfect unity of perception and action through relentless practice.  Drawing is more subjective, but the learning process is similar.  All the details have to come together, to become one act.

Claire Quick Poses, 2012, by Fred Hatt

All of the original sketches in this post are made with watercolor and a brush in 18″ x 24″ sketchbooks.  Multiple pages have been stacked vertically in the illustrations so a whole series of quick poses appear in a single image, as though the drawings were made on a scroll.  Action sketches actually made on scrolls, drawn by me more than a decade ago, can be seen in this post.  I have also written previously about the similarities between life drawing practice and athletic practice, here.

 

2012/01/19

Oddities of the Anatomium

Filed under: Collections of Images,Figure Drawing: Anatomy — Tags: , , — fred @ 22:14

"Vegetables Are All Your Body Needs", advertisement for the International Vegetarian Union

Most figurative artists spend some time studying human anatomy – basic musculoskeletal structure, often just enough that your Spider-Man doesn’t come out looking like Popeye.  But of course the study of anatomy is a vast edifice, with wings and annexes, great halls and obscure corridors, constructed by physicians and yogis, gymnasts and psychiatrists, animators and masseurs, mystics and coroners.  Let’s call this imposing monument the Anatomium.

For an artist, the body is more than just a physical structure.  It is an instrument for experiencing and portraying realities beyond the physical plane:  emotions, energy, spirituality.  We need to understand structure, but we also need to go beyond structure.  Your teacher may have urged you to spend most of your time studying in the great hall of bones and the gallery of muscles, but there is much to discover in the more obscure rooms of the Anatomium.  Let’s look at some curious specimens found in many different parts of the labyrinthine palace, from the viewpoint of the artist.  (All of these images were found on the web, and clicking on an image will take you to the page where I found it, and where, usually, more pictures and information will be found.)

The brilliant ad that leads this post tells us that if we are what we eat, we can construct a healthy body from a vegetable diet.  In folk wisdom, it’s often been thought that various plants and other substances support the functioning of the body parts they resemble, so for instance walnuts are supposed to be good for the brain, and tomatoes for the heart.  This way of seeing the anatomy arises from a metaphorical understanding of the body as a garden or landscape, a popular image since the time of Arcimboldo, at least.  Here’s Aurel Schmidt’s beautiful contemporary rendition of body as garden, a teeming but unsettling garden full of insects, snakes, birds, and cigarette butts.

Super Natural, 2006, mixed media on paper by Aurel Schmidt

Since the industrial revolution, the metaphor of the body as a factory or machine has been common in the culture.  A lot of medical practice, especially orthopedics, is essentially based in this mechanical metaphor.  Perhaps the ultimate realization of the industrial view of the body is Woody Allen’s depiction of the internal sexual functions as a military-industrial deployment in Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Sex * But Were Afraid to Ask.

Der Mensch als Industriepalast (Man as Industrial Palace), 1926, by Fritz Kahn

The technology of the industrial and digital era has given us countlesss new ways of seeing and studying the human body.  X-rays, MRIs, and endoscopes have become essential tools in medicine.  The National Institutes of Health and the National Medical Library collaborated on the “Visible Human Project”, high-resolution 3D scans of real bodies for anatomical study.  The bodies were sliced in razor-thin layers and scanned, the data assembled into a 3D image that can be viewed in any cross-section or in the round, or even “flown through” in a digital animation.

Coronal cross-section from the Visible Human Project of the National Library of Medicine and the National Institutes of Health

Controversial physician and showman Dr. Gunther von Hagens invented a technique for preserving human tissue by replacing the water  with plastics, which enabled him to prepare real cadavers for public display in his “Body Worlds” exhibits.  Von Hagens’ figures follow the renaissance convention in anatomical illustrations of posing flayed figures as though alive and active.  These exhibits are educational, fascinating, and more than a little creepy.

The Walker, plastinated from Body Worlds exhibit, from Gunther von Hagens' Institute for Plastination

Therapists, athletes, dancers, and others who study movement, posture, and fitnesss experiment with the living body, which can reveal dynamic aspects of the structure that may be missed when you’re cutting up cadavers.  This illustration from Thomas Myers’ Anatomy Trains, a study of the fascia and connective tissue in bodily movement, looks like a bit of couture in the outré style of an Alexander McQueen.

The Back Functional Line, illustration from "Anatomy Trains", by Thomas W. Myers

The illustration below shows the dermatomes.  Most of the nerves of the body are wired to the spinal cord, and the dermatomes are the areas of the skin divided according to the particular vertebra where each area has its nerve connection to the spinal cord.  The different areas of the spine are color-coded, cervical (neck) nerves in white, thoracic in yellow/black, lumbar in blue/black, and sacral nerves in red/black.  This too looks like a bit of latex fetishwear or a high-tech superhero costume.

Dermatomes (Spinal Innervation Map), artist unknown, from the website of New York School of Regional Anesthesia

Within the field of anatomical studies, there are many ways of dividing the body into regions.  Here’s a diagram for doctors with named regions on the surface of the body, for the purposes of clinical description.

Anatomical Regions of the Body, illustration from David Darling's online "Encyclopedia of Science"

“Surface Anatomy” is an interesting field for the artist who works with live models, as it’s all about learning to identify underlying structures based on what can be seen or felt at the level of the skin.

Surface Anatomy of the Abdomen, from "The Anatomy Lesson", a website by Wesley Norman, PhD, DSc, professor at Georgetown University

Seeing beneath the surface shows that the beautiful reality of the body conceals even more beautiful hidden realities.

Pregnant Anatomy, illustration found on Ed Merritt's Flickr photostream (may not be original source)

These back muscles look like the head of a goat – cool.

The Back,iIllustration by Phrenzy84

The illustration below shows a method of analyzing the structure of the face by geometrical analysis of a series of identifiable points.  This kind of analysis was invented for forensic use, but it’s also the basis of computer face recognition and other forms of digital biometrics.

Illustration from "Geometric Morphometric Analyses of Facial Shape in Twins", a paper by Demayo, et al.

This kind of geometrical analysis of faces and bodies is also important to artists working with digitally generated 3D graphics.  Some of the most interesting anatomy illustrations, from an artist’s point of view, are found in CGI tutorials.

Illustration from Phung Dinh Dzung's "Realistic Human Face Modeling", a guide for 3D computer graphic artists

Here’s a look at the different typical patterns of fat distribution on the male and female body.  It’s a fine illustration, although that male figure looks disconcertingly like me!  These sketches derive from works by Prud’hon and Rubens.

Fat Distribution in Women and Men, illustration from an online anatomy and figure drawing tutorial by Nocte

This one compares the basic skeletal structure of a person with that of a four-legged animal such as a dog.  I think the best way to grasp anatomical realities is to see how the same basic structure manifests with variations in different individuals and even different species.  You can learn a lot about anatomy just petting an animal!

Comparison of Human and Quadruped Skeletons, source unknown

In this illustration, an artist shows how different arrangements of the shoulder girdle express different emotions.

Shoulder Movements of Psychological Description, source unknown

The brain contains its own models of the body.  The sensory cortex and the motor cortex are bands of the human brain devoted to the senses and to movment, respectively.  When the image of the body is projected to correspond with the appropriate parts of the brain, the resulting distorted figure is called a “homunculus” (latin for “little human”).  The homunculus, the body in the brain, has huge lips and hands, since those areas are so important for sensation and action.  Note that the hand area is right next to the eye area – perhaps this facilitates the connections a visual artist makes.  And the genitalia area is right next to the feet – an explanation for foot fetishism?

Somatosensory Homunculus, artist unknown

Many forms of traditional therapy use this kind of mapping of the whole body onto a part of the body.  Auricular acupuncture, for example, is a form of acupuncture in which the ear stands in for the whole body, and practitioners believe that any part of the body can be treated by needling the corresponding parts of the ear.  Reflexology massage of the feet and hands is another treatment that uses similar charts.

Indian Hand Reflexology Illustration, original source unknown

Of course these aren’t anatomical studies in the scientific sense, but the ancient energy arts, including qigong and tantric yoga and many kinds of martial and healing arts, are based on extensive experiential study of energy flow in the body.  Understanding the immaterial but dynamic aspects of the body should interest any artist who strives to capture the feeling of aliveness.  Here’s an unknown artist’s attempt to represent the human aura, the field of energy clairvoyants say they can perceive around the body.

Human Aura, artist unknown

Chinese Traditional Medicine, martial arts and practices of “internal alchemy” aimed at physical or spiritual self-transformation, use a highly developed system of subtle anatomy to understand the movement of many different kinds of energy within and around the body.  For a visual artist, but even more for a performing artist, this way of visualizing and projecting emotions and forces can be a powerful tool.

Psycho-Emotional Aspects of the Liver Channel, from a website on the energy channels of acupuncture theory, by Lieske

Going back to scientific medical imaging, but keeping the emphasis on energy flow, we have thermographic imaging, which shows patterns of heat radiating from the body.   (Check out a brief excerpt from a dance film made with high-resolution thermographic cameras.)

Thermogram of the Breast, original source unknown

For an artist, the most subtle part of the human form, the most difficult thing to capture, is the spark, the life force, the flow of energy.  It’s important to understand structure, but it’s also important to see the dynamism and tension within that structure.  Anatomical studies of all kinds can open our eyes to the amazing tornado of different forces that is the human body.

I’ll conclude this post with a traditional medical anatomical illustration, but one of great beauty.   This is an abstraction, not a visual transcription of reality.  Of course the veins aren’t really blue and the arteries red and the nerves yellow – this is just a convention to aid in a functional understanding of what is going on.  But the life force in all its explosivenesss expresses itself here.

Thoracic Anatomy, 2006, illustration by Patrick J. Lynch

In researching on the web and my own archives for this post, I found such a wealth of incredible anatomical images that I think there will be many posts to come on the general subject of human anatomy.

Nearly all of these images link back, if you click on them, to where I found them on the web.  If any of my readers has further information about the sources or artists behind these images, please let me know.  It is often frustrating to me that so many great images on the web are published without attribution.

2011/08/30

A Torso Even More So

Filed under: Figure Drawing: Anatomy — Tags: , , , , , — fred @ 15:08

Face of the Body, 2011, by Fred Hatt

“Torso” is the art term for a depiction of the human form focused primarily on the trunk of the body rather than the head or limbs.  The word derives from a Greek/Latin word meaning stalk.  It’s a botanical analogy, like its synonym, “trunk”, the core out of which the branches grow.  The Greek root word, thyrsos, denotes the magic wand of the followers of Dionysos, a god of fertility, ecstasy, ritual madness, and theater.  The thyrsos, a fennel rod with a pine cone head, twined with ivy vines, embodies the unruly and indomitable life force.

Nautilus, 2011, by Fred Hatt

The torso often expresses this life force in its ability to twist, though as far as I can determine it is a coincidence that the word torso resembles the word torsion.  Torsion means twisting, and that word is related to the terms torque, torture, and torment.  The torso can express coursing vital energy but also vulnerability, leaping joy and convulsive anguish.

Mesh Fem, 2010, by Fred Hatt

The torso includes the heart and lungs and the organs of digestion and sex.  It is the seat of gut feelings, and of the swellings of erotic desire, hunger, and pride.

Supine Lotus, 2010, by Fred Hatt

We all grow in the womb and find our first nourishment at the breast.  Humans and other mammals crave the feeling of warmth and acceptance that is only felt in an embrace with full body closeness.

Arranged Around the Knee, 2011, by Fred Hatt

The torso is a rich subject for the artist because of its complexity of form, revealing different aspects at different angles of view and in varying relationships to the limbs and head.

Oxbow Hip Curve, 2010, by Fred Hatt

In drawing the body, I always imagine that my hands are feeling it, clasping the waist, holding the ribcage, following the underlying structure of bones and the fibers of muscle, sensitive to the warmth of the body, the expansive tide of the breath and the buzzing of nerves and blood vessels.

Inverted Rest, 2011, by Fred Hatt

The arms and legs thrust or relax outward in various directions, and their long forms create expressive angles, but the origin of the energy expressed by the limbs is always found in the core of the body.

Iliac Power, 2010, by Fred Hatt

My friend Mana Hashimoto, a dancer who is blind, teaches workshops on “Dance Without Sight“.  Part of her workshop involves observing the movement of another person by touch alone.  When I took Mana’s workshop I was struck by how clearly I could  understand all the movements of another person with hands placed gently on the back.  It was impossible to follow a dance by touching the head or extremities, but a hand on the back could feel the movements of all parts of the body, including the head, arms, and legs.

Back and Bottle, 2011, by Fred Hatt

The classic standing pose in figurative sculpture and painting is “contrapposto“.  This generally means the weight of the body is primarily on one leg, causing the pelvis to be tilted, and usually the shoulders are tilted in the opposite direction.  The slight asymmetry that is introduced in this way gives an appearance of liveliness to a still figure.  In practice, there are countless variations on the basic principle of contrapposto, as the ribcage/shoulder girdle and the pelvis can each be shifted or tilted in many directions, and the spine can be arched forward or back, bent to the side, twisted, extended or compressed.

Curved Torso Straight Arm, 2011, by Fred Hatt

Symmetrical poses, however, do not need to appear rigid.  In fact, symmetrical poses can be very relaxed because of their balanced weight. Looking at such a pose from an angle is all it takes to give assymmetry to a drawing, and if the artist’s calm hand follows the calmness of the model, the picture will have a certain serenity.

Balasana, 2011, by Fred Hatt

In a drawing, the body reveals its structure in the form of curves and angles going in various directions.  In the drawing below, note the forward thrust of the shoulder softened by the curling hair, and the rearward angle of the elbow balanced by the point of the breast.

Chair Back, 2010, by Fred Hatt

The outside contours of the body, the curve of the spine, and the shadows and highlights make the drawing below a study of sinuous flow.

Sheen, 2010, by Fred Hatt

The contrapposto principles can be seen even in an unusual seated pose seen from the side, as below.  A line drawn across the nipples and one drawn across the crests of the pelvis would create an angle pointing to the right.  The head turns away from the viewer while the far knee and hand come toward us, giving the pose that dynamic twist, while the near arm reaching out of frame to the left acts compositionally like an unresolved chord in music, keeping things a bit off balance.

Hoop Earring, 2011, by Fred Hatt

The spine is really the core of the body, and its movement is a key to the energetic expression of the pose.  Notice the difference in the next two drawings.  Here the spine seems to be lengthening, rising up.

Uplifting, 2011, by Fred Hatt

In the one below, by contrast, there’s a feeling of weight, of the spine relaxing downward.  Unlike most of the other drawings in this post, these two show facial expressions, which surely contribute to the contrasting moods, but even if you cover the faces you can see the difference in the energy.

Leaning on Wall, 2011, by Fred Hatt

In the two drawings above, the abstract treatment of the light around the figures suggests a kind of energetic aura.  In the drawing below a similar effect is achieved by using colored lines to indicate the complex ways that various light sources, both direct and reflected, flow over the curves of the body.

Mesh Masc, 2010, by Fred Hatt

All the parts of the torso are formed around a center line.  I try to locate this center line and then to develop the forms to either side, sketching with cross-contours, or strokes that follow the three-dimensional shapes of the body.

Terrestrial Body, 2010, by Fred Hatt

Here’s another contrapposto from behind, with the angles of the legs echoing the angles of hips and shoulders.

Helical Zigzag, 2011, by Fred Hatt

The energy of the pose below emerges powerfully from the stable center of the sacrum, the base of the spine.  The cross contours show the structure of muscles and bones of the back as a kind of swirling energy.

Sacral Center, 2010, by Fred Hatt

Here’s an unusual pose supported on one hip and forearm.  All four limbs are bent at more or less right angles, all pointing in different directions.

Lateral Bridge, 2011, by Fred Hatt

The features of the frontal torso are arranged similarly to the features of the face.  The face is the window of the soul, showing emotion, intelligence, engagement.  The torso is the face of the life force, showing energy and balance and movement.

Hand on Hip, Forearm on Doorknob, 2011, by Fred Hatt

The torso can embody vigor, sensuality, boldness, timidity, and so on.  The quality of spirit resides in the body as well as in the mind or brain.  Entering into a contemplative state requires releasing and balancing and stabilizing the energy of the body as well as the mind.

Grounded Sitting, 2011, by Fred Hatt

 

All the drawings in this post are about 50 x 65 cm, or 19 1/2″ x 25 1/2″, aquarelle crayon on paper.  All of these were drawn during 20-minute poses at Figureworks Gallery in Brooklyn.

(The title of this post is a line from the song “Lydia the Tattooed Lady”, by Harold Arlen and Yip Harburg, made famous by Groucho Marx in the 1939 film “At the Circus”.)

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