Figure Drawing

Life Class

The term 'Figure drawing' usually refers to the instructional class (known as life drawing or life class) taught in most academies and schools of fine art, such as NCAD or Crawford School of Art and Design, during which students study and draw a live model sitting in front of them. This classic method of draughtsmanship is regarded as the best way for aspiring painters and sculptors to acquire the skill of drawing the human body and mastering its line, shape and depth. Copying the human figure from photographs or from memory is seen as inferior by most arts teachers.

Study of a Woman (c.1490) by
Leonardo Da Vinci.

During the figure drawing class, a variety of media can be used to represent the model's body, including: pencil, pen and ink, charcoal, crayon, pastels, chalk or mixed media, although pencil is the classical tool. The sketch may be rendered in a brief abbreviated form, referred to as gesture drawing, or in detail. Various types of model-subjects may be employed, and the art students are typically grouped in a circle, so each has a different perspective of the model.

Drawings of Human Figures

Figure drawing may also refer to general artworks representing the human form. Ever since the Golden Age of Greek art (c.500-300 BCE), the human body has been viewed as the ideal subject for painters and sculptors: a view supported and reinforced by the Old Masters of the Italian Renaissance, such as Leonardo Da Vinci, Michelangelo Buonarroti and Rafael. It was these three artists in particular, that made drawing - or disegno - respectable, since up to then it had been regarded as merely preparatory design work rather than an independent fine art form. Their approach has influenced many artists to draw the human figure in a variety of media.

The Third Class Carriage (1864) the
drawing masterpiece by the French
draughtsman artist Honore Daumier.

Leonardo himself was a master of topographic human anatomy, executing a large number of detailed sketches of muscles, tendons and other anatomical features. Later, his study of human cadavers in Florence, Milan and Rome, led him to produce over 200 drawings of parts of the human figure, subsequently published as: Treatise on Painting. Other masterpieces include: Head of Girl, (study for Virgin on the Rocks 1483) executed with silverpoint on light brown paper; Five Grotesque Heads, pen and ink drawing.

Michelangelo, too, was a prolific draughtsman, sketcher and exponent of representational art. He executed numerous preliminary studies for his two masterpiece sculptures, the Pietà and the David, as well as copies of sketches for his Genesis and Last Judgement paintings on the ceiling and altar wall of the Sistine Chapel. (For details, see: Sistine Chapel frescoes.) Michelangelo's other drawings encompassed works in pen and ink, pen and wash, charcoal as well as red and black chalks.

HISTORICAL DEVELOPMENT
For a list of important dates in the
evolution of drawing/painting,
including movements, schools,
and famous artists, please see:
History of Visual Art Timeline.

THE MOST VALUABLE VISUAL ART
For information about the world's
top priced works of art and
record auction prices, see:
Top 10 Most Expensive Paintings
Top 20 Most Expensive Paintings

For facts about top prices for
works by artists in Ireland, see:
Most Expensive Irish Paintings.

Modern Drawings of the Human Figure

Since the Renaissance, nearly every school of art, including the Baroque, Rococo, Neo-Classicism, Realism, Impressionism, Expressionism as well as more modern abstract styles has included artists who drew exceptionally well and executed drawings in a wide variety of media. Here are a tiny handful of great sketchers with examples of their works. Rembrandt (Studies of Old Men's Heads, 1635 - ink on paper); Watteau ("L'Indifferent" - black, red and white chalk on yellowish, gray paper); Francisco de Goya (Three Men Digging - brush drawing in sepia); Thomas Rowlandson (A French Coffee House, 1790 - pen and ink with watercolour on paper); Honore Daumier (The Third Class Carriage, 1864 - ink wash and charcoal on paper); Edouard Manet (Portrait of a Lady - charcoal on paper); Edgar Degas (Blue Dancers, 1899 - pastel on paper); Pablo Picasso (Reclining Nude); Henry Moore (Women Seated in the Underground, 1941 - crayon and wash); Willem de Kooning (Two Women III 1952 - abstract drawing using crayon on paper).

• For more information about classical painting and sculpture, see: Guide to Irish Fine Art.

• How to Update This Mini Review of Figure Drawing.