Figure Drawing and Composition: Being a Number of Hints for the Student and Designer Upon the Treatment of the Human Figure

From the Introduction. THE hints and suggestions which make up this book have been put together in the hope that they may assist the student and designer in their study of the human figure. That acquaintance with the form, construction, and action of the body, so valuable to the artist, and indispensable to him who has to work without models, is perhaps only to be cultivated, as the word itself suggests, by close and continual observation. Books cannot, to the art-student, stand in place of research, nor can anything said in them be really of value to him, till he has re-discovered it himself. The proper function of such books is then to indicate where the treasure lies and what it is, thus shortening the term of studentship. The author knows only too well how great a gap there is between what he here presents to the reader and the figure itself, a gap which the ablest of pens could hardly have hoped to fill up. Further, he has not presumed to write a book upon artistic anatomy, which has only been employed so far as it provides names for what otherwise would have to be called knobs, lumps, and cords, while many of the anatomical facts have merely been introduced to save the reader the trouble of turning to other books. As regards the action of the muscles, very little has been said, since it has been thought that the appearance of the body in its movements and positions is only to be acquired in the ordinary artistic way, by noting the attitude of any figure one may happen to see. In fact, every figure, and not merely the posed model, should serve the draughtsman in this way. All day long one may thus be picking up the only knowledge which is really serviceable. Faces, too, must be as critically examined. If the student be so unfortunate as not to be able to attend a life class, or to hire a model, the best substitute is to draw from photographs of the nude. Drawing from the imagination is also an excellent means of obtaining command of the figure. Imagination is very largely memory however, and so the student needs to see as many figures as he can, so that his head may be full of them, if one may so speak. He should, further, draw at least one figure a day, small or large, no matter what. He should always make the figures mean something, and be something-men fighting, running away, scrambling out of the reach of dogs, peeping round corners, or fat and jolly eating their dinners. The more the draughtsman can lose himself in the action of the figure, the more likely he is to represent it. The following may be studied with advantage. For the drawing of the figure-The Greek vase paintings; the drawings of the Italian masters from Masaccio to Titian, especially Ghirlandaio, Verrocchio, Mantegna, the Lippi, Perugino, Raphael, Leonardo, Michelangelo, and Titian. Muntz's Life of Raphael contains a good store of reproductions of the master's drawings, sketches, and finished works. Intermingled with this study one should examine Japanese drawings, particularly those of Hokusai....