Thursday, December 29, 2011

Hale's Anatomy Lessons

Robert Beverly Hale (1901-1985), anatomy instructor at the Art Students League, was himself a student of  George Bridgman. Like Bridgman, he drew his demos very large, using a piece of charcoal on the end of a long stick. 
In these two excerpts, he sketches a horse (with a rather long neck), while drawing comparisons to the human skeleton that dangles nearby. (Part 1 has a rather long introduction before he really gets going with the drawing.)
Thanks, Keita! 

10 comments:

My Pen Name said...

I love watching these - it brings his books to life..
..but i wish MiniDV had been around back then :)

Zanne said...

I love those videos. Hale was such a wonderful lecturer with his interesting tangents and bursts of poetry. I love that when I go back and read his books now I hear it in that great patrician voice.

BTW, Hale was only temporarily a student of Bridgman and switched out of his class to study under William McNulty, who he considered more sympathetic to him. He felt that Bridgman was a hard disciplinarian who imposed too much of his style on his students.

Anonymous said...

I considered buying this pricey DVD collection at one time and now I'm glad I didn't. I much prefer Eliot Goldfinger's more systematic and conceptual approach, whereas Hale seems well read but anecdotal and lacking a hierarchical scheme. And frankly I find an anatomy instructor with faux British mannerisms reciting poetry to be annoying.

John Garrett said...

Thanks for posting that, I never had the opportunity to take a class from Mr. Hale being in Ca. His teaching style is very relaxed and with a bit of humor. Marshall Vandruff has a similar style.

I always check the feed for your blog daily as there is always something of great interest to learn. I don't know how you have the time to finsd all of these gems on top of you workload, but I hope you can continue. Thanks for your efforts.

James Gurney said...

John, I never studied under Mr. Hale either, to my regret.

Etc: I agree with you that the DVD version might not be worth the price. But to me Hale's accent didn't sound so much faux British as a kind of genuine American accent from his Boston/New York aristocratic -- or as Zanne says --patrician upbringing. As I understand it, he saved the recitation for the last day, and I'd be pretty electrified to have heard that.

Pen, yes, if only the resolution were high enough to really see the drawing. Or if there were two cameras. Or better lighting. At least they had a mike on him.

अर्जुन said...

If not for his old money social position which engendered his tenured teaching positions no one would care not a whit about R.B. Hale.

His own work is crude. His books are pedestrian. The results of his teaching seems worse than both. (Can anybody name a single one of his students whose work they remotely care for.)

Anonymous said...
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Anonymous said...

"If not for his old money social position which engendered his tenured teaching positions no one would care not a whit about R.B. Hale."

Your grammar is weird, your wit is weak.

Hale's books are wonderful.

Casey Klahn said...

I am studying his Master Drawings lessons book right now. Love it.

Also, his video about "What is art?" is enjoyable. http://youtu.be/af3x4yXiFmI

Thomas Salonga said...

His video lecture set is a rarity these days. Just one of those hidden jewels around the world.

It excites me to know that another artist by the name of Yu Ji had taken his workshop decades ago.

Thanks for the post!

http://www.yujistudio.net/artist-bio.html