Anatomy instructor George Bridgman (1865-1943) was famous for drawing directly on the bodies of the models who posed for his figure drawing classes at the Art Students League in New York.
According to Norman Rockwell, Bridgman would dig a piece of soft red chalk out of his shirt pocket, and then would "walk to the model stand and draw the muscles of the stomach and the line of the rib cage right on the model with his chalk. The models disliked this. They say it gave them a queasy, squirmy sort of feeling to have their muscles marked on their skin in soft red chalk. And then there was no place at the League where they could wash properly and they'd have to go home with their muscles outlined in red."
-----
From the book: Norman Rockwell: My Adventures As an Illustrator
Seems like that'd be much harder to get away with these days. I can't help but think it would be a very useful teaching technique though!
ReplyDeleteA lot of these early anatomy instructors seem like egotistical insensitive megalomaniacs.
ReplyDeletehttp://liheliso.com/buzz/archive/00000482.htm
Although, based on videos, I'm a fan of Robert Beverly Hale whom is a protege of George Bridgman. Hale seems to be the behavioral antithesis Bridgman:
ReplyDeletehttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8xLVXeizNi8
I love Bridgman and I have all of his books. He wasn't just a great teacher but a great artist too.
ReplyDeletePoor models. Having your ribs drawn on has got to be painful.
ReplyDeleteThat sounds degrading and entirely inappropriate. A volunteer student might have made a more willing subject - a lot of students would probably jump at the chance to own an original Brdgman drawing, even if only lasted until their next shower. On the subject of unorthodox anatomy lessons, my anatomy teacher would have his students meet in a dance studio once a year. We were told to bring drawing materials and be prepared to strip down to our skivvies.
ReplyDeleteI've been thinking about building an apparatus for models to wear, that would show the head, ribcage, and pelvis encased in their most basic planes of construction (in other words, these main features inside of transparent wireframes or "boxes.") This because some beginner students have a hard time simplifying masses and finding their perspective: if only they could reliable find the frontal and temporal planes of the head, for example, the number of "wandering eyes" and similar mistakes would go down.
ReplyDeleteI haven't started with it (summer project!) but I can already see that the main challenge is going to be to make it comfortable to wear, while leaving as much of the planes clear for drawing. I already ask models to use funny costumes, and while they are always gracious, I can tell that some are not very comfortable. Another teacher suggested that I should make a version for the class skeleton first, and see how it goes. Maybe that's the place to start.
Thank you for this an all your posts!