{"id":386,"date":"2015-03-18T17:04:06","date_gmt":"2015-03-18T17:04:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/delladrees.com\/wordpress\/?p=386"},"modified":"2015-12-22T13:54:43","modified_gmt":"2015-12-22T13:54:43","slug":"the-dying-art-of-the-figure","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/delladrees.com\/wordpress\/?p=386","title":{"rendered":"The dying art of the figure?"},"content":{"rendered":"

T\"Laocoon_Pio-Clementino_Vatican\"<\/a>he human figure has been a subject in\u00a0art for thousands of years, since prehistoric times. The classical Greek style is firmly rooted in analytical corporal observation, such as this inspirational\u00a0late hellenistic era\u00a0Laoco\u00f6n and his Sons<\/em>\u00a0in the\u00a0Vatican Museum. \"leonardo-da-vinci-profile\"The Carracci brothers, who opened their Accademia degli Incamminati<\/em> in Bologna in the 1580s, set the pattern for later art schools by making life drawing the central discipline. The most intimate workings of the human body have been studied and recorded by such diverse artists as Leonardo da Vinci, like\u00a0the drawing here, through the exquisite figure works of the French artist Pierre-Paul Prud\u2019hon to the contemporary British painter and draughtsman Lucian Freud. We can see that observing and capturing the human has been a constant for centuries and has fascinated artists\u00a0for thousands of years. This\u00a0passion for figurative art\u00a0does not seem to be dying out with the people. Today, every week maybe millions of people attend life drawing sessions across Europe and the Americas to try and learn to\u00a0draw from the figure. There has been an upsurge in books written on the subject, and there are thousands of diverse web sites and blogs\u00a0that attempt to offer you lessons\u00a0in drawing the human figure. Not only that, many more millions\u00a0visit museums, such as my favourite, the Louvre in Paris, to appreciate\u00a0the countless pieces of sculpture and paintings that are based on the observations of the body.<\/p>\n

\"Artstudetnsleague<\/a>
The Art Students League in New York, 1940<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

However, with some notable exceptions, over the last 100 years or so there has been a general decline in realistic observational drawing (the cornerstone of classical figurative art) taught by most major art schools, and consequently a decline in observational drawing by contemporary artists \u2013 especially in Europe. One art student told me that at his school in a major european city he was told to be creative and produce what ever he wanted . . . until he started drawing the figure from life. This was seen as totally unacceptable,\u00a0he was ridiculed\u00a0and eventually\u00a0left the course. It almost seems\u00a0that some tutors in some major colleges are acting\u00a0towards observational art of the figure as they did towards the impressionist or abstract art when they first emerged. Has\u00a0observational figurative work become the current\u00a0avant-garde? Because of circumstances\u00a0like this that do not encourage observational learning, the connection between artist and drawing from life has faded, particularly with the human figure as the core subject. This break in traditional practice by the major contemporary teaching establishments has meant that the carriers of the knowledge, the masters who were taught in these methods by their masters and\u00a0handed down for hundreds\u00a0of years through many generations, are now deceased. They did not have a chance to pass on their teaching to the next generation and so this knowledge is lost. Therefore, artists today who are intent on observational study of the figure from life may have some difficulty in finding places and people who will encourage them in their quest and who can offer them informed knowledge. Nevertheless, the human body\u00a0continues to captivate people. Especially in America, but also in Europe, there appears to be a resurgence of interest in the skills of drawing the figure and the painting skills associated with it that had almost been lost to us. There is especially a refreshing groundswell of younger artists in the long-established painting and drawing techniques of classical methods. Although there have always been a few places where this art was taught, like the Art\u00a0Students\u00a0League in New York,\u00a0over the last 10 years or so\u00a0many\u00a0workshops and private\u00a0artist ateliers are being created to fill this need. Although something has undoubtedly been lost, we are trying to build on our\u00a0heritage. We are trying to re create\u00a0this lost knowledge.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The human figure has been a subject in\u00a0art for thousands of years, since prehistoric times. The classical Greek style is firmly rooted in analytical corporal observation, such as this inspirational\u00a0late hellenistic era\u00a0Laoco\u00f6n and his Sons\u00a0in the\u00a0Vatican Museum.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[9,3,15,6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-386","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blog","category-figures","category-inspiration","category-methods-and-materials"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/delladrees.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/386","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/delladrees.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/delladrees.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/delladrees.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/delladrees.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=386"}],"version-history":[{"count":61,"href":"http:\/\/delladrees.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/386\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":680,"href":"http:\/\/delladrees.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/386\/revisions\/680"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/delladrees.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=386"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/delladrees.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=386"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/delladrees.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=386"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}