This was the second to last drawing of my class. The figure was done with graphite and the background with charcoal. It looks pretty scary or perhaps like something that should belong in a medical school. Well, let me tell you that in order to understand and be able to depict the human body successfully, one needs to understand its structure. Artists have been studying anatomy for hundreds of years, some of them even dissected corpses (including Da Vinci, Gericault among many others!).
This particular piece was done by Houdon as a study for his John the Baptist sculpture and eventually became more famous than the final product.
Unfortunately, much of this knowledge is no longer taught in art schools these days, but I am fortunate to have one of the few professors in America who has the information and is willing to share it with his students (a highly unusual combination). Once again, I am referring to the one and only David Y. Chang.
Professor Chang gave us a lecture on morphology and taught us all the bones and muscles of the head. It was freaking amazing!!! I now know things like the zygomatic arch, squama, the great wing of sphenoid, condyle, levator labii superioris, orbicularis oris, buccinator, depressor septi, etc. I really hope he decides to teach that figure drawing class.
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