Advanced Artistic Intensive Workshop - Gross Anatomy December 2013 & January 2014

The intensive study of artistic anatomy, perspective, color theory, optics and composition lies at the foundational core of a figurative artist’s overall training. Through the in-depth study of these subjects, students gain an advanced ability to perceive and apply these fundamental concepts to their sustained investigations into the interpretation and expression of the human figure. By separating the concepts, studying them independently, re-constructing and combining them with the other elements towards the creation of well-unified and holistic drawings, paintings and sculptures students acquire the advanced knowledge and ability needed to perceive the visual experience with intelligence while cultivating an ability to utilize methods of objective analysis towards the creation of unique and personal work.

The Advanced Artistic Anatomy program at BACAA is a focused, intensive one-week course that is designed to prepare students to successfully apply advanced knowledge of the form and function of the human body (anatomy, morphology, and structures of the human figure) to their ongoing studies in drawing, painting and sculpting from direct observation through the hands on study of cadaver anatomy juxtaposed against the study of the live model.  This concise, cohesive and formulated program will increase artists ability to effectively interpret gesture, proportion, perspective and light and shadow from the often subtle and dynamic forms of the human figure from life.  

Each lab visit will focus on specific, overlapping sections of the human figure. Starting with a lecture/demonstration by the instructor identifying the origin, insertion and action of each muscle and their effect on the surface anatomy, students will work on drawings and anatomical diagrams and will participate in hands-on exploration of the human body with the cadaver specimens allowing profound three-dimensional insight into the form and function of the human figure. The end of each session will prepare for the following class by surveying the surface structures to be exposed and studied on the next lab-visit. 

Each Studio session will begin with a lecture/demonstrations that focus on the use of anatomical knowledge to identify and interpret the effects of gesture, proportion, perspective and morphology from the live model. Each studio class will  continue with long-term drawings and exercises that focus on developing strategies to interpret and utilize advanced anatomical principles.  

Since the onset of the Italian Renaissance, an artist’s training and mature works were defined by the thorough study of the life sciences as a means towards a greater understanding of the cognition, perception and expression of visual phenomenon. In addition to optics, geometric and optical perspective, the thorough study of human and comparative anatomy proved to be an essential component in the accurate representation of the form, gesture and expression of the human figure. In the early Renaissance, students who apprenticed in their master’s studios were expected to compare their studies and observations of the live model with classical Greek and Roman sources (including frescos, sculptures, and typically the anatomical research of Aelius Galenus whose observations formed the basis of much anatomical an medical assumptions for more than a millennium).

Many Italian renaissance artists (including Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo, Raphael and Titian) as well as their northern counterparts’ (including Durer) formal training in the anatomy of the human body began during their apprenticeships where their masters, who insisted their pupils study topographical anatomy and execute numerous drawings and studies of the skeleton and visible anatomical features. As successful, working artists, many were granted permission to dissect human cadavers in the hospitals of Florence, Milan, Rome and Venice. Upon their deaths, these pivotal artist’s drawings and studies of the human form were shared with the other teaching workshops and ateliers in Italy — increasing artist’s access to leading edge scientific inquiry and assuring further advances in the arts and sciences. 

Leonardo da Vinci’s Treatise on Painting (done in collaboration with the doctor Marcantonio della Torre, published posthumously in 1680), Albrecht Durer’s Codex on comparative anatomy and proportional canons, and Vesalius’s De Corporis Fabrica (published in 1543 and assumed to be illustrated by Titian’s student, Jan Stephen van Calcar) are still common in the libraries of today’s classically trained, figurative artist. Later works including Albinus’ Tabulae Sceleti et Musculorum Corporis Humani (1749), Dr. Paul Richer’s Artistic Anatomy and Pierre Nicolas Gerdy’s Anatomie des formes extérieures du corps humain, appliqué à la peinture, à la sculpture et à la chirurgie (1829) became practical textbooks that defined the intensive curriculums of 19th century academies in Paris, Munich, Berlin and St. Petersburg in addition to the American schools that followed the European Academy’s teaching model (including Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, The National Academy of Design and the Art Students League of New York) where anatomy and dissection were requisites for anyone wishing to pursue a career in the fine arts. 

Despite the advances in the knowledge and expression of the human figure, the twentieth century witnessed the near disintegration of academic arts training that links the discoveries of the past with contemporary expression. When the scientific aspects of classical drawing, painting and sculpture were abandoned it created, in its absence, a void in the holistic training of artists: one where subjective interpretation outweighs objective inquiry. While broad based and effective in creating theoretical dialogue and rhetoric, the current trend typically neglects practical and focused skills in the essentials of an artist’s training: most notably, in the in depth study of the human figure. The deconstruction of the science-based methods of investigation (resulting from the assumed decrease of relevance of classical, foundational knowledge pertaining to the study of art; the waning presence of the human figure as a vehicle of expression; and the increased specialization and separation of the arts and sciences) contributed to the complete disappearance of the intensive hands-on study of anatomy from most art school curriculums.

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